144 BUDDHIST STUDIES

Contrast this situation with that of the Jainas, whose major sects,
though only two in number, were from almost the earliest times
completely estranged.
12
Digambaras rejected the validity of nearly
all texts in the Svetambara canon and simply produced their own
secondary scriptures. The definition of conduct suitable to a monk,
moreover, was an issue of such magnitude that Digambaras viewed
Svetambara clerics as nothing more than advanced lay disciples.
Members of these two schools have traditionally not set foot in
each other's temples, and it is indeed only very recently that even
the most tentative Digambara-Svetambara dialogue has been ini-
tiated. It is fair to say, then, that the divisiveness associated with
sectarianism was much more severe amongJainas than among the
Buddhists; such divisiveness cannot, therefore, reasonably be sug-
gested as central to the downfall of Buddhism in India.
We now come to the most important and complex of the issues
raised by Mitra, that of the Buddhists' failure to pay sufficient
attention to their laity. This tendency seems to have been appar-
ent from an extremely early period, for the very term "Buddhist"
itself generally referred only to those who had actually left the
household and taken up the yellow robes of the mendicant. While
there certainly existed large numbers of lay people who supported
Buddhism, there seems to have been no clearly defined set of
criteria (vows, social codes, modes of worship, etc.) whereby these
individuals could be identified as belonging to a separate and
unique group within the larger society. WhereasJaina clerics were,
according to canonical evidence, always closely involved with their
lay people, their Buddhist counterparts tended to remain aloof
from all non-mendicants. The Jainas moreover, eventually pro-
duced some fifty texts on conduct proper to a Jaina lay person
(.fravaluicara),13 while the Buddhists, as far as we know, managed
only one (and that not until the eleventh century) .14 There can
be little doubt, then, that the sense of religious participation or
identification felt by the Buddhist lay community was often a weak
one at best. This situation probably goes far towards explaining
the lack of any "grass-roots" revival once the trappings of the
monastic establishment, viz., the great university centres, had been
destroyed.
Serious as their neglect of the need for lay involvement was,
the Buddhists committed an even greater error by failing to re-
spond meaningfully to the threat posed by the waves of bhakti that
DISAPPEARANCE OF BUDDlllSM AND TIlE SURVIVAL OF ]AINISM 145
swept across India from the fourth or fifth century onwards. The
popularity of the various Hindu devotional cults, and particularly
of those associated with RaIna and must have engendered
a great many lay defections from the Buddhist ranks. This prob-
lem was compounded by the depiction of the Buddha himself. in
the Mahiibhiirata, certain Purii1}as, and Jayadeva's Gitagovinda, as
nothing more than another avatiira of Buddhist monks
were perhaps unaware of the grave dangers represented by these
developments; not a single extant text shows any attempt either
to assimilate the popular Hindu deities into Buddhist mythology
or to refute the notion of Buddha as avatiira. The latter point was
perhaps most crucial, for by their very silence Buddhist writers
seemed to lend tacit support to the Hinduization of their founder;
this process certainly contributed to the undermining of whatever
sense of uniqueness the laity may have felt.
The response of the Jainas to similar pressures was markedly
different. They attempted to counteract Hindu suggestions (such
as those which survive in the Bhiigavatapuriir,ta) 16 that their
first Tirthankara, had been an incarnation of by attacking
the "divine" status of himself, particularly through a criti-
cism of the immoral behaviour shown by the avatiiras.
17
More
important, they produced entire alternate versions of the
Riimiiyar,ta18 and Mahiibhiirata,19 wherein RaIna and were
depicted as worldly Jaina heroes subject to the laws of Jain a ethics.
RaIna, for instance, does not kill RavaQ.a in the Jaina rendition of
the tale; this deed is instead performed by his brother
and RaIna is reborn in heaven for his strict observance of ahi1flSii.
Such a transformation was not possible for whose deeds of
violence and treachery were too numerous to cover up; thus, he
is depicted as going to hell for a long period after his earthly
death. The point here is that the Jainas sought to outflank the
bhakti movement by taking its main cult-figures as their own, while
placing these figures in a uniquely Jaina context.
This effort. together with the careful attention to lay conduct
referred to above, makes it clear that Jainas were much more
concerned with maintaining the internal cohesion of their lay
than were the Buddhists. It is tempting to aSsume that
III this fact we have found the key distinction between these two
traditions, the fundamental element in terms of which the demise
of one and survival of the other may be explained. Closer exam-
146 BUDDHIST STUDIES
ination of Jaina history, however, calls such an assumption into
question, for it seems that even the most extreme measures un-
dertaken to hold the laity together were not in themselves crucial
to the ultimate fate of the community.
We have already seen the accommodation of Hindu elements
with reference to bhallti; this tendency was carried much further
by Digambaras of the Karnataka region, who introduced, for ex-
ample, a set of saT{lSkiiras (worldly rituals, e.g., those pertaining to
birth, weddings, death, etc.) virtually indistinguishable from those
of the surrounding Hindu majority.20 While this certainly consti-
tuted "paying attention to the laity", it failed to prevent a serious
decline in the overall strength of Jaina society in the South.
Svetfunbaras and Digambaras of the North, on the other hand,
resorted to very few such measures, and yet remained, relatively
prosperous.
It will be apparent that all of the "explanations" thus far of-
fered for the decline of Buddhism, whether referring to external
pressures or to inherent structural weaknesses, reflect a purely
socia-historical perspective. Having found each of these theories
wanting in some degree, particularly in their ability to explain the
divergent fates of Buddhism andJainism, we should perhaps tum
our attention away from strictly social issues and focus instead
upon the area of doctrine. Here, one suspects, may be found
within Buddhism some element that rendered it uniquely suscep-
tible to certain of the destructive influences discussed above.
