century made such wheels as these, it is also probably true that their
architects were the only ones who had sufficient mechanical skill to
construct their roofs wholly of hewn stone, without the aid either of
wood or concrete, and who could dovetail and join them so beautifully
that they remain watertight and perfect after five centuries of neglect
in a tropical climate. Nothing can exceed the skill and ingenuity with
which the stones of the roofs are joggled and fitted into one another,
unless it is the skill with which the joints of their plain walls are so
polished and so evenly laid without cement of any kind. It is difficult
to detect their joints even in a sun-picture, which generally reveals
flaws not to be detected by the eye. Except in the works of the old
pyramid-building Egyptians, I know of nothing to compare with it.
When we put all these things together, it is difficult to decide whether
we ought most to admire the mechanical skill which the Cambodian
architects displayed in construction or the largeness of conception and
artistic merit which pervades every part of their designs. These alone
ought to be more than sufficient to recommend their study to every
architect. To the historian of art the wonder is to find temples with
such a singular combination of styles in such a locality--Indian temples
constructed with pillars almost purely classical in design, and
ornamented with bas-reliefs so strangely Egyptian in character. To the
ethnologist they are almost equally interesting, in consequence of the
religion to which they are dedicated. Taken together, these
circumstances render their complete investigation so important that it
is hoped it will not now be long delayed.
BOOK IX.
CHINA.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
CHRONOLOGY.
Period of Hea B.C. 2100
Woo Wong period of Chow 1100
Confucius died 477
Chy hoang-ty built Great Wall 240
Han dynasty 201
Hoty, seventeenth king; Buddhism introduced A.D. 90
Tsin dynasty 260
Wootae dynasty; China divided into two kingdoms 416
China reunited, capital Honan 585
Tang dynasty 897
Northern China conquered by Mongols 1234
Kublai Khan 1281
Ming dynasty; Mongol expelled 1366
Manchow Tartar dynasty; now on the throne 1644
It is extremely difficult, in the present state of our knowledge, to
write anything, either conclusive or satisfactory, about the
architecture of China. This may arise partly from the incuriousness of
travellers, and partly because there really are no buildings in the
country worthy of the people or their civilization. Till very recently,
the latter would have appeared to be the true cause of our ignorance;
but lately the photographic camera has penetrated even within the walls
of the imperial city of Pekin, and has brought away impressions which go
some way to modify this opinion. Unfortunately, the camera has not been
accompanied by the measuring-tape or the notebook, and our information
is therefore, in some respects, vague; but it seems certain that there
are buildings worthy of more attention than has hitherto been bestowed
upon them. Even these, however, are not such as we might expect to find
among a people whose history and whose civilization seems so exact a
counterpart of that of Egypt. In both countries we have the same long
succession of dynasties with dates, extending through 3000 or 4000
years, interrupted only by shepherd invasions which in both countries
lasted about five centuries, when the words of Manetho are as literally
applicable to the Taeping rebellion as they are to the overthrow of the
Hyksos by the uprising of the native Egyptian races. During all this
long period the same patriarchal form of government prevailed in both
countries--the king being not only the head of the secular government,
but the chief priest of the people. Both people early attained a certain
stage of civilization, and maintained it without change or progress
during the whole period of their existence. The syllabic symbols of the
Chinese are the exact counterpart of the hieroglyphic writing of the
Egyptians, as clumsy and as unlike that of any other contemporary
nation, and as symbolic of their exclusive segregation from the rest of
mankind. In both countries there was always the same calm contemplation
of death, the same desire for an honourable funeral and a splendid tomb,
and the same reverence for the dead. In these and fifty other
particulars, the manners and customs of the two peoples seem identical,
and the perfect parallelism only breaks down when we come to speak of
their buildings. There are no tombs in China to be compared with the
Pyramids, and no temples that approach those of Thebes in dimensions or
in splendour.
If the Chinese were as closely allied to the Tartar or Mongolian tribes
on their north-eastern frontier as is generally supposed, this
difference could not have existed. It may therefore be, as has been
suspected, that the true Chinese are more closely allied to the
Polynesian races, especially on the sea-board, which is the only part of
the country we are really acquainted with. When the inner country has
been more carefully examined, it is probable that we may see cause to
modify our opinion as to the architectural character of the Chinese
people.
This will be especially the case if, as is highly probable, the
so-called Indo-Chinese inhabitants of Cambodia are very much more
closely allied in blood to the Chinese than they are to any of the races
inhabiting India; since, by the erection of the buildings described in
the last division of this work, the Cambodians have nobly vindicated
their title to be considered as one of the great building races of the
world. Considering the short time of their existence and the limited
area they occupied, they may in fact lay claim to having surpassed even
the Egyptians in this respect.
It will be strange if in Honan and Quang-si we do not eventually find
the links which will confirm the connexion of the two races of Cambodia
and China, and explain what at present can only be regarded as one of
the unsolved problems of architectural history.
A little well-directed industry on the spot would very soon clear all
this doubt away. Meanwhile there are other minor causes which may have
contributed to the absence of monumental buildings in China, and which
it may be as well to allude to before proceeding further. In the first
place, the Chinese never had either a dominant priesthood or a
hereditary nobility. The absence of the former class is a very important
consideration, because, in all countries where architecture has been
carried to anything like perfection, it is to sacred art that it has
owed its highest inspiration, and sacred art is never so strongly
developed as under the influence of a powerful and splendid hierarchy.
Again, religious and sectarian zeal is often a strong stimulus to sacred
architecture, and this is entirely wanting in this remarkable people.
Though the Chinese are bigoted to a greater extent than we can well
conceive in all political matters, they are more tolerant than any other
nation we know of in all that concerns religion. At the present moment
three great religious sects divide the empire nearly equally between
them. For though Buddhism is the religion of the reigning family, and
perhaps numbers more followers than either of the other two, still the
followers of the doctrines of Confucius--the contemporary and rival of
Sakya Sinha--are a more purely Chinese sect than the other, and hold an
equal place in public estimation; while, at the present time, the sect
of Laou Tse, or the Doctors of Reason, is more fashionable, and
certainly more progressive, than the others.[655] Christianity, too,
might at one time have encroached largely on either of these, and become
a very prevalent religion in this tolerant empire, had the Jesuits and
Dominicans understood that the condition of religious tolerance here is
a total abstinence from interference in political matters. This,
however, the Roman Catholic priesthood never could be brought to
understand; hence their expulsion from the realm, and the proscription
of their faith, which otherwise would not only have been tolerated like
all others, but bid fair to find more extensive favour than any. Such
toleration is highly laudable in one point of view; but the want of
fervour and energy from which it arises is fatal to any great exertions
for the honour of religion.
In the same manner the want of an hereditary nobility, and indeed of any
strong family pride, is equally unfavourable to domestic architecture of
a durable description. At a man’s death his property is generally
divided equally among his children. Consequently the wealthiest men do
not build residences calculated to last longer than their own lives. The
royal palaces are merely somewhat larger and more splendid than those
of the mandarins, but the same in character, and erected with the same
ends.
There is no country where property has hitherto been considered so
secure as China. Private feuds and private wars were till lately
unknown; foreign invasion was practically impossible, and little
dreaded. Hence they have none of those fortalices, or fortified
mansions, which by their mass and solidity give such a marked character
to a certain class of domestic edifices in the western world. Equality,
peace, and toleration, are blessings whose value it would be difficult
to overestimate; but on the dead though pleasing level where they exist,
it is in vain to look for the rugged sublimity of the mountain, or the
terrific grandeur of the storm. The Chinese have chosen the humbler path
of life, and with singular success. There is not perhaps a more
industrious or, till the late wars, happier people on the face of the
globe; but they are at the same time singularly deficient in every
element of greatness, either political or artistic.
Notwithstanding all this, it certainly is curious to find the oldest
civilized people now existing on the face of the globe almost wholly
without monuments to record the past, or any desire to convey to
posterity a worthy idea of their present greatness. It is no less
remarkable to find the most populous of nations, a nation in which
millions are always seeking employment, never thinking of any of those
higher modes of expression which would serve as a means of multiplying
occupation, and which elevate while feeding the masses; and still more
startling to find wealth, such as the Chinese possess, never invested in
self-glorification, by individuals erecting for themselves monuments
which shall astonish their contemporaries, and hand down their names to
posterity.
From these causes it may be that Chinese architecture is not worthy of
much attention. In one respect, however, it is instructive, since the
Chinese are the only people who now employ polychromy as an essential
part of their architecture: indeed, with them, colour is far more
essential than form; and certainly the result is so far pleasing and
satisfactory, that for the lower grades of art it is hardly doubtful
that it should always be so. For the higher grades, however, it is
hardly less certain that colour, though most valuable as an accessary,
is incapable of that lofty power of expression which form conveys to the
human mind.
CHAPTER II.
PAGODAS.
CONTENTS.
Temple of the Great Dragon--Buddhist
Temples--Taas--Tombs--Pailoos--Domestic Architecture.
If we had the requisite knowledge, or if the known examples of Chinese
temples were sufficiently numerous, we ought, before describing them, to
classify the buildings, apportioning each to that one of the three
religions to which it belongs. For the present this must be left to some
one on the spot. Meanwhile there is no difficulty in recognising those
which belong to the religion of Fo or Buddha. These are generally the
nine-storeyed towers or taas, which, as will be explained hereafter, are
merely exaggerated tees of the Indian dagobas. The temples, properly
so-called, of this religion, are not very magnificent, nor are they
generally built in a permanent style of architecture. This is still more
the case, apparently, with the temples of Confucius. The only one that
has been carefully described and photographed is that at Pekin, which is
also probably the most magnificent. Judging from our present
information, it more resembles a university than a temple. There are
neither images nor altars, but great halls, on which are hung up the
names of the emperors and of the most distinguished literates of the
kingdom. There are no priests; and though ceremonies are there performed
annually by the emperor in honour of the great philosopher, these
scarcely can be called worship, or the hall a temple.
TEMPLE OF THE GREAT DRAGON.
The most magnificent temple in the capital, so far as we know in the
empire, is that known as the Temple of Heaven, or the Great Dragon.[656]
It is situated close to the southern wall of the city in a square
[Illustration: 379. Temple of the Great Dragon. (From a Photograph by
Beato.)]
enclosure measuring about a mile each way. From the outer gate a raised
causeway leads to the temple, on either side of which are numerous
buildings for the accommodation of the priests, which are approached by
frequent flights of steps leading down to a park beautifully planted. At
its inner extremity stands the temple itself, a circular building, three
storeys in height, with broad projecting roofs, the upper terminating in
a gilt ball, directly under which stands the altar.
The temple is raised on a circular pyramid, the three terraces of which
are seen in the woodcut. There are several handsome gateways at
intervals across the causeway, so arranged that from the entrance the
circular temple itself can be seen through the long vista, framed as it
were by them; and as the whole of the upper part is covered with blue
tiles and gilding, the effect is said to be very pleasing.
In the same enclosure is another temple called that of the Earth, where
sacrifices of animals are annually offered to the gods, whoever they may
be, to whom this temple is dedicated.
These temples are said to have been erected about the year 1420, and, if
so old, seem to be in a very fair state of preservation, considering the
manner in which they are now neglected.
In reading Mr. Michie’s, or any other description of the Dragon Temple
of Pekin, it seems impossible to avoid feeling that there are so many
points of resemblance between it and the Serpent Temple of Nakhon Wat,
that the coincidence can hardly be accidental. The variations are hardly
greater than might be expected from difference of age, and the fact that
the one was erected by Chinese at the northern extremity of their
empire, the other by Cambodians near the southern limit of theirs. All
the links, however, which connect the two temples are still wanting;
yet, as we have the assertion of the Chinese traveller in 1295 that the
Tao-tze religion[657] existed in Cambodia while he was there, we should
not feel surprise at any similarity that may be traced between the
temples of the two countries.
BUDDHIST TEMPLES.
The only Buddhist temple in China of which any plans have been made, or
which I have myself had an opportunity of inspecting, is that at Honan,
opposite Canton. Unfortunately it is very modern, and by no means
monumental. It is a parallelogram enclosed by a high wall, measuring 306
ft. by 174 ft. In the shorter front facing the river is a gateway of
some pretension. This leads to a series of halls opening into each
other, and occupying the whole of the longer axis of the internal court.
The first and second of these are porches or antechapels. The central
one is the largest, and practically the choir of the building. It
contains the altar, adorned by gilt images of the three precious
Buddhas, with stalls for the monks and all arrangements necessary for
the daily service. Behind this, in the next compartment, is a dagoba,
and in its rear another apartment devoted to the goddess Kuan yin,
principally worshipped by women--in fact, the Lady Chapel of the church.
Around the court are arranged the cells of the monks, their kitchen,
refectory, and all the necessary offices of the convent. These are
generally placed against the outer wall, and open into the court.
Any person familiar with the rock-cut examples in India will easily
recognise in this temple all the features he is accustomed to in the
earlier Chaityas and Viharas, though strangely altered by their Chinese
disguise. The figure which stood in front of the dagoba (Woodcut No. 61)
is moved forward and placed on an altar by itself, with two companions
added, in accordance with modern Chinese theology; but the general
arrangements remain the same. The most interesting part, however, is the
arrangement of the cells, &c., relatively to the temple. In one of the
caves at Dhumnar (Bhim ka Bazar) something like this has been attempted,
but it is evidently so difficult of execution in the rock, that we are
not surprised to find it not repeated. It is evidently what was intended
to be represented on the central rath of Mahavellipore (Woodcut No.
181), and must indeed have been the general arrangement of Buddhist
ecclesiastical establishments. What is now wanted is, that some one
should supply information regarding the earlier temples of the Chinese,
say of the 12th to the 16th centuries. They no doubt exist, and would
throw great light on the earlier Indian examples. In the meanwhile,
however, it is curious to refer back to the Woodcut No. 129. From it it
will be perceived that as early as the 11th century the Buddhist Chaitya
in India, standing in the centre of its Vihara, had already been
sublimated into an idol temple, surrounded by a series of idol niches,
since there cannot be a doubt that the Jaina temple of Vimala Sah is a
reproduction for another purpose of an old Buddhist monastery. The
curious point is, that the 18th-century temple of Honan reproduces, for
their original purpose, forms which in India had, seven centuries
earlier, passed away to another faith, and became wholly conventional.
