BY
W. H. MORELAND, C.S.I., C.I.E.
AND
ATUL CHANDRA CHATTERJEE
G.C.I.E., K. C.S.I.
In the present state of our knowledge, the story of the empire of Kanauj stands out as an episode, which lasted for less than half a century and ended in confusion. Our information regarding it is drawn mainly from two sources, one the work of an Indian poet, the other of a Chinese pilgrim. The Harshacharita of the poet Bāna purports to relate the life of Harsha, the Emperor. It has sometimes been described as an historical romance, and it undoubtedly contains a romantic element, while its laudatory tenor, together with its abrupt termination, forbids its acceptance as a complete biography; but there is a solid basis of fact, verifiable from other sources, which can be extracted from the extravagant eulogies and artificial rhetoric of the poet. Hard facts are more in evidence in the narrative of the pilgrim known as Yuan Chwang or Hiuen Tsang, who travelled in India from 630 to 644, visiting the Buddhist holy places, and collecting manuscripts; but, like his predecessor Fa-hien, his interests were confined almost entirely to his faith, and he left out many of the things we most wish to know, while the lack of precision in his topography renders it at times difficult to say exactly to what part of India his statements should be applied. When, however, these exceptional sources are employed along with the data fur- nished by coins and inscriptions, they make it possible to form a general idea of the life of northern India in the first half of the seventh century.
The empire arose out of the relations between three regions, Thanesar, Kanauj, and Malava. As we have said in the last chapter, Thanesar was the centre of an expanding kingdom, which comprised, at any rate, a substantial portion of the eastern Punjab. The city of Kanauj, the remains of which lie near the right bank of the Ganges, about 50 miles north-west of Cawnpore, was apparently a capital of the Maukhari dynasties, whose sway seems to have extended through Oudh and North Bihar as far as the west of Bengal. There is an extensive, but still inconclusive, literature regarding the situation of Malava, and all that can be said is that it is not the same as the modern Malwa, with its capital of Ujjain, but probably lay farther to the west, partly in Gujarat and partly in Rajputana. The boundaries separating these regions cannot be defined even approxi- mately, but from the course of events we must infer that they were contiguous.
In
the year .605 Prabhakara-vardhana, the King of Thanesar, died, leaving two sons
and one daughter who come into the story. The elder son, Rajya-vardhana,
succeeded to the throne, and just then news came that the daughter, Rājyasri, a
child of twelve or thirteen, was in serious trouble; young as she was, she had
been married to the ruler of Kanauj, but her husband had been attacked and
killed by the King of Malava, who was subjecting her to confinement and
ill-treatment. Rajya, already a soldier of some experi- ence, marched at once
on Kanauj, and defeated the Malava king, but was treacherously murdered at a
conference. He was succeeded by his brother Harsha-vardhana, a lad of about
sixteen, who in his turn marched promptly to rescue his sister, and punish the
murderer. On the way he met his brother's army, returning with the spoils of
victory, and learned that his sister had escaped from her captors and fled to
the jungles beyond the Jumna. Harsha turned his march in that direction, found
his sister in despair, and on the point of performing the rite of suttee,
dissuaded her, and brought her back, to be his constant companion during his
reign.
This
task having been accomplished, the young King decided on the conquest of India,
an enterprise in which he achieved considerable, but not complete, success. The
details of his campaigns are quite uncertain, and we can merely indicate the
results by defining the limits of his empire. Its northern boundary was the
Himalayas, and on the north-west it reached to the line of the Beas and Sutlej,
which perhaps represented the limit of his hereditary king- dom of Thanesar. To
the south-west it extended to Gujarāt, while on the south it was bounded by the
Narbada. It was at this point that Harsha received his most serious check, for
he attempted to invade southern India, but was defeated by Pulakesin II, the
Chalukya ruler, and apparently he did not renew the attempt. On the north-east
he ruled as far as the Brahmaputra, while his neighbour in that direction, the
King of Kamrup (Assam), was, at the least, a submissive ally; and further south
the empire touched the Bay of Bengal.1
The
desire of conquest seems eventually to have declined or been satiated, and in
his later years. Harsha devoted himself to the administration of his great
empire, to the promotion of religion and philanthropy, to the patronage of
literature, and, there is good reason to believe, to writing the plays and
poems traditionally attributed to him. He died about the year 647, and his
empire died with him, as will be related further on.
