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The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c7: Chapter III. Landmarks in the History of Hindu Political Development

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c7

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Chapter III. Landmarks in the History of Hindu Political Development

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Even superficial students of *Śukranīti* do not fail to perceive that the executive system, judiciary, military administration as well as other incidents of social, economic and political life described in it indicate a high degree of development, and are adapted not to simple village-republics and tribal commonwealths or city-states that we meet with in certain periods of Indian and European history, but are the outcome of the complex requirements of 'country'-states or Imperial organisations.

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While trying to locate *Śukranīti* in one or other of the Indian milieux in regard to space or time it is necessary to call attention to certain inevitable complications and difficulties. The very category, "India", presents a number of complexities which it should not be proper to ignore.

Greater India Comprised in the Geography of Hindu Culture

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The contributions of the Hindu mind to political, economic and other sociological and indeed the most diverse sciences are to be found not only within the geographical boundaries of India as known today but in regions far beyond these limits.

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In a sense the geography of creative India is as wide as Asia itself. It is the result of *l'aptitude colonisatrice, la faculté pour l'homme de sortir de ses frontières pour aller séjourner*, the colonizing aptitude, the capacity of man to move out of his frontiers in order to live abroad, as Emile Lasbax would say.¹ This indeed constitutes the celebrated *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* (VII, 15) cult of *charaiveti* (march on). The cultural expansion of India outside the Indian frontiers both by land and sea, i.e., the establishment of "Greater India"² was accomplished by two processes of "social metabolism." First, there was the intellectual conquest of non-Indian regions by Indian *vidyās* and *kalās*, arts and sciences, involving the Indianization or Hinduizing of the most diverse races of men from one end of Asia to the other. In the second place, non-Indian races (the Barbars, Greeks, Scythians, Parthians, Yuechis, Huns, Turks, Tartars and others) with or without affinity to the races indigenous to India were during certain periods politically the masters of certain Indian regions and races.³ The political boundaries of Indian states were therefore often to be found in extra-Indian territories (Afghanistan, Central Asia, Tibet). In the first instance, the establishment of Greater India implied nothing but the infiltration of Hindu ideas, ideals, institutions and *mores* among politically sovereign races, tribes or nations. And in the second instance, we have but Indian illustrations of "captive Greece capturing Rome"; for the foreign races, although politically ruling, became more or less assimilated to the Indian modes of life and thought and served but to promote the Greater India movement of the Hindu cultural agencies.

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¹ *La Cité Humaine* (Paris 1927), Vol. II, pp. 219-220.

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² The concept of Greater India as a factor in world-culture was developed at length in the study circles of the Dawn Society, Calcutta, established by Satis Chandra Mukerjee in 1902, and is a special feature of the following works: R. K. Mookerji: *History of Indian Shipping* (London 1911), which is based to a certain extent on the author's articles published in the *Dawn Society's Magazine* (Calcutta, 1906-9). B. K. Sarkar: *Chinese Religion Through Hindu Eyes* (Shanghai 1916), based on personal investigations in China, "The Influence of India in Modern Western Civilization" (*Journal of Race Development*, Clark University, U.S.A. July 1918), *The Futurism of Young Asia* (Berlin 1922), chapter on "International India", *The A. B. C. of Chinese Civilization* (Calcutta 1923, in Bengali). Subsequent publications are noted below:—P. C. Bagchi: *India and China* (Calcutta, 1927), a pamphlet, R. C. Majumdar: *Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East*, Vol. I. *Champa* (Lahore 1927), and "Indo-Javanese Literature" (*Indian Culture*, Calcutta, July 1934); B. R. Chatterjee: *India and Java* (Calcutta, second edition 1933; P. N. Bose: *Indian Colony of Siam* (Lahore 1929); H. B. Sarkar: *Indian Influences on the Literature of Java and Bali* (Calcutta 1934). The *Journal of the Greater India Society* (Calcutta), est, 1934, is likewise to be consulted. See also L. Finot: "Hindu Kingdoms in Indo-China" in the *Indian Historical Quarterly* (Calcutta), December 1925; Sylvain Lévi: *L'Inde et le Monde* (Paris 1927); G. Tucci: *Indo-Tibetica* (Rome) Vol. I. (1932), Vol. II. (1933); Tucci and Ghersi: *Cronaca della Missione Scientifica Tucci nel Tibet Occidentale* (Rome 1934). B. K. Sarkar's English summary of these Italian works is to be seen in the *Indian Historical Quarterly* (Calcutta), June 1934 and 1935. For Central Asia see M. A. Stein: *Ancient Khotan* (London 1907), *Ruins of Desert Cathay* (London 1912) and for Moslem Asia see Sachau: *Alberuni's India* (London 1910).

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³ D. R. Bhandarkar: "Foreign Elements in the Hindu Population" in the *Indian Antiquary* 1910; E. J. Rapson: *Ancient India* (Cambridge 1914) and chapters XXII-XXIII of *The Cambridge History of India* (1922); B. K. Sarkar: *Chinese Religion Through Hindu Eyes* (Shanghai 1916); chapters on the "Tartarisation of Aryanized Dravidians" and "Caste System and Military History"; J. Marshall: *A Guide to Taxila* (1921); E. Meyer: "*Blüte und Niedergang des Hellenismus* (Leipzig 1925): S. Lévi: "Pre-Aryen et Pre-Dravidien" (*Journal Asiatique*, Paris 1923), Eng. transl. by P. C. Bagchi (Calcutta 1929); N. R. Ray: "Some Additional Notes on Foreign Elements in the Hindu Population" in the *Indian Historical Quarterly*, December 1928; A. B. Keith: *A History of Sanskrit Literature* (London 1928); R. P. Chanda: "The Indus Valley in the Vedic Period" *Memoir of the Archæological Survey of India*, No. 27); R. Grousset: *Historie de l'Extrême-Orient* (Paris 1929); H. C. Ray: *Dynastic History of Northern India* (Calcutta 1932), Vol. I., pp. 274, 309, 311, 569 (Tibet in the Ganges Valley); S. K. Chakravarti: "The Persian and Greek Coins and their Imitations in Ancient India" in the *Indian Historical Quarterly* (Calcutta, March 1934); B. N. Dutt: "Races of India" (*Journal of the Department of Letters*, Calcutta University, 1935).

