Notes
NOTES Introduction Note to epigraphs: Quoted in Efraim Karsh, Islamic Imperialism: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 1. Maurice Walshe, The Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Dı̄gha Nikāya (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995), 156. 1. The importance of this institution in Asian history is well borne out by the current project to rebuild Nalanda with the explicit aim of making it one of the top universities in the world (Jeffery E. Garten, ‘‘Real Old School,’’ New York Times, December 9, 2006). 2. André Wink, Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, Vol. 1: Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam 7th–11th Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 268. 3. Ronald M. Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 109. 4. On the destruction of Nalanda see H. D. Sankalia, The Nālandā University (Delhi: Oriental Publishers, 1976), 244–247. 5. This is the common view in both popular and academic literature. See, for example, Lawrence Sutin, All Is Change: The Two Thousand-Year Journey of Buddhism to the West (New York: Little, Brown, 2006), 45–46; and Jerry H. Bentley, Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Encounters and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 131–133. 6. Steven Darian, ‘‘Buddhism in Bihār from the Eighth to the Twelfth Century with Special Reference to Nālandā,’’ Asiatische Studien/Études asiatiques 25 (1971): 346. 7. George Roerich, Biography of Dharmasvāmin (Chag lo tsa-ba Chos-rje-dpal): A Tibetan Monk Pilgrim (Patna: K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute, 1959), 90. 8. Arthur Waley, ‘‘New Light on Buddhism in Medieval India,’’ Mélanges Chinois et Boudhiques 1 (1931–1932): 355–376. 9. Kazuo Enoki, ‘‘Tsung-le’s Mission to the Western Regions in 1378–1382,’’ Oriens Extremus 19, 1–2 (1972): 52. 10. R. A. L. H. Gunawardana, Robe and Plough: Monasticism and Economic Interest in Early Medieval Sri Lanka (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1979), 264. 266 Notes to Pages 2–3 11. The area studies model plays a role in distorting our understanding of the historical interactions across Eurasia. On the historiographical problems inherent in this model see, for example, Alexander Woodside, Lost Modernities: China, Vietnam, Korea and the Hazards of World History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), 15, 24–25; and Thomas T. Allsen, The Royal Hunt in Eurasian History (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006). 12. The demise of Buddhism in India was an issue not only for Indian Buddhists, but also for Buddhists across Asia. In China, for example, the end of Buddhism in India, or its imagined demise, fit Chinese historiography very well, especially since it enabled China and the sacred mountain of Wutai Shan to be reimagined as the center of the Buddhist world (Tansen Sen, Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600–1400 [Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2003], 87). 13. On the issue of Indian historiography and religious identities see Peter van der Veer, Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). 14. This sentiment is well captured in the 1834 work of T. Postens, who writes ‘‘that during the Arab conquest ‘the most unrelenting cruelty and intolerance appears to have been excercised’ (p. 152) and that ‘the fanaticism of the Moslems always induces them to make converts instead of ameliorating the condition of the people’ (p. 160)’’ (quoted in Derryl N. MacLean, Religion and Society in Arab Sind [Leiden: Brill, 1989], 23). 15. While the Mughals and Islam were, and are, often used to explain India’s woes, many Indian nationalists, such as Gandhi, also recognized the need to incorporate Muslims into the vision of modern India. In fact, what the British feared most was the union of Hindus and Muslims, which Gandhi supported (see David Page, Prelude to Partition: The Indian Muslims and the Imperial System of Control 1920–1932 [New York: Oxford University Press, 1982]). One interesting footnote to this intellectual project of uniting Muslims and Hindus is found in U. Ali’s attempt to find the teachings of Islam and Muhammad foreshadowed in the Vedas (Mohammed in Ancient Scriptures [Agra: S. R. Brothers, 1936]). 16. Of course, few Indians today are violent Hindu nationalists; most, in fact, recognize India’s strength as residing precisely in its multicultural past. See, for example , Amartya Sen’s The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity (New...
OR
