Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) by Charles Eliot

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It does not follow from this that Hindus are lukewarm or insincere in
their convictions. On the contrary, faith is more intense and more
widely spread among them than in Europe. Nor can it be said that their
religion is something detachable from ordinary life: the burden of daily
observances prescribed and duly borne seems to us intolerable. But
Buddhism and many forms of Hinduism present themselves as methods of
salvation with a simplicity and singleness of aim which may be
paralleled in the Gospels but only rarely in the national churches of
Europe. The pious Buddhist is one who moulds his life and thoughts
according to a certain law: he is not much concerned with worshipping
the gods of the state or city, but has nothing against such worship: his
aims and procedure have nothing to do with spirits who give wealth and
children or avert misfortune. But since such matters are of great
interest to mankind, he is naturally brought into contact with them and
he has no more objection to a religious service for procuring rain than
to a scientific experiment for the same purpose. Similarly Confucians
follow a system of ethics which is sufficient for a gentleman and
accords a decorous recognition to a Supreme Being and ancestral spirits.
Much concession to superstition would be reprehensible according to this
code but if a Confucian honours some deity either for his private
objects or because it is part of his duties as a magistrate, he is not
offending Confucius. He is simply engaging in an act which has nothing
to do with Confucianism. The same distinction often applies in Indian
religion but is less clear there, because both the higher doctrine as
well as ordinary ceremonial and mythology are described under one name
as Hinduism. But if a native of southern India occasionally sacrifices a
buffalo to placate some village spirit, it does not follow that all his
religious notions are of this barbarous type.

Asiatic ideas as to the relations between religions are illustrated by
an anecdote related to me in Assam. Christianity has made many converts
among the Khasis, a non-Hindu tribe of that region, and a successful
revival meeting extending over a week was once held in a district of
professing Christians. When the week was over and the missionaries gone,
the Khasis performed a ceremony in honour of their tribal deities. Their
pastors regarded this as a woeful lapse from grace but no disbelief in
Christianity or change of faith was implied. The Khasis had embraced
Christianity in the same spirit that animated the ancient disciples of
the Buddha: it was the higher law which spoke of a new life and of the
world to come. But it was not understood that it offered to take over
the business of the local deities, to look after crops and pigs and
children, to keep smallpox, tigers and serpents in order. Nobody doubted
the existence of spirits who regulate these matters, while admitting
that ethics and the road to heaven were not in their department, and
therefore it was thought wise to supplement the Christian ceremonies by
others held in their honour and thus let them see that they were not
forgotten and run no risk of incurring their enmity.

My object in this chapter is to point out at the very beginning that in
Asia the existence of a duly labelled religion, such as Buddhism or
Confucianism, does not imply the suppression of older nameless beliefs,
especially about nature spirits and ghosts. In China and many other
countries we must not be surprised to find Buddhists honouring spirits
who have nothing to do with Buddhism. In India we must not suppose that
the doctrines of Ramanuja or any other great teacher are responsible for
the crudities of village worship, nor yet rashly assume that the
villager is ignorant of them.

CHAPTER II

HISTORICAL

It may be useful to insert here a brief sketch of Indian history, but
its aim is merely to outline the surroundings in which Hindu religion
and philosophy grew up. It, therefore, passes lightly over much which is
important from other points of view and is intended for reference rather
than for continuous reading.

An indifference to history, including biography, politics and geography,
is the great defect of Indian literature. Not only are there few
historical treatises[107] but even historical allusions are rare and
this curious vagueness is not peculiar to any age or district. It is as
noticeable among the Dravidians of the south as among the speakers of
Aryan languages in the north. It prevails from Vedic times until the
Mohammedan conquest, which produced chronicles though it did not induce
Brahmans to write them in Sanskrit. The lacuna is being slowly filled up
by the labours of European scholars who have collected numerous data
from an examination of inscriptions, monuments and coins, from the
critical study of Hindu literature, and from research in foreign,
especially Chinese, accounts of ancient India.