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A fact of special importance bearing on the state-systems, in India as in Europe, cannot be over-looked in the present context. We have to remember that *Kleinstaaterei* or the system of territorially and demographically petty states is an eternal fact of history both in the East and the West.⁴ While thinking of treatises like *Śukranīti* it would not be proper to orient oneself exclusively to the milieu of vast Empires and Kingdoms. The rôle of lesser states in the making of political institutions, political theories, and political treatises is not to be belittled.

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⁴ For the place of small states in history see Bury: *History of the Later Roman Empire* (London 1889), Freeman: *Historical Geography of Europe* (London 1903) and the volumes of *Cambridge Mediaeval History*.

Cultural Developments down to the Mohenjo Daro Complex

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A survey of the epochs of technocracy in its wide sense as well as of culture-history comprising group-life in all its social relations and forms would place India in the following perspective in so far as what may be called the "ancient" period (*c.* 5000-600 B.C.) is concerned:

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A. First Stage: *c.* 5000-2500 B.C.
1. Assyro-Babylonian.
2. Egyptian-Pharaonic.
3. Dravidian-Mohenjo Daro (*c.* B.C. 3250-2750 B.C.?)
4. Chinese.

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The Mohenjo Daro culture⁵ has not yet been adequately studied so as to yield the precise socio-anthropological links between the thoughts and institutions of Vedic India as well as those of pre-Vedic and post-Vedic ages. But already it may not be unsafe to trace the beginnings of *Dharma* and *Artha* ideologies or institutions in the *milieu* of the Mother Goddess, the Śiva-like figure, the phallus, the tree (*pipul*) worship, the Nāga, the cross-legged figure, the pictographic seals, the *Swastika*, the partially syllabic scripts etc. of the Mohenjo Daro complex.

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⁵ P. Mitra: *Prehistoric India* (Calcutta 1927), Chapter on Mohenjo Daro; S. V. Venkateswara: *Indian Culture through the Ages*, Vol. I. (London 1928) pp. 2-9; J. Marshall: *Mohenjo Daro and the Indus Civilization* (London 1931); N. N. Law: "Mohenjo Daro and the Indus Valley Civilization" in the *Indian Historical Quarterly* (Calcutta) March 1932. J. Przyluski: "The Goddess in India and Iran" in the *I. H. Q.*, Sept. 1934; A. K. Sur: "Pre-Aryan Elements in Indian Culture" (Calcutta *Review*, April 1931, November and December 1932, *I. H. Q.*, March 1934). L. Renou: *Bibliographie Vedique* (Paris 1931); J. Przyluski: "The Three Factors of Vedic Culture" (*Indian Culture*, Calcutta, January 1935).

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B. Second Stage: *c.* 2500-600 B.C.
1. Mycenaean-Cretan.
2. Hebrew-Jewish.
3. "Indo-Aryan" i. Vedic-Hindu. ii. Persian-Iranian. iii. Hellenic-Homeric.
4. Chinese.

The Vedic-Hindu Epochs

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The Vedic-Hindu (c. 2500-600 B.C.) institutions and ideologies, especially, those of the *Atharva* and the *Brāhmaṇas*, along with the aboriginal, *Vrātya*, pre-"Aryan," non-"Aryan" and Dravidian institutions and ideologies constituted the very socioplasmic complex, so to say, out of which in the long run the *Dharma* and *Artha* literature emerged. Thus considered, some of the passages in *Śukranīti* as of other texts of political, economic and sociological thought can be traced back to these "Aryan" or "Aryo-Dravidian" foundations of Hindu civilization.

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The political stories of the *Purāṇas*, the *Mahābhārata* and the *Rāmāyaṇa* have, among other things, the exploits of the pioneers of the period from c 2500 to 600 B.C. as their themes. The tradition of the Vedic *aśwamedha* (horse-killing) sacrifice was preserved in the *Mahābhārata* as elsewhere; and in the political ideas associated with this sacrifice the *Nīti*, *Artha*, and *Dharma* literature served but to carry forward the messages of the *Yajurveda*-*Mahābhārata* complex.⁶

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⁶ A. B. Keith: Chs. IV-V. (Rig Veda, etc) in the *Cambridge History of India* Vol. I. (1922); P.-E. Dumont: *L'Asvamedha* (Paris 1927), pp. ii, 2-4, 376. For the place of *aśwamedha* in the career of Empire-builders see the account of the Bhāra-Śivas etc. in K. P. Jayaswal: "The History of India" (150-350 A.C.) in the *Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society* (Patna), May-June 1933. In regard to the continuity of Indian domestic and social rites and ceremonies from the most primitive times through the ages see the extensive chapter on "Vedic Ritual" in L. D. Barnett: *Antiquities of India* (London 1913).; cf. J. W. Hauer: *Der Vrātya* Vol. I. (Stuttgart 1927), pp. 223-240, 334-335 (The Vrātya as Aryan of the Non-Brahmanical Cult.).

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It is perhaps possible to detect among the authors of Vedic cycle a knowledge of the armageddon of the *Mahābhārata* between the Kurus and the Pāṇḍus, descended, as both were, from the Bhāratas.

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The date of this great battle of Kurukṣetra has been placed somewhere about 1500 B.C.⁷ On this basis the approximate relative chronology of the leading races and regions in Northern India is being indicated below together with the Vedic and the Jātaka sources of information :

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⁷ S. N. Pradhan : *Chronology of Ancient India* (Calcutta 1927), pp. 268-269. But see H. C. Ray Chaudhuri; *Political History of Ancient India* (Calcutta 1932) pp. 19-22 24-26. The dates used in the present work differ in certain respects from those in the *Cambridge History of India* Vol. I. (1922), pp. 699-703. A comprehensive account of the Kurus, Pānchālas, Matsyas, Surasenas, Chedis, Vaśas, Avantis and Usinaras is offered in B. C. Law : *Ancient Mid-Indian Tribes* Vol. I. (Calcutta 1924). See also the continuation in his *Ancient Indian Tribes* Vol. II. (London 1934). For the socio-political conditions of Northern India on the eve of the advent of Sākya the Buddha see the five chapters in N. Dutt : *Early History of the Spread of Buddhism* (London 1925), pp. 82-194.

