Before the arrival of
Islam in the Indian sub-continent, the main religions in the region
were Hinduism and Buddhism. In those times, Buddhism was burgeoning
and gathering mass acceptance as shown by the rampant statues and
monasteries in Bamian (Afghanistan), Swat and Taxila (Pakistan).
Hindu leaders must have been seriously concerned about the rise of
Buddhism. The first major clean-up operation against Buddhism in the
India in recorded history is the attack by the Hun barbarians. They
damaged and destroyed Buddhist monasteries but damage to the Hindu
temples is not mentioned to be excessive which alludes to the
possibility of Huns acting as mercenaries. The very fact that
Buddhists had taken refuge in far away and hardly-accessible valleys
like Bamian and Swat shows that they were facing a threat of
survival.
After the arrival of
Islam in the Indian sub-continent, no major confrontation occured
between Muslims and Buddhists. They could have been potential allies
too. The Buddhists remained safe in their far-flung sanctuaries of
Tibet, Sikkim, Myanmar, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. Things started to change during
the British East India Company's colonization of India. Myanmar,
Tibet and Sikkim were all invaded. In 1772, Bhutanese and British
troops clashed in Bengal with a treaty signed in 1774. Sikkim was
perhaps the only Indian state with Buddhism as state religion. In the
Sikkim expedition of 1888, Tibet lost its suzerainty over Sikkim.
Later on Sikkim was annexed into India. Myanmar's Buddhist kings had
many border issues with British India and in a series of wars
starting in 1824, they lost almost all of their country to the
British East India Company. Buddhist kingdoms were faced with a
survival threat.
