The History of Antiquity, Vol. 4 (of 6)

In the sutras of the Buddhists we have already seen that the Arian life and civilisation extended in the first half of the sixth century from the Panjab to the mouth of the Ganges, and also that the north-western spurs of the Vindhyas, no less than the coast of Guzerat (Surashtra) were occupied by Arian states. The ancient inhabitants of these regions, the Bhillas and Kolas (Kulis), occupied here the same contemptible and degraded position which the Chandalas occupied on the Ganges. In the course of the sixth and in the fifth century B.C. the colonisation and conquests of the Arian Indians made even more important advances. The southern regions of the Deccan were appropriated, and the island of Ceylon conquered. It has been observed that at an early time a trade existed by sea between the land of the Indus and the Malabar coast; in this way alone could the sandal-wood, which flourishes nowhere but this coast, have reached the mouth of the Indus as early as 1000 B.C. (p. 15). The tradition of the Brahmans assigns the colonisation of the Malabar coast, not of the northern part only, but even of Kerala, in the south, to the twelfth century B.C. We shall be more secure if we assume that the Arian settlements were not pushed further to the south till Arian states arose on the coast of Surashtra. The first settlements on the west coast are said to have been founded by Brahmans: an expedition of Brahmans is said to have reached far to the south, and to have founded settlements there; to have converted the inhabitants to Brahmanism, and in this way to have founded the kingdom of Kerala (on the sources of the Kaveri).489 On the eastern shore of the Deccan the Arian civilisation passed from the mouths of the Ganges to the south. We do not know in what manner the Odras, who dwelt in the valley and on the mouths of the Mahanadi, were gained over by the Brahmans. In the book of the law they are reckoned among the degenerate warriors.490 But in this region the change to the Arian life must have been very complete; there are no remains of an older language in the dialect of Orissa. The language exhibits the stamp of Sanskrit, and the Brahmanic system was afterwards carried out even more strictly here than in the valley of the Ganges. Even on the Coromandel coast the southern parts are said to have been colonised earlier than the centre. The first Arian settlers are said to have landed on the island of Rameçvara, which lies off the mouth of the Vaigaru, in the sixth century B.C., and then to have passed over to the mainland, which was occupied by the tribes of the Tamilas, to have eradicated the forests, and cultivated the land.491 One of these settlers, Pandya by name, is said to have obtained the dominion, and to have given his name to the land, Sampanna-Pandya, i. e. the fortunate Pandya; one of the successors of this Pandya built a palace further up the Vaigaru, and called the new city Mathura. From this name we may conclude that at least a part of the settlers who colonised the south coast of the Deccan sprang from the banks of the Yamuna, and named the new habitation after the sacred city of the ancient fatherland, just as the name of the ruling family points to the Pandus, the ancient dynasty, which for four generations after Buddha, i. e. down to the time of Kalaçoka, ruled over the Bharatas between the Yamuna and the upper Ganges.

Hither also, to the distant south of the Deccan, the Arian settlers brought the system of castes and the Brahmanic arrangements of the state, which were carried out with greater strictness, as is invariably the case when an arrangement already developed into a complete and close system is authoritatively applied to new conditions. The immigrants were Brahmans and Kshatriyas; they took possession of considerable portions of land. The ancient inhabitants, who did not adapt themselves to the Brahmanic law, occupied on the south of the Coromandel coast, where the Tamil language is spoken, as the colonies spread, a position even worse than the Chandalas on the Ganges; even to this day, under the name of Pariahs, they are more utterly despised, more harshly oppressed, than the Chandalas. Even now the Brahman is allowed without penalty to strike down the Pariah who has the impudence to enter his house;492 and contact of a member of the higher castes with a Pariah involves the expulsion of the person thus rendered impure.

