North Indian Inscriptions

RELIGIOUS HISTORY

ted each in two śrēṇis or guilds.¹ Out of the monthly interest realised therefrom one hundred Brāhmaṇas were to be fed daily in the Hall and alms distributed every day at the door among the forlorn-hungry and thirsty. Further, the puṇya-śālā is described as prāchinī and chatudiśi. The latter term means that it was open to the needy and indigent coming from any one of the four quarters, whereas the first denotes that it was an ancient institution. This reminds us of a similar site which came into importance in the early Gupta period. No less than four inscriptions (Nos. 8, 17, 26 below and CII., Vol. III, 1888, No. 64) have been found at Gaḍhwā in the Allahabad District which speak of grants being made for the free boarding of Sadāsattra-sāmānya, whether they belonged to the Brāhmaṇa or other castes. Sadāsattra-sāmānya must here denote the people who pertained to the township (sāmānya) of Sadāsattra; and it seems that the place was called Sadāsattra, because it was a site for the perpetual feeding of the Brāhmaṇas and the poor. Both the Puṇyaśālā of Mathurā and the Sadāsattra of Gaḍhwā clearly show that the Brāhmaṇas from the second century A. D. onwards somehow came to acquire and tighten their hold over the popular mind. The question arises: how this phenomenon took place. Did the Brāhmaṇas evince any intrinsic qualities of their own which caught the popular imagination ?

       Let us briefly recall to mind what we have noticed above about the Pāśupata and Sātvata sects. In regard to the former, the Purāṇas say that the four disciples of Lakulīśa were not only Brāhmaṇas conversant with the Vēdas but also experts in the Māhēśvara (= Pāśupata) yōga. The same was the case with the Sātvata sect connected with the Vishṇu cult. Here also the Āchāryas who flourished in the second and third centuries A.D. were not only Brāhmaṇas by caste but also experts in the Sātvata yōga. It seems that the Brāhmaṇas of this period were acquiring ascendancy not so much through sacrificial performances as through new spiritual attainments or psychic performances. The practice of yōga enables a man to gain, in the first instance, freedom from worldy attachments and suppression of wordly desires and, finally, deliverance from the cycle of existence. The Yōgins are frequently , in consequence of the yōga exercises, plunged into what is known as Yōga-nidrā or ecstatic slumber; and some, by virtue of peculiar disposition and constant training, can remain for a lengthened period in a cataleptic condition without any indication of life, thereby acquiring a reputation for sanctity. As the Brāhmaṇas devoted themselves to the practice of yōga and were supposed to be on the brink of the final attainment of the supreme goal, it is no wonder if they were looked upon as objects of sanctity and if thereby they soared high in the estimation of the people.

       Though the influence of the Brāhmaṇas was thus in the ascendant, there is nothing to show that they were priests who were in charge of the popular divinities-Vishṇu, Śiva or Ambā, who alone could permit the people to have an actual sight of gods and turned their prerogative into an actual source of living as is the case at present. It may be contended that the Karamḍāṁḍā inscription (No. 21 below) of Kumāragupta I runs counter to this supposition, because it connects the two temples of Mahādēva-Śailēśvara and Pṛithivīśvara, with Brāhmaṇas who had come from Ayōdhyā and were conversant with Mantras, Sūtras, Bhāshyas and Pravachanas. But they seem apparently to be entrusted with the duty of making the shrine a hallowed site and arranging for the procession of the idols of the gods, in a solemn, sacred manner. They were not local men, but seem to have been imported from Ayōdhyā for this express purpose and maintained at the expense of the exchequer of the Śailēśvara temple which was already in existence. Even here, ther is nothing to show that they were priests in actual charge of those divinities, who could allow or refuse votaries to have darśana of them. If any further evidence is needed, it is furnished by the Dāmōdarpur plates, which are five in number.
______________________________________________________

¹ Ep. Ind., Vol. XXI, pp. 60-61.