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| 1150 B.C. | Parīkṣit of Kuru Land (Delhi region), a scion of the Bhāratas. | *Rig Veda* and *Atharva Veda.* |
| 950 B.C. | Janaka of Videha (North Bihar) | *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa* |
| 950 B.C. | Ajātaśatru of Kāsī (Benares) | *Brihadāraṇyaka Upaniṣat* |
| 650 B.C. | -550 B.C. Mahākośala of Kośala (Oudh) | *Jātakas* |
| 550 B.C. | Bimbisāra of Magadha (contemporary of Śakyasiṁha the Buddha) | *Mahāvaṁśa.* |

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These pioneering races and regions are to a certain extent the races and regions of *Purāṇa*, *Mahābhārata*, and *Rāmāyaṇa* fame also. It is in and about the activities of the group-life of these regions and races, i.e., about their "social metabolism" of all forms and orders, that some of the political, economic and social institutions and ideals of the *Purāṇas* and the Epics were developed.

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The Bhāratas, the race that has given the title to the great epic, the *Mahābhārata*, were some of the heroes of the *Rig-Veda*. Some of the most prominent characters in the Epic, e.g., Sāntanu, Parīkṣit, Janamejaya, Vaśiṣṭha, Viśvāmitra and others are also Vedic, being connected with Bharata, the founder of the Bhāratas. The region Kuru or the race inhabiting the Kuru Land, which is the chief theatre of Epic activities, was likewise a Vedic region or race.

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The heroes of the epic *Rāmāyaṇa* as well as of some of the *Purāṇas* like the *Vāyu Purāṇa* were derived in name at any rate from the Rigvedic tradition. Such names as Ikṣvāku, Daśaratha, Rāma, Hariśchandra etc. were known to the authors of the Vedic cycle.

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As the *Purāṇas* and the *Mahābhārata* as well as the *Rāmāyaṇa* have plenty of passages in common with the *Nīti-śāstras*, the Vedic ancestry of some of the ideas of this *Śāstra* literature is automatically assured. The Vedic atmosphere, be it understood carefully, is not however to be seen in the whole treatises of *Dharma*, *Artha* or *Nīti* but in certain passages only. It is not to be assumed, moreover, that the famous kings of the Vedic tradition were identical with those of the non-Vedic, extra-Vedic or post-Vedic tradition, or that the Vedic stories were reproduced *in toto* in the subsequent literature.⁸

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⁸ F. E. Pargiter: *Ancient Indian Historical Tradition* (London 1922) pp. 37-43, 52-57, 325-327; E. W. Hopkins: *The Great Epic of India* (New Haven 1920), pp. 2-6, 17-22, 60-65, 368, 386; H. C. Ray Chaudhuri: *Political History of India* (Calcutta 1932) pp. 9, 16-18, 25, 49, 71-73, 81-82, 109-111. M. Winternitz: *History of Indian Literature*, Vol. I. (Calcutta 1927), pp. 317-320, 389-396, 405-407, 422-424, 470-475 (*Mahābhārata*); L. von Schröder: *Indiens Literatur und Cultur* (Leipzig 1887), pp. 34-36; See the chapters on "Atharvanic Influences" and "The Draupadi Saga" in N. N. Ghose: *Indo-Aryan Literature and Culture* (Calcutta 1934); cf. H. C. Chakladar: "Eastern India and Āryāvarta" in the *Indian Historical Quarterly* (Calcutta March 1928).

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While dealing with the Mohenjo Daro and the Vedic cultures it is interesting to observe that the importance of the *Purāṇas* in "pre-historic" archæology is being stressed in certain quarters. We are being told that the *Purāṇas* are but histories with dates and details, and record an uninterrupted account of more than six thousand years of India's distant past.⁹ The situation is not clear by any means. But the claims that are being advanced in favour of the *Purāṇas* do not fail to throw some light on the positivism of the early founders of Hindu culture.

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⁹ Report of a lecture at the Bangiya Sāhitya Pariṣat, Calcutta, on 21 September, 1935 delivered by G. S. Bose, author of *Purāṇa-Praveśa* (Calcutta 1934).

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There are various *Purāṇas* and though, in the main, they do not vary in the accounts of the past, they are characteristically different from one another. Each *Purāṇa* has its own hero and its own god to be worshipped by the masses and its own mode of religious practice to propagate. The *Skanda* is a *Śaiva Purāṇa* and its hero is Rāmachandra whose kingly qualities are almost unsurpassed even to the present day.

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In recent *Purāṇa*-scholarship Rāma and his ancestors are being treated as no mythological figures, and it is said that his date can be ascertained with accuracy from Purāṇic information. Rāma is taken to have flourished about 2124 B.C. He was an exile for fourteen years, returned to Ayodhyā with Sītā when he was forty-two, ruled for eleven years and died when he was only fifty-three. He was a great warrior, but he was a greater ruler and the brief eleven years of his reign were marked by constant progress.

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Rāmachandra once went on pilgrimage to a religious site called *Dharmāraṇya*. This *Dharmāraṇya* was a district of great antiquity. The flourishing country about *Dharmāraṇya* had been devastated many times since its foundation by Dharma early in the *Tretā Yuga*, i.e., about 3800 B.C. When Rāmachandra went to visit the place he found that it had been depopulated and devastated by an Asura raider who, as a monument of victory, had placed an iron pillar thereabout. The Asura came to be known as *Lohāsura* or the "Iron Demon."

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The interesting and apparently fantastic reconstruction of the biography of Rāma and the history of his civic and social exploits may be described in the following manner.

