History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c22.s1.16

Language: English

v1.c22.s1.16.1

We will now turn to our period. The first thing to be noticed is that Harsha seems very definitely to have conquered Nepal and introduced his era there. This was in the days of a Licchavi king named Śivadeva and must have happened very soon after Harsha's accesion, sometime about 610 A. D. The king being thus weakened his Sāmanta Amśuvarman, a powerful prince, easily became ascendent, but not so ascendent as to throw away Harsha's era, or to throw away his own title as Sāmanta. Hence his two inscriptions use the Harsha era and still retain the title Sāmanta though he virtually remained the master as chief minister or commander. This sort of double lordship lasted probably for some generations. Pandit Bhagvanlal mentions a parallel in the latest history of Nepal itself viz. of the family of the prime minister Jang Bahadur. But there are more such parallels in Indian history and we may quote the Peshwas themselves on our side who for four generations were both ministers and masters while the Satara chiefs for generations were ostensibly kings and yet powerless. Hiuen Tsang states that "the kings in Nepal were Kshatriyas and believed in Buddha. Amśuvarman a recent king had written a treatise on Etymology". This description shows that Amśuvarman was then dead but not necessarily when Hiuen Tsang visited Śrāvasti. It is probable he never went to Nepal personally but collected information which was noted later and at that time Amśuvarman was dead. Inscription no.

v1.c22.s1.16.2

7 is by Amśuvarman himself and is dated Samvat 39 which being in Harsha's era gives A. D. 645. He must have been alive then and it can not be explained how Sir Vincent Smith gives 641 A. D. as the date of his death (E. H. 3rd Ed. p. 366). But Amśuvarman must have died before Harsha very probably and he was not the man who gave assistance to the Chinese envoy who was maltreated by the ruler of Tirhut as stated in the history of Kanauj. For it appears that Amśuvarman at least in his later days was a staunch Hindu and a worshipper of Śiva as may be surmised from the following epithet applied to him in this very inscription viz. निशि निशि चानिकशास्त्रविमर्शविसादितसदर्शनतया धर्माधिकारास्थितिकारणमेवोत्सवनतिशयं मन्यमानः. This wording not only corroborates Hiuen Tsang's report about Amśuvarman's learning but shows that he had seen the fallacy of the wrong philosophy (of course Buddhism). The course of history in Nepal, therefore, at this time was the same as elsewhere. The kings upto Amśuvarman were sometimes Buddhists, sometimes Vaishnavites. The first Vishnudeva whose name we have in inscription No. 1 is described in Ins. No. 15 of Jayadeva as सुगतशासनपक्षपाती i. e. favourer of the teaching of Buddha. The Buddhist religion probably led to the enervation of the kingly line and Amśuvarman appears to have become supreme, being a professor of the sturdier religion of Śiva.

v1.c22.s1.16.3

It is pertinent to note that this Amśuvarman and his successors call themselves in the beginning of their inscriptions पशुपतिभट्टारकापदानुगृहीत i. e. favoured by the feet of Lord Paśupati while the first four inscriptions do not contain this epithet. The Lord Paśupati was certainly there before Amśuvarman. For Hiuen Tsang describing the people of Nepal says, "The people are rude and deceitful and ugly in appearance; but skilled mechanics (a true description of the Mongolian peoples). They believed both the false and true religions, Buddhist monasteries and Deva temples touching each other". We may, therefore, be sure that Paśupati was already there but the kings were usually Buddhists and sometimes Vaishnavites. Whatever be the reason, Amśuvarman established himself as paramount Sāmanta and was a worshipper of Paśupati. The other epithet बप्पपादानुध्यात occurs in all inscriptions both in Amśuvarman’s as in the previous ones dated in Vikrama Samvat. It seems that Bappa was the name or an epithet of the founder of the royal family of Licchavis, which was mentioned with reverence by all, like that of Sivaji Chhatrapati mentioned both by the Peshwas and the Satara kings. Another similarity to the later parallel may be found in the fact that while the Licchavi kings issue their edicts from Mānagriha, Amśuvarman and his successors issue them from Kailasakūta.

v1.c22.s1.16.4

These palaces must be located in different towns like Poona and Satara and the titular king ruled in one city while the real sovereign held his court in another.