According to a report by a television channel, Thirumavalavan, a rabidly anti-Hindu 'Dalit' politician in Tamil Nadu has recently said that the famous Hindu temples in Sri Rangam and Kanchi were built on Buddhist shrines after demolishing them and hence these Hindu temples should be demolished. These remarks were made in a meeting called to condemn the demolition of the Babri mosque.

This is a propaganda that has been going on from colonial times. To counter the well documented atrocities of Islamist destruction of Hindu temples, the secularists started making the statements that Hindus too destroyed the Buddhist and Jain shrines.

These allegations are actually based on speculations and nothing more. There were definitely conflicts between various Indic sects. There could have been even violent quarrels. Their texts too, often had polemical attacks against each other. However, these attacks were not arrayed as Vedic against non-Vedic.



Conflicts between Jains and Buddhists and also between Shaivites and Vaishnavites are well documented. Yet, they never became holy wars. The Indic spiritual streams never developed the theology of exclusive right to truth and hence the right to eliminate every other. On the other hand, the movement of Indic spiritual sects had always been towards unity while respecting diversity.

Let us take the case of Sri Rangam in this specific instance. The ancient Tamil epic Silapathikaram, which definitely predates the so-called Bhakti movement, very clearly describes Sri Rangam as the abode of Vishnu:

Like a dark blue cloud which without dispersing any other way,

converges to shroud in it the golden peak of a mountain

the same way amidst the roaring waves of Cauveri in Thiruvarangam

in that primordial serpent bed with its thousand hooded heads arising

and with the Goddess of prosperity in His chest

lies He in this auspicious form, worshiped by all including the celestials ...

Despite the mutual literary attacks, debates and even competition for royal patronage, the countless inscriptions and endowments made by the kings in Tamil Nadu show a sustained presence of Buddhism and Jainism.

Even the imperial Cholas, rooted as they were in Vedic Shaivism, gave grants and actively built Buddhist shrines rather than pull them down. Even the staunch Shaivite saint, Thiru Gnanasambandar, put forward the view that the atheist Jain sect was actually part of Shiva's wonderment rather than an evil. In Nagapattinam, the Buddhist shrine built by the Cholas stood as a testimony to Indic universalism, surviving even a tsunami. Built in 1006 CE, it was demolished only in 1867 CE and that was by the Jesuits.

So, why did Tamil Buddhism and Jainism disappear? Perhaps, the Islamist invasions during the reign of Khilji in Delhi spelt the doom for the monk-centric Buddhism and Jainism while household-centric Vedic sects survived and flourished.

In north India, even in the case of the holiest of the Buddhist pilgrim places, Bodh Gaya, Hindus went out of their way to maintain Bodh Gaya when Islamic invasion threatened it. Dr Koenraad Elst quotes the report of historian Dr. Abdul Quddoos Ansari thus: