Why Buddhism decayed in India? ‒ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

Buddha's Vision | New Zealand | November 15, 2023

Question: I understand that India is the birthplace of Buddhism, why then is less than 1% of the population of Indian Buddhists?

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Chinese subtitles are available in this video.
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#impermanence #colonialism #values

[garitube]

Hindus built resistance agaist Islamic invasions at social and regional levels but Buddhists couldn't. Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh were all Buddhist majority regions which are now Islamic countries. 🙏

[winterpurple]

As a longtime Buddhist I can say without prejudice that Hinduism predated Buddhism. The Buddha himself was from a Hindu family. He didn't "invent" Meditation. He may have developed his own additional techniques but meditation was already in Hinduism long before him. So Buddhism was more of an "offshoot" if we're to correctly categorize it. Just as Protestantism is an offshoot of Catholicism.
If you take Hinduism and "simplify" it -- take away deity propitiation and just focus on meditation -- what you end up with is Buddhism. So there's Buddhism "in" Hinduism. Therefore Buddhism didn't decay in India. All Hindus practice Buddhism within Hinduism.

[moongrass]

Buddhism declined in India because of Adi Sankara. He revived Advaitavad in Northern India.

[sugathasagar]

My name is sugatha. It’s a Buddhist name but I am Hindu. When Buddhism forgot it roots and started abusing sanatana dharma without realising the depth of sanatana dharma its had to leave India. If they were accommodating in their thought they would have still be here in India.

[sgcars]

I am a Buddhist scholar from South East Asia. I have studied Hindu philosophies as well. Like revered Rinpoche said, "Hindu-ism", "Buddh-ism" are just invented and imposed names by Westerners. First and foremost to understand why Buddhism never took great hold in India we must acknowledge the fact that in India Baudha-Dharma is just another branch of philosophy in "Hindu" thought (Darshana).

There are many darshanas in India that pre-date Buddhism. For example - Samkhya, Yoga, Jaina etc each with its own enlightened sage just like Buddha. Even today, there are spiritual men in India who are followed literally by millions and they have their own philosophies and they may go on to become as impactful as Buddha in a thousand years making themselves very distinct from what we call "mainstream Hinduism" now. So when you have like a dozen competing darshanas that can give you salvation, for Indians to take up Buddha-dharma en-masse made no sense. They could merrily be Krishna and Vishnu followers (Vaishnavas), Shiva followes (Sahivaites), Shakti followers, Advaita followers etc each with its own guru like Buddha, and texts, philosophies in abundance.

Also, like revered Rinpoche said, Islamic invasions played a huge part in uprooting whatever Buddhism existed in India too. While the Hindu dharmic traditions through existing social structures were able to organize and resist the imposition of Islam and fight against the destructions, unfortunately the Buddists, Jains, and some other Indian dharmic religions could not stand up to the onslaught.

[SunilMeena-doxn]

It's not that Buddhism disappeared, it is simply assimilated in Hinduism. Hinduism doesn't have some fixed principles. It is dynamic and always keep changing with time. India has a tradition of following Enlightened people or Gurus or yogis. When Buddha was born, people were captivated by his teachings, so they spread quickly. In a way Indians were following Buddhist teachings at that time, but that doesn't necessarily means that they were thinking of Buddhism as an exclusive religion.

Their children would not exclusively follow these teachings but would also learns new teachings from wandering Gurus or Yogis or Naths etc. Even after Buddha dies, new Gurus came and spread their teachings. We had many famous gurus like Adi Shankaracharya or Nagarjuna. Their disciples would wander around India and spread their teachings. It was a tradition for Indian kings to invite such Gurus or Yogis, listen to their debates and following the practices of Gurus who won the debates. There are widely available records of such debates happening in courts of Indian kingdoms. Even today we have some gurus like Sadhguru etc whom people follow.

So in a way Hinduism is dynamic and always changing. Buddhism was just a phase which was popular at that time. People haven't forgotten those teachings. Those are assimilated in Hinduism, while people still kept seeking new ways to approach God and Spirituality.

I mean Hinduism have Vedic Philosoply, Buddhism, Vedanta, Puranic, Shavism, Vaishanvism, Stories of gods spread by devoted poets like Tulsidas spreading Ramayana or spread of Bhagvad Gita, teachings of Krishna. In each era, we had Gurus which gave their teachings about how to approach God and Spirituality and they kept assimilating in Hinduism.

Although, I would like to say that current so-called Gurus can't really be compared to old Gurus. Old gurus used to abstain from material attachment, living in hut, wearing minimal clothes, eating minimal food. They also used to meditate in secluded forests or mountains. And in such a way, they used to found new teachings. Nowadays Gurus just package old teachings in a complicated way and present it as their teachings. They enjoy all things that can be bought from money and are increasingly more political. So in a way, I think this new age of Social media is really bad for traditional ways of Hinduism. Rather than following Gurus, now it is better to read the already compiled teaching in Hinduism. In a way, we should close the lore of Hinduism and should not allow any further addition.

