Despite being the birthplace of Buddhism, India today has less than 1% Buddhist population, a dramatic decline that occurred over the past thousand years.
Buddhism Vanished from Its Birthplace in India
India gave birth to Buddhism in the 5th century BCE when Prince Siddhartha Gautama achieved enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. For over a millennium, Buddhist monasteries, universities, and monuments dotted the Indian landscape. Yet today, Buddhists make up less than 1% of India's population—roughly 8 million people in a country of 1.4 billion.
This disappearance is one of history's most dramatic religious reversals.
The Golden Age and Gradual Decline
Buddhism thrived in India for centuries, reaching its peak under Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE. Massive universities like Nalanda attracted scholars from across Asia. But by 1200 CE, Buddhism had largely vanished from the subcontinent.
The decline happened through multiple factors:
- Absorption by Hinduism: Hindu traditions incorporated Buddha as an avatar of Vishnu, blurring religious boundaries
- Loss of royal patronage: As dynasties changed, state support shifted to Hindu and later Islamic institutions
- Monastic vulnerability: Buddhist monks depended on donations and lacked the household-based resilience of Hindu Brahmins
- Islamic invasions: Turkish invasions in the 12th-13th centuries destroyed major monasteries and universities
The Final Blow
The destruction of Nalanda University in 1193 CE symbolized Buddhism's end in India. Invading forces burned the library for months. Surviving monks fled to Tibet, Nepal, and Southeast Asia, taking their traditions with them.
Without monasteries to preserve texts and train new monks, Indian Buddhism collapsed. The religion survived and flourished everywhere except where it began.
Modern Revival Attempts
In 1956, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar led a mass conversion of 500,000 Dalits to Buddhism as a protest against caste discrimination. This created a small Buddhist revival, primarily among marginalized communities in Maharashtra.
Today, Buddhist pilgrimage sites like Bodh Gaya attract millions of foreign visitors annually, while most Indians treat them as historical curiosities rather than living religious centers. The religion that conquered Asia couldn't maintain its foothold at home.