Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0165/01658.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 25KB | 387 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01658}
$Pretitle{221}
$Title{India
Chapter 1B.   The Classical Age}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Surjit Mansingh}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{india
century
temples
chola
muslim
new
north
south
hindu
islam}
$Date{1985}
$Log{}
Country:     India
Book:        India, A Country Study
Author:      Surjit Mansingh
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1985

Chapter 1B.   The Classical Age

     The classical age refers to the two centuries after about A.D. 320 when
North India was reunified under the Gupta Dynasty. Writers of the early
twentieth century looked on this period as some kind of utopia and fitted the
reign of Harsha-vardhana of Kanauj (A.D. 606-47) in the same mold. More
realistic assessments have been made in recent decades, and attention has
shifted to the plentiful source materials of the post-Gupta period. If not
utopian, the Gupta age was certainly a golden one, in which Hindu culture and
polity matured and prosperity was widespread. When displacement occurred at
the core, peripheral regions perpetuated the classical Hindu model, especially
in South India.

     The rise and expansion of the Gupta Dynasty from their home base in
Magadha was similar to that of the Mauryas. The victorious campaigns of
Samudragupta from Kashmir to the Deccan, which are commemorated on an Asokan
pillar at Allahabad, and the matrimonial alliances of his son, Chandragupta
II, show that the kings and local chieftains of the entire subcontinent were
either uprooted, made tributary, or won to friendly compliance by the Gupta
emperors, who assumed exalted imperial titles. Their direct control, however,
was confined to the Ganges Valley, and their relationships with other kings
and chieftains had a feudal cast. The Gupta style of administration was less
centralized than the Mauryan and was carried out through provincial, district,
subdivisional, and village officials rather than by centrally appointed
personnel.

     It is evident from excavations and from the contemporary literature that
the standard of living in Gupta India was high for most people. The Chinese
pilgrim Fa-Hsien, who visited India between A.D. 399 and 414, remarked on the
prosperity of the people, the smoothness of administration, and the leniency
of punishment compared with China. Another Chinese pilgrim, Hsuan-Tsang, who
traveled in the area in the seventh century, made similar comments, but he
also reported on the existence of landless labor and the practice of
untouchability.

     The concentration of formal education was on grammar, rhetoric and
composition, logic and metaphysics, medicine, mathematics, and astronomy.
Aryabhata's expositions on astronomy in A.D. 499 give calculations of the
solar year and the shape and movement of astral bodies with an accuracy
anticipating modern science. Astronomy and its unscientific but popular
cousin, astrology, were based on an active study of mathematics. The numerals
and decimal system routinely used in classical India were borrowed by the
Arabs and so passed on to the European world, where they supplanted the Roman
system.

     Lexicons of the Sanskrit language introduced by Panini and Patanjali in
the first century of the Christian Era continued. The great literary genius of
Gupta times, however, was Kalidasa. His dramas also throw light on emerging
social practices. For example, there was a difference between aristocratic
males, women, and servants, not only in behavior and speech patterns but also
in actual language. The former spoke Sanskrit, the language of the elite. The
latter two categories spoke Prakrits, the vernacular of the common people.
Prakrits were less rigid and developed rich regional varieties that grew into
the many different languages of North India. Kalidasa and other religious
writers of the period indicate that the status of women was being lowered.
Early marriage for girls and perpetual celibacy for widows was advocated.
Sanction was given to the voluntary immolation of a widow as a pious act; the
first record of the practice is a pillar inscription of 510. Women who opted
out of family life by becoming courtesans, performing in theaters, or joining
Buddhist nunneries enjoyed a larger measure of freedom than their married
sisters.

     The last of the imperial Guptas was Skandagupta (455-67), grandson of
Chandragupta II. Skandagupta was preoccupied with warding off the predatory
Huns on the northwest borders of the subcontinent. Subsequent Hun invasions
shattered the unity of North India, which was only briefly restored by
Harsha-vardhana of Kanauj. The Huns were gradually absorbed by the same
process of legitimization and Hinduization as the Sakas had been, and their
descendants gave rise to the Rajputs. The classical patterns of civilization
realized under the Guptas were sustained by their successors in the middle
Ganges Valley and in the kingdoms that emerged from the breakup of the Gupta
Empire. Thus the decline and fall of the Gupta Empire coincided with
considerable progress and prosperity in the outlying regions. South India,
particularly, was in ascendance.

     South India had its own territorial and interdynastic conflicts, some of
which had significance for a wider area. For example, the Chalukyas of the
western Deccan played an important connecting role between south and north for
more than two centuries. Their main rivals for supremacy in the strategic and
prosperous area of the Krishna-Tungabhadra doab were the Pallavas of Kanchi
(near present-day Madras). Both the Chalukyas and the Pallavas were orthodox
in their performance of Vedic sacrifices and their support of Brahmans. Both
dynasties left innumerable and enduring architectural monuments in beautifully
carved stone temples. Perhaps the most accessible monuments dating to the
seventh century stand on the sandy shore of Mahaballipuram, near Madras.

     The Pallavas maintained the maritime traditions of their Pandya
predecessors and enjoyed close trading and cultural relations with Southeast
Asia. The art, architecture, literature, and social customs of the kingdoms
of Kamboja and Champa (present-day Indochina), Pegu and Moulmein (Burma), and
Srivijaya (Malaysia and Indonesia) show the strong influence of the Sanskrit'
language, Brahman teachers, and Buddhist beliefs. Angkor Wat in Kampuchea and
Borobudur in Indonesia immortalize Hindu-Buddhist mythology and the skill of
stone craftsmen. The nature of the relationship between India and what some
European scholars deemed "Greater India" has not been precisely determined.
Colonization, in the modern sense of that term, seems unlikely. The peoples of
Southeast Asia appear to have been attracted to specific aspects of Indian
civilization and to have borrowed heavily from it, but they did so in
accordance with their own cultural and social needs.

     A more assertive outward thrust was made by the Chola Dynasty, which
overthrew the Pallavas in the ninth century and proceeded to overrun most of
Peninsula India. Chola rulers Rajaraja (985-1014) and Rajendra I (1018-44)
also invaded and annexed parts of Sri Lanka and Maldives. They sent several
naval expeditions against the Srivijaya Empire, which controlled the sea route
to China. Chola trade with China is well documented, although it was
characteristically referred to in Chinese chronicles as "tribute." The Chola
navy was the strongest fleet in the region for some time, and the Bay of
Bengal became a Chola lake, lauded by Tamil bards. The Chola armies were
large, usually consisting of one wing each of elephants, horse cavalry, and
infantry. They fought incessantly on the Peninsula, sacking, plundering, and
massacring where they conquered. Thereafter, Chola ascendancy was maintained
less by force than by a system of legitimizing local chieftains in their
domains in return for recognition of Chola ritual sovereignty.

     The Chola Empire flourished through the thirteenth century. The rich
Cauvery Basin formed its core. The rest of the empire was divided into
semia