The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c7.s8.t1: III. The Gupta Empire (320-550 A.C.)
The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c7.s8.t1
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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.