1895.] 
57 
H. P. Castri ~ Bruldhum in Bengal. 
of people, by the easy conversion of the Buddhist population after the 
destruction of their monasteries. 
The helpless Buddhists would naturally be inclined more to 
Muhammadanism, which has no restriction of food, &c., than to Hin¬ 
duism, which imposes thousands of restrictions on every action of life. 
But was Buddhism actually effaced from the soil of Bengal and 
Bihar P People think so, but there were traces of Buddhism till very 
lately. A Kayastha belonging to Magadha, copied a Buddhist MS. 
in 1446, The MS. is now at Cambridge. 1 That shew's signs of lingering 
Buddhism. Dr. Hoey has discovered an inscription at Set, dated in the 
thirteenth century, dedicating a temple to the Buddha. 2 Buddhist monks 
were at Bodh Gaya so late as 1331. The Bodh Gaya temple was repaired 
by a king of Arakan in 1305. A biographer of Caitanya, named Cuda- 
mani Dasa, makes Buddhists rejoice at the birth of Caitanya. One of 
the great millionaires of Satgao in Caitanya’s time, belonging to the 
Sonarbania caste, refuses to accept Vaisnavism on the ground that he 
would not like to be saved, when the whole world round him is 
plunged in misery. 3 This is pure Buddhistic sentiment absolutely 
unknown to the Hindus, fulapani, writing after the Muhammadan con¬ 
quest, makes the very sight of a Buddhist an occasion for performing 
expiatory ceremonies. The word of the text he quotes is Nagna , or 
naked, which he explains as Bauddhddayah. How could he explain 
that word that way if there were no Buddhists in his country P 
These facts will lead to one conclusion that traces of B uddhism 1 
w ere to b e found so late as Caitanya’s time. In speaking of Buddhism If 
I do not take into considerationTthlTfact of”the Buddha’s being regarded 
as the ninth incarnation of Visnu, for in that case all Hindus would be 
in one sense, Buddhists. No trace of Buddhism has been found after 
Caitanya’s time. 
It seems, however, surprising that a religion which existed in 
Eastern India in such splendour from 600 B.C. to P200 A.D., should be 
so utterly destroyed that no vestige of its existence could be found any¬ 
where in Bengal at this day only 700 years after its final overthrow. 
But fortunately it is not so. A s ort of corrupt Buddhism mixed 
up with a variety of Aryan and non-Aryan forms of worship, still 
ob tains in Bengal amongst a very large numb er of lower class people. 
Of the various castes inhabiting Bengal, Dorns never acknowledge the 'Vom, 
superiority of Brahmans. They get all the religious ceremonies of the 
1 See Catalogue of Buddhist Sanskrit MSS. in the University Library, Cam¬ 
bridge, Preface, p. 4 and Book, pp. 69-70. 
2 See pp. 70-71 of the Sharqi Architecture of Jaunpur, Yol. I. 
3 Rep. Arch. Surv., Ill, pp. 101-105. % 
J. I. 8 
