The Rise and Decline of Buddhism in Kerala and Tamil Nadu

The Rise and Decline of Buddhism in Kerala and Tamil Nadu

How it took root and why it gradually faded

CA. S. Muralidharan

Business Mentor and Thought Leader

At Karumadi in Kerala, a damaged stone image of the Buddha survives as a reminder of a religious world that has largely disappeared. On the other side of the Western Ghats, Tamil literature and old copper plates tell a similar story. Buddhism once had followers, teachers and monasteries in these lands. Kings gave it support. Tamil writers explained its ideas. Yet today, its ancient presence is far easier to find in books and sculptures than in a continuing local tradition.

Across the narrow sea, Sri Lanka followed a different path. Buddhism survived there as a major living religion. Why did it endure on the island while gradually losing its place in Kerala and Tamil Nadu?

There is no single answer. Religious rivalry played a part, as did changing royal support and the growing importance of Hindu temples in everyday life. The decline happened slowly and unevenly. Some Buddhist centres continued to receive generous support long after the religion had begun losing ground elsewhere.

The south before Buddhism arrived

Buddhism arrived among people who already had their own ways of understanding the sacred. Early Tamil literature describes worship linked with landscapes, livelihoods and the dangers and hopes of everyday life. Murugan was associated with the hills, Mayon, later closely identified with Vishnu, with pastoral country, and Korravai with victory and warfare. Sacred trees, local places of worship and the remembrance of fallen heroes also belonged to this varied religious world. These practices differed between communities; there was no single form of worship followed by everyone. [17]

We must be careful about the timing. Much of our literary evidence was composed or collected after Buddhism may already have reached the region. It offers clues to older traditions, rather than a complete picture taken just before the first Buddhist monk arrived. Our knowledge of the western region that became Kerala is especially incomplete. We should not assume that every custom recorded in the Tamil country was practised in exactly the same way throughout the Chera lands. [17]

Vedic ideas and sacrificial practices also became part of the southern religious landscape. Their spread overlapped with the arrival and growth of other teachings. The familiar Shiva and Vishnu temple networks of later centuries had not yet taken their later form. It would therefore be misleading to picture Buddhism arriving in a society organised exactly like medieval or present-day Hindu society. Local worship and traditions coming from elsewhere were already interacting and changing. [17]

The social setting was changing too. Farming, craft production, political centres and coastal trade brought people into wider relationships. Ports connected southern communities with distant places, while towns brought together people whose lives were no longer confined to a single settlement or kinship group. Such changes made room for new teachers and religious ideas, although they did not affect every part of the south equally. [18]

Was there widespread unhappiness with the existing faiths? The evidence does not allow us to say so. Some people may have questioned sacrifice, ritual authority or distinctions based on birth. Others may have been looking for a convincing explanation of suffering and death. Buddhism offered answers that could appeal to them. But curiosity, respect for a teacher or contact with Buddhist travellers could also attract a person who felt no hostility towards the worship of their family. These are reasonable possibilities, not motives that we can establish for all early followers.

Buddhism therefore found a place in an already religious society. It could offer another path while older forms of worship continued. Its early growth is better understood through this meeting of established customs, changing social relationships and new teachings than through the idea of an empty religious space waiting to be filled.

How Buddhism reached the south

When Buddhism first reached this region, Kerala and Tamil Nadu did not exist as modern states. Much of the area belonged to the cultural world known as Tamilakam. Chera, Chola, Pandya and other rulers governed different parts of it, with boundaries that changed over time.

