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April 29, 1932

WHILE men from South India were crossing the high seas and founding settlements and towns in distant places, in the north of India there was a strange ferment. The Kushan Empire had lost its strength and greatness and was becoming smaller and shrinking away. All over the north there were small States, often ruled by the descendants of the Sakas or Scythians or Turkis, who had come to India over the north-western frontier. I have told you that these people were Buddhists and that they came to India not as enemies to raid but to settle down here. They were pushed inexorably from behind by other tribes in Central Asia, who in their turn were often pushed away by the Chinese kingdom. On coming to India these people largely adopted Indo-Aryan customs

and traditions. They looked upon India as the parent country for religion and culture and

civilization. The Kushans themselves had followed Indo-Aryan traditions to a large extent. This was indeed the reason why they managed to stay in India and rule over large parts of it for such a long time. They tried to behave as Indo-Aryans, and wanted the people of the country to forget that they were aliens. They succeeded in some measure, but not quite, for among the Kshattriyas especially the feeling rankled that aliens were ruling over them. They chafed under this foreign rule, and so the ferment grew and people's minds were troubled. Ultimately these disaffected people found a capable leader, and under his banner they started a holy war ", as it is called, to free Aryavarta.

This leader was named Chandragupta. Do not mix him up with the other Chandragupta, the grandfather of Ashoka. This man had nothing to do with the Mauryan dynasty. It so happened that he was a petty Raja of Pataliputra, but the descendants of Ashoka had retired into obscurity by then. You must remember that we are now in the beginning of the fourth century after Christ—that is, about 308 A.C. This was 534 years after Ashoka's death.

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Chandragupta was ambitious and capable. He set out to win over the other Aryan chiefs in the north and to form a kind of federation with them. He married Kumara Devi of the famous and powerful Lichchhavi clan, and thus secured the support of this clan. Having prepared his ground carefully, Chandragupta proclaimed his " holy war " against all foreign rulers in India. The Kshattriyas and the Aryan aristocracy, deprived of their power and positions by the aliens, were at the back of this war. After a dozen years of fighting, Chandragupta managed to gain control of a part of northern India, including what are now known as the United Provinces. He then

crowned himself King of kings.

Thus began what is known as the Gupta dynasty. It lasted for about 200 years, till the Huns came to trouble it. It was a period of somewhat aggressive Hinduism and nationalism. The foreign rulers —the Turkis and Parthians and other non-Aryans—were rooted out and forcibly removed.

We thus find racial antagonism at work. The Indo-Aryan aristocrat was proud of his race and looked down upon these barbarians and mlechchhas. Indo-Aryan States and rulers who were conquered by the Guptas were dealt with leniently. But there was no leniency for the non-Aryans.

Chandragupta's son, Samudragupta, was an even more aggressive fighter than his father. He was a great general, and when he became Emperor he carried on victorious campaigns all over the country, and even in the south. He extended the Gupta Empire till it spread over a great part of India. But in the south his suzerainty was nominal. In the north the Kushans were pushed back across the Indus river.

Samudragupta's son, Chandragupta II, was also a warrior king, and he conquered Kathiawad and Gujrat, which had been under the rule of a Saka or Turki dynasty for a long time. He took the name of Vikramaditya, and by this he is usually known. But this name, like that of Caesar, became the title of many rulers, and is therefore rather confusing.

Do you remember seeing an enormous iron pillar near the Qutub Minar in Delhi ? This pillar is said to have been built by Vikramaditya as a kind of Victory Pillar. It is a fine piece of work, and on the top is a lotus flower, a symbol of empire.

