Buddhism in India

Buddhist Civilisation 125

the end of the first millennium BCE with the adoption of the

Bhagwata cult (Vaishnavism) and the absorption of the Shaiva

cult (known for a long time as the ‘Pashupatis’) while the

Dharmasastras (for example, Manusmritiand Arthashastra) were

‘manifestos’^3 for the type of society Brahmanism sought to bring

into being. But Brahmanism was not the determining force in

Indian society. For a millennium after the time of Buddha, his

Dhamma remained the major determinant of Indian civilisation,

though in conflict throughout with the varnashrama dharmaof a

developing Brahmanism which it opposed. Buddhism was able

to create a flourishing art and architecture, and to temper the

individualism of the commercial, open-class society with concern

for others and a disciplined life, and thus fostered a dynamic,

economically growing and open society.

Caste and History

But what of caste? As the sociologist G. Aloysius reminds us, it

has to be considered non-deterministically and in its historical–

geographical context:

First of all, varna-caste is primarily recognised as one kind of social

formation in a single type of eco-zone—the riverine valleys of the sub-

continent. Second, even here, the social formation in the primary

Ganga-valley was not only bifurcated but of mutually antagonistic

nature [the state forms and the gana-sanghas]; in other words the very

origin of caste-varna in the subcontinent was tension-ridden and

contained the seeds of its own negation, flagging off the very real

possibility of historical development along either course—caste or

non/anti-caste. Third, the apparent submergence and collapse of the

relatively secular-flexible stratification of the gana-sanghas under the

pressure of monarchy and its rigid-religious varna hierarchy was not

a matter...of natural or internal evolution, but a result of historical

confrontation and the vanquishing of one social formation by the

other, after much contestation and resistance....Fourth, the ritually-

legitimated varna hierarchy...in its movement of conquest and encom-

passment had become merely a cognitive ideal, with its actualisation

The name Kasyapa Matanga indicates an association both with
Kashmir, for long a center of Buddhism, and with the semi-legendary
Candala hero Matanga.
The Guptas (c. 320–547 CE) are considered to be one of the
major dynasties of ancient India, ranking along with the Mauryas
(Keay 2001: xxii–xxiii, 129–54). Kosambi, though, mocks the
treatment of the Gupta era as the ‘classical age’ of ancient India,
noting there was little memory of them even in Brahmanical
records; rather, their importance was a creation of nationalist
historians looking for an unambiguous force of early ‘Hindu’ glory
to counter British denigration: ‘Far from the Guptas reviving
nationalism, it was nationalism that revived the Guptas’ (Kosambi
1975: 313). Though they promoted Brahmanism, including the
revival of sacrifice, the Guptas were themselves considered low by
Brahmanic texts. Their first emperor was proud to have married a
Licchavi princess though the Licchavis by that time were considered
worse than Shudras by the Brahmans; and they patronised
Buddhism as well. The great stupa and carvings at Sanchi, archi-
tecturally more important than any Hindu temple of the period,
were completed under their rule. Clearly Buddhism remained
strong within their realm. As the Chinese travellers’ accounts show,
with Harsha in the early 7th century, a king could again be char-
acterised as Buddhist, though he issued coins depicting Shiva as
well as the Buddha.
This survey indicates that the early, classical age of India was as
much, if not more, a Buddhist era as a ‘Hindu’ era. The widespread
tendency among Indian historians to carry forward the old British
division of ‘Hindu India, Muslim India and British India’ into a
‘ancient, feudal and modern’ period, still takes for granted that
‘ancient India’ is basically ‘Hindu India’. This has to be rejected.
Similarly, the idea that ‘Hinduism’ is the oldest religion of India
and perhaps of the world, with a 5000 year old history, originating
in the Vedic period and undergoing development and modification
up to the present, is wrong. The framework within which
Buddhism and Jainism are both treated as reactions to a Hinduism/
Brahmanism which maintains essential features throughout (so
that even a sensitive historian like Romila Thapar can refer to the
tradition linking itself with the Vedas as ‘orthodoxy’ while the
other, shramanic traditions are ‘heterodoxy’) has to be rejected.
Ancient India was Buddhist India. ‘Hinduism’ had its beginnings at

124 Buddhism in India

(^3) I owe this felicitous term to Dhanaji Gurav (personal communication, 18 August
2001).