Post Gupta Age

Northern India

• By the end of fifth century the vast Gupta empire broke up into several independent states.
• It was due to the repeated invasions of the Hunas, the nomadic tribesman of central Asia and internal disruption of provincial governments, who established independent-states in different parts of the northern part of India.
• With the decline of the imperial Gupta, Magadha and its capital Pataliputra, which since the sixth century B.C. had been the centre of political activity in North India, lost their importance when Harsha united his ancestral kingdom of Thaneswar with the Maukhari kingdom of Kannauj and shifted his capital to Karnnuj.
• From now (A.D. 606) onwards till the Turkish conquests at the close of the twelfth century, Kanauj remained the centre of political activity in North India.

Hunas Invasion (A.D. 454)

• There was a barbarous race which came to India from Central Asia. Hunas invaded India for the first time during the reign of Kumaragupta but their further progress was checked by the Gupta king who inflicted a crushing defeat upon them in about 460 A.D.
• After fourteen years of this invasion, Hunas defeated Firoz, king of Persia, and became the masters of Persia.
• This success boosted their power and by the end of fifth century A.D., they ruled over a vast empire.
• From this time onwards the invasions of Hunas over India became more frequent.

Harshavardhana (A.D. 606-647)

• The break-up of the Gupta Empire was followed by a period of disorder. Small kingdoms fought against one-another.
• Finally, Harshavardhana conquered these kingdoms and established a powerful empire.
• Harshavardhana was born in 590 AD to King Prabhakaravardhana of Sthaneshvara (Thanesar, Haryana).
• He belonged to the Pushyabhuti also called Vardhana dynasty.
• He was a Hindu who later embraced Mahayana Buddhism.
• He was married to Durgavati.
• He had a daughter and two sons. His daughter married a king of Vallabhi whereas his sons were killed.

Source Materials

• We come to know about Harsha and the developments during his reign from two main sources.
• One is Harshacharita, the biography of the king written in Sanskrit by his court poet Banabhatta.
• The book lists military and cultural achievements of Harsha.
• The other is the account of Hiuen Tsang, who visited India during Harsha’s reign.
• He spent eight years in the court of Harsha. He has written in detail about the developments during these years.
• Besides these sources, inscriptions and coins of this period also tell us about Harsha.

Kannauj - As Capital

• Harshavardhan shifted his capital from Thanesvar to Kannauj which was situated on the bank of Ganga.
• He converted it into a magnificent, wealthy and well-fortified city, nearly four miles long and a mile broad, furnished with numerous lofty buildings, and adorned with many tanks and gardens.
• Generally, he is regarded as the last powerful Hindu emperor of India, but he was neither a staunch Hindu nor the ruler of the whole country.
• His authority was limited to the north India except Kashmir. Rajasthan, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa were under his direct control, but his sphere of influence spread over a much wider area.
• Mostly, the feudatories seems to have accepted his suzerainty.

Administration Under Harsha

Harsha ruled his kingdom on the same lines as the Guptas did, except that his administration had become more feudal and decentralised.
It is stated that Harsha had soldiers numbering over one lakh and 60,000 cavalry and 9,000 elephants.
Harsha could mobilize that support of all his feudatories at the time of war.
Evidently every feudatory contributed his quota of foot soldiers and horse, and thus made the army vast in numbers. Land grants continued to be made to priests for special services rendered to the state.
In addition, Harsha is credited with the grant of land to the officers by charters.
These grants allowed more concessions to priests and officers than those by the earlier grants.
Thus, the feudal practice of rewarding and paying officers with grants of land on a large scale seems to have begun under Harsha.

Harsha- A Patron of Arts

• Harsha was a patron of arts and learning. He himself was a good writer.
• He wrote three plays in Sanskrit- Ratnavali, Priyadarshika and Nagananda.
• Scholars like Banabhatta, Subandhu and Dandian lived in his court.
• In his early years, Harsha was a worshipper of Shiva but later he became a Buddhist.
• He was tolerant of other religions.
• He organized a grand assembly at Kannauj.
• He also gave money to the University of Nalanda.
• This university prospered and became a famous centre of learning.
• Hiuen Tsang spent many years studying Buddhist text at this Nalanda University.
• Harsha ruled for about forty-one years till his death in A.D.647.
• His death facilitated the growth of petty territories to become states.
• He also does not seem to have left any heir to the throne of Kanauj which was usurped after his death by his minister.

The Nalanda University:

• Not only from China but also from countries like Mongolia, Korea, Japan, Java, Tiber, Ceylon, etc., students came to India to study in her various universities including the University of Nalanda.
• Nalanda was an educational institute of higher learning or post-graduate studies.
• Here education was not confined to religious subjects nor it was connected with one religion or sect. Hindu and Buddhist literature in all their branches and other subjects like logic, grammar, medicine, Sankhya philosophy, occult science, etc. were studied.
• The university campus had many halls and buildings with storeys where about 8500 students and 1500 teachers lived. The students were provided with free education, food and lodging.
• The working hours of the university was of eight hours and nearly one hundred lectures were delivered everyday by many teachers, the famous of whom were Dharmapal (who was the Kulapati of Nalanda when Hiuen Tsang was a student there), Arya Deva, Chandrakirti, Chandragomin, Gunamati, Prabhamitra, Buddhakirti, Jinamitra, Sumatisena, etc.
• Students seeking admission here had to pass a tough entrance examination and only about 20 percent could succeed in clearing it.
• The university had a big library comprising of three buildings known as ‘Ratna-Sagar’, ‘Ratnadadhi’ and ‘Ratna Ranjaka’.
• Chinese traveller Yijing notes that revenues from 200 villages (as opposed to 100 in Xuanzang’s time).
• Towards the end of twelfth century, Muslim invaders set fire to the buildings of the university, burnt the valuable library and killed the monks, teachers and students. The glorious career of a university famous the world over came to an end.
• Afghan military chief Bakhtiyar Khilji was the man who destroyed the great universities at Nalanda, Vikramsila and Odantapuri.

