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The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c12.s12: Hindu Positivism in Indo-China, Insulindia, Tibet and China

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c12.s12

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English

Hindu Positivism in Indo-China, Insulindia, Tibet and China

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It is during the early centuries²⁷ of the Christian era that Hindu colonies were firmly established in Burma, Chinese territories like Yunnan, Champa (Annam), and Kamboja (Cambodia) i.e. the entire region comprising Further India, South-west China and Indo-China. Land route for trade can be traced of course as far as the second century B.C. The colonies were the results of military conquest by Indians and promoted the cultural expansion as well of the Hindus.

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²⁷ Pelliot in *Bulletin de l'Ecole Française d' Extrême Orient* 1904, p. 142, in R. C. Majumdar: *Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East* Vo. I. *Champa* (Lahore 1927) p. xiii, See also pp. 21, 27, 34, 48, 157, 159, 184, 234.

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King Bhadravarman, the Hindu ruler of Champa, who dedicated the temple of Myson to Śiva belonged to the fifth century A.C. (*c.* 413). By the first quarter of the sixth century Vijayavarman (*c.* 520-529) was king. About the time the Gupta Empire of India came to an end the Hindu Cham ruler of Champa was Śambhuvarman (565-620).

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An inscription says that Bhadravarman of the fifth century was "versed in the four *Vedas*." Another inscription says that his son Gangārāja abdicated in order to spend his last days on the banks of the Ganges. A third inscription says that Śambhuvarman is not the ordinary name of the ruler but the name he assumed as *abhiṣekanāma* at the time of the coronation or consecration according to Hindu custom. The worship of Śiva as national deity is referred to in the inscriptions about kings Bhadra and Śambhu.

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One can, therefore, feel convinced that the influence of the *Mahābhārata*, the *Dharmaśāstras*, the *Purāṇas*, the *Śilpaśāstras*, and the sixty four *Kalās* in the life and thought of the Cham people in Indo-China about which inscriptions of subsequent ages give information was already at work in the period in question, i.e., from Kauṭalya to Kālidāsa, or at any rate, the first six centuries of the Christian era. No study of Hindu positivism and secular arts and sciences can be complete without adequate emphasis on these aspects of Greater India during this early period.

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The colonisation of Insulindia has also to be placed in the same period. The chronicles of Java connect this island with Bengal and Madras ports. A Gujarati prince (c 75 A.C.) is believed to have been the first colonizer of Java.²⁸

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²⁸ R. C. Majumdar: *Champa* (Lahore 1927) p. xii.

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Not later than the first century A. C. is the reference to Java in the *Rāmāyaṇa* in connection with the search of Sītā. The Sanskrit name of Java, *Javadvīpa* (Isle of Barley), was used by Ptolemy for his *Geography* in the second century. In the fourth century the *vahusuvarṇaka* sacrifice was performed by Mūlavarman, a king with a Hindu name, of Borneo. Canals with Hindu names, Chandrabhāgā and Gomatī, were constructed in western Java by Pūrṇavarman in the fifth century. In 413 Fa Hien was fellow passenger with two hundred Hindu merchants *en route* to Canton from Java. Ten years later Nandī is described as a Hindu ship-owner in whose boat Guṇavarman, the Buddhist missionary of Kashmir, sailed for China. Down to the end of the period we are discussing, that of the Guptas, the Hindus were always in evidence in Insulindia in diverse capacities.²⁹

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²⁹ B. R. Chatterji: *India and Java* (Calcutta 1935) Part I. pp. 1-2, 14, Part II. pp. 7, 17, 20, 28, based to some extent on Krom: *De Sumatraansche Periode der Javaansche Geschiedenis* (1919) and *Hindoe Javaansche Geschiedenis* (1926); R. C. Majumdar: "Indo-Javanese Literature" (*Indian Culture*, Calcutta July 1934).

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The island of Sumatra also was under a Hindu dynasty in the fifth century. The dynasty was known as the *Śailendra* and the territory as *Śrīvijaya* (Modern Palembang). Mahāyāna Buddhism was the faith of the rulers.

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A Buddhist Sanskrit inscription of the Malay Peninsula (West Coast) can be ascribed to the fourth century. The fifth century inscriptions of king Mūlavarman of Borneo are also in Sanskrit. In Sanskrit, again, are the four rock inscriptions of king Pūrṇavarman in western Java. A Sanskrit inscription of the early sixth century refers to the River Gaṅgā.

