What happened to Buddhist Civilisation in India? This question is the great mystery which needs to be explained in world history. That Buddhism was attacked violently is clearly brought to light in archaelogical excavations. Appropriation of Buddhism was widespread in ancient India. This lecture goes into that and raises the question of what happened to the Buddhists of India. The majority of the non-Brahman population is classed as the shudras by the Brahminical texts written after the advent of the Buddha describing the Buddhists as the Shudras, Asuras, mlleccha, and nagas. A blanket term that was the part of Aryan Brahminical Society was used to describe the vast population of India.
Except in the Brahminical texts, there are no Shudras. The untouchability that began to appear in the 400AD during the Gupta period was a social violence in the form of social boycott as studies in Kerala have shown. This lecture presented by Mangesh Dahiwale tries to unknot the complicated social history of various groups in India while at the same time showing how the social conflicts were actually a confrontation between the Buddhist quest for equality and Brahminical oppression.
