In the Andhra land Satavahana king Simuka overthrew the last
Kanva king in 30 BC
and according to the Puranas reigned
for 23 years.
The Andhras were called Dasyus in the Aitareya
Brahmana,
and they were criticized for being degraded Brahmins
or outcastes by the orthodox.
For three centuries the kingdom
of the Satavahanas flourished except for a brief invasion
by the
Shaka clan of Kshaharata led by Bhumaka and Nahapana in the early
2nd century CE.
The latter was overthrown as the Satavahana kingdom
with its caste system was restored
by Gautamiputra Satakarni about
125 CE;
his mother claimed he rooted out Shakas (Scythians), Yavanas
(Greeks and Romans),
and Pahlavas (Parthians), and records praised
Gautamiputra for being virtuous,
concerned about his subjects,
taxing them justly, and stopping the mixing of castes.
His successor
Pulumavi ruled for 29 years and extended
Satavahana power to the
mouth of the Krishna River.
Trade with the Romans was active from the first century CE
when
Pliny complained that 550 million sesterces went to India
annually,
mostly for luxuries like spices, jewels, textiles, and
exotic animals.
The Satavahana kingdom was ruled in small provinces
by governors,
who became independent when the Satavahana kingdom
collapsed.
An inscription dated 150 CE credits Shaka ruler Rudradaman
with supporting the cultural
arts and Sanskrit literature and
repairing the dam built by the Mauryans.
Rudradaman took back
most of the territory the Satavahana king Gautamiputra
captured
from Nahapana, and he also conquered the Yaudheya tribes in Rajasthan.
However, in the next century the warlike Yaudheyas became more
powerful.
The indigenous Nagas also were aggressive toward Shaka
satraps in the 3rd century.
In the Deccan after the Satavahanas,
Takataka kings ruled from the 3rd century to the 6th.
Probably in the second half of the first century BC Kharavela
conquered much territory
for Kalinga in southeastern India and
patronized Jainism.
He was said
to have spent much money for the welfare of his subjects and had
the canal
enlarged that had been built three centuries before
by the Nandas.
In addition to a large palace, a monastery was
built at Pabhara,
and caves were excavated for the Jains.
Late in the 1st century BC a line of Iranian kings
known as
the Pahlavas ruled northwest India.
The Shaka (Scythian) Maues,
who ruled for about 40 years until 22 CE,
broke relations with
the Iranians and claimed to be the great king of kings himself.
Maues was succeeded by three Shaka kings whose reigns overlapped.
The Parthian Gondophernes seems to have driven the last Greek
king Hermaeus
out of the Kabul valley and taken over Gandhara
from the Shakas,
and it was said that he received at his court
Jesus' disciple Thomas.
Evidence indicates that Thomas also traveled
to Malabar about 52 CE and
established Syrian churches on the
west coast before crossing to preach
on the east coast around
Madras, where he was opposed and killed in 68.
However, the Pahlavas were soon driven out by Scythians
Chinese
historians called the Yue-zhi.
Their Kushana tribal chief Kujula
Kadphises, his son Vima Kadphises,
and Kanishka (r. 78-101) gained
control of the western half of northern India by 79 CE.
According
to Chinese history one of these kings demanded to marry a Han
princess,
but the Kushanas were defeated by the Chinese
led by
Ban Chao at the end of the 1st century.
Kanishka, considered the
founder of the Shaka era, supported Buddhism,
which held its 4th council in Kashmir during his reign.
A new
form of Mahayana Buddhism with the compassionate saints (bodhisattvas)
helping to save others was spreading in the north,
while the traditional
Theravada of saints (arhats) working
for their own enlightenment held strong in southern regions.
Several great Buddhist philosophers
were favored at Kanishka's court, including
Parshva, Vasumitra,
and Ashvaghosha;
Buddhist missions were sent to central Asia and
China,
and Kanishka was said to have died fighting in central
Asia.
Kushana power decreased after the reign of Vasudeva (145-176),
and they became vassals in the 3rd century after being defeated
by Shapur I of the Persian Sasanian dynasty.
In the great vehicle or way of Mahayana Buddhism the saint
(bodhisattva) is concerned
with the virtues of benevolence,
character, patience, perseverance, and meditation,
determined
to help all souls attain nirvana.
This doctrine is found in the
Sanskrit Surangama Sutra of the first century CE.
In a
dialog between the Buddha and
Ananda before a large gathering of monks,
the Buddha
declared that keeping the precepts depends on concentration,
which
enhances meditation and develops intelligence and wisdom.
He emphasized
that the most important allurement to overcome
is sexual thought,
desire, and indulgence.
The next allurement is pride of ego, which
makes one prone to be unkind, unjust, and cruel.
Unless one can
control the mind so that even the thought of killing or brutality
is abhorrent,
one will never escape the bondage of the world.
Killing and eating flesh must be stopped.
No teaching that is
unkind can be the teaching of the Buddha.
Another precept is to refrain from coveting and stealing,
and
the fourth is not to deceive or tell lies.
In addition to the
three poisons of lust, hatred, and infatuation,
one must curtail
falsehood, slander, obscene words, and flattery.
Ashvaghosha was the son of a Brahmin and at first traveled
around arguing
against Buddhism until he was converted, probably
by Parshva.
Ashvaghosha wrote the earliest Sanskrit drama still
partially extant;
in the Shariputra-prakarana the Buddha
converts Maudgalyayana and Sariputra
by philosophical discussion.
His poem Buddhacharita describes the life and teachings
of the Buddha very beautifully.
The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana is ascribed to
Ashvaghosha.
That treatise distinguishes two aspects of the soul
as suchness (bhutatathata)
and the cycle of birth and death
(samsara).
The soul as suchness is one with all things,
but this cannot be described with any attributes.
This is negative
in its emptiness (sunyata) but positive
as eternally transcendent
of all intellectual categories.
Samsara comes forth from
this ultimate reality.
Multiple things are produced when the mind
is disturbed,
but they disappear when the mind is quiet.
The separate
ego-consciousness is nourished
by emotional and mental prejudices (ashrava).
Since all beings have suchness, they can receive
instructions from all Buddhas
and Bodhisattvas and receive benefits
from them.
By the purity of enlightenment they can destroy hindrances
and experience insight
into the oneness of the universe.
All Buddhas
feel compassion for all beings, treating others as themselves,
and they practice virtue and good deeds for the universal salvation
of humanity in the future,
recognizing equality among people and
not clinging to individual existence.
Thus the prejudices and
inequities of the caste system were strongly criticized.
Mahayana texts were usually written in Sanskrit instead of
Pali,
and the Prajnaparamita was translated into Chinese
as early as 179 CE by Lokakshema.
This dialog of 8,000 lines in
which the Buddha spoke for himself
and through Subhuti with his disciples was also summarized in
verse.
The topic is perfect wisdom.
Bodhisattvas are described
as having an even and friendly mind, being amenable,
straight,
soft-spoken, free of perceiving multiplicity, and free of self-interest.
Detached, they do not want gain or fame, and their hearts are
not overcome
by anger nor do they seek a livelihood in the wrong
way.
Like an unstained lotus in the water they return from concentration
to the sense world
to mature beings and purify the field with
compassion for all living things.
Having renounced a heavenly
reward they serve the entire world,
like a mother taking care
of her child.
Thought produced is dedicated to enlightenment.
They do not wish to release themselves in a private nirvana
but
become the world's resting place by learning not to embrace anything.
With a mind full of friendliness and compassion, seeing countless
beings
with heavenly vision as like creatures on the way to slaughter,
a Bodhisattva impartially
endeavors to release them from their
suffering by working for the welfare of all beings.
Nagarjuna was also born into a Brahmin family and in the 2nd
century CE
founded the Madhyamika (Middle Path) school of Mahayana
Buddhism,
although he was concerned about Hinayanists too.
He
was a stern disciplinarian and expelled many monks
from the community
at Nalanda for not observing the rules.
A division among his followers
led to the development
of the Yogachara school of philosophy.
Nagarjuna taught that all things are empty, but he answered critics
that this does not deny reality but explains how the world happens.
Only from the absolute point of view is there no birth or annihilation.
The Buddha and all beings are
like the sky and are of one nature.
All things are nothing but
mind established as phantoms;
thus blissful or evil existence
matures according to good or evil actions.
Nagarjuna discussed ethics in his Suhrllekha.
He considered
ethics faultless and sublime as the ground of all, like the earth.
Aware that riches are unstable and void, one should give;
for
there is no better friend than giving.
He recommended the transcendental
virtues of charity, patience, energy, meditation,
and wisdom,
while warning against avarice, deceit, illusion, lust,
indolence,
pride, greed, and hatred.
Attaining patience by renouncing anger
he felt was the most difficult.
One should look on another's wife
like one's mother, daughter or sister.
It is more heroic to conquer
the objects of the six senses than a mass of enemies in battle.
Those who know the world are equal to the eight conditions
of
gain and loss, happiness and suffering, fame and dishonor, and
blame and praise.
A woman (or man), who is gentle as a sister,
winning as a friend, caring as a mother,
and obedient as a servant,
one should honor as a guardian goddess (god).
He suggested meditating
on kindness, pity, joy, and equanimity,
abandoning desire, reflection,
happiness, and pain.
The aggregates of form, perception, feeling,
will, and consciousness arise from ignorance.
One is fettered
by attachment to religious ceremonies, wrong views, and doubt.
One should annihilate desire as one would extinguish a fire in
one's clothes or head.
Wisdom and concentration go together,
and
for the one who has them the sea of existence is like a grove.
During the frequent wars that preceded the Gupta empire in
the 4th century
the Text of the Excellent Golden Light
(Suvarnaprabhasottama Sutra)
indicated the Buddhist attitude
toward this fighting.
Everyone should be protected from invasion
in peace and prosperity.
While turning back their enemies, one
should create in the earthly kings
a desire to avoid fighting,
attacking, and quarreling with neighbors.
When the kings are contented
with their own territories, they will not attack others.
They
will gain their thrones by their past merit
and not show their
mettle
by wasting provinces;
thinking of mutual welfare, they
will be prosperous, well fed, pleasant, and populous.
However,
when a king disregards evil done in his own kingdom
and does not
punish criminals, injustice, fraud, and strife will increase in
the land.
Such a land afflicted with terrible crimes falls into
the power of the enemy,
destroying property, families, and wealth,
as men ruin each other with deceit.
Such a king, who angers the
gods, will find his kingdom perishing;
but the king, who distinguishes
good actions from evil,
shows the results of karma and is ordained
by the gods to preserve justice
by putting down rogues and criminals
in his domain
even to giving up his life rather than the jewel
of justice.
After 20 BC many kings ruled Sri Lanka (Ceylon) during a series
of succession fights
until Vasabha (r. 67-111 CE) of the Lambakanna
sect established a new dynasty
that would rule more than three
centuries.
Vasabha promoted the construction of eleven reservoirs
and an extensive irrigation system.
The island was divided briefly
by his son and his two brothers,
as the Chola king Karikala invaded;
but Gajabahu (r. 114-36) united the country and invaded the Chola
territory.
A treaty established friendly relations, and Hindu temples
were built on Sri Lanka,
including some for the chaste goddess
immortalized in the Silappadikaram.
Sri Lanka experienced
peace and prosperity for 72 years,
and King Voharika Tissa (r.
209-31) even abolished punishment by mutilation.
However, when
the Buddhist schism divided people,
the king suppressed the new
Mahayana doctrine and banished its followers.
Caught in an intrigue
with the queen, his brother Abhayanaga (r. 231-40) fled to India,
and then with Tamils invaded Sri Lanka, defeated and killed his
brother,
took the throne, and married the queen.
Gothabhaya (r.
249-62) persecuted the new Vetulya doctrine supported by monks
at Abhayagirivihara by having sixty monks branded and banished.
Their accounts of this cruelty led Sanghamitta to tutor the princes
in such a way
that when Mahasena (r. 274-301) became king, he
confiscated property
from the traditional Mahavihara monastery
and gave it to Abhayagirivihara.
The Tamil epic poem called The Ankle Bracelet (Silappadikaram)
was written
about 200 CE by Prince Ilango Adigal, brother of King
Shenguttuvan,
who ruled the western coast of south India.
Kovalan,
the son of a wealthy merchant in Puhar, marries Kannaki,
the beautiful
daughter of a wealthy ship-owner.
The enchanting Madhavi dances
so well for the king that he gives her a wreath
that she sells
to Kovalan for a thousand gold kalanjus, making her his
mistress.
They sing songs to each other of love and lust until
he notices hints of her other loves;
so he withdraws his hands
from her body and departs.
Kovalan returns to his wife in shame
for losing his wealth;
but she gives him her valuable ankle bracelet,
and they decide to travel to Madurai.
Kannaki courageously accompanies
him although it causes her feet to bleed.
They are joined by the
saintly woman Kavundi, and like good Jains
they try not to step
on living creatures as they walk.
They meet a saintly man who
tells them that no one can escape
reaping the harvest grown from
the seeds of one's actions.
In the woods a charming nymph tries to tempt Kovalan with a
message from Madhavi,
but his prayer causes her to confess and
run away.
A soothsayer calls Kannaki the queen of the southern
Tamil land,
but she only smiles at such ignorance.
A priest brings
a message from Madhavi asking for forgiveness
and noting his leaving
his parents.
Kovalan has the letter sent to his parents to relieve
their anguish.
Leaving his wife with the saint Kavundi, Kovalan
goes to visit the merchants,
while Kavundi warns him that the
merits of his previous lives have been exhausted;
they must prepare
for misfortune.
Reaping what is sown, many fall into predicaments
from pursuing women,
wealth, and pleasure; thus sages renounce
all desire for worldly things.
A Brahmin tells Kovalan that Madhavi
has given birth to his baby girl;
he has done good deeds in the
past,
but he warns him he must pay for some errors committed in
a past existence.
Kovalan feels bad for wasting his youth and
neglecting his parents.
He goes to town to sell the ankle bracelet;
a goldsmith tells him only the queen can purchase it,
but the
goldsmith tells King Korkai that he has found the man
who stole
his royal anklet.
The king orders the thief put to death, and
Kovalan is killed with a sword.
Kannaki weeping observes the spirit of her husband rise into
the air, telling her to stay in life.
She goes to King Korkai
and proves her husband did not steal the anklet
by showing him
their anklet has gems not pearls.
Filled with remorse for violating
justice at the word of a goldsmith,
the king dies, followed quickly
in this by his queen.
Kannaki goes out and curses the town as
she walks around the city three times.
Then she tears her left
breast from her body and throws it in the dirt.
A god of fire
appears to burn the city, but she asks him to spare Brahmins,
good men,
cows, truthful women, cripples, the old, and children,
while destroying evildoers.
As the four genii who protect the
four castes of Madurai depart, a conflagration breaks out.
The
goddess of Madurai explains to Kannaki that in a past life as
Bharata
her husband had renounced nonviolence and caused Sangaman
to be beheaded,
believing he was a spy.
His wife cursed the killer,
and now that action bore fruit.
Kannaki wanders desolate for two
weeks, confessing her crime.
Then the king of heaven proclaims
her a saint,
and she ascends with Kovalan in a divine chariot.
King Shenguttuvan, who had conquered Kadambu, leaves Vanji
and hears stories
about a woman with a breast torn off suffering
agony and how Madurai was destroyed.
The king decides to march
north to bring back a great stone
on the crowned heads of two
kings, Kanaka and Vijaya, who had criticized him;
the stone is
to be carved into the image of the beloved goddess.
His army crosses
the Ganges and defeats the northern kings.
The saintly Kavundi
fasts to death.
The fathers of Kovalan and Kannaki both give up
their wealth and join religious orders,
and Madhavi goes into
a Buddhist nunnery, followed later in this by her daughter.
Madalan
advises King Shenguttuvan to give up anger and criticizes him
for contributing to war, causing the king to release prisoners
and refund taxes.
The Chola king notes how the faithful wife has
proved the Tamil proverb
that the virtue of women is of no use
if the king fails to establish justice.
Finally the author himself
appears in the court of his brother Shenguttuvan
and gives a list
of moral precepts that begins:
Seek God and serve those who are near Him.
Do not tell lies. Avoid slander.
Avoid eating the flesh of animals
Do not cause pain to any living thing.
Be charitable, and observe fast days.
