134 CHAPTER SIXexercise in preparation for the time when one would be sufficiently skilled
and mature to take on a live partner. This controversy has continued through-
out the Vajrayana tradition up to the present.
Through the missionary activity of the university scholars, mainstream Va-
jrayana spread outside of India. In the eighth century, three monks separately
took Yoga Tantra texts to China, translating them and founding the Chen-yen
school, which won favor at the court of the T' ang emperors but did not last
more than a century (see Section 8.5). At the beginning of the ninth century,
Kukai introduced Chen-yen into Japan as the Shingon school. It first became
popular among the nobility and has continued to the present day (see Section
10.4). In the eleventh century, the missionary Atisa, from Nalanda's neighbor-
ing university at Vikramasila, took scholastic Tantrism to Tibet at the invita-
tion of the Tibetan king, establishing what was to become the orthodox
Buddhism of that country until this century (see Section 11.2.2). Lay Tantrism
was also established in Tibet by Tibetans who sought out initiations in India
and Kashmir. Scholarly Tantrism was exported, along with some lay Tantrism,
throughout Southeast Asia, from Sri Lanka and Burma to Indonesia, where it
found its greatest success (see Section 7 .2). Scattered remnants of the school
are found in Buddhist Southeast Asia even today (Strong EB, sec. 6.6).
Mainstream Vajrayana was prolific in art as well. Buddhist centers of pil-
grimage and learning attracted artists, together with scholars and seekers,
adopting the Pala style: elaborate, forceful, elegant, but somewhat harsh com-
pared to the graceful strength of earlier Gupta art. Temples were patterned
after man<;l~as, utilizing all the arts so as to engage all the senses in the quest
for spiritual empowerment. Architectural remains found at Khajuraho, famous
for the erotic bas-reliefs on its Saivite temples, reveal that the Buddhist tem-
ples that once stood there we;e only slightly subdued versions of their more
exuberant Saivite neighbors.
Much of the mainstream blossoming of Indian Vajrayana perished in the
Muslim invasions, but not before it had sent out shoots to other parts of Asia.
Not only the teachings had spread-Pala art had a long-lasting influence on
the art of Tibet and Southeast Asia. In India itself, the Tantric movement went
back underground, although the songs of the Sahajayana maintained wide
popularity. Hindu remnants ofTantrism survive today, especially in the north-
east, in secret Tantric circles devoid of any traces of their past mainstream con-
nections, and in the Vai~vava Sahajiya sect still extant in Bengal.
6.4 THE DISAPPEARANCE
OF INDIAN BUDDHISMDespite its attempts to meet the challenge of Hinduism, Indian Buddhism
went into a slow decline beginning around the seventh century. The Chinese
pilgrim Hsiian-tsang, who traveled throughout India at that time (see Section
8.5), found numerous monastic centers in the area from the Sindh east through