The Vakataka-Gupta Age

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Item Code: IDK441
Author: H.C. Raychaudhuri, A. S. Altekar
Publisher: MOTILAL BANARSIDASS PUBLISHERS PVT. LTD.
Language: English
Edition: 2007
ISBN: 9788120800434
Pages: 558 (15 B/W Illustrations)
Cover: Paperback
Other Details 7.0" X 4.8"
Weight 520 gm
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Book Description

Foreword

In the middle of the 19th Century all the parts of India were united under one sceptre, and then began a change, almost revolutionary in its character, in the evolution of India's political life and thought. At exactly the same time a revolution also began in Indian historiography. Hitherto our historians' stock-in-trade had been only pious legends, age-worn traditions, laudatory poems in hyperbole, and very late compilations of blended fact and fiction. The Hindu period of our past, covering nearly two thousand years was dark, and the darkness was often made more misleading by the false light of Sanskrit romances. Even in the Muslim period the current histories were mostly popular abridgements and not original sources.

But a new era in the study of Indian history had dawned shortly before the Sepoy Mutiny. General Alexander Cunningham had begun to dig down to the roots of our Buddhistic, Jaina and Hindu past, and Sir Henry M. Elliot had begun the monumental translation of the History of India as told by its own historians. His great work, destined to be completed in a vastly amplified form and by another hand in eight volumes in 1877, made its first appearance in 1849 under the title of Bibliographical Index to the Historians of Muhammadan India. The first author to utilize the vast material, thus made available in English, was Stanley Lane-Poole, whose Mediaeval India under Muhammadan Rule (1903), when read with Elphinstone's chapters on the same subject, illustrates the advance in our knowledge made in less than half a century.

In the Hindu period, the immense mass of raw materials, in the form of inscriptions, coins, architectural remains and antiquities, brought to light by our field archaeologists-both official and private, scattered all over this continent of a country, was pieced together for the first time in V.A. Smith's Early History of India (1904). Indian reader had, no doubt, had an earlier glimpse of this new material, though in a very compressed form, in Hara Prasad Shastri's School History of India. But Smith's work, occupying a much ampler canvas and full of details and exact references, can rightly claim to be called an epoch-marking book.

But our progress did not stop here. An army of Indian scholars, some trained, but most others amateurs, continued Cunningham's work in their own localities or subjected the discoveries of others to critical study, and thus built up a vast body of more exact knowledge about our past than was available to Vincent A. Smith. All this knowledge lies scattered over numberless learned journals, popular magazines, sometimes even daily papers, pamphlets and books, in many languages besides English. Our problem for several years now has been to concentrate all these scattered rays of light into one focus, to make a synthesis of all over special treatises and researches our scientific students, "We have plenty of spinners, who have produced fine threads. We now want a master weaver who will synthetise all these isolated facts. That the crying need of the modern world of science: weave! Weave!"

A new History of India embodying all this accumulated knowledge and abreast of the latest research must fill many volumes. Such a work, both by reason of its size and the diversity of its contents, can be produced only by a syndicate of scholars. The writing of such a co-operative History of India was first discu8ssed by me with the late Mano Mohan Chakravarti in 1908 after the first volumes of the Cambridge Modern History had come out and shown us the way. The plan was discussed in great detail and even lists of chapters drawn up on two occasions in collaboration with the late Rakhaldas Banerji in 1918 and 1920. a fourth project, confined solely to the cultural aspects of India's past on the model of the "Heritage" series, was pondered over by me with the late Rev. J. Farquhar. But all of these schemes very soon came to nothing because we felt that the time was not yet ripe and we had not enough scholars to do equal justice to every part of the subject.

At last in 1937, Dr. Rajendra Prasad publicly broached the present scheme and we two inaugurated it at a meeting held in Benares on 28th December, 1937. He was to take charge of the administrative and financial side of it, and I was to be the chief literary manager or chairman of the Editorial Board. Prompt and generous donations were received from the Indian mercantile community whose liberality to all good causes is well-known : and we actively set ourselves to planning the details, making the preliminary arrangements and corresponding with various scholars whose aid or advice we sought. Just after the actual writing had started, came the Japanese invasion in 1941, and our scholars were scattered and public libraries closed or removed elsewhere, which made us lose four years. At last in 1945, two volumes (the Fourth and the Sixth) out of a projected series of twenty (see the list at the end) were ready for the press and a third (the Twelfth, on Akbar) half completed. Now that the ground has been fully prepared, our progress both in writing and in printing will be much quicker.