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It may be inferred that the *Rāmāyaṇa* and the *Mahābhārata* which became so popular in Insulindian³⁰ literature, folk-play, architecture and sculpture were powerful forces in the morals and manners of the people during the Gupta period. We have already discussed this item in connection with the *Kāmandakīnīti*.

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³⁰ H. B. Sarkar: *Indian Influences on the Literature of Java and Bali* (Calcutta 1934) pp. 172-173, 234-235.

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The expansion of Hindu positivism in Tibet is to be seen in the influence of the *Śilpaśāstras* on the architecture, sculpture and painting of the Tibetan people. Literary evidences are forthcoming to the effect that the architectural terminology in connection with the construction of Chaityas used by the Tibetans was derived almost entirely from Indian masters.

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Treatises on iconography are mentioned in the Tibetan translation of Indian texts in the *Tanjur* collection.³¹ The more important documents of Hindu influence in Tibet belong to post-Gupta times.

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³¹ G. Tucci : *Indo-Tibetica*, Part I. *Mc'od Rten e Tsa Tsa nel Tibet Indiano e Occidentale* (1932) reviewed by B. K. Sarkar in the *I.H.Q.* for June, 1934, pp. 382-391.

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The name of Indian missionaries who carried on their work in China during the first two centuries and a half of the introduction of Buddhism is legion. Down to 300 A.C. all the translators of Buddhist texts into Chinese were non-Chinese scholars. While Fa Hien was studying Buddhist culture at first hand in India (399-413) the great Indian missionary Kumārajīva was working in China (385-417). With Kumārajīva and Fa Hien we enter a new era of Indo-Chinese relationships.

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It marks the beginning of an intimate cultural and spiritual union between the two peoples. For the next thousand years the life and activity of human beings from India to Japan were governed by one Asian science, art and philosophy.³² We must remember that the category Buddhism implied in China the entire *corpus* of Indian civilization from algebra to zoology. China, like the other countries of Northern, Eastern and Southern Asia is, then, a vast field for the study of Hindu positivism.

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³² See "A Period of So-called Anarchy in China" in B. K. Sarkar : *Chinese Religion Through Hindu Eyes* (Shanghai 1916), and Hirth : *The Ancient History of China* (New York, 1908). See also Hackmann : *Buddhism as a Religion* (London 1910); Parker : *Studies in Chiense Religion* (London 1910); Lloyd : *The Creed of Half Japan* (London 1911), Johnston : *Buddhist China* (London 1913).

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The first authentic Indian missionary in China appears to have been Kāśyapa Mātanga of Central India. It was as a guest of the Han Emperor Mingti that Kāśyapa Mātanga arrived at the Imperial capital, Loyang, the site of the present-day Honan-fu in 67 A.C. We ignore, for the present, the legendary traditions to the effect that the Celestials had knowledge of Śākya's teachings already in Chou times (c. B.C. 1122-249). Such legends are at any rate not unplausible in view of the fact that the Indian Asoka (B.C. 273-232) was an ardent embodiment of Śākyan (Buddhist) *appamāda* (energism) on the one hand and of the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* (VII 15) cult of *charaiveti* (march on) on the other, in other words, an active internationalist bent on proselytizing and making converts among all and sundry. It is also a fact of Chinese culture-history that the Han Emperor Wuti (c. B.C. 140) was a great explorer of Central and Western Asia. The chances of the earlier Hans to come into contact with the Hindu arts and sciences are therefore quite conceivable. Historically, however, i.e., from the standpoint of datable events it is convenient to mark the official entry of Hindu culture into China with the advent of the Indian missionary Kāśyapa Mātanga, furnished, as he was, with Buddhist images and scriptures.

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It is not necessary to go into the vicissitudes of Chinese dynastic history. But for the period in question it is necessary to introduce a dichotomy in Chinese politics, namely, the politics of the North as distinguished from those of the South.

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Down to the middle of the third century the centre of Buddhist missionizing activity in North China was located at Loyang (68-265 A.C.). In 265 it was transferred to Changnan, where the work went on with occasional breaks or rather periods of depression down to 581. New centres of this period were located at Ku-chang, Pao-han, Heng-nan and Ye. In Southern China the centre was always at Kien-ye or Nanking from 222 to 589 A.C.

