North Indian Inscriptions

RELIGIOUS HISTORY

       Here have been named the four disciples of Lakulin who were the founders of the four lines of Pāśupata teachers. They are described not only as possessed of bodies besmeared with ashes, as ūrdhva-rētasa, i.e., ūrdhva-mēḍhra, but also as having practised Māhēśvara-yōga and attained to the Rudra world. It is thus obvious that by practicing yōga, the ascetic members of this sect hoped to be at one with Rudra or Śiva. The Yōga was also called Pāśupata-yōga. So it is named not only in the Ēkliṅgji stone inscription¹ of Naravāhana but also in the Vāyu-Purāṇa, in chapters 11-15, preceding chapter 23 which describes the incarnations of Śiva. We have therefore to suppose that the ascetic teachers of the Kuśika line must have passed away like Yōgins by driving their prāṇa-vāyu through the brahma-randhra and plunging themselves into the divinity of Śiva. This explains why all these departed teachers have received the divine title of bhagavat. Nevertheless, their earthly remembrances seem to have been preserved in the shape of portraits carved into the liṅga which served to distinguish them from one another along with the order of successions in which their liṅgas were arranged.

       There now remains one important point to be considered-the date of Lakulīśa. Uditāchārya, we know, was tenth in descent from Kuśika, pupil of Lakulin. Uditāchārya thus belonged to the eleventh generation from Lakulin. Uditāchārya’s date, that is, the date of our inscription, is Gupta year 61=380-81 A.D. If we now allot 25 years to each generation, we have to assign Lakulin to 105-130 A.D. This agrees pretty closely with the view expressed as early as 1906 that Lakulin has to be placed as early as the first century A.D. Our conclusion was then based merely on the mention, in the Vāyu-Purāṇa, of Lakulin as the last incarnation of Śiva. Evidence of this type will always remain of a somewhat conjectural nature. Epigraphical evidence, on the other hand, is more accurate. We may, therefore, take it now as well-nigh proved that Lakulin flourished in the first quarter of the second century A.D., about half a century later than the time so long ascribed to him.

       Let us now proceed to the consideration of another type of divinities hinted in the Gupta inscriptions. In this connection two inscriptions are of great importance. The first is the Bihar stone pillar inscription (No. 41 below) of Skandagupta. Unfortunately it is highly mutilated. What, however, has been preserved may be pieced together thus. Line 8 speaks of a shrine of Bhadrāryā, whose image is apparently mentioned in line 32. The line following refers to Mātṛis or Divine Mothers led by Skanda. And the next line, or line 10, records the erection of a Yūpa or sacrificial post and refers again to Bhadrāryā and other Mothers. If we piece together these scraps of information, what we gather is that in the Gupta period Bhadrā was the most pre-eminent of the Divine Mothers, that these Mothers were headed by the god Skanda and that somehow a sacrificial post was raised for the worship of either or both. We have more than once remarked in the course of this history that Hindu mythology was in the Gupta period fluctuating and that it did not crystallise till the eight century A.D. To take one instance, the Mātṛia in the mediaeval period were either seven or eight and were stereotyped into (1) Brāhmī, (2) Māhēśvarī, (3) Chaṇḍī, (4) Vārāhī, (5) Vaishṇavī, (6) Kaumārī, (7) Chāmuṇḍā and (8) Charchikā. This is quite clear from the fact that from the eighth century onwards they are actually found sculptured as the female forms of or Śaktis of Brahmā, Mahēśvara and so forth. But this does not appear to be the case in the Gupta epoch, because the Bihar pillar inscription refers to Mothers mentioning Bhadrā only. And the question naturally arrises: have we any list of Mothers which comprises Bhadrā at all? In this connection attention may be drawn first to the Vishṇu-Purāṇa, V. 1 and 2, which speaks of Yōga-nidrā of the Creator of the Universe (Jagad-dhātṛi) who in this case is Vishṇu himself. Yōga-nidra has consequently been styled Vaishṇavī Mahāmāyā. She has been commanded by the god to transfer a number
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¹ JBBRAS., Vol. XXII, p. 167, verse 13.