[agoshp]

Buddhism declined and saved India from Islam.. thanks to Adishankaracharya 🙏

[clashofpokemonspokemongo]

As i santani or so called hindu. I always believe so called jainism, so called buddhism, so called sikhism and so called hinduism are one for me. I have everything inside me. They are not religions. They are teachings.

[VeganSanatani]

Sir you absolutely nailed it...there is nothing like Hinduism, Buddhism, jainism, or sikkhism...all are Sanatan

[dharmavarta]

Full respect to Monk Rinpoche. Dharma is one.

[poojamitra]

I am a Hindu . The tenets of Buddhism are embedded in Hinduism… Buddhism is like a branch of Hinduism/ Sanatan Dharma.

[smithatenzin]

The core reasons for the decline are destruction of Nalanda and Adi Shankaracharya reviving Hinduism. There were various schools of philosophy at the time, and there are differences in what Hinduism and Buddhism see as the nature of reality. But regardless of which ism we follow, both these eastern philosophical approaches are similar in a lot of ways and ultimately address the cessation of suffering or nirvana. Let us try not to create rifts between the two, whether one is contained within the other or derived from another is not important. Following them diligently and embodying the teachings are important..

[MedhamshMaringanti]

Sir, Actually From Iran, Afghanistan, Tibet, China, Malaysia, Indonesia etc.., used i be Buddist counntries.
Buddism doesn't have any method to stand up against the violent invasions. All the buddist countries that were invaded by Muslims, they very very quickly took them over and converted to islam. It is super easy to kill, kick out Buddist because it has NON-VIOLENCE written all over.
Just an example Afganistan taliban govt. demolished a big Budda statue, because in Isalam it is HARAM to have idols. That just shows that Islamic expansion invasions DOES have a lotnof role to play for Buddism not surviving in India.

[ArthurShotgun]

One word answer:

Adi Shankaracharyaji

[paragphatak]

Actually, I don't know if he is aware of or not, but it happened in around late 8th century. So In India we used to practice a system of Shastratha (More like a debate on interpretation of the teachings). Buddhism was on peak after Maurya and Ashoka empire, coz no Hindu priest or guru was able to defeat Bhuddist monks in Shastrath. The rules of these debates were that if you loose in the debate you whole heartedly follow the philosophy of the winner and make him your guru. That's how Buddhism rose in India and everywhere else. Its similar to how in Japan Dojo masters system used to be. If other Dojo defeat the master of another Dojo they used to go under the umbrella of the winning master. This was similar just instead of fight here it was a debate of their philosophies and teachings. So Buddhist defeated many Hindu monks for centuries and became the most practised belief in South Asia. Until, Adi Shankaracharya was born in 788. He obtained Hindu knowledge at a very young age and became a Vedic scholar and his interpretation gave birth to the new form (Interpretation/Darshan) of Vedic philosophies its called Adwait Vedanta. No Buddhist monks were able to defeat him in Shastratha and when defeated they became his disciples. He travelled throughout the region what is now called India and Pakistan and defated all the monks which led to decline of Buddhism in India & Pakistan.

[Che_Guna]

Buddha and his teaching always lives inside us

[amoghshukla]

I appreciate that you mentioned, that initially Hinduism and Buddhism were unnamed .That's just because the concept of dharma, common to the both, is very different than the abrahamic concept of religions...for sure its an enforced identity....and I would like to add that the above statement also implies that there was no actual line seperating Hinduism and buddhism....the core buddhist principles are 70-80% similar to the samkhya tradition in Hinduism...also the mahayana buddhist practices like tibetian-tantra and diety worship are common to Hinduism too....
So in my opinion there is no actual division between hinduism and buddhism, and if still people claim it to be so....then there are further more possible divisions that could be made in them....the reality is, all the religions that originated in the indian subcontinent are one under the laws of dharma-karma-moksha....

[dibyendusaha]

I feel sorry for him ...he didn't touch the main reason Adi Shankaracharya.. Closing eyes not to see truth...shunyata to purnayata..

[JohnDoe-qpsj]

Hinduism is like a big sponge. It will absorb any idea with out loosing its shape fully. I remember my son in Christian School brings a small nice picture of baby Christ and Mary. My old mother (80+) saw the picture and put it in our puja room shelf next to that of baby Krishna. That's our Hindu culture.

[coolfreaks]

Many Buddhists in Indian subcontinent converted to Islam. About 40% population of Indian subcontinent is Muslim. Muslims have two castes: Ashraf(Upper caste) and Ajlaf(Lower caste).
Almost all of the Ajlaf people are converted to Islam from Buddhism.