The impact of Buddhist:Jaina differences over the existence of
a soul, in terms of the greater or lesser degree of Hindu hostility
resulting therefrom, has already been considered. Probably, both
heterodox traditions were equally subject to direct orthodox ag-
gression. It must, therefore, be asked which of them was more
doctrinally open to the force of Hindu sabotage, the insidious wean-
ing away of lay support by absorption of heterodox beliefs and
cults into the Hindu sphere. In this connection. one is immediate-
ly struck by the Mahayana Buddhist doctrine of the heavenly
bodhisattvas, a class of exalted beings having absolutely no counter-
part inJaina belief. The origin ofthis doctrine. which asserted the
existence of numerous figures who had attained the enlighten-
ment of the Buddha and yet chose to remain forever in the saT{lSo:ric
realm, is not entirely clear. On the philosophical level, it probably
developed out of dissatisfaction with the earlier notion of the
DISAPPEARANCE OF BUDDHISM AND 1HE SURVIVAL OF JAINISM 147
arhats, individuals whose apparent personal attainment of
seemed to conflict with the fundamental tenet of no-self. More to
the point of the present discussion, the heavcnly bodhisattvas may
well have represented an attempt to provide some outlet for the
devotional needs of the Buddhist laity. These beings, howevcr,
were conceived of in such a way that the very fact of their enor-
mous popularity worked for, rather than against, the destruction
of Buddhism in India. This took place because the great bodhisattvas
were described as completely supramundane by nature; rather
than providing a human model of struggle and attainment, they
became virtual gods, who dispensed worldly boons and even spiri-
tual grace in a manner not unlike that of the Hindu deities. At
last, the place of the historical Buddha himself was functionally
usurped by these figures; although the Buddha remained nomi-
nally the most hallowed of beings, the bulk of popular interest
and devotion was centred not upon him but upon the great
bodhisattvas, especially Maiijusri and Avalokiteiivara.
21
While Jainas also allowed certain non-human figures to playa
part in their rituals, these were always limited to mere spirits
who were of lower status than Jaina mendicants. The
functioned as "guardians" of the holy shrines of the
TirthaiJ.karas; no great divinities on the Hindu model ever gained
legitimacy in either Jaina doctrine or worship. Thus, there was
little common ground to support the develapment of a subversive
synthesis with Hindu belief and practice. By embracing the nobon
of the heavenly bodhisattvas, however, Buddhism laid itself open to
precisely this sort of synthesis, particularly with the powerful Natha
cult of the tantric Saivite tradition. It was this fact, we believe, that
finally made the essential difference in the respective abilities of
Jainism and Buddhism to survive.
That various Buddhist temples fell into the hands of Hindu
groups is well known; notable examples are the shrines at Bodh-
gaya and Saranath, returned to Buddhist control only in modern
times.
22
What has remained obscure, however, is the exact sequence
of developments whereby such Hindu appropriation took place.
Certain little-known discoveries by the late Indian historian M.
Govinda Pai cast great light upon this question, and also provide
material in direct support of our contention that Buddhism was
subverted by the cult of the heavenly bodhisattvas.
25
In the suburbs
of Mangalore, a city in southern Karnataka, stands a Saivite temple
148 BUDDHIST STUDIES
known as Kadri-Maiijunatha; "Maiijunatha" designates the Siva-
ling a enshrined therein. Now, although Siva is commonly referred
to by titles terminating in "niitha" (e.g., Somanatha, Oxpkaranatha,
Kcdaranatha, ViSvanatha), this particular name "Maiijunatha" is
nowhere else attested as a proper epithet of the god. Intrigued by
this strange fact, Pai undertook to work out a chronological his-
tory of the temple in question. He found, first of all, that it had
once been a Buddhist monastery and temple called Kadarika-vihara;
within the shrine room stands an image of the Buddha. More
important, from our point of view, is the additional presence
therein ofa beautiful bronze image of the bodhisattvaAvalokiteSvara,
also called LokeSvara%4. An inscription at the base of the LokeSvara
image credits its establishment to one king Kundavarma of the
Alupa dynasty, stating that "Kundavdrma, the Alupa king. a great
devotee of Biilacandrasikhiima1Ji ('he who has the crescent moon
as his crest:iewel,' i.e. Siva), consecrated the image of Lord
LokeSvara in this pleasant vihiira called Kadarika, four thousand
one hundred and sixty-eight years after KaIiyuga" (i.e., 1068 A . D . . 2 . ~
The interesting point here is that an image of Lokdvara should
have been erected in a Buddhist temple by a king who was de-
voted to Siva. Clearly it was not the Buddha who was being wor-
shipped, but a bodhisattva who had in some way been integrated
with Siva.
Concerning the identification of LokeSvara with AvalokiteSvara.
see B. Bhattacarya, The Indian Buddhist Iconography, Calcutta, 1958,
Chapter 4. Also in this connection, compare the antelope skin
appearing on the image above with that of the Sanchi
AvalokiteSvara (ninth century). (The latter figure is discussed by
John Irwin in the Victoria & Albert Museum Yearbook, 1973.)
It is interesting to note that the Kadri LokeSvara image has not
been mentioned either by Irwin or by Marie-Therese de Mallman
in her book Introduction a ['etude d'AvalokiteSvara, Paris, 1948. Pai
has shown, further, that Lokesvara was identified with
Matsyendranatha, a Saivite saint said to have become divine by
attaining oneness with Sakti.26 Numerous caves in the vicinity of
Kadri are dedicated to ascetics of the Natha order which this saint
established, and an image of Matsyendranatha himself (identified
by the mark of a fish) adorns the outer wall of the "Kadarika-
vihara" temple. Considering the name "Maiijunatha" in light of all
this information, Pai concluded that the vihiira was originally a