INDO-ARYAN KINGDOMS
(I 400-90oB. C.)
In the course of five or six centuries, the Aryan had moved down from the Punjab to the fertile valleys of the Ganges and set up powerful kingdoms—the Kurus, Panchalas, Kasis, Kosalas, Videhas vying with one another in the splendour of their courts, in the patronage of learning and valour and the pageantry of public sacrifices. The aboriginal tribes had been all subdued and the Aryas had heartily mingled with the civilised Indian peoples and their chiefs, some of whom gladly acknowledged the supremacy of the new kings. “It is here for the first time that the Aryas get into touch with not only the uncivilised aborigines who are the feature of the Punjab plains but also with the civilised Dravidians of India.” The two communities, the Aryas and the Indians, mingled and fused so completely in all respects that it became impossible to distinguish one from the other. Aryan kings took Indian wives and Indian kings married Aryan women. It could not be said that the Aryans were all fair and the Indians were all dark. Both had become acclimatised to the country; there were fair and dark men and women among both, as in the present day. The daughter of a Naga king whom Arjuna married is described as fair as pure gold.
After all, the Aryas were a handful compared with the Indians who formed the huge bulk of the population. They identified themselves with the earlier inhabitants of the country who were in point
*Page 2, Ancient India by S. krishnaswamy Iyyengar.
INDO-ARYAN KINGDOMS
of influence, culture and political importance no less advanced than themselves. No caste differences .existed to prevent free intercourse between them. On the other hand, very probably, they remembered that they had both come from the same ancient home beyond the Himalayas. The Indians had adopted the new culture so thoroughly that they began to outstrip the new-corners in religious lore, spiritual genius and other arts of war and peace. It soon became impossible to say who was an Indian and who an Aryan. Some of the most famous of Rishis and heroes of that time, the greatest among them, were in all probability more Indian in their blood. than Aryan. Who were Vyasa, Vasishta and Val-miki ? Were not Rama, Krishna, Arjuna, Draupadi, etc. all dark-coloured? Who could say they were not Indians?
In the Mahabharta, Yudhishtra himself tells us very clearly that there had taken place a complete Synthesis of the different peoples. In the Nahusha-Saptarishi legend, Yudhishtra says, “The caste 0 ! Great Serpent (Nahusha) in the presence of the general specie-s of mankind is at present in distinguishable in consequence of the great intermixture of races. Men of all castes beget children on women belonging to all castes indiscriminately. Men are common in speech, sexual intercourse, -birth and death. Therefore those who have an insight into the essence of things believe that .conduct is the chief thing. Castes are useless when suitable conduct does not exist; for the intermixture of races has been very great indeed.”* The priests had set themselves tip as a hereditary class, the son following the profession of the father, and were striving to exclude all others from the priestly profession. They justified their monopolistic manoeuvres by propounding the
*Page 13, Epic India, by 0. V. Vydio.
doctrine of caste divisions, and though the other sections of the society including the kings challenged these pretensions, the priests had begun to observe and enforce exclusiveness as a caste within their own social circle. Yudhishtra is clearly condemning this , rising creed of Brahmanism, and points out that it was too late at that time when people had all mixed up beyond recognition to recreate artificial divisions in society.
“A Brahman was Brahman by knowledge of religion and not by birth. Numerous instances have been cited to show that men of low birth had actually entered the priestly caste by their knowledge and virtues, that the priestly caste did not acquire a monopoly of religious learning; that they often came as humble pupils to Kshatriya kings to acquire religious knowledge.”* The Aryan religion itself was gradually changing by assimilating Indian beliefs and practices. The Indian gods and goddesses were accepted by the priests and included in the hierarchy of sacrificial gods. We find in the Brahmanas of this period some of these new deities, such as Siva, Vishnu, Nilakanta, Maheswara, Uma Parvathi and others who were unknown to the ancient Aryas. Sacrifices began to be performed in the ‘name of these gods, identifying them with one or the other of the Aryan_ Devas.
In fact, a new era of goodwill, prosperity, peace and glory had been inaugurated in the Gangetic vat-, ley by the social and religious fusion of the two ancient human families giving birth to the greatest of India’s Rishis and Divine Heroes and Heroines and the sublimest thoughts of India’s religion and philosophy. They have given us the marvellous Vedas (except the Rig) and the Upanishads, Sree Rama, Sree Krishna, Sita, Draupadi and other names who,
*Page 69, History of Civilisation in Ancient India, Volume III—R. C. Dutt.
INDO-ARYAN KINGDOMS
after more than three thousand years, still continue to ‘reign in Hindu hearts with undiminished sanctity. The metamorphosis was so thorough that even tae Punjab, the land of the pure orthodox Aryas, came to be regarded as inferior in purity and status to the sacred valleys of the Ganges sanctified by the meet-in p– of the streams of the Ganges and the Yamuna as well as of the Aryas and the Indians. “Arya Varta, stretching– from the Saraswati to the confines of the Behar and from the Himalayas to the Vindhyas forms the first circle of highest purity and it is remarkable that the Punjab which was the earliest home of the Aryas in the Vedic age is not included in this sacred circle. That realm had since then become backward in the later development of Hindu religion and culture, and was rarely alluded to even in the literature of the Epic period.”* A visit to some of the parts of the Punjab later on came to be regarded as causing pollution, and purificatory ceremonies were prescribed. A new world and a new order of things, eclipsing all the past in their greatness had come into existence.