ADMINISTRATION
In accordance with the usual Indian practice, the empire consisted largely of subordinate kingdoms, the rulers of which on occasion attended in person at the Emperor's court; and its ultimate basis was a strong standing army. In one way Kanauj may be thought of as the capital, but Harsha made long and frequent progresses through his dominions, accompanied by the civil administration as well as by the army, and thus the actual capital was the place where he happened to be at the moment. We know the designations of a large number of the civil officials, but their powers and duties are for the most part a matter of guesswork, and all that can safely be said is that the administration was elaborate and highly organised, but that. it left the individual in greater freedom than was the case in China. The empire was not exempt from violent crime, and Yuan Chwang had a few unpleasant experiences, including an attack by river-pirates; but, judging from his narrative, the most dangerous part of India lay outside the empire, on the western side of the peninsula, where the jungles were in places 'infested by troops of murderous highwaymen,' or harried by banded robbers'; and his general conclusion was to the effect that the criminal class was small, Trials. were conducted by ordeal, while punishments, if more severe than under the Guptas, were still light when measured by Chinese standards. According to the same standards, taxation was not heavy, and forced labour was sparingly employed. The land-revenue was said to be one-sixth of the produce, but we cannot be certain whether this state- ment represents the facts of the time, or the traditional figure which the pilgrim had heard in the course of his enquiries; the only other taxes which he mentions are the transit dues paid on merchandise, and these also he con- sidered to be light.
Regarding
social conditions, Yuan Chwang depicts the higher castes as leading a simple
and frugal life, with great ceremonial cleanliness, while their chief
extravagance was in the matter of jewellery. The disreputable classes,
'butchers, fishermen, public performers, executioners and scavengers,' were
segregated, living outside the city, and avoiding contact with respectable
people. The walls of the cities were of brick, but houses were still built
mainly of wood or wattle, and either tiled or thatched. Of the lighter sides of
life the pilgrim naturally tells little or nothing, but the imaginative
literature of the period indicates, perhaps with some exaggeration, that the
Court at least was gay and festive, or even on occasion what would now be
called dissipated, and that in the north, as in the south, of India courtesans
played a conspicuous part in the revels. In ordinary times, however, we get the
impression of a cultured Court, with the ladies trained in singing, dancing and
paint- ing, and interested also in more serious matters.
The
religion of the Court was comprehensive. The royal family were traditionally
worshippers of Siva, but Harsha himself, while not discontinuing the patronage
of Brahmans, showed much devotion to Buddhism. At first he adhered to the
Hinayana, or 'Lesser Vehicle,' but under Yuan Chwang's influence he accepted
the doctrine of the Mahāyāna, and at a great assembly for religious discussion,
which he held in Kanauj in the year 643, the pilgrim was allowed to have
matters very much his own way. That the Emperor's views remained comprehensive,
however, is shown by the fact that from this assembly he went to Allahabad for
a quinquennial gathering at which, in accordance with custom, he distributed
his accumulated wealth among Buddhists, Brähmans, Jains, and various other
sects, as well as the poor in general. The ceremony is described by the pilgrim
in picturesque terms; everything was given away, except the necessaries for the
army, and at last the Emperor, having parted with his clothes, 'begged from his
sister an ordinary second-hand garment, and having put it on, paid worship';
but the account adds that the treasury was again filled within ten days of its
depletion.
The
Court, then, patronised all religions, though with a definite preference, at
this period, for the Mahāyāna form of Buddhism. As for the religion of the
people, the pilgrim's notes of his experiences make it possible to say that
Hinduism predominated throughout India as a whole; that Buddhism was most
prominent in the Punjab, Kanauj, Bihar, Bengal, Mahārāshtra and Gujarat; and
that signs of its decline were most obvious in the Punjab, Rajputana,
Allahabad, and Malwa in the North, and in the Pallava and Tamil country in the
South, the general result being one of decreasing vigour. Relations between the
competing reli- gions or sects were ordinarily harmonious, but there were
important exceptions. Controversy sometimes ran high between the two Buddhist
schools, as well as among the various sects into which the 'lesser', school was
divided; Brahmans objected strongly to the favour shown by the Emperor to
Buddhism; and the proceedings of the Kanauj assembly were marred by incidents
of a more serious nature.
RELIGION
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Some followers of the 'lesser' school conspired to murder Yuan Chwang, the
champion of Mahāyāna; certain Brāh- mans hired an assassin to murder the
Emperor; and it is clear that religious animosities ran high on the occasion.
