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The Guptas - Part 2
3.0 Life in the Gupta Age
3.1 System of administration
In a sharp contrast to the Mauryan kings, the Gupta kings adopted pompous titles such as parameshvara maharajadhiraja and paramabhattaraka which signify that they ruled over lesser kings in their Empire. Kingship was hereditary, but royal power was limited by the absence of a firm practice of primogeniture. The throne did not always go to the eldest son. This created uncertainties, of which the chiefs and high officials could take advantage.
The Guptas made munificent gifts to the brahmanas, who expressed their gratitude by comparing the king to different gods. He was looked upon as Vishnu, the protector and preserver.
The numerical strength of the Gupta army is not known. Evidently the king maintained a standing army, which was supplemented by the forces occasionally supplied by the feudatories. Chariots receded into the background, and cavalry came to the forefront. Horse archery became prominent in military tactics.
In the Gupta period land taxes increased taxes on trade and commerce decreased. Historians suggest that the king collected taxes varying from one-fourth to one-sixth of the produce. In addition to this, whenever the royal army passed through the countryside the local people had to feed it. The peasants had to supply animals, foodgrains, furniture, etc. for the maintenance of royal officers on duty in the rural areas. In central and Western India the villagers were also subjected to forced labour called vishti for serving the royal army and officials.
The judicial system of the Guptas was far more developed than in the earlier times. Several law books were compiled in this period. For the first time civil and criminal law were clearly defined and demarcated. Theft and adultery came under criminal law. Disputes regarding various types of property came under civil law. Elaborate laws were laid down about inheritance. Like earlier times, many laws continued to be based on differences in varnas. It was the duty of the king to uphold the law. The king tried cases with the help of brahmana priests. The guilds of artisans, merchants and others were governed by their own laws. Seals from Vaishali and from Bhita near Allahabad indicate that these guilds flourished exceedingly well in Gupta times.
The Gupta bureaucracy was a very simple system. The most important officers in the Gupta Empire were the kumaramatyas. They were appointed by the king in the home provinces and possibly paid in cash. Since the Guptas were possibly vaishyas, recruitment was not confined to the upper Varnas only. But several offices came to be combined in the hands of the same person, and posts became hereditary. This ultimately contributed to the weakening of the royal control.
The Guptas organized a system of provincial and local administration. The Empire was divided into divisions (bhuktis), and each bhukti was placed under the charge of an uparika. The bhuktis were divided into districts (vishayas), which were placed under the charge of vishyapati. In eastern India, the vishayas were divided into vithis, which again were divided into villages.
The village headman became more important in Gupta times. He managed the village affairs with the assistance of elders. With the administration of a village or a small town leading local elements were associated. No land transactions could be effected without their consent.
In the urban administration, organised professional bodies were given considerable share. The seals from Vaishali show that artisans, merchants and scribes served on the same corporate body, and in this capacity they obviously conducted the affairs of the towns. The administrative board of the district of Kotivarsha in North Bengal (Bangladesh) included his chief merchant, the chief trader and the chief artisan. Their consent to land transactions was considered necessary.
This period also gave rise to the concept of guilds. Artisans and bankers were organized into their own separate guilds. We hear of numerous guilds of artisans, traders, etc. at Bhita and Vaishali. At Mandasor in Malwa and at Indore silk-weavers maintained their own guilds. In the district of Bulandshahar in Western Uttar Pradesh oil-pressers had their own guilds. It seems that these guilds, especially those of merchants, enjoyed certain immunities. In any case they could look after the affairs of their own members and punished those who violated the customs and law of the guild. The chambers of commerce and the business associations we find today are modern day versions of this guild system.
This system of administration was prevalent only in places which were administered directly by the officials of the Guptas. The part of the Empire was held by feudatory chiefs, many of whom had been subjugated by Samudragupta had a different system of administration.
