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The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v2.c14.s3: Education and Literature

The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v2.c14.s3

Language
English

Education and Literature

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TEMPLES, *agrahāra* villages, and capital cities continued to be the main centres of higher education. Unfortunately contemporary records afford us no description of any of these educational institutions. The donors of some of the grants are called *vedārthadas*, ‘expounders of the Vedic hymns’, *kramavids*, ‘experts in “*kramapāṭha*”’, *daśagranthis*, ‘well-grounded in the ten branches of Vedic lore’, *sarvajñasarasvatis*, ‘omniscient like Sarasvati’, or *prasannasarasvatis*, ‘favourites of the goddess of learning’. It is obvious that these must have been famous teachers, who imparted higher Sanskritic education free of charge in their private schools, which were known as *brahmaśālās*.

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Apart from the *agrahāra* villages there also existed special colleges founded for specific purposes. One such college existed at Pāṭana in Khandesh, having been founded by Changadeva, a grandson of Bhāskarāchārya, for the purpose of furthering the study of the astronomical works of his illustrious grandfather. This institute had received liberal grants from the State, and the residents of the town also aided it with voluntary contributions in cash and kind on various auspicious occasions.¹

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¹ EI, i, 341.

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Vaghli, another town in the Khandesh, was also a centre of higher learning.² Devagiri, the Yādava capital, must have been a well-known educational centre, as were most of the capital towns in Ancient India. The same must have been the case with Paiṭhaṇa and Nāsik, which had been well-known holy places from very early days. It is a pity that the extant records should be silent about the educational activities of these places. Nor do they refer to any temple colleges, though there can be no doubt that these existed in the Yādava period, as they did in the times of other dynasties.

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² Ibid., ii, 221.

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Let us now turn to the literary activities of the period. A number of astronomical works were written in the Deccan under the Yādavas by several members of a distinguished learned family, founded by Kavichakravarti Trivikrama, the author of the *Damayantikathā*. His son Vidyāpati Bhāskarabhaṭṭa was a protégé of the Paramāra ruler Bhoja. Bhāskarabhaṭṭa’s great-grandson was Kaviśvara Maheśvarāchārya (c. A.D. 1125), who composed two works on astrology, *Sekhara* and *Laghuṭikā*. Maheśvara’s son was the famous astrologer, Bhāskarāchārya, who wrote a number of works on mathematics and astronomy. Chief among these are the *Siddhānta-śiromaṇi* (composed in A.D. 1150) and the *Karaṇakutūhala*. The second chapter of the first of the above works is the best treatise on algebra to be found in Sanskrit literature.

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Bhāskarāchārya, who was given the titles of *Sarvajña*, ‘the Omniscient One’, and *Vidyāsada*, ‘the Abode of the Goddess of Learning’, was well grounded both in the Sāṅkhya and in the Vedānta systems of philosophy. His son Lakshmīdhara and his grandson Chaṅgadeva were the court astrologers of Jaitugi and Siṃhaṇa respectively. Bhāskarāchārya’s grand-nephew Anantadeva was also a protégé of Siṃhaṇa; he composed a commentary on the *Bṛhajjātaka* of Varāhamihira and also one on the seventh chapter of the *Brahmasphuṭasiddhānta* of Brahmagupta.¹

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¹ EI, i, 343; iii, 112.

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The *Saṃgītaratnākara* of Sāraṅgadeva is a work on music composed in the court of Siṃhaṇa. It is an interesting book showing a wide acquaintance with the music of both south and north. The *Sūktimuktāvali*, an anthology of Sanskrit verse, was composed in the Yādava court in A.D. 1258. In the introduction it is stated that it was composed by Jahlana, a commander of the elephant squadrons of King Kṛṣṇa. But its colophon expressly declares that it was compiled by the physician Bhānu for Jahlana, who was probably his patron.²

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² GOS, vol. 82.

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The most famous Sanskrit writer of the Yādava age is undoubtedly Hemādri. He was the officer who commanded the Yādava elephant brigade, in which post he seems to have succeeded Jahlana. Later on he was made chief secretary to the Government by Mahādeva in about 1263. This office he continued to fill until about A.D. 1285.³

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³ SMHD, ii, 6.

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Hemādri is the reputed author of a number of Sanskrit works. The principal among these are the *Chaturvargachintāmaṇi*, the *Kālanirṇaya*, the *Tithinirṇaya*, the *Āyurvedarasāyana*, the *Dānavākyāvali*, the *Parjanyaprayoga*, the *Tristhalividhi* and the *Arthakāṇḍa*.⁴ Whether a busy minister, who in addition to the duties of his office was also in charge of the elephant squadrons maintained by the State, could have found time to write all these voluminous works may well be doubted. It is likely that some of them may have been written under the guidance or direction of Hemādri and their authorship then attributed to him by his protégés, as was done by Bhānu in the case of the *Sūktimuktāvali*.