Never forget the good others have done to you.1
In a preamble added by a later commentator three lessons are
drawn from this story:
First, death results when a king strays
from the path of justice;
second, everyone must bow before a chaste
and faithful wife;
and third, fate is mysterious, and all actions
are rewarded.
Many sanctuaries were built in southern India and
Sri Lanka
to the faithful wife who became the goddess of chastity.
The Jain philosopher Kunda
Kunda of the Digambara sect lived and taught
sometime between
the first and fourth centuries.
He laid out his metaphysics in The Five Cosmic Constituents (Panchastikayasara).
He noted that karmic matter brings about its own changes,
as the
soul by impure thoughts conditioned by karma does too.
Freedom
from sorrow comes from giving up desire and aversion,
which cause
karmic matter to cling to the soul,
leading to states of existence
in bodies with senses.
Sense objects by perception then lead one
to pursue them with desires or aversion,
repeating the whole cycle.
High ideals based on love, devotion, and justice, such as offering
relief
to the thirsty, hungry, and miserable, may purify the karmic
matter;
but anger, pride, deceit, coveting, and sensual pleasures
interfere with calm thought, perception, and will,
causing anguish
to others, slander, and other evils.
Meditating on the self with
pure thought and controlled senses
will wash off the karmic dust.
Desire and aversion to pleasant and unpleasant states get the
self
bound by various kinds of karmic matter.
The knowing soul
associating with essential qualities is self-determined,
but the
soul led by desire for outer things gets bewildered and is other-determined.
Kunda Kunda discussed ethics in The Soul Essence (Samayasara).
As long as one does not discern the difference between the soul
and its thought activity,
the ignorant will indulge in anger and
other emotions that accumulate karma.
The soul discerning the
difference turns back from these.
One with wrong knowledge takes
the non-self for self, identifies with anger,
and becomes the
doer of karma.
As the king has his warriors wage war, the soul
produces,
causes, binds, and assimilates karmic matter.
Being
affected by anger, pride, deceit, and greed, the soul becomes
them.
From the practical standpoint karma is attached in the soul,
but from the real or pure perspective karma is neither bound nor
attached to the soul;
attachment to the karma destroys independence.
The soul, knowing the karma is harmful, does not indulge them
and in self-contemplation attains liberation.
The soul is bound
by wrong beliefs, lack of vows, passions, and vibratory activity.
Kunda Kunda suggested that one does not cause misery or happiness
to living beings by one's body, speech, mind, or by weapons,
but
living beings are happy or miserable by their own karma (actions).
As long as one identifies with feelings of joy and sorrow
and
until soul realization shines out in the heart, one produces good
and bad karma.
Just as an artisan does not have to identify with
performing a job, working with organs,
holding tools, the soul
can enjoy the fruit of karma without identifying.
In The Perfect Law (Niyamsara), Kunda Kunda described
right belief, right knowledge, and right conduct that lead to
liberation.
The five vows are non-injury, truth, non-stealing,
chastity, and non-possession.
Renouncing passion, attachment,
aversion, and other impure thoughts
involves controlling the mind
and speech with freedom from falsehood
and restraining the body
by not causing injury.
The right conduct of repentance and equanimity
is achieved by self-analysis,
by avoiding transgressions and thoughts
of pain and ill-will,
and by self-contemplation with pure thoughts.
Renunciation is practiced by equanimity toward all living beings
with no ill feelings,
giving up desires, controlling the senses,
and distinguishing between the soul and material karma.
A saint
of independent actions is called an internal soul,
but one devoid
of independent action is called an external soul.
The soul free
from obstructions, independent of the senses,
and liberated from
good and bad karma is free from rebirth
and eternal in the nirvana
of perfect knowledge, bliss, and power.
After the disintegration in northern India in the third century
CE,
the Kushanas still ruled over the western Punjab
and the declining
Shakas over Gujarat and part of Malwa.
Sri Lanka king Meghavarna
(r. 301-28) sent gifts and asked permission to build
a large monastery
north of the Bodhi tree for Buddhist pilgrims
that eventually
housed more than a thousand priests.
Sasanian king Shapur II fought
and made a treaty with the Kushanas in 350,
but he was defeated
by them twice in 367-68.
After two previous kings of the Gupta
dynasty, Chandra-gupta I by marrying Kumaradevi,
a Lichchhavi
princess, inaugurated the Gupta empire in 320,
launching campaigns
of territorial conquest.
This expansion was greatly increased
by their son Samudra-gupta,
who ruled for about forty years until
380, conquering nine republics in Rajasthan
and twelve states
in the Deccan of central India.
Many other kingdoms on the frontiers
paid taxes and obeyed orders.
The Guptas replaced tribal customs
with the caste system.
Rulers in the south were defeated, captured,
and released to rule as vassals.
Local ruling councils under the
Guptas tended to be dominated by commercial interests.
In addition
to his military abilities Samudra-gupta was a poet and musician,
and inscriptions praised his charity.
His son Chandra-gupta II (r. 380-414) finally ended the foreign
Shaka rule in the west
so that his empire stretched from the Bay
of Bengal to the Arabian Sea.
He allied his family with the Nagas
by marrying princess Kubernaga;
after marrying Vakataka king Rudrasena
II, his daughter ruled as regent there for 13 years.
In the south
the Pallavas ruled in harmony with the Guptas.
The Chinese pilgrim
Fa-hien described a happy and prosperous people
not bothered by
magistrates and rules;
only those working state land had to pay
a portion,
and the king governed without using decapitation or
corporal punishments.
Kumara-gupta (r. 414-55) was apparently
able to rule this vast empire
without engaging in military campaigns.
Only after forty years of peace did the threat of invading Hunas
(White Huns)
cause crown prince Skanda-gupta (r. 455-67)
to fight
for and restore Gupta fortunes by defeating the Huns about 460.
After a struggle for the Gupta throne,
Budha-gupta ruled for at
least twenty years until about 500.
Trade with the Roman empire
had been declining since the 3rd century
and was being replaced
by commerce with southeast Asia.
The empire was beginning to break
up into independent states,
such as Kathiawar and Bundelkhand,
while Vakataka king Narendra-sena took over some Gupta territory.
Gupta decline continued as Huna chief Toramana invaded the
Punjab and western India.
His son Mihirakula succeeded as ruler
about 515;
according to Xuan Zang he ruled over India, and a Kashmir
chronicle credited
Mihirakula with conquering southern India and
Sri Lanka.
The Chinese ambassador Song-yun in 520 described the
Hun king of Gandara
as cruel, vindictive, and barbarous, not believing
in the law of Buddha,
having 700 war-elephants, and living with
his troops on the frontier.
About ten years later the Greek Cosmas
from Alexandria wrote that
the White Hun king had 2,000 elephants
and a large cavalry,
but his kingdom was west of the Indus River.
However, Mihirakula was defeated by the Malwa chief Yashodharman.
The Gupta king Narasimha-gupta Baladitya was also overwhelmed
by Yashodharman
and was forced to pay tribute to Mihirakula, according
to Xuan Zang;
but Baladitya later defeated Mihirakula, saving
the Gupta empire from the Huns.
Baladitya was also credited with
building a great monastery at Nalanda.
In the middle of the 6th
century the Gupta empire
declined during the reigns of its last
two emperors, Kumara-gupta III and Vishnu-gupta.
Gupta sovereignty
was recognized in Kalinga as late as 569.
In the 4th century Vasubandhu studied and taught Sarvastivadin
Buddhism in Kashmir,
analyzing the categories of experience in
the 600 verses of his Abhidharma-kosha,
including the causes
and ways to eliminate moral problems.
Vasubandhu was converted
to the Yogachara school of Mahayana Buddhism
by his brother Asanga.
Vasubandhu had a long and influential career as the abbot at Nalanda.
As an idealist Vasubandhu, summing up his ideas in twenty and
thirty verses,
found all experience to be in consciousness.
Seeds
are brought to fruition in the store of consciousness.
Individuals
are deluded by the four evil desires of their views of self
as
real, ignorance of self, self-pride, and self-love.
He found good
mental functions in belief, sense of shame, modesty, absence of
coveting,
energy, mental peace, vigilance, equanimity, and non-injury.
Evil mental functions he listed as covetousness, hatred, attachment,
arrogance, doubt,
and false view; minor ones included anger, enmity,
concealment, affliction, envy, parsimony,
deception, fraud, injury,
pride, high-mindedness, low-mindedness, unbelief, indolence,
idleness,
forgetfulness, distraction, and non-discernment.
For Vasubandhu
life is like a dream in which we create our reality in our consciousness;
even the tortures of hell have no outward reality
but are merely
projections of consciousness.
Enlightenment is when mental obstructions
and projections are transcended
without grasping; the habit-energies
of karma, the six senses and their objects,
and relative knowledge
are all abandoned for
perfect wisdom, purity, freedom, peace,
and joy.
Vasubandhu wrote that we can know other minds and influence
each other
for better and worse, because karma is intersubjective.
In 554 Maukhari king Ishana-varman claimed he won victories
over the Andhras, Sulikas, and Gaudas.
A Gurjara kingdom was founded
in the mid-6th century in Rajputana by Harichandra,
as apparently
the fall of empires in northern India
caused this Brahmin to exchange
scriptures for arms.
Xuan Zang praised Valabhi king Shiladitya
I, who ruled about 580,
for having great administrative ability
and compassion.
Valabhi hosted the second Jain council that established
the Jain canon in the 6th century.
Valabhi king Shiladitya III
(r. 662-84) assumed an imperial title and conquered Gurjara.
However,
internal conflicts as well as Arab invasion
destroyed the Valabhi
kingdom by about 735.
The Gurjara kingdom was also overrun by
Arabs,
but Pratihara king Nagabhata is credited with turning back
the Muslim invaders
in the northwest; he was helped in this effort
by Gurjara king Jayabhata IV
and Chalukya king Avanijanashraya-Pulakeshiraja
in the south.
After Thaneswar king Prabhakara-vardhana (r. 580-606) died,
his son Rajya-vardhana marched against the hostile Malava king
with 10,000 cavalry and won; but according to Banabhatta, the
king of Malava,
after gaining his confidence with false civilities,
had him murdered.
His brother Harsha-vardhana (r. 606-47) swore
he would clear the earth of Gaudas;
starting with 5,000 elephants,
2,000 cavalry, and 50,000 infantry,
his army grew as military
conquests enabled him to become the most powerful ruler
of northern
India at Kanauj.
Somehow Harsha's conflicts with Valabhi and Gurjara
led to his war
with Chalukya king Pulakeshin II; but his southern
campaign was apparently a failure,
and Sindh remained an independent
kingdom.
However, in the east according to Xuan Zang
by 643 Harsha had
subjugated Kongoda and Orissa.
That year the Chinese pilgrim observed
two great assemblies, one at Kanauj
and the other a religious
gathering at Prayaga, where the distribution
of accumulated resources
drew twenty kings and about 500,000 people.
Xuan Zang credited
Harsha with building rest-houses for travelers,
but he noted that
the penalty for breaching the social morality or filial duties
could be mutilation or exile.
After Gauda king Shashanka's death
Harsha had conquered Magadha,
and he eventually took over western
Bengal.
Harsha also was said to have written plays, and three
of them survive.
Xuan Zang reported that he divided India's revenues
into four parts
for government expenses, public service, intellectual
rewards, and religious gifts.
During his reign the university
in Nalanda
became the most renowned center of Buddhist learning.
However, no successor of Harsha-vardana is known,
and apparently
his empire ended with his life.
Wang-Xuan-zi gained help from Nepal against the violent usurper
of Harsha's throne,
who was sent to China as a prisoner; Nepal
also sent a mission to China in 651.
The dynasty called the Later
Guptas for their similar names took over Magadha
and ruled there
for almost a century.
Then Yashovarman brought Magadha under his
sovereignty
as he also invaded Bengal and defeated the ruler of
Gauda.
In 713 Kashmir king Durlabhaka sent an envoy to the Chinese
emperor
asking for aid against invading Arabs.
His successor Chandrapida
was able to defend Kashmir against Arab aggression.
He was described
as humane and just, but in his ninth year as king
he was killed
by his brother Tarapida, whose cruel and bloody reign lasted only
four years.
Lalitaditya became king of Kashmir in 724 and in alliance
with Yashovarman
defeated the Tibetans; but Lalitaditya and Yashovarman
could not agree on a treaty;
Lalitaditya was victorious, taking
over Kanauj and a vast empire.
The Arabs were defeated in the
west, and Bengal was conquered in the east,
though Lalitaditya's
record was tarnished
when he had the Gauda king of Bengal murdered
after promising him safe conduct.
Lalitaditya died about 760.
For a century Bengal had suffered anarchy in which the strong
devoured the weak.
Arabs had been repelled at Sindh in 660, but they invaded Kabul
and Zabulistan
during the Caliphate of Muawiyah (661-80).
In 683
Kabul revolted and defeated the Muslim army,
but two years later
Zabul's army was routed by the Arabs.
After Al-Hajjaj became governor
of Iraq in 695,
the combined armies of Zabul and Kabul defeated
the Arabs;
but a huge Muslim army returned to ravage Zabulistan
four years later.
Zabul paid tribute until Hajjaj died in 714.
Two years before that, Hajjaj had equipped Muslim general Muhammad-ibn-Qasim
for a major invasion of Sindh which resulted in the chiefs
accepting
Islam under sovereignty of the new Caliph 'Umar II (717-20).
Pulakeshin I ruled the Chalukyas for about thirty years in
the middle of the 6th century.
He was succeeded by Kirtivarman
I (r. 566-97),
who claimed he destroyed the Nalas, Mauryas, and
Kadambas.
Mangalesha (r. 597-610) conquered the Kalachuris and
Revatidvipa,
but he lost his life in a civil war over the succession
with his nephew Pulakeshin II (r. 610-42).
Starting in darkness
enveloped by enemies, this king made Govinda an ally
and regained
the Chalukya empire by reducing Kadamba capital Vanavasi,
the
Gangas, and the Mauryas, marrying a Ganga princess.
In the north
Pulakeshin II subdued the Latas, Malavas, and Gurjaras;
he even
defeated the mighty Harsha of Kanauj
and won the three kingdoms
of Maharashtra, Konkana, and Karnata.
After conquering the Kosalas
and Kalingas, an Eastern Chalukya dynasty was inaugurated
by his
brother Kubja Vishnuvardhana and absorbed the Andhra country
when
Vishnukundin king Vikramendra-varman III was defeated.
Moving
south, Pulakeshin II allied himself with the Cholas, Keralas,
and Pandyas
in order to invade the powerful Pallavas.
By 631 the
Chalukya empire extended from sea to sea.
Xuan Zang described
the Chalukya people as stern and vindictive toward enemies,
though
they would not kill those who submitted.
They and their elephants
fought while inebriated,
and Chalukya laws did not punish soldiers
who killed.
However, Pulakeshin II was defeated and probably killed
in 642 when the Pallavas
in retaliation for an attack on their
capital captured the Chalukya capital at Badami.
For thirteen years the Pallavas held some territory
while Chalukya
successors fought for the throne.
Eventually Vikramaditya I (r.
655-81) became king and recovered the southern part
of the empire
from the Pallavas, fighting three Pallava kings in succession.
He was followed by his son Vinayaditya (r. 681-96), whose son
Vijayaditya (r. 696-733)
also fought with the Pallavas.
Vijayaditya
had a magnificent temple built to Shiva and donated villages to
Jain teachers.
His son Vikramaditya II (r. 733-47) also attacked
the Pallavas and took Kanchi,
but instead of destroying it he
donated gold to its temples.
His son Kirtivarman II (r. 744-57)
was the last ruler of the Chalukya empire,
as he was overthrown
by Rashtrakuta king Krishna I.
However, the dynasty of the Eastern
Chalukyas still remained to challenge the Rashtrakutas.
In the
early 8th century the Chalukyas gave refuge to Zoroastrians called
Parsis,
who had been driven out of Persia by Muslims.
A Christian
community still lived in Malabar, and in the 10th century
the
king of the Cheras granted land to Joseph Rabban for a Jewish
community in India.
Pallava king Mahendra-varman I, who ruled for thirty years
at the beginning of the 7th century lost northern territory to
the Chalukyas.
As a Jain he had persecuted other religions, but
after he tested and was converted
by the Shaivite mystic Appar,
he destroyed the Jain monastery at Pataliputra.
His son Narasimha-varman
I defeated Pulakeshin II in three battles,
capturing the Chalukya
capital at Vatapi in 642 with the aid of the Sri Lanka king.
