Ganges plain Buddhism was supported by half the population, and its pre-
cepts were widely observed. Rulers and wealthy laity gave lavish material
support to the great Buddhist monasteries.^3 The famous monastery-university
at Nalanda near the capital received the income from over 200 villages,
donated by a succession of kings. When the Guptas disintegrated, the kings
of the trading corridor to the west (Gujarat), though they were themselves
Shaivites, patronized Buddhist monasteries. Their great Buddhist center of
learning at Valabhi from about 490 to 780 was supported by royal land grants
and incomes from villages, designated for everything from buildings and vict-
uals to incense and books; one senses a rivalry over the prestige of having a
great monastic center to compete with Nalanda in Magadha. At its height,
victors in the public disputations at Valabhi’s “university” could expect gov-
ernment preferment.
Harsha’s brief empire in the 600s included Buddhism in its eclectic patron-
age; later we find the monks embroiled in disputes over possession of these
donated villages (Dutt, 1962: 313). By now Buddhism had disappeared from
the Deccan and the south and was largely confined to its lower Ganges
homeland. Chinese visitors describe deserted monasteries and neglected stupas
(popular reliquaries of Buddhist saints) around the country, and even in Ma-
gadha much was in decline. Buddhism’s last great supporters were the Pala
kings of Bengal, who encroached on Magadha and founded several monastery-
universities during the 700s and 800s (most notably Vikramashila, with the
last foundation around 1100). These last Buddhist monasteries declined with
the power of the Pala state, and were finally pillaged by Muslim invaders in
the 1200s.
Buddhism flourished in the strongest states, except of course in the Islamic
ones, where a state-religious alliance of an entirely different sort was imported.
Buddhism was structurally more compatible than Hinduism with a centralized
officialdom autonomously extracting economic resources and breaking down
traditional rights. At the earliest period of centralized state formation, we see
the kings competing for the prestige of having the new religious sages at their
courts, while the Vedic priest guilds represented the old family and clan
structure that was being displaced. In the same way, Buddhism later was
welcomed by centralizing rulers of previously clan-organized areas throughout
Asia; in Tibet, the struggle between court-sponsored Buddhism and Bon ritu-
alists coincided with the vicissitudes of the early monarchy in subjugating the
clans (Stein, 1972: 47–71).
Although Buddhist monasticism was deliberately remote from the state, it
was useful for rulers: it preached a moral pacification of the populace and
provided an institution for literate education. In Mongolia, China, and Japan
we see Buddhist ritualists at court, providing ceremonial impressiveness, some-184 • (^) Intellectual Communities: Asian Paths