Download P RE. F il_C £ Mith the conversion of the Mauryan Emperor Asoka ta

P R E . F il_C £
Mith the conversion o f the Mauryan Emperor A soka t a
buddhism the Buddhist faith receiving
royal paifeoruMM*.
emarged as a d is t in c t re lig io n with gre^at p o te n tia lties
for exp ansio n. according to the Suddhist chronicle
Nahatfamse
ffisoka convened the third Buddhist council, and
later deputed m issionaries to d i f f e r e n t co untries with
the purpose of spreading the message of the Buddha.
U hile N a jjh a n tik a introduced the new fa it h in Kashmir
and Gandhara,
N aharaksita introduced it in the country
of the Creeks in the w est. The statement a f the
Mahavamsa
is also corroborated by the evidence o f the
Asokan in s c r ip t io n s . The rock e d ic t s I I sod V re fe r to
&s o k a*s sending of m issionaries for humanitarian work
and for preaching the Pharma to such countries as S y ria ,
EftlPt,Macedonia,Cyrene and E p ir u s . I t is nat u n lik e ly
that- these m issionaries also extended t h e i r a c t i v i t i e s
beyond the Hindukuah to the Central fllsian t e r r i t o r i e s *
T h is is in d ic a te d by the fact that th e immediate
successors of Asoka in Khorasan Aid B ac te ria ,
v i z .,
the
Bactrian and the Indo-*Greaks were favourably disposed
towards Buddhism. Among the Bactrian and the Indo-Greek
V
kings who profas sad. Buddhist f a it h ,
mention may ba made of
Menander who o f a ll the Greek k in g * has found th e prominent
place in the Buddhist trad itio n as a scholar and a patron
o f Buddhism.
Buddhism seems to have continued to flo u rish during, the
g re a t nomadic moviamanta of the Slcythians and th e Yue-chis
th at awept Central & s i a during th e early centuries, pr a i d i n g
the C h ristia n e r a . I t ,
however, entered intct i t s most g lo r io u s
epoch during the regime o f the Yue-chis the p o l i t i c a l
influance
o f whose c h ie f s extended to t h is reg io n .Th e
most cele brated king of th e Yue-chis was king K a n i n a whose
empire included part of Central ftsia. Kanidka a fte r &soka
was a g re at patron of Buddhism and h is reign w itnessed
remarkable progress and popularity of Buddhism. Ha patronised
the famous Gandhara school of art and the Mahay ah a
sect o f
Buddhism g ain ed an unprecedented popularity under h i s benign
patronage. The name of Kanifka is clo sely associated with the
fourth Buddhist council, which u as,
Kashmir under tha
most probably held in
chairmanship and the vice-chairmanshif* o f
Parsva and l/asumitra. I t was during t h a reign o f K aniska
th at the B uddhist canonical tex ts appear to have, been carried
to Central Slsia by the Buddhist m is sio n ar ie s. Some important
Buddhist tex ts have been discovered, in Central & s i a ,
on l i n g u i s t i c , paleographic and other co n sideratio n s
assigned to t h i s period. Among th ese,
which
can be
sp e cia lly noteworthy are
soma Buddhist -texts of Asvaghosa, fthe spiritual, advisor
o f Kaniska) } the P ra k rit Dhammapada and the; S a n sk rit
Udinavarga.
The continued flourishing
condition a f Buddhism in
Central A s i a during the sub sequent c e n t u r ie s i s attested
to by the: discovery of images and tha ramain s of Buddhist
stupas, ah r in a s and v iharas b u i l t after Indian mattela and
by a large number o f Buddhist t a x t s written
in san sk rit
and prakr.it as wall as in tha local languages a f Central
A s i a and in tha Indian s c r ip ts of Kharoshthi and Brahml.
For the information of the state o f Buddhism in
Central A s i a in the fourth and the subsequent c e n tu ries
ua are indebted to th a Chinesa pilgrim s Fa-hien and
Yuan-chuang .Fa»hien
passed through Central A s ia on way to
India in 399/400 ft.D . while Yuarwchuang crossed the: region
in 6 2 9 /3 0 A .D . on his way back t a C hina a fter h is v i s i t
to I n d i a .
The two pilgrim s scholars daacribe . in d eta il
the condition of Buddhism in such famous Buddhist centres
of Taklamakan region of Central A s ia
as L a o «la n , Karashahr,
Khotan ,K u chi, Yarkand, K a sh g h ar ,T u rfa n ,N iy a,G n d a re atcuThere
wars pretty la rg a number o f man aster ia s at these cert t r ie s
where thousands of monks resided.Both tha sects of Buddhism ***’
tk«
H in ay an a and/ Nahavana flouriifcfcd and had a grtfat fo llo w in g .
These c i t i e s yielded a pretty large number o f manuscripts
o f important Buddhist texts belonging to tha Hinavana.
