Although it was becoming evident in the time of the Guptas that a change was creeping over the religious belief of India, it was not then that the blow was struck which eventually proved fatal, but by a dynasty which succeeded them in Central India. Being Hindus, we know less that is authentic about their history than about the Buddhist dynasties, who lived to inscribe their names on rocks and in caves; but there seems very little doubt that the great Vicramaditya reigned in Malwa from 495 to 530, though the Hindus, in order to connect his name with an era they thought fit to establish 56 years B.C., have done all they can to mystify and obscure the chronology of the period. Notwithstanding this, it seems perfectly clear that about this time there reigned in central India a king who, by his liberality and magnificence, acquired a renown among the Hindus, only second to that obtained by Solomon among the Jews. By his patronage of literature and his encouragement of art, his fame spread over the length and breadth of the land, and to this day his name is quoted as the symbol of all that is great and magnificent in India. What is more to our present purpose, he was an undoubted patron of the Brahmanical religion, a worshipper of Siva and Vishnu, and no tradition associates his name directly or indirectly with anything connected with Buddhism. Unfortunately we have no buildings which can be attributed to him, and no inscriptions. But the main fact of a Brahmanical king reigning and acquiring such influence in Central India at that time is only too significant of the declining position of the Buddhist religion at that period.
His successor, Siladitya, seems to have returned to the old faith, and during his long reign of sixty years to have adhered to the Buddhist doctrines.
In the beginning of the next century, after a short period of anarchy, we find a second Siladitya seated on the throne of Canouge as lord paramount in India, and, during a prosperous reign of thirty-eight to forty years, exercising supreme sway in that country. It was during his reign that the Chinese pilgrim, Hiouen Thsang visited India, and gave a much more full and graphic account of what he saw than his predecessor Fa Hian. Nothing can be more characteristic of the state of religious feeling, and the spirit of toleration then prevailing, than the fête given by this king at Allahabad in the year 643, at which the kings of Ballabhi and Kamarupa (Assam) were present. The king being himself a Buddhist, the first days were devoted to the distribution, among the followers of that religion, of the treasures accumulated during the previous five years, but then came the turn of the Brahmans, who were treated with equal honour and liberality; then followed the fête of the other sects, among whom the Jains appear conspicuous. All were feasted and fêted, and sent away laden with gifts and mementos of the magnificence and liberality of the great king.
Pleasant as this picture is to look upon, it is evident that such a state of affairs could hardly be stable, and it was in vain to expect that peace could long be maintained between a rising and ambitious sect, and one which was fast sinking into decay; apparently beneath the load of an overgrown priesthood. Accordingly we find that ten years after the death of Siladitya troubles supervened as prophesied,[21] and the curtain soon descends on the great drama of the history of northern India, not to be raised again for nearly three centuries. It is true, we can still follow the history of the Ballabhis for some little time longer, and it would be satisfactory if we could fix the date of their destruction with precision, as it was the event which in the Hindu mind is considered the closing act of the drama. If it was destroyed by a foreign enemy, it must have been by the Moslem, either before or during the time Mohammed Kasim, A.H. 712, 713. It was a flourishing city in 640, when visited by Hiouen Thsang, and from that time, till the death of Kasim, the Moslems were in such power on the Indus, and their historians tell us the events of these years in such detail, that no other foreigner could have crossed the river during that period. If it perished by some internal revolution of convulsion, which is more probable, it only shared the fate that overtook all northern India about this period. Strange to say, even the Moslems, then in the plenitude of their power during the Khalifat of Bagdad, retired from their Indian conquests, as if the seething cauldron were too hot for even them to exist within its limits.
The more southern dynasty of the Chalukyas of Kalyan seem to have retained their power down to about 750, and may, up to that time, have exercised a partial sway to the north of the Nerbudda, but after that we lose all sight of them; while, as a closing act in the great drama, the Raja Tarangini represents the King of Kashmir—Lalitaditya—as conquering India from north to south, and subjecting all the five kingdoms, into which it was nominally divided, to his imperious sway.
We need not stop now to inquire whether this was exactly what happened or not. It is sufficient for present purposes to know that about the middle of the 8th century a dark cloud settled over the north of India, and that during the next two centuries she was torn to pieces by internal troubles, which have left nothing but negative evidence of their existence. During that period no event took place of which we have any record; no dynasty rose to sufficient distinction to be quoted even in the lists of the bard; no illustrious name appears whose acts have been recorded; no buildings were erected of which we have a trace;[22] and but few inscriptions engraved. Dark night seems to have settled over the land, and whether we shall ever be able to penetrate into its mysteries seems more than doubtful.
When light again appears in the middle of the 10th century the scene is wonderfully changed. Buddhism had practically disappeared in the north and west at least, though it still lingered on in Bengal, and Jainism had supplanted it in most places; but the mass of the people had become followers of Vishnu or Siva. New dynasties had arisen which, though they try to trace their lineage back to the troublous times when Ballabhi fell, were new to Indian history. Old India had passed away, and the history of modern India was about to open. The old dynasties had become extinct, and the Rajput races were gaily stepping forward to assume their places—too soon, alas! to be engaged in a life or death struggle with the most implacable foe to their race and religion that India has ever known. It was a cruel Nemesis that their victories over the Buddhists should soon have been followed by the fatal siege at Somnath in 1024, and the fight on the banks of the Ghaghar in 1193, which practically laid India at the feet of the Moslem invader, and changed the whole course of her subsequent career. But, as hinted above, with the appearance of the Moslem on the scene, our chronological difficulties cease, and the subject need not therefore be further pursued in this introduction.
IMMIGRATIONS.
From the above brief sketch of ancient Indian history it may be gathered that it is doubtful whether we shall ever be able to clothe with solid flesh the skeleton of history which is all we possess anterior to the advent of Buddha. It is also possible that pious frauds may have so confused the sequence of events between his death and the rise of the Mauryas, that there will be great difficulty in restoring that period to anything like completeness. But for the thousand years that elapsed between “the revenge of Chanakya” and the fall of Ballabhi the materials are ample, and when sufficient industry is applied to their elucidation there is little doubt that the whole may be made clear and intelligible. It does not fall within the scope of this work to attempt such a task; but it is necessary to endeavour to make its outlines clear, as, without this being done, what follows will be utterly unintelligible; while, at the same time, one of the principal objects of this work is to point out how the architecture, which is one important branch of the evidence, may be brought to bear on the subject.
No direct evidence, however, derived only from events that occurred in India itself, would suffice to make the phenomena of her history clear, without taking into account the successive migrations of tribes and peoples who, in all ages, so far as we know, poured across the Indus from the westward to occupy her fertile plains.