VELIVADA
“… Hiuen-Tsang, who visited India from 629 to 645 AD, describes the influence of a south Indian Brahmin queen on her husband who ordered the execution of many thousand Buddhists including 8,000 in Madurai alone. Kalhana’s Rajatarangani (written by a Shaivite scholar about 1149 AD and the first Brahmin account of India’s historic past from the time of Yudishthira) relates that Mihirikula, the Hun ruler was converted by Brahmins (in 515 AD) and unleashed a wave of violent destruction on Buddhist monasteries in Punjab and Kashmir. He reports (verse 290 in book 1) that “crows and birds of prey would fly ahead eager to feed on those within his armies reach”. He proudly proclaimed himself as the killer of three crores. … … – Buddhism that had been strong in India in the 7th Century was completely obliterated a century later.”
There are many who seem to believe that brutality and bloodshed were the sole preserve of Muslim rulers and that Hindu rajas lived in an idyllic ocean of peace and tranquility. Unfortunately, an examination of the history of the Indian sub continent does not support such an uninformed opinion.
Gaining and retaining power is a brutal business all around the world, and has been so, all through history, with the possible exception within Buddhist societies where brute violence is rare. Many people genuinely believe that Hinduism has always been a tolerant religion that assimilated other peoples and ideas without bloody conflict. That is how they teach it! The ugly scars of brutality in the history of all peoples, are sanitized in school history books. The ruling powers, everywhere, want to play down the politics of past racial or religious persecution. This has the result in our case that many people hold the opinion that brutality and violence in India were exclusive to ‘invaders’ like the Greeks, Mongols, Turks and even the British. While these were the `invaders’ easily condemned by the history books, it can be mentioned that most of the Arya, Scythian and Jat tribes, who came to India probably from central Asia, could also be described as ‘invaders’.
For those tribes the word ‘invasion’ is an exaggeration. Most of north western India was fairly sparsely populated in ancient times and the great Indian cities (after the Harappan period) were mainly in the region of present day Bihar until the 6th century BC, so many alien tribes from less fertile areas of the north simply entered with little opposition, unnoticed even, by the local inhabitants. Pastoralists never made wars on each other and it was only with growing populations and urbanization that rulers of the evolving city states had to keep standing armies that were dedicated to protect but also attack for plunder!
There were therefore not many major conflicts in ancient times. But historians and story tellers, as usual, would exaggerate small tribal skirmishes to become great legends of prowess and minimize murderous bloodshed on their part.
After Ashoka’s reportedly bloody battle against Kalinga, north India entered a thousand year period of relative peace under predominantly Buddhist rulers until the time of Harshavardhan who ruled from 606 to 647AD. But there had been many local wars between domestic kingdoms like the Cholas, Pallavas and Pandyas competing with the Satvahanas and the Guptas or the Rashrakutas, Gurjara Pratiharas and Palas in later times. There must have been considerable bloodshed in all these conflicts even if not much is recorded in Brahmin texts. These battles were however territorial and for loot, and religion does not seem to have been used to justify aggression.
Then there was a heady period of vigorous Brahmanical revivalism that rapidly gathered strength after the 7th century AD. It has to be remembered that this was not a `Hindu’ revival because the idea of Hindu as a religion was not known at this time. During this Puranic period most people worshipped numerous animist deities usually presided over by Brahmin priests who chanted elevating Vedic hymns even though all the Vedic deities like Indra, Rudra and Nasatyas had now vanished. Many animist deities including and several goddesses were absorbed into a new Puranic Hinduism that included non Vedic deities like Shiv, Ganesh, Hanuman, Kubera, Kali, Durga and others and new philosophies like reincarnation, Karma and Dharma were borrowed from Buddhism and Jainism. Even the Vishnu of the Puranas was very different from the Vedic Vishnu. At this time Ram or Krishna were still heroes of legend and had not yet become deities for worship. A. R. Mujumdar in The Hindu History (1979) observes … “From 650 AD, perhaps to suit the needs of the age, Hindus suppressed true history and invented nice legends instead”.
Many local rulers, probably at the urging of their Brahmin ministers and priests, now began to ruthlessly exterminate the previously dominant Buddhist and Jain faiths. Although the class of Kshatriyas had completely vanished from history during the thousand years of mainly Buddhist rule they were reinvented at this time to serve Brahmin interests. No doubt the rich lands and treasures of their defenseless monasteries and temples also gave material incentives to this religious fervor and many Buddhist and Jain stupas and monasteries were plundered and Hindu temples established at their sites.
Velivada for more