He
ruled for 38 years, and his capital at Kanchi contained more than
a hundred
Buddhist monasteries housing over 10,000 monks, and
there were many Jain temples too.
During the reign (c. 670-95)
of Pallava king Parameshvara-varman I
the Chalukyas probably captured
Kanchi, as they did again about 740.
On the island of Sri Lanka the 58th and last king
listed in
the Mahavamsa was Mahasena (r. 274-301).
He oversaw the
building of sixteen tanks and irrigation canals.
The first of
125 kings listed up to 1815 in the Culavamsa, Srimeghavanna,
repaired the monasteries destroyed by Mahasena.
Mahanama (r. 406-28)
married the queen after she murdered his brother Upatissa.
Mahanama
was the last king of the Lambakanna dynasty
that had lasted nearly
four centuries.
His death was followed by an invasion from southern
India
that limited Sinhalese rule to the Rohana region.
Buddhaghosha was converted to Buddhism and went to Sri Lanka
during the reign of Mahanama.
There he translated and wrote commentaries
on numerous Buddhist texts.
His Visuddhimagga explains
ways to attain purity by presenting the teachings
of the Buddha
in three parts on conduct, concentration, and wisdom.
Buddhaghosha
also collected parables and stories illustrating Buddhist ethics
by showing how karma brings the consequences of actions back to
one,
sometimes in another life.
One story showed how a grudge
can cause alternating injuries
between two individuals from life
to life.
Yet if no grudge is held, the enmity subsides.
In addition
to the usual vices of killing, stealing, adultery, and a judge
taking bribes,
occupations that could lead to hell include making
weapons, selling poison, being a general,
collecting taxes, living
off tolls, hunting, fishing, and even gathering honey.
The Buddhist
path is encouraged with tales of miracles
and by showing the benefits
of good conduct and meditation.
The Moriya clan chief Dhatusena (r. 455-73) improved irrigation
by having a bridge
constructed across the Mahavali River.
He led
the struggle to expel the foreigners from the island
and restored
Sinhalese authority at Anuradhapura.
His eldest son Kassapa (r.
473-91) took him prisoner and usurped the throne
but lost it with
his life to his brother Moggallana (r. 491-508),
who used an army
of mercenaries from south India.
He had the coast guarded to prevent
foreign attacks and gave his umbrella
to the Buddhist community
as a token of submission.
His son Kumara-Dhatusena (r. 508-16)
was succeeded by his son Kittisena,
who was quickly deposed by
the usurping uncle Siva.
He was soon killed by Upatissa II (r.
517-18), who revived the Lambakanna dynasty
and was succeeded
by his son Silakala (r. 518-31).
Moggallana II (r. 531-51) had
to fight for the throne;
but he was a poet and was considered
a pious ruler loved by the people.
Two rulers were killed as the
Moriyas regained power.
The second, Mahanaga (r. 569-71), had
been a rebel at Rohana and then its governor
before becoming king
at Anuradhapura.
Aggabodhi I (r. 571-604) and Aggabodhi II (r.
604-14)
built monasteries and dug water tanks for irrigation.
A revolt by the general Moggallana III (r. 614-19) overthrew the
last Moriya king
and led to a series of civil wars and succession
battles suffered by the Sri Lanka people
until Manavamma (r. 684-718)
re-established the Lambakanna dynasty.
Included in a didactic Tamil collection of "Eighteen Minor
Poems"
are the Naladiyar and the famous Kural.
The Naladiyar consists of 400 quatrains of moral aphorisms.
In the 67th quatrain the wise say it is not cowardice to refuse
a challenge
when men rise in enmity and wish to fight;
even when
enemies do the worst, it is right not to do evil in return.
Like
milk the path of virtue is one, though many sects teach it. (118)
The treasure of learning needs no safeguard, for fire cannot destroy
it nor can kings take it.
Other things are not true wealth, but
learning is the best legacy to leave one's children. (134)
Humility
is greatness, and self-control is what the gainer actually gains.
Only the rich who relieve the need of their neighbors are truly
wealthy. (170)
The good remember another's kindness, but the base
only recall fancied slights. (356)
The Tamil classic, The Kural by Tiru Valluvar, was probably
written about 600 CE,
plus or minus two centuries.
This book contains
133 chapters of ten pithy couplets each and is divided into three
parts
on the traditional Hindu goals of dharma (virtue
or justice), artha (success or wealth),
and kama
(love or pleasure).
The first two parts contain moral proverbs;
the third is mostly expressions of love,
though there is the statement
that one-sided love is bitter while balanced love is sweet.
Valluvar
transcends the caste system by suggesting that we call Brahmins
those who are virtuous and kind to all that live.
Here are a few of Valluvar's astute observations on dharma.
Bliss hereafter is the fruit of a loving life here. (75)
Sweet
words with a smiling face are more pleasing than a gracious gift.
(92)
He asked, "How can one pleased with sweet words oneself
use harsh words to others?"2
Self-control takes one to the
gods, but its lack to utter darkness. (121)
Always forgive transgressions,
but better still forget them. (152)
The height of wisdom is not
to return ill for ill. (203)
"The only gift is giving to
the poor; all else is exchange." (221)
If people refrain
from eating meat, there will be no one to sell it. (256)
"To
bear your pain and not pain others is penance summed up."
(261)
In all the gospels he found nothing higher than the truth.
(300)
I think the whole chapter on not hurting others is worth
quoting.
The pure in heart will never hurt others even for wealth or renown.
The code of the pure in heart is not to return hurt for angry hurt.
Vengeance even against a wanton insult does endless damage.
Punish an evil-doer by shaming him with a good deed, and forget.
What good is that sense which does not feel and prevent all creatures' woes as its own?
Do not do to others what you know has hurt yourself.
It is best to refrain from willfully hurting anyone, anytime, anyway.
Why does one hurt others knowing what it is to be hurt?
The hurt you cause in the forenoon self-propelled will overtake you in the afternoon.
Hurt comes to the hurtful;
hence it is that those don't hurt who do not want to be hurt.3
Valluvar went even farther when he wrote,
"Even at the
cost of one's own life one should avoid killing." (327)
For
death is but a sleep, and birth an awakening. (339)
In the part on artha (wealth) Valluvar defined the unfailing
marks of a king
as courage, liberality, wisdom and energy. (382)
The just protector he deemed the Lord's deputy,
and the best kings
have grace, bounty, justice, and concern.
"The wealth which
never declines is not riches but learning." (400)
"The
wealth of the ignorant does more harm than the want of the learned."
(408)
The truly noble are free of arrogance, wrath, and pettiness.
(431)
"A tyrant indulging in terrorism will perish quickly."
(563)
"Friendship curbs wrong, guides right, and shares distress."
(787)
"The soul of friendship is freedom, which the wise
should welcome." (802)
"The world is secure under one
whose nature can make friends of foes." (874)
Valluvar believed
it was base to be discourteous even to enemies (998),
and his
chapter on character is also worth quoting.
All virtues are said to be natural to those who acquire character as a duty.
To the wise the only worth is character, naught else.
The pillars of excellence are five-love, modesty, altruism, compassion, truthfulness.
The core of penance is not killing, of goodness not speaking slander.
The secret of success is humility; it is also wisdom's weapon against foes.
The touchstone of goodness is to own one's defeat even to inferiors.
What good is that good which does not return good for evil?
Poverty is no disgrace to one with strength of character.
Seas may whelm, but men of character will stand like the shore.
If the great fail in nobility, the earth will bear us no more.4
Kamandaka's Nitisara in the first half of the 8th century
was primarily based
on Kautilya's Arthashastra and was
influenced by the violence in the Mahabharata,
as he justified both open fighting when the king is powerful and
treacherous fighting
when he is at a disadvantage.
Katyayana,
like Kamandaka, accepted the tradition of the king's divinity,
although he argued that this should make ruling justly a duty.
Katyayana followed Narada's four modes of judicial decisions as
the dharma
of moral law when the defendant confesses, judicial
proof when the judge decides,
popular custom when tradition rules,
and royal edict when the king decides.
Crimes of violence were
distinguished from the deception of theft.
Laws prevented the
accumulated interest on debts from exceeding the principal.
Brahmins
were still exempt from capital punishment and confiscation of
property,
and most laws differed according to one's caste.
The Yoga-vasishtha philosophy taught that as a bird flies with
two wings,
the highest reality is attained through knowledge and
work.
The famous Vedanta philosopher
Shankara was born into a Brahmin family;
his traditional dates
are 788-820, though some scholars believe he lived about 700-50.
It was said that when he was eight, he became an ascetic and studied
with Govinda,
a disciple of the monist Gaudapala; at 16 he was
teaching many in the Varanasi area.
Shankara wrote a long commentary
on the primary Vedanta text, the
Brahma Sutra,
on the Bhagavad-Gita,
and on ten of the Upanishads,
always emphasizing
the non-dual reality of Brahman (God), that
the world is false,
and that the atman (self or soul) is
not different from Brahman.
Shankara traveled around India and to Kashmir, defeating opponents
in debate;
he criticized human sacrifice to the god Bhairava and
branding the body.
He performed a funeral for his mother even
though
it was considered improper for a sannyasin (renunciate).
Shankara challenged the Mimamsa
philosopher Mandana Mishra,
who emphasized the duty of Vedic rituals,
by arguing that knowledge of God
is the only means to final release,
and after seven days
he was declared the winner by Mandana's wife.
He tended to avoid the cities and taught sannyasins and
intellectuals in the villages.
Shankara founded monasteries in
the south at Shringeri of Mysore,
in the east at Puri, in the
west at Dvaraka, and in the northern Himalayas at Badarinath.
He wrote hymns glorifying Shiva as God,
and Hindus would later
believe he was an incarnation of Shiva.
He criticized the corrupt
left-hand (sexual) practices used in Tantra.
His philosophy spread,
and he became perhaps
the most influential of all Hindu philosophers.
In the Crest-Jewel of Wisdom Shankara taught that although
action is for removing bonds
of conditioned existence and purifying
the heart,
reality can only be attained by right knowledge.
Realizing
that an object perceived is a rope
removes the fear and sorrow
from the illusion it is a snake.
Knowledge comes from perception,
investigation, or instruction,
not from bathing, giving alms,
or breath control.
Shankara taught enduring all pain and sorrow
without thought of
retaliation, dejection, or lamentation.
He
noted that the scriptures gave the causes of liberation as faith,
devotion, concentration, and union (yoga); but he taught,
"Liberation
cannot be achieved except by direct perception of the identity
of the individual with the universal self."5
Desires lead
to death, but one who is free of desires is fit for liberation.
Shankara distinguished the atman as the real self or soul
from the ahamkara (ego),
which is the cause of change,
experiences karma (action),
and destroys the rest in the real
self.
From neglecting the real self spring delusion, ego, bondage,
and pain.
The soul is everlasting and full of wisdom.
Ultimately
both bondage and liberation are illusions that do not exist in
the soul.
Indian drama was analyzed by Bharata in the Natya Shastra,
probably from the third century CE or before.
Bharata ascribed
a divine origin to drama and considered it a fifth Veda;
its origin
seems to be from religious dancing.
In the classical plays Sanskrit
is spoken by the Brahmins and noble characters,
while Prakrit
vernaculars are used by others and most women.
According to Bharata
poetry (kavya), dance (nritta), and mime (nritya)
in life's play (lila)
produce emotion (bhava), but
only drama (natya) produces "flavor" (rasa).
The drama uses the eight basic emotions of love, joy (humor),
anger, sadness, pride,
fear, aversion, and wonder, attempting
to resolve them in the ninth holistic feeling of peace.
These
are modified by 33 less stable sentiments he listed as discouragement,
weakness,
apprehension, weariness, contentment, stupor, elation,
depression, cruelty, anxiety, fright,
envy, arrogance, indignation,
recollection, death, intoxication, dreaming, sleeping, awakening,
shame, demonic possession, distraction, assurance, indolence,
agitation, deliberation,
dissimulation, sickness, insanity, despair,
impatience, and inconstancy.
The emotions are manifested by causes,
effects, and moods.
The spectators should be of good character,
intelligent, and empathetic.
Although some scholars date him earlier, the plays of Bhasa
can probably be placed
after Ashvaghosha in the second or third
century CE.
In 1912 thirteen Trivandrum plays were discovered
that scholars have attributed to Bhasa.
Five one-act plays were
adapted from situations in the epic Mahabharata.
Dutavakya has Krishna as a peace envoy from the Pandavas
giving advice to Duryodhana.
In Karnabhara the warrior
Karna sacrifices his armor by giving it to Indra,
who is in the
guise of a Brahmin.
Dutaghatotkacha shows the envoy Ghatotkacha
carrying Krishna's message to the Kauruvas.
Urubhanga depicts
Duryodhana as a hero treacherously attacked below the waist
by
Bhima at the signal of Krishna.
In Madhyama-vyayoga the
middle son is going to be sacrificed,
but it turns out to be a
device used by Bhima's wife Hidimba to get him to visit her.
Each
of these plays seems to portray didactically heroic virtues
for
an aristocratic audience.
The Mahabharata
also furnishes the episode for the Kauravas' cattle raid of Virata
in the Pancharatra, which seems to have been staged to
glorify some sacrifice.
Bhasa's Abhisheka follows the Ramayana closely in the
coronation of Rama,
and Pratima also reworks the Rama story
prior to the war.
Balacharita portrays heroic episodes
in the childhood of Krishna.
In Bhasa's Avimaraka the title character heroically
saves princess Kurangi
from a rampaging elephant, but he says
he is an outcast.
Dressed as a thief, Avimaraka sneaks into the
palace to meet the princess, saying,
Once we have done what we can even failure is no disgrace.
Has anyone ever succeeded by saying, "I can't do it"?
A person becomes great by attempting great things.6
He spends a year there with Kurangi before he is discovered
and must leave.
Avimaraka is about to jump off a mountain when
a fairy (Vidyadhara) gives him a ring
by which he can become invisible.
Using invisibility, he and his jester go back into the palace
just in time to catch Kurangi before she hangs herself.
The true
parentage of the royal couple is revealed by the sage Narada,
and Vairantya king Kuntibhoja gives his new son-in-law the following
advice:
With tolerance be king over Brahmins.
With compassion win the hearts of your subjects.
With courage conquer earth's rulers.
With knowledge of the truth conquer yourself.7
Bhasa uses the story of legendary King Udayana in two plays.
In Pratijna Yaugandharayana the Vatsa king at Kaushambi,
Udayana,
is captured by Avanti king Pradyota so that Udayana can
be introduced to the princess
Vasavadatta by tutoring her in music,
a device which works as they fall in love.
The title comes from
the vow of chief minister Yaugandharayana
to free his sovereign
Udayana; he succeeds in rescuing him and his new queen Vasavadatta.
In Bhasa's greatest play, The Dream of Vasavadatta, the
same minister,
knowing his king's reluctance to enter a needed
political marriage,
pretends that he and queen Vasavadatta are
killed in a fire
so that King Udayana will marry Magadha princess
Padmavati.
Saying Vasavadatta is his sister, Yaugandharayana entrusts
her into the care of Padmavati,
because of the prophecy she will
become Udayana's queen.
The play is very tender, and both princesses
are noble and considerate of each other;
it also includes an early
example of a court jester.
Udayana is still in love with Vasavadatta,
and while resting half asleep,
Vasavadatta, thinking she is comforting
Padmavati's headache, gently touches him.
The loving and grieving
couple are reunited;
Padmavati is also accepted as another wife;
and the kingdom of Kaushambi is defended by the marriage alliance.
Bhasa's Charudatta is about the courtesan Vasantasena,
who initiates a love affair with an impoverished merchant,
but
the manuscript is cut off abruptly after four acts.
However, this
story was adapted and completed in The Little Clay Cart,
attributed to a King Sudraka, whose name means a little servant.
In ten acts this play is a rare example of what Bharata called
a maha-nataka or "great play."
The play is revolutionary
not only because the romantic hero and heroine
are a married merchant
and a courtesan, but because the king's brother-in-law, Sansthanaka,
is portrayed as a vicious fool, and because by the end of the
play
the king is overthrown and replaced by a man he had falsely
imprisoned.
Vasantasena rejects the attentions of the insulting
Sansthanaka,
saying that true love is won by virtue not violence;
she is in love with Charudatta, who is poor because he is honest
and generous,
as money and virtue seldom keep company these days.
Vasantasena kindly pays the gambling debts of his shampooer,
who
then becomes a Buddhist monk.
