King Jingri was the most powerful protector of Buddhism in the 7th century. He built Garam extensively in North India and gave generous alms to Buddhist monasteries, which led to the development of Buddhism for a time amid the general trend of stagnation.
Xuanzang's "Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty" records his experience of studying and visiting India during his studies, from which we can see the popularity of Buddhism at that time. He entered India around 630, crossed the Indus River, and traveled through the kingdoms of Shiro to the kingdom of Kashmira. Then he entered North India, passed through a series of countries, to the kingdom of Karmaju, Vedary, Capricorn, visited the sacred sites of Hua, Gaya and other places, and then reached the Nalanda Temple (about 633).
Make multiple stops along the way to learn the classics. Nalanda Temple was the largest Buddhist monastery in India at that time, with more than 4,000 permanent monks, and was the most important center of Buddhist scholarship. Xuanzang stayed at Nalanda Monastery for 5 years, learning from the Mahayana Yoga School's "Yogi Land" and other classics from the Venerable Venerables. He is an authoritative scholar who inherits the masters of Wushu, lineage, and Dharma protector, and has profound research on yoga, enlightenment, karma, and statement.
Xuanzang debated with Indian monks, and his reputation grew. After that, he went to East India, South India, Central India, and West India for four years, and learned the "Theory of the Twelve Causes" from teachers from Shengjun and other places. Around 642, he returned to Nalanda Monastery and lectured on the Mahayana and Enlightenment of the Yogic school, which had a great influence.
At that time, when the two schools of Buddhism, the Mahayana school of Buddhism, the Middle School (Empty Sect) and the Yogi School (Youzong) were in a fierce dispute, Xuanzang wrote the "Treatise on Huizong" in Sanskrit with unique insights into the two schools, which was praised by many senior monks of the two schools. He also wrote "The Theory of Controlling Evil Views", which refuted the views of the Theravada orthodox department. A Brahmin wrote his opinion and hung it on the gate of Nalanda Temple to challenge. Xuanzang refuted him.
King Jingri held Xuanzang in high esteem and invited him to preside over a Buddhist puja held in Kanauj in 643. The King of the Ring personally attends the assembly. The congress was attended by more than 20 kings of King Gamma and his vassal states, more than 3,000 Buddhist monks, more than 3,000 Brahmins and other believers, and more than 1,000 monks and scholars of Nalanda Monastery. The congress marked the thesis of Xuanzang's "On the Sect of Huizong" and "The Theory of Controlling Evil Views."
But after 18 days, none of them objected. According to the "Records of the Western Regions of the Great Tang", some of the Brahmins attending the conference saw that the king of the ring sun respected Xuanzang's Buddhism so much, and they were dissatisfied, and set fire to the treasure platform for the Buddha statue and wanted to assassinate the king of the ring. The king of the day is lenient. Only punish the first evil, and the rest of the party does not commit crimes. Xuanzang was widely loved by Hinayana Buddhists and was revered as the "Mahayana Heaven" and "Liberation Heaven". The king invited him to ride an elephant parade to announce the grand event.
He was later invited to attend the Sixth Uncovered Congress in Boloyaga. In 644 he left the country from Pija, crossed the snow-capped mountains, and returned to Chang'an via Khotan (645). During his 14 years in India, he traveled to five Indias and more than 50 countries, of which he spent about 8 years in the territory of King Jingri. He not only learned the essence of Mahayana from Indian monks, brought a large number of classics back to China, and promoted the spread of Buddhism in China, but also his activities during his stay in India also played a certain role in promoting the development of Mahayana Buddhism in India at that time.
The Tang Dynasty Records of the Western Regions gives a detailed account of the situation of Buddhism in India at that time. At that time, it was still size multiplied in parallel. Mahayana is increasingly crowding out Hinayana in some regions, especially in North India, but Hinayana is still thriving. Judging from the records of Xuanzang's divided country, there are still more countries that believe in Hinayana than in Mahayana.
Some countries, such as the Kingdom of Karyo Ju, the Kingdom of Gongjian Nasu, the Kingdom of Maha Tantra, and the Kingdom of Wu Yanna, are both of them, indicating that the power is comparable. Xuanzang wrote: "The ministry is in charge of the peak, the waves are sophisticated, the different studies are specialized, the different paths are the same, and there are eight out of ten, each of them is good at sharpness; Size squares, residence and stop difference. This reflects the fierce debate within Buddhism at that time. Although this situation has promoted the in-depth study of Buddhism, it has been harmful to the development of Buddhism as a whole.
