Buddhism in the Western Himalayan Region as Revealed from the Literary & Archaeological Sources

Abstract

The very thought of the Buddhist western Himalayas makes one's imagination flash back to the nascent days of Indian history when Buddhism had become a religion of the masses in north India. The circumstantial evidence suggests that the message of the Buddha echoed in the western Himalayan region on both sides of the Great Divide within a few decades after the Great Decease (544 BCE) through the missionary activities of the Sthavirs, but in the absence of evidence, nothing is known about that. However, the recent archaeological evidences affirm the pre-Ashokan existence of institutionalised Buddhism in Kashmir. The discovery of the Buddhist vihar at Soura, which King Surendra built and the Buddhist devices on the ancient coins of ancient janpads and oligarchies of this region are some of such pieces of evidence. Under Emperor Ashoka, the regional Buddhist Magadha Sangh emerged as a pan-Indian religion, and Buddhism established its institutional infrastructure in the entire western Himalayan region. Because of the Sarvastivadi philosophical ideology of the Kashmiri Buddhists, several Buddhist monks from Kashmir were invited by the emperor to participate in the Third Great Council convened at Pataliputra. In that Council, the decision was taken to send missions to different geographical regions. The Chinese pilgrim Hiuen-Tsang has spoken at length about the Buddhist missionary and institutional activities of the Emperor Ashoka in Kashmir and its tributaries, and the Kullu kingdom (K'iu-lu-to) in the inner Beas Valley of this region. King Menander, a contemporary of Pushyamitra Shunga (c. BCE 187-151), remained always conscious of the anti-Buddhist views of the Shunga king, and he effectively buttressed the anti-Buddhist influences entering his territory. The Greek potentate extended whole-hearted patronage to Buddhism in his empire. The coins issued by King Menander aptly bore a Buddhist device, the dharmachakra and a legend, Basileus Soteros Menandros. It was because of his patronage of Buddhism that many vihars came up in the upper Kangra region. After the Indo-Greek King Menander, the next important kings responsible for the propagation of Buddhism in the western Himalayan region and beyond its frontiers were again the aliens – the Indo-Scythians, Kushans. The Buddhism that the Kushan emperor Kanishka propagated was a popular version of the cloistered philosophical concept. That popular version was developed on the pan- Asian scale as Mahayan Buddhism under his patronage. Thus, in the western Himalayan region, Buddhism was cast into a popular mould for the first time. It was from Magadh in the central Gangetic basin that the Buddhist doctrine proliferated under Emperor Ashoka, but it was from Gandhar that the Buddhist philosophical doctrine of the BCE era emerged in flesh and blood, duly clad in the loose toga-like robe.