Greek Influence

GREEK INFLUENCE Astronomy and Art.—The Brahman astronomy owed much to the Greeks, and what the Buddhists were to the architecture of northern India, that the Greeks were to its sculpture. Greek faces and profiles constantly occur in ancient Buddhist statuary, and enrich almost all the larger museums in India. The purest speci mens have been found in the North-West Frontier Province (the ancient Gandhara) and the Punjab, where the Greeks settled in greatest force. As we proceed eastward from the Punjab, the Greek type begins to fade. Purity of outline gives place to lusciousness of form. In the female figures, the artists trust more and more to swelling breasts and towering chignons, and load the neck with constantly accumulating jewels. Nevertheless, the Grecian type of countenance long survived in Indian art and it may even be traced in the delicate profiles on the so-called sun temple at Kanarak, built in the 12th century A.D. on the remote Orissa shore.

The Maurya Dynasty.

Chandragupta was one of the great est of Indian kings. The dominions that he had won back from the Greeks he administered with equal power. He maintained an army of 600,000 infantry,3o,0o0 horsemen, 36,000 men with the elephants, and 24,000 men with the chariots, which was controlled by an elab orate war-office system. The account given of his reign by Megasthenes makes him better known to us than any other Indian monarch down to the time of Akbar. In 297 B.C. he was succeeded by his son, Bind usara, who is supposed to have extended his dominions down to Madras. In 264 B.C. he in turn was succeeded by Asoka, the Bud dhist emperor, the religious side of whose reign has already been described. Asoka's empire included the greater part of Afghan istan, a large part of Baluchistan, Sind, Kashmir, Nepal, Bengal to the mouths of the Ganges, and peninsular India down to the Palar river. After Asoka the Mauryas dwindled away, and the last of them, Brihad ratha, was treacherously assassinated in 184 B.C. by his commander-in-chief, Ptishya mitra Sunga, who founded the Sunga dynasty.

Sunga, Kanva and Andhra Dynasties.—During the 2nd century B.C. north-western India was invaded and partially con quered by Antiochus III. the Great, Demetrius Eucratides and Menander. With the last of these Pushyamitra Sunga waged suc cessful war, driving him from the Gangetic valley and confining him to his conquests in the west. Pushyamitra established his own paramountcy over northern India; but his reign is mainly mem orable as marking the beginning of the Brahmanical reaction against Buddhism, and his savage persecution of the Buddhist monks. The Sunga dynasty, after lasting i r 2 years, was succeeded by the Kanva dynasty, which lasted 45 years, i.e., until about 27 B.C., when it was overthrown by an unknown king of the Andhra dynasty of the Satavahanas, whose power, originating in the deltas of the Godavari and Kistna rivers, by A.D. 200 had spread across India to Nasik and gradually pushed its way northwards.

The Saka Satraps.—About ioo B.C. there appeared in the west three foreign tribes from the north, who established themselves in Malwa, Gujarat and Kathiawar. These tribes were the Sakas (Scythians), a horde of pastoral nomads from Central Asia, the Pahlavas, whose name is supposed to be a corruption of "Par thiva" (i.e., Parthians of Persia), and the Yavanas (Ionians), i.e., foreigners from the old Indo-Greek kingdoms of the north-west frontier, all of whom had been driven southwards by the advance of the Yueh-chi. Their rulers, of whom the first to be mentioned is Bhumaka, took the Persian title of satrap. They were hated by the Hindus as barbarians who disregarded the caste system and despised the holy law, and for centuries an intermittent strug gle continued between the satraps and the Andhras, with varying fortune. Finally, however, about A.D. 236, the Andhra dynasty, after an existence of some 46o years, came to an end, and their place in western India was taken by the satraps, until the last of them was overthrown by Chandragupta Vikramaditya at the close of the 4th century.

The Kushan Dynasty.—Meanwhile, the Yueh-chi had them selves crossed the Hindu Kush to the invasion of north-western India. They were originally divided into five tribes, which were united under the rule of Kadphises I. (A.D. 4o-78), the founder of the Kushan dynasty, who conquered the Kabul valley, annihi lating what remained there of the Greek dominion, and swept away the petty Indo-Greek and Indo-Parthian principalities on the Indus. His successors completed the conquest of north-west ern India from the delta of the Indus eastwards probably as far as Benares. One effect of the Yueh-chi conquests was to open up a channel of commerce with the Roman empire by the northern trade routes; and the Indian embassy which, according to Dion Cassius (ix. 58), visited Trajan after his arrival at Rome in A.D. 99, was probably sent by Kadphises II. (Ooemokadphises) to announce his conquest of north-western India. The most cele brated of the Kushan kings, however, was Kanishka, whose date (?acc. A.D. 120) is still a matter of controversy. From his capital at Purushapura (Peshawar) he not only maintained his hold on north-western India, but conquered Kashmir, attacked Patali putra, carried on a successful war with the Parthians, and led an army across the appalling passes of the Taghdumbash Pamir to the conquest of Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan.

