Buddhism in India

The Defeat of Buddhism in India 155

in Bhandara district of Maharashtra, which has remains of stupas

dating to the Maurya–Shunga period. Dalits in Maharashtra in the

1950s believed that the ‘Nagas’ after whom Nagpur was presumably

named were original Buddhists, and argued for making nearby

Nagpur the site for Ambedkar’s dhammadikshaceremony because

of its ancient Buddhist associations (see Moon 2001: 149). On this

question, it is worth quoting Hsuan Tsang:

The frontiers consist of encircling mountain crags; forests and jungles

are found together in succession...the soil is rich and fertile, and yields

abundant crops. The towns and villages are close together. The pop-

ulation is very dense. The men are tall and black complexioned. The

disposition of the people is hard and violent; they are brave and

impetuous. There are both heretics and believers here. They are

earnest in study and of a high intelligence. The king is of the Ksattriya

race; he greatly honours the law of Buddha and his virtue and love are

far renowned (II: 209).

Kosala and its capital were also linked to the famous Mahayana

monk-philosopher Nagarjuna, and Hsuan Tsang goes on to

recount tales of the marvellous feats and compassion of this great

Buddhist and his association with a Satavahana king.

Today the western districts of Orissa state are referred to as

Kosala by agitators who are demanding a separate state. The

people of this area, which includes the heavily drought-prone

Kalahandi and adjoining districts, during times of distress migrate

not eastward to coastal Orissa but westward to Raipur and Nagpur.

It appears that in ancient times the whole region from east of

Nagpur to western Orissa was identified as Kosala or Mahakosala.

Pavani, on the Wainganga, is referred to as Benakatha (‘banks of the

Bena/Vena’) in an early Satavahana inscription, and the region also

can be identified with the ‘southern Kosala’ which Rama is sup-

posed to have given as a gift to his son Kush when he divided his

kingdom (Mirashi II: 227–30). The adivasis of the region are the

Gonds, and in western Orissa, the Khonds; both are indigenous

groups speaking a Dravidian language. Vidarbha, or ‘Mahakosala’

was indeed a center of a group of peoples known in the classical

literature as ‘Nagas’. These must have been the rulers referred to,

and the traveller’s evidence thus suggests a Dravidian origin of the

‘Naga’ peoples: Gond kings have always claimed Kshatriya status.

Bengal, the land of the Paundas or later ‘Pods’, considered a low
‘mixed caste’ by Brahmanical lawbooks) the land was described as
‘regularly cultivated and rich in crops’ (II: 199); it was a small king-
dom with 20 monasteries with 3000 monks and ‘some hundred
Deva temples,’ mostly Jains. Samatata, on the sea coast, a long-
time center of Buddhist-dominated trade with lands in southeast
Asia, was described as ‘rich in all kinds of grain produce’ (II: 199);
it had about 30 monasteries with about 2000 monks, and again
Jains dominated among the rest. However, in Tamralipti (the west
Bengal delta area), Buddhism was declining; there were only 10
monasteries and 50 ‘Deva temples in which various sectaries dwell
mixed together’ (II: 201).
Kamarupa (Assam) was almost completely a non-Buddhist land.
In Udra (Orissa) the traveller found a people who were mostly
Buddhists and a hundred monasteries with 10,000 bhikkus. There
he visited both a miraculous monastery on a mountain and a sea-
port, Charitra, where ‘merchants depart for distant countries and
strangers come and go and stop on their way. The walls of the city
are strong and lofty. Here are found all sorts of rare and precious
articles’ (II: 205). The Oriyas, according to him, were ‘tall...of a
yellowish-black complexion.... Their words and language differ
from Central India. They love learning and apply themselves to it
without intermission’ (II: 204).
From Orissa Hsuan Tsang moved south, some 240 miles through
‘great forests’ to the small kingdom of Konyodha, where Buddhism
did not exist, and then another 300–500 miles south through ‘a
vast desert, jungle and forests, the trees of which mount to heaven
and hide the sun’ to reach Kalinga. This was apparently on the
Orissa–Andhra border. It was described as regularly cultivated,
and as having abundant flowers and fruits and ‘the great tawny
wild elephant’ in a burning climate. He writes that ‘the disposition
of the people [is] vehement and impetuous’ and most were attached
to non-Buddhist beliefs, and adds that the country had a very dense
population in the old days but was then depopulated (II: 208). This
is attributed to a story about a Rishi with magical powers who
cursed the people; the real story of Asoka’s bloody victory over
Kalinga had apparently been lost to legends.
From there the traveller went about 360 miles northwest to Kosala.
Its capital at the time was most likely what is now the town of Pavani

154 Buddhism in India