History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c41.s7.3

v3.c41.s7.3

It does not appear that this new Vaishnavism came from the south or was due to the teaching of the Vaishnava Bhāgavata Purāṇa. Nor was its rise due to the teaching of Śankara who was a thorough supporter of the Vedic ritual. Whatever the influencing cause in Northern India, it was certainly not the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the date of which, we have elsewhere shown, could not be earlier than the tenth century A. D. And we find in Kashmir history king Avantivarman (855-884) a thorough Vaishnava of the new type, prohibiting totally the slaughter of animals in the kingdom of Kashmir (see Vol. I p. 221) as in the old days of Meghavāhana. The Buddhist love for Ahimsā returned again in the ninth century and Avantivarman used his political power for establishing Ahimsā, being himself a devout Vaishnava. The imperial Pratihāra Bhoja was a Parama Vaishnava (Vol. II p. 109) as also his grandson, though we are not quite sure if they were of the type of Avantivarman i. e. total abstainer from animal food and prohibitors of animal slaughter. The Gāhadavālas were worshippers of Lakshmi or Śrī who is invoked in their inscriptions in the beginning and also of Dāmodara. They were practically Smārtas as they are described in inscriptions as Māheśvaras but they are also always described as worshipping Vāsudeva at the time of making land grants. In Magadha, the Pālas were Buddhists and therefore thorough supporters of the doctrine of Ahimsā, but even there we find a queen hearing the whole Mahābhārata recited to her. In Eastern Bengal the Senas were in the beginning devotees of Śiva but Lakshmaṇasena, their most noted king, became a Parama Vaishnava and he must be taken to be a perfect supporter of the doctrine of Ahimsā. He himself must have abstained from flesh, though we have no evidence to hold that he prohibited animal slaughter in his kingdom. His Vaishnavism appears to have come from Jagannātha in Orissa where the new Vaishnavism became dominant at this time for reasons we shall sketch later on. Thus in Northern India at this time, Jainism in the west and Vaishnavism in the north and east became predominant with their doctrine of Ahimsā as their prominent tenet.