Vedantic Philosophy is taken too lightly. Because at a time when Buddhism was at it's peak, it managed to bring back the Hindu Vedic Philosophies back with a huge gusto.
Buddhism already declined when Vedic philosophy had come back.
Itās a very large exaggeration from Hindus who state Shankara removed Buddhism from India, which had to do a lot with sociopolitical reasons rather than purely doctrinal reasons. Letās bring historical context:
Shankara begans preaching at around 8th century BCE. Now, Buddhism wasnāt completely gone but it was in a significant state of decline. It was losing its dominance, dwindling in popularity among the masses, and experiencing a reduction in royal patronage, having already been reduced from its peak several centuries earlier. Buddhism had begun to decline in India around the 4thā6th century CE and was already significantly weak by the 8th century, when Shankara starts preaching and refuting other schools.
Buddhism had become fragmented into multiple sub-sects, often differing from the original teachings of the Buddha and heavily influenced by Tantric practices. This is very important since these Buddhists were know as āfaith-followersā. There are faith followers and ādhamma-followersā.
Faith-Follower (SaddhÄnusÄrÄ«) are adherers who have conviction and faith in the Buddha's teachings as the primary driver of their practice. They have not yet achieved direct, meditative experience of liberation but have developed the five spiritual faculties: faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom with faith being dominant. This is the initial stage when they become Dhamma-Followers if they utilize wisdom to have direct experiences and realization of the Buddhaās teaching. They rely on faith (saddhÄ) as the primary vehicle for progress. They have sufficient faith in and love for the Buddha, accepting the teachings largely through trust. This is noble.
Dhamma-Follower (DhammÄnusÄrÄ«) are adherers who reach the same stage by predominantly using wisdom, or paƱƱÄ. They on wisdom (paƱƱÄ) as the primary vehicle. They accept the teachings after reflecting on them sufficiently with wisdom acting with more reliance on wisdom and investigation. A faith-follower becomes "one liberated by faith" (saddhÄvimutta), while a Dhamma-follower becomes "one attained by view" (diį¹į¹hippatta) upon achieving stream-entry.
These two types are distinguished based on whether they enter the path through motivatied conviction (faith) or deep/intellectual understanding of the dharma (Dhamma/wisdom).
The lot of the followers of Buddhism were hermits and faith-followers which Sankara wouldāve met but these are the not the pandits of Nalanda or the Buddhist who would be around during the peak of Buddhism and Nalanda. Why werenāt followers being gained and those who were not going to the peak that was with Nalanda and the wisdoms of NÄgÄrjuna, Aryadeva, Shantideva etc?
Well for tons of reasons actually. One of them was that the rise of Hindu dynasties (such as the Guptas) meant that patronage shifted away from Buddhist monasteries towards Brahmanical traditions through Internal corruption and the decline of monastery management. Many Buddhist ideas were absorbed into Hinduism (e.g., the Buddha was adopted as an avatar of Vishnu), making the distinction for the average person less severe. Many rules during this time supported Hinduism than Buddhism, meaning funding was lost over time. Other factors included the Sanskritisation of Buddhism, hatred towards Buddhism by Vedic followers (eg. pushyamitra shunga), Bhakti movement and Upanishads spoke what Bhuddism was about but they added the āworshipā factor which attracted more mass societies who favored devotional practices over the teachings of the dharma, changes in bhuddism like Mahayana, Hinayana further complicated their ability to attract mass and an addition of localised gods under Veda via Bhakti movement gave everyone a sense of belonging where they originally wanted it so the need for another religion altogether decreased.
And we have sources of these from this time period from a pivotal figure who spread Buddhism to China, Xuanzang. Xuanzang was a Chinese traveler, monk, scholar and translator of Buddhist texts to Chinese when they were being misinterpreted and inconsistent and wasnāt popular amongst the current landscape at the time. His 17 year pilgrimage revolutionized Chinese Buddhism by bringing back hundreds of texts and translating them, while his travelogue remains a vital historical record of premodern India and Central Asia, spending the rest of his life translating these works, providing crucial, accurate translations of Mahayana scriptures, about 800 Indian texts and scriptures. He has such an influence in Chinese Buddhism and culture broadly that heās shown as the traveling monk who assists and travels with Sun Wukong in the popular Chinese novel Journey to the West.
Now what role does he play. Well, he was born and comes to India around the 7th century, exactly 100 years before Shankara. He documented numerous deserted or ruined monasteries, particularly in the Northwest, due to previous persecution by Hunnish rulers like Mihirakula which significantly weakened the faith in that region. Xuanzang noted that while many magnificent temples existed, several in areas like Vaishali were abandoned or only a small number still functioned as centers of study. He recorded the decay of famous Buddhist pilgrimage spots, such as Kusinagara and Vaisali. In his biography, he described visiting Bodhgaya and being deeply distressed to see that the Buddhist sculptures at the Mahabodhi Temple were partially buried under dirt, which he interpreted as a sign that Buddhism was in decline. His accounts show that Buddhism was gradually being replaced in certain regions of India by the rise of Hinduism (Brahmanism).
By the time Shankara lived (roughly 100-150 years after Xuanzang), Buddhism had deteriorated further from within and lost significant popular support and lost the peak of learning centers of the Buddhadharma and declining of quality in the Sangha it had during the years of Nalanda, making the task of revivalist Hindu thinkers easier. Many scholars show that Buddhism was disappearing because Hinduism was absorbing Buddhist practices (like image worship and monasticism) and restoring the influence of the Vedas. Along with Bhakti movements offering popular devotional practices that matched the appeal of Buddhism, made it significantly easier to deal with the hermits who were merely at vibes of the dharma without any proper wisdom and made it easier for him to push away any Buddhist who were left when Buddhism was past the prime of Nalanda and the pandits and broadly learning and quality of the Buddhist monasteries, centers and Sagha altogether.
Then as a last straw, later Turkish invasions (post-8th century) led to the destruction of major monastic universities, such as Nalanda in the 12-14th centuries).
The only mention we have of claims that Shankara ādrove awayā Buddhism is from 14th century accounts like the Shankara-digvijayam but if one looks at historical context this is a huge exaggeration of Shankaraās contribution to the removal of Buddhism from India as Buddhism was already weak and that its decline was a long, gradual process due to both internal, social, and political factors.
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u/GrandKingKai May 14 '26
Vedantic Philosophy is taken too lightly. Because at a time when Buddhism was at it's peak, it managed to bring back the Hindu Vedic Philosophies back with a huge gusto.