The vassals who lived on the fringe of the Empire had to carry out three obligations. They offered homage to the sovereign by personal attendance at his court, paid tribute to him and presented to him daughters in marriage. It seems that in return for these they obtained charters for ruling in the areas. The charters marked with the royal Garuda seal seem to have been issued to the vassals. The Guptas thus had several tributary princes in Madhya Pradesh and elsewhere. The subordinate position of the princes turned them into feudal vassals.
The second important feudal development that surfaced under the Guptas was the grant of fiscal and administrative concessions to priests and administrators. Started in the Deccan by the Satavahanas, the practice became a regular affair in Gupta times, particularly in Madhya Pradesh. Religious functionaries were granted land, free of tax for ever, and they were authorised to collect from the peasants all the taxes which could have otherwise gone to the emperor. The villages granted to the beneficiaries could not be entered by royal agents, retainers, etc. The beneficiaries were also empowered to punish the criminals.
The mode of payment to the state officials is not clear. Abundance of gold coins would suggest that higher officials continued to be paid in cash, but some of them may have been remunerated by land grants.
Since much of the imperial administration was managed by feudatories and beneficiaries, the Gupta rulers did not require as many officials as the Mauryas did. They did not require too many officers also because, unlike the Maurya state, the Gupta state did not regulate economic activities on any big scale. The Guptas did not posses the elaborate administrative machinery of Maurya times, and their political system appears to be feudal.
3.2 Trends in trade and agrarian economy
We get some idea of the economic life of the people of Gupta times from Fa-hien, who visited different parts of the Gupta Empire. Among other things, he informs us that Magadha was full of cities and its rich people supported Buddhism and gave charities.
In Ancient India, the Guptas issued the largest number of gold coins, which were called dinaras in their inscriptioris. Regular in size and weight, they appear in many types, and sub-types. They vividly portray Gupta kings, indicating the latter's love for war and art. Although in gold content these coins are not as pure as Kushan ones, they not only served to pay the officers in the army and administration but also to meet the needs of the sale and purchase of land. After the conquest of Gujarat, the Guptas issued a good number of silver coins mainly for local exchange, in which silver occupied an important position under the Western Kshatrapas. In contrast to those of the Kushans, the Gupta coppers are very few. This would suggest that the use of money did not touch the common people so much as it did under the Kushans.
The economy of the Gupta era continued to have agriculture as an important part but there was significant progress in industry and trade in the earlier period. The guilds that existed in the Mauryan period continued their work and remained centres of organization and were allowed to operate almost free from government control. They were major contributors in the manufactured goods industry. The guilds together formed a corporation of guilds which made a set of laws which all guilds were supposed to follow, and these laws were even respected by the government. Guilds also formed smaller corporations which were made of a particular types of guilds, for instance there were corporations of silk weaver guilds. Such corporations had tremendous resources at their disposal and were involved in various large scale projects like temples. An interesting development was that the Buddhist Church (the sangha) was very rich and participated in commercial activities. It often acted as a banker providing various services like lending money on interest. It was also involved in renting land, an extremely profitable proposition since they received significant grants of land from the kings. The rates of interest for money varied depending on the intended use of the money. Borrowing money for sea trade was no longer as expensive as it was under the Mauryan period indicating an increased confidence in this sector. There was no restriction by the government and the rate of interest could exceed the prevailing levels provided it was agreeable to both parties. It was not however permitted for the interest to exceed the principal. The free availability of money at reasonable rates was a positive factor for industry and significant activity took place in this period.
One of the most important industries in the Gupta period was the textile industry. In addition to domestic demand, Indian textiles were sought after in many parts of the world. Silk, muslin, calico, linen, wool and cotton textiles were the major ones being produced. Other important industries of the period were ivory work, stone cutting and carving, metal work especially in metals like gold, silver, copper, iron, lead and bronze. Pearls were a flourishing industry and there seems to have been many fisheries which catered to the vast demand, with pearls commanding high prices in foreign markets. There was also a lot of work going on in the processing of precious stones like jasper, agate, carnelian, quartz, lapis-lazuli amongst many others. These were also exported to foreign countries. Pottery continued to remain an important industry with various qualities and styles being developed.
