The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c30.58

c30.58

The picture of the state of religious belief and practice in India during the seventh century, as drawn by the contemporary authors, is filled with curious and interesting details. The members of the royal family to which Harsha belonged freely acted on their individual preferences in the matter of religion. His remote ancestor, Pushyabhūti, is recorded to have entertained from boyhood an ardent devotion towards Siva, and to have turned away from all other gods. Harsha’s father was equally devoted to the worship of the Sun, and daily offered to that luminary ‘a bunch of red lotuses set in a pure vessel of ruby, and tinged, like his own heart, with the same hue’. The elder brother and sister of Harsha were convinced Buddhists, while Harsha himself distributed his devotions among the three deities of the family, Siva, the Sun, and Buddha;¹ and erected costly temples for the service of all three. But, in his latter years, the Buddhist doctrines held the chief place in his affections; and the eloquence of the Chinese Master of the Law induced him to prefer the advanced teaching of the Mahāyāna sect to the more primitive Hīnayāna doctrine of the Sammitīya school with which he had been familiar previously.