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Rāma is said to have re-established this ancient province and renamed it as *Satya Mandir*. He founded cities, villages and temples on ancient sites. He made a gift of numerous villages in this district to learned *Brāhmaṇas*. This grant was inscribed on a copper-plate and an account of the inscription containing names of the villages granted by Rāma to the *Brāhmaṇas* has been preserved in the *Purāṇas*. This copper-plate itself was in existence even to the time of Yudhishṭhira (1416 B.C.). Later on, this inscribed copper-plate as well as all traces of the iron pillar seemed to have been lost. Thanks to the *Purāṇas*, we are told, even at the present day it is possible to identify quite a number of the villages granted by Rāmachandra to the learned Brāhmaṇas. The modern districts of Kheri, Sitapur, Gonda, Bahraich, Rampur, Budaon and Bareilly in the United Provinces are said to present the site of *Dharmāraṇya* as reclaimed by Rāmachandra. The present towns of Sitapur, Bareilly, Gonda, Chandan, Chowky, Dudhwa, Gola and Misrikh are some of the sites mentioned in the copper-plate grant. The location of the iron pillar is not certain. Very likely it stood in the village known at the present time as Lohakham in the Rampur State. The area corresponding to *Dharmāraṇya* is full of ancient mounds. It is within this area that the Banskhera copper-plate grant of Harṣavardhana containing the name of a place Vardhamāna was discovered. The name Vardhamāna appears in the *Purāṇas*. In Rāmachandra's time and even earlier the district contained numerous sites of Sun-worship, remnants of which are still to be found. Sun-worship did not come to India from Persia. The Sun represents one of Rāma's ancestors,—named Vivaswan; and the Brāhmaṇas who used to act as priests were known as Mehi Brāhmaṇas from the name of the district Moherak which was another name of *Dharmāraṇya*.

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There is reason to believe, says this rather romantic account, that the ancient site of Set Malot in the Gonda District is the place where Rāma built his *Satya Mandir*.

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The *Purāṇas* say that the temple was of bricks. At later periods Jaina and Buddhistic shrines grew up round about the ancient Hindu temples. The *Purāṇas* also mention this. However sceptical we be in regard to the foregoing reconstruction of Rāma's biography, we may concede that a thorough excavation of the mounds and sites located in accordance with the *Purāṇic* descriptions is likely to reveal ancient Hindu relics.

Hindu Republics

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At this stage it is desirable to be acquainted with the non-king *gaṇa* polities of the Hindus. These republican states have to be placed in three periods¹⁰:
1. c. B.C. 600-450: The republican clans of the *Jātaka* literature.
2. c. B.C. 350-300: The republics encountered by Alexander.
3. c. 150-350 A.C.: The survivals of the previous republican clan-states between the fall of the Maurya and the rise of the Gupta Empire.

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¹⁰ B. K. Sarkar: *The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus* (Leipzig 1922) pp. 139-150; B. C. Law: *Kshatriya Tribes of Ancient India* (Calcutta 1923); De la Vallée Poussin: *Indo-Européens et Indo-Iraniens: L'Inde jusque vers 300 av. J. C.* (Paris 1924), *L'Inde aux Temps des Mauryas et des Barbares, Grecs, Scythes, Parthes et Yueh-tchis* (Paris 1930) pp. 12-16, 32, 34. What may be described as a "geo-political" study of India during this period is furnished in N. Dutt: *Early History of the Spread of Buddhism* (Calcutta 1925). See also B. C. Sen: "Studies in the Buddhist Jatakas" (*Journal of the Department of Letters*, Calcutta University, Vol. XX., 1930).

Maurya India

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We may now commence our survey of the more well-known among the leading royal or imperial polities of the Hindus about which precise historical dates and factual details are available. The first in chronological order happens also to be the most extensive of the Hindu Empire-systems. This was the Maurya Empire¹¹ (B.C. 322-185). It embraced modern Afghanistan, the whole of Upper India, the Deccan and Southern India excluding, however, the extreme south (Chola, Pāṇḍya, Kerala, Satyaputra and Ceylon).

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¹¹ D. R. Bhandarkar: *Asoka* (Calcutta 1925), R. K. Mookerji: *Asoka* (London 1927), De la Vallée Poussin: *L'Inde aux temps des Barbares, Grecs, Scythes, Parthes et Yuetchis* (Paris 1930), section on *jugements sur Asoka* pp. 114-119. S. S. Desikar: "The Mauryan Invasion of Tamilakam" in the *Indian Historical Quarterly*, Calcutta, March 1928; E. J. Rapson: *Ancient India* (Cambridge 1914) pp. 78-79, 107-108. For Poros's war of defence against Alexander and the Kautalyan battle arrays see B. Breloer: *Alexanders Kampf gegen Poros* (Stuttgart 1933), pp. 78-82, 169-172, 191-192. See also K.N.S. Pillai: *The Chronology of the Early Tamils* (c. 50 B.C.—200 A.C.), Madras 1932, pp. 192-194.

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Indian spirit has been characterized by Emile Sénart as follows: "A general consideration strikes me. In the field of speculation his natural mysticism sways the Hindu spirit, the concatenation of formulæ sustains it and the intoxication of abstractions stimulates it. But in every other domain it is little creative (*en tout autre domaine il est peu créateur*)."

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It is interesting to find, therefore, that De la Vallée Poussin,¹² who considers the above remarks of Sénart as worthy of meditation, has the following in connection with the Maurya administration. "The Hindu genius," says he, "which we often consider as essentially mystical and fantastic, revealed in all the fields of social, political and economic life incontestable gifts of organization.

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¹² *L'Inde* (Paris 1930) pp. 72. 298.

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One is struck by the sagacious measures which contribute to the convenience of commerce, which assure the security of towns against robbers and fire, the police, hygiene and the fixing of prices.''

De la Vallée Poussin and Foucher on the Problem of Unity

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But according to him,¹³ all the same, the history of India exhibits the alternatives of concentration and *émiettement* (crumbling) or disruption. "India is naturally disrupted,'' says he, and he quotes Foucher's *Gāndhāra*, Vol. II, as follows: "This is the law of her history,—the periodical reconstruction and disintegration of her empires. And there is not yet an example of any of them having endured for more than three hundred years.''

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¹³ *L'Inde* (Paris 1930) pp. 75-76.

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In regard to Foucher's opinion De la Vallée Poussin makes the following observations: "But India is not amorphous. *C'est une opinion classique mais erronée* (this is a classical opinion but erroneous); because it did not know of anything but the central government, when there was one, and the village. On the contrary, India is divided into a large number of petty states of the feudal or communal type, *rājās*, and cities, units solidly constituted and sufficiently organized for defence, in normal times, against external dangers.''

