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Sec. 4. HISTORICAS POSITION OF THE T.S.
Under the long standing peace and strong patronage of learning, various phlosophical systems which had long cumulated their own sacred literature and developed their thoughts into maturity, entered tbe stage of systematization. The Nyāyasūtra, Sankhyakārikā, Brahmasūtra, Yogasūtra, Abhidharmakosa (which were all composed before the T S.) and Prasastapadabhāsya were all brought out in this period. The commentarial works such as Vyās's Yogasūtrabhāşya (which is a pre-Umāsāvti work), Sabarasvāmi's Mimāmsāsūtrabhåşya and Uddyotakara's Nyāyavārttika belong to this dynasty also. The organizing activities of the doctrinal tenets of a school in order to transmit the bulk of its literary legacy and the succeeding commentarial activities were therefore the common phenomena evinced in the then systems of thought. And the Jainas could not remain behind without possessing their own standard text which the other philosophical schools had come to possess by the time of Umāsvāti. The need of the T.S. for the Jainas was hence the call of time, which was allegedly a product of this historical trend.
Vaişnavism was the official religion of the Guptas, therefore the Buddhists and the Jainas must have most suffered from the loss of royal patronage which they had enjoyed in the Miuryan aod Kushan dynasties. However the kings of this dynasty are said to have taken a tolerant policy towards all the religions. During this period, the Buddhists were quite active in exchanging scholars with China, inviting Fa Hien and the others from China and sending Kumārajiva, Paramartha and many other Kashmirian Buddhist scholars to China. Fa Hien who saw countless Buddhist monks and monasteries on the way to Mathura tells us that the kings paid due respect to the Buddhist monks and some of the kings offered land grants to them for the maintenance of their monasteries. According to him Hinayāna Buddhism was still holding its sway all over North India and Mahāyānism was just rearing its hand here and there.
Vasubandhu was an outstanding figure among the Buddhists in the 5th century in the North, An account is told that Viadhyavāsa of the Sankhya system challenged disputants of all the schools at Ayodhya, against whom Buddhamitra was invited by king Vikramālitya to challenge, for his disciples Manoratha and Vasubandhu were out of station. He was defeated. Having heard of this humiliating news, Vasubandhu refuted the Sārkhya view by composing the Paramaytha saptati, thereby he won the favour of the king, who then entrusted to him the education of his crown prince Bālāditya. The same story is related by Hiuen Tsiang in a modified way; it is said that Vikramaditya lost bis kingdum soon after this debate, and was succeeded by a monarch who widely patronized those distinguished in literary merits, under whom Vasubandhu defeated his rival, Sinha identifies this King Vikramaditya of Ayodhya with Purugupta, Bila liya with Narasimagupta, and the monarch succeeded by Vikramaditya with Skandagupta (475 acc.496 A. D. according to Sinba's proposal) on the numisa mtic
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