History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c33.s6.31

v3.c33.s6.31

The Panjab had no doubt been the home of Vedic Aryans from the most ancient days; the place where the Vedic hymns were mostly composed and sung at sacrifices, the place where even later Vedic civilisation developed. Gāndhāra and Madra are the lands of Pāṇini and Aśvapati the teachers of grammar and philosophy. The Upanishads contain many references to the Brahmins and Kshatriyas of these famous lands on the west and the east of the Indus. But the "land of the five rivers and the sixth Indus" subsequently became a home of Buddhism, next only to Magadha. Buddha himself preached successfully in Afghanistan and the Panjab and later on Mahāyāna Buddhism was evolved under Kanishka in this land. Purushapura and Takshaśilā two places of Vedic fame became centres of Buddhist learning. The Panjab, therefore, though originally the home of Indo-Aryans (and even now it is pre-eminently Indo-Aryan as Sir H. Risley found from facial measurements taken at the census of 1901) was less strong in the Hindu sentiment than the rest of India even in the days of the present Mahābhārata of 250 B. C. (See note). It continued to be so in the days of Hiuen Tsang who in 630 A. D. recorded that Kapisa or Kabul with Nagar (Jalalabad) and Udyāna (Swat) with Taxila were entirely Buddhist, while Peshawar and the Panjab were half Buddhist (see Vol. I p. 48). Caste which was weak even in Vedic times became still weaker in Buddhist days. Brahmanism developed in the land of the Sarasvati and caste gathered strength in Upper India, while it remained fluid in the Panjab "where a Brahmin would become a barber one day and a Brahmin again on the next" (See note). When, after Harsha, Buddhism was overthrown in India by the efforts of Kumārila and Śaṅkara and modern Hinduism was evolved, Buddhism no doubt disappeared even from the Panjab, but the Hindu influence from the south was too distant to correct the laxity of caste and food prevailing there. And we can thus see why at the time when Mahmud conquered the Panjab, the Hindu sentiment among the people was particularly weak. The people lacked that intensity of faith in the Varṇāśrama Dharma which characterised the people of the Gangetic valley and they consequently did not resist forcible conversion with stubbornness and ceased to worship the idols which Mahmud broken with more ease than could have been expected of a Hindu population possessing all the physical superiority of the Aryan race.