Goods were able to move easily throughout the country. Pack animals and ox carts were used to transport goods by road. Sea travel had developed significantly by this period and Indian ships were regularly moving around the Arabian sea, the China seas and the Indian Ocean. There is even evidence of trade with parts of East Africa.
However compared to the earlier period we notice a decline in long-distance trade possibly due to the rteducing importance of the Gupta empire which during this time was plagued with invasions. Till A.D. 550 India carried on some trade with the Eastern Roman Empire, to which it exported silk. Around A.D. 550 the people of the Eastern Roman Empire learnt from the Chinese the art of growing silk, which adversely affected the export trade of India. Even before the middle of the sixth century A.D. the demand for Indian silk abroad had slackened. In the middle of the fifth century a guild of silkweavers left their original home in Western India and migrated to Mandasor, where they gave up their original occupation and took to other professions.
The striking development of the Gupta period, especially in Madhya Pradesh, was the emergence of priestly landlords at the cost of local peasants. Land grants made to the priests certainly brought many virgin areas under cultivation. But these beneficiaries were imposed from above on the local tribal peasants, who were reduced to a lower status. In central and Western India the peasants were also subjected to forced labour. On the other hand a good deal of virgin land was brought under cultivation, and better knowledge of agriculture seems to have been introduced by the brahmana beneficiaries in the tribal areas of central India.
3.3 Social developments
Land grants to the brahmanas on a large scale suggest that the brahmana supremacy continued in Gupta times. The Guptas who were originally vaishyas came to be looked upon as kshatriyas by the brahmanas. The brahmanas presented the Gupta kings as possessing the attributes of gods. All this helped to legitimise the position of the Gupta princes, who became great supporters of the brahmanical order. The brahmanas accumulated wealth on account of numerous land grants. So they claimed many privileges, which are listed in the law book of Narada, a work of about the fifth century A.D.
The castes proliferated into numerous sub-castes as a result of two factors. A large number of foreigners had been assimilated into the Indian society, and each group of foreigners was considered a kind of Hindu caste. Since the foreigners mainly came as conquerors they were given the status of the kshatriya in society. The Hunas, who appeared in India towards the close of the fifth century, ultimately came to be recognized as one of the thirty-six clans of the Rajputs. Even now some Rajputs bear the title Huns. The other reason for the increase in the number of castes was the absorption of many tribal peoples into brahmanical society through the process of land grants. The tribal chiefs were given a respectable origin. But most of their ordinary kinsmen were given a low origin, and every tribe became a kind of caste in its new incarnation. This process continued in some ways until present times.
The position of shudras improved in this period. They were now permitted to listen to the epics and the Puranas. They could also worship a new god called Krishna. They were also allowed to perform certain domestic rites which naturally brought fee to the priests. All this can be attributed to a change in the economic status of the shudras. From the seventh century onwards they were mainly represented as agriculturists; in the earlier period they always appeared as servants, slaves and agricultural labourers working for the three higher Varnas.
But during this period the untouchables increased in number, especially the chandalas. The chandalas appeared in society as early as the fifth century B.C. By the fifth century A.D. their number had become so enormous and their disabilities so glaring that it attracted the attention of the Chinese pilgrim Fa-hsen. He informs us that the chandalas lived outside the village and dealt in meat and flesh. Whenever they entered the town the upper caste people kept themselves at a distance from them because the road was supposed to have been polluted by them.
In the Gupta period, like the shudras, women were also allowed to listen to the epics and the Puranas, and advised to worship Krishna. But women of higher orders did not have access to independent sources of livelihood in Pre-Gupta and Gupta times. The fact that women of the two lower Varnas were free to earn their livelihood gave them considerable freedom, which was denied to women of the upper Varnas. It was argued that the vaishya and shudra women take to agricultural operations and domestic services and hence they are outside the control of their husbands. In contrast, by Gupta times members of the higher orders came to acquire more and more land which made them more polygamous and more property-minded. In a patriarchal setup they began to treat women as an item of property, so much so that she was expected to follow her husband to the next world. The first example of the immolation of widow after the death of her husband appears in Gupta times in A.D. 510. However, some post-Gupta law-books held that a woman can remarry if her husband is dead, destroyed, impotent, has become a renouncer or has been excommunicated.