Charudatta, not wearing jewels any
more, gives his cloak to a man
who saved the monk from a rampaging
elephant.
Vasantasena entrusts a golden casket of jewelry to Charudatta,
but Sharvilaka, breaking into his house to steal,
is given it
so that he can gain the courtesan girl Madanika.
So that he won't
get a bad reputation,
Charudatta's wife gives a valuable pearl
necklace to her husband,
and he realizes he is not poor because
he has a wife whose love outlasts his wealthy days.
Madanika is
concerned that Sharvilaka did something bad for her sake and tells
him
to restore the jewels, and he returns them to Vasantasena
on the merchant's behalf,
while she generously frees her servant
Madanika for him.
Charudatta gives Vasantasena the more valuable pearl necklace,
saying he gambled away her jewels.
As the romantic rainy season
approaches, the two lovers are naturally drawn together.
Charudatta's
child complains that he has to play with a little clay cart as
a toy,
and Vasantasena promises him a golden one.
She gets into
the wrong bullock cart and is taken to the garden of Sansthanaka,
where he strangles her for rejecting his proposition.
Then he
accuses Charudatta of the crime, and because of his royal influence
in the trial,
Charudatta is condemned to be executed
after his
friend shows up with Vasantasena's jewels.
However, the monk has
revived Vasantasena, and just before Charudatta's head
is to be
cut off, she appears to save him.
Sharvilaka has killed the bad
king and anointed a good one.
Charudatta lets the repentant Sansthanaka
go free,
and the king declares Vasantasena a wedded wife and thus
no longer a courtesan.
Although he is considered India's greatest poet, it is not
known when Kalidasa lived.
Probably the best educated guess has
him flourishing about 400 CE
during the reign of Chandragupta
II.
The prolog of his play Malavika and Agnimitra asks
the audience to consider a new poet
and not just the celebrated
Bhasa and two others.
In this romance King Agnimitra, who already
has two queens,
in springtime falls in love with the dancing servant
Malavika,
who turns out to be a princess when his foreign conflicts
are solved.
The king is accompanied throughout by a court jester,
who with a contrivance
frees Malavika from confinement by the
jealous queen.
The only female who speaks Sanskrit in Kalidasa's
plays is the Buddhist nun,
who judges the dance contest and explains
that Malavika had to be a servant for a year
in order to fulfill
a prophecy that she would marry a king after doing so.
In celebration
of the victory and his latest marriage,
the king orders all prisoners
released.
In Kalidasa's Urvashi Won by Valor, King Pururavas falls
in love
with the heavenly nymph Urvashi.
The king's jester Manavaka
reveals this secret to the queen's maid Nipunika.
Urvashi comes
down to earth with her friend and writes a love poem on a birch-leaf.
The queen sees this also but forgives her husband's guilt.
Urvashi
returns to paradise to appear in a play;
but accidentally revealing
her love for Pururavas,
she is expelled to earth and must stay
until she sees the king's heir.
The queen generously offers to
accept a new queen who truly loves the king,
and Urvashi makes
herself visible to Pururavas.
In the fourth act a moment of jealousy
causes Urvashi to be changed into a vine,
and the king in searching
for her dances and sings,
amorously befriending animals and plants
until a ruby of reunion helps him find the vine;
as he embraces
the vine, it turns into Urvashi.
After many years have passed,
their son Ayus gains back the rub
that was stolen by a vulture.
When Urvashi sees the grown-up child she had sent away
so that
she could stay with the king,
she must return to paradise; but
the king gives up his kingdom to their son
so that he can go with
her, although a heavenly messenger indicates
that he can remain
as king with Urvashi until his death.
The most widely acclaimed Indian drama is Kalidasa's Shakuntala
and the Love Token.
While hunting, King Dushyanta is asked
by the local ascetics not to kill deer, saying,
"Your weapon
is meant to help the weak not smite the innocent."8
The king
and Shakuntala, who is the daughter of a nymph and is being raised
by ascetics,
fall in love with each other.
The king is accompanied
by a foolish Brahmin who offers comic relief.
Although he has
other wives, the king declares
that he needs only the earth and
Shakuntala to sustain his line.
They are married in the forest,
and Shakuntala becomes pregnant.
Kanva, who raised her, advises
the bride to obey her elders,
treat her fellow wives as friends,
and not cross her husband in anger
even if he mistreats her.
The
king returns to his capital and gives his ring to Shakuntala
so
that he will recognize her when she arrives later.
However, because
of a curse on her from Durvasas, he loses his memory of her,
and
she loses the ring.
Later the king refuses to accept this pregnant
woman he cannot recall,
and in shame she disappears.
A fisherman
finds the ring in a fish; when the king gets it back,
his memory
of Shakuntala returns.
The king searches for her and finds their
son on Golden Peak
with the birthmarks of a universal emperor;
now he must ask to be recognized by her.
They are happily reunited,
and their child Bharata
is to become the founding emperor of India.
An outstanding political play was written by Vishakhadatta,
who may also have lived
at the court of Chandragupta II or as
late as the 9th century.
Rakshasa's Ring is set when Chandragupta,
who defeated
Alexander's successor Seleucus in 305 BC,
is becoming
Maurya emperor by overcoming the Nandas.
According to tradition
he was politically assisted by his minister Chanakya,
also known
as Kautilya, supposed author of the famous treatise on politics, Artha Shastra.
Rakshasa,
whose name means demon, had sent a woman to poison Chandragupta,
but Chanakya had her poison King Parvataka instead.
Rakshasa supports
Parvataka's son Malayaketu;
Chanakya cleverly assuages public
opinion by letting Parvataka's brother
have half the kingdom but
arranges for his death too.
Chanakya even pretends to break with
Chandragupta to further his plot.
Chanakya is able to use a Jain monk and a secretary by pretending
to punish them
and have Siddarthaka rescue the secretary;
with
a letter he composed written by the secretary and with Rakshasa's
ring
taken from the home of a jeweler who gave Rakshasa and his
family refuge,
they pretend to serve Malayaketu but make him suspect
Rakshasa's loyalty
and execute the allied princes that Rakshasa
had gained for him.
Ironically Rakshasa's greatest quality is
loyalty, and after he realizes he has been trapped,
he decides
to sacrifice himself to save the jeweler from being executed.
By then Malayaketu's attack on Chandragupta's capital has collapsed
from lack of support, and he is captured.
Chanakya's manipulations
have defeated Chandragupta's rivals without a fight,
and he appoints
chief minister in his place Rakshasa,
who then spares the life
of Malayaketu.
Chanakya (Kautilya) announces that the emperor
(Chandragupta) grants Malayaketu
his ancestral territories and
releases all prisoners except draft animals.
Ratnavali was attributed to Harsha, who ruled at Kanauj
in the first half of the 7th century.
This comedy reworks the
story of King Udayana,
who though happily married to Vasavadatta,
is seduced into marrying her Simhalese cousin Ratnavali for the
political motivations
contrived by his minister Yaugandharayana.
Ratnavali, using the name Sagarika as the queen's maid,
falls
in love with the king and has painted his portrait.
Her friend
then paints her portrait with the king's, which enamors him after
he hears
the story of the painting from a mynah bird that repeats
the maidens' conversation.
Queen Vasavadatta becomes suspicious,
and the jester is going to bring Sagarika
dressed like the queen,
who learning of it appears veiled herself to expose the affair.
Sagarika tries to hang herself but is saved by the king.
The jealous
queen puts Sagarika in chains and the noose around the jester's
neck.
Yet in the last act a magician contrives a fire, and the
king saves Sagarika once again.
A necklace reveals that she is
a princess,
and the minister Yaugandharayana explains how he brought
the lovers together.
Also attributed to Harsha: Priyadarshika is another
harem comedy;
but Joy of the Serpents (Nagananda) shows
how prince Jimutavahana gives up
his own body to stop a sacrifice
of serpents to the divine Garuda.
A royal contemporary of Harsha,
Pallava king Mahendravikarmavarman wrote a
one-act farce called
"The Sport of Drunkards" (Mattavilasa)
in which
an inebriated Shaivite ascetic accuses a Buddhist monk of stealing
his begging bowl
made from a skull; but after much satire it is
found to have been taken by a dog.
Bhavabhuti lived in the early 8th century and was said to have
been the court poet in Kanauj
of Yashovarman, a king also supposed
to have written a play about Rama.
Bhavabhuti depicted the early
career of Rama in Mahavira-charita
and then produced The
Later Story of Rama.
In this latter play Rama's brother Lakshmana
shows Rama and Sita murals of their past,
and Rama asks Sita for
forgiveness for having put her through a trial by fire
to show
the people her purity after she had been captured by the evil
Ravana.
Rama has made a vow to serve the people's good above all
and so orders Sita into exile because of their continuing suspicions.
Instead of killing the demon Sambuka, his penance moves Rama to
free him.
Sita has given birth to two sons, Lava and Kusha, and
twelve years pass.
When he heard about his daughter Sita's exile,
Janaka gave up meat and became a vegetarian;
when Janaka meets
Rama's mother Kaushalya, she faints at the memory.
Rama's divine
weapons have been passed on to his sons,
and Lava is able to pacify
Chandraketu's soldiers by meditating.
Rama has Lava remove the
spell, and Kusha recites the Ramayana
taught him by Valmiki,
who raised the sons.
Finally Sita is joyfully
reunited with Rama and their sons.
Malati and Madhava by Bhavabhuti takes place in the
city of Padmavati.
Although the king has arranged for Nandana
to marry his minister's daughter Malati,
the Buddhist nun Kamandaki
manages eventually to bring together
the suffering lovers Madhava
and Malati.
Malati has been watching Madhava and draws his portrait;
when he sees it, he draws her too.
Through the rest of the play
they pine in love for each other.
Malati calls her father greedy
for going along with the king's plan to marry her to Nandana,
since a father deferring to a king in this is not sanctioned by
morality nor by custom.
Madhava notes that success comes from
education with innate understanding,
boldness combined with practiced
eloquence, and tact with quick wit.
Malati's friend Madayantika
is attacked by a tiger,
and Madhava's friend Makaranda is wounded
saving her life.
In their amorous desperation Madhava sells his
flesh to the gods,
and he saves the suicidal Malati from being
sacrificed by killing Aghoraghanta,
whose pupil Kapalakundala
then causes him much suffering.
Finally Madhava and Malati are
able to marry, as Makaranda marries Madayantika.
These plays make
clear that courtly love and romance were thriving in India
for
centuries before they were rediscovered in Europe.
The Rashtrakuta Dantidurga married a Chalukya princess
and
became a vassal king
about 733; he and Gujarat's Pulakeshin helped
Chalukya emperor Vikramaditya II repulse
an Arab invasion, and
Dantidurga's army joined the emperor
in a victorious expedition against Kanchi and the Pallavas.
After Vikramaditya II died in
747, Dantidurga conquered
Gurjara, Malwa, and Madhya Pradesh.
This Rashtrakuta king then confronted and defeated Chalukya emperor
Kirtivarman II
so that by the end of 753 he controlled all of
Maharashtra.
The next Rashtrakuta ruler Krishna I completed the
demise of the Chalukya empire
and was succeeded about 773 by his
eldest son Govinda II.
Absorbed in personal pleasures, he left
the administration to his brother Dhruva,
who eventually revolted
and usurped the throne,
defeating the Ganga, Pallava, and Vengi
kings who had opposed him.
The Pratihara ruler of Gurjara, Vatsaraja, took over Kanauj
and installed Indrayudha as governor there.
The Palas rose to
power by unifying Bengal under the elected king Gopala about 750.
He patronized Buddhism, and his
successor Dharmapala had fifty monasteries built,
founding the
Vikramashila monastery with 108 monks in charge of various programs.
During the reign of Dharmapala the Jain scholar Haribhadra recommended
respecting
various views because of Jainism's
principles of nonviolence and many-sidedness.
Haribhadra found
that the following eight qualities can be applied
to the faithful
of any tradition:
nonviolence, truth, honesty, chastity, detachment,
reverence for a teacher, fasting, and knowledge.
Dharmapala marched
into the Doab to challenge the Pratiharas but was defeated by
Vatsaraja.
When these two adversaries were about to meet for a
second battle in the Doab,
the Rashtrakuta ruler Dhruva from the
Deccan defeated Vatsaraja first
and then Dharmapala but did not
occupy Kanauj.
Dhruva returned to the south with booty and
was succeeded by
his third son Govinda III in 793.
Govinda had to defeat his brother
Stambha and a rebellion of twelve kings,
but the two brothers
reconciled and turned on Ganga prince Shivamira,
whom they returned
to prison.
Supreme over the Deccan, Govinda III left his brother
Indra as viceroy of Gujarat and Malava
and marched his army north
toward Kanauj, which Vatsaraja's successor Nagabhata II
had occupied
while Dharmapala's nominee Chakrayudha was on that throne.
Govinda's
army defeated Nagabhata's; Chakrayudha surrendered, and Dharmapala
submitted.
Govinda III marched all the way to the Himalayas, uprooting
and reinstating local kings.
Rashtrakuta supremacy was challenged by Vijayaditya II,
who
had become king of Vengi in 799;
but Govinda defeated him and
installed his brother Bhima-Salukki
on the Vengi throne about
802.
Then Govinda's forces scattered a confederacy of Pallava,
Pandya, Kerala, and Ganga
rulers and occupied Kanchi, threatening
the king of Sri Lanka, who sent him two statues.
After Govinda
III died in 814, Chalukya Vijayaditya II overthrew Bhima-Salukki
to regain his Vengi throne; then his army invaded Rashtrakuta
territory,
plundering and devastating the city of Stambha.
Vijayaditya
ruled for nearly half a century and was said to have fought 108
battles
in a 12-year war with the Rashtrakutas and the Gangas.
His grandson Vijayaditya III ruled Vengi for 44 years (848-92);
he also invaded the Rashtrakuta empire in the north, burning Achalapura,
and it was reported he took gold by force from the Ganga king
of Kalinga.
His successor Chalukya-Bhima I was king of Vengi for
30 years
and was said to have turned his attention to helping
ascetics and those in distress.
Struggles with his neighbors continued
though,
and Chalukya-Bhima was even captured for a time.
Dharmapala's son Devapala also supported Buddhism and extended
the Pala empire
in the first half of the 9th century by defeating
the Utkalas, Assam, Huns, Dravidas,
and Gurjaras, while maintaining
his domain against three generations of Pratihara rulers.
His
successor Vigrahapala retired to an ascetic life after ruling
only three years,
and his son Narayanapala was also of a peaceful
and religious disposition,
allowing the Pala empire to languish.
After the Pala empire was defeated by the Rashtrakutas and Pratiharas,
subordinate chiefs became independent;
Assam king Harjara even
claimed an imperial title.
Just before his long reign ended in
908 Narayanapala did reclaim some territories
after the Rashtrakuta
invasion of the Pratihara dominions;
but in the 10th century during
the reign of the next three kings the Pala kingdom
declined as
principalities asserted their independence in conflicts with each
other.
Chandella king Yashovarman invaded the Palas and the Kambojas,
and he claimed to have conquered Gauda and Mithila.
His successor
Dhanga ruled through the second half of the 10th century
and was
the first independent Chandella king, calling himself the lord
of Kalanjara.
In the late 8th century Arab military expeditions
had attempted to make Kabul
pay tribute to the Muslim caliph.
In 870 Kabul and Zabul were conquered by Ya'qub ibn Layth;
the
king of Zubalistan was killed, and the people accepted Islam.
Ghazni sultan Sabutkin (r. 977-97) invaded India with a Muslim
army
and defeated Dhanga and a confederacy of Hindu chiefs about
989.
South of the Chandellas the Kalachuris led by Kokkalla in the
second half of the 9th century
battled the Pratiharas under Bhoja,
Turushkas (Muslims), Vanga in east Bengal,
Rashtrakuta king Krishna
II, and Konkan.
His successor Shankaragana fought Kosala,
but
he and Krishna II had to retreat from the Eastern Chalukyas.
In
the next century Kalachuri king Yuvaraja I celebrated his victory
over Vallabha
with a performance of Rajshekhara's drama Viddhashalabhanjika.
Yuvaraja's son Lakshmanaraja raided east Bengal, defeated Kosala,
and invaded the west.
Like his father, he patronized Shaivite
teachers and monasteries.
Near the end of the 10th century Kalachuri
king Yuvaraja II suffered attacks
from Chalukya ruler Taila II
and Paramara king Munja.