The books of the Singhalese, the oldest, and consequently the most trustworthy, among all the historical sources of India, preserve the following tradition about the arrival of the Arians on the island of Ceylon. Vijaya was the son of the king of Sinhapura (lion city) in Surashtra.493 As the king was guilty of many violent actions, the nation required him to put his son to death. The king instead placed him on board a ship with seven hundred companions, and the ship was sent to sea. These exiles called themselves Sinhalas, i. e. lions, after their home, the lion city. The ship arrived at the island of Lanka. Vijaya with his comrades overcame the original inhabitants, who are described as strong beings (Yakshas); on the western coast of the island, at the place where his ship touched the shore, he founded the city of Tamraparni, and named the island, which now belonged to the victorious lions of Surashtra, Sinhaladvipa, i. e. lion island. But Vijaya and his companions had been banished from home without wives, and they would not mingle their pure blood with the bad on the island. So he sent to the opposite coast of the mainland, to Mathura on the Vaigaru, where Pandava was king at that time, and besought his daughter in marriage, and Pandava gave him his daughter with seven hundred other women for his companions, and he in return sent to his father-in-law each year 200,000 mussels and pearls. The marriage of Vijaya was childless, and when he felt himself near his end, he sent to his brother Sumitra, who meanwhile had succeeded his father on the throne of Sinhapura, to come to Lanka, in order to govern the new kingdom. Sumitra preferred to keep his ancestral throne, but sent his youngest son, Panduvançadeva, who reigned over the island for 30 years, and founded the new metropolis of Anuradhapura in the interior of the island. Pandukabhya, the second successor of Panduvançadeva, arranged the constitution of the kingdom. He set up a Brahman as high priest, and had the boundaries of the villages measured. When enlarging the metropolis, he caused dwellings to be erected for the Brahmans, before the city, as the law requires, and made a place for corpses, and near it built a special village for the impure persons who tend the dead. Settlements were also erected for the penitents. The immigrants formed the castes of the Brahmans and the Kshatriyas; the original inhabitants, who submitted to the Brahman law, formed the castes of the Vaiçyas and Çudras; a special caste, the Paravas, we find, at any rate at a later time, entrusted with the pearl fisheries. But Pandukabhya is said not to have confined himself to the Arians in conferring offices; tradition expressly informs us that chiefs of the ancient inhabitants received prominent posts in the new constitution.494

We should deceive ourselves if we found in this tradition a credible and certain narrative of the colonisation of Ceylon. The name of the discoverer Vijaya, means victory and conquest; that of his successor, Panduvançadeva, means god of the race of Pandu. In this tradition we can only maintain the fact that the first settlers came from the west of India, the coast of Guzerat; that a family from this region, which claimed descent from the celebrated Pandu, acquired the dominion over the island (the Greeks are acquainted with a kingdom of Pandus on the peninsula of Guzerat, and the kingdom of Pandæa on the southern apex of India); that the settlers in Ceylon entered into combination with the older colony on the south coast of the Deccan, and, in contrast to these, their fellow-tribesmen, formed a friendly relation with the whole of the ancient inhabitants. Nor can we repose absolute faith in the tradition of the Singhalese, which places the arrival of the first settlers in the year 543 B.C. This year, which is the year of Buddha's death, is obviously chosen because Ceylon from the middle of the third century B.C. was a chief seat of Buddhism, and continued to be so when their doctrine had been repressed and annihilated by the Brahmans in the land of the Ganges, and on the whole mainland of India. Down to the period of the introduction of Buddhism into Ceylon, and even for fully a hundred years afterwards, the chronology of Singhalese authorities abounds with impossibilities, contradictions, and demonstrable mistakes.495 We must therefore content ourselves with the assumption that the first Arian immigrants landed in Ceylon about the year 500 B.C.

