North Indian Inscriptions

RELIGIOUS HISTORY

Incarnation or Re-birth. Buddha had several incarnations or re-births when he was Bōdhisattva and before he became the Buddha. The Jātaka literature bears ample testimony to this fact. Gautama is called Bōdhisattva up to the time when he attained enlightenment, that is, when he became Buddha, not only in his last earthly existence, but in all the countless existences which the experienced as man, animal or god, before he was re-born for the last time as a Śākya prince. Now, Jātaka means a ‘birth’; and there were many populardidactic tales which were deeply rooted in the soul of the Indian people, and the hero or the wise man in the story was in every case identified with the Bōdhisattva or Buddha in his previous birth, with the result that the popular tales were sublimated into Jātakas. Another non-Aryan faith is Vaishṇavism which grew in the environments of Buddhism and Jainism. It is well-known that the ninth incarnation of Vishṇu was Buddha. This was known to the Bengali poet-saint, Jayadēva, who further admits that Buddha condemned the Vedic scriptures relating to sacrifices of animals and broadcast the doctrine of kāruṇya or compassion. In the Bhāgavata-Purāṇa¹ no less than twenty-two incarnations of Vishṇu have been specified, of whom the first was Ṛishabha, son of Nābhi and Mērudēvī,² doubtless the first Tīrthaṁkara of the Jainas. This clearly shows that Vaishṇavism, to begin with, was a non-Aryan religion which was akin to Buddhism and Jainism and which had adopted the Doctrine of Incarnation.

       It will be seen that two syncretising forces were working side by side. One was belief in the Oneness of the Ultimate Spirit; and the other, the Doctrine of Incarnation. The effect of these unifying principles was marvellous. There was a confused tangled mass of Aryan and non- Aryan, Indian and non-Indian, gods and goddesses, said to be numbering thirty-three crores. They were now, in the Gupta period, placed under three categories. Of the gods, some were considered to be forms or incarnations of Vishṇu, and some of Śiva. And all the goddesses were regarded as forms or incarnations of Dēvī, Māṭri or Ambikā. Let us take up Vishṇu first. The following are his names that are met with in Gupta inscriptions : Ananta-svāmin,³ Bhagavat (No. 12 below, line 6), Chakrabhṛit (No. 28 below, line 27), Chakragadādhara,⁴ Chakrapāṇi,⁵ Chakrasvāmin,⁶ Garuḍakētu (No. 39 below, line 2), Gōvinda (No. 28 below, line 25), Gōvindasvāmin,⁷ Indrānuja (No. 41 below, line 1), Janārdana (No. 39 below, line 9), Madhusūdana,⁸ Nārāyaṇa,⁹ Purusha (No. 14 below, line 1), Śārṅgin (No. 31 below, line 17) and Vāsudēva.¹⁰

       The Vishṇu of the Gupta period is Vedic Vishṇu, Purusha-Nārāyaṇa, Vāsudēva-Kṛishṇa and Gōpāla-Kṛishṇa rolled into one. Let us first turn to inscription No. 14 below which is the most important document in this connection, and consider the first verse of the record. It runs thus:

.............................Sahasra-śirasē tasmai Purushāy=āmit-ātmanē [/*]
.............................chatus-samudra-paryyaṅka-tōya-Nidrālavē namaḥ [//*]

       â€œObeisance to that Thousand-Headed Purusha (Supreme Being) whose soul is boundless and who is Sleepy on the waters of the bed-like four oceans.” The very first quarter of this verse reminds us of the Purusha-sūkta of the Ṛig-Vēda (X. 90), which opens with sahasra-śrīshā Purushaḥ. The second half of the verse reminds us of Manu (I. 10), where we are told: “The waters are
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¹ I-3-5 to 25.
² Ibid., V. 3. 20.
³ CII., Vol. III, 1888, No. 66, text line 2.
⁴ Ibid., No. 17, text line 26.
⁵ Ibid., Vol. V, No. 7, text line 12.
⁶ Ep., Ind., Vol. XII, pp. 317 ff.
⁷ Ibid., Vol. XXI, pp. 81 ff., text line 4.
⁸ CII., Vol. III, 1888, No. 17, text line 21.
⁹ Ibid., No. 36, text line 7.
¹⁰ Ibid., No. 25, text line 1.