At first sight the history of India seems merely a record of invasions,
the annals of a land that was always receptive and fated to be
conquered. The coast is poor in ports and the nearest foreign shore
distant. The land frontiers offer more temptation to invaders than to
emigrants. The Vedic Aryans, Persians, Greeks and hordes innumerable
from Central Asia poured in century after century through the passes of
the north-western mountains and after the arrival of Vasco da Gama other
hordes came from Europe by sea. But the armies and fleets of India can
tell no similar story of foreign victories. This picture however
neglects the fact that large parts of Indo-China and the Malay
Archipelago (including Camboja, Champa, Java and even Borneo) received
not only civilization but colonists and rulers from India. In the north
too Nepal, Kashmir, Khotan and many other districts might at one time or
another be legitimately described as conquered or tributary countries.
It may indeed be justly objected that Indian literature knows nothing of
Camboja and other lands where Indian buildings have been discovered[108]
and that the people of India were unconscious of having conquered them.
But Indian literature is equally unconscious of the conquests made by
Alexander, Kanishka and many others. Poets and philosophers were little
interested in the expeditions of princes, whether native or foreign. But
if by India is meant the country bounded by the sea and northern
mountains it undoubtedly sent armies and colonists to regions far beyond
these limits, both in the south-east and the north, and if the expansion
of a country is to be measured not merely by territorial acquisition but
by the diffusion of its institutions, religion, art and literature, then
"the conquests of the Dhamma," to use Asoka's phrase, include China,
Japan, Tibet and Mongolia.

The fact that the Hindus paid no attention to these conquests and this
spread of their civilization argues a curious lack of interest in
national questions and an inability to see or utilize political
opportunities which must be the result of temperament rather than of
distracting invasions. For the long interval between the defeat of the
Huns in 526 A.D. and the raids of Mahmud of Ghazni about 1000 A.D. which
was almost entirely free from foreign inroads, seems precisely the
period when the want of political ideas and constructive capacity was
most marked. Nor were the incursions always destructive and sterile. The
invaders, though they had generally more valour than culture of their
own, often brought with them foreign art and ideas, Hellenic, Persian or
Mohammedan. Naturally the northern districts felt their violence most as
well as the new influences which they brought, whereas the south became
the focus of Hindu politics and culture which radiated thence northwards
again. Yet, on the whole, seeing how vast is the area occupied by the
Hindus, how great the differences not only of race but of language, it
is remarkable how large a measure of uniformity exists among them (of
course I exclude Mohammedans) in things religious and intellectual.
Hinduism ranges from the lowest superstition to the highest philosophy
but the stages are not distributed geographically. Pilgrims go from
Badrinath to Ramesvaram: the Vaishnavism of Trichinopoly, Muttra and
Bengal does not differ in essentials, the worship of the linga can be
seen almost anywhere. And though India has often been receptive, this
receptivity has been deliberate and discriminating. Great as was the
advance of Islam, the resistance offered to it was even more remarkable
and at the present day it cannot be said that in the things which most
interest them Indian minds are specially hospitable to British ideas.

The relative absence of political unity seems due to want of interest in
politics. It is often said that the history of India in pre-Mohammedan
times is an unintelligible or, at least, unreadable, record of the
complicated quarrels and varying frontiers of small states. Yet this is
as true of the history of the Italian as of the Indian peninsula. The
real reason why Indian history seems tedious and intricate is that large
interests are involved only in the greatest struggles, such as the
efforts to repulse the Huns or Mohammedans.

The ordinary wars, though conducted on no small scale, did not involve
such causes or principles as the strife of Roundheads with Cavaliers.
With rare exceptions, states and empires were regarded as the property
of their monarchs. Religion claimed to advise kings, like other wealthy
persons, as to their duties and opportunities, and ministers became the
practical rulers of kingdoms just as a steward may get the management of
an estate into his hands. But it rarely occurred to Hindus that other
persons in the estate had any right to a share in the government, or
that a Raja could be dispossessed by anybody but another Raja. Of that,
indeed, there was no lack. Not only had every sovereign to defend
himself against the enemies in his own house but external politics
seemed based on the maxim that it is the duty of a powerful ruler to
increase his territory by direct and unprovoked attacks on his
neighbours. There is hardly a king of eminence who did not expand his
power in this way, and the usual history of a royal house is successful
aggression followed by collapse when weaker hands were unable to hold
the inherited handful. Even moderately long intervals of peace are rare.
Yet all the while we seem to be dealing not with the expansion or
decadence of a nation, but with great nobles who add to their estates or
go bankrupt.

