occasion being urgent, there happened an abnormal thing; a Brahmin ascended the imperial throne of the Hindus. III.-EFFECTS OF THE SUNGA REVOLUTION. The horse-sacrifice 16 of Pushya-Mitra did not mark only the end of Buddhistic despotism and On Buddhism. Buddhistic political weakness, but also commemorated a political victory which was possibly as great as that won in the day of Chandragupta. The political psychology explains the pitiless policy of the Sunga against Buddhism in the North. It is significant that it was at Sakala, the town and base of Menander, that Pushya-Mitra made his notorious declaration setting a price of 100 gold pieces on the head of every Buddhist monk. 17 Buddhism was dealt with severely for having allied with the Greeks. This unfortunate alliance with politics must have brought discredit on Buddhism. Its indirect conflict with the State would have contributed to its decline in no small degree. The persecution of Buddhism in the second century B.C. may be thus considered to be a political movement, as distinct from its theological and social struggle which peacefully continued on for centuries, terminating as late as about the ninth century A. C. On Administration. With the Maurya dynasty disappeared the Maurya centralization and the Maurya system of administration. The political norms of the Brahmin régime were not the same as that of the Nandas and the Mauryas. A comparative study of the administrative system and the political theories in the Manava-Dharma Śāstra on the one hand and in Megasthenes and the Artha-Sastra on the other, discloses wide contrasts. The Artha-Sastra system, for instance, 16 Patañjali, MB. on Pāņini, I11-2-123; cf. Manu, XI, 260, where Aśvamedha is said to be a destroyer of all sins. 17 Burnouf L' Introduction a l'Histoire du Buddhisme Indien, 2nd edition, p. 384. stood for the "One-King Monarchy ".18 Manu's laws ad vocate a feudal arrangement, they would reinstate the old dynasties, 19 The former would centralise gambling under the State, the latter looked upon it as immoral. Instances could be multiplied; here however, it would be sufficient to observe that although the Sunga revolution resembles the Maurya revolution, both being products of national crises, the former lacked the cement of the system of the latter. One was mainly destructive, while the other had been pre-eminently constructive. Orthodoxy politically triumphant created a literature of its On Sanskrit Literature. own, the total effect of which on Hindu society has been as far-reaching as that of Buddhism, though only destructively in the main. Two pieces of that literature are still living factors in Hindu life: one is the Manava-Dharma-Sastra and the other is the MahaBharata. We now know that the brahminisation of the Epos had been complete long before the rise of the Imperial Guptas of the fifth century A. C. The affinity which the Epos bears in its ultra-Brahmanical tendency20 with the Manava-DharmaSastra makes one feel almost certain that both are product of the same pen or pens. Even if the brahminisation of the Epos (as it appears more probable) took place about 100 years later, still it would fall within the span of the Brahmin Empire. Such extravagant claims in favour of the Brahmin caste could not have been tolerated if advanced at a time when their political services had been forgotten. 21 We must not disregard the moral element which gave life to their hardly 18 Artha Sāstra, page 338, on chakravarti-kshetra which covers the whole of India cf. Sankararya on the passage quoted on Kamandaka, I, 39. (Trivandrum, 1912.) 19 See Manu, VII, 402. 20 Manu, II, 135 : ́A Brahmin of ten years stands to a Kshatriya of hundred years as father to son.' VIII, 20: "A Brahmin who subsists only by the name of his caste, etc." I. 100: "Every thing in the world belongs to the Brahmin ". 1 Brahmins as military leaders and as superior to Kshatriyas in military glory appear for the first time in Hindu Literature in the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahā-Bhārata and Bhasa, which are all assignable to the Śanga-Kanva period, though the Maha-Bharata bears traces of later interpolations. moral claims. The people before whom these claims were repeated must have been remembering the great patriotic achievements of Pushya-Mitra with some abiding amount of gratitude. In its hostile attitude towards the Mauryas and the Śūdras and in its general ultra-orthodox tendency, the Mahā-Bhāshya bears unmistakable marks of the time. The brahmanisation of the later part of the Rāmāyaṇa would also go back to this period. 