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History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c8.s1: Aryans.

History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c8.s1

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English

Aryans.

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At some very remote period in the world's history the Âryas or Aryans³—a people speaking an early form of Sanskrit—

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³ We have the word in the ‘Aria’ and ‘Ariana’ of the Greek writers, applied to the country lying to the north-east of Persia adjoining Baktriana. The early Zoroastrians called their country ‘Airyanavaêjô’—the Aryâ home, and in the Behistun inscriptions it is styled ‘Ariya.’ See Lassen, ‘Indische Alterthumskunde,’ Bd. i. Ss. 5ff.

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entered India across the Upper Indus, coming from Central Asia. They were a fair complexioned people as compared with the Aborigines, and for a long time they remained settled in the Panjâb, or on the banks of the Sarasvatî, then a more important stream than now, the main body, however, still remaining to the westward of the Indus. If, however, we may trust our chronology, we find them settled 1500 to 2000 years before the Christian Era, in Ayodhyâ and then in the plenitude of their power. Naturally we look for some light on their early history in the two great Indian epics—the Râmâyana recording the exploits of Râma, King of Ayodhyâ, of the Solar race, and in much later times regarded as an incarnation of Vishnu; and the Mahâbhârata celebrating the contest between the Kurus and Pândus, of the Lunar family. Both are steeped in Brâhman doctrines, almost certainly inserted in later ages among the original legends. It thus becomes very difficult to separate what belongs to the original spirit and aim of the works from the interpolated materials. The Râmâyana is so largely allegorical and cast in the form it has reached us so long after the period to which it refers that it is doubtful whether we can draw any inference with safety from its contents, except that it relates to the spread of Aryan civilisation—which had probably then occupied most of the country north of the Vindhyan range—into southern India, and as far as Ceylon.¹ From a very early period the Aryans had, doubtless, become mixed with aboriginal races, and could not be regarded as pure at this period. But whether they formed settlements in the Dekhan or not, it was opened up to them, and by slow degrees imbibed that amount of Brahmanism which eventually pervaded the south. By b.c. 700, or thereabouts, they had begun to be tolerably well acquainted with the whole of the peninsula.

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¹ For some account of the probable spread of the Âryas southwards, see Dr. R. G. Bhândârkar's 'Early History of the Dekhan,' in *Bombay Gazetteer* (1895), vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 132ff.

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The events that form the theme of the western epic—the Mahâbhârata—may have occurred almost as early as, or even several centuries later than the times of Râma. It opens up an entirely new view of Indian social life. If the heroes of that poem were Aryans at all, they were of a much less pure type than those who composed the songs of the Vedas, or are depicted in the verses of the Râmâyana. Their polyandry, their drinking bouts, their gambling tastes, and love of fighting, mark them as a very different race from the peaceful shepherd immigrants of the earlier age, and point much more distinctly towards a Tartar, trans-Himâlayan origin, than to the cradle of the Aryan stock in Central Asia. We are tempted to ask whether the Pândavas, who conquered in the great strife, were not a confederacy of hostile tribes, headed by a band of warriors of mixed or non-Aryan descent. Their helper and counsellor, Krishnâ, is a divinity unknown to the early Aryans, and with him as an incarnation of Vishnu, the Siva, and Brahma, of modern Hindûism, take the place of the older gods. As if to mark the difference of which the warriors themselves felt the existence, they distinguished themselves, by name, as belonging to a Lunar race, distinct from, and generally antagonistic to, the Solar race, which was the proud distinction of the purer and earlier Aryan settlers in India.¹

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¹ Orientalists have expressed very varying opinions as to the historical teachings of the epics. See Weber, ‘On the Râmâyana,’ etc.

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By about B.C. 700, we again find a totally different state of affairs in India. The Aryans no longer exist as a separate nationality, and neither the Solar nor the Lunar race are the rulers of the earth. The Brâhmans have become a priestly caste, and share the power with the Kshatriyas, a race of far less purity of descent. The Vaisyas, as merchants and husbandmen, have become a power, and even the Sûdras are acknowledged as a part of the body politic; and—though not mentioned in the Scriptures—the Nâgas, or Snake people, had become an influential part of the population. They are first mentioned in the Mahâbhârata, where they play a most important part in causing the death of Parikshit, which led to the great sacrifice for the destruction of the Nâgas of Takshasilâ by Janamejaya, which practically closes the history of the time. Destroyed, however, they were not, for we find Nâga dynasties ruling in various parts of Central India and Râjputâna from the 7th century B.C., till at least the 4th century A.D.²

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² The Nâga or Kârkota dynasty of Kashmîr ruled as late as from about the beginning of the 7th till the middle of the 9th century.

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Although Buddhism was first taught probably by one belonging to the Solar race, and of Aryan blood, and though its first disciples were Brâhmans, it had as little affinity with the religion of the Vedas as Christianity had with the Pentateuch, and its fate was the same. The one religion was taught by one of Jewish extraction to the Jews; but it was ultimately rejected by them, and adopted by the Gentiles, who had no affinity of race or religion with the inhabitants of Judæa. Though meant originally, no doubt, for Aryans, the Buddhist religion was ultimately rejected by the Brâhmans, who were consequently eclipsed and superseded by it for nearly a thousand years; and we hear little of them and their religion till they rise again at the court of the great Gupta kings in the 4th century A.D., when their religion began to assume that strange shape which it now still retains in India. In its new form it is as unlike the religion of the Vedas as it is possible to conceive one religion being to another; unlike that, also, of the older portions of the Mahâbhârata; but a confused mess of local superstitions and imported myths, covering up and hiding the Vedantic and Buddhist doctrines, which may sometimes be detected as underlying it. Whatever it be, however, it was invented by and for as mixed a population as probably were ever gathered together into one country—a people whose feelings and superstitions it only too truly represents.

Cites (3)