Although Buddhism has been revered and developed by the king, the area in which it flourishes in India is limited. According to Xuanzang, many Buddhist centers have declined, and the scene is not what it used to be. Xuanzang observed that Hinduism was rapidly reviving. He wrote that in the kingdom of Karajara, the contrast between the power of Buddhism and Hinduism is "two paths of evil and righteousness, and half of the believers." The fact that the kingdom of Karakaju was the core of the Jiri dynasty shows that the decline of Buddhist power and the growth of Hindu power are a certainty.
30 years after Xuanzang left India, in 673 AD, another senior monk of the Tang Dynasty on the mainland came to India by sea, first entering the country of Tama Lidi in East India, and then paying homage to sacred sites in North India and China and India, traveling to and from various places to study, during which he lived in Nalanda Temple for 10 years and left India in 685.
His "Nanhai Zhihui Neifa Chuan" also records that Buddhism had many followers in the area he experienced, and that Nalanda Monastery "counted 3,000 monks, and 200 remained in the village of Fengyi Ze, and accumulated the offerings of the kings, and the descendants were endless." Hui Li's "Legend of the Three Masters of the Great Ci'en Monastery" written by Xuanzang also said that Nalanda Monastery "often has 10,000 monks, masters and guests, and has studied the Mahayana and 18 parts", and "there are more than 100 lectures in the temple every day." But this prosperity has been limited to a few areas.
The rulers of the Pala Kingdom, which arose in Bengal in the 8th century, believed in Buddhism and built large monasteries such as the Flying Temple and Chaoyan Temple in Capricorn, which led to the development of Buddhism in Bengal. Chaoyan Temple became the largest Buddhist academic center after Nalanda Temple. Buddhism retains some influence in the Sindhi region. But this will not reverse the decline of Buddhism throughout India.
During this period, that is, from the sixth and seventh centuries, a new sect of Buddhism emerged called esotericism. It is a mixture of Mahayana Buddhism and folk beliefs, and also absorbs elements of Hindu sexual worship. His teachings advocate the "three tantric practices," that is, becoming a Buddha. The three secrets are the language secret (chanting mantras), the body secret (specific gestures), and the mind secret (mind view Buddha Buddha). It is believed that Buddha fruits can be obtained by attaining the purity of the three karma of the mind, mouth, and mind, and imprinting with the mind and mind of the Buddha.
The characteristic of esotericism is that it inherits and systematizes the mantra beliefs that were originally popular among the people and opposed by the Buddha, including mantras, rituals, and popular beliefs, and forms a system. Esoteric Buddhism is divided into right esotericism and left esotericism. The former uses the Maha Nikkei as a classic, and the latter uses the Diamond Sutra as a classic, absorbing the Hindu ritual of sexual worship.
Dora, the spouse of a male bodhisattva, is worshipped similar to that of a Hindu goddess. The former is mainly endemic in South West India and the latter in East and South India. In the 11th and 12th centuries, in the area ruled by the Kingdom of Pala, another branch was split from the Zuodao Esoteric Sect, called Yi Xingcheng.
It advocates the worship of teachers, propagation of indulgence (the so-called attainment of purity of nature through great desires and pleasures), and leads to corruption. The emergence of esotericism had a great influence on Buddhism, especially later it absorbed certain theories of Mahayana and enlightenment, giving itself a theoretical appearance and very demagogic. After the 8th century, esotericism gradually occupied the remaining position of Buddhism, and Buddhism gradually became esoteric, and the whole fell into a state of decline.
The invasion and religious persecution of Muslim rulers from the 11th century onwards dealt the final blow to Buddhism. Buddhist monasteries such as Nalanda Monastery and Chaoyan Monastery were destroyed, and many Buddhist monks and scholars fled to Tibet and Southeast Asian countries for refuge. Buddhism, which has been popular for more than a thousand years, disappeared from India in the 13th century.
Jainism continued to be popular in the 9th and 10th centuries. The rulers of Gujarat and the Siganga rulers of Karnataka strongly protected and supported the religion. It was also during this period that many Jain temples were built, and Nobita's idol was erected in the temple for worship by the faithful. However, after the 10th century, with the decline of these countries, Jainism lost the special support of some of its rulers and stagnated.
Hinduism is thriving. Xuanzang recorded that Benares had "more than 100 places of heavenly words, more than 10,000 people from the outer path, and many things that are at great ease in heaven." In Allahabad, where the Ganges and Jumuna rivers meet, there are "hundreds of heavenly words, and many different ways." According to the "Records of the Western Regions of the Great Tang Dynasty", there are also 18 countries such as Gandhara, Satani, Shivara, and Karuoju.
In the 8th century AD, a thinker and reformer appeared in Hinduism called Shangkara (c. 788-820, different versions have been said). His activities further promoted the development of Hinduism. He was the most influential thinker of the Vedanta school and the author of the Brahma Sutra Commentaries, among others. His ideas are based on the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita, and he argues that the later Vedic texts, the Vedantas, represent the essence of Vedic thought.
