Indian Antiquary Vol 59

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 74

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(APRIL 1930
Telugu literature is still more recent, the earliest work dating from XII A.D., and the "Golden Age" is that of Krishna Raya of Vijayanagar at the opening of XVI A.D.
4. Religion. The religious evolution of India may be resolved into five periods of florescence and deoay. The periods overlap, and through each run various "streams of tendency " which freely blend and branch.
A. The "Nature Worship" of the Rig Veda petered out in the sacerdotalism of the Brahmanas somewhere about 600 B.C. It was replaced by
B. The Pantheistic Philosophy of the Upanishads which elaborated (1) the so-called "Brahman-Atman" (World Soul) metaphysics and (2) the doctrine of Transmigration, the foundation on which Buddhism and Jainism built.
Tho Period 600-300 B.C. Covers both the formative period of these two religions and also the period of their systemization in the form of condensed aphorisms (Suttas, Sútras), affected alike by Buddhists, Jains and Brahmans. By the close of this period the greater part of the Buddhist and Jain canons was probably in being.
C. The Period 300-1 B.C. opens with the adoption of Buddhism as the state religion of Asoka. The Mauryan collapse is associated with a movement, partly reactionary and partly new, which in the succeeding period saturated and undermined Indian Buddhism.
Of this "Proto-Classical" movement the dominant motifs are (1) Theism and (2) Incarnation. The evolution of the Mahabharata is typical. This Epic, scholars say, is the product of eight or ten centuries or more of "editing." Three main strata are traced-(1) the Bharata Lays, (2) the Pandu Epic, (3) the Didactic Epic. The lays are perhaps pre-historic, the Pandu Epic is assignable roughly to the Kshatriya Period, the Didactic to the ProtoClassical. In the lays Krishna is human, in the Pandu Epic a Demi-God, in the Didactic "All-God." The Ramayana has a parallel development. Rama begins as a man and ends as an incarnation of Vishnu.!
But this is only one aspect of the bewildering syncretism of cults and philosophies, old and new, that characterizes the age. As to dates, the Middle Epic " may, perhaps, be assigned to the Period 300--1 B.C., as in it the Greeks are much in evidence, and the final redactions to the Period 1-300 B.C. (or a little later) when, under the Kushans, Buddhism, affected by prevailing fashion, evolved a pantheon of its own. By the end of the period transition was completed, the main Sects and Philosophies of Hinduism were in being.
The Gupta Period is secular in tone; spiritually it is a time of decadence ; sectarianism elaborates itself in the Puranas and towards the end of the period Buddhism and Hinduism are corrupted by Tantric influence.
D. The next movement, the gospel of Bhakti (Devotion) comes from the South. To the Period 650-1000 A.D., as alreads stated, belong the sacred canons of the Tamil Saivas and Vaishnavas (Alvars).
On the philosophic side Kumarila in Bihar (c. 700-750) and Sankara in Travancore "remade" the ancient Brahmanism, 13 dealing thereby a deadly blow to waning Buddhism. The phase 1000-1200 A.D. is one of decline. In N. India the Pala Dynasty, last stronghold of Buddhism, was undermined by the militant Hinduism of the rival Sens, and with the Chori conquest Buddhism vanished. In the Deccan Jainism, the state religion of Chalukyas and Rashtrakutas, was dethroned by a double reformation, (1) that of Ramanuja who developed and improved on the tradition of the Alvars, and (2) the so-called Lingayat revolt 19 E. W. Hopkins. Great Epic, p. 398.
19 Hopkins, Religions of India, 437.