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This explanation does not however serve to refute the "classical but erroneous opinion'' such as has become stereotyped in the English-speaking world in the writings of Smith, Rapson and others. The refutation has to be found in other directions. It is only necessary for the students of Indian history to arm themselves with any text-book of the historical geography of Europe as well as the figures about area and population, and watch the kaleidoscopic changes in political boundaries and therefore the ethnic constitutions of the European states. The truism will then force itself upon everybody that *émiettement* or disruption into petty states or *Kleinstaaterei* has been an eternal fact of European politics right up to our own days. The short duration of the dynasties of the Roman Empire is too well-known. The European Middle Ages exhibit dozens of Maurices by the side of one Justinian, legion of Charles the Fats by the side of one Charles the Great, and myriads of Adolfuses and Wenceslauses by the side of one Frederick II, the “wonder of the world.” Students of Dante do not have to come out of Europe all the way to India in order to discover the processes of *émiettement*. A statement in Engelbert’s *De Ortu et Fine Romani Imperii* should leave no doubt about Europe’s record in regard to the item in question. “The Roman Empire,” ran a mediæval opinion cited by him, “was and is always troubled by wars and rebellions; hardly ever were the gates of the temple of Janus shut; the greater number of Roman Emperors have died violent deaths; and the Roman Empire has been the cause rather of disorder than of peace,”¹⁴

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¹⁴ C.N.S. Woolf: *Bartolus of Sassoferato* (Cambridge 1913) p. 286. B. K. Sarkar: *The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus* (Leipzig 1922), pp. 17, 21-26.

Haushofer and Wüst on the Unreality of Higher Units

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The facts of Hindu political evolution and culture-history like those of the historic races in the diverse regions of the world should but lead to the conclusion at which the exponents of a new science, namely, *Geopolitik* (Geopolitics) have been arriving under the leadership of Karl Haushofer.¹⁵ According to Wüst a world-view such as can actually transcend the limitations of space is impossible both as a concept and as a fact. The so-called "higher unit" which is alleged to be established by the break-up of a previous world-view of a different character through assimilation, absorption, transformation etc. is very questionable and in the long run is liable to disruption. It is impossible to emancipate the world-view from its space-limitations. The attempts to establish artificial world-languages, e.g., Esperanto, Ido, Novial, Volapuek, have not been able to advance beyond their crude beginnings. Coudenove-Kalergi's Pan-Europa movement is like the League of Nations idea a still-born phenomenon. The abolition of the Caliphate by Kamal Pasha is but the last item in an inevitable development, namely, the disappearance of Pan-Islam, unnatural as it is. By enunciating the doctrine that every world-view is by nature nothing but national or territorial although it can to a certain extent transform the space and even transcend it Wüst has exposed the philosophical bankruptcy of internationalism as a cult. It is demonstrated by other writers that neither religion nor art, nor language, nor technocracy, nor economic developments, nor colonialism nor imperialism can in the last analysis lead to the genuine transcending of space or region. All the so-called international or internationalizing endeavours are essentially *raumgebunden* (space-limited and space-conditioned).

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¹⁵ *Raumüberwindende Mächte* (Leipzig 1934) pp. 167, 170-178, 195, 207, 230-232, 259, 272-273, 277, 340-341, 351-352.

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There is no mysticism or metaphysics in Haushofer's social philosophy. In the midst of all internationalizing ideologies his geopolitics teaches the world to remain awake to the one great reality of life, namely, that it is nothing but nationalism that rules mankind and that the eternal problem of today is, as our *Mahābhārata* has taught for all ages, to study the science and art of *Macht*, i.e., *śakti* or power. In geopolitics the student of Hindu societal theories will thus come across such dicta of Somadeva's *Nīti-vākyāmrita* as *na hi kulagatā kasyāpi bhūmih* (no body's territory is derived from his family) and *vīrabhogyā vasundharā* (it is by the powerful that the Earth can be enjoyed).

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Finally, in the state-systems of the Hindus for over half a millennium the sociologists will have to see but a verification of the law enunciated by Jacques de Morgan in *Préhistoire Orientale* (p. 216) that history knows nothing but *précipiter les masses humaines les unes contre les autres* (hurling the human groups against one another). This is what he calls the "perpetual renewal or renovation in which history consists." The Hindu state-systems have likewise exhibited the *perpetual combat contre la mort* (eternal struggle against death) and the solicitude for *la paix dont la possession, en fin de compte, n'est reservée qu'aux justes qui sont forts* (peace, the possession of which, in the last balance-sheet is reserved only to those righteous who are strong). In Lasbax's analysis of the new social forces in operation since the last Great War (1914-18), this struggle and this solicitude such as inspired the Hindu state-makers of all ages are today inspiring the nations of the world to remain equipped with "defensive patriotism" and with "collective health" in view of the wars that are going to break out tomorrow (*des guerres surgiront encore*).¹⁶

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¹⁶ E. Lasbax: *La Cité Humaine* (Paris) Vol. II. (1927) pp. 352-357.

From the Āndhras and Kuṣāṇs to the Senas and Cholas

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¹⁷ De la Vallée Poussin: *Dynasties et Histoire de l'Inde depuis Kanishka jusqu'aux invasions musulmanes* (Paris 1935).

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It is neither necessary nor possible to enumerate all the dynasties in the diverse regions of India. We shall single out a few only,—but not unmindful of the fact that those myriads of states that are left out of the following count, whether foreign or Indianized-foreign, may have been no less important as furnishing the inspiration for the *Dharma*, *Artha* and *Niti* treatises in which we are interested. The list is as follows:

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1. The Empire of the Āndhras (c. B.C. 240-A.C. 250) in the Deccan. For a certain period their contemporaries in the North were the Indianized Scythians or Tartars, the Kuṣāṇ Emperors (A.C. 15-226).

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De la Vallée Poussin has a section entitled "*Conquête de l'Inde par les Grecs*" (Conquest of India by the Greeks), referring to "*les rois grecs*" (the Greek kings).¹⁸ About the princes of the House of Euthydeme he says "*ils font la conquête de l'Inde*" (They make the conquest of India). Such expressions are perhaps not more reasonable than those like "Europe" being conquered by the Persians, the Saracens, the Tartars or Mongols of Western, Central and Northern Asia, such as Asian historians have a right to use for certain periods of military contact in Eur-Asian history.¹⁹ The "expansion of Asia," i.e. the establishment of Greater Asia in Europe was achieved by the force of Oriental arms, the "edge of Damascus blades."