It is still more strange that, if we leap over the intermediate period,
and go seven centuries further back, we shall find in India the same
ceremonies performed in the same form of temples as those at which any
one may assist in China at the present day.
At Pekin there are several Lamaseries or Buddhist monasteries, of a much
more monumental character than that at Honan, but it is very difficult
indeed to guess at their arrangement from mere verbal descriptions
without dimensions. The gateway of one, represented in Woodcut No. 380,
gives a fair idea of the usual mode of constructing gateways in China.
[Illustration: 380. Monumental Gateway of Buddhist Monastery, Pekin.
(From a Photograph by Beato.)]
It has three openings of pleasing proportions, and is as well designed
as any to be found in China. Behind it is to be seen the dagoba, to
which it leads: a tall form, with a reverse slope, and an exaggerated
tee, so altered from those we are accustomed to in the earlier days of
Indian architecture, that it requires some familiarity with the
intermediate forms in Nepal and Burmah to feel sure that it is the
direct lineal descendant of the topes at Sanchi or Manikyala. Around it
are minarets, with a cross-legged seated figure of Buddha on each face.
But without a plan or description it is impossible to say whether they
come down to the ground, or on what kind of basement they rest.
The ordinary form of a temple, as seen in the villages or towns in
China, is extremely simple, and seems to be the same, whether dedicated
to Buddha, or to the Queen of Heaven, or to any other deity of the
strange pantheon of the Celestial Empire. It generally consists of a
square apartment with a highly ornamented roof, and with one of the
side-walls removed. The entrance is never at the end, nor the end wall
ever removed, as would be the case in the West, but always the side; and
it is by no means clear that this is not the right and reasonable way of
arranging matters. In very small temples a single beam supports the
eaves, and a screen inside forms the back of the porch and the front of
the temple. In larger temples two or more pillars are introduced, but
the other arrangements remain the same. Both these may be seen in the
annexed woodcut (No. 381), and when arranged as picturesquely as in this
group, and with their gateways and subsidiary adjuncts, they become very
pleasing features in the landscape. As architectural objects, they
depend for their effect principally on colour, which is applied with an
unsparing hand in the form of glazed tiles, painted ornaments, and
frequently also paintings, such as landscapes and figure subjects.
Gilding is also employed to a great extent, and with good effect.
[Illustration: 381. Temple at Macao. (From a Sketch by the Author.)]
TAAS.
The objects of Chinese architecture with which the European eye is most
familiar are the taas, or nine-storeyed pagodas, as they are usually
called. In the south they generally have that number of storeys, but not
always, and in the north it ranges from three to thirteen. As before
hinted, these are nothing but exaggerated tees of dagobas, and it is
easy to trace them through all the stages of the change. In India we can
easily trace the single wooden chattah or umbrella of Karli (Woodcut No.
56) to the nine-storeyed tower at Chittore (Woodcut No. 143), and from
that the transition is easy to the Chinese examples, although the
elaboration of the two was simultaneous, and the Chinese had probably
erected tall towers as early as the Jains.
[Illustration: 382. Porcelain Tower, Nankin.]
Of those which existed in China in our own time the best known is the
celebrated porcelain tower at Nankin.[658] Commenced in the year 1412,
and finished in 1431, it was erected as a monument of gratitude to an
empress of the Ming family, and was, in consequence, generally called
the Temple of Gratitude. It was octagonal in form, 236 ft. in height, of
which, however, about 30 ft. must be deducted for the iron spire that
surmounted it, leaving little more than 200 ft. for the elevation of the
building, or about the height of the Monument of London. From the summit
of the spire eight chains depended, to each of which were attached nine
bells, and a bell was also attached to each angle of the lower roofs,
making 144 bells in all, which, when tinkling in harmony to the evening
breeze, must have produced an effect as singular as pleasing. It was
not, however, either to its dimensions or its bells that the tower owed
its celebrity, but to the coating of porcelain which clothed its brick
walls, as well as the upper and under sides of the projecting roofs,
which mark the division of each storey. The porcelain produced a
brilliancy of effect which is totally lost in all the representations of
it yet published, but which was, in fact, that on which the architect
almost wholly relied for producing the effect he desired, and without
which his design is a mere skeleton.
[Illustration: 383. Pagoda in Summer Palace, Pekin. (From a Photograph
by Beato.)]
Another celebrated pagoda is that known as “Second Bar Pagoda,” on the
Canton river. It is a pillar of victory, erected to commemorate a naval
battle which the Chinese claim to have gained near the spot. It is, in
design, nearly identical with that of Nankin, but of smaller dimensions,
and is now fast falling to ruin.
[Illustration: 384. Tung Chow Pagoda. (From a Photograph by Beato.)]
These two are of the usual and most typical form, and so like hundreds
of others, that it is impossible to deduce any sequence from them with
such representations as we now possess. Though pleasing and purposelike,
as well as original, they are somewhat monotonous in design. A tower
divided into nine equal and similar storeys is a very inferior design to
that of the minars of the Mahomedans, or the ordinary spires of
Christian churches; and, if all were like these, we should be forced to
deny the Chinese the faculty of invention in architecture. In the north,
however, the forms seem much more various. One in the Summer Palace
(Woodcut No. 383) is divided into either three or seven storeys, as you
choose to count them. Four of the sides of the octagon are longer than
the other four, and altogether there is a play of light and shade, and a
variety about the ornaments in this tower, which is extremely pleasing.
It is much more like an Indian design than any other known in China, and
with the circle of pillars round its base, and the Lât or Stambha, which
usually accompany these objects further west, it recalls the original
forms as completely as any other object in this country.
In direct contrast to this is the Pagoda of Tung Chow (Woodcut No. 384).
Its thirteen storeys are almost more monotonous than those of the Nankin
Pagoda; but they are merely architectural ornaments, string-courses, in
fact; and as the tower is not pierced with windows above the base, it
becomes, like an Orissan temple, an imposing object of architectural art
without any apparent utilitarian object. It thus escapes the charge of
littleness in design, which only too justly applies to most of its
compeers.
It is extremely difficult to form a correct estimate of the artistic
merits of these towers. Edifices so original and so national must be
interesting from that circumstance alone, and it seems almost impossible
to build anything in a tower-like form of great height, whether as a
steeple, a minar, or a pagoda, which shall not form a pleasing object
from its salience and aspiring character alone, even without any real
artistic merit in itself. Besides these qualifications, I cannot but
think that the tapering octagonal form, the boldly-marked divisions, the
domical roof, and general consistence in design and ornament of these
towers, entitle them to rank tolerably high among the tower-like
buildings of the world.
TOMBS.
Like all people of Tartar origin, one of the most remarkable
characteristics of the Chinese is their reverence for the dead, or as it
is usually called, their ancestral worship. In consequence of this,
their tombs are not only objects of care, but have frequently more
ornament bestowed upon them than graces the dwellings of the living.
Their tombs are of different kinds; often merely conical mounds of
earth, with a circle of stones round their base, like those of the
Etruscans or ancient Greeks, as may be seen from the woodcut (No. 385)
borrowed from Fortune’s ‘China’--which would serve equally well for a
restoration of those of Tarquinia or Vulci. More generally they are of a
hemispherical shape, surmounted with a spire, not unlike the Indian and
Ceylonese examples, but still with a physiognomy peculiarly Chinese. The
most common arrangement is that of a horseshoe-shaped platform, cut out
of the side of a hill. It consequently has a high back, in which is the
entrance to the tomb, and slopes off to nothing at the entrance to the
horseshoe, where the wall generally terminates with two lions or
dragons, or some fantastic ornament common to Chinese architecture. When
the tomb is situated, as is generally the case, on a hillside, this
arrangement is not only appropriate, but elegant. When the same thing is
imitated on a plain, it is singularly misplaced and unintelligible. Many
of the tombs are built of granite, finely polished, and carved with a
profusion of labour that makes us regret that the people who can employ
the most durable materials with such facility should have so great a
predilection for ephemeral wooden structures.
[Illustration: 385. Chinese Grave. (From Fortune’s ‘Wanderings in
China.’)]
[Illustration: 386. Chinese Tomb. (From Fortune’s ‘Wanderings in
China.’)]
When the rock is suitable for the purpose, which, however, seems to be
rarely the case in China, their tombs are cut in the rock, as in Etruria
and elsewhere; and tombs of the class just described seem to be a device
for converting an ordinary hillside into a substitute for the more
appropriate situation.
Occasionally, however, the Chinese do erect tombs, which, though
ornamental, are far from being in such good taste as the two forms just
quoted. A tumulus is considered appropriate for this purpose all the
world over, and so is the horseshoe form under the circumstances in
which the Chinese employ it; but what can be said in favour of such an
array of objects as those shown in the Woodcut No. 387? Judged by the
standard of taste which prevails in China at the present day, they may
be considered by the natives as both elegant and ornamental, but it
would be difficult to conceive anything which spoke less of the
sepulchre, even from a Chinaman’s point of view; while, on the other
hand, their dimensions are such as to deprive them of all dignity as
architectural objects.
[Illustration: 387. Group of Tombs near Pekin. (From a Photograph by
Beato.)]
PAILOOS.
The Pailoos, or “triumphal gateways,” as they are most improperly
called, are another class of monument almost as frequently met with in
Chinese scenery as the nine-storeyed pagodas, and consequently nearly as
familiar to the European eye. Their origin is as distinctly Indian as
the other, though, from their nature, being easily overthrown, but few
examples can be found in a country that has so long ceased to be
Buddhist. Fortunately, however, we still possess in the gateway of
Sanchi (Woodcut No. 10) the typical example of the whole class; and we
find them afterwards represented in bas-reliefs and in frescos in a
manner to leave no doubt of the frequency of their application.
In China they seem almost universally to be employed as honorific
monuments of deceased persons--either men of distinction, or widows who
have not married again, or virgins who have died unmarried. Frequently
they are still constructed in wood, and when stone is used they retain
to this hour the forms and details of wooden construction. Whatever the
material, they consist of either two or four posts, set either on the
ground, so as to allow a passage through, or on a platform, as in
Woodcut No. 388. This is as usual a form as the other, and shows how
inapplicable the term gateway is to these monuments. The posts always
carry a rail or frieze, bearing an inscription, which is, in fact, the
object for which the monument was erected. Above this are various
architectural details, which complete the design in a manner both
original and artistic.
[Illustration: 388. Pailoo near Canton. (From a Sketch by the Author.)]
One serving as the portal to a dagoba has already been given (Woodcut
No. 380), and though rich, can hardly be considered as superior to that
in Woodcut No. 389, which spans a street in Amoy. Instead of leading to
a dagoba, as was the case at Sanchi, and generally in India, we have, in
this instance, what appears to be a simulated coffin placed under a
canopy, and above the principal cornice, which is an essentially Chinese
idea. With them a handsome coffin is an object of the highest ambition,
and is, consequently, a luxury which the rich take care to provide
themselves with during their lifetime. So far as we know, no great
structural dagobas ever existed in China, so that their form is
generally unfamiliar to the people.
Probably the Chinese would have spent more pains on their tombs had they
not hit on the happy device of separating the monument from the
sepulchre. We do so in exceptional cases, when we erect statues and
pillars or other monuments to our great men on hill-tops or in
market-places; but as a rule, a man’s monument is placed where his body
is laid, though it would probably be difficult to assign a good logical
reason for the practice. The great peculiarity of China is that in nine
cases out of ten they effect these objects by processes which are
exactly the reverse of those of Europe, and in most cases it is not easy
to decide which is best. In erecting the Pailoo, or monument, in a
conspicuous place apart from the sepulchre, they seem to have shown
their usual common sense, though an architect must regret that the
designs of their tombs suffered in consequence, and have none of that
magnificence which we should expect among a people at all times so
addicted to ancestral worship as the Chinese.
[Illustration: 389. Pailoo at Amoy. (From Fisher’s ‘China
Illustrated.’)]
In an historical point of view, the most curious thing connected with
these Pailoos seems to be, that at Sanchi, about the Christian Era, we
find them used as gateways to a simulated tomb. In India both the
tumulus and the Pailoo had at that time passed away from their original
sepulchral meaning; the one had become a relic-shrine, the other an
iconostasis. Two thousand years afterwards in China we find them both
still used for the purposes for which they were originally designed.
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.
It is in their domestic architecture, if in any, that the Chinese excel;
there we do not look either for monumental grandeur or for durability,
and it is almost impossible to resist being captivated by the gaiety and
brilliancy of a Chinese dwelling of the first class, and the exuberant
richness and beauty of the carvings and ornaments that are heaped on
every part of it.
One of the most remarkable peculiarities of their houses is the almost
universal concave form of roof, which writers on the subject have
generally referred to as a reminiscence of the tent of the Tartars, who
are supposed to have introduced it. The authors of this theory, however,
forgot that the Chinese have been longer out of tents, and know less of
them, than any other people now on the face of the globe. The Tartar
conquest, like our Norman one, has long been a fusion rather than a
subjection, and does not seem to have produced any visible effect on the
manners or customs of the original inhabitants of China. It may also be
observed that the typical form of the roof of a Tartar tent was and is
domical, like those represented in the Assyrian sculptures, and seldom,
if ever, constructed with a hollow curve; so that the argument tells the
other way. Be this as it may, the form of roof in question arose from a
constructive exigence, which others would do well to imitate. In a
country like China, where very heavy rains fall at one season of the
year, tiled roofs, such as they almost universally use, require a high
pitch to carry off the water; but the glaring sunshine of another season
renders shade to walls and windows absolutely necessary. If (as on the
left of the annexed diagram) the slope of the roof is continued so far
out as to be effective for the last purpose, the upper windows are too
much darkened, and it is impossible to see out of them. To remedy this
defect, the Chinese carry out their eaves almost horizontally from the
face of the walls, where a leak becomes of slight importance; and then,
to break the awkward angle caused by the meeting of these two slopes,
they ease it off with a hollow curve, which not only answers the double
purpose of the roof more effectually, but produces what the Chinese
think--and perhaps rightly--the most pleasing form of roof.