After many conquests, the aggressive
Munja, disregarding the advice of his counselor
Rudraditya, was
defeated and captured by Taila and executed after an attempted
rescue.
In 814 Govinda III was succeeded as Rashtrakuta ruler by his
son Amoghavarsha,
only about 13 years old; Gujarat viceroy Karkka
acted as regent.
Three years later a revolt led by Vijayaditya
II, who had regained the Vengi throne,
temporarily overthrew Rashtrakuta
power until Karakka reinstated Amoghavarsha I by 821.
A decade
later the Rashtrakuta army defeated Vijayaditya I
and occupied
Vengi for about a dozen years.
Karkka was made viceroy in Gujarat,
but his son Dhruva I rebelled and was killed about 845.
The Rashtrakutas
also fought the Gangas for about twenty years
until Amoghavarsha's
daughter married a Ganga prince about 860.
In addition to his
military activities Amoghavarsha sponsored several famous Hindu
and Jain
writers and wrote a book himself on Jain ethics.
Jain
kings and soldiers made an exception to the prohibition against
killing
for the duties of hanging murderers and slaying enemies
in battle.
He died in 878 and was succeeded by his son Krishna
II,
who married the daughter of Chedi ruler Kokkalla I to gain
an ally
for his many wars with the Pratiharas, Eastern Chalukyas,
Vengi, and the Cholas.
Krishna II died in 914 and was succeeded by his grandson Indra
III,
who marched his army north and captured northern India's
imperial city Kanauj.
However, Chandella king Harsha helped the
Pratihara Mahipala regain his throne at Kanauj.
Indra III died
in 922; but his religious son Amoghavarsha II had to get help
from his Chedi relations to defeat his brother Govinda IV,
who
had usurped the throne for fourteen years.
Three years later in
939 Krishna III succeeded as Rashtrakuta emperor
and organized
an invasion of Chola and twenty years later another expedition
to the north.
The Rashtrakutas reigned over a vast empire when
he died in 967;
but with no living issue the struggle for the
throne,
despite the efforts of Ganga king Marasimha III,
resulted
in the triumph of Chalukya king Taila II in 974.
That year Marasimha
starved himself to death in the Jain manner
and was succeeded
by Rajamalla IV, whose minister Chamunda Raya staved off usurpation.
His Chamunda Raya Purana includes an account of the 24
Jain prophets.
In the north in the middle of the 9th century the Pratiharas
were attacked
by Pala emperor Devapala; but Pratihara king Bhoja
and his allies
defeated Pala king Narayanapala.
Bhoja won and
lost battles against Rashtrakuta king Krishna II.
The Pratiharas
were described in 851 by an Arab as having the finest cavalry
and as the greatest foe of the Muslims, though no country in India
was safer from robbers.
Bhoja ruled nearly a half century, and
his successor Mahendrapala I
expanded the Pratihara empire to
the east.
When Mahipala was ruling in 915 Al Mas'udi from Baghdad
observed that
the Pratiharas were at war with the Muslims in the
west and the Rashtrakutas in the south,
and he claimed they had
four armies of about 800,000 men each.
When Indra III sacked Kanauj,
Mahipala fled but returned after the Rashtrakutas left.
In the
mid-10th century the Pratiharas had several kings,
as the empire
disintegrated and was reduced to territory around Kanauj.
A history of Kashmir's kings called the Rajatarangini
was written by Kalhana in the 12th century.
Vajraditya became
king of Kashmir about 762 and was accused of selling men
to the
Mlechchhas (probably Arabs).
Jayapida ruled Kashmir during the
last thirty years of the 8th century,
fighting wars of conquest
even though his army once deserted his camp,
and people complained
of high taxes.
Family intrigue and factional violence led to a
series of puppet kings
until Avanti-varman began the Utpala dynasty
of Kashmir in 855.
His minister Suvya's engineering projects greatly
increased
the grain yield and lowered its prices.
Avanti-varman's
death in 883 was followed by a civil war won by Shankara-varman,
who then invaded Darvabhisara, Gurjara, and Udabhanda;
but he
was killed by people in Urasha, who resented his army being quartered
there.
More family intrigues, bribery, and struggles for power
between the Tantrin infantry,
Ekanga military police, and the
Damara feudal landowners caused a series of short reigns
until
the minister Kamalavardhana took control and asked the assembly
to appoint a king;
they chose the Brahmin Yashakara in 939.
Yashakara was persuaded to resign by his minister Parvagupta,
who killed the new Kashmir king but died two years later in 950.
Parvagupta's son Kshemagupta became king and married the Lohara
princess Didda.
Eight years later she became regent for their
son Abhimanyu
and won over the rebel Yashodhara by appointing
him commander of her army.
When King Abhimanyu died in 972, his
three sons ruled in succession
until each in turn was murdered
by their grandmother, Queen Didda;
she ruled Kashmir herself with
the help of an unpopular prime minister
from 980 until she died
in 1003.
In the south the Pandyas had risen to power
in the late 8th
century under King Nedunjadaiyan.
He ruled for fifty years, and
his son Srimara Srivallabha reigned nearly as long,
winning victories
over the Gangas, Pallavas, Cholas, Kalingas, Magadhas, and others
until he was defeated by Pallava Nandi-varman III at Tellaru.
The Pandya empire was ruined when his successor Varaguna II was
badly beaten
about 880 by a combined force of Pallavas, western
Gangas, and Cholas.
The Chola dynasty of Tanjore was founded by
Vijayalaya in the middle of the 9th century.
As a vassal of the
Pallavas, he and his son Aditya I helped their sovereign defeat
the Pandyas.
Aditya ruled 36 years and was succeeded as Chola
king by his son Parantaka I (r. 907-953).
His military campaigns
established the Chola empire with the help of his allies,
the
Gangas, Kerala, and the Kodumbalur chiefs.
The Pandyas and the
Sinhalese king of Sri Lanka were defeated by the Cholas about
915.
Parantaka demolished remaining Pallava power,
but in 949
the Cholas were decisively beaten by Rashtrakuta king Krishna
III at Takkolam,
resulting in the loss of Tondamandalam and the
Pandya country.
Chola power was firmly established during the
reign (985-1014) of Rajaraja I,
who attacked the Kerala, Sri Lanka,
and the Pandyas
to break up their control of the western trade.
When the Pandyas invaded the island, Sri Lanka king Sena I
(r. 833-53)
fled as the royal treasury was plundered.
His successor
Sena II (r. 853-87) sent a Sinhalese army in retaliation, besieging
Madura,
defeating the Pandyas, and killing their king.
The Pandya
capital was plundered, and the golden images were taken back to
the island.
In 915 a Sinhalese army from Sri Lanka supported Pandyan
ruler Rajasimha II
against the Cholas; but the Chola army invaded
Sri Lanka and apparently stayed
until the Rashtrakutas invaded
their country in 949.
Sri Lanka king Mahinda IV (r. 956-72) had
some of the monasteries
burnt by the Cholas restored.
Sena V (r.
972-82) became king at the age of twelve but died of alcoholism.
During his reign a rebellion supported by Damila forces ravaged
the island.
By the time of Mahinda V (r. 982-1029) the monasteries
owned extensive land,
and barons kept the taxes from their lands.
As unpaid mercenaries revolted and pillaged, Mahinda fled to Rohana.
Chola king Rajaraja sent a force that sacked Anuradhapura,
ending
its period as the capital in 993
as the northern plains became
a Chola province.
In 1017 the Cholas conquered the south as well
and took Mahinda to India
as a prisoner for the rest of his life.
In India during this period Hindu colleges (ghatikas)
were associated with the temples,
and gradually the social power
of the Brahmins superseded Buddhists and Jains,
though the latter
survived in the west.
Jain gurus, owning nothing and wanting nothing,
were often able to persuade the wealthy
to contribute the four
gifts of education, food, medicine, and shelter.
In the devotional
worship of Vishnu and Shiva and their avatars (incarnations),
the Buddha became just another
avatar for Hindus.
Amid the increasing wars and militarism the
ethical value of ahimsa (non-injury)
so important to the
Jains and Buddhists receded.
The examples of the destroyer Shiva
or Vishnu's incarnations
as Rama and Krishna hardly promoted nonviolence.
Village assemblies tended to have more autonomy in south India.
The ur was open to all adult males in the village, but
the sabha was chosen by lot
from those qualified by land
ownership, aged 35-70,
knowing mantras and Brahmanas,
and free of any major crime or sin.
Land was worked by tenant
peasants,
who usually had to pay from one-sixth to one-third of
their produce.
Vegetarian diet was customary, and meat was expensive.
Women did not have political rights and usually worked in the
home or in the fields,
though upper caste women and courtesans
could defy social conventions.
Women attendants in the temples
could become dancers,
but some were exploited as prostitutes by
temple authorities.
Temple sculptures as well as literature were
often quite erotic,
as the loves of Krishna and the prowess of
the Shiva lingam were celebrated,
and the puritanical ethics
of Buddhism and Jainism became less influential.
Feminine creative energy was worshiped as shakti,
and
Tantra in Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism celebrated the union of
the sexual act
as a symbol of divine union; their rituals might
culminate in partaking of the five
Ms - madya (wine), matsya
(fish), mamsa (flesh), mudra (grain), and maithuna
(coitus).
Although in the early stages of spiritual development
Tantra taught
the usual moral avoidance of cruelty, alcohol, and
sexual intercourse,
in the fifth stage after training by the guru
secret rites at night might defy such social taboos.
Ultimately
the aspirant is not afraid to practice openly what others disapprove
in pursuing
what he thinks is true, transcending the likes and
dislikes of earthly life like God,
to whom all things are equal.
However, some argued that the highest stage, symbolized as the
external worship of flowers,
negates ignorance, ego, attachment,
vanity, delusion, pride, calumniation, perturbation,
jealousy,
and greed, culminating in the five virtues of
nonviolence (ahimsa),
control of the senses, charity, forgiveness, and knowledge.
The worker caste of Sudras was divided into the clean and the
untouchables,
who were barred from the temples.
There were a few
domestic slaves and those sold to the temples.
Brahmins were often
given tax-free grants of land,
and they were forbidden by caste
laws to work in cultivation;
thus the peasant Sudras provided
the labor.
The increasing power of the Brahmin landowners led
to a decline of merchants
and the Buddhists they often had supported.
Commentaries on the Laws of
Manu by Medhatithi focused on such issues as
the duty
of the king to protect the people, their rights, and property.
Although following the tradition that the king should take up
cases in order of caste,
Medhatithi believed that a lower caste
suit should be taken up first if it is more urgent.
Not only should
a Brahmin be exempt from the death penalty and corporal punishment,
he thought that for a first offense not even a fine should be
imposed on a Brahmin.
Medhatithi also held that in education the
rod should only be used mildly and as a last resort;
his attitude
about a husband beating his wife was similar.
Medhatithi believed
that a woman's mind was not under her control,
and that they should
all be guarded by their male relations.
He upheld the property
rights of widows who had been faithful but believed
the unfaithful
should be cast out to a separate life.
Widow suicide called sati
was approved by some and criticized by others.
During this period
marriages were often arranged for girls
before they reached the
age of puberty, though self-choice still was practiced.
The Jain monk Somadeva in his Nitivakyamrita also wrote
that the king must chastise
the wicked and that kings being divine
should be obeyed as a spiritual duty.
However, if the king does
not speak the truth, he is worthless;
for when the king is deceitful
and unjust, who will not be?
If he does not recognize merit, the
cultured will not come to his court.
Bribery is the door by which
many sins enter,
and the king should never speak what is hurtful,
untrustworthy, untrue, or unnecessary.
The force of arms cannot
accomplish what peace does.
If you can gain your goal with sugar,
why use poison?
In 959 Somadeva wrote the romance Yashastilaka
in Sanskrit prose and verse,
emphasizing devotion to the god Jina,
goodwill to all creatures, hospitality to everyone,
and altruism
while defending the unpopular practices of the Digambara ascetics
such as nudity, abstaining from bathing, and eating standing up.
The indigenous Bon religion of Tibet was animistic and included
the doctrine of reincarnation.
Tradition called Namri Songtsen
the 32nd king of Tibet.
His 13-year-old son Songtsen Gampo became
king in 630 CE.
He sent seventeen scholars to India to learn the
Sanskrit language.
The Tibetans conquered Burma and in 640 occupied
Nepal.
Songtsen Gampo married a princess from Nepal
and also wanted
to marry a Chinese princess,
but so did Eastern Tartar (Tuyuhun)
ruler Thokiki.
According to ancient records, the Tibetans recruited
an army of 200,000,
defeated the Tartars, and captured the city
of Songzhou,
persuading the Chinese emperor to send his daughter
to Lhasa in 641.
Songtsen Gampo's marriage to Buddhist princesses
led to his conversion,
the building of temples and 900 monasteries,
and the translation of Buddhist texts.
His people were instructed
how to write the Tibetan dialect with adapted Sanskrit letters.
Songtsen Gampo died in 649, but the Chinese princess lived on
until 680.
He was succeeded by his young grandson Mangsong Mangtsen,
and Gar Tongtsen governed as regent
and conducted military campaigns
in Asha for eight years.
Gar Tongtsen returned to Lhasa in 666
and died the next year of a fever.
A large military fortress was
built at Dremakhol in 668,
and the Eastern Tartars swore loyalty.
During a royal power struggle involving the powerful Gar ministers,
Tibet's peace with China was broken in 670,
and for two centuries
their frontier was in a state of war.
The Tibetans invaded the
Tarim basin and seized four garrisons in Chinese Turkestan.
They
raided the Shanzhou province in 676, the year Mangsong Mangtsen
died.
His death was kept a secret from the Chinese for three years,
and a revolt in Shangshong was suppressed by the Tibetan military
in 1677.
Dusong Mangje was born a few days after his royal father
died.
The Gar brothers led their armies against the Chinese.
During
a power struggle Gar Zindoye was captured in battle in 694;
his
brother Tsenyen Sungton was executed for treason the next year;
and Triding Tsendro was disgraced and committed suicide in 699,
when Dusong defeated the Gar army.
Nepal and northern India revolted
in 702, and two years later
the Tibetan king was killed in battle.
Tibetan sources reported he died in Nanzhao,
but according to
the Chinese he was killed while suppressing the revolt in Nepal.
Since Mes-Agtshom (also known as Tride Tsugtsen or Khri-Ide-btsug-brtan)
was only seven years old, his grandmother Trimalo acted as regent.
Mes-Agtshom also married a Chinese princess to improve relations;
but by 719 the Tibetans were trading with the Arabs and fighting
together against the Chinese.
In 730 Tibet made peace with China
and requested classics and histories,
which the Emperor sent to
Tibet despite a minister's warning
they contained defense strategies.
During a plague in 740-41 all the foreign monks were expelled
from Tibet.
After the imperial princess died in 741, a large Tibetan
army invaded China.
Nanzhao, suffering from Chinese armies, formed
an alliance with Tibet in 750.
Mes-Agtshom died in 755, according
to Tibetan sources by a horse accident;
but an inscription from
the following reign accused two ministers of assassinating him.
During Trisong Detsen's reign (755-97) Tibetans collected tribute
from the Pala king of Bengal and ruled Nanzhao.
In 763 a large
Tibetan army invaded China and even occupied their capital at
Chang'an.
The Chinese emperor promised to send Tibet 50,000 rolls
of silk each year;
but when the tribute was not paid, the war
continued.
In 778 Siamese troops fought with the Tibetans against
the Chinese in Sichuan (Szech'uan).
Peace was made in 783 when
China ceded much territory to Tibet.
In 790 the Tibetans regained
four garrisons in Anxi
they had lost to Chinese forces a century
before.
After Mashang, the minister who favored the Bon religion, was
removed from the scene,
Trisong Detsen sent minister Ba Salnang
to invite the Indian pandit Shantirakshita
to come from the university
at Nalanda in Nepal.
The people believed that Bon spirits caused
bad omens,
and Shantirakshita returned to Nepal.
So Ba
Salnang invited Indian Tantric master Padmasambhava,
who was able
to overcome the Bon spirits by making them
take an oath to defend
the Buddhist religion.
Shantirakshita returned and supervised
the building of a monastery
that came to be known as Samye.
He
was named high priest of Tibet, and he introduced the "ten
virtues."
