land, the produce of which constituted the main basis of state revenues. After
the disintegration of the Maurya Empire, this capacity to control land revenues
began to dissipate into a form of religious feudalism. Buddhism was the
opening wedge, already receiving land grants to support its monasteries by
Maurya times. Brahmans also began to receive land grants, especially as they
carried agricultural development into virgin territories in the south. By 100
c.e., the kings were giving away cultivated lands and the rights to administer
them without interference from royal officials. By the late Gupta period, rulers
were dispensing grants including all revenues, labor dues, and powers of
criminal justice. In the political chaos of the 500s following the Gupta collapse,
the Brahman-centered localistic social structure seems to have become domi-
nant. When Harsha reestablished an empire in the early 600s, it was admin-
istered through a lavish distribution of land grants. As in most subsequent
states, the state apparatus consisted of little more than the military officials,
and the ruler kept control only by incessant travel or campaign. After 1000,
centralized powers collapsed virtually everywhere. Land grants fell into the
hands of a flux of military lords, while the temples became major centers of
accumulated wealth.^4
During this development, Brahmans completed the transition from priests
allied to the royal courts to arbiters of local social relations independent of the
central state. Caste law, administered by the Brahmans, was built up to control
all local economic production and much of its distribution. Buddhism, living
in symbiosis with the centralized agrarian state, was threatened by the new
Brahmanism capable of cutting off its flow of material resources. The displace-
ment of Buddhism from India and the victory of Hinduism followed when
these several lines of movement converged: on the one hand the creation of
the Brahman-centered legal system and the institutionalization of the weak
state; on the other the undercutting of Buddhist patronage and popular support
by the emergence of rival Hindu temples and eventually Hindu monks. When
the sociopolitical foundations shifted, the Hindu side mounted an ideological
attack which delegitimated Buddhism.
Conflict between Hinduism and Buddhism took place over a long period
and in both intense and diffuse forms. There were times of explicit battles at
the royal courts, when court ceremonial was at issue, or when laws were
promulgated enforcing Buddhist precepts among the population. Beneath this
was a larger drift, first the spread of Buddhist monasteries and stupa cults,
then their decline. Some points stand out: the advent of the Shunga kings, who
took over the disintegrating Maurya Empire and reversed its ban on sacrifices
(here we have the most extreme pro-Buddhist state followed by one of the most
militantly anti-Buddhist); the widespread adherence to Buddhist rules in north-
ern India during the early Guptas, followed by a growth of Hindu patronage190 • (^) Intellectual Communities: Asian Paths