The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c7.s8.t4.5

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.