Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3Eliot, Charles
Religion
Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3
Eliot, Charles
Asia -- Religion; Buddhism; Hinduism
The motives which prompted this eastward movement have been variously
connected with religious persecution in India, missionary enterprise,
commerce and political adventure. The first is the least probable.
There is little evidence for the systematic persecution of Buddhists
in India and still less for the persecution of Brahmans by Buddhists.
Nor can these Indian settlements be regarded as primarily religious
missions. The Brahmans have always been willing to follow and
supervise the progress of Hindu civilization, but they have never
shown any disposition to evangelize foreign countries apart from Hindu
settlements in them. The Buddhists had this evangelistic temper and
the journeys of their missionaries doubtless stimulated other classes
to go abroad, but still no inscriptions or annals suggest that the
Hindu migrations to Java and Camboja were parallel to Mahinda's
mission to Ceylon. Nor is there any reason to think that they were
commanded or encouraged by Indian Rajas, for no mention of their
despatch has been found in India, and no Indian state is recorded to
have claimed suzerainty over these colonies. It therefore seems likely
that they were founded by traders and also by adventurers who followed
existing trade routes and had their own reasons for leaving India. In
a country where dynastic quarrels were frequent and the younger sons
of Rajas had a precarious tenure of life, such reasons can be easily
imagined. In Camboja we find an Indian dynasty established after a
short struggle, but in other countries, such as Java and Sumatra,
Indian civilization endured because it was freely adopted by native
chiefs and not because it was forced on them as a result of conquest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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