INDIA AFTER THE GUPTAS
After the Gupta Empire collapsed, Muslim conquerors moved into India,
eventually taking control of nearly all of the subcontinent. The majority of the
population in India remained Hindu, which often led to tension and open conflict.
The Impact of Religion
For hundreds of years, Buddhism had retained widespread acceptance among
the Indian people. The teachings of the Buddha came to be interpreted in different
ways, however. People did not always agree on the meaning of the Buddha’s
teachings. As a result, a split developed among the followers of Buddhism in India.
One group believed that they were following the original teachings of the Buddha. They
called themselves the school of Theravada, “the teachings of the elders.” Followers of
Theravada see Buddhism as a way of life, not a religion that is centered on individual
salvation. They continue to insist that an understanding of oneself is the chief way to
gain nirvana, or release from the “wheel of life.” Another view of Buddhist doctrine was
emerging in northwest India. This school, known as Mahayana Buddhism, said that
Theravada teachings were too strict for ordinary people. To Mahayana Buddhists,
Buddhism is a religion, not a philosophy. The Buddha is not just a wise man, but also
a divine figure. Nirvana is not just a release from the wheel of life, but a true heaven.
Through devotion to the Buddha, people can achieve salvation in this heaven after
death.
The Decline of Buddhism
In the end, neither the Mahayana nor the Theravada sect of Buddhism remained
popular in Indian society. By the 600s, Theravada had declined rapidly. Mahayana was
absorbed by a revived Hinduism and later by a new arrival, Islam. Despite their decline
in India, though, both schools of Buddhism found success abroad. Carried by monks
to China, Korea, Southeast Asia, and Japan, the practice of Buddhism has remained
active in all four areas to the present.
The Eastward Expansion of Islam
In the early eighth century, Islam became popular in the northwestern part of the
Indian subcontinent and had a major impact on Indian civilization. This impact is still
evident today in the division of the subcontinent into mostly Hindu India and two Islamic
states, Bangladesh and Pakistan. One reason for Islam’s success was the state of
political disunity in India when it arrived. The Gupta Empire had collapsed, and no
central authority had replaced it. India was divided into about 70 states, which fought
constantly. During this time, warriors were held in very high esteem.
When the Arab armies reached India in the early eighth century, they did little
more than move into the frontier regions. At the end of the tenth century, however, a
new phase of Islamic expansion took place when a group of rebellious Turkish slaves
founded a new Islamic state known as Ghazna (Ghazn¯ı), located in what is now
Afghanistan. When the founder of the new state died in 997, his son, Mah· mˉud of
Ghazna, succeeded him. Mah. mˉud, an ambitious man, began to attack neighboring
Hindu kingdoms to the southeast. Before his death in 1030, he was able to extend his
rule throughout the upper Indus Valley and as far south as the Indian Ocean.
Resistance against the advances of Mah. mˉud and his successors into northern India
was led by the Rajputs, who were Hindu warriors. They fought bravely, but their military
tactics, based on infantry supported by elephants, were no match for the cavalry of the
invaders. Mah. mˉud’s cavalry was able to strike with great speed. Mah. mˉud’s
successors continued their advances. By 1200, Muslim power had reached over the
entire plain of northern India, creating a new Muslim state known as the sultanate of
Delhi. In the fourteenth century, this state extended its power into the Deccan Plateau.
The Impact of Timur Lenk
During the latter half of the fourteenth century, the sultanate of Delhi began to
decline. Near the end of the century, a new military force crossed the Indus River from
the northwest. The invaders raided the capital of Delhi, and then withdrew. As many
as 100,000 Hindu prisoners were massacred before the gates of the city. It was India’s
first meeting with Timur Lenk (Tamerlane). Timur Lenk was the ruler of a Mongol state
based in Samarqand, to the north of the Pamirs. Born sometime during the 1330s in
Samarqand, Timur Lenk seized power in 1369 and immediately launched a program
of conquest. It took more than a century for the city of Delhi to recover from the
destruction caused by the invasion.
During the 1380s, Timur Lenk placed the entire region east of the Caspian Sea
under his authority and then occupied Mesopotamia. After his brief foray into northern
India, he turned to the west. He died in 1405 in the midst of a military campaign. The
death of Timur Lenk removed a major menace from the various states of the Indian
subcontinent, but the calm did not last long. By the early sixteenth century, two new
challenges had appeared from beyond the horizon. One came from the north in the
form of the Moguls, a newly emerging nomadic power. The other came from Europe,
from Portuguese traders arriving by sea in search of gold and spices. Both the Moguls
and the Portuguese would exert a major impact on the later course of Indian
civilization.