Though the life, manners, and religion of the Indians became firmly rooted on both coasts of the Deccan, and beyond it, the centre of the peninsula remained for the time untouched by Arian colonisation. Here the wild pathless ranges of the Vindhyas opposed insuperable obstacles to the advance of the Arian colonisation from the north, running as they do right across the middle of the land from sea to sea. Thus even to this day the tribes of the black Gondas (p. 9) inhabit the almost inaccessible valleys and gorges of the broad mountain region, in their original barbarism, with their old language and old worship of the earth-god, to whom the tribes bordering on Orissa offered human sacrifice even in our times. Among other tribes on the Narmada, the custom which Herodotus ascribes to certain Indian tribes (p. 19) is still in use: they slay old and weak members of the family, and eat them.496 On the other hand, Brahmanic manners and civilisation penetrated gradually from the Coromandel coast to the Godavari, the Krishna, the Palaru, and the Kaveri. Supported by the arms and weight of the increasing power of Magadha, the influence of the Arian nation became powerful enough to subjugate the Kalingas, the Telingas, and the Tamilas, to the religious doctrine and life of the Brahmans. Yet even here the Telingas and the Tamilas, like the Karnatas, the Tuluvas, and the Malabars on the western side, maintained their languages, though transformed, it is true, and intermingled with Sanskrit. The southern apex of the Deccan has remained entirely untouched by Arian colonisation. The sunken plateau, running from the western Ghats to the east coast, which fills up the entire peninsula of the Deccan, here ends in a lofty group of mountains, the Niligiris (Neelgherries), i. e. the blue mountains. Through a deep depression filled with marsh and jungle, which is limited and intersected to the north, this mountain-range rises far above the plateau to a height of 6-8000 feet. The proximity of the equator, combined with the cooling influence of the surrounding ocean, assures at such an elevation the clearest sky, an eternal spring, and a completely European vegetation, in the midst of which a handsome and vigorous race of men, the Tudas, still live and flourish in complete isolation.

The settlements on the coast of the Deccan and on the island of Ceylon must have given a new impulse to the trade of India. The pearls, which are found only on the north-west coast and in the straits of Ceylon, on the numerous coral-banks of that region – the book of the law quotes them, together with coral, among the most important articles of trade of which the merchant ought to know the price – were not only an ordinary ornament at the courts of Indian princes in the fourth century B.C., but were even brought to the West about this period. The companions of Alexander of Macedon tell us that the Persians and Medes weighed pearls with gold, and valued pearl ornaments more than gold ornaments. Onesicritus, the pilot of Alexander, tells us that the island of Taprobane (Tamraparni) was 15,000 stades in the circuit; that there were many elephants there, which were the bravest and strongest in India, and amphibious animals, some like cows, others like horses. Taprobane was twenty days' journey from the southern shore of India in the main sea; but the ships of the Indians sailed badly, for they were ill built and without decks.497 Megasthenes tells us that Taprobane is richer in gold and pearls even than India. The pearl oysters, which lay close together, were brought up out of the sea with nets; the fleshy part was thrown away, but the bones of the animals were the pearls, and the price was three times as much as the price of gold.498

The death of the Enlightened had not checked the adoption of his doctrine in the land of the Ganges. The legend, mentioned above, of the contest of princes, nations, and families on the middle Ganges for the relics of Buddha, may have owed its origin to the worship of relics, which became current among the Buddhists some considerable time after their master's death. On the other hand, the further narrative, that after Buddha's death, a number of his disciples met to establish the main doctrines of their master, cannot be brought into doubt. As has been already remarked, Buddha is said to have commanded his disciples to collect his doctrines after his death. Obedient to this injunction, Kaçyapa, to whom Buddha formerly gave up the half of his possessions and whom he clothed with his mendicant's garb, caused five hundred believers (Sthavira) in the Enlightened to be gathered together. Ajataçatru of Magadha had caused a special hall to be built for their discussions at Rajagriha, at the entrance of the Niagrodha cave. Here the assembly charged Upali (p. 358) with the duty of drawing up the prescripts of the discipline (vinaya), "the soul of the law," of which Buddha had declared Upali to have the best knowledge. Ananda was to collect the law (dharma). i. e. the words of the master; he knew them all by heart. Kaçyapa was to undertake the philosophical system (abhidharma); and each was to place his collection before the assembly for criticism and approval. These works are said to have occupied seven months.499

