Chinese Pilgrims Check It out

Two other famous pilgrims to India whose accounts of their trips have survived were Chinese Buddhists. Faxian passed through India in the fourth century C.E. (keep in mind Indian dating at this point is speculative) . Xuanzang made the 10,000-mile round trip journey three centuries later, following along the Silk Road trade up through Kashmir and then down into north central India where Buddha had lived and thought.

Faxian marveled at the peace, prosperity, and high culture of the Hindus, though his primary focus was on the Buddhists sites he had come to see. Having grown up in China, war-torn through much of its history, Faxian was deeply impressed by a land whose leaders were more concerned with promoting commerce and religion than with slautering portions of the population.

Faxian noted that it was possible to travel from one end of India to other without fear of crime and even without a passport! The culture was safe, stable, and deeply spiritual. By the time Xuanzang showed up, however, the effects of the Kali Yuga were setting in more firmly. (Remember the Kali era from Chapter 1, " Time for God", in which human behavior degenerates to its worse possible point?) He was robbed twice and almost murdered on another occasion!

Xuanzang spent several extended periods studying at Nalanda Buddhist University in Bihar. Buddhism was in a serious decline in India by the mid-600s, but Xuanzang was still able to study Sanskrit, grammar, and logic as well as weighty Buddhist philosophical tones.

About three thousand Buddhist monks and 150 faculty lived in the University, but none-Buddhist students were welcome, too. Hindu fields of study the Vedas there in the curriculum.You could learn the Vedas there or study Vedic mathematics and astronomy as well as the Hindu medical arts and Indian literature.

Ironically, the concentration of Buddhist talent at large centers like the Nalanda was a major contributing reason to the fall of Buddhism in India. Hindu students usually studied in small groups in the homes of their teachers, While Buddhist students congreated at large centers like the Nalanda. Serious Buddhist practices were carried out at the monasteries. Hindus perform their spiritual practices in their homes or in the woods or mountains.

When the Muslims came to town around 1000 B.C.E., they simply burned down the Buddhist university-monasteries and killed all the monks. Poof!-Buddhism was gone. The only way the Muslims could have wiped out Hinduism was to burn down every Hindu home in the country. Not even the most fanatical Muslim invader was capable of that!