History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c18.s3.11

v1.c18.s3.11

These are of course conjectural dates but they are supported well by the proved facts in Indian ancient history and we may well believe that the fame of Kumārila had been established in the later days of Harsha and it was his followers who offered a stout resistance to the preachings of Buddhism in Harsha's last assemblies. Of course we reject here the popular belief that Kumārila was the immediate predecessor of Śankara the next grand figure in the history of the revival of Hinduism. The story of Kumārila's defeat by Śankara is like the story of Vikrama's defeat by Śalivāhana or Kalidāsa's defeat in poetry by Bhavabhūti,—absurd and evident anachronisms. After Harsha's death, under the re-established or later Varmās, the Pūrva Mīmānsā philosophy became supreme and Buddhism was finally expelled from the centre of the Hindu empire, the valley of the Ganges and the Jumna. Naturally under Yaśovarman, Kanauj the capital of the Hindu Central Empire became the centre of orthodoxy and attained great religious importance which it retained as we have said, down to the Mahomedan conquest. The Kanaujia Brahmins became the leading Brahmins in the whole of India and they were subsequently placed properly enough at the head of the five Brahmin chief subcastes of northern India as they are now enumerated. The sub-division of Brahmins into five Gaudas and five Dravidas had yet, no doubt, to arise as we shall have to relate later on. But it is worth remarking here that the pre-eminence of Kanaujia Brahmins began from this reign. Gauda or Kurukshetra and Thaneser had already sent Brahmins and Kshatriyas into Bengal but later tradition in Bengal relates that five Kanaujia Brahmins and five Kāyasthas were about this time or a little later after this, invited to and settled in Bengal by the first orthodox king of Bengal Ādisura; about whom we shall have later on to speak. This revival of the Vedas and the science of its interpretation Pūrva Mīmānsā was indeed not confined to the north but was zealously carried on in the south also i. e. in the Deccan under the Chālukyas as we have already seen. By the efforts of both, Buddhism was finally extinguished in India with the exception of Magadha its birth-place where it survived a few centuries more.