22. Future analyses and research would bring to light the fact that some other pieces and portions of the Brahmanic literature, which have been up to this time attributed to the period of the Guptas, will have to be allotted to the Brahmin Empire of the Sungas and Kāṇvas. It was, on the whole, a great literary period in the history of the Sanskrit literature. (To be continued.) * See, for instance, the description of Ayodhya of Sala-mek hala (the sal wood palisade) and the deep moat, (I.5.127-3) which echoes the description of Pataliputra, and the abuse on the Buddha (II.109, 34). III.-Importance of the Janibigha By K. P. Jayaswal. The Janibigha stone inscription which has been brought to the Patna Museum* from the Mahant of Jānībighā (6 miles east of Bodh-Gaya), is of very great importance to the history of the Sena epoch. It is dated in the era of Lakshmaṇa-Sena, the year being 83, i.e., the third year (1202 A.C.) after the expedition of Muhammad, the son of Bakhtyar. Muhammad first established himself at the monastic town of Bihar near ancient Nalanda, now in the district of Patna. Beyond Bihar, both north-west and south, his sway did not extend. He had to make raid into Maner (mistaken by Mr. V. Smith for Monghyr)† in the northwest of the Patna district. A few miles to the south the district of Bodh-Gaya remained free under Hindu rule. The conquest of Gaya and Hindu crusades to free it are events of later history. This inscription now proves that the neighbouring district of Gaya remained under a scion of the Sena family in the time of Muhammad ibn Bakhtyar. He was Jayasena, son of Buddha-sena. Now Buddha-sena is mentioned by Taranatha as a descendant of the Sena family who ruled after the Turushka invasion. Tāranatha does not enumerate Jayasena amongst the Sena princes who became subordinate to the Turushkas. Taranatha used two special works in Sanskrit on the history of the Pālas and Senas and his information of this portion of history is more trustworthy. The reason of the non-mention of Jayasena seems to be By Professor Samaddar of the Patna College. E. H. I., 416 (1914). that he was not a subordinate but independent prince, away from Bengal. It is significant that Jayasena is called 'king' in the inscription while his father Buddha-sena bears no title. Buddha-sena, was probably some collateral of the Sena King who ruled c. 1199 A.C., and in 1202 he had not yet any principality of his own under the Turushkas. On the other hand, his son, who would have been originally a governor under the Sena King, on the break-up of the Sena Empire in 1199 A.C. seems to have assumed sovereignty, as he in 1202 (in the inscription) speaks of his own dynasty and contemplates, his descendants to be his suc cessors. Jayasena is called King of Pithi.' There cannot be any doubt that in the early Sena times Pithi denoted the whole of the Province of Bihar (except Mithila). The commentator to the Ramacharita Ramacharita could not have flourished long after the Pālas for he knows fully the details of the reign of Rama-Pāla. He always explains (pp. 36, 38) Piṭhipati as Magadhādhipa or the King of Magadha. Pițhi in one inscription is interchanged with Piṭhikā, both meaning 'throne'. It is not unlikely, as Mr. Panday in his note suggests, that the origin of the name was the Vajrasana throne. Gaya thus seems to have been the capital of Magadha during the later Pāla and the Sena periods. * This inscription leaves no doubt that the Lakshmana-sena era was counted, like so many other eras, from the reign of the king whose name it bears. It dates the year in Lakshmaṇa-senasy-ātīta-rājya-Sam or "in the expired year of the sovereignty [coronation] of Lakshmana-sena". It leaves no room for a theory as the one advanced by Mr. V. Smith that the era started with the reign of some predecessor of Lakshmaņa-sena.† If the era started with the reign of Lakshmana-sena as it is now proved to have done, then it is well nigh impossible to have For transcript and translation see below Mr. H. Panday's note. * Saranath Insc. E. I. IX. 322. E.H.I, App. O. |