It has been my dream to produce them volumes at a price (say Rs. 4 each) which would place them within reach of all our people, as the volumes would be sold separately. With the knowledge of our land's storied past daily advancing, revised editions would be frequently called for, in order that this science may not be stereotyped; but a low price would enable most purchasers of the old edition to scrap it up and buy its improved and corrected successor. But the economic disturbance caused by World War II has belied this hope.

This History is being written entirely by Indians. Lest this limitation of choice should cause its spirit to be suspect I invite the reader's attention to the following correspondence which makes our aim fully clear.

From Sir Jadunath Sarkar to Dr. Rajendra Prasad, 19th November, 1937-"National history, like every other history worthy of the name and deserving to endure, must be true as regards the facts and reasonable in the interpretation of them, it will be national not in the sense that it will try to suppress or whitewash everything in our country's past that is disgraceful, but because it will admit them and at the same time point out that there were other and nobler aspects in the stages of our nations' evolution which offset the former, that a "drain inspector's report" is not the whole truth about any nation. The first duty of our national historian will be to depict all the aspects of our nation's life in the past usually ignored by foreign writers, who merely give us an unrelieved picture of bloodshed and dynastic change. Social life and thought, art and culture, will have no less importance in the history to be written by us. In addition, we shall try to explain, with that sympathetic insight which only a native can possess,-or a rare foreigner like the gifted Sister Nivedita,-why things happened with our ancestors as they did actually happen. In this task….the historian must be a judge. He will not suppress any defect of the national character, but add to his portraiture those higher qualities which, taken together with the former, help to constitute the entire individual."

From Dr. Rajendra Prasad to Sir Jadunath Sarkar, 22nd November, 1937-"I entirely agree with you that no history is worthy the name which suppresses or distorts facts. A historian who purposely does so under the impression that he thereby does good to his native country really harms it in the end Much more so in the case of a country like ours which has suffered much on account of its national defects, and which must know and understand them to be able to remedy them."

Our thanks are specially due to Dr. Ramesh Chandra Majumdar and Dr. A.S. Altekar, who have edited this volume and written most part of it, Dr. Majumdar contributing eight chapters and Dr. Altekar ten out of a total of 23. We have been fortunate enough to enlist the co-operation of a number of other scholars, each eminent in his special subject: Rao Bahadur K.N. Dikshit has written on Archaeological Remains, Prof. K.A. Nilkant Sastri on South India, Dr. Dines Chandra Sircar on the Eastern Deccan, Dr. P.G. Bagchi on Chinese Contact, Dr. Paranavitana on Ceylon, Dr. C. Sivarama-murti on South Indian Art, and Dr. V.S. Agrawala on Gupta Art. We offer our sincere thanks to all of them and also to the Director-General of Archaeology, Government of India, the authorities of the Nizam's Archaeological Department and the Mathura Museum for permission to print illustrations of which they hold the copyright.

WE also take this opportunity to thank Mr. S. K. Sarasvati, M.A., Lecturer, Calcutta University, who has helped the editors in seeing the book through the press and has rendered very useful service in many ways. Our thanks are also due to the Sri Gouranga Press for having undertaken the printing of this book in a time of exceptional difficulty and executed it with commendable promptitude.

 

Contents

 

  Foreword, by Sir Jadunath Sarkar, Kt., C.I.E., Hon. D. Litt., Hony. M.R.A.S. i
  Editorial Preface x
  Introduction, by Dr. A.S. Altekar, M.A., D.Litt. Manindra Chandra Nandi Professor and Head of the Department of Ancient Indian History and Culture, Hindu University, Benares I
  Ancient Indian History and Culture, Hindu University, Benares 1
 
CHAPTER I
THE PUNJAB, SINDH AND AFGHANISTAN
By Dr. A.S. Altekar
 
1 Kanishka III 13
2 Vasudeva II 16
3 The Period of Sassanian Ascendancy 18
4 The Punjab during c. 230 to c. 340 A.D. 21
5 The Kidara Kushanas 21
 