The main reason for the subordination of women belonging to the upper Varnas was their complete dependence on men for their livelihood. They lacked proprietory Rights. However, the gifts of jewellery, ornaments, garments and similar other presents made to the bride on the occasion of her marriage were considered her property. Gupta and post-Gupta law-books substantially enlarged the scope of these gifts. According to them presents received by the bride not only from her parents side but also from the side of her parents-in-law at marriage time and on other occasions formed the stridhana. Katyayana, a law-giver of the sixth century, holds that she could sell and mortgage her immovable property along with her stridhana. This clearly implies that women received shares in landed property according to this law-giver, but generally a daughter was not allowed to inherit landed property in the patriarchal communities of India.
3.4 Art
The Gupta period is called the Golden Age of Ancient India. This may not be true in the economic field because several towns in North India declined during this period. But the Guptas possessed a large amount of gold, whatever might be its source, and they issued the largest number of gold coins. Princes and richer people could divert a part of their income for the support of those who, were engaged in art and literature. Both Samudragupta and Chandragupta II were patrons of art and literature. Samudragupta is represented on his coins playing the lute (vina), and Chandragupta II is credited with maintaining in his court nine luminaries or great scholars.
In Ancient India art was mostly inspired by religion. Survivals of non-religious art from Ancient India are few. Buddhism gave great impetus to art in Maurya and post-Maurya times. It led to the creation of massive stone pillars, cutting of beautiful caves and raising of high stupas or relic towers. The stupas appeared as dome-like structures on round bases mainly of stone. Numerous images of the Buddha were sculpted.
In the Gupta period we find an over two metre high bronze image of the Buddha, which was recovered from Sultanganj near Bhagalpur. Fa-hien saw an over 25 metre high image of the Buddha made of copper, but it is not traceable now. In the Gupta period beautiful images of the Buddha were fashioned at Sarnath and Mathura. But the greatest specimen of Buddhist art in Gupta times is provided by the Ajanta paintings. Although these paintings covered the period from the first to the seventh century A.D., most of them belong to Gupta times. They depict various events in the life of Gautama Buddha and the previous Buddhas. These paintings are life-like and natural and the brilliance of their colours has not faded even after fourteen centuries. However, there is nothing to show that the Guptas were the patrons of the Ajanta paintings.
Since the Guptas were supporters of Brahmanism, for the first time we get in the Gupta period images of Vishnu, Shiva and some other Hindu gods. At many places we get a whole pantheon in which the chief god appears in the middle and his retainers and subordinates surround him on the panel. The leading god is represented as large in size, but his retainers and subordinate gods are drawn on a smaller scale. This depiction also represents a clear social discrimination and hierarchy.
3.5 Literature
One of the most remarkable features of the Gupta period is the production of secular literature. To this period belong thirteen plays written by Bhasa. The Mrichchhakatika or the Little Clay Cart written by Shudraka, which deals with the love affair of a rich merchant with the beautiful daughter of a courtesan, is considered one of the best works of Ancient drama.
But what has made the Gupta period really famous is the work of Kalidasa. Kalidasa wrote Abhijanashakuntalam which is considered to be one of the best hundred literary works in the world. It tells us about the love story of King Dushyanta and Shakuntala, whose son Bharata appears as a famous ruler.
Kalidasa had penned down three plays. Among them, `Abhijnanasakuntalam` ("The Recognition of Shakuntala") is universally regarded as the masterpiece. It was among the first Sanskrit works to be translated into English and has subsequently been translated into several other foreign languages. Kalidasa`s other plays include - Malavikagnimitra ("Malavika and Agnimitra") and Vikramorvasiya ("Pertaining to Vikrama and Urvashi").
