History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c74.t2.206

v5.c74.t2.206

It was unfortunate that Dr. Barua confined his attention on the question of the antiquity of Gayā to merely three works viz. the Vanaparva chapters 84 and 95, the Agnipurāṇa chap. 114-116 and the Vāyupurāṇa chapters 105-112. He did not care to investigate all the other Purāṇas nor did it strike him that the explanation of three *padas* of Viṣṇu furnished by Aurṇavābha probably referred to spots around Gayā alone. Other Purāṇas such as Padma (Ādikhaṇḍa 38. 2-21), Garuḍa I chapters 82-86, and the Nāradīya (uttara chap. 44-47) contain much that concerns Gayā and all of them have many verses in common. The critical edition of the Mahābhārata (published by the B O. R. I., Poona) reads 'sāvitram padam' (chap. 82.81) for 'sāvitryāstu padam' of the Bombay edition. The reading of the critical edition is supported by numerous and ancient Mss. Further, the printed Padmapurāṇa (in Ādikhaṇḍa 38. 13) reads 'Sāvitram padam' and thus lends support to the reading adopted in the critical edition. The words 'sāvitram padam' may be taken to mean the foot-print of Viṣṇu (Savitṛ). Dr. Barua goes very much further than the facts warrant when he says that there is no reference in the Vanaparva to any structural erection or iconic suggestion. It is clear that there must have been an image of Dharma, since the Vanaparva speaks of the pilgrim to Gayā having to touch Dharma (Dharmam tatrābhi-samspṛśya). Besides, there is a reference to the footprints of a cow with a calf and to 'Sāvitra pada'. All these would surely be things that have an 'iconic suggestion'. Moreover, Dr. Barua forgets for the moment that, according to the Chinese traveller Fa Hien who visited India between 399-413 'A. D., the Gayā of the Hindu faith was 'all emptiness and desolation' (vide Legge's translation p. 87). It is possible that Gayā might have suffered from earthquakes before 400 A. D. (as it is a region that is liable to severe earthquakes even in modern times) and therefore no structural erection of the ancient city of Gayā (to which ancient Pāli works and the Lalitavistara p 311 refer) might have been left in Fa Hien's day. Gayā appears to have passed through several vicissitudes. Some centuries before the Christian era it was in existence and was a flourishing town. By 400 A. D. it had been reduced to desolation. But in the 7th century the Chinese traveller Hiouen Thsang notes that the Hindu Gayā was a town with 1000 brāhmaṇa families (vide Beal's B R. W. W. vol. II p. 113). Later on when Buddhism waned and vanished, Gayā came to comprehend even Buddhist remnants, since the Vāyupurāṇa speaks of Gayā as extending from Pretasiilā to Mahābodhi tree (a distance of about 13 miles, according to Mitra p. 19).