These features of Indian politics are illustrated by the Arthasastra, a
manual of state-craft attributed to Canakya, the minister of Candragupta
and sometimes called the Indian Macchiavelli. Its authenticity has been
disputed but it is now generally accepted by scholars as an ancient work
composed if not in the fourth century, at least some time before the
Christian era. It does not, like Manu and other Brahmanic law-books,
give regulations for an ideal kingdom but frankly describes the practice
of kings. The form of state contemplated is a small kingdom surrounded
by others like it and war is assumed to be their almost normal relation,
but due to the taste or policy of kings, not to national aspirations or
economic causes. Towards the Brahmans a king has certain moral
obligations, towards his subjects and fellow monarchs none. It is
assumed that his object is to obtain money from his subjects, conquer
his neighbours, and protect himself by espionage and severe punishments
against the attacks to which he is continually exposed, especially at
the hands of his sons. But the author does not allow his prince a life
of pleasure: he is to work hard and the first things he has to attend to
are religious matters.

The difficulty of writing historical epitomes which are either accurate
or readable is well known and to outline the events which have occurred
in the vast area called India during the last 2500 years is a specially
arduous task, for it is almost impossible to frame a narrative which
follows the fortunes of the best known Hindu kingdoms and also does
justice to the influence of southern India and Islam. It may be useful
to tabulate the principal periods, but the table is not continuous and
even when there is no gap in chronology, it often happens that only one
political area is illuminated amid the general darkness and that this
area is not the same for many centuries.

1. From about 500 to 200 B.C. Magadha (the modern Bihar) was the
principal state and the dominions of its great king Asoka were almost
the same as British India to-day.

2. In the immediately succeeding period many invaders entered from the
north-west. Some were Greeks and some Iranians but the most important
were the Kushans who ruled over an Empire embracing both north-western
India and regions beyond it in Afghanistan and Central Asia. This Empire
came to an end in the third century A.D. but the causes of its collapse
are obscure.

3. The native Hindu dynasty of the Guptas began to rule in 320 A.D. Its
dominions included nearly all northern India but it was destroyed by the
invasions of the Huns in the fifth and sixth centuries.

4. The Hindu Emperor Harsha (606-647 A.D.) practically reconstituted the
Gupta Empire but his dominions split up after his death. At the same
time another Empire which extended from Gujarat to Madras was founded by
Pulakesin, a prince from the south, a region which though by no means
uncivilized had hitherto played a small part in the general history of
India.

5. From 650 to 1000 A.D. India was divided among numerous independent
kingdoms. There was no central power but Bengal and the Deccan were more
prominent than previously.

6. After 1000 A.D. the conquests of Mohammedan invaders became important
and the Hindu states of northern and central India collapsed or grew
weak. But the Hindus held out in Rajputana, Orissa, and above all in
Vijayanagar.

7. In 1526 came the invasion of the Mughals, who founded an Empire which
at its zenith (1556-1707) included all India except the extreme south.
In its decadence the Marathas and Sikhs became powerful and Europeans
began to intervene.

It is generally agreed that at a period which, though not fixed, was
anterior to 1000 B.C.[109] a body of invaders known as Aryans and nearly
akin to the ancient Iranians entered India through the north-western
mountains. They found there other tribes not deficient in civilization
but unable to offer any effective resistance. These tribes who retired
southwards are commonly known as Dravidians[110] and possibly represent
an earlier invasion of central-Asiatic tribes allied to the remote
ancestors of the Turks and Mongols[111]. At the time when the earlier
hymns of the Rig Veda were composed, the Aryans apparently lived in the
Panjab and did not know the sea, the Vindhya mountains or the Narbudda
river. They included several tribes, among whom five are specially
mentioned, and we hear that a great battle was fought on the Ravi, in
which a confederation of ten kings who wished to force a passage to the
east was repulsed by Sudas, chief of the Tritsus. Still the
south-eastern movement, across the modern United Provinces to the
borders of Bengal, continued and, so far as our records go, it was in
this direction rather than due south or south-west, that the Aryans
chiefly advanced[112]. When the Brahmanas and earlier Upanishads were
composed (c. 800-600 B.C.) the principal political units were the
kingdoms of the Pancalas and Kurus in the region of Delhi. The city of
Ayodhya (Oudh) is also credited with a very ancient but legendary
history.

