A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c20.s1: Buddhism, Jainism, and Ājīvikas

A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c20.s1

Language: English

Buddhism, Jainism, and Ājīvikas

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The early history of Buddhism in South India has been incidentally sketched in the opening chapters of this book. Its decline in Andhradeśa, where it had flourished in the early centuries A.D., was noticed by Yuan Chwang, and this decline proceeded further after his time. The renascent Hinduism of the period began the worship of the Buddha at Amarāvati as an incarnation of Vishnu and seems likewise to have converted many other Buddhist centres into Hindu shrines. In the Tamil country, Buddhism declined rapidly as a result of the activities of the Hindu saints and reformers which we have noticed in this chapter, but it lingered on feebly in different parts of the country. Under the Cholas there were Buddhist settlements in Negapatam on the east coast and at Śrīmūlavāsam in the west; and Buddhism was considered sufficiently important for some scenes from Buddha's life to be represented in decorative panels in a balustrade of the great temple of Tanjore. The ancient Velgam Vehera on the banks of the Periyakulam tank near Trincomalee in Ceylon was remodelled and considerably extended, and renamed Rājarāja Perumbaḷḷi early in the eleventh century; a large life-size limestone image of the Buddha and an inscribed bronze lampstand are among the finds in the vihāra—clear proof of the active interest of the great Chola monarch in the spiritual well-being of his subjects in Ceylon. An important work of Tamil grammar, the Virasōliyam composed in Virarājēndra's time, had a Buddhist scholar for its author. One section of Kāñchipuram bore the name of Buddhakāñchī to a relatively late date, and a Buddhist monk from one of the monasteries there sang the praises of a Hindu ruler of eastern Java in the fourteenth century.

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In the north-west of the Deccan also, new vihāras were coming up on behalf of Buddhism late in the ninth century. Thus, in 853, a monk from Bengal built a great monastery (mahāvihāra) in Krishnagiri (Kaṇheri) for the use of the sangha and endowed it with one hundred gold drammas. In the same neighbourhood a meditation hall was constructed for monks in 877 by a minister of the Śilāhāras of Konkan, and other endowments are recorded at the same time and place for the regular worship of the Buddha.

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On the whole, however, Jainism had more influence than Buddhism on the life of the people, particularly in Karnātaka and in the Tamil country owing to the striking contributions made by Jaina authors to the literatures of Kannada and Tamil. Some account of them has already been given in the last chapter on literature. The Jaina temple built at Aihole by Ravikirti in the reign of Pulakeśin II is said to be the abode of all excellences, and Jaina temples and monasteries continued to be built everywhere in the extensive dominions ruled by the Chālukyas and the Rāshtrakūtas. Rāshtrakūta Amoghavarsha I, for instance, found solace by retiring to a Jaina monastery more than once in the course of his long reign. Many of the early Western Ganga monarchs were followers of Jainism, and it also found patronage under the Eastern Chālukyas. Amma II (mid-tenth century) built two Jinālayas and established satras (feeding houses) attached to them where śramaṇas (Jaina monks) of all the four castes were to be fed.

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Jainism had much more in common with Hinduism than Buddhism, and many popular beliefs and practices were common to both the systems. Thus in 812 a Jaina temple was endowed for the removal of trouble caused to a Chālukya Vimalāditya by the planet Śanaiścara (Saturn). In many Jaina grants we find that the donees are required to use the proceeds of the endowment for their daily rites and observances in terms identical with those employed in Hindu donations; and influential guilds of merchants often included a strong Jaina wing in their membership. Soon after the establishment of Vijayanagar, Jains complained to king Bukkarāya of persecution by the Vaishnavas. The monarch interceded (1368) and decreed that both parties should practise their respective religions with equal freedom and without mutual interference. Though Jainism has been steadily losing ground it has not altogether disappeared from the country—particularly in parts of Gujarat.

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Another sect outside the pale of Hinduism, which continued to count some adherents in South India though it had disappeared elsewhere, was that of the Ājīvikas. Founded by Gośāla Maskariputra, a contemporary of the Buddha and Mahāvīra, this strictly deterministic school was influential in the Mauryan period in the North, and Aśoka and his successor Daśaratha presented fine rock-cut caves to it. They believed in an inexorable Niyati (Destiny) which man was unable to counteract. The South Indian Ājīvika monks practised severe asceticism, and probably influenced by Hinduism and Mahāyāna Buddhism, came to look upon Gośāla as ‘an ineffable divinity’; they also developed the ‘view that all change and movement were illusory, and that the world was in reality eternally and immovably at rest’. The inscriptions show that they were sometimes subjected to a special tax levied on them at least by the Cholas.

Linked texts (1)

Vīracōḻiyam — Puttamittiraṉ, Tamil