CHAPTER II
NEW INDIAN STATES IN RAJPUTANA AND MADHYADESA
By Dr. A.S. Altekar
 
1 Did the Bharasivas drive out the Kushanas? 25
2 The Yaudheya, Kuninda and Arjunayana Republics 28
3 The Madra Republic 33
4 The Malava Republic 33
5 The Nagas of Padmavati and Mathura 36
6 The Maukharis of Badva 40
7 The Maghas of Baghelkhand and Kausambi 41
 
CHAPTER III
THE SAKA RULERS OF WESTERN INDIA
By Dr. A. S. Altekar
 
1 Damajada I, Jiva-daman and Rudra-simha I 47
2 Rudra-sena 49
3 Sangha-daman and Dama-sena 52
4 Yaso-daman, Vijaya-sena Damajada II and Rudra-sena II 53
5 Visva-simha and Bhartri-daman 55
6 The Rise of a New Saka House: Rudra-simha II and Yaso-daman II 57
7 Rudra-daman II and his Successors 60
 
CHAPTER IV
EASTERN DECCAN
By Dr. Dines Chandra Sircar, M.A., Ph.D. Lecturer, Ancient
Indian History and Culture, Calcutta University
 
I. Andhra 64
  The Ikshvakus 64
  The Brihatphalayanas 68
  The Anandas 69
  The Salankayanas 73
2. Kalinga 76
  The Pitribhaktas 77
  The Matharas 79
  The Vasishthas 80
  Other Dynasties 81
3. Kosala (Dakshina Kosala) and Mekala 84
  The Sarabhapuriyas 86
  The Pandduvamsis 89
 
CHAPTER V
THE VAKATAKAS
By Dr, A.S. Altekar
 
1. The Deccan at c. 250 A.D. 93
2. Vakataka Chronology 94
3. The Home of the Vakatakas 96
4. Vindhyasakti 96
5. Emperor Pravara-sena I 98
6. Rudra-sena I 102
7. Prithvi-shena I 108
8. Rudra-sena II 110
9. Regency of Prabhavati-gupta 111
10. Pravara-sena II 113
11. Narendra-sena 115
12. Prithvi-shena II 118
13. Basim Branch of the Vakatakas 119
14. The Full of the Vakatakas 123
 
CHAPTER VI
THE RISE OF THE GUPTAS
By Dr. R.C. Majumdar, M.A., Ph. D., F.R.A.S.B.,
Formerly Vice-Chancellor, Dacca University
126
  Appendix-The Extent of the Kingdom of Chandra-gupta I 134
 
CHATPER VII
FOUNDATION OF THE GUPTA EMPIRE
By Dr. R. C. Majumdar
 
1. Sources of history 136
2. Samudra-gupta's Accession 137
3. Samudra-gupta's Conquests 139
4. Personality of Samudra-gupta 154
 
CHAPTER VIII
THE EXPANSION OF THE GUPTA EMPIRE
By Dr. R. C. Majumdar
 
 
CHAPTER IX
THE IMPERIAL CRISIS
By Dr. R. C. Majumdar
 
1. Internal Troubles 184
2. The Huna Invasion 193
  CHAPTER X
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE GUPTA EMPIRE
By Dr. R. C. Majumdar
202
 
CHAPTER XI
THE FALL OF THE GUPTA EMPIRE
By Dr. R. C. Majumdar
213
 
CHAPTER XII
SOUTH INDIA
By Prof. K. A. Nilakanta Sastri, M.A., Professor of
Indian History, Madras University
 
1. The Close of the Sangam Age 219
2. The Early Pallavas 229
3. The Kadambas 235
4. The Gangas 246
 
CHAPTER XIII
HISTORY OF CEYLON
By Dr. S. Paranavitana, Ph. D.,
Archaeological Commissioner, Ceylon
251
  Appendix-Note on the Chronology 262
 
CHAPTER XIV
THE ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANISATION
By Dr. A. S. Altekar
 
