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For in- stance, we learn with much interest that Nagnajit com- posed a work on architecture, sculpture, painting, and kindred arts. Digitized by Google BOOK V. PAURANIK PERIOD. A.D. 500 TO A.D. 1194. CHAPTER I. I YIKRAMaDITYA THE GREAT AND HIS SUCCESSORS. We have now come to the last Act of the Drama of Hindu History, and the curtain rises on a truly great spectacle. The victor of a great and patriotic war, the patron of reviving Hinduism, the centre of all that is best and most beautiful in modern Sanscrit literature, and the subject of a hundred legends, Vikramaditya the Great is to Hindus what Charlemagne is to the French, what Al- fred is to the English, what Asoka is to Buddhists, and what Harun Ar'Rashid is to Mahommedans. To the learned as to the illiterate, to the poet as to the story- teller, to old men as to schoolboys, his name is as familiar in India as the name of any prince or potentate in any country. Tender recollections of Sakuntall and Ur- vasi rise in the minds of Hindu scholars with the name of the prince in whose court Kalidasa flourished. Hin- du astronomers cherish the memory of the patron of Varahamihira ; and Hindu lexicographers honour the Digitized by Google 212 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V. name of the potentate who honoured Amara Sinha. And as if his true claims to glory were not enough, a hundred tales familiarize his name to the illiterate and the sim- ple. Villagers assemble to this day under the umbra- geous pepul tree to hear how the thirty-two speaking puppets, who bore aloft the throne of the great emperor, would not brook his successor, and departed, each tell- ing a story of Vikrama's glory. And little boys in every village school in India still learn with wondering admiration how the undaunted Vikrama struggled in the midst of darkness and scenes of terror to obtain mastery over a mighty spirit, and how he suc- ceeded at last, by his indomitable bravery, his never wavering judgment, his never failing self-possession and valour. When we turn however from literary recollections and popular tales to history, we find the greatest confusion with regard to Vikrama's age and even his very iden- tity ! For a long time scholars held that Vikramaditya, the patron of Kalid&sa, lived about 56 B. C, as the Samvat Era would seem to indicate. This opinion has now been generally abandoned, and Dr. Fergusson suggested the theory already mentioned in the Introduction to this work, that Vikrama lived in the 6th century A. D., and that his Era founded in 544 A. D. was antedated by six centuries, so as to run from 56 B. C. Again, Mr. Fleet maintains, as has been stated in Chapter V of Book IV, that the Samvat Era was not created in Digitized by Google CHAP. I.] VI KRAM ADIT YA AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 21 3 the 6th century A. D., but was an old existing Era of the MAlavas, and that " the name of Vikrama or Vikramlditya came to be connected with the M&lava Era of B. C. 57 in consequence of some confused re- miniscence of a conquest of the Indo - Scythians by Chandragupta I or II" of the Gupta line of kings who assumed the title of Vikram&ditya.* Such is the darkness which still hangs over the origin of the Samvat Era, and we leave it to subsequent scholars to dispel this gloom and finally settle the con- troversy about the origin of this Era. We leave the question untouched. We are concerned here with Vikramaditya and his age, and not with the origin of the Samvat Era, In the Satrunjaya M4h4tmyaf it is stated that Vik- ramaditya ascended the throne in 466 of the Saka Era or 544 A. D. Ball&la Misra, the author or compiler of Bhojapravandha, calls the patron of Kdlidasa not Vikra- m&ditya but Bhoja, and Bhoja is held to have ascended the throne in 483 A. D. or 567 A. D.J The difference in the name of the king need not puzzle us, as Bhoja is the ancient name of Malwa, and the king of that coun- try might either be called Bhoja R&ja or Vikramaditya neither being his proper name. • Corpus lnscriptionum Indicarum, Vol. Ill, p. 37, note 2. t Wilford Asiatic Researches IX, p. 156; quoted by Dr. Kern Brihat SanhitA. X Prinaep's Useful Tables, Ed. Thomas, p. 250. Digitized 214 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V* Houen Tsang, who came to India in the seventh century, places the reign of Siladitya I about 580 A. D., and places Vikramaditya immediately before Siladitya. The historian Kalhana who lived in the twelfth century places Vikramaditya (see ante, p. 55,) thirty reigns after Kanishka, who reigned from 78 A. D., and six reigns before Durlabhavardhana, who reigned (see Chapter IV of this Book) from 598 A. D. ; and this conclusively fixes the reign of Vikramaditya in the sixth or possibly in the fifth century after Christ. Turning to literary and scientific annals, we know that a tradition, which we will shew hereafter to be at