The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c9.s3.t7: Religion
The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c9.s3.t7
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Religion
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Hiuen Tsang observed that in the sphere of religion, the people of Mahārāṣṭra combined orthodoxy with heterodoxy; there were more than 100 Buddhist monasteries and the Brethren, who were adherents of both vehicles, were more than 5,000 in number.⁷ In the Life we read further: ‘There are also followers of the heretics who worship the devas and cover themselves with ashes.’⁸ In the capital, by which the pilgrim did not mean Vātāpi but probably Nāsik, there were five Aśoka stūpas, and innumerable others of stone and brick. At the end of his account of Mahārāṣṭra, the pilgrim gives a description of the caves of Ajanta which, according to Watters, is that of an eye-witness, though other commentators are not so sure of this. ‘In the east of this country’, says Hiuen Tsang, ‘was a mountain range, ridges one above another in succession, tiers of peaks and sheer summits. Here was a monastery the base of which was in a dark defile, and its lofty halls and deep chambers were quarried in the cliff at their back and faced the ravine. This monastery had been built by the A-che-lo (Āchāra) of West India. . . . Within the establishment was a large temple about 100 feet high in which was a stone image of the Buddha more than seventy feet in height; the image was surrounded by a tier of seven canopies unattached and unsupported, each canopy separated from the one above it by a space of three feet. The walls of the temple had depicted on them the incidents of the Buddha’s career as Bodhisattva, including the circumstances of his attaining bodhi and the omens attending his final passing away, all, great and small, were here delineated. Outside the gate of the monastery, on either side north and south, was a stone elephant, and the pilgrim was informed that the bellowing of these elephants caused earthquakes. The Pu’sa Ch’en-na or Diṅnāga often stayed in this monastery.¹ Much in this description is obviously the result of a pious memory playing upon experiences which were vivid during the pilgrimage, but no longer so at the time of writing. And there is little in the inscriptions of the time to confirm or contradict the account of the state of Buddhism in Mahārāṣṭra given by the Chinese Master of the Law; they simply pass Buddhism by and give themselves solely to the ‘heretics’.
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⁷ Watters, ii, 239
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⁸ Life, p. 147.
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The members of the royal family seem to have been generally devotees of Śiva and Viṣṇu for whose worship they built and dedicated the most important temples of the time in Bādāmi, Paṭṭadakal, and elsewhere. Though they themselves bestowed and sanctioned the bestowal by others of benefactions on Jain shrines and monasteries, there is not one clear case of any of them having embraced Jainism. The first kings of the line, Pulakēśin I, Kīrttivarman, Mangaleśa, and Pulakēśin II, seem to have gloried in the performance of Vedic sacrifices, in honouring learned Brāhmans and in earning for themselves titles like *brahmanya*, a title in the Sātavāhana tradition, *parama-māheśvara* and *paramavaiṣṇava*. They made grants during eclipses¹ and performed the *vratas* and *dānas* prescribed in the *smṛtis* of the land. The Nerūr grant of Mangaleśa, for instance, says that he fasted on a *Kārttika-dvādaśī* day and worshipped Viṣṇu before giving away the village of Kuṇḍivāṭaka to a Vedic scholar.² The same ruler transferred the merits of his excavation of the cave temple and the installation of the image of Viṣṇu to his elder brother Kīrtti-varman, pouring out water, a formal act of confirmation, in the presence of the Sun, Fire, and the Mahājanas, claiming for himself only the merit of having served his brother and protected his benefactions. Such formalities are seen to have attended almost every donation or gift. The gifts are sometimes earmarked for the specific purpose of the performance of domestic rituals, as in the Satāra grant of Viṣṇuvardhana³ which records the gift of a village to a group of Brāhmans, all brothers from one family, and describes the purpose of the gift as: *bali-charu vaiśvadeva-agnihotra-havana-pañcha-mahāyajñ-otsarpanārtham*. The Talamanchi plates of Vikramāditya end characteristically with a benediction on cows and Brāhmans—*svastyastu gō-brāhmaṇebhyaḥ*. That there were periodical festivals observed in temples is attested by the reference to the Paitāmahi Hiranyagarbha-mahotsava on the full-moon day in the month of Kārttika as the occasion of the gift recorded in the Karnūl plates of the first regnal year of Ādityavarman.¹ The contact maintained by Deccani Śaivism with its fountain sources in northern India is made clear by the presence of Jñānaśivāchārya from the northern bank of the Ganges as an *archaka* of the Vijayeśvara (Sangameśvara) temple at Paṭṭadakal; this *āchārya* made an endowment of thirty *nivartanas* of land at a cost of thirty *gadyāṇas*, intended to pay for popular lectures by *āchāryas* and the *pūjā* in the temple, as well as the materials needed for it.
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¹ Haidarabad grant of Pulakēśin II, Talamanchi and Honnūr plates, &c.
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² *IA*, vii, 161.
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³ Ibid., xix, 309-10.
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¹ JBBRAS, xvi, 233-5.
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Jainism had a considerable vogue and was much respected. Ravikīrtti, who built a stone temple to Jina at Ahiọle, claims to have enlisted the particular favour of Pulakēśin II for his enterprise and thus made the temple the abode of all excellence (*bhavanam mahimnām*). The temple that Kuṅkumadēvī caused to be built at Guḍigere has already been mentioned. Kaliyamma, the Jaina headman of Jebuḷagēri, built a *chediya* at Annigere in the reign of Kīrtti-varman II; and Koṇḍiśūlara-Kuppa, *alias* Kīrtti-varman *gosai*, erected a statue in front of the temple; the *prabhunāma* (named after the suzerain) of the Jaina ascetic is worth noting.² Other evidence proving the flourishing condition of Jainism which is found in the inscriptions need not be detailed here, though some of it will be noticed in the sketch that follows of the literature of the period.
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² EI, xxi, 204.