When Padmasambhava was unable to refute
the instantaneous enlightenment doctrine
of the Chinese monk Hoshang,
Kamalashila was invited from India for a debate at Samye
that
lasted from 1792 until 1794.
Kamalashila argued that enlightenment
is a gradual process
resulting from study, analysis, and good
deeds.
Kamalashila was declared the winner, and King Trisong Detsen
declared Buddhism the official religion of Tibet.
Padmasambhava founded the red-hat Adi-yoga school
and translated
many Sanskrit books into Tibetan.
A mythic account of his supernatural
life that lasted twelve centuries
was written by the Tibetan lady
Yeshe Tsogyel.
As his name implies, Padmasambhava was said to
have been born miraculously on a lotus.
His extraordinary and
unconventional experiences included being married to 500 wives
before renouncing a kingdom, several cases of cannibalism,
surviving
being burned at the stake, killing butchers, attaining Buddhahood,
and teaching spirits and humans in many countries.
In the guise
of different famous teachers he taught people
how to overcome
the five poisons of sloth, anger, lust, arrogance, and jealousy.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead was first committed to
writing around this time.
Its title Bardol Thodol more
literally means "liberation by hearing on the after-death
plane."
Similar in many ways to the Egyptian Book of the
Dead,
it likely contains many pre-Buddhist elements, as it
was compiled over the centuries.
The first part, chikhai bardo,
describes the psychic experiences at the moment of death
and urges
one to unite with the all-good pure reality of the clear light.
In the second stage of the chonyid bardo karmic illusions
are experienced
in a dream-like state, the thought-forms of one's
own intellect.
In the sidpa bardo, the third and last phase,
one experiences the judgment
of one's own karma; prayer is recommended,
but instincts tend to lead one back into rebirth in another body.
The purpose of the book is to help educate one how to attain liberation
in the earlier stages and so prevent reincarnation.
Muni Tsenpo ruled Tibet from 797 probably to 804,
although
some believed he ruled for only eighteen months.
He tried to reduce
the disparity between the rich and poor by introducing land reform;
but when the rich got richer, he tried two other reform plans.
Padmasambhava advised him, "Our condition in this life is
entirely dependent upon the
actions of our previous life, and
nothing can be done to alter the scheme of things."9
Muni
Tsenpo had married his father's young wife to protect her from
his mother's jealousy;
but she turned against her son, the new
king, and poisoned him;
some believed he was poisoned because
of his reforms.
Since Muni Tsenpo had no sons, he was succeeded
by his youngest brother Sadnaleg;
his other brother Mutik Tsenpo
was disqualified for having killed a minister in anger.
During
Sadnaleg's reign the Tibetans attacked the Arabs in the west,
invading Transoxiana and besieging Samarqand;
but they made an
agreement with Caliph al-Ma'mun.
When Sadnaleg died in 815, his ministers chose his Buddhist
son Ralpachen
as king over his irreligious older brother Darma.
After a border dispute, Buddhists mediated a treaty between Tibet
and China in 821
that reaffirmed the boundaries of the 783 treaty.
Ralpachen decreed that seven households should provide for each
monk.
By intrigues Darma managed to get his brother Tsangma and
the trusted Buddhist minister
Bande Dangka sent into exile; then
Be Gyaltore and Chogro Lhalon,
ministers who were loyal to Darma,
went and murdered Bande Dangka.
In 836 these same two pro-Bon
ministers assassinated King Ralpachen
and put Darma on the throne.
They promulgated laws to destroy Buddhism in Tibet and closed
the temples.
Buddhist monks had to choose between marrying, carrying
arms as hunters,
becoming followers of the Bon religion, or death.
In 842 the monk Lhalung Palgye Dorje assassinated
King Darma with
an arrow and escaped.
That year marked a division in the royal
line and the beginning of local rule in Tibet
that lasted more
than two centuries.
Central Tibet suffered most from Darma's persecution,
but Buddhism was kept alive in eastern and western Tibet.
Buddhists
helped Darma's son (r. 842-70) gain the throne, and he promoted
their religion.
As their empire disintegrated into separate warring
territories,
Tibetan occupation in Turkestan was ended by Turks,
Uighurs, and Qarluqs.
In 978 translators Rinchen Zangpo and Lakpe Sherab invited
some Indian pandits
to come to Tibet, and this marked the beginning
of the Buddhist renaissance in Tibet.
Atisha (982-1054) was persuaded
to come from India in 1042
and reformed the Tantric practices
by introducing celibacy
and a higher morality among the priests.
He wrote The Lamp that Shows the Path to Enlightenment
and founded the Katampa order, which was distinguished
from the
old Nyingmapa order of Padmasambhava.
Drogmi (992-1074) taught
the use of sexual practices for mystical realization,
and his
scholarly disciple Khon Konchog Gyalpo founded the Sakya monastery
in 1073.
The Kagyupa school traces its lineage from the celestial
Buddha
Dorje-Chang to Tilopa (988-1069), who taught Naropa (1016-1100)
in India.
From a royal family in Bengal, Naropa studied in Kashmir
for three years until he was fourteen.
Three years later his family
made him marry a Brahmin woman;
they were divorced after eight
years, though she became a writer too.
In 1049 Naropa won a debate
at Nalanda and was elected abbot there for eight years.
He left
to find the guru he had seen in a vision and was on the verge
of suicide
when Tilopa asked him how he would find his guru if
he killed the Buddha.
Naropa served Tilopa for twelve years during
which he meditated in silence most of the time.
However, twelve
times he followed his guru's irrational suggestions
and caused
himself suffering.
Each time Tilopa pointed out the lesson and
healed him,
according to the biography written about a century
later.
The twelve lessons taught him about the ordinary wish-fulfilling
gem, one-valueness,
commitment, mystic heat, apparition, dream,
radiant light, transference, resurrection,
eternal delight (learned
from Tantric sex), mahamudra (authenticity),
and the intermediate
state (between birth and death).
Naropa then went to Tibet where
he taught Marpa (1012-96),
who brought songs from the Tantric
poets of Bengal to his disciple Milarepa.
Milarepa was born on the Tibetan frontier of Nepal in 1040.
When he was seven years old, Milarepa's father died;
his aunt
and uncle taking control of the estate, his mother and he
had
to work as field laborers in poor conditions.
When he came of
age, his sister, mother, and he were thrown out of their house.
So Milarepa studied black magic, and his mother threatened to
kill herself if he failed.
Milarepa caused the house to fall down,
killing 35 people.
Next his teacher taught him how to cause a
hail storm,
and at his mother's request he destroyed some crops.
Milarepa repented of this sorcery and prayed to take up a religious
life.
He found his way to the lama Marpa the translator, who said
that
even if he imparted the truth to him, his liberation in one
lifetime
would depend on his own perseverance and energy.
The
lama was reluctant to give the truth to one who had done such
evil deeds.
So he had Milarepa build walls and often tear them
down,
while his wife pleaded for the young aspirant.
Frustrated,
Milarepa went to another teacher, who asked him
to destroy his
enemies with a hail storm,
which he did while preserving an old
woman's plot.
Milarepa returned to his guru Marpa and was initiated.
Then
he meditated in a cave for eleven months, discovering that the
highest path
started with a compassionate mood dedicating one's
efforts to universal good,
followed by clear aspiration transcending
thought with prayer for others.
After many years Milarepa went
back to his old village to discover that
his mother had died, his sister was gone, and his house and fields were in ruins.
Describing
his life in songs, Milarepa decided, "So I will go to gain
the truth divine,
to the Dragkar-taso cave I'll go, to practice
meditation."10
He met the woman to whom he was betrothed
in childhood,
but he decided on the path of total self-abnegation.
Going out to beg for food he met his aunt, who loosed dogs on
him;
but after talking he let her live in his house and cultivate
his field.
Milarepa practiced patience on those who had wronged
him,
calling it the shortest path to Buddhahood.
Giving up comfort,
material things, and desires for name or fame,
he meditated and
lived on nettles and water.
He preached on the law of karma, and
eventually his aunt was converted
and devoted herself to penance
and meditation.
His sister found his nakedness shameful, but Milarepa
declared that
deception and evil deeds are shameful, not the body.
Believing in karma, thoughts of the misery in the lower worlds
may inspire one to seek Buddhahood.
It was said that Milarepa had 25 saints among his disciples,
including his sister and three other women.
In one of his last
songs he wrote, "If pain and sorrow you desire sincerely
to avoid,
avoid, then, doing harm to others."11
Many miraculous
stories are told of his passing from his body and the funeral;
Milarepa died in 1123, and it was claimed that
for a time no wars
or epidemics ravaged the Earth.
The biography of his life and
songs was written by his disciple Rechung.
A contemporary of Milarepa, the life of Nangsa Obum was also
told in songs and prose.
She was born in Tibet, and because of
her beauty and virtue she was married to
Dragpa Samdrub, son of
Rinang king Dragchen.
She bore a son but longed to practice the dharma.
Nangsa was falsely accused by Dragchen's jealous
sister Ani Nyemo
for giving seven sacks of flour to Rechung and
other lamas.
Beaten by her husband and separated from her child
by the king,
Nangsa died of a broken heart.
Since her good deeds
so outnumbered her bad deeds,
the Lord of Death allowed her to
come back to life.
She decided to go practice the dharma;
but her son and a repentant Ani Nyemo pleaded for her to stay.
She remained but then visited her parents' home, where she took
up weaving.
After quarreling with her mother, Nangsa left and
went to study the sutras and practice Tantra.
The king and her husband attacked
her teacher Sakya Gyaltsen,
who healed all the wounded monks.
Then the teacher excoriated them for having animal minds and black
karma,
noting that Nangsa had come there for something better
than a Rinang king;
her good qualities would be wasted living
with a hunter;
they were trying to make a snow lion into a dog.
The noblemen admitted they had made their karma worse and asked
to be taught.
Sakya replied that for those who have done wrong
repentance is like the sun rising.
They should think about their
suffering and the meaninglessness of their lives
and how much
better they will be in the field of dharma.
Dragchen and
his father retired from worldly life,
and Nangsa's 15-year-old
son was given the kingdom.
Machig Lapdron (1055-1145) was said to be a reincarnation of
Padmasambhava's
consort Yeshe Tsogyel and of an Indian yogi named
Monlam Drub.
Leaving that body in a cave in India the soul traveled
to Tibet and was born as Machig.
As a child, she learned to recite
the sutras at record speed,
and at initiation she asked how she
could help all sentient beings.
In a dream an Indian teacher told
her to confess her hidden faults,
approach what she found repulsive,
help those whom she thinks cannot be helped,
let go of any attachment,
go to scary places like cemeteries,
be aware, and find the Buddha
within.
A lama taught her to examine the movement of her own mind
carefully
and become free of petty dualism and the demon of self-cherishing.
She learned to wander and stay anywhere,
and she absorbed various
teachings from numerous gurus.
She married and had three children
but soon retired from the world.
By forty she was well known in
Tibet, and numerous monks and nuns
came from India to challenge
her; but she defeated them in debate.
It was said that 433 lepers
were cured by practicing her teachings.
A book on the supreme path of discipleship was compiled
by
Milarepa's disciple Lharje (1077-1152),
who founded the Cur-lka
monastery in 1150.
This book lists yogic precepts in various categories.
Causes of regret include frittering life away, dying an irreligious
and worldly person,
and selling the wise doctrine as merchandise.
Requirements include sure action, diligence, knowledge of one's
own faults and virtues,
keen intellect and faith, watchfulness,
freedom from desire and attachment,
and love and compassion in
thought and deed directed to the service of all sentient beings.
"Unless the mind be disciplined to selflessness and infinite
compassion,
one is apt to fall into the error of seeking liberation
for self alone."12
Offering to deities meat obtained by killing
is like offering a mother the flesh of her own child.
The virtue
of the holy dharma is shown in those,
whose heavy evil
karma would have condemned them to suffering, turning to a religious
life.
The black-hat Karmapa order was founded in 1147 by Tusum Khyenpa
(1110-93),
a native of Kham who studied with Milarepa's disciples.
This sect claims to have started the system of leadership by successive
reincarnations
of the same soul, later adopted by the Dalai and
Panchen Lamas.
In 1207 a Tibetan council decided to submit peacefully
to Genghis Khan and pay tribute.
After the death of Genghis Khan
in 1227,
the Tibetans stopped paying the tribute, and the Mongols
invaded in 1240,
burning the Rating and Gyal Lhakhang monasteries
and killing five hundred monks and civilians.
In 1244 Sakya Pandita
(1182-1251) went to Mongolia,
where he initiated Genghis Khan's
grandson Godan.
Sakya Pandita instructed him in the Buddha's teachings
and persuaded him
to stop drowning the Chinese to reduce their
population.
Sakya Pandita was given authority over the thirteen
myriarchies of central Tibet
and told the Tibetan leaders it was
useless to resist the Mongols' military power.
He is also credited
with devising a Mongolian alphabet.
After Sakya Pandita died,
the Mongols invaded Tibet in 1252.
After Godan died, Kublai in
1254 invested Phagpa as the supreme ruler in Tibet
by giving him
a letter that recommended the monks stop quarreling and live peaceably.
Phagpa conducted the enthronement of Kublai Khan in 1260.
Phaga
returned to Sakya in 1276 and died four years later.
In 1282 Dharmapala was appointed imperial preceptor (tishri)
in Beijing.
The Sakya administrator Shang Tsun objected to Kublai
Khan's plans
to invade India and Nepal, and the yogi Ugyen Sengge
wrote a long poem against the idea,
which Kublai Khan abandoned.
After Tishri Dharmapala died in 1287, the myriarchy Drikhung attacked
Sakya;
but administrator Ag-len used troops and Mongol cavalry
to defeat them,
marching into Drikhung territory and burning their
temple in 1290.
Kublai Khan had been a patron of Buddhism in Tibet,
but he died in 1295.
After his death the influence of the Mongols
in Tibet diminished.
Between 1000 and 1027 Ghazni ruler Mahmud invaded India
with
an army at least twelve times.
About 15,000 Muslims took Peshawar
and killed 5,000 Hindus in battle.
Shahi king Jayapala was so
ashamed of being defeated three times
that he burned himself to
death on a funeral pyre.
In 1004 Mahmud's forces crossed the Indus
River,
then attacked and pillaged the wealth of Bhatiya.
On the
way to attack the heretical Abu-'l-Fath Daud,
Mahmud defeated
Shahi king Anandapala.
Daud was forced to pay 20,000,000 dirhams
and was allowed to rule as a Muslim
if he paid 20,000 golden dirhams
annually.
Mahmud's army again met Anandapala's the next year;
after 5,000 Muslims lost their lives, 20,000 Hindu soldiers were
killed.
Mahmud captured an immense treasure of 70,000,000 dirhams,
plus gold and silver ingots, jewels, and other precious goods.
After Mahmud defeated the king of Narayan and the rebelling Daud,
Anandapala made a treaty that lasted until his death,
allowing
the Muslims passage to attack the sacred city of Thaneswar.
In
1013 Mahmud attacked and defeated Anandapala's successor Trilochanapala,
annexing the western and central portions of the Shahi kingdom
in the Punjab.
Next the Muslims plundered the Kashmir valley,
though Mahmud was never able to hold it.
To attack Kanauj in the heart of India,
Mahmud raised a force
of 100,000 cavalry and 20,000 infantry.
Most Hindu chiefs submitted,
but in Mahaban nearly 5,000 were killed,
causing Kulachand to
kill himself.
Next the Muslims plundered the sacred city of Mathura,
destroying a temple that took two centuries to build
and estimated
to be worth 100,000,000 red dinars.
After conquering more
forts and obtaining more booty,
Mahmud ordered the inhabitants
slain by sword, the city plundered,
and the idols destroyed in
Kanauj that was said to contain almost 10,000 temples.
In 1019
Mahmud returned to Ghazni with immense wealth
and 53,000 prisoners
to be sold as slaves.
When Mahmud's army returned again to chastise Chandella ruler
Vidyadhara
for killing the submitting Pratihara king Rajyapala,
the resistance of Trilochanapala was overcome,
making all of Shahi
part of Mahmud's empire.
Although he had 45,000 infantry, 36,000
cavalry, and 640 elephants,
Vidyadhara fled after a minor defeat.
The next year Mahmud and Vidyadhara agreed to a peace.
50,000
Hindus were killed in 1025 defending the Shaivite temple of Somanatha
in Kathiawar, as Mahmud captured another 20,000,000 dirhams.
