astery
very grand and beautiful, there is also a Hinayana one, the two
together containing 600 or 700 monks." It is probable that this was
typical of the religious condition of Magadha and Bengal. Both schools
existed but the Mahayana was the more flourishing. Many of the old
sites, such as Rajagriha and Gaya, were deserted but there were new
towns near them and Bodh Gaya was a place of pilgrimage with three
monasteries. In the district of Tamralipti (Tamluk) on the coast of
Bengal were 22 monasteries. As his principal object was to obtain
copies of the Vinaya, he stayed three years in Patna seeking and
copying manuscripts. In this he found some difficulty, for the various
schools of the Vinaya, which he says were divided by trivial
differences only, handed down their respective versions orally. He
found in the Mahayanist monastery one manuscript of the Mahasanghika
rules and considered it the most complete, but also took down the
Sarvastivadin rules.

After the death of Vasubandhu few names of even moderate magnitude
stand out in the history of Indian Buddhism. The changes which
occurred were great but gradual and due not to the initiative of
innovators but to the assimilative power of Hinduism and to the
attractions of magical and emotional rites. But this tendency, though
it doubtless existed, did not become conspicuous until about 700 A.D.
The accounts of the Chinese pilgrims and the literature which has been
preserved suggest that in the intervening centuries the monks were
chiefly occupied with scholastic and exegetical work. The most
distinguished successors of Asanga were logicians, among whom Dinnaga
was pre-eminent. Sthiramati[238] and Gunamati appear to have belonged
to the same school and perhaps Bhavaviveka[239] too. The statements as
to his date are inconsistent but the interesting fact is recorded that
he utilized the terminology of the Sankhya for the purposes of the
Mahayana.

Throughout the middle ages the study of logic was pursued but
Buddhists and Jains rather than by Brahmans.[240] Vasubandhu composed
some treatises dealing exclusively with logic but it was his disciple
Dinnaga who separated it definitely from philosophy and theology. As
in idealist philosophy, so in pure logic there was a parallel movement
in the Buddhist and Brahmanic schools, but if we may trust the
statements of Vacaspatimisra (about 1100 A.D.) Dinnaga interpreted
the aphorisms of the Nyaya philosophy in a heterodox or Buddh