[Illustration: 390. Diagram of Chinese construction.]
The only parts of such a roof that admit of decoration by carving are
evidently either the central or angular ridges; and here they exaggerate
their favourite hollow curve to an extent unpleasing to a European
eye--the angles being, in some instances, actually turned back, and the
ridge being also ornamented by upturned ornaments at its ends, to an
extent we cannot reconcile with our notions; nor indeed is it possible
we should, when they are overloaded with grotesque ornaments to the
extent too often found.
Another peculiarity that gives a very local character to their
architecture is their mode of framing a roof, so unlike that of any
other people. This arises from the timber most easily available for the
purpose being a small pine, which has the peculiarity of being soft and
spongy in the inside, while the outer rims of wood, just under the bark,
retain their hardness and strength; it is thus practically a hollow
wooden cylinder, which, if squared to form a framing as we do, would
fall to pieces; but merely cleaned and used whole, it is a very strong
and durable building-material, though one which requires all a
Chinaman’s ingenuity and neatness to frame together with sufficient
rigidity for the purposes of a roof.
The uprights which support these roofs are generally formed of the same
wood, though not unfrequently they are granite posts--they cannot be
called pillars--of the same dimensions, and strengthened, or rather
steadied, by transverse pieces of wood, the space between which and the
roof is generally filled with open-work carving, so as to form a species
of frieze.
The roof is usually constructed (as shown in diagram No. 390) by using
three or four transverse pieces or tie-beams, one over the other, the
ends of each beam being supported on that below it by means of a framed
piece of a different class of wood. By this method, though to us it may
look unscientific, they make up a framing that resists the strongest
winds uninjured. Sometimes, as shown in the dotted lines of the same
woodcut, they carry the curve across the top of the roof; but, when this
is done, they are obliged to have recourse to metal roofing, or to tiles
of a greater length than are usually found or easily made.
As before remarked, however, it is not so much on its forms that Chinese
architecture depends as on its colours--the pillars being generally
painted red, the friezes and open work green; blue marks the floors and
stronger lines, and gilding is used profusely everywhere. Whether this
would improve a finer or more solid style of art may admit of doubt; but
it is certainly remarkably pleasing in China, and singularly appropriate
to the architecture we have been describing; and grouped as these
buildings usually are around garden courts, filled with the gayest
flowers, and adorned with rock-work and fountains more fantastic than
the buildings themselves, the fancy may easily be charmed with the
result, though taste forbids us to approve of the details.
The same ephemeral system of construction which prevailed in dwellings
of the rich merchants and mandarins was carried out in the royal palaces
without any increase of monumental character, but, of course, with
greater richness of ornament, and upon a larger scale. Like most
Oriental palaces, however, those at Pekin consist of a number of
detached pavilions, rather than of numerous suites of apartments grouped
under one roof, as is usually the case in Europe; and they consequently
never attain the magnitude essential to architectural dignity. In the
Summer Palace at Pekin there were many detached pavilions similar to
that represented in Woodcut No. 391, which, when interspersed with trees
and water and rocky scenery, aid in making up a very fairy-like
landscape, but in themselves can hardly be considered as objects of
dignified architecture.
[Illustration: 391. Pavilion in the Summer Palace, Pekin. (From a
Photograph by Beato.)]
[Illustration: 392. Pavilion in the Summer Palace, Pekin. (From a
Photograph by Beato.)]
Occasionally, however, the Chinese attempted something more monumental,
but without much success. Where glass is not available of sufficient
size and in sufficient quantities to glaze the windows, there is a
difficulty in so arranging them that the room shall not be utterly dark
when the shutters are closed, and that the rain shall not penetrate when
they are open. In wooden construction these difficulties are much more
easily avoided; deep projecting eaves, and light screens, open at the
top, obviate most of them: at least, so the Chinese always thought, and
they have consequently so little practice, that when they tried solid
architecture in a palace they could only produce such a pavilion as that
figured in Woodcut No. 392, which, though characteristic of the style,
cannot be praised either for the elegance of its form or the
appropriateness of its ornamentation.
Perhaps their most successful efforts in this direction were when they
combined a solid basement of masonry with a light superstructure of
wood, as in the Winter Palace at Pekin (Woodcut No. 393). In this
instance the height and solidity of the basement give sufficient dignity
to the mass, and the light superstructure is an appropriate termination
upwards.
[Illustration: 393. View in the Winter Palace, Pekin. (From a
Photograph.)]
This last illustration is interesting, because it enables us to realise
more distinctly than any other example yet known, what must have been
the effect of the palaces of Nineveh and Khorsabad in the days of their
splendour. Like this palace, they were raised on a solid basement of
masonry, and were themselves composed of pavilions of light and
ornamental woodwork; the great difference being that they had
flat-terraced roofs instead of those covered with tiles, as in snowy
Pekin; but the resemblance is curious, and examples even more nearly
akin might probably be found if looked for.
The engineering works of the Chinese have been much extolled by some
writers, but have less claim to praise as works of science than their
buildings have as works of art. Their canals, it is true, are extensive;
but with 300 millions of inhabitants this is small praise, and their
construction is most unscientific. Their bridges, too, are sometimes of
great length, but generally made up of a series of small arches
constructed on the horizontal-bracket principle, as nine-tenths of the
bridges in China are, and consequently narrow and unstable. When they
do use the true arch, it is timidly, and without much knowledge of its
principles.
Their most remarkable engineering work is certainly the Great Wall,
which defends the whole northern frontier of the country, extending over
hill and dale for more than 1200 miles as the crow flies. It is,
however, of very varying strength in different places, and seems to be
strongest and highest in the neighbourhood of Pekin, where it has
generally been seen by Europeans. There it is 20 ft. in height, and its
average thickness is 25 ft. at the base, tapering to 15 ft. at the
summit. There are also towers at short distances whose dimensions are
generally about double those just quoted for the wall.
However absurd such a wall may be as a defensive expedient, it proves
that 200 years B.C. the Chinese were capable of conceiving and executing
works on as great a scale as any ever undertaken in Egypt. The wonder
is, that a people who 2000 years ago were competent to such undertakings
should have attempted nothing on the same scale since that time. With
their increasing population and accumulating wealth we might have
expected their subsequent works to have far surpassed those of the
Egyptians. It, however, remains a problem to be solved, why nothing on
so grand a scale was ever afterwards attempted.
In the rear of the Great Wall, in the Nankau Pass, there is an archway
of some architectural pretension, and which is interesting as having a
well-ascertained date, A.D. 1345.[659] Its dimensions are considerable,
and it is erected in a bold style of masonry (Woodcut No. 394). The
upper part is a true arch, though it was thought necessary to disguise
this by converting its form into that of a semi-octagon, or three-sided
arch. On the keystone is a figure of Garuda, and on either side of him a
Naga figure, with a seven-headed snake hood, and beyond that a class of
flowing tracery we are very familiar with in India about the period of
its erection. Its similarity to the Nepalese gateway at Bhatgaon
(Woodcut No. 174) has already been remarked upon, and altogether it is
interesting, as exemplifying a class of Indian ornamentation that came
into China from the North. If we had a few specimens of art penetrating
from the south, we might find out the secret of the history of Buddhist
art in China.
* * * * *
A few years hence it may be possible to attempt to write a history of
architecture in China. At present, all that can be done is to describe
the style as practised at the present day, and to point out in what
respect it differs from the styles prevailing in neighbouring countries.
Beyond this we shall not be able to advance till some qualified person,
accompanied by a photographer, is enabled to visit the central and
western provinces of the empire. Even then his visit will be of very
little use, unless he is sufficiently familiar with the style as now
known, to be able to discriminate between what is new and what is old,
and by an extended series of inductions to check the absurdities of
native tradition, and form his own opinion on the facts presented to
him. Assuming all this, it is still doubtful whether the materials exist
in China for any extended history of the art. Such facts as have come to
light are not encouraging. Wood has been far too extensively used
throughout for any very permanent style of architecture ever having been
employed. But there are things in Cambodia, and other neighbouring
states, which seem to have come neither from India, nor from any other
country we are acquainted with, but are nevertheless of foreign origin,
and must have been imported from some extraneous land; and it is
difficult to say where we are to look for their originals if not in
central or western China.
[Illustration: 394. Archway in the Nankau Pass. (From a Photograph.)]
The same remarks apply to Japan. So far as our knowledge at present
extends, there is not a single permanent building in the island of so
monumental a character to deserve being dignified by being classed among
the true architectural examples of other countries. It may be that the
dread of earthquakes has prevented them raising their buildings to more
than one or two storeys in height, or constructing them of more solid
materials than wood. It may be, however, that the Japanese do not belong
to one of the building races of mankind, and have no taste for this mode
of magnificence. It is the same story as in China; we shall not know
whether it is true that there are no objects worthy to be styled
architecture in Japan till the island is more scientifically explored
than it has been; nor, if they do not exist, shall we till then be able
to say to which of the two above causes their absence is to be ascribed.
Such information as we have is very discouraging; and it is to be feared
that, though quaint and curious in itself, and so far worthy of
attention, it is of little interest beyond the shores of the islands
themselves. On the other hand, it is to be feared that the extent of our
knowledge is sufficient to make it only too clear that the art, as
practised in Japan, has no title to rank with that already described in
the preceding pages, and consequently no claim to a place in a general
history of architectural art.
However admirable and ingenious the modern Chinese may be, it is in the
minor arts--such as carving in wood and ivory, the manufacture of
vessels of porcelain and bronze, and all that relates to silk and cotton
manufactures. In these they certainly excel, and reached a high degree
of perfection while Europe was still barbarous, but in all the higher
branches of art they take a very low position, and seem utterly
unprogressive.
They have no poetry, properly so called, and no literature worthy of the
name. Their painting never rose much above the scale of decoration,
their sculpture is more carving than anything we know by the higher
name, and their architecture stands on the same low level as their other
arts. It is rich, ornamental, and appropriate for domestic purposes, but
ephemeral and totally wanting in dignity and grandeur of conception.
Still it is pleasing, because truthful; but after all, its great merit
in the eyes of the student of architecture will probably turn out to
rest on the light it throws on the earlier styles, and on the
ethnographic relations of China to the surrounding nations of Eastern
Asia.
APPENDIX.
APPENDIX A.
ON SOME DISPUTED POINTS OF INDIAN CHRONOLOGY.
Throughout the preceding pages the dates of kings’ reigns, where quoted,
have been assumed as known, and the eras from which they are calculated
as ascertained. This has been done in order not to interrupt the
narrative of events by introducing a chronological disquisition at every
point where a date occurs; but no one at all familiar with the subject
needs to be told that the dates of mediæval dynasties in India are far
from settled, and that few are universally acquiesced in. Great progress
has, it is true, been made in the last ten or twenty years in clearing
away the difficulties that surround the subject. So much is this the
case, that there are only one or two dates of sufficient importance to
affect our reasoning which still remain in doubt; but though this may be
true, there are many others about which the world in general feel
considerable hesitation. It consequently becomes almost indispensable to
state briefly the grounds on which the chronology used throughout this
work is based, in order that the correctness of most of the inductions
stated in it may be estimated at their true value.[660]
* * * * *
The earliest reasonable statement bearing on the subject which we
possess is in the 9th chapter of Arrian’s ‘Indica.’ It is there
stated--quoting from Megasthenes--“That from Bacchus (Ixwaku) to
Sandrocottus (Chandragupta), the Indians reckon one hundred and
fifty-three monarchs, who reigned during the space of six thousand and
forty-two years.”
The first part of this statement is eminently satisfactory, as it seems
clear from it that we possess in the Puranas the same lists as were
submitted to the Greeks in the fourth century B.C. In the Solar lists,
we have in the Treta Yug sixty-two reigns, from Ixwaku to Rama.[661]
There is no complete Lunar list in that age. For the Dwapar age we have
three Solar lists: one for Kusha to Vrihadsana, thirty-five reigns;
another from Dishta to Janamejaya, thirty-three reigns; and a third,
from the son of Swadhaja, the father of Sita, wife of Rama, to Mahabasi,
thirty-four reigns. In the Kali Yug we have no complete Solar list, but
the Lunar list gives fifty descents from Jarasandha to the last Nanda.
This gives 145 or 146 reigns, or rather too few. But the Lunar lists,
from the Dwapar Yug, give forty-four from Puru to Yudhishihira, and
fifty from Yadu to Krishna, so that the average is as nearly as may be
that stated by Megasthenes.
The second part of the statement, giving these kings’ reigns an average
duration of nearly forty years, must of course be rejected, but it is
satisfactory to find that, at that early age, the falsification of the
chronology had only gone to the extent of duplication, and that the
monstrous system of Yugs, with all their attendant absurdities, had not
then been invented.
Though it may not at present be capable of direct proof, I have myself
no doubt that the date assigned by the Hindus for the Kali Yug (3101
B.C.) is a true date, though misapplied. It either was the date when the
Aryans assumed that their ancestors had first crossed the Indus, or when
they had first settled on the banks of the Saraswati or the Ghoghra. It
forms no part of any subsequently invented system, and seems the only
one fixed point in a sea of falsification. Assuming it for the present,
and deducting Chandragupta’s date from it, we have 3101-325 = 2776 years
from Ixwaku to Chandragupta, which, divided by 153, gives the reasonable
number of eighteen years for the duration of each king’s reign. Of
course it is not contended that these lists are absolutely to be
depended upon--many names may be lost, and many misplaced, from the
carelessness of copyists, or from other causes; but, on the whole, when
treated in this manner, they afford a reasonable framework for the
reconstruction of the ancient history of India, and one that accords
perfectly with all we at present know about the ancient history of the
immigrant Aryans.
If this view can be sustained, the events which are described in the
Ramayana--not of course the poem, which is comparatively modern--took
place about 2000 years before Christ. Adhering to the above average, we
gather that the events described in the ‘Mahabharata,’ in like manner,
occurred 900 years before Chandragupta, or 1225, or more precisely,
according to the Puranic chronology, thus--
B.C.
Chandragupta 325
Sisunagas, 360 years 360
Sunakas 128
Sabadeva to Ripunjaya, 23 reigns at 18 years 414
----
1227
----
which may probably be taken as very near the true date.