The real history of India begins with the life of the Buddha who lived
in the sixth century B.C.[113] At that time the small states of northern
India, which were apparently oligarchies or monarchies restricted by the
powers of a tribal council, were in process of being absorbed by larger
states which were absolute monarchies and this remained the normal form
of government in both Hindu and Moslim times. Thus Kosala (or Oudh)
absorbed the kingdom of Benares but was itself conquered by Magadha or
Bihar, the chief city of which was Pataliputra or Patna, destined to
become the capital of India. We also know that at this period and for
about two centuries later the Persian Empire had two satrapies within
the limits of modern India, one called "India," including the country
east of the Indus and possibly part of the Panjab, and the other called
Gandhara (Peshawar) containing Takshasila[114], a celebrated university.
The situation of this seat of learning is important, for it was
frequented by students from other districts and they must have felt
there in early times Persian and afterwards Hellenistic influence. There
are clear signs of Persian influence in India in the reign of Asoka. Of
Magadha there is little to be said for the next century and a half, but
it appears to have remained the chief state of northern India.

In 327 B.C. Alexander the Great after over-throwing the Persian Empire
invaded India, where he remained only nineteen months. He probably
intended to annex Sind and the Panjab permanently to his Empire but he
died in 323 and in the next year Candragupta, an exiled scion of the
royal house of Magadha, put an end to Macedonian authority in India and
then seized the throne of his ancestors. He founded the Maurya dynasty
under which Magadha expanded into an Empire comprising all India except
the extreme south. Seleucus Nicator, who had inherited the Asiatic
possessions of Alexander and wished to assert his authority, came into
collision with Candragupta but was completely worsted and about 303 B.C.
concluded a treaty by which he ceded the districts of Kabul, Herat and
Kandahar. Shortly afterwards he sent as his ambassador to the court of
Pataliputra a Greek named Megasthenes who resided there for a
considerable time and wrote an account of the country still extant in a
fragmentary form. The grandson of Candragupta was Asoka, the first ruler
of all India (c. 273-231 B.C.). His Empire extended from Afghanistan
almost to Madras and was governed with benevolent but somewhat
grandmotherly despotism. He was an ardent Buddhist and it is mainly
owing to his efforts, which are described in more detail below, that
Buddhism became during some centuries the dominant faith in India.
Asoka's Empire broke up soon after his death in circumstances which are
not clear, for we now enter upon one of those chaotic periods which
recur from time to time in Indian history and we have little certain
information until the fourth century A.D. Andhra, a region including
large parts of the districts now called the Northern Circars, Hyderabad
and Central Provinces, was the first to revolt from the Mauryas and a
dynasty of Andhra kings[115], who claimed to belong to the Satavahana
family, ruled until 236 A.D. over varying but often extensive
territories. What remained of the Maurya throne was usurped in 184 B.C.
by the Sungas who in their turn were overthrown by the Kanvas. These
latter could not withstand the Andhras and collapsed before them about
27 B.C.

Alexander's invasion produced little direct effect, and no allusion to
it has been found in Indian literature. But indirectly it had a great
influence on the political, artistic and religious development of the
Hindus by preparing the way for a series of later invasions from the
north which brought with them a mixed culture containing Hellenic,
Persian and other elements. During some centuries India, as a political
region, was not delimitated on the north-western side as it is at
present and numerous principalities rose and fell which included Indian
territory as well as parts of Afghanistan.

These states were of at least three classes, Hellenistic, Persian or
Parthian, and Scythian, if that word can be properly used to include the
Sakas and Kushans.

Bactria was a Persian satrapy before Alexander's invasion but when he
passed through it on his way to India he founded twelve cities and
settled a considerable number of his soldiers in them. It formed part of
the Empire of Seleucus but declared itself independent in 250 B.C. about
the same time that the Parthians revolted and founded the Empire of the
Arsacidae. The Bactrian kings bore Greek names and in 209 Antiochus III
made peace with one of them called Euthydemus, in common cause against
the nomads who threatened Western Asia. Demetrius, the son of this
Euthydemus, appears to have conquered Kabul, the Panjab and Sind (c. 190
B.C.) but his reign was troubled by the rebellion of a certain
Eukratides and it is probable that many small and contending
frontier-states, of which we have a confused record, were ruled by the
relatives of one or other of these two princes. The most important of
them was Menander, apparently king of the Kabul valley. About 155 he
made an incursion to the east, occupied Muttra and threatened
Pataliputra itself but was repulsed. He is celebrated in Buddhist
literature as the hero of the Questions of Milinda but his coins, though
showing some Buddhist emblems, indicate that he was also a worshipper of
Pallas. Shortly after this Hellenic influence in Bactria was overwhelmed
by the invasion of the Yueeh-chih, though the Greek principalities in the
Panjab may have lasted considerably longer.