In his view of the world, his doctrine is pure and unique, arguing that the only reality in the world is Brahma, and Brahma is embodied in the ego. There is no real thing other than Brahma, and everything outside is "maya" (illusion). Maya has a power (illusion) that makes people see unreal things as real, and that is confusion. According to him, the way to liberation lies in breaking through confusion. The fundamental path is the direct realization of Brahman-self-oneness.
It is also proposed that it takes a long process for a person to truly attain liberation. As a beginning, it is necessary to know the Brahma and worship God. He himself often went to the temple to worship the gods. This reconciled his abstract theological philosophy with the religious ideas of the general population, making his claims acceptable to the majority. The Vedanta doctrine became the main ideological basis of the Hindu theological system. Shangkara also strengthened Hinduism in terms of organization. Drawing on the Buddhist method of establishing the Sangha, he established monastic organizations in Hinduism.
Four Hindu temples were built in the four corners of the southeast, southwest, and northwest of India—Puri in Orissa, Dvarka on the west coast, Slingili in the south, and Badrinath in the Himalayas. These temples became important bases for the further spread of Hinduism. Shangkara opposed cumbersome rituals. Only simple worship was practiced in the temples he built. Under his impetus, more Hindu temples were later established.
The temples worship mainly Vishnu and Shiva, but also deities and other goddesses. Temples gradually became the main public places of worship in Hinduism. Shangkara are a Kerala, Brahmin caste of South India. He traveled from South India to North India to argue with Buddhist monks, dealing a heavy blow to declining Buddhism and drawing large numbers of feudal elites and ordinary people to Hinduism.
The reason why Hinduism can rise on the basis of Brahmanism, in addition to the changes in the teachings and rituals of the religion itself, there is another factor that cannot be underestimated. This is why some factions within the church have put forward new ideas in the social aspect, which are very attractive to the masses. These sects are sexual, devout and linga.
The former opposes caste distinction and discrimination against women, and advocates that all castes and genders can worship God and be blessed by God. The main endemic areas of this school are Bangladesh, Orissa, and Assam. The Pietism and the Pietism movement are more primary. The piety first arose in the Tamil-speaking region of South India after the 7th century, characterized by the emphasis on the love of God in which believers can receive God's love and help by converting to God. He also asserts that God's love is universal to all people, without caste or distinction between men and women.
The leaders of this faction are a number of Hindu saints who enjoy prestige among the people, including Brahmins and people from lower castes. From place to place, they spread the faith of love, preaching or writing poetry in an easy-to-understand local language, which was well received by the masses. Everywhere they went, a boom was formed, bringing back a large number of people who had converted to Buddhism and Jainism because they were dissatisfied with Brahmanism under the banner of Hinduism.
The Linga sect is popular in Karnataka, worships Lord Shiva, strongly opposes the caste system, opposes discrimination against women, and opposes fasting, pilgrimage, and sacrifice. The ideas of these factions reflected the demands of the lower castes and the vast lower classes, and although they were not adopted by the orthodox, the propaganda itself strongly helped Hinduism to conquer the masses. After the 8th century, numerous regional kingdoms became Hindu. By the 10th century, Hinduism had become dominant throughout India.
These are actually two sides of the same coin. It can be said that Buddhism was absorbed by Hinduism. This great change has its own sectarian reasons and is closely related to India's transition to a feudal society. Specifically:
First, from the perspective of Buddhism itself, monasteries have become great feudal lords, high-ranking monks have become corrupt and degenerate, the teachings and canons formulated by the Buddha have been thrown aside, and its characteristics of peace and happiness have been lost. When Yijing talked about the monasteries' methods of disposing of the relics of deceased monks in the Nanhai Shui Hui, Yijing listed a list of "should be divided" relics and "should not be divided" relics.
What is very striking is that in the "should be divided" part there are lists of gold and silver, treasures, pearls, and money, and the "should not be divided" relics list field houses, village gardens, houses, mansions, slaves, elephants, horses, camels, mules, donkeys, etc., and also talk about the disposal of deeds, wine, etc. It shows that some monks had all the gold and silver treasures, both landowners and slave owners, and even engaged in commerce and money lending. Since the senior Buddhist monks, like the Brahmins, have become corrupt and degenerate upper classes, far removed from the masses, the admiration of the common people for them is lost. In the minds of the people, there is no longer a major difference between them and Brahmins.
Second, Buddhism enjoys the support of the crowd, mainly because it has an egalitarian social view, it opposes oppression, it opposes the privileged position of Brahmins, and it has some of the elaborate and expensive rituals of Brahmanism. However, these advantages were gradually lost due to the emergence of Hinduism. Hinduism has reformed the teachings and canons of the original Brahmanism, eliminated cumbersome rituals, weakened the excessive privileged position of Brahmins in the past, and the propaganda of the piety, sex, and linga schools calling for equality between castes and men and women has won the hearts and minds of the people. In this way, these advantages of Buddhism are taken away.