In the doctrine of Buddha a comparatively simple meaning prevailed, which by its contrast to the fancifulness of the Brahmans must have excited the desire to collect and retain what was in existence. Moreover, the faith and conduct of the Buddhists had their starting-points and centre so eminently in the life, example, and doctrine of the master, that a meeting of disciples at the very moment when their living centre was lost appears thoroughly probable. The need of possessing the pure and entire doctrine of the master for support and guidance, now that he was present in person no more, must have been very deeply felt. But the tradition is obviously wrong in ascribing to the earliest council the compilation of the entire canon of the Buddhist scriptures as they were known at a later period, in the three divisions of discipline, commands, and speculation. This assembly could do no more than collect the speeches, doctrine, and rules of the master from memory, and establish a correct copy of them by mutual control. It is the words and commands, the sutras of Buddha, which were established and collected at this meeting. Unfortunately we do not possess them in their oldest and simplest form, since at a later time the occasion and situation and place at which the master had spoken this or that sentence, had uttered this or that doctrine, were added to the words of Buddha. But in part at least it is possible to distinguish the old simple nucleus from these additions.500

Buddha had imparted to all who wished to tread the path of liberation, who undertook vows of poverty and chastity, the initiation of the Bhikshu, i. e. of the mendicant, of the Çramana, i. e. the ascetic, the priest of his new religion. These Çramanas he had recommended to withdraw themselves from the world, and live after his own example in solitary meditation on the four truths: pain, the origin of pain, the annihilation of pain, and the way which leads to this. But his eremites were not to live the life of the eremite continuously any more than himself. Even the mere fact that they had to make a livelihood by begging excluded any long-continued isolation and settled residence; and along with renunciation Buddha's doctrine taught sympathy and help to all creatures. This sympathy the Bhikshus were to carry out in act; more especially they were bound to impart to the brethren who received initiation and to the people the healing truths, which had disclosed themselves to their meditation, in the same way as Buddha had done. According to the command of the master, they might not, like the Brahman penitents, spend the rainy season in the forest; they must pass it together in protected places, in caves, villages or cities, at friendly houses: in this season they must mutually instruct each other and confess their sins. Complete isolation of the initiated would have been opposed to the whole tendency of the doctrine and the pattern of the master. The Bhikshus, who came from various circles of life, and different castes, and had abandoned the hereditary and customary law of the castes, could not but feel the need of assuring themselves mutually of the new law now governing their life, of observing and developing it in common. The adherents, and above all the representatives, of any new doctrine always feel it incumbent on them to keep alive and nourish the sense of their fellowship and mutual support as against existing authority. These motives early led to a monastic life among the adherents of Buddha who had received the initiation of the mendicant, and wished to advance to complete liberation from regeneration. The places of refuge and shelter in which they passed the rainy season were regularly visited. There they resided; but in the finer season of the year they left them in order to beg in the country and to preach, or to meditate in the forest; and at the beginning of the rains (which in the Buddhist calendar extended from the full moon of July to the full moon of November) they again returned to the accustomed shelter. These retreats were partly rocky caves, partly detached buildings, of which a hall of assembly (vihara) must form part.

At the time when king Kalaçoka sat on the throne of Magadha (453 B.C. -425 B.C.) the initiated in a monastery in the city of Vaiçali are said not to have strictly kept the rules and commands of the Enlightened, and to have abandoned the correct mode of conduct. They permitted themselves to sit on carpets, to drink intoxicating liquors, and to receive gold and precious things as alms. Relying on the protection of king Kalaçoka, they disregarded the exhortations of pious men. To put an end to this scandal, Revata, who surpassed all the Buddhists in the depth of his knowledge and the purity of his conduct, warned, as it is said, by a dream, declared himself against these deviations, and summoned a great council of Bhikshus to Vaiçali. With the usual exaggeration of the Indians the legends maintain that more than a million of the initiated met together. Revata chose four of the wisest Sthaviras of the west and four of the east, and with these he retired into the Balukarama-Vihara, a sequestered monastery at Vaiçali, in order to ascertain whether the conduct of the monastery could be maintained in the face of the teaching of Buddha or not. The result of the investigation was, that the teaching of Buddha did not permit such proceedings, and that the monastery must be expelled from the community of the faithful. In order to establish this decision, to revise the discipline, and "maintain the good law," seven hundred initiated were selected from the great assembly and met in the Vihara under the presidency of Sarvakami. This more limited council is said to have ordered the exclusion of 10,000 ecclesiastics of Vaiçali as heterodox and sinners from the community of the believers in Buddha, and to have established the general rule that everything which agreed with the prescripts of the ethics and spirit of the doctrine of Buddha, must be recognised as legal, whether it dates from an ancient period or comes into existence in the future; all that contradicts this, even though already in existence, is to be rejected.

