THE BUDDHIST PERIOD The systems called Jainism and Buddhism had their roots in prehistoric philosophies, but were founded respectively by Vard hamana Mahavira and Gotama Buddha, both of whom were preaching in Magadha during the reign of Bimbisara (c. 52o B.c.).
The Emperor Asoka.—During the next two hundred years Buddhism spread over northern India, perhaps receiving a new impulse from the Greek kingdoms in the Punjab. About the middle of the 3rd century B.C. Asoka, the Maurya emperor who reigned from 264 B.C. to 227 B.C., became a zealous convert to Buddhism. He is said to have supported 64,00o Buddhist priests; he founded many religious houses, and his central kingdom is called the Land of the Monasteries (Vihara or Behar) to this day. He did for Buddhism what Constantine effected for Christianity; he organized it on the basis of a state religion. This he accom plished by five means—by a council to settle the faith, by edicts promulgating its principles, by a state department to watch over its purity, by missionaries to spread its doctrines, and by an authoritative collection of its sacred books. In 246 B.C. Asoka is said to have convened at Pataliputra (Patna) the third Buddhist council of one thousand elders (the tradition however rests on no actual evidence that we possess). In a number of edicts, both before and after the synod, he published throughout India the grand principles of the faith. Such edicts are still found graven deep upon pillars, in caves and on rocks, from the Yusafzai valley beyond Peshawar on the north-western frontier, through the heart of Hindustan, to Kathiawar and Mysore on the south and Orissa in the east. Tradition states that Asoka set up thousands of memorial columns ; and the thirty-five inscriptions extant in our own day show how widely these royal sermons were spread over India. He created a special department to convert the aborigines, and he was equally vigilant of their material interests. Wells were to be dug and trees planted along the roads ; a system of medical aid was established throughout his kingdom and the con quered provinces, as far as Ceylon, for both man and beast. Offi cers were appointed to watch over domestic life and public mo rality, and to promote instruction among the women as well as the youth.
Asoka recognized proselytism by peaceful means as a state duty. The rock inscriptions record how he sent forth missionaries "to the utmost limits of the barbarian countries," to "intermingle among all unbelievers" for the spread of religion. They shall mix equally with Brahmans and beggars, with the dreaded and the despised, both within the kingdom "and in foreign countries, teaching better things." Conversion is to be effected by persuasion, not by the sword. This character of a proselytizing faith which wins its victories by peaceful means has remained a prominent feature of Buddhism to the present day. Asoka, however, not only took measures to spread the religion ; he also endeavoured to secure its orthodoxy. He collected the body of doctrine into an authoritative version, in the Magadhi language or dialect of his central kingdom in Behar—a version which for two thousand years has formed the canon (pitakas) of the southern Buddhists.
The fourth and last of the great councils was held in Kashmir under the Kushan king Kanishka (see below). This council, which consisted of five hundred members, compiled in the San skrit language three commentaries on the Buddhist faith. These commentaries supplied in part materials for the Tibetan or north ern canon, drawn up at a subsequent period. The northern canon, or, as the Chinese proudly call it, the "greater vehicle of the law," includes many later corruptions or developments of the Indian faith as originally embodied by Asoka in the "lesser vehicle," or canon of the southern Buddhists.
Buddhism and Brahmanism.—Buddhism never ousted Brah manism from any large part of India. The two systems co-existed as popular religions during more than a thousand years (2 5o B.C. to about A.D. 800). Certain kings and certain eras were intensely Buddhistic ; but the continuous existence of Brahmanism is abun dantly proved from the time of Alexander (327 B.c.) downwards. The historians who chronicled his march, and the Greek ambas sador Megasthenes, who succeeded them (30o B.c.) in their lit erary labours, bear witness to the predominance of the old faith in the period immediately preceding Asoka. Inscriptions, local legends, Sanskrit literature and the drama disclose the survival of Brahman influence during the next six centuries (2 5o B.C. A.D. 400). From A.D. 40o we have the evidence of the Chinese pilgrims, who toiled through Central Asia into India as the birth place of their faith. Fa-Hien entered India from Afghanistan, and journeyed down the whole Gangetic valley to the Bay of Bengal in A.D. 399-413. He found Brahman priests equally honoured with Buddhist monks, and temples to the Indian gods side by side with the religious houses of his own faith. Hsiian Tsang also travelled to India from China by the Central Asia route. His journey extended from A.D. 629 to 645, and everywhere through out India he found the two faiths eagerly competing for the suf frages of the people. The monuments of the great Buddhist mon archs, Asoka and Kanishka, confronted him from the time he neared the Punjab frontier ; but so also did the temples of Siva and his "dread" queen Bhima. Throughout north-western India he found Buddhist convents and monks surrounded by "swarms of heretics." The political power was also divided, although Bud dhist sovereigns predominated. A Buddhist monarch ruled over ten kingdoms in Afghanistan. At Peshawar the great monastery built by Kanishka was deserted, but the populace remained faith ful. In Kashmir king and people were devout Buddhists ; in the country identified with Jaipur, on the other hand, the inhabitants were devoted to heresy and war.
Decline of Buddhism.—During the next few centuries Brah manism gradually became the ruling religion. There are legends of persecutions instigated by Brahman reformers, such as Kuma rila Bhatta and Sankara-Acharya. But the downfall of Buddhism seems to have resulted from natural decay, and from new move ments of religious thought, rather than from any general sup pression by the sword. Its extinction is contemporaneous with the rise of Hinduism, and belongs to a subsequent part of this sketch. In the 11 th century, only outlying states, such as Kashmir and Orissa, remained faithful; and before the Mohammedans fairly came upon the scene Buddhism as a popular faith had disappeared from India. During the last ten centuries Buddhism has been a banished religion from its native home. But it has won greater triumphs in its exile than it could ever have achieved in the land of its birth. It has created a literature and a religion for more than a third of the human race, and has profoundly affected the beliefs of the rest. In India its influence has survived its separate existence : it supplied a basis upon which Brahmanism finally developed from the creed of a caste into the religion of the people.