The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c7.s8.t4: 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
The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c7.s8.t4
- Language
- English
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
c7.s8.t4.1
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).
c7.s8.t4.2
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.
c7.s8.t4.3
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).
c7.s8.t4.4
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.
c7.s8.t4.5
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.
c7.s8.t4.6
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).
c7.s8.t4.7
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.
c7.s8.t4.8
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
c7.s8.t4.9
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.