Gods And the Heretics Crisis and Ruin of Indian Buddhism, Appendices by Federic Abarba

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Language: English Pages: 676 About the Book The Gods and the Heretics calls into question the mainstream idea of a unitary Indian history and investigates the fracture caused by the rise and structuring of Buddhism within the Brahmanical society, a fracture that would never be recomposed and would result-accomplice the Islamic advance in the twelfth century-in the disappearance of the Religion of Dharma. Buddhism may be seen as an antinomian system opposed to both vaidika and theistic Brahmans, capable of proposing a model of society and state antithetical to the agrarian horizon of the varna state society. For this very reason, it was doomed to be gradually, and often violently, reduced to impotence. The attempt of the Mahayana to respond to the changed conditions was only partially effective. Eventually, the Buddhists disappeared or adapted themselves to the situation except for the north-eastern part of the Subcontinent. Doctrinal debates were instrumental in the suppression of the Buddhist elites, mainly formed by intellectuals of Brahmanical descent, this being proof of a dramatic rift in the brahmanavarna. The Vajrayana, which opened towards the outcastes and grew thanks to the protection of Pala rule, theorised the use of violence as the only means for the survival of the religion, this being actualised by way of a paradoxical recovery of the antinomian positions of early Buddhism. The compromise between the orthodox powers and the Muslims eventually issued in the suppression of all Buddhists institutions. The book draws largely on the extremely numerous Brahmanical sources, both literary and iconographical. Equally essential are the archaeological sources, almost always over-looked and little understood. About the Author GIOVANNI VERARDI has been professor of Ind