Jain Journal 2005 04

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 15

174
JAIN JOURNAL: VOL-XXXIX, NO. 4 APRIL. 2005
In fact, the history of Bengal for over a period of a century since the death of the King Saśānka of Karņasuvarņa is itself an age of darkness. The period from the second half of the seventh century to the second half of the eighth century A.D. was an age of untold sufferings and miseries for the people of Bengal as they were the victims of “a series of foreign aggressions and successive changes of royal dynasties”. In this context Lāmā Tāranātha's observation is worth quoting: “In odivisa, in Bengal and the other five provineces of the East, each Kșatriya, Brāhmaṇa and merchant constituted himself a king of his surroundings, but there was no king ruling in the country” (Indian Antiquary, Vol : IV, p. 365 ff.)'. The much-maligned “Arya Manjusri-müla-kalpa” stated in the same vein, “after the death of Soma(Saśānka), the Gauda Political system (Gaudatantra) was reduced to mutual distrust, raised weapons and mutual jealousy - one (King) for a week, another for a month and then a republican constitution. Such will be the daily (condition) of the country on the bank of the Ganges where houses were built on the ruins of monasteries."
In Sanskrit such an anarchical condition of a country is called “Mātsyanyāya” which literary means "the swallowing of smaller fishes by the bigger ones” and politically it signifies the "absence of any central ruling authority” resulting in unmitigated chaos and untold miseries reigning supreme all over the country.
When such was the political condition of Gauda, Vanga, Karņasuvarṇa and other regions of Bengal, the socio-religious condition of the country can better be imagined.
4. 5. 6.
R. C. Majumdar - History of Ancient Bengal. Quoted from R. P. Chanda's "Gauda Rājamāla" p.25.f.n.1. K. P. Jayswal's translations, Quoted from R.C. Mazumder's History of Ancient Bengal p. 82 R. C. Mazumder - History of Ancient Bengal p. 82
7.