The Gupta period was the period of Hindu imperialism in India. There was a great revival of old Aryan culture and Sanskrit learning. The Hellenistic, or Greek, and Mongolian elements in Indian life and culture, which had been brought by the Greeks, Kushans and others, were not encouraged, and were in fact deliberately superseded by laying stress on the Indo-Aryan

traditions. Sanskrit was the official Court language. But even in those days Sanskrit was not the common language of the people. The spoken language was a form of Prakrit, which was nearly allied to Sanskrit. But even though Sanskrit was not the vernacular of the time, it was living enough. There was a great flowering of Sanskrit poetry and drama and of Indo-Aryan art. In the history of Sanskrit literature this period is perhaps the richest after the great days which gave the 105

Vedas and the Epics. Kalidasa, that wonderful writer, belonged to this period. Vikramaditya is said to have had a brilliant Court, where he assembled the greatest writers and artists of the day.

Have you not heard of the Nine Jewels of his Court—the Navaratna ? Kalidasa is said to have been one of these nine.

Samudragupta changed the capital of his empire from Pataliputra to Ayodhya. Perhaps he felt that Ayodhya offered a more suitable background for his aggressive Indo-Aryan outlook—with its story of Ramachandra immortalized in Valmiki's epic.

The Gupta revival of Aryanism and Hinduism was naturally not very favourably inclined

towards Buddhism. This was partly because this movement was aristocratic, with the Kshattriya chiefs backing it, and Buddhism had more of democracy in it; partly because the Mahayana form of Buddhism was closely associated with the Kushans and other alien rulers of northern India.

But there seems to have been no persecution of Buddhism. Buddhist monasteries continued and were still great educational institutions. The Guptas had friendly relations with the rulers of Ceylon, where Buddhism flourished. Meghavarna, the King of Ceylon, sent costly gifts to Samudragupta and founded a monastery at Gaya for Sinhalese students.

But Buddhism declined in India. This decline was due, as I have told you previously, not so much to outside pressure on the part of the Brahmans or the Government of the day, as to the power of Hinduism to absorb it gradually.

It was about this time that one of the famous travellers from China visited India—not Hiuen Tsang, about whom I have told you, but Fa-Hien. He came as a Buddhist in search of Buddhist sacred books. He tells us that the people of Magadha were happy and prosperous; that justice was mildly administered; and that there was no death penalty. Gaya was waste and desolate;

Kapilavastu had become a jungle; but at Pataliputra people were " rich, prosperous and virtuous".

There were many rich and magnificent Buddhist monasteries. Along the main roads there were dharmashalas, where travellers could stay and were supplied with food at public expense. In the great cities there were free hospitals.

After wandering about India, Fa-Hien went to Ceylon, and spent two years there. But a

companion of his, Tao-Ching, liked India greatly, and was so much impressed by the piety of the Buddhist monks that he decided to remain here. Fa-Hien returned by sea from Ceylon to China, and after many adventures and many years' absence, he reached home.

Chandragupta the Second, or Vikramaditya, ruled for about twenty-three years. After him came his son, Kumaragupta, who had a long reign of forty years. The next was Skandagupta, who succeeded in 453. A.C. He had to face a new terror, which ultimately broke the back of the great Gupta Empire. But of this I shall tell you in my next letter.

Some of the finest frescoes of Ajanta, as well as the halls and chapel, are examples of Gupta art.

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will realize how wonderful they are. Unfortunately the frescoes are slowly disappearing, as they cannot stand exposure for long.

What was happening in other parts of the world when the Guptas held sway in India ?

Chandragupta the First was the contemporary of Constantine the Great, the Roman Emperor who founded Constantinople. During the times of the later Guptas, the Roman Empire split up into the Eastern and Western, and the Western was ultimately overthrown by the northern " barbarian

" tribes. Thus, just about the time when the Roman Empire was weakening, India had a very powerful State with great generals and mighty armies. Samudragupta is sometimes spoken of as the " Indian Napoleon ", but, ambitious as he was, he did not look beyond the frontiers of India for his conquests.

The Gupta period was one of aggressive imperialism and conquest and victory. But there are many such imperialistic periods in the history of every country, and they have little importance in the long run. What makes the Gupta times stand out, however, and worthy of being

remembered with some pride in India, is the wonderful renaissance of art and literature which they witnessed.