History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c14.s6.45

v1.c14.s6.45

Dr. Bhandarkar has shown that during the rule of the early Chālukyas Buddhism does not seem to have been prosperous. It was alive no doubt, but it was not the religion of the kings nor generally of the people. In fact according to our view already expressed it was as a rise against Buddhism whose ascendancy is marked by the Ajantā caves under the Vākāṭakas that the Maratha power under the Cālukyas was triumphant. Pulakeshin I signalised his reign and supremacy by the performance of the Aśvamedha. The sacrificial lore was also studied and developed under these kings by learned Brahmins and such learned persons, Dr. Bhandarkar thinks, were specially called Svāmins. Karkasvāmin and others were certainly commentators on sacrificial sutras. But Svāmin need not be a special name for such Brahmins. Dikshita was a title specially given to the Brahmins learned in sacrificial lore and performers of Vedic sacrifices. It does not also appear that sacrificial literature was studied in the Deccan alone. The revival of sacrificial study can be marked all over the country, for Bāṇa himself states that his parents and uncles were great students of Mīmānsa. They were called Bhaṭṭas also. Śabarasvāmin and Kumarilabhatta the well-known writers on Vedic sacrifice belong to the north. We shall have to speak of them later on. Undoubtedly orthodox Brahmins in the Deccan as elsewhere at this time employed their intelligence in the refutation of Buddhism and in the vindication of Vedic sacrifices, and under the sympathetic rule of the early Cālukyas they succeeded in supplanting Buddhism completely.