During Harsha’s reign, the great Chinese traveller, Yuan Chwang or Hsuan-tsang, visited India and spent fifteen years there (B.E. 1172-1187/629-644 C.E.) studying Yogacara philosophy at Nalanda University and travlling throughout the country. He was welcomed with great honour at the imperial court in the capital city of Kanauj. The account of his travels was written by himself in the work called “Buddhist Records of the Western World” which is regarded as one of the most valuable documents for the study of history and Asian civilization of the time.

On his return, Hsuan-tsang brought with him six hundred Sanskrit texts and manuscripts which, with the support of the Emperor Tai-tsung of Tang dynasty, he translated into Chinese during the rest of his lifetime. His effort was partly aimed at spreading the knowledge of the Yogacara doctrine which he himself favoured.

Also during this period, Sron-btsan-sgam-po (born in B.E. 1160 or 617 C.E.), the great ruler of Tibet, married two princesses, one from Nepal and the other from China. Both queens were devout Buddhists. They converted the king to Buddhism and thus made Tibet the last of the Mahayana countries to accept Buddhism. The king then sent a messenger called Thonmi Sambhota to India to study Buddhism and the Indian language, and to invent an alphabetic script for the Tibetan language. Thonmi was successful in the task. He then made the first Tibetan translations of Buddhist Sanskrit works and became known as the father of Tibetan literature. In spite of royal support, Buddhism did not take deep root in Tibet during the early centuries as it had to struggle against the native animistic religion called Bonpo, its superstitious beliefs and strange customs and traditions. A century later, two monk-scholars were invited to Tibet to teach Buddhism. One was Santarakshita, the then Principal of Nalanda University, who taught the true doctrine and translated many Sanskrit scriptures into Tibetan. The other was Padma-sambhava, whom Santarakshita advised the king of Tibet to invite to his country to remove natural calamities by magical power, and who introduced Tantric Buddhism into that land, replacing the Bon cult with symbolic worship.

Three centuries later, in B.E. 1581 (1038 C.E.), Atisa, the great scholar of Vikramasila University, as invited to live as a teacher of Buddhism in Tibet. Atisa reformed the Tantric teachings on the basis of the Yogacara traditions and founded the Kadampa school which stressed celibacy and strict observance of disciplinary rules, and discouraged magic practices. The Kadampa school was the basis for the Gelukpa school which Tsongkhapa founded some time after B.E. 1900 (1357 C.E.), and to which the Dalai Lama belongs. From the days of Atisa, Buddhism may be said to have truly become the national religion of Tibet and had an uninterrupted record throughout the later history of the nation.

THE RISE OF HINDUISM AND THE HINDUIZATION OF BUDDHISM
To turn back to India, though Harsha was tolerant of all religions, his Brahmin ministers were displeased with his support of Buddhism. They made attempts on his life. In spite of failure at first and being let off from death punishment, they continued their attempts till the Emperor was assassinated in B.E. 1191 (648 C.E.).

After Harsha’s death, northern India broke up into a large number of separate states. Then the conditions were not favourable to the existence of Buddhism until the Pala dynasty established itself in Bengal at the beginning of the 14th century B.E. (in the middle of the 8th century C.E.). During four centuries of their rule (from B.E. 1303 to 1685/760-1142 C.E.), the Pala kings were devoted to the support and protection of Buddhism. They took Nalanda University under their patronage and founded four other universities of their own, namely, Odantapura, Vikramasila, Somapura and Jagaddala, in the first, the sec-ond, the third and the fourteenth reigns respectively.