It must for the present remain an open question whether the dates just
quoted can be so established as to stand the test of the exigencies of
modern critical acumen. It would be very satisfactory if this could be
so accomplished. In the first place, because it would afford a firm
basis for all our reasoning regarding the ancient history and
ethnography of India, but also because it would prove that the Puranas
do contain the germs of truths which, when properly investigated, may
lead to the most important deductions. My own impression is entirely in
favour of the existence of the requisite materials for the purpose; but
the fashion has been lately to pooh-pooh the whole thing, and no attempt
has been made--so far as I know--by any competent scholar, to
investigate the matter on scientific principles.
Be this as it may, when we come to the Anjana era, 691 B.C.,[662] and
the life of Buddha, we tread on surer ground; and it is fortunate for
our purposes that it so, as with the life of Buddha the mediæval history
of India may be said to commence, and unless his date and that of his
successors can be established with at least approximate certainty, the
history of architecture in India must remain unintelligible. In this
instance, however, the materials, I believe, exist in abundance. They
have not, it is true, been as yet investigated to such an extent as to
render any point certain, but the difficulties are daily disappearing,
and as every point gained adds materially in throwing light on others
that have hitherto been considered unsettled, we may hope before long to
see the whole satisfactorily resolved.
* * * * *
There is perhaps no single point in the whole early history of India on
which the chronicles of Ceylon and Further India are so distinct and
unanimous than that Buddha died--as they express it, attained
Nirvana--at the age of eighty years, in the year 543 B.C., or in the
year 148 of the Eetzana[663] or Anjana epoch.[664]
Attempts have recently been made, it appears to me on the most illogical
and insufficient data, to invalidate this conclusion. There is an
admitted falsification in the Ceylonese annals, as set forth in the
‘Mahawanso,’ of sixty years about this date; but as Turnour, who first
pointed it out, explained also the reason for it,[665] the rectification
is easy, and the result clear. It seems that Vijaya, the first Indian
immigrant or conqueror of Ceylon, landed in the island 483 years B.C.,
or thereabout; and the reigns of his successors, down to
Devenampiyatisso, the contemporary of Asoka, when added together, amount
to only 236 years. When the annals came to be expounded in the
‘Mahawanso,’ it was thought expedient, for the good of religion, that
the coming of Vijaya should be coincident with the death of Buddha; and
as the sacred era could not be disturbed, Asoka’s reign was carried back
so as to admit of the adjustment. This was effected principally by
reducing the epoch of the nine Nandas from 100 years, at which the
Puranas place them, to forty-four, and by other slight alterations. The
sixty years was afterwards recovered by small increments to subsequent
reigns, not of much consequence, but injuriously affecting the
correctness of the whole chronology of the ‘Mahawanso,’ down to about
A.D. 400, when it was compiled in its present form. As the date of
Asako’s reign is perfectly well known (272-236 B.C.), we have only to
reject the most improbable coincidence of Vijaya landing on the day of
Buddha’s Nirvana, which there is nothing to support, and the whole
becomes clear, and everything falls into its place.[666]
Besides the Ceylonese lists, and those quoted by Crawfurd from the
Burmese annals,[667] the Puranas afford us two, quoted below, which are
of great interest to us, and the whole are so marvellously coincident,
that there seems very little doubt of their general authenticity.
SOLAR LIST. | LUNAR LIST.
|
|_Saisunaga Dynasty reigned 360 years._
|
B.C. | B.C.
Kritanjaya 691 | Sisunaga 685
Rananjaya -- | Kakavarna --
Sanjaya -- | Kshemadharman --
Sakya -- | Kshetranjas --
Suddhodana -- | Bimbisara 603
| _Kanwapana_, 9.
| _Bhumiputra_, 14.
Ratula -- | Ajatasatru 551
Prasenajit -- | Udayaswa 519
Kshudraka -- | Dasaka 503
Kundaka -- | Nagadasoka 495
Suratha -- | Sisunaga 471
Sumitra 451? | Kalasoka 453
| Maha Nanda 425
| Sumalya --
| 7 Nandas --
| _Interregnum Kautilya ending_ 325
With regard to the first or Solar list, Professor Wilson remarks, that
“Sakya is no doubt the name of the author or reviver of Buddhism, but is
out of place, as he was the son and not the father of Suddhodana.”[668]
This, however, is only one of the numerous instances in which the
grandson takes his grandfather’s name, and which is an interminable
cause of confusion in Indian chronological inquiries.[669] Gautama, as
we know, never ascended the throne, but devoted himself to his religious
duties, but his son Ratula succeeded his grandfather. In like manner,
the Prasenajit in the list is not the cousin and companion of Buddha,
but the grandson, or grand-nephew of that earlier king of the same name.
Sumitra, the last name mentioned in the Bhagavat Purana, seems to have
ascended the throne about 451. There are no exact dates for fixing this
event, and with him perished the long line of Solar monarchs, who for
more than twenty-six centuries--if our chronology is correct--had
influenced in so marked a manner the destinies of India.
It was during the reign of Kalasoka, the eleventh king of this dynasty,
that the second convocation was held, 100 years after the Nirvana. This,
too, it has recently become the fashion to doubt. The accounts, however,
in the ‘Mahawanso,’ and the pointed mode in which it is referred to in
the Burmese annals, seem sufficient to settle the point. Like Vijaya’s
landing in Ceylon on the day of Buddha’s Nirvana, Prome is said to have
been founded 443, the year of this convocation.[670] They must have
believed strongly, or they would not have attempted the adjustment.
As before mentioned, we have neither buildings, nor coins, nor
inscriptions belonging to this period, nor indeed any material facts
that would enable us to verify the chronological data. It is, however,
so near the time when these became abundant, that it does not seem
unreasonable to hope that some such evidences may turn up. Till
something is found, the absence of all such materials must remain as a
curious piece of evidence regarding the important influence that the
contact of the nations of the West had on the arts and civilization of
India at the time.
MAURYA, SUNGA, AND KANWA DYNASTIES.
CHRONOLOGY. BUILDINGS.
_Maurya Dynasty, 130 years._
B.C. |
Chandragupta 325 |
Bimbisara 301 | Hathi Gumpha, Udayagiri.
Asoka 276 | Caves at Barabhar, Inscriptions, Lâts, &c.
Suyasas 240 |
Dasaratha 230? | Cave at Barabhar.
Sangata 220? |
Indrapalita 212? | Cave at Bhaja?
Somasarman 210 |
Sasadharman 203 | Caves at Udayagiri.
Vrihadratha 195 | Rail at Bharhut.
|
_Sunga Dynasty, 112 years._ |
Pushpamitra 188 | Cave at Bedsa.
Agnimitra 152 |
Sujyeshtha 144 | Caves 9 and 12, Ajunta.
Vasumitra 137 |
Badraka, or Ardraka 129 | Chaitya Cave, Nassick.
Pulindaka 127 |
Ghoshavasu 124 |
Vajramitra 121 |
Bhagavata 112 |
Devabhuti 86 | Cave at Karli.
|
_Kanwa Dynasty, 45 years._ |
Vasudeva 76 |
Bhumimitra 67 | Raj Rani cave, Udayagiri?
Narayana 53 |
Susarman 41 |
“ died 31 |
The chronology of these three dynasties, as recorded in the Puranas, may
admit of some adjustment in detail; but the whole is so reasonable and
consistent that it can hardly be to any great extent. The whole, too, is
now found to be so perfectly in accord with the architecture of their
age, and with such inscriptions as have been found, that I see no reason
whatever for doubting its general correctness.
The cardinal point on which the whole hinges is the twelfth year of
Asoka’s reign after his consecration--the sixteenth from his
inauguration. In that year he published his rock-cut edicts, in which he
mentions his allies, Antiochus and Antigonus, Ptolemy (Philadelphus),
Magas (of Cyrene), and Alexander (of Macedonia).[671] As it happens, all
these five names are mentioned together in Justin’s abridgment of Trogus
Pompeius (xxvi. 2, 3 and xxvii. 1), though without giving any date. As
Magas, however, died B.C. 257, and the only year in which all five were
alive together was either that year or the preceding, we may safely
assume that the sixteenth of Asoka was B.C. 256 or B.C. 257. If that is
so it seems impossible to bring down the date of the accession of
Chandragupta to a time more modern than one or two years after B.C. 325.
The Ceylonese annals allow him thirty-four years,[672] but our knowledge
of what happened in India in Alexander’s time forbids any such
extension. On the other hand, his accession happening in the year, or
the year after, the defeat of Porus, is not exactly what we would expect
from the context; but there is nothing, so far as I know, to controvert
it.
Even if it were not so certain as it appears to be from the statements
just quoted, there can be no doubt that the chronology of this period
can easily be settled from the numerous inscriptions found in the
rock-cut excavations quoted in the table, as well as from coins and
other materials that exist. These dynasties thus become a fixed
starting-point for all our inquiries, either backwards or forwards.
ANDRA, OR ANDRABRITYA DYNASTY.
CHRONOLOGY. BUILDINGS.
B.C.
Sipraka 31 |
Krishna A.D. 8 | Cave at Nassick.
Satakarni I. 10 | South gateway, Sanchi.
Purnotsanga 28 | Caves 10 and 11 Ajunta.
Srivaswami 46 |
Satakarni II. A.D. 64 | Saka Era established A.D. 79.
Lambodara 120 | Nahapana cave, Nassick.
Apitaka 138 |
Sangha 150 |
Satakarni III. 168 | Rudra Dama, bridge inscription, A.D. 151.
Skandhaswati 186 |
Mrigendra 193 |
Kuntaluswati 196 |
Swatikarna 204 |
Pulomavit 205 |
Gorakshaswasri 241 |
Hala 266 |
Mantalaka 271 |
Purindra sena 276 |
Sindara 381 |
Rajadaswati 6 ms. |
Sivaswati 284 |
Gautamiputra 312 | Gupta Era established A.D. 319; cave at
| Nassick, outer rail Amravati.
_Vasithi putra_ 333 |
Pulomat 335 |
Sivasri 363 |
Skandaswati 370 |
Yajnasri 377 | Cave at Nassick.
Vijaya 406 | Great cave Kenheri.
Chandrasri 412 |
Pulomat 422 |
“ died 429 |
or 436 | Caves 16, 17, and 19 Ajunta.
For this dynasty, as for the preceding three, we are dependent on the
Puranas; but its chronology, like theirs, is so reasonable and so
consistent with what we learn from other sources that I see no reason
whatever for doubting its general correctness. There are slight
discrepancies of course, not only as to names but as to the duration of
this dynasty in the different Puranas. Thus the Vishnu Parana, according
to Wilson, enumerates thirty kings, reigning 456 years; the Vayu and
Bhagavat the same. The Matsya gives only twenty-nine kings, but makes
them reign 460 years; but none of them give all the names, nor does the
addition of the longest list extend beyond 435 years.[673] The whole,
from Chandragupta to the last, are also added together (p. 232), and
make up 751 years, or bringing the last of the Andras down to A.D. 426.
The actual fixation of these dates will probably be found in Nassick
cave inscriptions. Two of these bear dates: one, apparently in the reign
of Pulomavi, or Padma, is dated nineteen from an unspecified era; the
other is in the twenty-fourth year of the “modern era,” and the act
recorded is, apparently, by order of Gautamiputra.[674] As it is,
however, almost certain that the Gupta era, A.D. 319, was established in
the reign of the last-named king, it seems probable that when these
inscriptions are more carefully examined than they hitherto have been,
they will fix these reigns with even greater certainty than we obtain
from the Puranic dates; the one element of uncertainty being that the
new era does not seem to be dated either from the accession of the king
or from any great event, but four cycles of sixty years, or 240 years
from the Saka era it was intended to supersede.[675]
However this may be settled, it cannot disturb either the initial or the
final dates of this dynasty, nor affect to a greater extent than say ten
or twelve years the period of 751, which extended from the accession of
Chandragupta to the final overthrow of the Andras in or about A.D. 426.
This being so, it is evident that these four dynasties form the backbone
of our mediæval chronology of India to which all minor events must be
fitted, and fortunately most of them do so without any difficulty. It
was the great period of Buddhist supremacy in India. There were, it is
true, Buddhists in India before Asoka, but they were then only a sect,
and Buddhism was a religion for two centuries after the fall of the
Andras. It was then, however, a struggling faction. The modern Hindu
religion was gradually raising its head under the Gupta and Ujjain
princes, and in the 8th century it superseded Buddhism in most parts of
India.
A great part of the uncertainty that of late years has crept into the
chronology of this period is owing to the neglect with which these
dynasties have been treated by modern investigators. This has arisen
principally from the extreme rarity of their coins, while it has been
principally from numismatic researches that progress has been made in
the elucidation of many dark passages of Indian history. Coinage was,
however, a most distinctly foreign importation into India. The Bactrian
Greeks were the coiners _par excellence_, and it is through their coins,
and those only, that complete lists of their kings down to 130 B.C. have
been compiled. It is only from their coins also that we know the names
of the barbarian kings who succeeded them, or those of the Sah kings,
who appear next in our list. But the four dynasties from Chandragupta
to Chandrasri were of native kings, who had only indirectly, if at all,
come in contact with the Greeks, and had never learnt the art of
coining, or, at least, used it to a sufficient extent to enable us to
identify their names or succession from their coins. Their caves, and
the inscriptions with which they covered their walls, are fast supplying
the information their coins, if they had existed, would have afforded;
but the investigation has not been taken up by those who have the ear of
the public to the same extent as the numismatists. Enough, however, has
been done to show that the materials exist for establishing the history
of these dynasties on a sure basis; and when this is done from
inscriptions combined with architecture, the results are more
satisfactory than when dependent on numismatic evidence alone.
SAH KINGS OF SAURASTRA.
COIN DATES. A.D.