Religion:

• Prabhakaravardhana was a devotee of the Sun and is said to have offered daily a bunch of red lotuses in a ruby bowl. Rajyavardhana was a Buddhist.
• Harsha was a devotee of Shiva, Surya and Buddha.
• He is stated to have erected costly temples for the service of all the three personalities.
• Harsha’s conversion to Buddhism is attributed by Bana to the influence of the Buddhist ascetic Divakaramitra who lived in the hermitage in the Vindhya forests.
• It was however  Chinese Pilgrim Xuanzang (Hiuen Tsang) who definitely gave both Harsha and his sister their faith in Mahayana Buddhism by his discourse on its doctrines and exposure of the deficiency of Hinayana at the very first meeting between Harsha and him.
• According to the Xuanzang, who visited his kingdom in 636, Harsha built numerous stupas in the name of Buddha.
• His approach to religion is evident in his celebrated play Nagananda.
• The play’s theme is based on the Jataka tale of the Bodhisattva Jimutavahana, but Harsha introduces the Goddess Gauri, as the saviour of Jimutavahana, a feature not found in the Jataka.
• Harsha’s enthusiasm for his new faith led him at once to organize the grand assembly at Kanauj to give publicity to the masterly treatise of Hiuen Tsang on Mahayana and establish its supremacy over all other creeds of the times.
• Harsha is said to have prohibited even more rigorously than Ashoka, animal slaughter and meat eating.
• At Nalanda he erected a bronze temple, 100 feet high, and along the highway built rest houses and hospitals.

The Kanauj Assembly:

• In 643 A.D. Harsha summoned an assembly at Kanauj.
• The object of the assembly was to take advantage of the presence of Hiuen Tsang to spread the teachings of Buddha in the country.
• A large number of kings attended the assembly.
• There were 3000 Mahayana and Hinayana Buddhist monks, 3000 Brahmanas and Nigrodhas and about 1000 Buddhist scholars from the Nalanda University.
• The meeting was presided by Hiuen Tsang where a topic on Mahayana Buddhism was discussed.
• The meeting lasted for 23 days. On that occasion a monastery and shrine was erected on the banks of Ganga and a golden image of Buddha was kept in a tower, 100 feet high.
• A similar but smaller image, three feet in height was carried every day in a procession which was joined by 20 Rajas and 300 elephants.
• Harsha personally washed the image and carried it in the procession.
• At the conclusion of the assembly, Harsha in recognition to the scholarship of Hiuen Tsang offered him gold, silver, jewels and other valuables including garments. But Hiuen Tsang refused to accept them.
• Then Harsha placing Hiuen Tsang on an elephant led him in a procession proclaiming that he had established the standard of Mahayana doctrines overthrowing all opposing ones.

The Prayag Assembly:

• After the assembly at Kanauj, Harsha, accompanied by Hiuen Tsang, proceeded to Prayag (Allahabad) at the confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna (and Sarswati) where he used to celebrate another solemn religious festival at the end of every five years (Kumbha Mela). This assembly was the sixth of its kind during his reign.
• Harsha summoned his tributary kings, the king of Vallabhi and Bhaskar Varma, the king of Assam; followers of different sects, Shramanas, Nirgranthas, the poor and the orphan and the needy to attend this assembly.
• On the first day the image of Buddha was installed in a thatched building followed by the distribution of precious articles and clothing of the first quality.
• On the second day they installed the image of Aditya (Sun-god) and distributed in charity precious things and clothing to half the amount of the previous day.
• On the third day they installed the image of Shiva followed by distribution of charity and gifts as on the day before.
• This assembly lasted for three months.

Southern India

The period during A.D. 300 to A.D. 750 witnesses the second historical phase in the regions south of the Vindhayas.
By the beginning of the seventh century, the Pallavas of Kanchi, the Chalukyas of Badami and the Pandyas of Madurai appeared to be the three major states.

The Vakatakas (A.D. 225-510)

• The Satvahanas were succeeded by the Vakatakas, a local power in northern Maharashtra and Vidarbha (Berar).
• The Vakatakas, who were Brahmanas themselves, are known from a large number of copper-plate and grants issued to the Brahmanas.
• They were great champions of the Brahmanical religion and performed severel Vedic sacrifices.
• Their political history is of more importance to north India than to south India. Culturally, the Vakataka kingdom became a channel for transmitting brahmanical ideas and social institutions to the south.
• The founder of this dynasty was Vidya Shakti but his son Pravarsena could be its real founder in western and central India.
• Chandragupta II realised the importance of this empire and formed alliance through marriage of his daughter into Vakataka family.
• In 5th century A.D., Vakatakas extended their power in Malwa.
• Harisena was the last important monarch controlling all the central Deccan.
• The Vakatakas contributed towards the arts and architecture.
• Several caves of Ajanta are credited to the royal patronage of the Vakatakas.
• They were uprooted by the growing power of Chalukyas of Badami, Pallavas of Kanchipuram and Pandyyas of Madurai.
• The Vakatakas had been in power for about two centuries.