The Defeat of Buddhism in India 153bhikkus in all, as well as four stupas built by Asoka (I: 148–57).
Hsuan Tsang also tells many stories of the Nagas, whose legends
dominated the region, calling them ‘dragons’.
As the traveller moved throughout north India, Buddhism was
clearly on the retreat. The exception was the center of Harsha’s
kingdom, Kanyakumbja or Kanauj in today’s Uttar Pradesh, where
Hsuan Tsang noted about an ‘equal number of Buddhists and
heretics’ and found 100 monasteries and 10,000 bhikkus along with
200 ‘Deva temples’ with ‘some thousands’ of followers (I: 206–07).
This decline however was most striking in the historic lands of
Buddhism, in what is now Bihar. One can perhaps expect that
Prayag, even then one of the holy cities of Brahmanism, had a ‘very
great number’ of heretics. However, even in Sravasti, the capital of
the Lichhavis, the non-Buddhists (including the Jains) vastly out-
numbered the ‘believers’, and Kapilavastu, the region of Gotama’s
birth, was a land of deserted cities, with its capital overthrown and
in ruins and few settled villages. The same was true of Kusinagara,
the small village that was the site of the mahaparinibbana. In
Varanasi also, 30 monasteries with 3000 bhikkus were outnum-
bered by a hundred Deva temples and 10,000 worshippers, mostly
said to be Pashupatas and Jains. Vaishali, where the ‘sacred
vestiges are so numerous that it would be difficult to recount them
all’ (II: 73) had ‘several hundred monasteries, which are mostly dilapid-
ated’ and only a few bhikkus left, but ‘several tens of Deva temples’
with numerous Jains among their worshippers (II: 66). The one-time
center of the gana-sanghaconfederation of the Vajjians was in an
equally desolate condition. Only Magadha, the center of the Mauryan
empire, offered a different story: 50 monasteries with 10,000
bhikkus; here Hsuan Tsang recounts many legends of Asoka and
describes the rich and luxurious university of Nalanda.
On the whole, this poor condition not only shows the major
set-back suffered by Buddhism, but also suggests that it was not
simply and voluntarily replaced by the Brahmanic Hindu culture.
Some open political conflict and religious repression is described,
and we can also infer that the depopulation and devastation, that
characterised Kapilavastu and Kusinagara, must have resulted
from a severe repression.
The picture began to change as Hsuan Tsang moved east and
south. Brahmans had reached Bengal and the east relatively late,
and had little hegemony there. In ‘Pundravardhana’ (northernexacted but paid for. The payment is in strict proportion to the work
done... (II: 87).Politically, though he describes the greatness of Harsha, whose
empire extended over north India at the time, the subcontinent is
seen as fragmented. He describes it as broken up into fairly small
‘countries’, each with a capital city and, usually, a ‘king’. For each,
he gives the approximate number of Buddhist monasteries and
bhikkus, and the number of ‘Deva temples’ and some idea of how
many non-Buddhists (outsiders) there were. The latter include both
Jains or ‘Nirgranthas’ and Shaivites or ‘Pashupatas’.
Hsuan Tsang entered India from Afghanistan in the northwest,
and describes India as beginning approximately at the borders of
current Pakistan. The first ‘countries’ he describes include Taxila,
then tributary to Kashmir as were most of the other small regions
around; he gives the stories of Panini and Kanishka here. Kashmir
itself is described with the romanticism that this land inspires in
almost everyone. In reporting how the Buddhist council came to be
held in Kashmir, he recounts how Kanishka ‘desired to go to his
own country, as he suffered from the heat and moisture [of conti-
nental India]’, and how his counsellor responds,
the mind of the assembly is well affected towards this country; the
land is guarded on every side by mountains, the Yakshas defend its
frontiers, the soil is rich and productive and it is well provided with
food. Here both saints and sages assemble and abide; here the spiri-
tual Rishis wander and rest (I: 153).This northwest region was the historic center of the Kushana
empire, and also the scene of conflict—between the Kushanas and
the pre-Buddhists of Kashmir, between Shaivites and Buddhists,
and between the Huna king Mihirakula and his foe, described as
the Tukhura ruler of Himatala who was descended from the Sakya
race (I: 157–58). It was apparently Mihirakula who had destroyed
much of the Buddhist monuments in the Taxila and Gandhara
regions, where numerous monasteries were in ruins with only a few
bhikkus residing there. According to the traveller, since the anti-
Buddhist ‘Krityas’ then ruled Kashmir, ‘this kingdom is not much
given to the faith’; still he saw a hundred monasteries with 5000
152 Buddhism in India