V. A. Smith — GrmaoSoman influence 



[No. 3, 



of Buddhism as a dominant faith in Gandhara. " There were," he 

 writes, " probably no great Buddhist establishments in Gandhara before 

 Kanishka, and as few, if any, after Yaso Varma, yet we learn that 

 between these dates [/. e. circa A. D, 78 to 730 J, this province was as 

 essentially Buddhist as any part of India.* 



In support of the last clause of this seutence the Chinese travellers 

 Fa Hian and Hiuen Tsiang are appealed to, but their testimony does not 

 support the conclusion drawn from it. After the middle of the seventh 

 century, when Hiuen Tsiang wrote, very few parts of India were " essen- 

 tially Buddhist," and Gandhara certainly was not. In A. D. 730 very 

 little Buddhism can have been left in it. 



Mr. Fergusson's language is correct when it is confined to the be- 

 ginning of the fifth century. Fa Hian who travelled in India in the 

 years A. D. 400 — 405, found Buddhism vigorous and flourishing in 

 Gandhara, as in a large part of India. But, at the time of the travels of 

 Hiuen Tsiang, A. D. 629 — 642, a very great change had taken place, and 

 Gandhara was very far from being " essentially Buddhist." 



The capital city of Gandhara, the modern Peshawar, is, he notes 

 " about 40 li [= 6 to 7 miles] in circuit. The royal family is extinct, 

 and the kingdom is governed by deputies from Kapisa [N. of Kabul]. 

 The town and villages are deserted, and there are but few inhabitants. 



At one corner of the royal residence there are about 1,000 families 

 * * * There are about 1,000 sangh dramas [monasteries], which are 

 deserted and in ruins. They are filled with wild shrubs, and solitary to 

 the last degree. The stupas are mostly decayed. The heretical temples, 

 to the number of about 100, are occupied pell-mell by heretics." 



At Pushkalavati, the modern Hashtnagar, the pilgrim found a 

 large population, but not of the congregation of the faithful, for the 

 Buddhist buildings, like those of the capital, were in ruins. 



Taxila, east of the Indus, was dependent on Kashmir, the royal 

 family here also being extinct. The monasteries are described as 

 " ruinous and deserted, and there are very few priests ; those that there 

 are, study the Great Vehicle. "t 



The graphic and emphatic words of Hiuen Tsiang prove with abso- 

 lute certainty that at the time of his visits (A. D. 629 — 642) the Buddhist 

 religion in Gandhara was nearly extinct. The utter decay of which he 

 gives such clear testimony must have been in progress for a considerable 

 time. It is not possible that the Buddhist edifices of Peshawar could have 

 become " deserted arid in ruins, filled with wild shrubs, and solitary to 

 the last degree " in a day. 



* History of Indian ami EssterM Architecture, p. 76. 



t Bual, Buddhist BscorAs of the Western World, Vol. I, pp. 100, 109, 137. 