Nahapana 79 --
Ushavadata -- --
Swami Chastana -- --
Jaya Dama -- --
Jiva Dama -- --
Rudra Daman 72 151
Rudra Sinha 102 181
Rudra Sah 104 183
Sri Sah -- --
Sangha Daman -- --
Daman Sah 144 223
Yasa Daman -- --
Damajata Sri -- --
Vira Daman -- --
Isvara Datta -- --
Vijaya Sah 170 249
Damajata Sri -- --
Rudra Sah 197 276
Visva Sinha -- --
Atri Daman -- --
Visva Sah 200 279
22. Rudra Sinha 270 --
Asa Daman 271 280
Swami Rudra Sah 292 371[676]
Swami Rudra Sah II. -- --
The evidence on which the dates in the above list are founded is in
curious contrast with that on which those of the previous dynasties
rest. It is almost wholly numismatic. The founder of the dynasty,
Nahapana, describes himself as the viceroy or satrap of King
Kshaharata,[677] certainly a foreigner, who conquered the country and
held it in subjection for nearly 300 years.
The one point that interests us here is to ascertain from what era the
dates on the coins are to be calculated. When I previously wrote on the
subject,[678] I felt inclined to adopt a suggestion that Nahapana was
the founder of the era known afterwards as that of Vicramaditya, B.C.
56. I did this principally because I felt certain that no king of that
name reigned in the first century B.C., and I could discover no event
occurring about that time so important as to deserve to be commemorated
by an era.
On the other hand, a foreign conquest and the foundation of a new
dynasty were just such events as would be so celebrated; and, pending
further evidence, this assumption seemed to account for what was
otherwise inexplicable in the foundation of this era. Since then,
however, a more careful study of Rudra Daman’s Bridge inscription,[679]
and the architectural evidence detailed in the preceding pages, have
convinced me that such a theory was untenable. The Bridge inscription is
dated in the year 72, from the same era from which all the coins of
these kings are dated. In it he boasts “that, after twice conquering the
Sata Karni, Lord of Dakshinapatha, he did not completely destroy him on
account of their near connexion, and thus obtained glory.” And he boasts
of conquering, among other countries, Anupa, Saurastra, Asva Kutcha,
Kukura, Aparanta, &c.[680]
A little further on in our history, Gautamiputra, in whose reign the era
was established which was afterwards adopted by the Guptas and
Ballabhis, boasts, in an inscription in a cave at Nassick, that he had
conquered, among others, all the countries above enumerated, and as
having re-established the glory of the Satavahana dynasty, and destroyed
the race of Khagarata.[681] All this reveals a state of matters that
will not accord with the Vicramaditya era, but does perfectly agree with
that of Salivahana.
Assuming that the Sata Karni dynasty is correctly represented in the
Puranas, as enumerated above, Rudra Dama would, on the assumption that
the dates were Samvat, have been reigning A.D. 16 (72-56), immediately
after the establishment of the dynasty, and before the long and
prosperous reign of Sata Karni II., which could hardly have taken place
had his family been smitten so early in their career. But if we assume
that it was A.D. 151 (79+72), it would coincide with the reign of the
third king of that name, and at a time when, so far as we can judge from
the length of the reigns, and the careless way they are enumerated in
the Puranas, the fortunes of the family were considerably depressed; and
it is little more than a century and a half after this time that
Gautamiputra restored the fortunes of his family. Had 300 years elapsed
between these two events, the family could hardly ever have attained the
position it did.
Another point of more importance is, that the dates on the Sah
coins--from whatever era calculated--extend only to 270-271, or
doubtfully to 292.[682] If these are calculated from the Vicramaditya
Samvat, they must have ceased to reign in A.D. 214, or at the latest
A.D. 236, and there would have been no Khagaratas for Gautamiputra to
humble after A.D. 312. On the other hand, if calculated from A.D. 79,
their final extinction would have been in A.D. 349, or at latest A.D.
371. So that, though humbled by Gautamiputra, they overlap the Gupta era
to some extent, which it seems is almost indispensable to account for
the mode in which the Sah coins overlap and run into those of the Gupta
series, on which Mr. Thomas so strongly and, it appears to me, so
correctly insists.[683]
One of two things seems necessary: either that the Guptas shall be
carried back so as to overlap the Sahs, dating either from the
Vicramadityan or Selucidan eras, or that the Sahs be brought down so as
to overlap them, if dating from the era bearing their name. Mr. Thomas
and General Cunningham prefer the former hypothesis. For the reasons
just stated, and others to be given further on, I feel convinced that
the latter hypothesis is the only one that is in accordance with the
facts of the case as we now know them.
This substitution of the Saka era for the Samvat brings what we know of
the history, with what we learn from the inscriptions, and gather from
the coins, so completely into accordance, that I can hardly doubt now
that it is the correct view of the matter, and certainly more in
accordance with the facts than that I previously adopted.
GUPTAS.
Although the Puranas conduct us in so reasonable and satisfactory a
manner to the end of the Andrabritya dynasty, their guidance forsakes us
there. After that, all the subsequent contemporary dynasties were thrown
into hotch-pot--to use a legal expression--and a system of fraud and
falsification commenced which is the reproach of Indian history. It is
not, however, difficult to see the causes of this new and monstrous
invention. For six centuries and a half Buddhism had reigned supreme in
India, and the system of the Brahmans, though probably never extinct,
was at least subdued and subordinate. With the decline of the Andras
this state of affairs was altered. The Guptas, who immediately succeeded
them, are shown, both by their coins and inscriptions, to have been
followers of Vishnu and Siva,[684] and their buildings at Erun tell the
same story.[685]
Though the Guptas may have inaugurated the new system, it was by the
great Vicramaditya of Ujjain that it was established, A.D. 515-550. He
did for the new religion what Asoka had done for Buddhism some seven and
a half centuries before his time. He made a state religion in India, and
established it so firmly that little more than a century after his death
it seems to have superseded Buddhism altogether. It is in his reign,
apparently, that the Puranic system was invented--not that the Puranas
were written or all the falsifications of history invented in his day,
but a commencement was then made, and by the 10th or 11th century of our
era it was brought to the complete perfection of fraud in which it is
now found.
One of the first necessities of the new system was to throw back the
period when India was Buddhist, and to place a gulf between them and
their successors. To effect this, the Puranas enumerate the
following:--“After these” (the Andrabrityas) “various races will
reign--seven Abhiras, ten Gardabhilas, sixteen Sakas, eight Yavanas,
fourteen Tusharas, thirteen Mandas, eleven Maunas or
Hunas[686]--seventy-nine princes will be sovereigns of the earth for
1399 years. Then eleven Pauras will be kings for 300 years; when they
are destroyed, Kailakila Yavanas will be kings, the chiefs of whom will
be Vindhya Sacti, &c.--106 years.” After various others: “The nine Nagas
will reign in Padmavati, Kantipura, and Mathura; and the Guptas of
Magadha along the Ganges to Pryaga.”[687] Although we cannot identify
all these dynasties with certainty, we know, at all events, that,
instead of succeeding one another during more than 2000 years, they were
all more or less contemporary--certainly that none were earlier than the
Gupta era (A.D. 319)--and that none of them survived Vicramaditya (A.D.
550). The Sakas and Maunas, or Hunas, may be those destroyed by him, but
of this hereafter. The Vindhya Sactis were contemporary with the Guptas,
and the Gardabhilas are somehow connected with Bahram Gaur the
Sassanian; and others we recognise dimly, but they are not sufficiently
important to be discussed here.
* * * * *
Of all these the most important are the Guptas, and fortunately their
date is one of the most clearly established facts in mediæval Indian
chronology.[688]
DYNASTY. COINS AND DATES ON INSCRIPTIONS. A.D.
Sri or Raja Gupta -- --
Maharaja Ghatotkacha -- --
M. R. adhiraja Chandra Gupta I. 82, 93+319 = 401, 412. Caves 16 to
20 Ajunta. Buildings
at Erun.
“ Samudra “ -- --
“ Chandra Gupta II. -- --
“ Kumara “ 124+ “ = 443
“ Skanda “ 130, 137, 141, 146+ “ = 449, 456, 460, 465
Mahendra a minor -- --
Maharaja Sri Hastina 163+ “ = 482
Raja Buddha 165+ “ = 484
M. R. adhiraja Toramana 182+ “ = 501
The three last named can hardly be considered as belonging to the great
dynasty, though they date from the same era, and the two first were
comparatively insignificant characters. It was only Chandra Gupta I.,
A.D. 401, who assumed the title of Maharaja adhiraja, and founded the
greatness of his race on the ruins of that of the Andrabrityas.
In addition to the above chronology, compiled from coins and dated
inscriptions, Major Watson has recently supplied a most important item
to their history from written records existing in Gujerat.
From this we learn that Chandra Gupta II. reigned twenty-three years
after the conquest of Saurastra by his son; that Kumara Pal Gupta
reigned twenty years; and that Skanda Gupta succeeded him, but lost
Saurastra by the rebellion of his Senapati Bhatarka, the founder of the
Ballabhi family. Two years after this event Skanda Gupta died, and, as
we are informed, “at this time the Gupta race were dethroned by foreign
invaders.”[689]
The era from which these dates are taken never appeared to me doubtful;
and this confirms more and more the conviction that it was from the era
that bears their name, A.D. 319. It could not be from the Saka era, as
has generally been assumed, from the fact that Albiruni asserts that the
era that bears their name, was “apparently” that of their
destruction,[690] because in that case Skanda Gupta must have lived and
reigned for ninety-four years in addition to the sixteen we already
know, from inscriptions, he occupied the throne. A reign of 110 years
seems impossible; and, if it is not so, it seems certain, for the
reasons stated in my previous paper, that the Gupta era, 319, is that
from which their coins and inscriptions are dated.
Besides this, there is an inscription on the rock at Junaghar, engraved
by the same Skanda, the last of the great Guptas. This was not
translated by Prinsep, though a copy of it was in his hands before his
last illness.[691] Had he lived to translate it, my impression is that
the controversy as to the age of the Guptas never would have arisen--its
evidence seems so absolute. Be this as it may, it never appeared, so far
as I know, in a complete form and translated, till this was accomplished
by the late Bhau Daji in the sixth volume of the Bombay Journal of 1862.
In it we have three dates--the Sadarsana lake is said to have burst its
banks in 130, to have been repaired in 137, and a temple to Vishnu built
in 138, and twice it is repeated “_counting from the era of the Guptas_”
(Guptasya Kala). The stone is worn where the middle date occurs, but
there is just space enough for these words. The same king, on the Kuhaon
pillar, dates his inscription in 141,[692] but without mentioning the
era, which seems to have been so usual in Bengal as not to require being
specified.
Besides this, the 146[693] years from 319, which we know from their
dated inscriptions that they reigned, is just the interval that is
required to fill up the gap between the Ballabhis and their era which
they adopted on usurping the inheritance of the Guptas, two years before
Skanda Gupta’s death.[694]
One other point of considerable importance to Indian history which
arises from the fixation of this date (A.D. 465-70) for the destruction
of the Guptas is, that it was almost certainly the White Huns who were
the “foreign invaders” that struck the blow that stopped their career.
At least, we learn from Cosmas Indicopleustes, writing seventy years
after this time, that the Huns were a powerful nation in the north of
India in his day, and we may infer, from what he says of them, had been
settled there some time.[695]
On the Bhitari Lât, Bhau Daji reads--somewhat doubtfully, it must be
confessed--the fact that Skanda Gupta had fought, apparently with
success, against the Hunas.[696] But the great point is that it was just
about this time that the White Huns broke loose and extended their
incursions east and west, so that there is not only no improbability of
their being the “foreign invaders” alluded to, but every likelihood they
were so. No one, indeed, can, I believe, with the knowledge we now
possess, read De Guignes’ chapter on the White Huns,[697] without
perceiving that it contains the key to the solution of many mysterious
passages in Indian history. It is true India is not mentioned there; but
from the time of Bahram Gaur in 420, till the defeat of Feroze in 475,
the Persians were waging an internecine war with these Huns, and nothing
can be more likely than that the varying fortunes of that struggle
should force them to seek the alliance of the then powerful Guptas, to
assist them against their common foe.
Precisely the same impression is conveyed by what is said by Ferishta
and the Persian historians[698] of the history of that time. Nothing can
now, however, be more easily intelligible than the visit of Bahram Gaur
to India when first attacked by the White Huns. His marriage with an
Indian (? Gupta) princess of Canouge; the tribute or assistance claimed
by Feroze and his successors on the Persian throne, are all easily
explicable, on the assumption that the two nations were at that time
engaged in a struggle against a common enemy. This, too, explains the
mention of the Shah in Shahi on Samudra Gupta’s Allahabad
inscription.[699] Hence, too, the decided Persian influence on the gold
coinage of the Canouge Guptas,[700] and the innumerable Sassanian coins
of that period found in all parts of the north of India.[701] In all
this the Sassanians seem inseparably mixed with the Guptas. The
Persians, however, came eventually victorious out of the war. The great
Guptas were struck down at some date between 465-70, or very shortly
afterwards. The struggle, however, was apparently continued for some
time longer by a subordinate branch of their successors; inasmuch as we
learn from an inscription found at Aphsar in Behar,[702] that the fourth
of that dynasty, Damodara Gupta, “successfully encountered, at the
battle of Maushari, the fierce army of the Western Huns.” This event may
have stopped the career of the Huns in India, in which case it could not
well have taken place before the year 535, when Cosmas Indicopleustes is
supposed to have written his ‘Topographia Christiana;’ but it is by no
means clear that he was not describing events that took place when he
was himself in India some time previously. But be this as it may, it
brings us to the time when the battles of Korûr--of which more
hereafter--and Maushari freed India from the Sakas and Hunas, who had
long held her in hated subjection. As I shall presently attempt to show,
it appears to me hardly doubtful that these two battles were fought
between 524 and 544; and they thus fix one of the most important epochs
in mediæval Indian history. Indeed, so near each other are these two
events in date, that I sometimes feel almost inclined to fancy they may
be only different names for the same battle. At all events, they almost
certainly represent parts of the same campaign which freed India in that
age from the Yavanas; and that it was to commemorate the glories of
these struggles that the Vicramaditya Samvat was instituted. This
expulsion of the Yavanas was, too, the first serious blow that was
struck at Buddhist supremacy, and from the effects of which it never
afterwards completely recovered.
BALLABHI DYNASTY.
DATES ON INSCRIPTIONS. A.D.
