North Indian Inscriptions

RELIGIOUS HISTORY

       Two of these are applications from the orthodox Brāhmaṇas themselves to the state to sell them strips of land in lieu of money to be paid, to enable them to perform agnihōtra in the case of one (No. 22 below) and pañcha-mahāyajñas in the case of the other (No. 24 below). The third (No. 38 below) is an application by a layman, anxious to settle down Brāhmaṇas in some part of old North Bengal. The fourth (No. 40 below) and the fifth (No. 47 below) are connected with Kōkāmukha-svāmin and Śvētavarāha-svāmin, two primeval gods existing on the table-land of the Himālayas. The first of these was for the purchase of land by Ṛibhupāla, the Nagara-śrēshṭhin, for erecting shrines over these divinities and two store-houses. The second of these relates to the purchase of land by one Kulaputra from Ayōdhyā on behalf of one of these gods only, namely, Śvētavarāha-svāmin, but with a view to make provision for repairs etc. to his temple and, above all, for the establishment of the bali, charu, sattra, etc. and for the supply of the materials for the daily worship of the god. In none of these two records is there any mention of Brāhmaṇa priests though both refer to benefactions made to Kōkāmukha-svāmin and Śvētavarāha-svāmin, the two well-known forms of Vishṇu, who have been extolled in the Varāha-Purāṇa. And what is noteworthy is that there is no mention of Brāhmaṇa priests although there is express mention of the establishment of bali, charu, sattra, etc. in connection with this god, a case where reference to the Brāhmaṇa priests would surely have been made if there had been any at all associated with him.. These daily rites may have been performed by a holy Brāhmaṇa associated with the god, but he certainly was not a priest privileged to take sole charge of the divinity and admit to his darśana only those votaries whom he chose to take.

       We shall now turn to Buddhism and find out in what condition it was in the Gupta period. In such a case we form our estimate of the flourishing condition or otherwise of a religion from the number of inscriptions found at different centres. This is all-right so far as it goes. But argumentum ab silentio is not always a safe one. To take one instance, Vogel makes the following remark in regard to the excavations of Sārnāth: “The Gupta period (c. 300-600 A.D.) marks a revival of purely Indian civilisation . . . . The Convent of the Wheel-of-the-Law enjoyed great prosperity in those days, as is evident from the exuberance of sculptural remains dating back to that epoch. Indeed, the great majority of the sculptures preserved in the Sārnāth Museum belong to Gupta times.”¹ Though there was an exuberance of sculptural remains at the Sārnāth centre of Buddhism, pertaining to the Gupta period, there was a paucity of inscriptions in spite of the excavations undertaken there. The non-find or scarcity of epigraphic records cannot therefore be taken as a distinct sign of decadence. On the contrary, the abundance of sculptures of the Gupta epoch exhumed at Sārnāth is an indication that this centre of Buddhism was in as flourishing a condition as ever before. The truth of the matter is that when a religious centre is once established, it must continue in its undiminished glory for a number of centuries whether or not it receives any accretions in the shape of new sculptures or inscriptions. Such was the case with the Sārnāth centre, where there have been found enough of Gupta sculptures and epigraphic records to show that both were in flourishing condition in the Gupta epoch. The difficulty arises in regard to the Mathurā or the Bharhut centre. But as no excavations have been undertaken at these places, we cannot definitely say that Buddhism was in decadence at these places. This receives confirmation, e.g., from an inscription discovered a few years ago by the late Rai Bahadur Dayaram Sahni which we have adverted to above.² It refers itself to the reign of Mahārāja Dēvaputra Kaṇishka and specifies the date 84, and not 14 as taken by Sahni.³ The characters are almost exactly the same as those of the
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¹ Catalogue of the Museum of Archaeology at Sarnath (1914), p. 19.
² Ep. Ind., Vol. XIX, pp. 96 ff.
³ [Lüders and some other scholars read this date as 14 only. cf. Mathurā Inscriptions, ed. by Janert, p. 116; Sel. Ins., 1965, p. 518.—Ed.]