The dynasties of the Andhras in the centre and south and of the Kushans in the north came to an end almost at the same time (c. A.D. 236-225 respectively). The history of India during the remainder of the 3rd century is a confused record of mean ingless names and disconnected events ; and it is not until the opening of the 4th century that the veil is lifted, with the rise to supreme power in Magadha (A.D. 32o) of Chandragupta I., the founder of the Gupta dynasty and empire.

The Gupta Age, 320 to 480 A.D.—Often described as the Golden Age of Hinduism, the Gupta period comprised the reigns of five great monarchs, who occupied an imperial throne, first at Pataliputra and afterwards at Ajodhya, for 16o years. The second of these, Samudragupta, a ruler of high personal accomplishments, brought under his sway the country from the Nerbudda on the south to the Himalayas on the north, from the Jumna on the west to the Brahmaputra on the east, and exercised considerable suzerainty even beyond those limits. Chandragupta II., the third of the line, was the Vikramajit of Indian legend. Under the last of the great five, Skandagupta, the pressure of the invading Huns began to break up the strongest power that gave India peace until the coming of Akbar. It was in peace and the arts of peace that the Gupta empire shone. The land was rich and prosperous; the administration enlightened and tolerant ; and Hindu art reached its zenith. Science was cultivated; music, sculpture and painting attained a high level of excellence. Literature flourished ; it was under the Guptas that Kalidasa wrote his great play Sakuntala; and Sanskrit, as its vehicle, developed unequalled suppleness and grace. Trade extended in all directions, and diplomatic relations followed in its course; not less than three missions to imperial Rome figuring among the long tale of embassies sent by the Guptas to foreign courts. The Buddhist rule of life prevailed, Buddhism remaining in theory the State religion; but it was during this period that reviving Hinduism absorbed the best elements in Buddhism, and at the same time undermined its tenets by new orientations of Brahmanical philosophy.

The Hun Invasions.—The barbarian invasions of the fifth and sixth centuries, dismembering the Gupta empire and converting India into a Hun province, cut clean across the history and tradi tions of India. They began with the White Huns or Ephthalites, who after breaking (c. 47o) the power of Persia and Kabul, swarmed across India in irresistible numbers. Their dominion was a mere organization for brigandage on an imperial scale and it did not long survive. It was shaken (c. 528) by the defeat, at the hands of tributary princes goaded to desperation, of Mihira gula, the most powerful and bloodthirsty of its rulers—the "Attila of India." It collapsed with the overthrow of the central power of the White Huns on the Oxus (c. 565) by the Turks. Though, however, this stopped the incursions of Asiatic hordes from the north-west, and India was to remain almost exempt from foreign invasion for some soo years, the Ephthalite conquest added new and permanent elements to the Indian population. After the fall of the central power, the scattered Hunnish settlers, like so many before them, became rapidly Hinduized, and are probably the ancestors of some of the most famous Rajput clans.

Harsha.—The last Indian monarch, prior to the Mohammedan conquest, to establish and maintain paramount power in the north was Harsha, or Harshavardhana (also known as Siladitya), for whose reign (606-648) full and trustworthy materials exist in the book of travels written by the Chinese pilgrim Hsiian Tsang and the Harsha-charita (Deeds of Harsha) composed by Bana, a Brahman who lived at the royal court. Harsha was the younger son of the raja of Thanesar, and gained his first experience of campaigning while still a boy in the successful wars waged by his father and brother against the Huns on the north-western frontier. After the treacherous murder of his brother by Sasanka, king of Central Bengal, he spent five and a half years in continual war fare. By A.D. 612 he had actually conquered the north-western regions and also, probably, part of Bengal. Af ter this he reigned for 344 years, devoting most of his energy to perfecting the ad ministration of his vast dominions. In his campaigns he was almost uniformly successful ; but in his attempt to conquer the Deccan he was repulsed (62o) by the Chalukya king, Pulikesin II., who successfully prevented him from forcing the passes of the Nerbudda. Towards the end of his reign Harsha's empire em braced the whole basin of the Ganges from the Himalayas to the Nerbudda, including Nepal, besides Malwa, Gujarat and Surashtra (Kathiawar) ; while even Assam (Kamarupa) was tributary to him. The empire, however, died with its founder. His benevolent despotism had healed the wounds inflicted by the barbarian in vaders, and given to his subjects a false feeling of security. For he left no heir to carry on his work; his death was followed by centuries of disruptive internecine war.

The Deccan.