Bhatarka Senapati -- 465 or 470
Dharasena “ -- --
Dronasinha -- --
Dhruvasena Maharaja -- } Cotem. Vicramaditya
Dharapatta -- } Dynasty
Grihasena -- } of Ujjain,
Sridhara Sena -- } 470 to 550.
Siladitya I. -- --
Charagriha I. -- --
Sridhara Sena II. 272 591
Dhruvasena II. -- Cotem. Hiouen Thsang
Sridharasena III. -- --
Siladitya II. 356 675
Charagriha II. -- --
Siladitya III. -- --
Siladitya Musalli 400 718
However mistaken Albiruni may be in his dates, there is little doubt
that he is quite correct in his statement to the effect that “L’ère de
Ballabha est postérieure à celle de Saca de 241 ans. Apparemment
Ballabha suivit immédiatement les Gouptas, car l’ère des Gouptas
commence aussi 241 de l’ère de Saca.”[703] This we learn also, with the
particulars how it happened, from Colonel Watson’s account of the
transaction; while Colonel Tod’s celebrated Puttun Somnath inscription
makes it also certain that the Ballabhi era commenced A.D. 319.[704]
This being so, it seems difficult to understand why the era should have
been called that of Ballabhi as well as that of the Guptas, unless it
were that it was adopted by the first-named dynasty, and that they dated
from it their acts and inscriptions, which are extremely numerous. There
may be reasons why this should be otherwise; but, though the point has
been generally and fiercely contested by eminent Indian chronologists, I
fail to appreciate the arguments brought forward in favour of either the
Vicramaditya or Saka eras,[705] and look upon their own era (A.D. 319)
as certainly the one from which all the Gupta inscriptions are dated.
My impression is, that this would never have been considered doubtful
but for an incautious statement by Colonel Tod that Ballabhi was
destroyed by the Parthians A.D. 524,[706] in the reign of a Siladitya,
its last king. Its inhabitants were, according to this account,
slaughtered with the usual romantic incidents; but after a while a
remnant established themselves in Sidhapore, and finally built a new
capital, which they called Anhilwarra.
The utter falsity of the information so supplied to Colonel Tod is
proved by the fact that when Ballabhi was visited by Hiouen Thsang, 115
years after its reputed destruction, he found it not only standing, and
neither Sidhapore nor Anhilwarra thought of, but the old capital still
remaining one of the richest and most prosperous cities of India, and
its king one of the three greatest kings of northern India. The king’s
name was Dhruvapaton, and he was a nephew or grand-nephew of Siladitya
of Malwa, and the son-in-law of Siladitya, the reigning king of
Canouge.[707] Lastly, we have the dates in copper-plates of a
Dhruvasena, one in 310+319=629; the other 322+ 319, or 641,[708] the
very year that Hiouen Thsang met him at Allahabad, if we assume them
dated from the Ballabhi Samvat.
It would be satisfactory if we could determine the date of the
destruction of Ballabhi with precision, as it is one of these events
that mark an epoch in Indian history. It was one of the concluding acts
of the old drama that closed the mediæval period of Indian history, and
ushered in the dark ages which lasted more than two centuries from that
time.
The materials for this hardly exist at present, though it may be
approximated. We have numerous inscriptions of this dynasty, dated 310,
326, 338, 348, &c.,[709] or A.D. 629, 645, 657, 667 respectively, if the
figures are all correctly read, which is not quite clear; and lastly,
Mr. Burgess reports one dated 400, or A.D. 719, belonging to the last
Siladitya, and consequently approaching very nearly to the event. Two
accounts are current as to the mode in which the destruction was
effected: one, that it was caused by an earthquake, which may have
happened at any time;[710] the other (by Tod), that the city was
destroyed by the Parthians. If it was by a foreign foe, it could only
have been by the Mahomedans. They were on the Indus in strength in 22
Hegira,[711] or A.D. 644, or before Hiouen Thsang had left India, and no
foreigner could have crossed the Indus or attacked Ballabhi after that
time, or for some years before it, without being noticed by Mahomedan
historians. They remained there in strength till after Mahomed Kasim,
711-715,[712] and it was to him that I was at one time inclined to
ascribe the destruction. If, however, Mr. Burgess’s date is correct, his
death was three years too early. But I do not think it at all improbable
that Ballabhi is one of the cities--Barus and Uzain--said to be
plundered by Junaid in A.D. 725 or 726.[713] Barus looks very like
Baroach, and Uzain is almost certainly Ujjain--but whether Maliba is
Ballabhi, I must leave others to determine.
All the accounts agree that Anhilwarra Puttun was founded Samvat 802, or
A.D. 746,[714] which may be correct within a year or two; but from the
accounts we have, it is clear that an interval of from twenty to thirty
years must have elapsed between the two events, during which the
inhabitants of the destroyed city sought refuge at Punchâsur and
Sidhapore before they undertook the building of their new capital. If,
therefore, we assume 725 as the date of the destruction of Ballabhi, we
shall probably not err more than a year or two either way.
The earliest date of this family yet discovered is one on a copperplate
of Dharasena II., which has been read by Professor Bhandarkar as
272,[715] or, according to the views here adopted, 591. It is hardly
probable that any much earlier will be found; for it must be borne in
mind that though the Ballabhis wrested the sovereignty of Gujerat from
the Guptas two years before Skanda’s death (_ante_, p. 724), neither the
first nor second of the race ventured to assume even the modest title of
Raja; they were content to remain Senâpatis, or Generals. The third
calls himself Maharaja; but their greatness only culminated in or about
A.D. 650, when one of them, Sri Dharasena III., became Maharaja
Adhiraja--King of kings or Emperor of Northern India.[716] The reason of
this, as we shall presently see, was that the family that really
succeeded the Guptas in the place of supreme authority in India was that
of Ujjain, the second or third monarch of this race being the celebrated
Vicramaditya, whose date, for reasons to be given hereafter, seems
almost certainly to have been from 515 to 550. Be this as it may, as we
shall presently see, it seems quite certain that a great Brahmanical
revival took place in the beginning of the 6th century, which quite
overshadowed all the Buddhist dynasties in northern India. For a while
these were again eclipsed by a reflex wave of Buddhism, which for a
century--A.D. 550-650--again illumined India. It was a last expiring
effort, however, and after the last-named date it was only a struggle
for existence on the part of the Buddhists, and in another century they
are known no longer in those central countries where they had so long
reigned supreme.
CHALUKYA DYNASTIES.
WESTERN BRANCH. | EASTERN BRANCH.
CAPITAL KALYAN. | CAPITAL RAJMEHENDRI.
1. Jaya Sinha Vijayaditya. |
2. Raja Sinha, Rana Raga, Vishnu Vardhana.|
3. Vijayaditya II. |
4. Pulakesi, A.D. 489? |
5. Kirtti Varma I. |
6. Mangalisa. |
7. Satyasraya began to reign 609. |1. Vishnu Vardhana II., or Kubja
| Vishnu Vardhana, conquered
| Vengi A.D. 605.
8. Amara. |2. Jaya Sinha I.
9. Aditya. |3. Indra Raja, his brother.
10. Vikramadiya I. |4. Vishnu Vardhana III.
11. Vinayaditya, Yuddha Malla, began |5. Manga Yuva Raja.
to reign A.D. 680. |6. Jaya Sinha III. }
12. Vijayaditya III. began to reign A.D. |7. Kokkili. } brothers.
695. |8. Vishnu Vardhana IV. }
13. Vikramaditya II. began to reign |9. Vijayaditya I.
A.D. 733. |10. Vishnu Vardhana V.
|11. Narendra Mriga Raja.
14. Kirtti Varma II. |12. Vishnu Vardhana VI., or Kali
| Vishnu Vardhana.
15. Kirtti Varma III., cousin of the |13. Vijayaditya II., or Guna Gunanka
last, A.D. 799. | Vijayaditya, conquered Kalinga.
|14. Chalukya Bhima I., his brother.
16. Tailapa. |15. Vijayaditya III., or Kollabhiganda
| Vijaya.
17. Bhima Raja. |16. Amma Raja.
|17. Vijayaditya IV., or Kaudagachita
18. Ayya, or Kirtti Varma IV. | Vijaya.
|18. Talapa. Usurper.
19. Vijayaditya IV. |19. Vikramaditya V., the son of a brother
| of Amma Raja I.
20. Taila Bhupa II. or Vikramaditya III., |20. Yuddha Malla.
in A.D. 973 restored the monarchy |
which had been for some time |
usurped by the Ratta Kula. He |
died A.D. 997. |
21. Satyasraya II. Irivi Bhujanga Deva, |21. Raja Bhima II.
A.D. 997. |
22. Vikramaditya V. began to reign |22. Amma Raja II.
about A.D. 1008 (?) |
23. Jaya Sinha Deva, Jagadeka Malla, |23. Dhanarnava. Interregnum of
| twenty-seven years.
about A.D. 1018 (?) |
24. Someswara Deva I., Trailokya |24. Kirtti Varma, son of Dhanarnava.
Malla Ahawa Malla, about A.D. |
1040. |
25. Someswara Deva II., Bhuneka Malla |25. Vimaladitya, his brother.
A.D. 1099, expelled by his brother. |
26. Vikramaditya VI., Kali Vikrama, |26. Raja Raja Narendra.
Tribhuvana Malla, in A.D. 1076. |
27. Someswara Deva III., Bhuloka |27. Rajendra Chola.
Malla, A.D. 1127. |
28. Jagadeka Malla, A.D. 1138. |28. Vikrama Deva Kulottunga Chola.
29. Tailapa Deva III., Trailokya Malla, |29. Raja Raja Chola, viceroy for one year.
A.D. 1150. |
30. Someswara Deva IV., Tribhuvana |30. Vira Deva Kulottunga Chola, or
Malla, A.D. 1182. Dethroned by | Saptama Vishnu Vardhana. Viceroy
Bijjala Deva of the Kalabhuriya line. | from A.D. 1079 to 1135.
After this the southern part of these |After Vira Deva Kulottunga Chola the country
dominions fell under the sway of the |fell under the sway of the Kakatya dynasty of
Hoisala Bellalas, whose rise in the | Worangul, of whom Pratapa Rudra was the chief
Mysore dates from A.D. 984; their |(A.D. 1162). The latest of their inscriptions is
destruction by the Mahomedans in 1310. |dated A.D. 1336.
The two lists in the preceding page are among the most interesting and
most important of those we possess, inasmuch as they contain the
backbone of all we know regarding the Chalukyas, and are, in fact, what
justify us, historically, in erecting their style into a separate
division, different from the other forms of architecture known in India.
What we know of these dynasties is almost wholly due to the intelligent
zeal of Sir Walter Elliot, who, during his residence in India, made a
collection of 595 inscriptions from various parts of the Dekhan. From
these he abstracted the lists he first published in the fourth volume of
the Royal Asiatic Society; but afterwards much more in detail in the
‘Madras Journal,’ in 1858, from which these lists are copied
verbatim.[717] Some of the inscriptions were translated and published
with those papers, and others by Major--now General--- Le Grand Jacob,
in the Bombay Journal (vol. iii. p. 206, _et seqq._), and other notices
of them are found among Mr. Wathen’s inscriptions in various volumes of
the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.’ But we shall not know more
than a fraction of what we ought to, and might know, till Sir Walter
Elliot’s inscriptions are translated and published.[718] When this is
done, and the architecture of the Nizam’s territory explored, the
Chalukyan style will take its place worthily between the Dravidian and
Indo-Aryan styles, and will, if I mistake not, be found equal to either,
both in importance and in artistic merit.
* * * * *
Fortunately there is no mistake or doubt about the era from which the
Chalukyan inscriptions are dated: the Ballabhi branch succeeding to the
possessions of the Guptas in Gujerat, naturally adopted their era, but
the southern branch being entirely detached from any such association,
adopted the Saka era (A.D. 79), which was then, so far as is known, the
only other era at that time in use in India. What is equally important
is, that there seems only one doubtful date among all those quoted in
the lists--that of 411 Saka (A.D. 490), attached to the name of Pulakesi
I. In his first paper,[719] Sir Walter Elliot thought it so improbable,
that he rejected it altogether; and Professor Eggeling tells me he has
strong reasons for suspecting the copperplate on which it is found to be
a forgery.
As an initial date it does not appear impossible, if my views are
correct, though certainly improbable. If Bhatarka Senapati wrested
Gujerat from Skanda Gupta two years before his death, or in 463 or 468,
it is by no means impossible that the fourth from him may have been
reigning in A.D. 490, but the difficulty is the other way. There seems
no doubt, from Mr. Burgess’s Badami inscriptions,[720] that Mangalisa
succeeded his brother Kirtti Varma in 567, and it does seem impossible
that he should have been the son of one who was reigning in 490,
especially if he continued to reign till 609. If Mangalisa was the son
of Pulakesi, which there seems no reason for doubting, it is evident
that the central figure of his date must be altered to a higher number;
but to what extent we shall not know till it is ascertained whether
Vijaya was the son or grandson of Bhatarka Senapati. In the meanwhile,
however, if we, as an hypothesis, add fifty years to the date of 411,
and make it 461, or A.D. 540, it will allow Pulakesi a reign of
twenty-seven years before the accession of Mangalisa in 567, which will
bring the whole within the limits of probability, and seems perfectly
consistent with the context.
With the seventh king we tread on surer ground. He was the king who,
when bearing his grandfather’s name, Pulakesi, Hiouen Thsang visited in
640,[721] and was, as his inscriptions tell us,[722] the hero of those
wars with Harsha Verddhana, or Siladitya of Malwa, which Ma-twan-lin so
graphically describes as occurring in 618 to 627. From that time the
dynasty seems to have flourished till the death of Vicramaditya II. He
ascended the throne 733, and died about 750, or twenty-five years more
or less after the destruction of the Ballabhi branch. After this, as Sir
Walter Elliot expresses it, “the power of the Chalukyas was alienated
for a time, or had suffered a partial obscuration, till the time of
Teila, who is described as restoring the monarchy in 973.”[723] After
this it enjoyed two centuries of prosperity, till it was finally
extinguished--their northern possessions passing to the
Kalabhuryas--their southern to the Hoisala Bellalas of Dwarasamudra or
Hullabîd.
