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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
RELIGIOUS HISTORY character of the Śiva of the Gupta period has not been proved, Mahāsēna also cannot be taken to be a Brahmanical deity for this period. How Śiva, Vishṇu and Sūrya (Bhāskara) developed new characteristics and became entirely different from their prototypes in the Ṛigvedic period need not trouble us here. What we have to note here is that the mode of worship followed by the Aryans in the Ṛigvedic period was no longer observed in the Gupta epoch by the Indians. When the hymns of the Ṛig-Vēda were being composed, they prayed to Indra, Varuṇa, the Ādityas, the Aśvins, Apāṁ-napāt, Mātariśvan and so forth, who are no longer worshipped in the times of the Guptas. But the case was different in regard to the sacrifice performed by the Ṛigvedic Aryans. They celebrated many such sacrifices as the Aśvamēdha, the Rājasūya, the Agnyādhēya, the Anvārambaṇīya and so forth as ay critical student of the Brāhmaṇa literature can tell us. But, soon after the Brāhmaṇa period and owing to the rise and spread of Śramaṇa religions such as Buddhism, Jainism and so forth, these sacrifices had fallen into utter desuetude till they were revived with the rise of the Śuṅgas to political power. This point we had already expatiated upon. If anybody doubts the correctness of this conclusion, he has only to glance over the contents of the Nānāghāṭ cave inscriptions. A careful study of these records gives us the following information. Sātakarṇi was the supreme ruler of Dakshiṇāpatha (the Dekkan). His queen was Nāganikā. And it is worthy of note that although her husband was living, she appears to have performed on her own behalf no less than seventeen Vedic sacrifices of which the Aśvamēdha was one and that it was celebrated twice. Bühler wrongly supposes that “according to the Śāstras, women are not allowed to offer Śrauta sacrifices, and the Brāhmaṇas who perform such sacrifices for them (strī-yājaka) are severely blemed,”1 But anybody who impartially studies Jaimini-Sūtra, VI. 1.8 and ff. in the light of the Śabara-bhāshya will be convinced that men and women are entitled alike to perform Vedic sacrifices. So there was a revival of these sacrifices when the Śuṅgas came to power. And this revival was in full swing in the Gupta age and continued even till the eighth century A.D.
The point just referred to has already been established beyond all shadow of doubt. What we have to note here is that there was a heterogenous mass of Vedic and non-Vedic, Aryan and non-Aryan, gods and goddesses, numbering thirty-three crores as the popular estimate goes. Two unifying principles were at work. One was belief in the Oneness of the Ultimate Spirit; and the other, the Doctrine of Incarnation. For the first, the people of India were indebted to the Aryans. It is so beautifully enunciated in the Ṛik: .......................Indraṁ Mitraṁ Varuṇam=Agnim=āhur=athō “They call him Indra, Mitra, Varuṇa, Agni, and that celestial noble-winged Garutmān. Sages name variously that which is One: they call it Agni, Yama and Mātariśvan.” This is one of the grandest Ṛiks in the whole range of the Ṛigvedic hymns, whose syncretising potency is infinite. And, in fact, all the seemingly incoherent elements of the work-a-day Hinduism have been held together simply on account of the sublime notion: ēkaṁ sad=viprā bahudhā vadanti, “Sages name variously that which is but One’-a notion which has permeated all masses. It is this notion which has principally fused all the jarring faiths of India into Hinduism which at rock-bottom is faith in one Universal God.2 The non-Aryan faiths of India also contributed to this syncretisation under the theory of 1 ASWI., Vol. V, pp. 66-67.
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