History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c14.s5.14

c14.s5.14

41. A worshipper of Śiva is a worshipper of a symbol, a bindu. The Śaiva worshipper would have looked down upon the Buddhist idol-worshippers as followers of a low cult.¹ Whether the Bhāraśiva did so or not, we can be certain of one fact that Buddhism could not but have declined in the Nāga country, if for nothing else, at least for its political alliance with the enemy of the national civilization. It had become the foster-child of a tyrant and with the uprooting of the tyranny it must fall. This is the explanation of the decay of Buddhism which was so marked by the time of the early Guptas. The decay was in an advanced stage by the end of the Bhāraśiva period. Buddhism had become a denationalized system and assumed a non-Hindu character by its contact with the Kushans, in whose hands it had lost its spiritual independence and become a political instrument. The Buddhist Bhikshus in the Kushan period in Kashmir were felt, on the evidence of the Rāja-taraṅgiṇī, as a social nuisance and a load of oppression. They must have been so felt also in Āryāvarta. Śaiva asceticism became a necessary antidote for a readjustment of society. The Śakas had weakened the character of the Hindu population; Śaiva asceticism was a necessary factor of correction. The greedy imperialism of the Kushans was destroyed; the Hindu people were purged of deteriorated morals. And when the task was done, the Bhāraśivas retired. Śiva’s mission was complete, and in Lord Śiva the Bhāraśivas re-entered in spiritual triumph. Unconquered till the last, untainted by any material selfishness, the true servants of their Lord and His people exit from the stage of history—a rare, honourable and noble finis which the Bhāraśiva fully deserved. The Bhāraśivas re-established Hindu sovereignty in Āryāvarta. They restored the Hindu imperial throne and the national civilization and gave a new life to their country. They revived aśvamedha after a lapse of some four centuries. They restored the sanctity of the Mother Ganges, the river of Lord Śiva, throughout its length by freeing her from sin and crime, and made her worthy to be sculptured at the doors of the temples of the Vākāṭakas and the Guptas as a symbol of purity.¹ They did all this, and left no memorial to themselves. They left their deeds and obliterated themselves.