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Why Indians don’t believe in Buddhism?
Why Indians don’t believe in Buddhism?
More than 2,500 years ago, a prince in ancient India got the will of God under the Bodhi tree and founded a religion. This prince was Buddha Sakyamuni, and this religion was Buddhism. It taught people that After a lifetime of ascetic practice, you will be able to go to the Western Paradise of Ultimate Bliss after a hundred years.
After that, Buddhism took root in India and spread to neighboring countries. During the Han Dynasty in China, Buddhism was introduced to the Central Plains. Today, the White Horse Temple in Luoyang was built when Buddhism first entered China.
Speaking of India, starting from the Mauryan Dynasty, Buddhism spread to the north and south respectively. Traveling south, it spread by sea and spread to places such as Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka.
Those who go north are divided into two branches: one passes through the Western Regions and spreads from Xinjiang to China, which is also Chinese Buddhism, and later spreads to Korea, Japan, and Vietnam; the other branch takes root in my country’s Tibet and Inner Mongolia. . That is Tibetan Buddhism.
How to distinguish between the two? Those who recite scriptures in the temple are called monks in Chinese Buddhism and wear yellow or gray cassocks. Tibetan Buddhism is called lama, usually wearing a red cassock, and one shoulder will be exposed.
For many Chinese, Buddhism is the most familiar religion. Most people have heard grandparents recite the Diamond Sutra or Prajna Heart Sutra since childhood, burn incense and recite sutras to seek Buddhahood. It seems that people convert to Buddhism when they are old.
In Chinese history, Emperor Liang Wu of the Southern Dynasty was a devout Buddhist. He called himself the “Three Treasures Slave” and entered the temple four times as a monk, and asked the state to pay for him to be redeemed. He also speaks the scriptures himself. There is a poem that says it well: There are four hundred and eighty temples in the Southern Dynasties, how many towers are in misty rain.
All in all, since the introduction of Buddhism into China, a variety of cultures have been derived, such as the Longmen Grottoes, Dunhuang murals, and Shaolin Temple.
So now the question is, why did Buddhism fail to develop in India, but in China it is like a duck to water, with flowers inside the walls and fragrance outside the walls, what is going on?
In the 12th century AD, in the late Song Dynasty, Buddhism in India mysteriously disappeared. Why?
First of all, let me explain to everyone that the land of ancient India is quite different from that of today’s India. It is true that Sakyamuni’s hometown was in ancient India, but that place is now Nepal. The Indus Valley, the birthplace of ancient Indian civilization, is now the territory of Pakistan.
The decline of Buddhism is first and foremost due to internal factors . One hundred years after the death of Sakyamuni, Buddhism experienced its first major schism, which is called the “fundamental schism.” True to its name, this split is indeed quite fundamental, and since then Buddhism has been divided into two major sects.
It is said that at that time, monks from East India violated the precepts and collected money from people. At that time, after the elders in the West India knew about this situation, they held a Buddhist meeting attended by seven hundred monks to criticize the monks in the East India and cut off people’s wealth. Form the Mass Ministry, and those who support the elders form the Theravada Ministry.
After that, on the basis of the fundamental division, there were more minor divisions in Buddhism, known in history as “branch splits”, and Buddhism was divided more and more finely. The sect is divided and strife continues. How can such a disunited organization do great things?
In addition to internal disunity, many systems in India are not suitable for the spread of Buddhism.
India has had a caste system since the Vedic era. For example, there are four levels of Chinese taxis, farmers, industry and commerce. There are also four classes in India, the first class is the clergy, the second class is the official warrior, the third class is the commoner, and the fourth class is the slave. Different classes cannot intermarry and dine together, which is actually dividing Indians into four segregated sections.
Until now, India has been deeply poisoned by the caste system, let alone when Buddhism prevailed. Didn’t Shakyamuni say that all living beings are equal? Then one can’t be divided into four levels. But the caste system is the lifeblood of the Indian aristocracy. There is no door for all beings to be equal. After so many years of calling for equality, at most it is to get some ideas among Buddhists, but in fact it is impossible to achieve.
Apart from the caste system, Buddhism has two rivals, Brahmanism and Hinduism, which are native to India. The place where Buddhism originated is not India, but present-day Nepal . For India, Buddha is also regarded as a foreign religion.
Brahmanism is an orthodox religion that Indians have had since ancient times. Before the rise of Buddhism, it has been popular in India for hundreds of years and has long been deeply rooted. It is difficult for Buddhism to shake its orthodox position in the competition of Brahmanism .
At the beginning of the rise of Buddhism, apart from non-killing, non-violence and equality of all living beings, Buddhism itself did not put forward many new contents. Later in the process of development, Mahayana Buddhism, which was formed in order to compete for believers, brought out many gods and ghosts as idols. It gradually became similar to Brahmanism, lost its own characteristics, and was finally merged by Brahmanism.
Buddhism emerged as a “heresy” criticizing Brahmanism, but Brahmanism is extremely eclectic, flexible and tolerant. It accepts challenges, absorbs the views of non-killing and non-violence, and abandons cumbersome religious rituals. The shortcomings are changed, the face is new, and it is naturally loved by the people. And the Brahmin class is rock solid in India, and it cannot be overthrown by Buddhism, or even Islam and Christianity, which were later introduced to India by force, cannot be eliminated.
Buddhism is constantly under attack by mainstream culture in India , and it is constantly changing within it. In the process of the development of Buddhism, it changed step by step, and gradually developed to the end, and the esoteric teachings that we often talk about came into being—more emphasis on secrets and mysteries.
In this way, its own original characteristics slowly began to fade away. In addition, India was also impacted by other religions at that time, for example, Sikhism in India, that is, the impact of religions under the background of Islamic culture. So by the end of the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th century, Buddhism had been eliminated in India itself.
Because of this background, Buddhism is not the mainstream of Indian culture, but a heresy, so it is excluded.
Finally, the invasion of external forces is also a reason for the disappearance of Buddhism . From the 10th century AD, Turkic nomads who believed in Islam invaded India. They hate idolatry, and wherever they go, they will burn down the original Buddhist temples, burn scriptures, and snatch possessions, and the monks who survive will flee one after another.
By the end of the 11th century and the beginning of the 12th century, Muslims who believed in Islam established a dynasty in India, a large number of Buddhists were killed, and Buddhism suffered a devastating blow. After Buddhist temples were destroyed, Buddhists lost their footing.
History is always joking with people, and many times things that are taken for granted have unexpected endings.
In any case, Buddhism finally lost its foothold in India, and finally drifted to a foreign land, where flowers blossomed and fragrance outside the walls; the wise departed when they knew the illusion, and the fool believed the illusion to be true.