In the reign of Mithridates (c. 171-138 B.C.) the Parthian Empire was
limitrophe with India and possibly his authority extended beyond the
Indus. A little later the Parthian dependencies included two satrapies,
Aracosia and the western Panjab with capitals at Kandahar and Taxila
respectively. In the latter ruled kings or viceroys one of whom called
Gondophores (c. 20 A.D.) is celebrated on account of his legendary
connection with the Apostle Thomas.

More important for the history of India were the conquests of the Sakas
and Yueeh-chih, nomad tribes of Central Asia similar to the modern
Turkomans[116]. The former are first heard of in the basin of the river
Ili, and being dislodged by the advance of the Yueeh-chih moved
southwards reaching northwestern India about 150 B.C. Here they founded
many small principalities, the rulers of which appear to have admitted
the suzerainty of the Parthians for some time and to have borne the
title of satraps. It is clear that western India was parcelled out among
foreign princes called Sakas, Yavanas, or Pallavas whose frontiers and
mutual relations were constantly changing. The most important of these
principalities was known as the Great Satrapy which included Surashtra
(Kathiawar) with adjacent parts of the mainland and lasted until about
395 A.D.

The Yueeh-chih started westwards from the frontiers of China about 100
B.C. and, driving the Sakas before them, settled in Bactria. Here
Kadphises, the chief of one of their tribes, called the Kushans,
succeeded in imposing his authority on the others who coalesced into one
nation henceforth known by the tribal name. The chronology of the Kushan
Empire is one of the vexed questions of Indian history and the dates
given below are stated positively only because there is no space for
adequate discussion and are given with some scepticism, that is desire
for more knowledge founded on facts. Kadphises I (c. 15-45 A.D.) after
consolidating his Empire led his armies southwards, conquering Kabul and
perhaps Kashmir. His successor Kadphises II (c. 45-78 A.D.) annexed the
whole of north-western India, including northern Sind, the Panjab and
perhaps Benares. There was a considerable trade between India and the
Roman Empire at this period and an embassy was sent to Trajan,
apparently by Kanishka (c. 78-123), the successor of Kadphises. This
monarch played a part in the later history of Buddhism comparable with
that of Asoka in earlier ages[117]. He waged war with the Parthians and
Chinese, and his Empire which had its capital at Peshawar included
Afghanistan, Bactria, Kashgar, Yarkand, Khotan[118] and Kashmir. These
dominions, which perhaps extended as far as Gaya in the east, were
retained by his successors Huvishka (123-?140 A.D.) and Vasudeva
(?140-178 A.D.), but after this period the Andhra and Kushan dynasties
both collapsed as Indian powers, although Kushan kings continued to rule
in Kabul. The reasons of their fall are unknown but may be connected
with the rise of the Sassanids in Persia. For more than a century the
political history of India is a blank and little can be said except that
the kingdom of Surashtra continued to exist under a Saka dynasty.

Light returns with the rise of the Gupta dynasty, which roughly marks
the beginning of modern Hinduism and of a reaction against Buddhism.
Though nothing is known of the fortunes of Pataliputra, the ancient
imperial city of the Mauryas, during the first three centuries of our
era, it continued to exist. In 320 a local Raja known as Candragupta I
increased his dominions and celebrated his coronation by the institution
of the Gupta era. His son Samudra Gupta continued his conquests and in
the course of an extraordinary campaign, concluded about 340 A.D.,
appears to have received the submission of almost the whole peninsula.
He made no attempt to retain all this territory but his effective
authority was exercised in a wide district extending from the Hugli to
the rivers Jumna and Chambal in the west and from the Himalayas to the
Narbudda. His son Candragupta II or Vikramaditya added to these
possessions Malwa, Gujarat and Kathiawar and for more than half a
century the Guptas ruled undisturbed over nearly all northern India
except Rajputana and Sind. Their capital was at first Pataliputra, but
afterwards Kausambi and Ayodhya became royal residences.