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The conversion of Southern China was consummated to a considerable extent or perhaps almost entirely independently of Northern or Northwestern China. India's contacts with Yunnan in South-western China had been going on by the land-route through Burma since the first century A.C. The sea-route to Southern China is as old as at any rate the second century A.C. Tonkin is to be treated as a part of South China.

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It is not yet possible to get the exact Indian equivalents of all the names given in Chinese.³³ A list is being compiled in the following account showing the dates within which Indian Buddhist missionaries were engaged in translation work at diverse centres.

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³³ The list is based on P. C. Bagchi: *Le Canon Bouddhique en Chine* (Paris 1927) which contains more details about the persons, their names and their activities than Nanjio: *A Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripitaka, the Sacred Canon of the Buddhists int China and Japan* (Oxford 1883). This latter as well as Beal: *Buddhist Literature in China* (London, 1882) were utilized for the present author's *Chinese Religion* (1916). Eighty names are given in that work, pp. 237-240. Some of them are different from the names used in the present work based as they are on Bagchi's renderings.

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The names and dates of the Indian scholars who worked at Loyang and Changnan are given below :

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I. 68-220 A.C.: 1. Kāśyapa Mātanga,
2. Dharmaratna,
3. Lokakṣema,
4. Buddhadeva.

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II. 220-265 A.C.: 1. Dharmakāla,
2. Sanghavarman,
3. Dharmasatya (?)
4. Dharmabhadra (?)

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III. 265-316 A.C.: 1. Dharmarakṣa,
2. Kālaruchi,
3. Mokṣala,
4. Nārāyaṇa.

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IV. 384-417 A.C.: 1. Dharmayaśas,
2. Puṇyatrātā,
3. Kumārajīva,
4. Buddhayaśas.

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In the other centres of North China the propaganda was in the hands of the following Indian missionaries :

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I. 302-439 A.C.: 1. Dharmakṣema,
2. Buddhavarman.

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II. 387-534 A.C.: 1. Dharmaruchi,
2. Ratnamati,
3. Buddhasānta,
4. Bodhiruchi.

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III. 534-550 A.C.: 1. Gautama Prajnāruchi,
2. Upaśūnya,
3. Vimokasena,
4. Dharmabodhi.

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IV. 550-557 A.C. : 1. Narendrayaśas. V. 557-581 A.C. : 1. Jñānabhadra,
2. Jinayaśas,
3. Yaśogupta,
4. Jinagupta.

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The South China or Nanking centre was likewise the theatre of literary activity for a large number of Indian scholars some of whom are mentioned below :

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I. 222-280 A.C. : 1. Vighna.

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II. 317-420 A.C. : 1. Śrīmitra,
2. Dharmaratna,
3. Kālodaka,
4. Gautama Sanghadeva,
5. Vimalākṣa,
6. Dharmapriya,
7. Buddhabhadra,
8. Gītāmitra,
9. Nandi.

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III. 428-479 A.C. : 1. Buddhajīva,
2. Īśvara,
3. Guṇavarman,
4. Sanghavarman,
5. Guṇabhadra,
6. Dharmamitra,
7. Kālayaśas,
8. Guṇasatya (?)

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IV. 479-502 A.C. : 1. Dharmakritayaśas,
2. Mahāyāna (?)
3. Sanghabhadra,
4. Dharmamati,
5. Guṇavriddhi.

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V. 503-589 A.C. : 1. Mandrasena,
2. Sanghabhara,
3. Paramārtha,
4. Upaśūnya,
5. Subhūti.

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The names given in the above three lists are not all. Those names which cannot be definitely treated as Indian have been excluded. It is to be observed, further, that anonymous translations from original Sanskrit into Chinese were numerous, and that among the translators of such anonymous works there were evidently many Indians. Incidentally, it is worth mentioning that the bureaus of translation at the diverse Buddhist centres in China comprised not only Indian and Chinese scholars but also "Central Asians" of all races, Parthians, Huns, Afghans, Turks, Sogdians, etc. The inhabitants of Central Asia had become Indianized earlier, of course, than the Chinese and served to help forward the Indianization of China as good Buddhists.

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