Religious Movements: Jainism and Buddhism: Spread, decline and legacy

The eight great places are the four main sites, Lumbini, Bodh Gaya, Sarnath and Kushinagar, and four sites of miracles: Rajagriha (the taming of the elephant Nalagiri), Vaishali (the offering of honey by a monkey), Shravasti (the twin miracle) and Sankassa (the descent from the Trayastrimsha heaven). Sanchi, in Madhya Pradesh, is one of the most famous Buddhist monuments, built from Ashoka's time onwards, but the Buddha never visited it and no event of his life is set there.

Standard textbooks credit Kumaragupta I (c. 415-455 CE) with founding the Nalanda mahavihara; Xuanzang names its first royal founder as Shakraditya, a name generally identified with Kumaragupta I (whose title was Mahendraditya). Later rulers, including Harshavardhana and the Pala kings, added endowments; Xuanzang says that Harsha granted the revenue of a hundred villages. The ruins of the Nalanda Mahavihara in Bihar were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016. Harsha was not a Gupta, Dharmapala was a Pala, and Ashoka's link with Nalanda is only a later legend.

Statements 1 and 2 are correct. Vajrayana ('the thunderbolt vehicle'), also called Tantric Buddhism, grew out of the Mahayana in the second half of the first millennium CE. It stresses mantras, ritual gestures (mudras), cosmic diagrams (mandalas) and initiation by a guru, promising a faster path to enlightenment. From the monasteries of eastern India it was carried to Tibet, where it became the dominant tradition. Statement 3 reverses the order: Vajrayana came after the Mahayana, and Ashoka's Buddhism belongs to the early, pre- Mahayana phase.

Statements 1 and 2 are correct. Buddhism first reached Tibet under King Songtsen Gampo in the seventh century. In the eighth century King Trisong Detsen invited the Nalanda scholar Shantarakshita and the tantric master Padmasambhava, who are remembered for founding the first monastery at Samye; Padmasambhava is revered as Guru Rinpoche. After a period of decline, Atisha Dipankara Shrijnana, a senior teacher of Vikramashila, reached Tibet around 1042 and led a revival. Statement 3 is therefore wrong: Atisha revived Buddhism in Tibet; he did not introduce it.

Kumarajiva (late fourth to early fifth century CE) was born in Kucha, an oasis kingdom on the northern Silk Road, to an Indian father and a Kuchean princess. Brought to Chang'an in 401 CE, he led a large state-supported translation bureau that rendered key Mahayana texts into Chinese, including the Lotus Sutra, the Diamond Sutra and Madhyamaka treatises of Nagarjuna. His fluent translations shaped Chinese Buddhism for centuries. Tibetan translation began only in the seventh-eighth centuries, and Pali was the language of the Sri Lankan Theravada.

Statements 1 and 2 are correct. Tradition says that a twelve-year famine in Magadha, around the time of Chandragupta Maurya, sent Bhadrabahu and his followers to Karnataka, while Sthulabhadra led those who stayed. The stay-at-home monks met at Pataliputra and arranged the Angas from memory, and they began to wear white garments. Statement 3 is wrong: RS Sharma notes that when the southern monks returned, they rejected the Pataliputra compilation and kept to nudity. This is the traditional root of the later Digambara– Shvetambara split, which hardened in the early centuries CE.

Pairs 1 and 3 are correct. The First Council at Rajagriha was held soon after the Buddha's death under Ajatashatru of Magadha. The Second Council at Vaishali, about a century later, was held in the reign of Kalashoka (Kakavarnin), the son of Shishunaga according to the Sri Lankan chronicles, not under Shishunaga himself. The Third Council at Pataliputra was held under Ashoka. The Fourth Council in Kashmir was held under the Kushana king Kanishka; Menander (Milinda) was an Indo-Greek king remembered for his dialogue with the monk Nagasena, not for a council.

The Bhabru inscription, found near Bairat in Rajasthan and now kept in Kolkata (hence 'Calcutta-Bairat'), is Ashoka's most personal Buddhist record. Addressed to the Sangha, it states his reverence and faith in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha, and names seven texts (such as the Rahulovada) that he wished monks, nuns and lay followers to hear and reflect on. Most other edicts preach a general Dhamma of tolerance and ethics; Rock Edict XIII describes the Kalinga war and dhamma-vijaya, and the Separate Kalinga Edicts instruct officials on just administration.