By the third century BCE, Ashoka’s inscriptions were referring to southern peoples such as the Cholas, Pandyas and Keralaputras, the last generally associated with the Cheras. These references show that the far south was in contact with Ashoka’s world. They do not prove that he converted its rulers or built monasteries throughout the region. His policy of dhamma promoted moral conduct, and should not be read simply as an order to spread Buddhism. [1]

Buddhist ideas probably travelled south by several routes. Monks and traders moved through the Deccan. Ships connected coastal settlements with Sri Lanka and other trading regions. The Tamil coast formed part of a wider world that included the Buddhist centres of the Krishna valley and the island across the sea. We cannot name one person who introduced Buddhism to either Kerala or Tamil Nadu, and the earliest stages in Kerala remain especially uncertain. [2]

Trade helps us understand how these contacts became possible. A merchant travelled to sell goods, but he also carried his beliefs and met people with different customs. A monk could travel along the same route, teach at a stopping place and find supporters. Repeated contact could eventually lead to a settled religious community. This is a reasonable picture of how such networks worked, rather than a record of one particular journey.

Buddhism did actively seek new followers. Early texts describe the Buddha sending his disciples out to travel and teach. These accounts come to us through religious tradition, but their purpose is clear: the teaching was meant to be shared. [3]

There was also a recognised way for an ordinary person to become a follower. Taking refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha meant accepting the teacher, his teaching and the religious community as one’s guides. The Jivaka Sutta identifies this commitment with becoming a Buddhist lay follower. A person could do this while continuing family life. Becoming a monk or nun was a different step, involving admission, training and formal religious rules. [4]

Buddhism therefore had both teachers who spread the faith and ways of welcoming new members. At the same time, someone who gave money to a monastery was not necessarily a committed Buddhist. People could respect or support more than one religious tradition.

A place in local life

Buddhism gradually found a voice in Tamil. Manimekalai tells the story of a young woman who becomes a Buddhist nun. Through her experiences, the poem explores suffering, compassion and the choice to give up worldly life. Its date is debated; many modern scholars place it around the sixth century. What matters here is that Buddhist ideas were being expressed through a Tamil story and southern settings. [5]

This local literary life continued much later. The eleventh-century Viracholiyam, a work on Tamil grammar and poetry, and its commentary also reflect Buddhist thought. As Anne Monius’s research shows, Buddhists were taking part in the literary life of the Tamil country. They had not simply remained outsiders speaking to outsiders. [6]

Kanchi, the Kaveripattinam region and Nagapattinam appear in the evidence for Tamil Buddhism. Their importance changed over time. Travellers’ reports sometimes give impressive numbers of monks and monasteries, but those figures are debated. They cannot tell us how many ordinary families were Buddhist.

Kerala’s evidence is more scattered. Sri Mulavasam was an important Buddhist centre, supported by a land grant recorded in the Paliyam copper plates of the Ay ruler Vikramaditya Varaguna in the late ninth century. Its exact location remains uncertain. Buddha images at Karumadi, Mavelikkara and Bharanikkavu also show that Buddhist worship had a place in south-central Kerala. [7]

These remains establish a real local presence. They do not establish that most people throughout Kerala or Tamil Nadu were once Buddhists. We have no reliable religious census for those centuries. An influential monastery and a Buddhist majority are different things.

When kings gave their support

Some rulers did much more than allow Buddhist worship. They gave institutions a means of supporting themselves.

At Nagapattinam, the Chudamani Vihara was established through the support of the Srivijayan ruler Maravijayottungavarman. In 1006 CE, Rajaraja Chola I granted the revenues of Anaimangalam village to help maintain it. His son Rajendra confirmed the gift. [8]

Later, Kulottunga Chola I’s charter of 1090 recorded grants and privileges for the Rajaraja Perumpalli and Rajendra Chola Perumpalli, Buddhist institutions at Nagapattinam. Envoys from Srivijaya had approached the Chola court about them. These records show how Buddhist monasteries could be connected with overseas relationships as well as local religious life. [9]

Village revenues could provide continuing income for a monastery’s needs. A written royal grant also gave official backing to its rights. Such support mattered greatly, but it did not necessarily mean that the king had become Buddhist.

Rajaraja is a particularly clear example. The ruler who built the great Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur also supported a Buddhist monastery. Strong devotion to Shiva could coexist with generosity towards another faith. We cannot know exactly how much religious goodwill, diplomacy or political calculation lay behind each gift.

