mahendra varma pallava

[Anand V. Hudli]

On Fri, 18 Jun 1999 08:32:51 -0700, Ravi <miinalochanii at YAHOO.COM> wrote:

>namaste Anand
>
>In the book Acharya Calls, shrI shrI chandrasekharendra sarasvatI
>svAmigaL quotes from mattavilAsa prahAsana of mahendra varma pallava in
>the context of why buddhism  declined.
>
>svAmiji says that a religion falls or rises based on how sincerely its
>adherents follow the original precepts of the religion. From
>mattavilAsa, one sees that many buddhists monks of that time gave into
>bad things like licentiousness etc. Here he points out the inherent
>danger in a monastic order which admits both men and women. Fall of
>buddhism is due its own shortcomings and lack of true followers.
>

 In the book, "The Vedas", the Paramacharya mentions that upon his
 examination of some literary works of the period when Buddhism was
 supposed to be flourishing in India, he noted that Vedic practices
 were quite commonly being followed. He says Buddhism never got a firm
 foothold in India and could never counter the influence of the Vedic
 religion. He goes on to point out that the Buddhist decline was caused
 by the mImAsakas and the naiyAyika-tArkikas (the logicians), not the
 advaitins. In support of this, he mentions that Shankara's criticism of
 Buddhism is significantly less than his criticisms of mImAmsakas, and the
 logicians or more generally the dualists. When Shankara appeared on the
 Indian scene, most of the Buddhist influence had already left India.

 Anand