Of
actual persecution there are two well-authenticated instances at about this
period, both of them outside the limits of Harsha's empire. Sasanka, the King
of Gaur, or Western Bengal, a zealous worshipper of Siva, attempted to
extirpate Buddhism from his dominions, desecrated the holy places, broke up the
monasteries, and drove the monks into exile. Later in the century the Jains in
the far south were persecuted by a Pandya king who had been converted from that
faith to the worship of Siva, and who, according to the traditional account,
which, however, is not universally accepted, impaled some thousands of martyrs on
their refusal to apostatise. Other incidents of the kind may possibly have
escaped record, but it is quite safe to infer from Yuan Chwang's narrative that
persecution was not a general practice in his time; the instances which have
survived must be taken merely as showing that extremes of bigotry were not
unknown in the seventh century of our era.
The
available authorities leave the impression that about this period there was a
widening gap between popular and learned Buddhism. The popular worship was approxi-
mating to the lower forms of Hinduism and developing in the direction of a
magical cult, relying largely on spells and charms; but some of the monasteries
were centres of serious and profound studies, and must have exercised a
definite influence on the general culture of the country. The most important
centre was Nalanda, a group of monasteries situated some distance south of
Patna. Here some thousands of monks studied and discussed doctrine and
philosophy; and foreign students were welcomed, provided they could pass the
severe preliminary test, which was apparently of the nature of an entrance
examination. The institution was not limited to a single school or sect; and
its studies comprised, in addition to the Buddhist texts, the old Vedic
literature, and the sciences and arts represented in Sanskrit works on logic,
grammar, medicine, and the like. Such institutions must have operated in the
direction of unifying the higher learning of the country as a whole, and at the
same time widening the gap between learned men and the cults followed by the
masses of the people.
Before
taking leave of Harsha's empire, a word of caution is perhaps desirable on one
point. Stress, has been laid on the culture which prevailed at his Court, as at
the Court of the Guptas two centuries or so before; but this does not imply
that the position was exceptional. We know but little of the facts, but all
that we know indicates that patro- nage of art and literature was a normal
feature of Hindu Courts, and was recognised as a duty comprised in the ideal of
kingship. It follows necessarily from the nature of the records we possess, of
the Hindu period taken as a whole that conquest and dominion stand out as the
most prominent elements in the kingly ideal, more prominent even than the
primary duty of protecting the subjects enjoined by the Sacred Law; but they
leave room for various other elements, such as the promotion of learning, art
and letters, and we know at least that many kings, though probably not all,
were in fact liberal patrons. The difference between them and a Harsha or a
Chandragupta was one of magnitude rather than of kind; and perhaps we may
describe the ideal king as a patient and laborious administrator, an expert and
chivalrous soldier, sincere in his religion, but tolerant of other creeds, a
sportsman, and a cultured gentleman accord- ing to the standards of the times.
In
northern India the kings to whom this description applies were ordinarily
Rajputs, but royalty was by no means confined to a single caste. From time to
time we meet with Brahman dynasties, founded in some instances by usurping
ministers of state; Harsha himself belonged to the Vaishya caste, the third of
the traditional groups; and kings of the fourth group, Südra, were not unknown.
Rāj- puts frequently, though not invariably, ruled in the more northerly parts
of the peninsula, but the Tamil kings be- longed to the principal land-tilling
caste of that part of India; and, speaking generally, kingship was not a
monopoly
FALL
OF THE EMPIRE
of Rajputs, while the kingly ideal was recognised by rulers of all castes alike. Of the end of Harsha's reign we know few details. The Emperor died in 646 or 647, leaving no heir. One of his ministers usurped the throne, and for whatever reason- attacked a Chinese diplomatic mission which had just arrived. The leader of the mission escaped to Tibet, at the time a powerful kingdom, obtained troops there, invaded Bihār, defeated the usurper, and carried him away to China as a prisoner. In these conditions the empire inevitably dissolved, and it is a curious fact that for a short period the northern portion of Bihar remained subject to the king of Tibet.
Reference
1 There is some doubt as to the position of the kingdom of Gaur in Bengal. At the beginning of the century it had been ruled by a King named Sasanka, who was in alliance with Malaya against Kanauj, and was probably responsible for the death of Rajya. Some years later, either in the lifetime of Sasanka or after his death, Bengal lost its inde- pendence, but it is uncertain whether the suzerainty over this region passed to Harsha or to the King of Assam.
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