Why the followers gradually became fewer

From around the sixth and seventh centuries, Buddhism faced growing pressure in parts of the Tamil country. The Shaiva Nayanmars and Vaishnava Alvars helped spread devotion through Tamil hymns, sacred places and the lives of saints. These movements strengthened people’s attachment to Shiva and Vishnu worship and brought Buddhism into a more difficult religious environment. [10]

This was a long process. The later grants at Nagapattinam show that Buddhism did not disappear everywhere at once. A monastery could still prosper while the religion’s wider position was weakening.

In Kerala, the timing is harder to trace. Buddhist centres still received support in the ninth and tenth centuries. One archaeological study finds that the evidence becomes much thinner after the eleventh century. But a monastery disappearing from the records does not tell us when the last family stopped following Buddhist practices. [11]

To understand the change among ordinary people, we must look beyond royal decisions. Temples increasingly brought together religious worship, land, donations and the interests of local communities. Rulers, cultivators and merchants could all have reasons to remain closely connected with them. In medieval Andhra, for example, temples gained importance while trade continued to flourish and Buddhism declined. The explanation cannot simply be that commerce collapsed and Buddhist monasteries lost all their merchant supporters. [12]

Buddhist monasteries, too, owned resources and had organised communities. The likely difference was that, in many places, they became less successful at keeping support and passing their tradition to the next generation.

Consider what could happen when a monastery’s income fell. It might support fewer teachers. With fewer teachers and less activity, its links with nearby families could weaken. Fewer young people might then enter the order, leaving still fewer people to carry on its work. This is a plausible explanation of how decline could feed on itself; we cannot trace every stage in every locality.

For a family, the change need not have happened through a dramatic public conversion. Over generations, its members might become more involved with a nearby Shiva or Vishnu temple and less involved with a Buddhist monastery. We do not have enough evidence to say how often this happened voluntarily, under pressure or through a mixture of influences.

Was Buddhism driven out

Religious hostility was part of this history and should not be brushed aside. Some devotional writings mocked Buddhists or celebrated their defeat. The Periyapuranam includes accounts of confrontations with Buddhist opponents. However, it was written long after the events it describes, and its miraculous stories cannot be treated as eyewitness reports. [13]

We must also keep Buddhist and Jain histories distinct. A story about violence against Jains does not automatically prove the same treatment of Buddhists. Nor does a broken Buddha statue, on its own, tell us who damaged it or why. Each claim needs evidence from the place and period concerned.

Historian K. T. S. Sarao cautions that the evidence for overt persecution in South India is not sufficient to explain the whole decline in that way. This does not mean that persecution never occurred. It means that local incidents or later stories cannot establish a campaign covering both Kerala and Tamil Nadu. [14]

The Chola grants add another part of the picture. They show that rulers devoted to Shiva could protect Buddhist institutions. Hostility and accommodation could exist within the same broad historical period. Neither a wholly peaceful account nor a story of universal suppression does justice to the evidence.

Why Sri Lanka was different

In much of Sinhala society, Buddhism became closely tied to the history of the kingdom and the duties of its rulers. Protecting monasteries and renewing Buddhist religious life became an enduring expectation of kingship. Ordinary devotees also continued to support the faith across generations. This applies mainly to Sinhala Buddhist regions, rather than every community on the island. [15]

Sri Lankan Buddhism nevertheless went through severe difficulties. At times, even the proper procedure for ordaining fully qualified monks could no longer be maintained locally. In 1753, monks from Siam helped restore higher ordination under King Kirti Sri Rajasinha, following the efforts of Weliwita Saranankara. [16]

That episode helps explain the difference. Enough people still wanted Buddhism restored, and there were leaders able to obtain help. The religious community had suffered, but its place in society remained strong enough for rebuilding.

In Kerala and Tamil Nadu, Buddhism eventually lacked a similar base for a lasting regional revival. Other traditions had taken the more central place in public life. This is a reasonable reading of the different outcomes, rather than proof that one factor explains them all.