least a thousand years old, speaks of nine great writers as the nine gems of Vikrama's court Amara, Varaha- mihira, Vararuchi, and Kaiidasa are the best known among them. Amara is supposed to have built the temple at Buddha Gaya, which General Cunningham has shewn to have been built between 400 and 600 A.D. Varahamihira was probably born in 505 A. D., and is shewn by Dr. Bhau Daji to have died in 587 A. D. Vararuchi could not have composed his Prakrita gram- mar much before the fifth or sixth century, as the Pra- krita was scarcely a literary language before that period. And Kalidasa's writings shew that he must have lived in the fifth or sixth century when Pauranik Hinduism flourished, when temples and images were revered, and when the Hindu Trinity was worshipped ; the poet could not have lived in the first century B. C. when Pauranik Digitized by Google CHAP. I.] VIKRAMADlfYA AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 21$ Hinduism was unknown, when temples and images were despised, and when the Hindu Trinity had not yet been conceived. Kdlidasa's successors, Bh&ravi, Dandin, B4na- bhatta, Subandhu, Bhartrihari, Bhavabhuti, — who have so much in common in thought and in language with Kalid&sa,— all belong to the sixth to eighth century after Christ. One of them, Subandhu, speaks of Vikra- maditya as departed not very long ago* Is it possible for any scholar who has read the writings of these au- thors to place a period of six centuries between them and K&lid4sa ? Not to prolong this discussion, we will only add that Vikram&ditya is distinguished in traditions and in legends for his victory over foreign invaders, and for his patron- age of learning ; and we know that it was in the fifth and sixth centuries A. D. that great Hindu kings en- couraged poetry and learning, and repeatedly beat back the Huns who were pouring into India. Alberuni, who lived in India in the eleventh century, tells us that Vikram&ditya marched against the Saka king, "put him to flight, and killed him in the region of * Attention was first drawn to this passage in the Vlsavadatta by Pun- dit Isvara Chandra Vidj&sagara. It may be thus translated : "Now that Vikrara&ditya has disappeared save in his fame, the excellence of political sentiments has disappeared, new writers are flourishing, and each attacks every one else in this earth, — even like a lake where Sarasa birds disappear, where Vaka birds do not sport, and where the Kanka bird does not stride about, when the sun is set." Digitized by Google 2l6 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V. Korur, between Multan and the castle of Loni." This is about all that we know historically of Vikrama's great victory over the foreign invaders ! We know something more than this of some other Hindu kings of the sixth and fifth centuries A. D. Yasodharman fought and beat back the Huns (see ante, p. 70). Skandagupta also repelled the Huns on an earlier date (see pp. 68 & 70). Chandragupta II as- sumed the title of Vikramaditya (see p. 66). And his father Samudragupta, the master of all India, was a patron of learning and received the title of Kaviraja from his court poets (see p. 64 & 203). Is it possible that the memory of the deeds of some of these kings is woven in the legends which have gathered round the brighter name of Vikramaditya of Ujjayini. It is idle to speculate. We must for the present be content with what little we know; and that little knowledge enables us to place Vikramaditya in the sixth (or possibly in the fifth) century A. D. No scholar will again seek for the hero of our literary traditions in the annals of the first century B. C, i. e. t between the times of Asoka and Kanishka. We have spoken before of Vikramaditya's victory over the Sakas or Huns, and this defeat or expulsion of the foreign invaders had the happiest results, and secured peace to Northern India which had been harassed by centuries of invasions. The arts of peace flourished with the return of peace. The courts Digitized by Google CHAP. I.] VIKRAMADITYA AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 217 of kings as well as large towns became the centres of luxury and wealth, industries and manufactures. Science raised her head and modern Hindu astronomy obtained a fresh start. Poetry and Drama lighted their magic lamps and spread light and gladness on the Hindu mind. Religion itself gathered strength and life, and Hinduism in its new and Pauranik form sought to win back the people from the ranks of Buddhism. Buddhism had never assumed a hostile attitude towards the parent religion of India ; and the fact that the two religions existed side by side for long centuries increased their toleration of each other. In every country Buddhists and orthodox Hindus lived side by side. Hindus went to Buddhist monasteries and uni- versities, and Buddhists learned from Br&hman sages. The same kings favoured the followers of both systems of religion.