In his last campaign Mahmud used a navy of 1400 boats with iron
spikes
to defeat the Jats with their 4,000 boats in the Indus.
Mahmud's soldiers often gave people the choice of accepting Islam
or death.
These threats and the enslavement of Hindus by Muslims
and the Hindus' consequent
attitude of considering Muslims impure
barbarians (mlechchha)
caused a great division between
these religious groups.
During this time Mahipala I ruled Bengal for nearly half a
century
and founded a second Pala empire.
In the half century
around 1100 Ramapala tried to restore the decreasing realm
of
the Palas by invading his neighbors until he drowned himself in
grief in the Ganges.
Buddhists were persecuted in Varendri by
the Vangala army.
In the 12th century Vijayasena established a
powerful kingdom in Bengal;
but in spite of the military victories
of Lakshmanasena, who began ruling in 1178,
lands were lost to
the Muslims and others early in the 13th century.
Military campaigns led by the Paramara Bhoja and the Kalachuri
Karna against Muslims
in the Punjab discouraged Muslim invasions
after Punjab governor Ahmad Niyaltigin
exacted tribute from the
Thakurs and plundered the city of Banaras in 1034.
Bhoja and a
Hindu confederacy of chiefs conquered Hansi, Thaneswar, Nagarkot,
and other territories from the Muslims in 1043.
Bhoja also wrote
23 books, patronized writers, and established schools for his
subjects.
Karna won many battles over various kingdoms in India
but gained little material advantage.
About 1090 Gahadavala ruler
Chandradeva seems to have collaborated
with the Muslim governor
of the Punjab to seize Kanauj from Rashtrakuta ruler Gopala.
In
the first half of the 12th century Gahadavala ruler Govindachandra
came into conflict
with the Palas, Senas, Gangas, Kakatiyas, Chalukyas,
Chandellas, Chaulukyas,
the Karnatakas of Mithila, and the Muslims.
The Ghuzz Turks made Muhammad Ghuri governor of Ghazni in 1173;
he attacked the Gujarat kingdom in 1178,
but his Turkish army
was defeated by the Chaulukya king Mularaja II.
Chahamana Prithviraja
III began ruling that year and four years later
defeated and plundered
Paramardi's Chandella kingdom.
In 1186 Khusrav Malik, the last
Yamini ruler of Ghazni,
was captured at Lahore by Muhammad Ghuri.
The next year the Chahamana king Prithviraja made a treaty with
Bhima II of Gujarat.
Prithviraja's forces defeated Muhammad Ghuri's
army at Tarain and regained
Chahamana supremacy over the Punjab.
Muhammad Ghuri organized 120,000 men from Ghazni to face 300,000
led by Prithviraja, who was captured and eventually executed as
the Muslims
demolished the temples of Ajmer in 1192 and built
mosques.
From there Sultan Muhammad Ghuri marched to Delhi, where
he appointed
general Qutb-ud-din Aybak governor; then with 50,000
cavalry Muhammad Ghuri
defeated the Gahadavala army of Jayachandra
before leaving for Ghazni.
Prithviraja's brother Hariraja recaptured
Delhi and Ajmer;
but after losing them again to Aybak, he burned
himself to death in 1194.
Next the local Mher tribes and the Chaulukya king of Gujarat,
Bhima II,
expelled the Turks from Rajputana; but in 1197 Aybak
invaded Gujarat
with more troops from Ghazni, killing 50,000 and
capturing 20,000.
In 1202 Aybak besieged Chandella king Paramardi
at Kalanjara
and forced him to pay tribute.
In the east a Muslim
named Bakhtyar raided Magadha and used the plunder
to raise a
larger force that conquered much of Bengal;
his army slaughtered
Buddhist monks, thinking they were Brahmins.
However, the Khalji
Bakhtyar met tough resistance in Tibet
and had to return to Bengal
where he died.
The Ghuri dynasty ended soon after Muhammad Ghuri
was murdered at Lahore in 1206
by his former slave Aybak, who
assumed power but died in 1210.
The struggle for power was won by Aybak's son-in-law Iltutmish,
who defeated and killed Aybak's successor.
Then in 1216 Iltutmish
captured his rival Yildiz, who had been driven
by Khwarezm-Shah
from Ghazni to the Punjab;
the next year he expelled Qabacha from
Lahore.
In 1221 Mongols led by Genghis Khan pushed Khwarezm-Shah
and other refugees
across the Indus into the Punjab.
Iltutmish
invaded Bengal and ended the independence of the Khalji chiefs;
but he met with Guhilot resistance in Rajputana
before plundering
Bhilsa and Ujjain in Malwa.
Chahadadeva captured and ruled Narwar
with an army of over 200,000 men,
defeating Iltutmish's general
in 1234, but he was later defeated
by the Muslim general Balban
in 1251.
After Qabacha drowned in the Indus, Iltutmish was recognized
as the
Baghdad Caliph's great sultan in 1229 until he died of
disease seven years later.
Factional strife occurred as Iltutmish's daughter Raziyya managed
to rule like a man
for three years before being killed by sexist
hostility;
his sons, grandson, and the "Forty" officials,
who had been his slaves,
struggled for power and pushed back the
invading Mongols in 1245.
After Iltutmish's son Mahmud became
king, the capable Balban gained control.
In 1253 the Indian Muslim
Raihan replaced Balban for a year
until the Turks for racist reasons
insisted Balban and his associates be restored.
When Mahmud died
childless in 1265, Balban became an effective sultan.
He said,
"All that I can do is to crush the cruelties of the cruel
and to see that
all persons are equal before the law."13
Mongols invaded again in 1285 and killed Balban's son;
two years
later the elderly Balban died, and in 1290 the dynasty of Ilbari
Turks
was replaced by the Khalji Turks with ties to Afghanistan.
Chola king Rajendra I (r. 1012-44) ruled over most of south
India
and even invaded Sumatra and the Malay peninsula.
His son
Rajadhiraja I's reign (1018-52) overlapped his father's,
as he
tried to put down rebellions in Pandya and Chera,
invading western
Chalukya and sacking Kalyana.
Cholas were criticized for violating
the ethics of Hindu warfare
by carrying off cows and "unloosing
women's girdles."
Rajadhiraja was killed while defeating
Chalukya king Someshvara I (r. 1043-68).
In the Deccan the later
Chalukyas battled their neighbors;
led by Vikramaditya, they fought
a series of wars against the powerful Cholas.
After battling his
brother Vikramaditya, Someshvara II reigned 1068-76;
in confederacy
with Chaulukya Karna of Gujarat,
he defeated the Paramara Jayasimha
and occupied Malava briefly.
Becoming Chalukya king, Vikramaditya
VI (r. 1076-1126)
invaded the Cholas and took Kanchi some time
before 1085.
When the Vaishnavites Mahapurna and Kuresha had their eyes
put out,
probably by Kulottunga I in 1079, the famous philosopher
Ramanuja took refuge
in the Hoysala country until Kulottunga died.
Ramanuja modified Shankara's nondualism in his Bhasya
and
emphasized the way of devotion (bhakti).
He believed the
grace of God was necessary for liberation.
Although he practiced
initiations and rituals, Ramanuja recognized that caste, rank,
and religion were irrelevant to realizing union with God.
He provided
the philosophical reasoning for the popular worship of Vishnu
and was thought to be 120 when he died in 1137.
In Sri Lanka the Sinhalese harassed the occupying Chola forces
until they withdrew from Rohana in 1030,
enabling Kassapa VI (r.
1029-40) to govern the south.
When he died without an heir,
Cholas
under Rajadhiraja (r. 1043-54) regained control of Rajarata.
After
1050 a struggle for power resulted in
Kitti proclaiming himself
Vijayabahu I (r. 1055-1110).
However, in 1056 a Chola army invaded
to suppress the revolt in Rohana.
Vijayabahu fled to the hills,
and his army was defeated near the old capital of Anuradhapura;
yet he recovered Rohana about 1061.
The Chola empire was also
being challenged by the western Chalukyas
during the reign (1063-69)
of Virarajendra.
The new Chola king Kulottunga I (r. 1070-1120),
after being defeated by Vijayabahu,
pulled his forces out of Sri
Lanka.
Vijayabahu took over the north but had to suppress a rebellion
by three brothers in 1075 near Polonnaruwa.
After his envoys to
the Chalukya king at Karnataka were mutilated,
Vijayabahu invaded
Chola around 1085; but he made peace with Kulottunga in 1088.
Vijayabahu restored irrigation and centralized administration
as he patronized Buddhism.
Vijayabahu was succeeded by his brother
Jayabahu I;
but a year later Vikramabahu I (r. 1111-32) took control
of Rajarata and persecuted monks
while the sons of Vijayabahu's
sister Mitta ruled the rest of Sri Lanka.
The Hoysala king Vinayaditya (r. 1047-1101) acknowledged Chalukya
supremacy;
but after his death, the Hoysalas tried to become independent
by fighting the Chalukyas.
Kulottunga ordered a land survey in
1086.
The Cholas under Kulottunga invaded Kalinga in 1096 to quell
a revolt;
a second invasion in 1110 was described
in the Kalingattupparani of court poet Jayangondar.
After Vikramaditya VI died, Vikrama
Chola (r. 1118-1135) regained Chola control
over the Vengi kingdom,
though the Chalukyas ruled the Deccan
until the Kalachuri king
Bijjala took Kalyana from Chalukya king Taila III in 1156;
the
Kalachuris kept control for a quarter century.
Gujarat's Chalukya
king Kumarapala was converted to Jainism
by the learned Hemachandra
(1088-1172) and prohibited animal sacrifices,
while Jain king
Bijjala's minister Basava (1106-67) promoted the Vira Shaiva sect
that emphasized social reform and the emancipation of women.
Basava
disregarded caste and ritual as shackling and senseless.
When
an outcaste married an ex-Brahmin bride, Bijjala sentenced them
both,
and they were dragged to death in the streets of Kalyana.
Basava tried to convert the extremists to nonviolence but failed;
they assassinated Bijjala, and the Vira Shaivas were persecuted.
Basava asked, "Where is religion without loving kindness?"
Basava had been taught by Allama Prabhu, who had completely rejected
external rituals,
converting some from the sacrifice of animals
to sacrificing one's bestial self.
In his poem, The Arousing of Kumarapala, which describes
how Hemachandra
converted King Kumarapala, Somaprabha warned Jains
from serving the king as ministers,
harming others and extorting
their fortunes that one's master may take.
In the mid-12th century
the island of Sri Lanka suffered a three-way civil war.
Ratnavali
arranged for her son Parakramabahu to succeed
childless Kitsirimegha
in Dakkinadesa.
Parakramabahu defeated and captured Gajabahu (r.
1132-53), taking over Polonnaruwa.
However, his pillaging troops
alienated the people who turned to Manabharana.
Parakramabahu
allied with Gajabahu, becoming his heir, and defeated Manabharana.
Parakramabahu I (r. 1153-86) restored unity but harshly suppressed
a Rohana rebellion
in 1160 and crushed Rajarata resistance in
1168.
He used heavy taxation to rebuild Pulatthinagara and Anuradhapura
that had been destroyed by the Cholas.
The Culavamsa credits
Parakramabahu with restoring or building
165 dams, 3910 canals,
163 major tanks, and 2376 minor tanks.
He developed trade with
Burma.
Sri Lanka aided a Pandya ruler in 1169 when Kulashekhara
Pandya defeated
and killed Parakrama Pandya, seizing Madura;
but
Chola king Rajadhiraja II (r. 1163-79) brought the Pandya civil
war to an end.
This enabled larger Chola armies to defeat the
Sri Lanka force by 1174.
Parakramabahu was succeeded by his nephew,
who was slain a year later
by a nobleman by trying to usurp the
throne.
Parakramabahu son-in-law Nissankamalla stopped that and
ruled Sri Lanka for nine years.
He also was allied with the Pandyas
and fought the Cholas.
During the next eighteen years Sri Lanka had twelve changes
of rulers,
though Nissankamalla's queen, Kalyanavati reigned 1202-08.
Four Chola invasions further weakened Sri Lanka.
Queen Lilavati
ruled three different times and was supported by the Cholas.
In
1212 the Pandyan prince Parakramapandu invaded Rajarata and deposed
her;
but three years later the Kalinga invader Magha took power.
The Culavamsa criticized Magha (r. 1215-55) for confiscating
the wealth
of the monasteries, taxing the peasants, and letting
his soldiers oppress the people.
Finally the Sinhalese alliance
with the Pandyas expelled Magha
and defeated the invasions by
Malay ruler Chandrabanu.
When his son came again in 1285, the
Pandyan general Arya Chakravarti defeated him
and ruled the north,
installing Parakramabahu III (r. 1287-93) as his vassal at Polonnaruwa.
Eventually the capital Polonnaruwa was abandoned;
the deterioration
of the irrigation system became irreversible as mosquitoes
carrying
malaria infested its remains.
The Tamil settlers withdrew to the
north, developing the Jaffna kingdom.
Others settled in the wet
region in the west, as the jungle was tamed.
Hoysala king Ballala II proclaimed his independence in 1193.
Chola king Kulottunga III (r. 1178-1216) ravaged the Pandya country
about 1205,
destroying the coronation hall at Madura; but a few
years later he was overpowered
by the Pandyas and saved from worse
defeat by Hoysala intervention,
as Hoysala king Ballala II (r.
1173-1220) had married a Chola princess.
In the reign (1220-34)
of Narasimha II the Hoysalas fought the Pandyas for empire,
as
Chola power decreased.
Narasimha's son Someshvara (r. 1234-63)
was defeated and killed in a battle
led by Pandya Jatavarman Sundara.
Chola king Rajendra III (r. 1246-79) was a Pandyan feudatory
from
1258 to the end of his reign.
The Cholas had inflicted much misery
on their neighbors,
even violating the sanctity of ambassadors.
The Pandyas under their king Maravarman Kulashekhara,
who ruled
more than forty years until 1310, overcame and annexed the territories
of the
Cholas and the Hoysalas in 1279 and later in his reign
gained supremacy over Sri Lanka.
The dualist Madhva (1197-1276) was the third great Vedanta
philosopher
after Shankara and Ramanuja.
Madhva also opened the
worship of Vishnu to all castes but may have picked up
the idea
of damnation in hell from missionary Christians or Muslims.
He
taught four steps to liberation:
1) detachment from material comforts,
2) persistent devotion to God,
3) meditation on God as the only
independent reality, and 4) earning the grace of God.
Marco Polo on his visit to south India about 1293 noted that
climate and ignorant treatment did not allow horses to thrive
there.
He admired Kakatiya queen Rudramba, who ruled for nearly
forty years.
He noted the Hindus' strict enforcement of justice
against criminals
and abstention from wine, but he was surprised
they did not consider any form of sexual indulgence a sin.
He
found certain merchants most truthful but noted many superstitious
beliefs.
Yet he found that ascetics, who ate no meat, drank no
wine, had no sex outside of marriage,
did not steal, and never
killed any creature, often lived very long lives.
Marco Polo related
a legend of brothers whose quarrels were prevented from turning
to violence by their mother who threatened to cut off her breasts
if they did not make peace.
Nizam-ud-din Auliya was an influential Sufi of the Chishti
order
that had been founded a century before.
He taught love as
the means to realize God.
For Auliya universal love was expressed
through love and service of humanity.
The Sufis found music inflamed
love, and they interpreted the Qur'an
broadly in esoteric
ways; the intuition of the inner light
was more important to them
than orthodox dogma.
Auliya was the teacher of Amir Khusrau (1253-1325),
one of the most prolific poets in the Persian language.
Many of
Khusrau's poems, however, glorified the bloody conquests of the
Muslim rulers
so that "the pure tree of Islam might be planted
and flourish"
and the evil tree with deep roots would be
torn up by force.
He wrote,
The whole country, by means of the sword of our holy warriors,
has become like a forest denuded of its thorns by fire.
The land has been saturated with the water of the sword,
and the vapors of infidelity have been dispersed.
The strong men of Hind have been trodden under foot,
and all are ready to pay tribute.
Islam is triumphant; idolatry is subdued.
Had not the law granted exemption from death by the payment of poll-tax,
the very name of Hind, root and branch, would have been extinguished.
From Ghazni to the shore of the ocean you see all under the dominion of Islam.14
In 1290 the Khalji Jalal-ud-din Firuz became sultan in Delhi
but refused to sacrifice
Muslim lives to take Ranthambhor, though
his army defeated and made peace
with 150,000 invading Mongols.
