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Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c11.s2: Section II. Local Autonomy and Imperial Unity

Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c11.s2

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English

Section II. Local Autonomy and Imperial Unity

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The chief interest of the political history of the post-Bimbisārian Age lies in the interplay of two opposing forces, one centrifugal, the other centripetal, *viz.*, the love of local (*Jānapada*) autonomy and the aspiration for imperial unity. The former ideal is best expressed in the words of Manu—*sarvaṁ paravaśaṁ duḥkham, sarvam ātmavaśaṁ sukham*,¹ "subjection to others is full of misery, subjection to self leads to happiness." The predilection for local self-rule was in part fostered by geographical conditions. The intersection of the land of India by deep rivers and winding chains of mountains flanked by dreary deserts or impenetrable forests, developed a spirit of isolation and cleft the country asunder into small political units whose divergences were accentuated by the infinite variety of local conditions. But the vast riparian plain of the north and the extensive plateau in the interior of the Deccan Peninsula, decked with green by the life-giving streams that flow from the majestic heights of the Himālayas and the Western Ghats, fostered an opposite tendency—an inclination towards union and coalescence. The sands which choked the Sarasvatī, the floods that swelled the Lauhitya, the dangers that lurked in the Mahāṭavī proved no effective bar to unity. The five hills of Girivraja could not permanently withstand the conquering heroes who were charged with an imperial mission. The head of the Vindhya bent in reverence before the sage who was bringing the culture of the Ganges valley to the banks of the Godāvarī and the Tāmraparṇī.

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¹ *Manusaṁhitā*, IV, 160.

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The desire for union under one political authority became manifest as early as the Brāhmaṇa period and found expression in passages like the following:—

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"May he (the king) be all-encompassing, possessed of all the earth, possessed of all life, from the one end up to the further side of the earth bounded by the ocean, sole ruler (*ekarāṭ*)."

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The ideal persists throughout our period and inspired poets and political philosophers who spoke of the thousand *yojanas* (leagues) of land that stretch from the Himālayas to the sea as the proper domain of a single universal emperor (*chakravarti-kshetra*) and eulogised monarchs who protected the earth decked with the Ganges, as with a pearl necklace, adorned with the Himavat and the Vindhya, as with two earrings, and robed with a swinging girdle in the shape of the rocking oceans.

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The imperial ideal had to contend with the centrifugal tendencies of *Jānapada* (provincial and tribal) autonomy. The two forces operated in successive epochs almost with the regularity of the swing of the pendulum. The aspiration for a unity that transcended local boundaries owed its success not a little to the presence of another factor in Indian politics—the danger threatening from foreign invaders. It was only when the "earth was harassed by the barbarians" (*Mlechchhairudvejyamānā*) that she sought refuge in the strong arms of Chandra Gupta Maurya, the first great historical emperor of India—whose dominions undoubtedly overstepped the limits of *Āryāvarta*. Among the early empire-builders of the south was a prince who rid his country of the Scythians, Greeks and Parthians (*Saka-Yavana-Pahlava-nishūdana*). And the rulers who revived the imperial glory of the Gangetic Provinces in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., were warriors who humbled the pride of the Scythian "Son of Heaven" and braved the wrath of the Saka king in his own city. According to sacred legends Vishṇu in the shape of a Boar had rescued the earth in the aeon of universal destruction. It is significant that the worship of the Boar Incarnation became widely popular in the Gupta-Chalukya period. The poet Viśākhadatta actually identifies the man in whose arms the earth found refuge when harassed by the *Mlechchhas*, who "shook the yoke of servitude from the neck" of his country, with the *Vārāhī-tanu* (Boar form) of the Self-Existent Being. Powerful emperors both in the north and the south recalled the feats of the Great Boar and the mightiest ruler of a dynasty that kept the Arabs at bay for centuries actually took the title of *Ādivarāha* or the Primeval Boar. The Boar Incarnation then symbolized the successful struggle of Indians against the devastating floods issuing from the regions outside their borders that threatened to overwhelm their country and civilisation in a common ruin.

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