Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 T H I R D M O O N 06a stick, I advanced slowly.” And that is how, at the second watch of thenight, he reached the village where his fellow travellers were staying.It was such pilgrims who spread the Mahayana teachings. HsuanTsaing became a great Dharma master in China, founding a new schoolof Buddhism based on the teachings he brought home. A Tibetan in residenceat Nalanda at the same time, Thonmi Sambhota, was responsiblefor converting the Tibetan king, who proclaimed Buddhism the statereligion when he returned. They also came from Sumatra, Java, SriLanka, and Korea. Great teaching monasteries arose in those countriesthat were modelled on the mahaviharas. Those in Tibet lasted a thousandyears—until the Cultural Revolution.The Chinese pilgrims of the seventh century describe the dedicationand moral integrity of the monks residing at Nalanda, but with time thischanged. Nalanda grew fabulously rich, and monks began to study formaterial gain, for positions at court, or for prestige. By the tenth andeleventh centuries, Buddhism in India was mostly confined to Bihar andBengal where the mahaviharas were.When the Muslim invasions of India came, the armies destroyed anytemples they found and killed all the priests, or monks, in them. Thereis a graphic description by the Muslim historian Minhaju-s Sirj of thedestruction of the Odantapuri mahavihara, which was near toNalanda:Ikhtiyar-ud-din-Muhammad, with great vigour and audacity,rushed in at the gate of the fort and gained possession of theplace. Great plunder fell into the hands of the victors. Mostof the inhabitants of the place were Brahmins with shavenheads (Buddhist monks). They were put to death. Large numbersof books were found, and when the Muhammadans sawthem they called for some persons to explain their contents,but all of the men had been killed. It was discovered that thewhole fort and city was a place of study.2 1 2