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¹⁸ *L'Inde* (Paris 1930) pp. 234-237.

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¹⁹ For an examination of such fallacies prevalent as they are among the historians, sociologists and philosophers of Eur-America see B. K. Sarkar: "The Futurism of Young Asia" in the *International Journal of Ethics* (Chicago) July 1918, "Democratic Ideals and Republican Institutions in India" in the *American Political Science Review*, November 1918, "An English History of India" in the *Political Science Quarterly* (New York, December 1919), and *The Political Institutions and Theories of Hindus* (Leipzig 1922) pp. 19-22.

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The following passage from Foucher's *Gāndhāra* Vol. II, is cited by De la Vallée Poussin with approval: "*L'art de conquerir l'Inde à l'aide des Indiens ne date pas de Dupleix*" (The art of conquering India with the help of Indians does not commence with Dupleix). The reference is to the part played by Indian mercenaries in the Greek campaigns in certain areas of the Punjab. But the student of history can quote plentiful instances of Europeans being exploited by non-Europeans against Europeans. The arts of treason, treachery, internecine warfare, feuds between dynasties, cities or districts etc. are quite orthodox and traditional European commodities. In his *Histoire du commerce entre le Levant et l'Europe*²⁰ Depping makes it clear as to how the Ottomans were aided in the conquest of Europe by the pro-Islamic politics of certain Christian Europeans against other Christian Europeans.

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²⁰ Vol. II. (Paris 1830), pp. 207-214, 222-224.

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In modern history likewise the "impossible Turk" of Western Asia has known how to keep Europe under Asian yoke with the help, diplomatic and otherwise, of Christian Europeans. Nor has Japan failed to demonstrate to the world that it is with the alliance of Christian European powers that the Asians can compel the Christian Europeans to understand the limits of their military ambitions.

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II. The Bhāra Śiva and Vākāṭaka Empires (150-348 A.C.). "The history of the Imperial Hindu revival," says Kasiprasad Jayaswal, "is not to be dated in the fourth century with Samudragupta, not even with the Vākāṭakas nearly a century earlier, but with the Bhāra Śivas half a century earlier still." Again, "if there had been no Bhāra Śivas there would not have come into existence a Gupta Empire and the Gupta Vikramādityas."²¹

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²¹ K. P. Jayaswal: "History of India c. 150 A.C. to 350 A.C. (Nāga-Vākāṭaka Imperial Period)" in the *Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society* (Patna) May-June 1933, pp. 4, 7. This is to be consulted for the Gupta Empire also.

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In Jayaswal's judgment "the real contribution of the Bhāra Śivas is the foundation of a new tradition—or rather the revival of an old tradition—the tradition of Hindu freedom and sovereignty. The national law-book, the *Mānava Dharma Śāstra*, had laid down that Āryāvarta was the God-given land of the Āryas and that the Mlechchhas must live beyond that and outside. This was their political and international birth right prescribed by the sacred law of the land. It had to be vindicated. The tradition initiated by the Bhāra Śivas was kept up by the Vākāṭakas and was taken over by the Guptas and fully maintained by the subsequent emperors from Chandra-gupta Vikramāditya to Bālāditya."

III. The Gupta Empire (320-550 A.C.)

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According to the German art-historian and art-critic Hermann Goetz,²² this period was an epoch of "hyper-civilization" of the greatest splendour, what is technically known as "decadence" in contemporary literary criticism. He compares the conditions in Gupta India to those of Rome of the Caesars, as well as the Rokoko and the *fin de siècle* in eighteenth century Europe. "Its com-merce and traffic were flourishing; not the aristocracy, not the peasants, not the workmen but the great merchants, the bankers and industrials were the leading classes." And its relations extended to China and Japan, to Turkestan and Rome, to Cambodia and Java. It is in this period that Hindu culture commences to become a world-power, as described in my *Chinese Religion through Hindu Eyes* (1916).

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²² *The Relation between Indian Painting and Culture*, a lecture delivered at the School of Oriental Studies, London on 10th November 1924. See also Sarkar: *Chinese Religion Through Hindu Eyes* (Shanghai 1916), Chapter on "The Beginning of Hindu Culture as World-Power;" and D. R. Bhandarkar: "Identification of the Princes and Territories in the Allahabad Pillar Inscription of Samudragupta" in the *Indian Historical Quarterly" (Calcutta) June 1925.

IV. The Vardhana Empire (606-647) in Upper India and the Chālukya Empire (550-753) in the Deccan

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²³ C. V. Vaidya: *History of Mediæval Hindu India* (Poona), Vol. I. (1921) Book I. (Harsha); R. K. Mookerji: *Harsha* (London 1926).

V. The Kingdom of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas in the Deccan (eighth to fourteenth century A.C.)

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²⁴ For an account of the Pallava, Chola, Chālukya, Rāṣṭrakūṭa and other kingdoms in South India, see Aiyangar's *Ancient India*, pp. 31-38, 158-191; A. S. Altekar; *The Rāṣṭrakūṭas and their Times* (Poona 1934).

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VI. The Empire of the Cholas in Southern India beyond the Deccan (ninth to fourteenth century A.C.) "The Chola dynasty was singularly prolific in kings of more than ordinary capacity," says Smith in his Introduction to Aiyangar's *Ancient India*, "from the middle of the ninth century to the end of the reign of Kulottūṅga in A.D. 1118. It is clear from the details on record that the administration of the kingdom was 'highly systematised' from an early date. For instance, there is abundant evidence that the lands under cultivation were carefully surveyed and holdings registered at least a century before the famous Domesday record of William the Conqueror. The re-survey of 1086 was exactly contemporaneous with the English record. The Cholas were great builders; not only of cities and temples but also of irrigation works."

