The Idea of India – 2

Gupta Era Gold Coin 

Continued from Idea of India - 1

The Golden Age

After the Mauryan Empire fell to the vagaries of time, weak successors and rise of feudal overlords, India found itself divided by a chaotic medley of regional satraps. Rise of Brahmanical rulers also saw Buddhism, which under Ashoka had spread to the Greco-Bactrian ruled states of Central Asia, to Sri Lanka and Indian Ocean islands in the south and Burma in the east, slowly losing influence in the land of its birth.

For a while, this slide towards feudal chaos was stemmed by the rise of a new Indian Imperial dynasty – Guptas who ruled over the Indo-Gangetic plain between 320- 550 A.D. A strong unitary empire which promoted trade, the arts, science, medicine, astronomy and scholarship in general, gave rise to what later historians have described as a `Golden Age’, helping weld better, people still divided by fault-lines of caste, creed, language towards “Indianness”.

It was never truly a political pan-Indian empire of the kind that the Mauryans were able to establish. However, this empire of the North was in some ways even better in carrying forward the idea of India by influencing not only those within its boundaries but also the smaller though powerful kingdoms of the Deccan as well as lands far away to the East. Exporting abroad India’s thoughts, culture and religions and projecting to these countries, the idea of an India, which for many in South East Asia became a role model.

Sometime soon after Christ died, one of his apostles, St Thomas, was said to have landed in Southern India, probably in a spice trading Dhow, to spread the word of Jesus. Islam, was another religion not born in the sub-continent, borne again by spice traders who travelled across the Indian Ocean with the Monsoon winds, to the Malabar shores. Christianity and Islam preached an egalitarian society different from the caste ridden  Hindu four-fold’, created by religious and social orthodoxy which abandoned the Early Vedic principle that caste would determined by a man’s choice of profession  and instead turned into a rigid, divisive hereditary status in society.  Both found roots in South India, and were in turn `Indianised’ with adherents bringing in Indian traditions into the rituals surrounding the new faiths. 

Even before Thomas, Jews, had been visiting India as traders and some had settled down as refugees and émigrés. Followers of another religion, Zorastrianism, fled Iran after their faith was banished there in the 10^th century A.D.  Both Zoroastrianism and  Judaism were not proselytising religions, but their adherents rapidly Indianised, adopting Indian customs, dress and languages, over the centuries.

To come back to the Guptas, repeated invasions by Huns, who were plundering almost every civilisation in Europe and Asia, near bankruptcy from a rash of military campaigns coupled with fiscal profligacy saw the empire crumble and replaced again by a feudal order of regional satraps who constantly jostled for influence and power among each other. Trade suffered, scholarship was constricted, yet `Indianness’ flourished as people moved long distances to survive the turbulent times, carrying with them unitary cross currents amidst rising regionalism. Bengal was ruled by Sena rulers, who claimed descent from military adventurers from the Karnatic. `Gaud’ (Bengali) Brahmins travelled to dominate parts of North India, Kannauji (from Kannauj in modern Uttar Pradesh) Brahmins and Kayasthas travelled east to dominate Bengal’s society, Rajputs travelled long distances to grace courts in Bihar and Orissa, to give a few examples of intra-Indian migrations which despite the divisiveness of the times, helped promote unitary tendencies in Indian culture and society.  

Reform movements within the main religion of the country – Hinduism – also tended to be pan-Indian, carrying with it not only religious messages but also `One India’ stories. The Adi Shankaracharya  (788-822 A.D) from Kalady in modern Kerala, travelled the length and breadth of India to not only take his theological message but also to unite people culturally.  This man, often called the St Thomas Aquinas of Indian thought, unified two seemingly different disparate philosophical doctrines – Atman and Brahman, and through a brilliant debating tour of the country unified warring sects within the Hindu-fold and re-established the Vedic foundations of the religion.

But that was perhaps not his biggest contribution to India - The four Mathas he set up in four parts of the sub-continent brought rare socio-cultural unity at a time when the land was riven by feudal overlords at constant war with each other, bent on creating sub-nationalism. His disciples ran these mathas and took the message of `One India’ to Himalayan principalities in the north, through a Matha at Joshimath in Garwhal, in the rich western coast through a Matha at Dwarka in Gujarat, to the eastern kingdoms through a Matha at Puri and to the powerful South through a  Matha at Sringeri in the Karnataka.

After this: Idea of India-3 ; Idea of India-4 ; Idea of India-5
Before: Idea of India