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Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s7: Literary Background

Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s7

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English

Literary Background

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There are unfortunately no definitely dated literary records of the Nanda-Maurya period. The epigraphic records that only date from the time of Aśoka give a one-sided picture of the religion of the people. The Śrauta and Gṛhya Sūtras which possibly belong to this period do not give a picture of the religion in practice but attempt at a systematisation of the orthodox Brahmanical traditions both social and ritualistic. They show Brahmanism on the defensive trying to safeguard its rights and privileges against the newly started religious movements such as Buddhism and Jainism. The *Arthaśāstra* of Kauṭilya is of suspected authenticity and may be used only as a source of secondary importance. The *Aṣṭādhyāyī* of Pāṇini is a compilation of this period and contains some important references to the religious institutions of the times. What is more important, it mentions the *Mahābhārata*. But it is not known which *Mahābhārata* it was. It was certainly not the epic in its present developed form. Supposing it was the old Pāṇḍu story, it does not throw any light on the age of the present epic. The epic therefore cannot be used as a source of information for the religious history of the Nanda-Maurya period.

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The early Buddhist texts, in spite of the ecclesiastical violence of different ages, seem to have preserved some authentic traditions of the pre-Aśokan times. They contain, to a limited extent, the picture of the religion as practised in those days and also of the struggle that was going on between Buddhism and the opposing sects. But this does not mean that the entire Buddhist canon in its present form can be used as a source of information for the period in question. The Buddhist traditions would have us believe that the first two collections of the Buddhist Tripiṭaka namely the Sūtrapiṭaka with its five *nikāyas* and the Vinayapiṭaka were brought together in the council of Rājagṛha, held immediately after the death of Buddha and that the third collection, the Abhidharmapiṭaka assumed its final form in the time of Aśoka, in the third council held at Pāṭaliputra. But this claim has been proved to be too exaggerated to be naively accepted. The Aśokan edicts show that the Buddhist canon was then in the making and not a full-fledged Tripiṭaka. In the Bhabru edict, Aśoka specially recommends to the Saṅgha a number of religious texts with the following instruction : ‘I desire that many groups of monks and nuns may repeatedly listen to these expositions of the Dharma (dhamma-paliyāyāni) and reflect on them. In the same way both laymen and laywomen (should act)’.

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The seven expositions of Dharma recommended by Aśoka were the following :
1. Vinaya-samukase (Vinaya-samutkarṣa).
2. Aliyavasāni (Āryavaṃśāni)
3. Anāgatabhayāni
4. Munigāthā
5. Moneyasute (Moneyyasūtra)
6. Upatisapasine (Upatissapraśna)
7. Lāghulovāde (Rāhulavāda)

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It is generally assumed that these Sūtras were selections from the extensive Buddhist canon, which according to the tradition, had been constituted already before the time of Aśoka. Under this assumption, all the texts except the first have been identified. Accordingly Aliyavasāni has been identified with Aṅguttara II, 27, Anāgatabhayāni with Aṅguttara III, 103, Munigāthā with Munisutta of the Suttanipāta, Moneyasute with Ratha-vinita-sutta of the same text, Upatisa-pasine with the Rathavinita-sutta of the Majjhima (I, 146-51 ) and the Lāghulovāde with the Rāhulavāda-sutta of the Majjhima (I. 414).

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Aśoka clearly says that these texts had been spoken by the Buddha himself (bhagavatā buddhena bhāsite). They are called Dhamma-paliyāya or Dharmaparyāya which regularly means a Buddhist religious text according to the old tradition of the north. But their identification is doubtful as there is no clue in the inscription to their contents excepting in the case of Lāghulovāde. It is said that this text concerned falsehood (musāvādam adhigicya) and in fact the Rāhulavāda-sūtra as preserved in the Pāli Majjhimanikāya and the northern Madhyamāgama contains a warning to Rāhula against falsehood.

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But in which form was the text known to Aśoka? It was certainly not known in its present amplified form. It is probable that the Aśokan text consisted of the gāthā portions which contain the essentials of the Sūtra.

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Then again the language in which they were known to Aśoka was neither Sanskrit nor Pāli. The titles of texts which Aśoka mentions in his edict have marked Māgadhi characteristics (cf. aliya for Pāli ariya, Lāghulo for Rāhula, the termination e as in -sute, samukase, for Pāli o). Admitting that Aśoka was quoting the exact titles of the texts known to him, the conclusion is inevitable that the form in which he knew them was Māgadhi. This pre-Aśokan Māgadhi canon was not yet a well-constituted Tripiṭaka, as the Pāli tradition would have us believe, but a literature still in the making. It should be remembered that although there was occasion for it, Aśoka does not mention either the piṭaka or the nikāya, words which occur on the Buddhist monuments within a century from Aśoka's time. It is therefore almost clear that the literature was not yet available in the time of Aśoka in a tangible form and that the community was not yet much given to the scripture. But a lead had already been given in this direction either by Aśoka on his own initiative or by Magadhan church and the old traditions had begun to be collected. Hence arose the necessity of encouraging the monks as well as the laymen to study them. Under these circumstances it is permitted to take some of the traditions embodied in the Buddhist canon as old and genuine.

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But the same thing cannot be said about the Jaina canon. The first systematic collection of the canon was made only in the 6th century A.D. apparently from old manuscripts but also from the mouths of the monks who could still recite them from memory. But the form in which the Aṅgas have come down to us is admittedly later than that of the Pāli canon which itself is post-Aśokan. Then again an important section of the Jaina community, the Digambaras, disown this canon and dispute its authenticity as true utterances of Mahāvīra. Under these circumstances, although the assumption that it contains some very old traditions of the Jaina church may not be wholly unjustified, our scope of discrimination in using them is extremely limited.

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The contemporary Greek records, specially the fragments of the lost account of Megasthenes, contain some valuable references to the religious life of the Maurya age and confirm to some extent the information available from the Buddhist texts.

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A study of these sources shows that in the Nanda-Maurya period, Brahmanism was still mainly an aristocratic religion of which the principal supporters were the kings, the nobles, and the rich Brahmin householders. The real custodians of the religious lore were the priests who occupied the highest rank in the social hierarchy. There was also an ascetic class among the Brahmins which consisted of teachers advocating somewhat new ways of religious thoughts and practices which may be traced to Upanishadic origin. Those teachers had a more direct appeal to the common people and attracted people from other classes of society too to a life of renunciation. It was probably at the hands of this ascetic class that new theistic movements originated in the Maurya period. Closely allied to this ascetic class but with definitely distinctive features were the two religious movements, Buddhism and Jainism, which began to play a very important part in the religious life of the country from the Maurya period.

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