Genghis Khan's descendant Ulghu and 4,000 others accepted Islam
and became known as the "new Muslims."
This lenient
sultan sent a thousand captured robbers
and murderers to Bengal
without punishment.
His more ambitious nephew 'Ala-ud-din Khalji
attacked the kingdom of Devagiri,
gaining booty and exacting from
Yadava king Ramachandra gold he used
to raise an army of 60,000
cavalry and as many infantry.
In 1296 he lured his uncle into
a trap, had him assassinated,
and bribed the nobles to proclaim
him sultan.
Several political adversaries were blinded and killed.
The next year 'Ala-ud-din sent an army headed by his brother Ulugh
Khan
to conquer Gujarat; according to Wassaf they slaughtered
the people
and plundered the country.
Another 200,000 Mongols
invaded in 1299, but they were driven back.
Revolts by his nephews
and an old officer were ruthlessly crushed.
Money was extorted;
a spy network made nobles afraid to speak in public;
alcohol was
prohibited; and gatherings of nobles were restricted.
Orders were
given that Hindus were not to have anything above subsistence;
this prejudicial treatment was justified by Islamic law.
In addition to his three plays we also have four poems by Kalidasa.
The Dynasty of Raghu is an epic telling the story
not only
of Rama but of his ancestors
and descendants.
King Dilipa's willingness to sacrifice himself
for a cow enables him to get a son, Raghu.
Consecrated as king,
Raghu tries to establish an empire with the traditional horse
sacrifice
in which a horse for a year is allowed to wander into
other kingdoms,
which must either submit or defend themselves
against his army.
His son Aja is chosen by the princess Indumati.
Their son Dasharatha has four sons by three wives; but for killing
a boy while hunting,
he must suffer the banishment of his eldest
son Rama,
whose traditional story takes up a third of the epic.
His son Kusha restores the capital at Ayodhya;
but after a line
of 22 kings Agnivarna becomes preoccupied with love affairs
before
dying and leaving a pregnant queen ruling as regent.
Another epic poem, The Birth of the War-god tells how
the ascetic Shiva is eventually
wooed by Parvati, daughter of
the Himalaya mountains,
after the fire from Shiva's eye kills
the god of Love and she becomes an ascetic.
After being entertained
by nymphs, Shiva restores the body of Love.
Their son Kumara is
made a general by the god Indra;
after their army is defeated
by Taraka's army, Kumara kills the demon Taraka.
Kalidasa's elegy, The Cloud-Messenger, describes how the Yaksha Kubera,
an
attendant of the god of Wealth, who has been exiled from the Himalayas
to the Vindhya mountains for a year, sends a cloud as a messenger
to his wife
during the romantic rainy season.
Kalidasa is also
believed to be the author of a poem on the six seasons in India.
Bana wrote an epic romance on the conquests of Harsha in the
7th century
and another called Kadambari.
Bana was not
afraid to criticize the idea of kings being divine
nor the unethical
and cruel tactics of the political theorist Kautilya.
Bana was
one of the few Indian writers who showed concern for the poor
and humble.
About the 6th or 7th century Bhartrihari wrote short erotic
poems typical of those
later collected into anthologies.
He reminded
himself that virtue is still important.
Granted her breasts are firm, her face entrancing,
Her legs enchanting - what is that to you?
My mind, if you would win her, stop romancing.
Have you not heard, reward is virtue's due?15
Torn between sensual and spiritual love, Bhartrihari found
that
the charms of a slim girl disturbed him.
Should he choose
the youth of full-breasted women or the forest?
Eventually he
moved from the dark night of passion
to the clear vision of seeing
God in everything.
He noted that it is easier to take a gem from
a crocodile's jaws or swim the ocean
or wear an angry serpent
like a flower in one's hair or squeeze oil from sand,
water from
a mirage, or find a rabbit's horn than it is
to satisfy a fool
whose opinions are set.
Bhartrihari asked subtle questions.
Patience, better than armor, guards from harm.
And why seek enemies, if you have anger?
With friends, you need no medicine for danger.
With kinsmen, why ask fire to keep you warm?
What use are snakes when slander sharper stings?
What use is wealth where wisdom brings content?
With modesty, what need for ornament?
With poetry's Muse, why should we envy kings?16
The erotic poetry of Amaru about the 7th century often expressed
the woman's viewpoint.
When someone questioned her pining and
faithfulness, she asked him to speak softly
because her love living
in her heart might hear.
In another poem the narrator tries to
hide her blushing, sweating cheeks
but found her bodice splitting
of its own accord.
This poet seemed to prefer love-making to meditation.
The erotic and the religious were combined in 12th century Bengali
poet Jayadeva's
"Songs of the Cowherd" (Gita Govinda)
about the loves of Krishna.
A poet observed that most people can
see the faults in others,
and some can see their virtues;
but
perhaps only two or three can see their own shortcomings.
In the late 11th century Buddhist scholar Vidyakara collected
together an anthology
of Sanskrit court poetry, Treasury of
Well-Turned Verse (Subhasitaratnakosa),
with verses from more
than two hundred poets, mostly from the previous four centuries.
Although it begins with verses on the Buddha
and the bodhisattvas Lokesvara and Manjughosa,
Vidyakara also
included verses on Shiva and Vishnu.
One poet asked why a naked
ascetic with holy ashes needed a bow or a woman. (103)
After these
chapters the poetry is not religious,
with verses on the seasons
and other aspects of nature.
Love poetry is ample, and it is quite
sensual, though none of it is obscene.
Women's bodies are described
with affection, and sections include the joys of love
as well
as the sad longing of love-in-separation.
An epigram complains
of a man whose body smells of blood as his action
runs to slaughter
because his sense of right and wrong is no better than a beast's.
Only courage is admired in a lion, but that makes the world seem
cheap. (1091)
Another epigram warns that the earth will give no
support nor a wishing tree a wish,
and one's efforts will come
to nothing for one
whose sin accumulated in a former birth. (1097)
Shardarnava described peace in the smooth flow of a river;
but
noting uprooted trees along the shore, he inferred concealed lawlessness.
(1111)
Dharmakirti's verses describe the good as asking no favors
from the wicked,
not begging from a friend whose means are small,
keeping one's stature in misfortune,
and following in the footsteps
of the great,
though these rules may be as hard to travel as a
sword blade. (1213)
Another poet found that he grew mad like a
rutting elephant
when knowing little he thought he knew everything;
but after consorting with the wise and gaining some knowledge,
he knew himself a fool, and the madness left like a fever. (1217)
Another proclaimed good one who offers aid to those in distress,
not one who is skillful at keeping ill-gotten gains. (1226)
A
poet noted that countless get angry with or without a cause,
but
perhaps only five or six in the world do not get angry when there
is a cause. (1236)
The great guard their honor, not their lives;
fear evil, not enemies;
and seek not wealth but those who ask
for it. (1239)
Small-minded people ask if someone is one of them
or an outsider,
but the noble mind takes the whole world for family.
(1241)
An anonymous poet asked these great questions:
Can that be judgment where compassion plays no part,
or that be the way if we help not others on it?
Can that be law where we injure still our fellows,
or that be sacred knowledge which leads us not to peace?17
A poet advised that the wise, considering that youth is fleeting,
the body soon forfeited and wealth soon gone, lays up no deeds,
though they be pleasurable here, that will ripen into bitter fruit
in future lives. (1686)
Although collected from ancient myths and folklore, the eighteen
"great" Puranas
were written between the 4th
and 10th centuries.
Originally intended to describe the creation
of the universe, its destruction and renewal,
genealogies, and
chronicles of the lawgivers and the solar and lunar dynasties,
they retold myths and legends according to different Vaishnavite
and Shaivite sects
with assorted religious lore.
The Agni Puranam,
for example, describes the avatars Rama and Krishna,
religious
ceremonies, Tantric rituals, initiation, Shiva, holy places, duties
of kings,
the art of war, judicature, medicine, worship of Shiva
and the Goddess,
and concludes with a treatise on prosody, rhetoric,
grammar, and yoga.
Much of this was apparently taken from other
books.
The early Vishnu Purana explains that although all creatures
are destroyed
at each cosmic dissolution, they are reborn according
to their good or bad karma;
this justice pleased the creator Brahma.
In this Purana Vishnu becomes the Buddha in order
to delude
the demons so that they can be destroyed.
The gods complain that
they cannot kill the demons
because they are following the Vedas
and developing ascetic powers.
So Vishnu says he will bewitch
them to seek heaven or nirvana
and stop evil rites such as killing
animals.
Then reviling the Vedas,
the gods, the sacrificial rituals, and the Brahmins,
they went
on the wrong path and were destroyed by the gods.
The Vishnu
Purana describes the incarnations of Vishnu,
including his
future life as Kalkin at the end of the dark age (Kali yuga)
when evil people will be destroyed,
and justice (dharma)
will be re-established in the Krita age.
The gradual ethical degeneration
is reflected in the change in Hindu literature
from the heroic Vedas to the strategic epics
and then to deception
and demonic methods in the Puranas.
The Padma Purana explains the incarnations of Vishnu
as
fulfilling a curse from lord Bhrigu, because Vishnu killed his
wife.
Thus Vishnu is born again and again for the good of the
world when virtue has declined.
By appearing as a naked Jain and
the Buddha,
Vishnu has turned the demons away from the Vedas
to the virtue (dharma) of the sages.
The most popular of all the Puranas, the Srimad Bhagavatam
was attributed
to the author of the Mahabharata,
Vyasa, given out through his son Suta.
However, scholars consider
this work emphasizing the way of devotion (bhakti)
one
of the later great Puranas and ascribe it to the grammarian
Vopadeva.
Bhagavatam retells the stories of the incarnations
of the god Vishnu
with special emphasis on Krishna.
Even as a
baby and a child the divine Krishna performs many miracles and
defeats demons.
The young Krishna is not afraid to provoke the
wrath of the chief god Indra
by explaining that happiness and
misery, fear and security,
result from the karma of one's actions.
Even a supreme Lord must dispense the fruits of others' karma
and thus is dependent on those who act.
Thus individuals are controlled
by their dispositions
they have created by their former actions.
Karma, or we might say experience, is the guru and the supreme
Lord.
Brahmins should maintain themselves by knowledge of the Veda,
Kshatriyas by protecting the country, Vaishyas by
business, and Sudras by service.
Krishna also notes that karma
based on desire is the product of ignorance,
of not understanding
one's true nature.
The king who is listening to the stories of Krishna asks how
this Lord
could sport with other men's wives; but the author excuses
these escapades
by explaining that although the superhuman may
teach the truth,
their acts do not always conform to their teachings.
The intelligent understand this and follow only the teachings.
The worshiping author places the Lord above good and evil and
claims
that the men of Vajra did not become angry at Krishna
because
they imagined their wives were by their sides all the time.
Krishna
also fought and killed many enemies, "as the lord of the
jungle kills the beasts."18
He killed Kamsa for unjustly
appropriating cows.
Krishna fought the army of Magadha king Jarasandha
seventeen times
and presented the spoils of war to the Yadu king.
He killed Satadhanva over a gem.
Krishna carried off by force
and thus wed Rukmini by the demon mode.
Several other weddings
followed, and Krishna's eight principal queens
were said to have
bore him ten sons each.
The author claimed he had 16,000 wives
and lived with them all
at the same time in their own apartments
or houses.
In the 18th battle Jarasandha's army finally defeated Krishna's,
and it was said that he captured 20,800 kings;
but Krishna got
Bhima to kill Jarasandha,
and all the confined Kshatriyas were
released.
Krishna cut off the head of his foe Sishupala with his
razor-sharp discus;
he also destroyed the Soubha and killed Salva,
Dantavakra and his brother.
Although the methods of action (karma)
and knowledge (jnani) are discussed
in relation to Samkhya philosophy and yoga,
in the Bhagavatam the practice of devotion (bhakti)
to God in the form of Krishna
is favored as the supreme means
of salvation.
The great war between the Kurus and the Pandavas
is explained as Krishna's way
of removing the burden of the Earth.
Krishna tells his own people, the Yadus, to cross the sea to Prabhasa
and worship the gods, Brahmins, and cows.
There rendered senseless
by Krishna's illusion (maya),
they indulge in drink and
slaughter each other.
Krishna's brother Balarama and he both depart
from their mortal bodies,
Krishna ascending to heaven with his
chariot and celestial weapons.
Before the 11th century seventy stories of "The Enchanted
Parrot" were employed
to keep a wife entertained while her
husband was away
so that she would not find a lover.
A charming
parrot satirizes women, comparing them to kings and serpents
in
taking what is near them.
The proverb is quoted that when the
gods want to ruin someone
they first take away one's sense of
right and wrong,
and the listener is warned not to set one's heart
on riches gained by wickedness
nor on an enemy one has humiliated.
When the husband returns, the parrot is freed from the curse
and
flies to heaven amid a rain of flowers.
In the late 11th century Somadeva added to the Great Story
(Brihat-katha) of Gunadhya
to make the Ocean of the Streams
of Story (Katha-sarit-sagara) collection of
more than 350
stories in Sanskrit verse.
The author noting that jealousy interferes
with discernment,
a king orders a Brahmin executed for talking
with his queen;
but on the way to his punishment, a dead fish
laughs because
while so many men are dressed as women in the king's
harem
an innocent Brahmin is to be killed.
The narrator tells
the king this and gains respect for his wisdom and release for
the Brahmin.
The author also notes that for the wise, character
is wealth.
Somadeva recounts the legendary stories of Vatsa king
Udayana
and his marriages to Vasavadatta and the Magadhan princess
Padmavati.
The former is commended for cooperating in the separation
in Yaugandharayana's scheme;
he says she is a real queen because
she does not merely comply
with her husband's wishes but cares
for his true interests.
An eminent merchant sends his son to a courtesan to learn to
beware
of immorality incarnate in harlots, who rob rich young
men blinded by their virility.
Like all professionals, the prostitute
has her price
but must guard against being in love when no price
is paid.
She must be a good actress in seducing and milking the
man of his money,
deserting him when it is gone, and taking him
back
when he comes up with more money.
Like the hermit, she must
learn to treat them all equally whether handsome or ugly.
Nonetheless
the son is taken in by a courtesan and loses all his money,
but
he contrives to get it back by using a monkey trained
to swallow
money and give it back on cue.
From Somadeva also comes the Vampire's Tales of "The
King and the Corpse."
In an unusual frame for 25 stories
a king is instructed to carry a hanged corpse
inhabited by a vampire,
who poses a dilemma at the conclusion of each tale.
For example,
when heads are cut off and are put back on each other's bodies,
which person is which?
After becoming orphans the oldest of four
Brahmin brothers tries to hang himself;
but he is cut down and
saved by a man who asks him why a learned person
should despair
when good fortune comes from good karma
and bad luck from bad
karma.
The answer to unhappiness, then, is doing good;
but to
kill oneself would bring the suffering of hell.
So the brothers
combine their talents to create a lion from a bone;
but the lion
kills them, as their creation was not intelligent but evil.
The
last brother, who brought the lion's completed body to life,
is
judged most responsible by the king because
he should have been
more aware of what would result.
1. Prince Ilango Adigal, Shilappadikaram, tr. Alain
Daniélou, p. 202.
2. Tiruvalluvar, The Kural tr. P. S. Sundarum, 99.
3. Ibid., 311-320.
4. Ibid., 981-990.
5. Shankara, Crest-Jewel of Wisdom tr. Mohini M. Chatterji,
58.
6. Bhasa, Avimaraka tr. J. L. Masson and D. D. Kosambi,
p. 73.
7. Ibid., p. 130-131.
8. Kalidasa, Shakuntala tr. Michael Coulson, 1:11.
9. Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa tr. Kazi Dawa-Samdup, p.
176.
10. Ibid., p. 253.
11. Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines tr. Kazi Dawa-Samdup,
p. 75.
12. Majumdar, R. C., An Advanced History of India, p. 292.
13. Speaking of Shiva tr. A. K. Ramanujan, p. 54.
14. Elliot, H. M., The History of India as Told by Its Own
Historians, Vol. 3, p. 546.
15. Poems from the Sanskrit tr. John Brough, p. 58.
16. Ibid., p. 71.
17. An Anthology of Sanskrit Court Poetry tr. Daniel H.
H. Ingalls, 1629.
18. Srimad Bhagavatam tr. N. Raghunathan, 10:44:40, Vol.
2 p. 321.
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