The history of the younger branch of this family will be more
interesting to some future historian of Indian architecture than it is
to us at the present day. Their possessions lay principally below the
Eastern Ghâts, on the shores of the Bay of Bengal, in what are generally
known as the three Circars, extending from Gangam--in their day I
believe--to Mahavellipuram; but of their architecture we know nothing.
No traveller educated in architectural matters has yet visited that
country; and though it sounds like a paradox to say so, what we do know
of it we learn from buildings not erected by them, and in a country they
never seem to have possessed. It is only from the buildings of Pratapa
Rudra at Worangul and elsewhere above the Ghâts that we can appreciate
the perfection to which they had brought their style.
From the meagre extracts from the inscriptions of Pulakesi I., which Sir
Walter Elliot gives in his first essay on this subject,[724] there seems
little doubt that he was the king who, 100 years before Hiouen Thsang’s
time, harried the monastery at Amravati,[725] and abolished Buddhism in
those parts. It seems also more than probable, as he conquered the
Chola, and burnt Conjeveram, that he also expelled the Pallavas, and
commenced the works at Mahavellipur. If the rock-cut monastery mentioned
by Fa Hian and Hiouen Thsang, and so often referred to above, existed at
all, it was in his territories, and may still exist in the Nizam’s. If
it did so, nothing seems more probable than that he should seek to mark
the boundary of his southern conquest by similar works. Knowing all
this, we see also why there should be so much similarity between
Mangalisa’s cave at Badami, and the nearly contemporary caves at
Mahavellipur. We know, too, that there is a vast tract of country in
Central India, extending east and west from shore to shore, and north
and south from Sadras to Ellora, which is covered with buildings of
great beauty and interest, but which nobody cares to explore. We know
also that there exists in the Asiatic Society’s rooms a volume which
contains their history, and that of the dynasties who built them, but
which nobody cares to read. Knowing how easily all this could be
remedied, it is tantalising to close this history with so meagre a
sketch of the Chalukyan style as that contained in the preceding pages,
but as the principles of the Indian Council seem fixed, its description
must in all probability be relegated to a subsequent generation.
UJJAIN AND CANOUGE DYNASTIES.
------------------------------------+-------+------------
|REIGN. | DATE.
+-------+--------
Vasu Deva | |
Vicramaditya I. of Ujjain | 25 | 470?
Sri Harsha | 20 | 495?
Vicramaditya II. the Great | 35 | 515
Siladitya I. of Malwa | 30 | 550
Prabhukara | 25 | 580
Raja Verddhana | 5 | 605
Siladitya II. of Canouge | 40 | 610
Died and troubles commenced | -- | 648-650
------------------------------------+-------+------------
Although the Ballabhis wrested the province of Gujerat from the failing
hands of Skanda, the last of the Great Guptas, two years before his
death, in or about 470, they remained long in a subordinate position.
Their earliest inscription yet found dates only in 593, and their one
Emperor or Raja Adhiraja, Sri Dharasena III., only ascended the throne
after the Canouge dynasty were struck down in 648-50.
The interval between these two events we are now happily able to fill up
with two of the most illustrious dynasties of India--the first including
the reign of the great Vicramaditya of Ujjain, who is to the Hindus what
Solomon is to the Jews, or Asoka to the Buddhists. The last-named
religion, as mentioned above, was becoming effete about the middle of
the 5th century, and the Guptas were introducing the modern Brahmanical
faith in its place. What, however, they were only feebly attempting, the
Ujjain dynasty accomplished with a brilliancy that has eclipsed
everything that happened before or since in India, in the eyes of the
Hindus at least. All that is great in science, or in poetry, or the
arts, shone forth around his wonderful throne--the exact counterpart of
Solomon’s--and all that subsequently took place in India bears the stamp
of his greatness. It seems, however, to have been too bright to last.
The four succeeding monarchs were Buddhists--of a singularly tolerant
type it is true--but still certainly favourers of that religion. The
last of them, Siladitya, was the king at whose court Hiouen Thsang
sojourned in 636, and afterwards in 642, and where he witnessed the
festival of the distribution of alms so often alluded to above. Hiouen
Thsang gives the date of his death categorically, 650, and adds, though
in the form of a prophecy, that after that, “l’Inde entière sera en
proie à des troubles affreux--et des hommes pervers se feront une guerre
acharnée.”[726] This is more than confirmed by Ma-twan-lin, but with an
apparent discrepancy of date, to the extent, it may be, of two
years.[727] It was in fact the commencement of those troubles which
extinguished Buddhism, then in Central India, and a century later
abolished it wholly, except in some remote corners of the land.
Whether he died in 648 or 650, there is no doubt, from the numerous
incidents our Chinese traveller recounts, that this Siladitya ascended
the throne 610, one year after his great rival, Pulakesi II., of Kalyan,
who, as pointed out above, began to reign in 609, and fought with him
with varying success in 618-627.
For the chronology of the four preceding reigns we have nothing but the
assertion of Hiouen Thsang, that “suivant la tradition”[728]--and in
another place, “on lit dans l’histoire de ce royaume,[729] que le trône
était occupé il y a soixante ans par un roi nommé Siladitya;” and
further, that he reigned fifty years, which would carry us back to 530
for the accession of this king, supposing the passage was written in
640.
Notwithstanding the confidence with which it is stated, I have no
hesitation in rejecting as excessive 110 for the length of the reign of
three kings, two of whom were brothers. I do so with the more
confidence, as our author, though so exact a geographer, and recorder of
things he saw, is in no one instance to be depended upon for his dates.
He resided, for instance, for five years at Nalanda, and must have had
access to its records, yet he tells us that the convent existed for 700
years,[730] and then gives the names of the five kings by whom the
various parts were built from that time to his day, but sees no
absurdity in representing these in all instances as the son of the one
next named previously. Each, according to his account, must have reigned
more than 100 years! To what extent this date of the accession of
Siladitya must be curtailed can only be ascertained from subsequent
discoveries or investigations. For the present it will suffice to
abridge it by twenty years, which will bring it in accord with all that
we at present know from other sources.[731]
When we turn to the other end of our list, we have certainly
three--probably four kings--for whom we must find room in eighty years
and one of the three, the great Vicramaditya, must have had a long
reign. Professor Wilson ascribes to him thirty-five years,[732] and I
know of no authority better than his, especially for the history or
chronology of this period. The Hindus themselves, with their usual
carelessness, have forgotten to record it; and though there are certain
dates in the Puranas and elsewhere, there are no means of testing their
accuracy; for his accession, however, there are one or two that are
worth recording. Thus, Wilford reports that this Vicramaditya ascended
the throne of Malwa 441,[733] reckoning from the first of Salivahana,
or, 520; or, according to the Agni Purana, 437 years after the same
epoch, or 516,[734] which, I believe, may be the exact year; and there
are several other dates which might be used to confirm this assumption,
but there are no means of testing the genuineness.
Assuming this for the present, it leaves only forty-five years for the
two or three preceding reigns; and it seems hardly sufficient for the
purpose, for, as we shall presently see from the ‘Raja Tarangini,’ there
were nine descents between Pratapaditya, the friend of the first
Vicramaditya, and Matrigupta, the protégé of the second. Of course there
may be considerable overlapping among the first and last of these nine
kings, but it seems impossible to compress the whole within a shorter
period than has been allowed.
However the small discrepancies of this dynasty may hereafter be
adjusted, it is satisfactory to know that there is probably no date that
will admit of a greater correction than say ten years, if so much, and
the age of the last king, Hiouen Thsang’s friend, enables us to feel
perfectly certain as to the dates of his son-in-law, Dhruvasena, of
Ballabhi, of Sasanka, of Pundra Verddhana, of Kumara, of Kamarupa, and
of Pulakesi II. of Kalyan. We have thus at least one fixed point in our
mediæval history which is quite certain, and from which we can calculate
backwards and forwards without difficulty, and is also an interesting
one, as its final date, 650, is the beginning of the end which was
consummated, as we shall see in the next section, by Laladitya just one
century later.
KASHMIR.
Asoka, 276 to 240 B.C.
Jaloka.
Damodara.
Hushka }
Jushka } Tartar Princes established Buddhism.
Kanishka}
Abhimanu, 79 A.D.?
GONARDYA DYNASTY.
Gonarda. _Naga worship restored._
Vibhishana.
Indrajita.
Ravana.
Vibhishana.
Nara.
Siddha.
Utpalaksha.
Hiranyaksha.
Hiranyakula.
Vasukulo.
Mihirakula, invaded Ceylon 250?
Vaka.
Kshitinanda.
Vasunanda.
Nara.
Aksha.
Gopaditya, 330?
Gokarna.
Narendraditya.
Yudhishthira.
ADITYA DYNASTY.
Pratapaditya, kinsman of Vicramaditya I., 390.
Jalaukas.
Tunjina.
Vijaya.
Jayendra.
Arya Raja.
GONARDYA LINE _restored_.
Meghavahana invaded Ceylon, 472.
Pravarasena I.
Hiranya }
Toramana} Contemporaries of Vicramaditya.
Matrigupta, viceroy under Vicramaditya II., 515.
Pravarasena II., invaded Siladitya of Gujerat, 560.
Yudhishthira II.
Nandravat.
Ranaditya.
Vikramaditya.
Baladitya.
NAGA OR KARKOTA DYNASTY.
Durlabhaverddhana, 627.
Pratapaditya, 663.
Chandrapira, 713.
Parapira, 721.
Lalataditya, 725; died 761. Conquered
Yasoverna of Kanouje, and overran India.
When the ‘Raja Tarangini’ is spoken of, in a real Indian history, it is
only in the sense of the French proverb--“Parmi les aveugles les borgnes
sont rois.” It may be the best, but it is a very indifferent specimen of
its class. Some of the few events it narrates are interesting and
important, but they lose much of their value from the chronology to
which they are attached being wilfully and systematically falsified.
Even they, however, may become more valuable than they now appear, when
the work is better edited than it has been hitherto. The earliest and
best account we have of it is that of Professor Wilson, in the fifteenth
volume of the ‘Asiatic Researches.’ The translation, afterwards
published by Troyer in French, is fuller, no doubt, but is made from a
less perfect manuscript, and is far less critical. Dr. Geo. Bühler, who
is now in the valley, is said to have collected several additional and
more complete MSS., from which it is understood he is preparing a new
edition of the work. When this is done, we may be able to use it more
profitably; meanwhile, for chronological purposes, we can only try and
find an initial and final date, and with one or two intermediate
synchronisms, try to bring the whole into an intelligible sequence; but
so hopelessly is the chronology confused by its author, that this at
present can only be effected by the application of a system of averages,
which is, and always must be, a most unsatisfactory mode of procedure.
* * * * *
Rejecting at once as worthless or hopelessly lost all those parts of the
history before the third century B.C., the first name we come to is the
familiar one of Asoka, but here placed 1394 B.C., or more than 1000
years too early. It was in order to recover what was lost by this first
error that Kalhana Pandit was forced to falsify all the dates up to the
accession of the Karkota dynasty (A.D. 627), when they were known, even
in his day, as certain within ten or twenty years. To effect this, he
added ten, twenty, or thirty years here and there, as caprice dictated,
till at last, losing patience, he gave one king, Ranaditya, in the 6th
century, 300 years, instead of a possible thirty, and so made both ends
meet! So history is written in the East!
After Asoka’s, the next name we meet in the lists with which we are
familiar is that of Kanishka, and he plays so important a part in the
history of Kashmir and Gandhara, that it would be of extreme interest if
his date could be fixed with even approximate certainty. The ‘Raja
Tarangini’ gives us no help in this matter. Generally, it has been
assumed, principally on numismatic evidence, that he reigned either
immediately before or immediately after the Christian Era;[735] but
between him and Asoka our lists afford only two names. If, therefore, we
are to apply to this history the same logic the very learned have
attempted to apply to dates of the Nirvana in the ‘Mahawanso,’ we must
either bring down Asoka to the first century B.C., or take back Kanishka
to the third. As neither process is admissible, nothing remains to be
done but to admit that the record is imperfect, and that it is only from
external evidence that these dates can be fixed with anything like
certainty.
Even admitting that Hushka and Jushka were the father and grandfather of
Kanishka, which I am inclined to think may be the case, instead of his
brothers, as is usually supposed, it will hardly help us much--four
reigns of insignificant princes in 200 years is nearly equally
inadmissible, and will not help us to fix Kanishka’s date from Asoka’s.
Recently the question has been very much narrowed by the discovery of a
number of dated inscriptions at Muttra and elsewhere, in which the name
of Kanishka and his successor Huvishka frequently occur--the latter
always following, never preceding, the former name. It is this that
makes me believe that the Hushka of the chronicle was the father of
Kanishka, and nothing in that case is so probable as that his successor
should take his grandfather’s name. It is almost impossible he should
take his uncle’s, and as the name of Jushka appears nowhere in the
inscriptions, it is natural to assume that he had passed away some time
before they were written.
Be this as it may, the following table gives the inscriptions as they
were found by General Cunningham:[736]--
_In the Indo-Pali Alphabet._
{ KANISHKA. Maharaja Kanishka. Samvat 9.
{ HUVISHKA. Maharaja Devaputra Huvishka. Samvat 39.
{ Maharaja Rajatiraja Devaputra Huvishka. Samvat 47.
_Mathura._{ Maharaja Huvishka. Samvat 48.
{ VASUDEVA. Maharaja Rajatiraja Devaputra Vasu (deva). Samvat 44.
{ Maharaja Vasudeva. Samvat 83.
{ Maharaja Rajatiraja, Shahi, Vasudeva. Samvat 87.
{ Raja Vasudeva. Samvat 98.
_In the Bactrian-Pali Alphabet._
{Bahawalpur. Maharaja Rajadiraja Devaputra Kanishka.
{ Samvat 11, on the 28th of the (Greek)
month of Dæsius.
_Other {Manikyala Tope. Maharaja Kaneshka, Gushana vasa
samvardhaka.
localities._{ “Increaser of the dominion of the Gushans”
(Kushans). Samvat 18.
{Wardak Vase. Maharaja rajatiraja Huveshka.
Samvat 51, 15th of Artemisius.
