History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c15.s3.58

c15.s3.58

85. There were three great contributions of the Vākāṭaka Emperor. His father Vindhyaśakti for about forty years of the last portion of the Bhāraśiva imperial rule was the real fighter and empire-builder of the Bhāraśivas. Inheriting his energy and ideal, Pravarasena I evolved a clear political thesis. (1) His thesis was a H i n d u E m p i r e for the w h o l e o f I n d i a and enthronement of the ś ā s t r a s. (2) A great literary movement in favour of S a n s k r i t begins about 250 A.D. and in fifty years reaches a pitch at which the Guptas take it up. We have the drama K a u m u d i-m a h o t s a v a, written about 340 A.D., where the whole literary movement is cinematographed. It was written at the Court of a feudatory of the Vākāṭaka Emperor by a woman, at practically one sitting, to whom Sanskrit Kāvya was as facile a subject as to Bhāsa and Kālidāsa. Classical Sanskrit had become her vernacular. It had become the Court language. Expressions and forms had become set, and everyone in the official circle talked and wrote in Sanskrit. The earliest Vākāṭaka inscriptions found near or at their capital are in Sanskrit. In the South at that time,—a generation after Śivaskandavarman—Sanskrit begins ruling in royal documents. The set genealogical form in the Vākāṭaka documents, repeated generation after generation, shows that in the time of Pravarasena I, Sanskrit drafting must have come into vogue. Samudra Gupta and his successors follow exactly the system of Vākāṭaka drafting. At the Court of another feudatory, Gaṇapati Nāga, vernacular literary tradition is converted into Sanskrit classical poetry where the verses written for the Nāga-rāja in the Bhāva-śataka remind one of the [Prakrit] Gāthā-śaptaśatī. (3) The Kaumudī-mahotsava gives us an insight into the S o c i a l R e v i v a l. Revival of Varṇāśrama dharma and Hindu orthodoxy is emphasized very pointedly; it was the cry of the time. The society under the Vākāṭaka imperialism was seeking to purge the abuses crept in under the Kushan rule. It was a Hindu Puritan Movement which was greatly fostered, and which received a wide imperial implication under Pravarasena I.¹