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The Post Maurya Period - Part 2
7.0 Religious Developments
Some of the foreign rulers were converted to Vaishnavism, which means the worship of Vishnu, the god of protection and preservation. The Greek ambassador called Heliodorus set up a pillar in honour of Vishnu near Vidisa (headquarters of Vidisa district) in Madhya Pradesh around the middle of the second century B.C.
A few other rulers adopted Buddhism. The famous Greek ruler Menander became a Buddhist. The questions and the answers that he exchanged with the Buddhist teacher Nagasena, also called Nagarjuna, constitute a good source for the intellectual history of the post-Maurya period. The Kushan rulers worshipped both Shiva and the Buddha, and the images of these two gods appeared on the Kushan coins. Several Kushan rulers were worshippers of Vishnu. This was certainly the case with the Kushan ruler Vasudeva, whose very name is a synonym for Krishna, who was worshipped as an incarnation of Vishnu.
7.1 The origin of Mahayana Buddhism
Indian religions underwent changes in post Maurya times partly due to a big leap in trade and artisanal activity and partly due to the large influx of people from Central Asia. Buddhism was especially affected. The monks and nuns could not afford to lose the cash donations from the growing body of traders and artisans concentrated in towns. Large numbers of coins have been found in the monastic areas of Nagarjunakonda in Andhra Pradesh. Further, the Buddhists welcomed foreigners who were non-vegetarians. All this meant laxity in the day-to-day living of the nuns and monks who led a sparse life. They now accepted gold and silver, took to nonvegetarian food and wore elaborate robes. Discipline became so slack that some renunciates even deserted the religious order or the Sangha and resumed the householder's life. This new form of Buddhism caine to be called the Mahayana or the Great Wheel. In the old puritan Buddhism certain things associated with the Buddha were worshipped as his symbols. These were replaced with his images with the opening of the Christian era. Image worship in Buddhism seems to have led to this practice in Brahmanism on a large scale. With the rise of the Mahayana, the old puritan school of Buddhism came to be known as the Hinayana or the Lesser Wheel.
Fortunately for the Mahayana, Kanishka became its great patron. He convened a council in Kashmir. The members of the council composed 3,00,000 words, which thoroughly explained the three pitakas or collections of Buddhist literature. Kanishka got these commentaries engraved on sheets ol red copper, enclosed them in a stone receptacle and raised a stupa over it. If this tradition is correct, the discovery of the stupa with its copper inscriptions could shed new light on Buddhist texts and teachings. Kanishka set up many other stupas to perpetuate the memory of the Buddha.
7.2 Gandhara and Mathura schools of art
The foreign princes became enthusiastic patrons of Indian art and literature, and they showed the zeal characteristic of new converts. The Kushan Empire brought together masons and other artisans trained in different schools and countries. This gave rise to several schools of art: Central Asian. Gandhara and Mathura. Pieces of sculpture from Central Asia show synthesis of both local and Indian elements under the influence of Buddhism.
Indian craftsmen came into contact with the Central Asians, Greeks and Romans, especially in the North-Western frontier of India in Gandhara. This gave rise to a new kind of art in which images of the Buddha were made in the Graeco-Roman style. The hair of the Buddha was fashioned in the Graeco-Roman style.
The influence of the Gandhara art also spread to Mathura although it was primarily a centre of indigenous art. Mathura produced beautiful images of the Buddha, but it is also famous for the headless erect statue of Kanishka whose name is inscribed on its lower part. It also produced several stone images of Vardhamana Mahavira. Its pre-Gupta sculpture and inscriptions ignore Krishna, although Mathura is considered his birthplace and scene of early life. The Mathura school of art flourished in the early centuries of the Christian era, and its products made of red sandstone are found even outside Mathura. At present the Mathura Museuw possesses the largest collection of sculptures of Kushan times in India.
During the same period we notice beautiful works of art at several places south of the Vindhyas. Beautiful Buddhist caves were constructed out of rocks in Maharashtra. In Andhra Pradesh, Nagarjunakonda and Amaravati became great centres of Buddhist art, and the stories connected with the Buddha came to be portrayed in numerous panels. The earliest panels dealing with Buddhism are found at Gaya, Sanchi and Bharhut and belong to the second century B.C. But we notice further development in sculpture in the early centuries of the Christian era.
8.0 Literature and Learning
The foreign princes patronized and cultivated Sanskrit literature. The earliest specimen of kavya style is found in the inscription of Rudradaman in Kathiawar in about A.D. 150. From now onwards inscriptions began to be composed in chaste Sanskrit, although the use of Prakrit in composing inscriptions continued till the fourth century A.D., and even later.
It seems that some of the great creative writers such as Ashvaghosha enjoyed the patronage of the Kushans. Ashvaghosha wrote the Buddhacharita, which is a biography of the Buddha. He also composed the Saundarananda, which is a fine example of Sanskrit kavya.
The progress of Mahayana Buddhism led to the composition of numerous avadanas. Most of these texts were composed, in what is known as the Buddhist-Hybrid Sanskrit. Their singular objective was to preach the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism to the people. Some of the important books of this genre were the Mahavastu and the Divyavadana.
The Greeks contributed to the development of the Indian theatre by introducing the use of the curtain. Since the curtain was borrowed from the Greeks it came to be known as yavanika. This word was derived from the term yavana, which was a sanskritized form of Ionian, a branch of the Greeks known to the Ancient Indians. At a later stage the term yavana came to be used for all kinds of foreigners.
The best example of secular literature appears in the Kamasutra of Vatsyayana. Attributed to the third century A.D., it is the earliest work on erotics dealing with sex and love-making. It gives us a picture of the life of a city-bred person or nagaraka who lived in a period of thriving urbanism.
9.0 Science and Technology
In post-Maurya times Indian astronomy and astrology profited from contact with the Greeks. We notice many Greek terms about the movement of planets in Sanskrit texts. Indian astrology came to be influenced by Greek ideas, and from the Greek term horoscope was derived the term horasastra used for astrology in Sanskrit. The Greek coins, which were properly shaped and stamped, were a great improvement on punch-marked coins. The Greek term drachma came to be known as drama. In return the Greek rulers used the Brahmi script and represented some Indian motifs on their coins. Dogs, cattle, spices and ivory pieces were exported by the Greeks, but whether they learnt any craft from India is not clear.
However, the Indians did not owe anything striking to the Greeks in medicine botany and chemistry. These three subjects were dealt with by Charaka and Sushruta. The Charakasamhita contains names of numerous plants and herbs from which drugs are to be prepared for the use of patients. The processes laid down for the pounding and mixing of the plants give us an insight into the developed knowledge of chemistry in Ancient India. For the cure of ailments the Ancient Indian physician relied chiefly on plants, for which the Sanskrit word is oshadhi, and as a result medicine itself came to be known as aushadhi.
In the field of technology also the Indians seem to have benefited from contact with the Central Asians. Kanishka is represented as wearing trousers and long boots. Possibly the practice of making leather shoes began in India during this period. In any case the Kushan copper coins in India were imitations of the Roman coins. Similarly gold coins in India were struck by the Kushans in imitation of Roman gold coins. We hear of two embassies being exchanged between the Indian kings and the Roman kings. Embassies were sent from India to the court of the Roman emperor Augustus in A.D. 27-28 and also to the Roman emperor Trajan in A.D. 110-20. Thus, the contacts of Rome with Ancient India may have introduced new practices in technology. Working in glass during this period was especially influenced by foreign ideas and practices. In no other period in Ancient India did glass-making make such progress as it did during this period.
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