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According to Aiyangar this is the period of high water-mark of Hindu progress all round. Modern Hinduism assumed the shape in which we find it today. The indigenous literature as well as classical Sanskrit received considerable patronage. Religion had been re-adjusted to the requirements of the masses, and administration had come to be highly organised upon surprisingly modern lines. Revivalism in religion and reinvigoration were the order of the day. The story of one of the greatest monarchs of this period, Rājendra Chola (1013-1042), the son of Rājarāja the Great, who, according to the inscriptions, carried his arms successfully across Kaliṅgam, subdued Dakkana Lāṭam, Vāngāladeśam and the territory of Dharmapāla, fought battles on the Ganges and in Burma, and earned the proud surname of Gaṅgāikoṇḍa Chola, has been preserved in the Kanarese work, *Rājaśekhara-Vilāsam*. At the commencement of the 13th century the great Chola Empire was dismembered between the Yādavas of Deogiri, Kākātīyās of Orangal, Hoysālās of Dvārsamudra and other petty chieftains.

VII. The Kingdom of the Pālas and their successors, the Senas, in Bengal (eighth to twelfth centuries A.C.) synchronous with the ascendancy of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas

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²⁵ For an account of the hegemony of the Pālas in Northern India as successors of Harṣavardhana to Imperial titles and pretensions see the Bengali publications of the Varendra Research Society of Rajshahi, and R. D. Banerji's *Memoir on the Pālas* (Asiatic Society of Bengal 1915). Subsequent to these pioneering researches of 1911-15 are to be mentioned H. C. Ray: *The Dynastic History of Northern India* (Calcutta) Vol. I. (1931), and R. G. Basak: *History of North Eastern India* (Calcutta 1934). See also the Bengali work by D. C. Sen: *Brihat Vanga* (Calcutta 1935).

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The period embraced by the long reigns of Dharmapāla and of his son Devapāla covers nearly a century, including the period spent in consolidating the district of Bengal by Gopāla after his election by the people. This was a period of the greatest activity of the Bengali people in various directions, as will appear from the monumental relics discovered and collected by the Varendra Research Society (Rajshahi). This period has another importance, as we know from the book of Lāmā Tārānātha. It is during these long regions of Dharmapāla and his son Devapāla, that an eastern school of sculpture and painting was established by Dhīmān, born in Varendra, and by his son Vītapāla. The reputed minister Guravamiśra enabled his master Dharmapāla, originally a lord only of the Eastern quarter, to extend his dominions to all the quarters, over all the territories between the Himalayas on the North and the Vindhya mountains on the south between the two seas. The Lord Gauḍa (probably Devapāla)²⁶ suppressed the Utkalas, humbled the Hūṇas, and crushed the pride of the Lords of Drāviḍa and Gurjara.

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²⁶ See the reading of the *Garuḍa stambha* inscription interpreted by A. K. Maitra in "The Stones of Varendra" in the *Modern Review* for *August*, 1912. An important historical puzzle that awaits final solution is the relation between the Cholas and Pālas in the 10th century. South Indian tradition points to the overthrow of the Bengalis by the Tamil Napoleon, East Indian tradition points quite otherwise. The Varendra School evidently accepts the overthrow of the Dravidians by the Pālas, as here and also in R. Chanda's Bengali work, *Gauḍa Rājamāla*. South Indian scholars, however, accept the overthrow of the Pālas and Vāngālas as a historical fact (cf. Aiyangar's *Ancient India*). Mookerji records the Tamil view on pp. 174-177 of his *Indian Shipping*. See also R. D. Banerji's *Memoir on the Pālas of Bengal* (Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1915).

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It may be observed, in passing, that these researches of Indian scholars in the mediaeval history of Eastern and Southern India from archæological, linguistic, commercial and other standpoints have unearthed important facts of Bengali and Tamil antiquities which prominently demand recognition in the standard works on Indian culture-history. The Pālas, Senas and Cholas of mediæval India can no longer be treated as subordinate or petty princes ruling over the "smaller kingdoms" in one of the alleged periods of disintegration which, according to Smith, Foucher and others, Indian history is said to repeat after every epoch of consolidation. They must be ranked as to a certain extent on a par, in prestige, titles, pretensions, influences, and achievements, with the famous Vardhanas of the 7th cent. A.C., the Guptas of the 4th-5th cent. A.C. and the Mauryas of the 4th-3rd cent. B.C. Dharmapāla (c. 800 A.C.), the Buddhist Emperor of Eastern India, with his immediate predecessors and successors, Vijayasena (1097-1159), the Śaiva ruler of United Bengal, as well as Rājendra Chola, the great Śaiva monarch of the South, with his predecessors and successors, constitute remarkable contemporary Imperial families which must have a place by the side of such renowned Indian Napoleons, Empire-builders, and statesmen as Chandragupta Maurya, Asoka, the benevolent "Caesaro-papist," Chandragupta the Gupta, Samudragupta the Vikramāditya, and Harṣavardhana, who preceded them in solving the same problems in administration, commerce, religion and culture on the stage of Hindustan.

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The period of the mighty Pālas, Senas, Rāṣṭrakūṭas and Cholas has witnessed the solution of problems which are of paramount importance in Indian history, literature, fine arts, philosophy and religion. For, it was during this age that the ocean of Tantrism finally swallowed up in a common philosophy the divergent channels of Mahāyāna Buddhism²⁷ and latter-day Brāhmanism; that Vaiṣṇavism and Śaivaism,—the corner-stones of modern Hindu life,—received the official stamp; the parents of present-day vernaculars were encouraged and ‘protected’; noble religious edifices were built, huge sealike tanks were excavated; magnificent images were sculptured in bronze and stones; the navigation of the sea was pushed forward; commercial and cultural intercourse between the Southerners and Easterners was promoted; and India became really the School of Asia by supplying faith, literature, fine arts and material necessaries to China, Nepal, Tibet, Japan, Java, Burma, Cambodia and other lands beyond the seas. This period does, in fact, carry forward and develop the impulses, aspirations and tendencies of Hindu national life testified to by Yuan Chwang, the Chinese Master of Law; in Harṣavardhana’s time.

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²⁷ For the diverse aspects of Buddhism in evolution see H. P. Sastri: "Northern Buddhism" in the *Indian Historical Quarterly* (Calcutta, March, June and September 1925), N. Dutt: *Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana* (London 1930) and *Panchaviṃśati Sahasrikā Prajnāpāramitā* (London 1934).

