A friend's analysis to the question on whether Hindus persecuted Buddhists & Jains.
Kumarila Bhatta’s story in ‘The Age of Sankara’ talks about Hinduism being at loggerheads with Jainism.
The ‘Ashokavadana’ talks about Ashoka massacring several Jains because they depicted Buddha as being subservient to ‘Nirgrantha Jnataputta’.
Adi Sankara’s stories have him debating and destroying Buddhist monasteries, but the wager was such that the loser would have to give up his life, so it was a double-edged sword.
Also, the central argument here seems to be ‘Buddhism used to be the prevalent religion in India - as evidenced by Hiuen Tsang and Fa Hien - but wasn’t around 1000 AD, so it must have been persecuted by Hinduism.
But this argument is double-edged - we know for certain that India was Hindu before the Buddha. Megasthenes writes in 323 BCE that Hindus were worshiping Surya (Dionysus) and Indra (Heracles) with no mention of Buddha. Then how did Buddhism come to be the prevalent religion when Fa Hien and Hiuen Tsang visited? By the same logic, we would have to say that Buddhism persecuted Hinduism and got all the Hindus to convert.
If Buddhists say that they converted Hindus through logic, then we have to allow for the same kind of conversion of Buddhists to Hindus as well.
My observation that Adi Sankaracharya destroyed the Buddhist town of Nagarjunakonda near Srisailam is based on BS; the source (Albert Longhurst) just cites “local legends” to prove his claim. https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.84003
I did not have the level of knowledge I currently have about Indian history when I first read this story about Adi Sankara. Now we know that he lived around 550 BCE and Nagarjunakonda existed as a city when Hiuen Tsang visited it in 640 CE. So it is impossible that Adi Sankara destroyed the city.
I found these oft-quoted references to the persecution of Jains and Buddhists:
1. Mihirakula the Hun
2. Sasanka of Gauda (Bengal)
3. A charge of 8000 Jains being killed in Madurai
4. The Epigrapha Indica accounts
5. Adi Sankara and Nagarjunakonda
https://karthiknavayan.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/ow-the-buddhists-and-jains-were-persecuted-in-ancient-india/amp/
Of these, Mihirakula’s account does not apply because he was a Hun, was defeated by Hindu kings (Baladitya and Yashovarma) and according to the story, the Buddhists invited the massacre upon themselves.
Same story with Sasanka - he was defeated by Harsha (a Hindu/ Buddhist king - they gloss over the fact that Harsha attended the Kumbh Mela in Prayag and gave away his treasury and led several armed campaigns (he was famously defeated by Pulakesi - none of these smack of Buddhism).
The Madurai ‘massacre’ is actually attributed to Jnanasambandar & given no contemporary sources, is considered as a myth. Tamizh scholar MeenakshiSundaram points out that this is a myth. The paintings show Jata & beard, while Sambandar describes how Jains would pluck off their har in agony to be without hair. Thread debunking it. Jain gurus like Melsiddhamur Jeenalaya Guru have denied this. Details here.
We know that Adi Sankara could not have destroyed Nagarjunakonda he lived in ~550 BCE.
TrueIndology has corrected the confusion about Pushyamitra, the Maurya, the great-grandson of Ashoka, who demolished Stupas. This is wrongly attributed to Pushyamitra Shunga.
The Epigrapha Indica accounts are correct - there are two kings who indeed say that they persecuted Jains. But then we also have several accounts of Hindu kings persecuting each other (Cholas persecuting Cheras, Lankans, Chalukyas, Pandyas, Srivijaya empire), Pallavas persecuting Chalukyas, Pandyas persecuting Lankans et al.
TrueIndology: Samuddharita Samaya Chatustaya: patronizing all four main sects(=Shavism, Vaishnavism, Jainism, Buddhism) equally-used by many kings /chieftains in India from Kashmir to Kanyakumari from 3rd century to 13th century as a matter of pride.
All we can say is that unlike Islam and Christianity, there is no scriptural sanction for persecuting ‘others’ in Hinduism. Individual kings may have persecuted ‘others’ - this is true even in our legends (see Jarasandha) but other Hindu kings have stepped in correct the situation.
The proof of the pudding is what we find at the holiest Buddhist and Jain sites. We are told that Hindus appropriated Badrinath, Tirupati, Srisailam and Sabarimalai. But we do not have any record that these places were sacred to Buddhists. On the other hand, Badrinath is mentioned in the Mahabharata and there are Sthala Purana stories for Tirupati, Srisailam and Sabarimalai. So we should expect to find Hindu structures there.
At the sacred Buddhist sites of Lumbini, Gaya, Sarnath and Kushinagar, we find Buddhist structures.
TrueIndology: The Bodh Gaya temple was built by a Shaivite Brahmin. In the wake of invasions, Buddhists abandoned Bodh Gaya & fled. Hindus took care of the temple & armed Sadhus defended it from the Mughal army.
At Shravanabelagola, we find Jain structures.
At Kashi, Ayodhya and Mathura, we find mosques. That should tell us who persecuted who.
