How and Why Buddhism declined in India, the land of its birth, is such a perplexing problem that no two opinions agree. The sectarian scholars all along have been trotting out the so-called degeneration in the moral and spiritual life of the Buddhist monks and nuns as the main reason for it. The author in this study sets forth in a new perspective reasons for the disappearance of Buddhism from the land of its birth. He has marshaled considerable literary and historical evidence to show that Buddhism declined in India as a result of a concerted and calculated crusade against it by the reactionary Brahmins who worked overtime to regain their caste supremacy, which had been challenged by the Buddha. The Brahmins on the one hand launched a propagande of hatred against Buddhis persecuted the Buddhists; and on the other hand they assimilated the good points of Buddhism into their systems so as to win back the masses. They also destroyed and/or converted the Buddhist shrines into Hindu temples. The Muslim invasions further hastened the fall of Buddhism in India. Whatever was left unfinished by the Hindu reactionaries, was accomplished by the Muslim fanatics. As a result, the Buddhist heritage was buried so deep under the dust arid debris that even the name of the Buddha was forgotten by the Indian.
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