Abhijnanasakuntalam of Kalidasa, Indian Litterateur Abhijnanasakuntalam ("The Recognition of Shakuntala") speaks about the story of King Dushyanta. While in a hunting trip, he met Shakuntala, the adopted daughter of a sage and was tied in nuptial ties. However, a misfortune befell them when he is called upon to court: Shakuntala, pregnant with their child, unknowingly outrages a visiting sage and invites a curse, by which Dushyanta would forget her entirely until he encounters the ring he had left with her. On her trip to Dushyanta`s court in an advanced stage of pregnancy, as an act of blunder, she misplaces the ring and has to come away dejected and unrecognised. The ring is discovered by a fisherman who recognises the royal seal and returns it to Dushyanta. He retrieves his memory of Shakuntala and sets forth to find her. After more exertions and travails, they are finally reunited.
Malavikagnimitra ("Malavika and Agnimitra") speaks about the story of King Agnimitra, who falls in love with the picture of a deported servant girl named Malavika. When the queen chances upon her husband`s ardour for this girl, she turns maddened and has Malavika incarcerated. However, with twists of fate and luck, Malavika turns out to be a trueborn princess, thus legalising the affair.
Vikramorvasiya ("Pertaining to Vikrama and Urvashi") speaks about the story of mortal King Pururavas and ethereal nymph Urvashi, who fall in love. As an immortal, she has to return to the heavens, where an untoward accident causes her to be hurled back to the earth as a mortal. Urvashi is also cursed that she will die (and hence return to heaven) the instant her lover sets his eyes on the child whom she will bear him. After a sequence of misadventures, including Urvashi`s transient transformation into a vine, the curse is lifted and the lovers are granted to remain together on the earth.
The Shakuntalam was one of the earliest Indian works to be translated into European languages, the other work being the Bhagavadgita. Two things can be noted about the plays produced in India in the Gupta period. First these are all comedies. We do not come across any tragedies. Secondly, characters of the higher and lower classes do not speak the same language; women and shudras featuring in these plays use Prakrit.
During this period we also notice an increase in the production of religious literature. Most works of the period had a strong religious bias. The two great epics, namely the Ramayana and the Mahabharata were almost completed by the fourth century A.D.
The Gupta period also saw the great developments in Sanskrit grammar due to the efforts of the noted grammarian Panini This period is particularly memorable for the compilation of the Amarakosha by Amarasimha, who was a luminary in the court of Chandragupta ll. This lexicon is learnt by heart by students taught Sanskrit in the traditional fashion. Overall the Gupta period was a bright phase in the history of classical literature. It developed an ornate style which was different from the old simple Sanskrit. From this period onwards we find greater emphasis on verse than on prose. We also come across a few commentaries. Sanskrit was undoubtedly the court language of the Guptas. Although we get a good deal of brahmanical religious literature the period also produced some of the earliest pieces of secular literature.
3.6 Science and technology
In the field of mathematics we come across during this period a work called Aryabhatiya written by Aryabhata, who belonged to Pataliputra. It seems that this mathematician was well versed in various kinds of calculations. A Gupta inscription of 448 from Allahabad district suggests that the decimal system was known in India at the beginning of the fifth century A.D. In the field of astronomy a book called Romaka Sidhanta was compiled. It was influenced by Greek ideas, as can be inferred from its name.
The Gupta craftsmen distinguished themselves by their work in iron and bronze. We know of several bronze images of the Buddha, which began to be produced on a considerable scale because of the knowledge of advanced metal technology. In the case of iron objects the best example is the iron pillar found at Mehrauli in Delhi. Manufactured in the fourth century A.D., the pillar has not gathered any rust in the subsequent 15 centuries, which is a great tribute to the technological skill of the craftsmen. It was inot possible to produce such a pillar in any iron foundry in the west until about a century ago. It is a pity that the later craftsmen could not develop this knowledge further.
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