Buddhism’s southern story cannot be reduced to the failure of its teachings. It had missionaries, local writers, royal donors and followers. Nor can centuries of change be explained by one victorious debate or a single hostile ruler. Its early decline in parts of the Tamil country also began long before the military campaigns of the fourteenth century.

What seems to have happened was a gradual weakening of the relationships that kept the religion alive. Donations shifted, some monasteries struggled, and competing traditions drew more people into their worship and community life. Religious hostility could make those difficulties worse. Political or environmental disruption may also have harmed particular centres, although each case needs separate study.

A religion continues when people make it part of their lives and pass it on to their children, and when teachers and places of worship remain available to them. Buddhism achieved this in parts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu for centuries. Its later decline reminds us how much even a respected tradition depends on those ordinary, continuing human connections.

Sources and further reading

[1] University of Calicut, Historical Tourism, discussion and translated extract of Ashoka’s second rock edict. https://sde.uoc.ac.in/sites/default/files/sde_videos/Historical%20Tourism_0.pdf

[2] Archaeological Survey of India material on early Tamil regional connections, hosted by IGNCA. https://ignca.gov.in/Asi_data/81898.pdf

[3] I. B. Horner, The Book of the Discipline, Volume IV, opening missionary and ordination narratives. https://wiswo.org/books/_resources/book-reference-pdfs/Horner-Book-of-Discipline/Original-Print-Version-with-Introductions/4.-I.B.Horner-Vol-IV-Suttavibhanga.pdf

[4] Jivaka Sutta, Anguttara Nikaya 8.26, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. https://accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an08/an08.026.than.html

[5] Anne E. Monius, Imagining a Place for Buddhism, Oxford University Press, 2001. https://academic.oup.com/book/12862

[6] Monius, The Viracoliyam chapter. https://academic.oup.com/book/12862/chapter-abstract/163150356

[7] University of Calicut, Kerala history course material; Kerala Archaeology protected monument listings. https://sde.uoc.ac.in/sites/default/files/sde_videos/HIS3E06.pdf and https://www.archaeology.kerala.gov.in/monuments/thrikkur-rock-cut-temple/74

[8] Government Museum Chennai, The Nagapattinam and Other Buddhist Bronzes, larger Leiden plates. https://govtmuseumchennai.org/uploads/topics/16527949944825.pdf

[9] Same museum study, smaller Leiden plates of Kulottunga I, 1090 CE.

[10] Peter Schalk, Buddhism among Tamils, Uppsala University repository. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2%3A604434/fulltext01.pdf

[11] Kumar, archaeological discussion of Buddhism in Kerala, Heritage, Volume 7, 2019, pages 233-251. https://www.heritageuniversityofkerala.com/JournalPDF/Volume7/11.pdf

[12] Medieval Andhradesa AD 1000-1324, publisher description. https://cup.columbia.edu/book/medieval-andhradesa-ad-1000-1324/9788189487812/

[13] Rajan and Saha, Heritage, Volume 8.2, 2020, pages 175-192, discussion of Bodhimangai. https://www.heritageuniversityofkerala.com/JournalPDF/Volume8.2/9.pdf

[14] K. T. S. Sarao, The Decline of Buddhism in India, University of Delhi hosted text. https://www.du.ac.in/du/uploads/departments/BuddhistStudies/Study%20Material/Susmita/The%20Decline%20of%20Buddhism%20in%20India.pdf

[15] Richard Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism, 1988, discussion of the Sri Lankan tradition. https://wiswo.org/books/_resources/book-reference-pdfs/Gombrich-1988-Theravada_Buddhism.pdf

[16] The Lankavamsa in Siam and Siamvamsa in Sri Lanka, Mahachula Academic Journal, 2018. https://so04.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/JMA/article/view/141202

[17] IGNOU, Early Historic Societies, discussion of early Tamil society and religion. Read alongside the chronological limitations of Sangam literary evidence. https://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/103487/1/Block-3.pdf

[18] IGNOU, State and Society in South India, discussion of early Tamilakam, trade and social relationships. https://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/62863/1/Block-7.pdf