In the Deccan the middle of the 6th century saw the rise of the Chalukya dynasty, founded by Pulikesin I. about A.D. 55o. The most famous monarch of this line was Pulike sin II., who repelled the inroads of Harsha (A.D. 62o) ; but in A.D. 642 he was defeated by the Pallavas of Conjeeveram, and though his son Vikramaditya I. restored the fallen fortunes of his family, the Chalukyas were finally superseded by the Rashtrakutas about A.D. 75o. The Kailas temple at Ellora was built in the reign of Krishna I. (c. A.D. 76o). The last of the Rashtrakutas was over thrown in A.D. 973 by Taila II., a scion of the old Chalukya stock, who founded a second dynasty known as the Chalukyas of Kalyani, which lasted like its predecessor for about two centuries and a quarter. About A.D. I000 the Chalukya kingdom suffered severely from the invasion of the Chola king, Rajaraja the Great. Vikramanka, the hero of Bilhana's historical poem, came to the throne in A.D. i o; 6 and reigned for fifty years. After his death the Chalukya power declined. During the 12th and i3th centuries a family called Hoysala attained considerable prominence in the Mysore country, but they were overthrown by Malik Kafur in A.D. 131 o. The Yadava kings of Deogiri were descendants of feudatory nobles of the Chalukya kingdom, but they, like the Hoysalas, were overthrown by Malik Kafur, and Ramachandra was the last independent Hindu sovereign of the Deccan.

The Kingdoms of the South.

According to ancient tradition the kingdoms of the south were three—Pandya, Chola and Chera. Pandya occupied the extremity of the peninsula, south of Pudukot tai, Chola extended northwards to Nellore, and Chera lay to the west, including Malabar, and is identified with the Kerala of Asoka. All three kingdoms were occupied by races speaking Dravidian languages. The authentic history of the south does not begin until the 9th and Toth centuries A.D., though the kingdoms are known to have existed in Asoka's time.

The most ancient mention of the name Pandya occurs in the 4th century B.C., and in Asoka's time the kingdom was inde pendent, but no early records survive, the inscriptions of the dynasty being of late date, while the long lists of kings in Tamil literature are untrustworthy. During the early centuries of the Christian era the Pandya and Chera kingdoms traded with Rome. The most ancient Pandya king to whom a definite date can be ascribed is Rajasimha (c. A.D. 92o). Records begin towards the end of the 1 2th century, and the dynasty can be traced from then till the middle of the i6th century. The most conspicuous event in its history was the invasion by the Sinhalese armies of Para kramabahu, king of Ceylon (c. A.D. 11i5). The early records of the Chera kingdom are still more meagre; and the authentic list of the rajas of Travancore does not begin till A.D. 1335.

The Chola kingdom, like the Pandya, is mentioned by the Sanskrit grammarian Katyayana in the 4th century B.C., and was recognized by Asoka as independent. The dynastic history of the Cholas begins about A.D. 86o, and is known from then until its decline in the middle of the i 3th century. During those four centuries their history is intertwined with that of the Pallavas, Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas and other minor dynasties. In A.D. 64o the Chola country was visited by Hsuan Tsang, but the country at that time was desolate, and the dynasty of small importance. In A.D. 985 Rajaraja the Great came to the throne, and after a reign of twenty-seven years died the paramount ruler of southern India. He conquered and annexed the island of Ceylon, and was succeeded by four equally vigorous members of the dynasty; but after the time of Vikrama (A.D. 1120) the Chola power gradu ally declined, and was practically extinguished by Malik Kafur.

The Pallava Confederacy.---Of

the Pallavas, and the power ful part they played in the history of the peninsula, the records are scanty. The first Pallava king about whom anything sub stantial is known was Sivaskanda-Varman (c. A.D. iso), whose capital was Kanchi (Conjeeveram), his power extending into the Telugu country as far as the Kistna river. Two centuries later Samudragupta conquered eleven kings of the south, of whom three were Pallavas. It appears that in the 4th century three Pallava chiefs were established at Kanchi, Vengi and Palakkada, the latter two being subordinate to the first, and that Pallava rule extended from the Godavari on the north to the Southern Vellaru river on the south, and stretched across Mysore from sea to sea. About A.D. 609 Pulikesin II., the Chalukya king, defeated Mahen dra-Varman, a Pallava chief, and drove him to take refuge behind the walls of Kanchi. About A.D. 62o a prince named Vishnuvard hana founded the Eastern Chalukya line in the province of Vengi, which was taken from the Pallavas. Hsuan Tsang visited Kanchi, the Pallava capital, in the year A.D. 640; the country was, accord ing to his account, I000 m. in circumference, and the capital was a large city 5 or 6 m. in circumference. In A.D. 642 the Pallavas defeated in turn Pulikesin II. The conflict became perennial, and when the Rashtrakutas supplanted the Chalukyas in the middle of the 8th century, they took up the old quarrel with the Pallavas.

Towards the end of the loth century the Pallava power, which had lasted for ten centuries, was destroyed by the Chola monarch, Rajaraja the Great.