Third, the emergence of Mahayana Buddhism brought Buddhism closer to Hinduism in many respects and lost its own characteristics. It is manifested in: instead of Pali and other colloquialisms, Mahayana Buddhism uses Sanskrit to write sutras and lectures, which greatly strengthens the status of Sanskrit, the classical language of Brahmanism, and is separated from the ordinary people who use colloquialism; Language, literature, and religion are closely linked, and the acceptance of Sanskrit cannot be left without the penetration of Hindu literature and religious thought.
The Mahayana teachings are close to those of the Hindu school of yoga, which speaks of "prana" (wisdom) and "meditation" (concentration of the mind on oneness, from which wisdom arises), the same as the Yogis school of teaching the mind to suppress the action of the mind and thus generate wisdom through the totality. Zen masters or practitioners like the Yogis school also appeared in Mahayana, who wrote many works on the areas of yoga who witnessed the places of yoga; By deifying and idolizing Buddha, Mahayana actually accepted theism and departed from Buddha's theory of karma.
Not only did Buddha become a god, but many Buddhas and bodhisattvas appeared, forming polytheistic worship; Buddhism was originally opposed to witchcraft and mantras, but when it lost its original ethical teachings and lost its vitality, mantras and absurd mysticism became widespread among believers. The formation of esotericism shows that it has become seriously pathological.
The esotericization of Buddhism also makes it indistinguishable from the esoteric religion of Hinduism. In this way, the distinctive character of Buddhism gradually disappeared, and in people's minds, its boundary with Hinduism became more and more blurred. When Hinduism cleverly declared that Buddha was also an incarnation of Vishnu, Buddhism as a whole was absorbed into Hinduism, and ordinary Buddhists unwittingly became Hindus.
Fourth, the replacement of Buddhism by Hinduism is, at a deeper level, closely related to the development of feudal relations in Indian society. The formation of feudal relations correspondingly required the emphasis on royal power and the strengthening of social hierarchies. The worship of the main god of Hinduism is a reflection of earthly kingship in theological thought, which is conducive to highlighting kingship.
The Hindu caste system sanctifies secular hierarchies and helps strengthen social hierarchies. Buddhism does not play a role in Hinduism in either respect. Although Mahayana Buddhism deified the Buddha, it did not reach the point where Hinduism preached the creation of God theory. Although the Buddhist assertion of equality of the four peoples is not against the caste system, it does not approve of caste domination and the privileged position of Brahmins.
For the feudal upper class, which consisted mainly of Kshatriya and Brahmins, this was of course not liked by them, because it did not meet their need to firmly control the lower masses with a hierarchy. The rise of Hinduism was accompanied by an emphasis on the caste system and the privileged positions of Brahmins and Kshatriyas, which reflected the demands of the feudal ruling class. It is telling that the rulers of various countries have gradually turned to the side of Hinduism.
Regional feudal kingdoms fought each other and made territorial expansion their primary task. The Buddhist nonviolent tenet, feudal rulers would not appreciate it, but the Hindu Bhagavad Gita's "promising" proposition could be used by them to incite and justify foreign wars. This is another reason why rulers favor Hinduism.
The development of feudal relations was accompanied by the rise of local forces, forming a situation in which unified culture and local culture coexisted and influenced each other. Although Buddhism has a distinction between large and small, it emphasizes unity and is not adapted to this situation. Hinduism is very adaptable. It is loose, pluralistic, inclusive, adaptable, and can flexibly absorb local faith elements, including certain non-Aryan beliefs.
As long as it is declared that the gods originally worshiped in various places are the embodiment or manifestation of the two main gods Vishnu and Shiva, they can be included, and the original inhabitants can still believe in their own gods without hindering the overall situation of Hinduism. The caste system was able to include foreign peoples and conquered indigenous tribes without any difficulty, and the upper echelons of the foreign peoples could join the upper castes of Hindus without changing their status by simply asking the Brahmins to make up a family tree.
In this way, Hinduism has opened its doors to the upper strata of foreign ethnic groups and local forces, including religious forces, so as to facilitate the integration and coexistence of foreign cultures, local cultures and Indian main culture. In the context of the growing feudal division factors in the development of feudal relations, Hinduism, with its unique flexibility and inclusiveness, has played a huge role in maintaining cultural unity and embodying cultural unity, and is also a positive factor in promoting political unity as much as possible.
In short, Hinduism assimilated Buddhism to become the dominant religion in all of India, both for reasons of religion itself and for social reasons. As far as the latter is concerned, it is India's need to move towards feudalization, and it is also the expression of the feudal process in the ideological field.