Mahay ah a and the \Ia.i r ay-in a se cts of Buddhism.
Besides the places mentioned above, Buddhism was
widely
prevalent a ll over the h il l y region between the
TaidLm-basin and the v alley atf the upper S in d h *
Fa-hien
h as given a graphic description o f the predominance of
Buddhism a ll over the region .Yuan-chwang also
saw
abundant traces o f Buddhism in t h is re g io n .B a lk h was a
g re at centre o f Buddhism and had one hundred monasteries
containing three thousand monks. Othefc cen tres o f
Buddhism were GLhazni, Kunduz and various other places
between Badakshan and Kashghar.
Buddhism was,however,on decline in the time of
Yuan-chwiang in the land between the Amu and S y r Qarya,
Yuan-chwang did not see any trace o f Buddhism in th is
r e g io n . B ut the influence of Buddhism had not completely
waned. The g r e a t Khan of western Turks who liv e d west of
X s s iq Kol held Buddhism in high reverence .Yuan-chwang
received warm welcome at h is h ands. I t seems that
Buddhism had begun to exercise i t s influ en ce over the
western Tutks who were the dominant power in t h is
re g io n . The g re at Khan le a rn t Buddhist fa ith
from
the Indian monk Prabh&karaaitra o f Naland a .
yLLth th e ascendancy of Islam and th e expansion of
Islam ic cu lture in Central A s ia the d e c lin e of
Buddhism fa st set i n .
The centre of Buddhist a c tiv ity
now sh ifte d to Tibet where Buddhism was f i r s t introduced
in the seventh century in the reign of Sron-bSran- sHam-po
who under the influence of his tuo Buddhist queens
adopted Buddhist re lig io n and; had tem ple 3 and
monasteries b u il t a n d a. number of Buddhist tex ts
t r a n s la te d .
Among the: Buddhist centres of learning of ancient
I n d i a , Kashmir h a & a pride of place .A s a re su lt of
K a n isk a ’ s council, referred, to above there, burst forth
considerable lite ra r y a c tiv ity In the v alle y and soon a
galaxy of distin gu ish ed teachers and philosophers bias
produced who by t h a i r eruditio n and scho larship made
Kashmir a crad le of Buddhistic learning
for several
c e n tu r ie s . They attracted large number of adherents
and scholars not only from d if f e r e n t parts of the
country but also from abroad.The Chinese pilgrim s
Yuan-chuang and Q»kong
speak highly of these sc ho lars.
Gtdjuuring the. contents of t h e i r works Yuan-chuang remark
"thajtafc was evidence of g re at sduidy and re se a rc h .
In
them could be found an extraordinary insig h t into the
Buddhist lore of various kinds and also into the
Brahmanical l e a r n i n g ."
The Buddhist scholars of Kashmir were so inebriated
with missionary zeal and enthusiasm that they did not
rejnain content with confining t h a ir spheres of activ ity
w ithin the boundaries of th e valley but fe l t keen urge
to dissem inate and preach the gospal o f the Buddha
ix
across, the Pamirs
and. the Karakosura. Tha cont&ibutiQn
mads by Kashmir in that spreading of Buddhism in
C entral A s i a , C h in a and. T ib et i s s ig n ific a n t .Most of
tha B-uddhist m issionaries uho preached the Buddhist
fa ith in Central A s ia ,
either hailed from Kashmir or
u ara educated in Kashmir .Among the host of Kashmiri
m issio naries mention may be made of Uai.ro can a,
Slanghabhuti,
P uo yatrata,Dharraayasas, Buddhayaaas,
\Jiraalaksa, e t c . The most famous and cele brated
Buddhist savant of Central A s ia named Kumarajlva
though b o m
Tibetan
at Kuchi u a s e d u c a t e d
in Kashmir.Many
scholars also seceiaed th e ir i n i t i a l
education in Kashmir.
There are very feu works dealing with the history
of Buddhism in Central A s ia .K s h a n ik a S a h a 's " Buddhism
in Central A s i a " i s very b r ie f and sketchy and the
study is co n fined only to eastern Turkestan .The
highly erudite
e n title d
paper of the Russian
scholar L it v in sky
-Outline History of Buddhism in Central A s i a "
though very inform ative and scholarly is mainly based
on the^ archaeological sources and here too the study
has been confined only to a part of Central A s ia v i z .
Ultestern Turkttstan. No s ig n ific a n t attempt has been
made t i l l date to write a comprehensive and an authentic
account of Buddhism in Central A s ia based on
archaeo lo gical, ® pigraphic,num ism atic and l it e r a r y
[email protected] as said above numerous Kashmiri scholars
elected to uork outside In d i a in v ario u s parts of
Central A s ia .U n fo r tu n a te ly ,
the ancient records of
In d i a including these of Kashmir are g e n e ra lly silen t
abaut the missionary a c t i v i t i e s of her. scholars in
propogatif3g Buddhism in these far flung
B esid es the accounts of the Chinese
areas*
pilgrim s a good
amount of information of these celebrated sons of
Kashmir is a v a ila b le in Central A s ia n ,C h in e s e and
Tibetan documents which needed to be t a p p e d
for an
extensive a n a ly s is of the contribution o f Kashmiri
scholars in the development of Buddhist lore in
Central Aisi a . The present th e sis f i l l s in th is
v it a l lacuna
in the development of Buddhist l o r e .
