The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c30.103

c30.103

In political institutions no evolution took place. No sovereign arose endowed with commanding abilities and capable of welding together the jarring members of the body politic, as Chandragupta Maurya, Asoka, and in a lesser degree the Gupta kings and Harsha of Kanauj had done. The nearest approach to the position of universal lord of Northern India was made by Mihira Bhoja of Kanauj (*c.* A. D. 840–90), but unluckily we know next to nothing about his character or administration. Even the heavy pressure of Muslim invasion failed to produce effective cohesion of the numberless Hindu States, which, one by one, fell an easy prey to fierce hordes of Arabs, Turks, and Afghans, bound together by stern fanaticism. Literature, although actively cultivated and liberally patronized at many local courts, sank far below the level attained by Kālidāsa. In mathematics, astronomy, or any other branch of science, little or no advance was made. Religion suffered a grave loss by the gradual extinction of Buddhism, which, in virtue of imperceptible changes, became merged in various Hindu sects. Only in Magadha and the neighbouring countries the religion of Gautama, under new forms, preserved a vigorous existence for four centuries (*c.* A. D. 780–1193), sustained by the support of Dharmapāla and his successors of the Pāla dynasty.