1. Republican States 265
2. Monarchical Governments: The Position of the King 268
3. Other Members of the Royal Family 270
4. Powers of the King 273
5. Ministry 274
6. The Machinery and Departments of the Central Government 275
7. The Feudatories 280
8. Kumaramatyas 281
9. Provincial Administration 283
10. The Non-official District Council 285
11. District Administration 286
12. Popular Courts 288
13. Village and Town Administration 288
14. Taxation 291
15. General Review 292
16. CHAPTER XV
THE COINAGE
By Dr. A. S. Altekar
 
1. The Coinage of the Punjab and Afghanistan 295
2. The Coinage of the Western Kshatrapas 296
3. The Coinage of the Republics 298
4. The Coins of Virasena and Achyuta 299
5. The Naga Coinage 300
6. The Coinage of the Maghas 300
7. No Vakataka Coinage 301
8. The Coinage of the Imperial Guptas 301
9. The Coinage of the Hunas 305
10. Coinage in South India 306
11. Relative values of different coins 307
 
CHAPTER XVI
COLONIAL AND CULTURAL EXPANSION
I. Colonial Expansion in Isnul-India
By Dr. R. C. Majumdar
 
1. Hindu Colonial kingdoms 309
2. Fu-Nan 310
3. Champa 311
4. Other kingdoms 313
5. Hindu Civilisation in Suvarnadvipa 316
6. The Malay Peninsula 320
II. Cultural Relations With Eastern Turkestan And China 323
  By Dr. P.C. Bagchi, M.A., Docteur es Letters (Paris), F.R.A.S.B.
Director, Cheena Bhavana, Visvabharati,
Formerly Lecturer, Calcutta University
 
 
CHAPTER XVII
INTERCOURSE WITH THE WESTERN WORLD
334
 
By Dr. R. c. Majumdar
 
 
CHAPTER XVIII
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
By. Dr. A. S. Altekar
I. Social Condition
 
I. Caste System : Inter-marriage 342
2. Caste System : Professions 343
3. Slavery 348
4. The Family 349
5. Food and Drink 352
6. Dress and Ornaments 353
 
II. ECONOMIC CONDITION
 
1. Guild 355
2. Trade 357
3. Wealth of the Country 359
4. Cost of Living 359
5. Agrarian Problems 360
 
CHAPTER XIX
RELISION AND PHILOSOPHY
By Dr. A.S. Altekar
 
1. General Background 363
2. The Spirit of Tolerance and Harmony 364
3. Vedic Religion 368
4. Growing Popularity of Puranic Hinduism 370
5. Popular Beliefs 375
6. Rites and Ceremonies 377
7. Hinduism and Foreigners 378
8. Hindu Philosophy 380
9. Buddhism 382
10. Extent of Buddhism 387
11. Jainism 390
12. General View 394
 
CHAPTER XX
EDUCATION, LITERATURE AND SCIENCES
By Dr. A. S. Altekar
 
 
I. Education
396
1. Agrahara Villages as Centres of Learning 397
2. Rise of Monastic Colleges 398
3. Technical and Primary Education 400
 
II. SANSKRIT LITERATURE
401
1. The Author of the Age : Bhasa 403
2. Kalidasa 404
3. Other Poets 406
4. Fable 408
5. Technical Literature 409
6. Religious and Philosophical Literature 409
7. Dravidian Literature 410
  III. SCIENCE 411
1. Mathematics 411
2. Astronomy 415
3. Medicine 419
4. Chemistry and Metallurgy 420
 
CHAPTER XXI
 
  Archaeological Remains of The Gupta Period 423
  By Rao Bahadur K. N. Dikshit, M.A., F.R.A.S.B.,
Formerly Director General of Archaeology in India
 
 
CHAPTER XXII
FINE ARTS
I. South Indian Arts
By Dr. C. Sivaramamurti, M.A., Ph.D., Archaeological Section,
Government Museum, Madras
 
1. Sculpture 442
2. Architecture 444
 
II. Art in The Gupta Period
By Dr. V.S. Agrawala, M.A., Ph.D., Curator, Provincial Museum, Lucknow
 
I. Sculpture 446
2. Architecture 452
3. Secular Architecture 460
4. Terracotta 461
5. Painting 463
6. General Estimate 468
  List of Illustrations xxiii
  Abbreviations xxv
  Select Bibliography 473
  Index 491
  Plates I-XV at end
  Map of India at end

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