2. SOURCES AND INSPIRATIONS:
ESOTERIC BUDDHISM IN SOUTH ASIA
Ronald M. DavidsonThe development of mature tantric Buddhism was the consequence
of a number of factors, some internal to the Buddhist communities in
South Asia and some not. The greatest single factor was the extraor-
dinary change in the sociopolitical dynamic of South Asia following
the collapse of the Gupta-Vākātaka hegemony in the first half of the ̣
sixth century, completed by 550 C.E. This precipitated a number of
events, all of which were to have profound consequences for Buddhist
institutions. Heretofore subordinate, South India became a source of
political and military power, precipitating invidious raids against the
north for the next several centuries. At the same time, North Indian
polities divided into smaller units, and newly formed regional powers
in the tribal or rural areas of North and Central India developed into
formidable forces. With these events, the larger metropolitan centers
in the Gangetic Valley experienced population loss, as the economies
of the region collapsed and the guild system came apart (Davidson
2002a).
Consequently, the ability of tribal clans and rural confederations to
govern effectively for the first time was in great part due to the relo-
cation of people from the great culture-bearing urban centers along
the Ganges River. Whether seeking security from the southern raiders
or seeking opportunity after the collapse of the Gupta-Vākātaka eco-̣
nomic base, brahmans and artisans, merchants and politicians began
to infuse the new regional polities of North India with their skills and
their learning. In the process, however, the indigenous values of the
new royal families from rural or tribal areas become intermittently
enshrined in rituals and aesthetics that are only partially Sanskritized,
with both the learned and the less informed attempting to achieve
status or dominion through strategies of literature, ritual, art, archi-
tecture, and the martial aspects of court culture.
This process has too often been considered indicative of a period
of degeneration, but such views are historiographically contradicted
by the fact that much of the best of Sanskrit and Prakrit philosophy,