Indian Society and Culture
The imposition of Islamic rule by Mah. mˉud of Ghazna and his successors
created a level of general tension in Indian society. The life of the typical Indian,
however, remained about the same as it had been for the past several hundred years.
Islam and Indian Society
The Muslim rulers in India viewed themselves as foreign conquerors. They tried
to maintain a strict separation between the Muslim ruling class and the Hindu
population. Like rulers elsewhere at this time, many Muslim rulers in India were
intolerant of other faiths. They generally used peaceful means, however, to encourage
people to convert to Islam. Still, some could be fierce when their religious zeal was
aroused.
Most Muslim rulers realized that there were simply too many Hindus to convert
them all. They reluctantly accepted the need to tolerate religious differences.
Nevertheless, Muslim rulers did impose many Islamic customs on Hindu society.
Overall, the relationship between Muslims and Hindus was that of conqueror and
conquered, a relationship marked by suspicion and dislike rather than friendship and
understanding.
Economy and Daily Life
Between 500 and 1500, most Indians lived on the land and farmed their own tiny
plots. These peasants paid a share of their harvest each year to a landlord, who in
turn sent part of the payment to the local ruler. In effect, the landlord worked as a tax
collector for the king, who in theory owned all the land in his state. The rents paid by
the farmers funded the sumptuous lifestyle, the wars, and the grand temples of the
rich and high born. At best the peasants scraped by. At worst, they fell into debt and
were victims of moneylenders who charged high rates of interest. Although the vast
majority of Indians were peasants, reports by foreign visitors between 500 and 1500
indicate that many people lived in the cities. It was here that the landed elites and rich
merchants lived, often in conditions of considerable wealth. Rulers naturally had the
most wealth. One maharaja (great king) of a small state in southern India, for example,
had more than 100,000 soldiers in his pay, along with 900 elephants and 20,000
horses. Another ruler kept a thousand high-caste women to sweep his palace. Each
carried a broom and a brass basin holding a mixture of cow dung and water.
Agriculture was not the only source of wealth in India. Since ancient times, India’s
location had made it a center for trade between Southwest Asia and East Asia. It had
also been a source for other goods shipped throughout the world. Internal trade within
India probably declined during this period, primarily because of the fighting among the
many states of India. The level of foreign trade, however, remained high, especially in
the south and along the northwestern coast. Both areas were located along the
traditional trade routes to Southwest Asia and the Mediterranean Sea region. Wealthy
Hindu merchants with close ties to the royal courts carried on much of the foreign
trade. Others, including Muslims, also participated in this trade. Sometimes, traders
from other lands settled in India; in other cases, Indian traders traveled elsewhere.
Culture in India
Between 500 and 1500, Indian artists and writers built on the achievements of
their predecessors while making innovations in all fields of creative endeavor, both
secular and religious. Here, we examine two such fields: architecture and prose
literature. During this period, religious architecture in India developed from caves to
new, magnificent structures. From the eighth century on, Indian architects built
monumental Hindu temples. Each temple consisted of a central shrine surrounded by
a tower, a hall for worshipers, an entryway, and a porch, all set in a rectangular
courtyard. Temples became ever more ornate. The towers became higher and the
temple complexes more intricate. Some became walled compounds set one within the
other, resembling a town. Probably the greatest examples of Hindu temple art of this
period are found at Khajuraho. Of the 80 temples originally built there in the tenth
century, 20 remain standing today. All of the towers on these temples are buttressed
(supported by stone walls) at various levels on the sides. This gives the whole temple
a sense of unity and creates an upward movement similar to that of Gandisê (Kailas)
in the Himalaya, a sacred place to Hindus. The use of prose in fiction was well
established in India by the sixth and seventh centuries. This is truly astonishing in light
of the fact that the novel did not appear in Japan until the tenth or eleventh century
and in Europe until the seventeenth century.
One of the greatest masters of Sanskrit prose was Dan. d. in, a seventh-century
author. In The Adventures of the Ten Princes, he relates the exploits of 10 princes as
they search for love and power. He created a fantastic world, fusing realistic portrayal
of human behavior with supernatural occurrences, including the direct intervention of
gods in worldly affairs. His powers of observation, details of everyday life, and humor
give his writing much vitality.