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⁴ Aufrecht, *Catalogus Catalogorum*, 768.

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Of these works the *Chaturvargachintāmaṇi* may be justly regarded as representative of the religious outlook and beliefs of the age. It gives us a vivid picture of religious life in these times and of the different rituals and observances which had by then superseded the old Vedic religion. There is no doubt that many of these rites were actively practised by the bulk of the general population under the Yādava régime.

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The rise of the Vīraśaiva sect in the latter half of the twelfth century gave a great impetus to Canarese literature; the Canarese works composed by its followers have been already mentioned in an earlier section. All the great Canarese poets of the thirteenth century like Janna, Mallikārjuna, Keśirāja, &c., flourished at the Hoysaḷa court. Canarese literature did not prosper under the Yādavas, as it did under the Rāṣṭrakūṭas and the Later Cāḷukyas. The cause is not far to seek. The Yādavas themselves spoke Marathi and their capital city was at Devagiri, which was in the heart of Mahārāṣṭra. The age of the Yādavas is therefore very important in the history of Marathi literature, for it originated at this time. The formal parts of inscriptions begin to appear in the Marathi language in some of the Yādava records. The earliest inscription of our period in which Marathi makes its appearance is the Parel Stone record of A.D. 1187 where the curse is written in the Marathi language: in the Pāṭana inscription of A.D. 1200 the concluding lines describing the voluntary contributions of citizens are also in Marathi. We may therefore fairly presume that Marathi had begun to be used as a vehicle of thought and literature during the twelfth and also eleventh centuries A.D., though we have no extant works as early as that period. Nevertheless the mature development of the language as a literary medium, which is to be seen in the works of Mukundarāya and Jñāneśvara, presupposes a literary activity of at least two centuries.

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The earliest extant Marathi poet, Mukundarāya, flourished in the latter half of the twelfth century. King Jayantapāla of Jogai, the son of Ballāḷa, who is said to have been his pupil, cannot yet be identified, but we know that Mukundarāya composed his *Vivekasindhu* in A.D. 1188; in this work he expounds the Advaita philosophy on the lines followed by Śaṅkara and his school.

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In the latter half of the thirteenth century flourished the great Jñāneśvara, who composed his immortal commentary on the *Gītā*, the *Jñāneśvarī*, in A.D. 1290, when he was still in his teens. Though almost the first man of letters to write in Marathi, Jñāneśvara had supreme confidence in the capacity of this language to express the most profound thoughts and the most elusive and delicate emotions; he foretold that his work would prove sweeter than nectar to its readers and would win the applause of the learned, and his prediction has indeed been amply justified. The *Jñāneśvarī* is in effect the first¹ really important work in Marathi, and no later book can compare with it either as a piece of poetry or as a treatise on religion and philosophy. Jñāneśvara was a gifted poet, a scholar of parts, an original thinker, and a deeply religious personality. No other writer in the Marathi language has combined all these qualities in himself as completely and thoroughly as did Jñāneśvara. Though ostensibly a commentary on the *Gītā*, the *Jñāneśvarī* is really an independent philosophical treatise.

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¹ The language of the *Vivekasindhu* in its present form is much later than that of the *Jñāneśvarī*.

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Nāmadeva and Janābāi were junior contemporaries of Jñāneśvara, and their devotional Marathi songs are matchless in their beauty and incomparable in their religious fervour. Nāmadeva travelled on foot all over India and founded his *mathas* even in some places in the North. He also spent some years in the Punjab, where he established a *matha* at Ghoman in the Gurdaspur District, which is still in existence. We can thus understand how it comes to be that some of his songs are included even in the *Granthasaheb* of Nānaka.

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The cause of Marathi literature got a further impetus in the Yādava period from the rise of the Mahānubhāva sect, which was first brought into prominence by Chakradhara. He was very insistent that his followers should write in Marathi and not in Sanskrit, and as a consequence of this preference the Marathi language became considerably enriched by the literary activities of the new sect. Chakradhara himself has left no literary works, but more than a dozen disciples of his composed books in Marathi, mostly on religious subjects. Amongst these, the *Śiśupālavadha* of Bhānubhaṭa (A.D. 1275), the *Vatsalāharaṇa* of Dāmodarapaṇḍita (A.D. 1278), the *Rukmiṇisvayaṃvara* of Narendrapaṇḍita (A.D. 1288), the *Siddhāntasūtrapāṭha* of Keśavarāja (A.D. 1288), the *Nalopākhyāna* of Nṛsiṃhakesari, the *Riddhipuravarṇana* of Maheśvara Paṇḍita (A.D. 1373) and the *Līlācharitra* of Mahendra may be mentioned here. Some of these works throw important light on the events of contemporary history.

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