Whatever be the case with the separate facts in this tradition, we may regard it as certain that when the first assembly of Sthaviras after Buddha's death had collected his sayings, this second council undertook the first statement in detail of the rules of discipline (vinaya). The council was held one hundred and ten years after the death of the Enlightened, in the year 433 B.C., in Vaiçali, i. e. in the territory of Magadha, and consequently under the protection of king Kalaçoka; their labours are said to have lasted eight months.501 Owing to the protection which Kalaçoka extended to Buddhism he is called among the Brahmans, Kakavarna, i. e. Raven-black.502

Kalaçoka was succeeded on the throne of Magadha by his sons Bhadrasena, Nandivardhana, and Pinjamakha.503 Pinjamakha, according to the statements of the Buddhists, was deposed by a robber of the name of Nanda. The band to which Nanda belonged is said to have attacked and plundered villages after Kalaçoka's time. When the chief was killed in an attack, Nanda became the leader, and set before his companions a higher aim in the acquisition of the throne. Strengthened by reinforcements, he formed an army, conquered a city, and there caused himself to be proclaimed king. Advancing further, and favoured by success, he finally took Palibothra, and with the city he gained the kingdom. This Nanda, who ascended the throne of Magadha in the year 403 B.C., is called by the Brahmans Ugrasena, i. e. leader of the terrible army, or Mahapadmapati, i. e. lord of the innumerable army, and they maintain that he was the son of the last king of Kalaçoka's tribe, who had begotten him with a Çudra woman.504 This statement and the epithets quoted at any rate confirm the usurpation and the fact that it was accomplished by force.

Nanda's successors did not maintain themselves on the throne of Magadha beyond the middle of the fourth century. We are without definite information about their achievements, and can only conclude from the renown of the kingdom at this time, that the supreme power which Magadha had acquired in the land of the Ganges, under Ajataçatru and Kalaçoka, was not lost under their dominion; and from the confusion in the statements of the Buddhists about this dynasty we may gather that they favoured the Brahmans. The last genuine Nanda was Daçasiddhika. He was deposed and murdered by the paramour of his wife, Sunanda, a barber, who is sometimes called Indradatta, and sometimes Kaivarta after his despised caste. Indradatta bequeathed the crown thus obtained to his son, whom the Buddhists called Dhanananda, i. e. the rich Nanda, or Dhanapala, i. e. the rich ruler, and the Brahmans Hiranyagupta, i. e. the man protected by gold. His reign lasted from the year 340 B.C. to 315 B.C., and he is said to have amassed great treasures. Western writers called this king Xandrames or Agrames, and his kingdom the kingdom of the Prasians, i. e. of the Prachyas (the Easterns) or the Gangarides. They tell that Xandrames was of such a low and contemptible origin that he was said to be the son of a barber. But his father had been a man of extraordinary beauty, and by this means had won the heart of the queen, who by craft killed her husband, the king. In this way the father of Xandrames acquired the throne of the Prasians, and he bequeathed it to his son, who nevertheless was detested and despised for his low origin and his wickedness. At the same time the Greeks tell us that Xandrames could put into the field an army of 200,000 foot soldiers, 20,000 horses, 4000 elephants, and more than 2000 chariots of war; others raise the number of the horse to 80,000, of the elephants to 6000, and put the chariots at 8000.505 From these statements of the Greeks and what they tell us elsewhere of the kingdom of the Prasians or Gangarides, the western border of which is the Yamuna, it follows that neither the change in the dynasty owing to the accession of the first Nanda, nor the usurpation of Indradatta, interrupted the rise of the power of Magadha, which had begun under Ajataçatru, and attained greater dimensions under Kalaçoka. Not the army only but the gold of Dhanapala-Xandrames, the son of Indradatta, is evidence of the splendour and extent of the kingdom, which must have comprised the whole valley of the Ganges to the east of the Yamuna.