B esides, presenting
an authentic and comprehensive
account of Buddhism in Central A s i a an attempt has
been made to d is c u s s in detail'- the co n trib u tio n s made
by Kashmiri. Buddhist scholars in
popularising the
Buddhist fa ith in Central A s i a .T o make the uork
o rig in a l and authentic use has been made of the
relevant 1 ite ra r y ,e p ig ra p h ic and archaeological
material a v a il a b l e on the su b ject.T he uork has been
divided into eig ht chapters.
Chapter I presents tha geography and topography of
Can te a l A s i a . A ls o , various routes leading to Central
Asia: from I n d i a and Kashmir have been described in
d etail.
In Chapter: I I attempt h a * been made to trade the
history of the introduction of Buddhism in various
partts of Central A s i a .
The study is baded on ep ig raph ic,
a r c h a e o lo g ic a l,t r a d it io n a l and lit e r a r y
sources*
Chapter I I I discu sses the progress o f Buddhism unde^the
Indo-Greek ru ler s and among the nomadic t r i b e s of
Central A s ia i . e . the aakas (scy th ian s)
and Kush an as
(yue-chis) t i l l the third cenfcury A , D . A b r ie f
desdription of the position of Buddhism in various
parts of Central A s ia ,d u r in g the fourth and the seventh
cen tu ries i s presented on the b a s is of the tr a v e l accounts
of the C hinese pilgrim s Fa-hien and Yuan-«chuang.
Chapter IV
traces a b r ie f history of Buddhism in
Kashmir from its i n i t i a l introduction in the third
century B .C . to the thirteenth century & . D .
Chapter \l discusses: various aspects of the
saocvastivada
Buddhism —
an important school of
Kashmir Buddhism. I t has been shown that there did
thrive, side by side other schools of buddhism also ,
in the v a l l e y .
Chapter V I
presents the accounts: of the l i f e
and
th a a c t i v i t i e s o f Kashmiri Buddhist scholars in the
spread of Buddhism in Central A s ia ,C h in a and T ib e t .
The chapter also presents an account of some Central
Asian and Tibetan Budxihist scholars who received
t h e ir i n i t i a l education in Kashmir.
C o n trib u tio n s to Buddhist lit e r a t u r e made by Kashmiri
Buddhist scholars forms the theme of chapter V I I .
The gradual development of t h is lit e r a t u r e from
H In ay an a ttutouah Wahavana t b l l the introduction
o f various esoteric
practices (Buddhist tan tr ism) ,
■&<&
has bean given and it has/shoun houu. Kashmiri
ctt'ft
scholars mere a c tiv e in writing t r e a t is e s or
tran slatin g vario us te x ts in a ll th e se branches of
iu d d h is t learning .S in c e the d i g i t
Buddhist
manuscripts a re an important source of information
on the h is t o r ic a l development o f Buddhist learning
and p ractices, separate treatment of the sanie forms
a part of t h is chapter.
In chaptar V I I I e ffo r t has been made to trac e
Kashm ir’ s c o n tr ib u tio n s to Buddhist art and
a rch itectu re in Central A s i a and T i b e t .
»*«
XIII
In the conduct o f present study,
I have received
encouragement and help from various people. I express
my sincere gratitude to my supervisor D r . B .K.K au l,D em bi,
D ir e c to r ,
CCAS, Kashmir University
for h is valuable
guidance and continued encouragement. I also express
my thanks to D r . Z .
L . ZJalla and Sri 3 .L .B h a n
for their
h e lp .
Hy thanks are due to the concerned people of the
•lib r a r ie s of Research and Publication Department,
o f Central Asian Stu dies Lib rary ,
U n iv e rsity ;
Sri Pratap Singh L ib ra ry ,
Panjab University Lib rary ,
in
Iqbal Lib ra ry ,
providing
Kashmir
Srinagar and
Chandigarh for t h e ir co-operdtLon
me the relevant data a v a ila b le with them.
I am also thankful to the a u th o r itie s of ICSSR,
Zone,
Centre
Northern
for providing me a trav ellin g grant for data
c o lle c t io n .
L a s t bu t n o t t h e l e a s t I express my p r o f o u n d
gratitude to my family members for th eir co-operation
and constant help in various re sp e cts.
Advaitavadini Kaul
Srinagar,
IJoVj^nber,
Kashmir.
17,
1987.