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The Pālas, Senas, Rāṣṭrakūṭas and Cholas are really the spiritual successors of that great Empire-builder and statesman of the seventh century. The epoch of their hegemony in Indian history is a brilliant sequel to the splendid epoch of empire-building, religious toleration, colonizing activity, and social amalgamation which it had been the policy of the great Harṣa to foster and direct. Their services to the making of Indian national culture deserve the same careful handling, therefore, from historians as those of Harṣa.

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And now that excavations, explorations, readings and interpretations of old vernacular manuscripts, copper-plate inscriptions, architectural monuments, numismatics, study of folklore, folk-songs, folk-arts and village traditions, Sanskrit literature, old sculptures and paintings, call up before us a picture of political and religious life, commercial and social intercourse, art-development and literary progress no less definite and clear than what we have for any other period of Indian history, the necessity of looking upon the Pāla-Sena-Rāṣṭrakūṭa-Chola period as a really creative phase of Hindu India cannot be too strongly advocated.²⁸

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²⁸ B. K. Sarkar: *Chinese Religion Through Hindu Eyes* (Shanghai 1916), and *Folk-Element in Hindu Culture* (London 1917). My position in regard to the post-Harṣa Hindu Empires (c. 650-1350), as indicated in the first edition of the present work in 1913-14, has been well vindicated in and through subsequent publications, e.g. H. C. Ray: *The Dynastic History of Northern India*, Vol. I. (Calcutta 1931) pp. xxxiv-xxxvi.

The Gurjara-Pratīhāras and Kleinstaaterei

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The Empire of the Gurjara-Pratīhāras, who may be described as the cognates and agnates of the latter-day so-called Rajputs (c. 800-1200), had their capital at Kanauj on the Ganges.²⁹ They were synchronous with the Kāśmīris, Rāṣṭrakūṭas, Cholas, Pālas and Senas among the great powers of India.

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²⁹ R. S. Tripathi: "The Pratīhāra Administration" in the *Indian Historical Quarterly* (Calcutta) March 1933.

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It is during this period of the Gurjara-Pratīhāra Empire that some of the oldest among the Rajput *Vaṁśāvalī* or genealogical chronicles owed their origin or rather in which the oldest dates for the establishment of certain Rajput dynasties, e.g. those of Jaipur, Jodhpur, Alwar etc., have been placed in subsequent years.³⁰ It should be observed also that in a study of Hindu states the continuity of Rajput principalities,—although with periods of submergence in Turkish and Moghul times,—from the days of the Gurjara-Pratīhāra Empire until today, i.e., for a period of nearly one thousand years has to be accepted as an item of major importance in Hindu cultural evolution.³¹ The Gurjara-Pratīhāra Empire comprised at times the western Punjab, Kāśmīr, Nepal, Kathiawar, the U.P., Bihar, North Bengal, Orissa, and Assam. Only Sind appears to have been outside the sphere of its sovereignty, which covered, as it did, virtually the whole of Northern India.

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³⁰ H. Goetz: *Die Stellung der indischen Chroniken im Rahmen der indischen Geschichte* (Munich, 1924), pp. 9-11.

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³¹ H. B. Sarda: *Maharana Kumbha* (Ajmer 1917), H. C. Ray: *The Dynastic History of Northern India* (Calcutta) Vol. I. (1931) pp. xxxvii, 10, 569-571, 579, 587-590, 608-09. The foreign origin of the Rajputs is disputed by C. V. Vaidya in the second volume of his *History of Mediæval Hindu India*, which is given over exclusively to the Rajputs (Poona 1924), as well as by G. S. Ojha in his *History of Rajputana*, Vol. I. (Ajmer, 1927), ch. II, in Hindi.

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The limits of the Gupta and the Vardhana Empires were evidently exceeded by the Empire of the Gurjara-Pratīhāras. According to contemporary Arab writers it was this Hindu power that proved a veritable stumbling block to the Arab satraps of Sind in their career of *digvijaya* (world-conquest) in Western and Northern India.

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For a long time 647 A.C., the year of Harṣavardhana's death, used to be taken as a landmark in Indian politics. We have already seen in connection with the Pālas, Senas and Cholas that as Harṣa's successors they were sovereigns of no mean order by any standard of polity or culture. The middle of the seventh century ought therefore to have no special value with historians.

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Recently the year 916 has been accepted as exhibiting a suitable landmark, for about this date the Pratīhāra Empire began to show signs of break-up. Besides, it is alleged that the tenth century of the Christian era which saw the dismemberment of the Gurjara-Pratīhāra Empire witnessed also the arrival of the Mohammedan Turk in India.³²

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³² V. A. Smith: *The Oxford History of India* (1919), p. xiii; H. C. Ray: *The Dynastic History of Northern India* (Calcutta) Vol. I. (1932), pp. xxxviii, xxxix, 596.

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To the student of Indian history the attempt to see a beginning or an end at 916 or for that matter in the tenth century should be as unwarrantable as that at 647 or in the middle of the seventh century. In the first place, disruptions, dynastic partitions, the system of pentarchies, heptarchies or centarchies, *Kleinstaaterei*, *émiettement* etc. ought to be treated as but certain normal phases of societal "metabolism" in the whirligig of politics. For vast continents like Europe, China, or India consolidations, concentrations, unifications or the like ought, inductively speaking, to be appraised more as the exceptions than as the rule. The eagerness to extol unification, imperial expansion, administration, centralization, whenever such phenomena happen to be encountered over extensive areas in India, is scientifically considered, rather senseless. European historians of modern and recent times, used as they are to appreciating unity in their little fatherlands have unscientifically projected the conditions of their petty states into the atmosphere of the Indian subcontinent, expecting or rather demanding unification of unwieldy areas as the test of political aptitudes or cultural efficiency. To those researchers who are not misled by such fallacies Bengal, Gujarat, Orissa, and so forth, nay, even parts of these areas should appear to be no insignificant territorial units. The maintenance of Hindu sovereignty over areas like these is no index to decay, degeneration or downfall. The words, "disruption," *Kleinstaaterei*, or *émiettement* should not be used at all,—or at any rate, in a derogatory sense,—even if India in the same manner as Europe should happen to be the theatre of several dozen independent states, arrayed as they might conceivably be in all sorts of *ententes cordiales*, armed neutralities or other relations known to the Kauṭalyan doctrine of *maṇḍala* ("geopolitical" complex of international relations).³³

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