The two Epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata give us some impressions of the kings and the peoples, and their achievements as well as failures and of the days of degeneracy which followed those of marvellous prosperity. The three Vedas were compiled during this period. Then were composed the Upanishads, a legacy of sublime thoughts and aspirations which are the life and pride of Hinduism, and which have earned for India a unique place among the civilisations of the world. Under the shelter and shadow of this greatness, the priests developed their own schemes of exploitation of the people of which we shall speak in another place., The Rarnayana represents the earlier and more aristocratic and more orthodox period of Indo-Aryan
* Pa gee 22, History of Civilisation in Ancient India, Volume II—E. C. putt,
supremacy, and the Mahabharata the later period of luxury and magnificence, the declining years of degeneracy and the closing scenes of disruption and fait. .(Some historians put it the other way.)
In the Ramayana, the kings lead purer and –more restrained lives, there is greater respect for the priestly class and their laws, and less of indulgence and profligacy. The rivalry between kings and priests has not become acute, though Janaka has started the opposition in the learned assemblies, and lower down in the south, Parasurama was bringing matters to a climax by his slaughter of the Kshatriyas. The Mahabharata bears testimony to the degeneracy that followed worldly prosperity; life seems to be one continuous round of drinking, gambling, dancing and fighting when there is no other sensation. The spirit , of the nation had changed. The seriousness, the dignity and the high sense of duty of the Ramayana period are replaced by frivolity, absence of responsibility, and light-hearted pursuit of enjoyments, but the kings seemed to be more of the people and with the people. Life has become more complex, individual liberty has increased; and the rivalry between the two leading sections of society, the rulers .and the priests, assumes immense proportions until it culminates in a disastrous war which destroys the Indo-Aryan supremacy and makes way for the aggrandisement of the Brahmans which in its turn produced a reaction and national awakening leading to the more fruitful stage of the Indian empires.
The Aryan sacrifices were originally simple offerings to the gods made by every householder on –the family hearth. But that characteristic soon disappeared when there was peace and plenty. Sacrifices became public celebrations for displaying the power and wealth of kings and rich men and the –pomp and mystery of priestcraft. Some of these sacrifices took weeks and months to complete and involved unconscionable expenditure of public and private funds, huge slaughter of animals, and daily indulgence in eating and drinking. “In fact the
festivities at which thousands and lakhs of Brahmans, Kshatriyas and others were feasted were of the most Bacchanalian kind and perhaps did not differ much from the feasts of the voracious beef-eating Germans, the brother Aryans of the West, whether in the number of animals that were killed, or the flasks of wine that were drunk”.*
The sacrifices furnished the occasion for gambling, boasting, dancing, fighting and other dissipations. When the auspicious Asvamedha Yajna is going on Krishna cuts of the head of Sisupala, The vicious extent to which the gambling habit had been cultivated is abundantly proved by the stories of Nala and Yudhishtra. King. Nala gambled away his kingdom, and Yudhishtra, the good and virtuous Emperor, diced away not only his kingdom but himself, his wife and-brothers also. “In the Maha– bharata we find Arjuna and Krishna drinking freely when they are wearied or when they are gay and joyous. The Vrishnis and the Yadavas, the tribe to which Krishna belonged were a people notorious for their drinking habits. Balarama, Krishna’s brother,– was a great drunkard and the Yadavas ultimately destroyed one another in a drunken brawl, In the Ramayana, we find it stated in the Gangakhyana that the Suras were those who took liquor while the Asuras were those who declined it. Sita when she crosses the Ganges vows to propitiate the river with jars of liquor if she returns with her husband safe from her exile to the Dandaka forest,”*
Promiscuous dancing was also in vogue. There-is the description of a dance in Harivamsa. Inflamed by plentiful libations of Kadamba liquor, Balarama danced with his wife, Krishna, Baladeva,.
*Page 110, Epic India, by O. V. Vydia.
Narada, Satyabhama and others joined in and the festivity reached the climax of boisterous merrymaking. At the head of these vices stood the custom of marrying many wives and maintaining a plentiful harem. Dasaratha had 350 wives, Krishna 16,000 and Duryodhana, Bhima and Arjuna had each numerous wives.
But they lived in a world quite different from ours. Their magnificence might seem vices to us, and their freedom and naturalness look revolting to our tastes. It only shows that we cannot understand them from this distance of time and through the hazy pictures drawn by imaginative poets. Since the Mahabharata war, long and eventful centuries of revolutionary changes, grand achievements, catastrophic failures and mighty upheavals have rolled over the Indian continent, altering her life in every aspect. New religions, new cultures, new empires and nations and races, new heroes and heroines, have flitted through the stage of her history; but the Hindus even now look back through these crowded millennia to the dim glories of Indo-Aryan kingdoms and derive their highest moral, intellectual and spiritual inspiration from Rama, Krishna, Janaka and other brilliant stars of that distant firmament. Such was their greatness; such is their mystery.
