Most Ancient Aryan Society

Author(s): Ram Chandra Jain
Publisher: Institute of Bharatalogical Research Sriganganagar Rajasthan

Page 327

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Brahmanism consolidated its society in the second century B. C. when the mixed Hindu society was founded. The Brahmāryans and the converts from the original population laid the foundation of the Hindu Society. Brahmā, the Prajapati, was the highest Brahmaryan deity. The mountainous Vṛtra and allied people converted to Brahmapism developed their own deity Siva, out of the ruins of Ek-Vratya and Rudra. The plains and the coastal Yadu, Ikṣavāku and other converts raised their deity Vişnu and Kṛṣṇa. All these three sections carried on religious conflicts and battles amongst themselves in the beginning in the first part of the first millennium B.C. but ultimately joined hands and formed the Hindu Trinity. The rule of the Gupta monarchs was the hall-mark of the Brāhmaṇical religion. Brāhmaṇism worked on the ideological and the practical plane to strengthen the foundation of Gupta monarchy. It voilently suppressed the original Śramanic religions, Jainism and Buddhism. The later finally succumbed to the Brāhmaṇical onslaughts and completely merged into it. Brāhmaṇism began to decay in the Eighth century A.D. Sankara raised it from the terrestrial to the ethereal plane. He left all hopes of Brāhmaṇical terrestrial rule. He gave Hindu society an organisation with no foundation. When the Muslim feudal lords invaded Bharata; the Ksatriya feudal lords could not stand united against them. The Brahmanical feudals surrenderd to their Semitic compatriots; the materialists of the deserts. Brähmaṇa priests also cooperated with those Muslim monarchs and their feudatories who sought their assistance. When the capitalist rule overpowered Bhārata; Brāhmaṇism and the Brāhmaṇa priests came out first to help the imperialist administrators to rule themselves. The imperialists were in the dire need knowing the customs, manners, usages, law, religion, art and