In addition to these Bactrian-Pali inscriptions, we have a record
of a king called Moga (Moa?), on a copper plate from Taxila,
wherein the Satrap Liako Kusuluko (Kozola?) speaks of the 78th year
of the “great king, the great Moga,” on the 5th of the month of
Panæmus.
In addition to the inscriptions bearing these names, General Cunningham
quotes a great number of others, with dates in the same Samvat era,
extending from the year 5 to the year 281, but without any kings’ names
in them. Their purport, however, and the form of the characters used, he
considers sufficient to show that they form a connected series dating
from one and the same era, whatever that may be.
Here, therefore, we have an era, which we may safely assume was
established by Kanishka, either from the beginning of his reign, or to
mark some important event in it, and which was used after his time for
two or three centuries at least. The question is, was that the era since
known as that of Vicramaditya, dating from 56 B.C., or was it the Saka
era of King Salivahana, dating 135 years after that? General Cunningham
unhesitatingly adopts the former; and though it is not a subject to
dogmatise upon, I am much more inclined to adopt the latter.
In the first place, because I can find no trace of any such era being in
use before the cataclysm in A.D. 750. Bhau Daji states that he knows no
inscription dated in it before the 11th century.[737] General Cunningham
says it was not used as early as 826,[738] but, in another place, quotes
an inscription in 754.[739] I know of none earlier; and can trace no
allusion to any king of the name of Vicramaditya in the first century
B.C., and no events that could have given rise to an era in 56 B.C. No
trace of it is found in Thibet, in Burmah, or Cambodia, and it never was
heard of in Ceylon or Java. In all these countries the Saka era is known
and was used, and it seems strange that an era established by so
powerful a Buddhist king as Kanishka should have endured for two or
three centuries, and then perished, without leaving a trace in any
Buddhist country, and then, after the 8th century, been revived and
adopted by the Brahmans for their chronology. It may be so; but it is so
strange, it seems to require some strong evidence to make it credible,
and none such has yet been advanced.
Hitherto Kanishka’s date has been assumed almost wholly on numismatic
evidence, but it seems to me without sufficient grounds. In all the
lists hitherto published,[740] there are at least a dozen barbarian
kings, several of whom, from the extent of their mintages, must have had
long and prosperous reigns. To compress the whole into the sixty-four
years that elapsed for the destruction of the Bactrian kingdom (120
B.C.), and the era of Vicramaditya (56 B.C.), seems to me a very strong
measure, for which I can see no justification. To allow each, on an
average, sixteen years’ reign, seems very much more probable, especially
as many more names may yet be discovered--and even without them this
would take us on to the Saka era (A.D. 79) without difficulty. One of
them, Gondophares, as we shall presently see, reigned for twenty-six
years at least.
The Roman consular coins found by M. Court, above referred to (_ante_,
p. 79), were so worn as to be hardly legible, and though, therefore,
they limit the antiquity of his reign certainly to this side of 44 B.C.,
they by no means prove that he was so early. On the contrary, the coins
being worn, seems to prove that they were old before being buried; the
probability is that they may have belonged to some pilgrim, or
missionary, in the West, and had become sacred relics before they were
enshrined. If Kanishka had merely wanted foreign coins, Greek or Roman,
he might have had hundreds of perfect ones at his command. There must
have been some other and holier motive for their deposit than merely to
mark a date.
Every one has heard of the legend of St. Thomas the Apostle visiting the
court of Gondophares, and, some add, being beheaded by his order. It may
be a legend, and not one word of truth in it, but those who invented it
in the second or third century must at least have had the means of
knowing what was the name of the king who was on the throne of Gandhara
at, or immediately after, the time of the Crucifixion. This name appears
frequently on coins and inscriptions, and, from the numismatic evidence,
has been placed by all as anterior to Kanishka, and I fancy that no one
looking at the coins can well arrive at any other conclusion. If this is
so, and he was reigning at any time between A.D. 33 and 50, Kanishka
certainly belongs to the latter half of that century.
Against this it must be stated that both General Cunningham and
Professor Dowson read an inscription of this king found at Takht-i-Bahi,
as dated in his twenty-sixth year--one says in the 103rd,[741] the other
100th,[742] of the same Samvat as the inscription of Kanishka--a date
which would answer perfectly for the legend. If this is so, there is an
end of the controversy; but the stone is so worn, and the writing so
indistinct, that I cannot see in the photographs of it what these
gentlemen find there, and others are equally unable to do so; and
besides this, it is such a wrench to all numismatic evidence to place
the coins of Gondophares 100 years after those of Kanishka, that we must
have more evidence than this imperfect inscription affords before we
adopt its epochal date. The regnal date seems quite clear.
There is one other point of view from which this question may be
regarded, but which it is difficult to express clearly without going to
a greater length than our limits will admit of. It is the date of the
third convocation, as the northern Buddhists call it--the fourth,
according to the southern. It was held certainly under Kanishka’s
auspices, and I cannot help fancying about the year 70 or 80 A.D. At
that time, at least, Buddhism seems to have made a great stride in
Thibet, in Burmah, and the East generally. It was about this time that
it was fabled to have been first carried to Java, and about the time
when it was first introduced in China.[743] It looks so like one of
those outbursts of missionary zeal that followed all the three previous
convocations, that I cannot help fancying that this one was held in the
latter half of the first century, and that the era of the king who held
it was allowed in all Buddhist countries to supersede that of the
Nirvana, which, as far as I can see, was the only one that had existed
previously in India.
To argue this out fully would require more space than its importance for
architectural purposes would justify; but its bearing on the age of the
Gandhara monasteries is in some respects considerable. If they are as
modern as I suspect them to be, the more modern date for Kanishka would
accord better with the known facts than carrying his date up before the
Christian era.
* * * * *
Proceeding onward, the next name we come to of any importance is
Mahiracula, who is said to have invaded Ceylon. There is, however, no
trace of any such invasion at that time, which, by the application of
averages would be about 180 A.D., if Kanishka ruled before, and 250 if
after, the Christian Era. His date would be interesting if it could be
ascertained from his connexion with Baladitya, the king of Magadha,
whose story Hiouen Thsang tells in such minute detail.[744]
The Aditya dynasty opens with a king who is said to have been a kinsman
of Vicramaditya, and is evidently the grandfather of the great king of
that name, who figures prominently in the next dynasty as the patron of
Matrigupta. The story of the latter is told in great detail in the ‘Raja
Tarangini,’ and is one of the most curious episodes in the history. He
was sent to Kashmir four years before the death of Vicramaditya (550),
and on hearing of his patron’s decease, resigned his viceroyalty, and
retired to Benares, leaving the throne to his successor, Pravarasena.
In speaking of the dynasty of Malwa, only twenty or twenty-five years
were allowed for the reign of Sri Harsha, and only eighty for the whole
duration, from the fall of the Guptas, 470, to the death of the great
Vicramaditya, 550, a period, it seems from the evidence of the ‘Raja
Tarangini,’ it is impossible to contract. Pratapaditya, the kinsman of
the first, was, we are told, the great-grandfather of Megavahana, the
first king of the next dynasty, and then we have one more king before we
reach Hiranya, who is said to have been contemporary with the second
Vicramaditya. Of course there may have been considerable overlapping at
both ends, and the lives of the Kashmiri kings may have been short; but
as we have six intermediate kings in the one list between the two
Vicramadityas, and only one in the other, it seems that the last could
hardly have ascended the throne before 515, if so early.
One of the acts of Pravarasena was to invade Siladitya, the first
Ballabhi king of that name ruling in Gujerat. We have not, it is true,
any dated coins or inscriptions belonging to him, but we have of his
next successor but one, Sri Dharasena II., 593 (_ante_, p. 730), so that
any date between 550 and 570 would answer perfectly well for this war,
and the fact of its being so is in itself almost sufficient to establish
the correctness of the chronology we are now trying to explain.
Since I wrote last on the subject, a passage has been pointed out to
me[745] in Rémusat’s ‘Nouveaux Mélanges Asiatiques’ (vol. i. p. 197),
which enables us to fix the chronology of the Naga dynasty within a year
or two for extreme deviation. It seems that the third king, Chandrapira,
applied to the Chinese Emperor for assistance against the Arabs in 713,
and that the Emperor conferred the title of King on him in or about 720.
As he was on the throne only eight years and eight months, there is no
room for deviation in this date, and it carries with it those of his
predecessors and followers. It thus becomes clear that Durlabha I. was
the king who was on the throne when Hiouen Thsang resided in the valley,
631-633, and also when he passed near it on his return home in 643, all
which is perfectly consonant with what we find in his text; and it also
fixes the date of Lalitaditya, one of the most important kings in the
list, with almost absolute certainty, as 725-762.[746]
Without placing implicit reliance on all that is said in the ‘Raja
Tarangini,’ with regard to the exploits of this king, or of his having
overrun and conquered all India, from beyond the Himalayas to Cape
Comorin, still a sufficient residuum of fact must remain to enable us to
see that the troubles which had begun in 650, on the death of Siladitya
of Canouge, had laid India prostrate at the feet of any daring
adventurer.
From whatever side we approach it, we can hardly fail to perceive that a
great revolution took place in India about the year 750. All the old
dynasties are then swept away, and for 200 years we have nothing but
darkness, and when light again dawns, about two centuries afterwards,
the map is re-arranged, and new dynasties and new religions have taken
the place of the old.
This reign, too, forms a most appropriate termination to the principal
division of our architectural history. The coins of his rival,
Yasoverman of Canouge, found in the great Tope at Manikyala, prove the
completion of that great Buddhist monument, just 1000 years after the
style had been inaugurated by the great Asoka, and in that thousand
years all that is important in Buddhist architecture is included. The
fact, too, of his being the builder of the great Naga temple at
Marttand, the earliest, so far as I know, in Kashmir, marks the
commencement of a new architectural era, the fruits of which we see when
the curtain again rises. The Jaina religion, with its new style of
temples, had entirely replaced Buddhist forms over the greater part of
India, and the Vaishnava and Saiva religions reigned supreme everywhere
else, in the forms in which we now find them, after the lapse of nearly
another 1000 years’ duration. As, however, there are no chronological
difficulties with regard to these later dynasties, the discussion of the
dates of the kings’ reigns who built them has evidently no place in this
Appendix.[747]
ERA OF VICRAMADITYA.
Before concluding this Appendix, I would like to be allowed to explain
an hypothesis which, if it can be sustained, not only clears up what has
hitherto been a great mystery, but gets rid of a quantity of rubbish
which obscures the chronology of the period. It does not, however, alter
any date, nor affect them further than, if true, it confirms some,
which, if it prove groundless, are deprived of its support.
No one has yet been able to point to the name of Vicramaditya as
belonging to any king in the first century B.C., or to any event likely
to give rise to an era being dated from it.[748] What, then, was the
origin of the era dating from 56 B.C., and how did it arise and obtain
its name?
My belief is that the solution of the mystery will be found in a passage
in Albiruni, the meaning of which he did not profess to understand,
combined with two or three passages in the ‘Raja Tarangini.’
The passage in Albiruni is to the following effect:--“L’ère de Saca,
nommée par les Indiens Sacakala, est postérieure à celle de Vicramaditya
de 135 ans. Saca est le nom d’un prince qui a régné sur les contrées
situées entre l’Indus et la mer (le Golfe du Bengale). Sa résidence
était placée au centre de l’Empire (Muttra?), dans la contrée nommée
Aryavartha. Les Indiens le font naître dans une classe autre que celle
des (Kchatrias?): quelques-uns prétendent qu’il était Soudra et
originaire de la ville de Mansoura. Il y en a même qui disent qu’il
n’était pas de race indienne, et qu’il tirait son origine des régions
occidentales. Les peuples eurent beaucoup à souffrir de son despotisme,
jusqu’à ce qu’il leur vînt du secours de l’Orient. Vicramaditya marcha
contre lui, mit son armée en déroute, et le tua sur le territoire de
Korour, situé entre Moultan et le Château de Louny. Cette époque devint
célèbre, à cause de la joie que les peuples ressentirent de la mort de
Saca, et on la choisit pour ère, principalement chez les
astronomes.”[749]
It seems impossible to apply this narrative to any events happening in
the first century B.C., not to mention the inherent absurdity of
Vicramaditya establishing an era 56 B.C., and then 135 years afterwards
defeating the Saka king on the banks of the Indus. If it meant anything,
it might point to the origin of the Saka era, not that of Vicramaditya.
Turning from this to the ‘Raja Tarangini,’ we find the following
passages in Troyer’s translation:--
“Ayant fait venir ensuite, d’un autre pays, Pratapaditya, parent du roi
Vicramaditya, ils le sacrèrent souverain de l’Empire.
“D’autres induits en erreur ont écrit que ce Vicramaditya fut le même
qui combattit les Çakas; mais cette version est rejetée.”[750]
A little further on we have: “Dans le même temps--the death of
Hiranya--l’heureux Vicramaditya, appelé d’un autre nom Harcha, réunit
comme empereur à Udjdjayini l’Empire de l’Inde sous un seul parasol....
“Employant la fortune comme moyen d’utilité, il fit fleurir les talents:
c’est ainsi qu’encore aujourd’hui les hommes de talent se trouvent la
tête haute au milieu des riches.
“Ayant d’abord détruit les Çakas, il rendit léger le fardeau de l’œuvre
de Hari, qui doit descendre sur la terre pour exterminer les
Mletchhas.”[751]
Before going further, it may be as well to point out what appears to be
a fair inference from the above. That the first Vicramaditya, the friend
of Pratapaditya, was so near in date to the second--he, in fact, appears
to have been his grandfather--as to be confounded with him, and to have
the name of Sakari applied to him, which in fact belonged to his
grandson, the real destroyer of the Sakas.
My conviction is, that these paragraphs refer to one and the same event;
and, assuming that the battle of Korûr was fought 544--the year before
Vicramaditya sent Matrigupta to be his viceroy in Kashmir--what I
believe happened was this: Some time after 750, when the Hindus were
remodelling their history and their institutions, so as to mark their
victory over the Buddhists, they determined on establishing two eras,
which should be older than that of the Buddhists, A.D. 79, and for this
purpose instituted one, ten cycles of sixty years each, before the
battle of Korûr, and called it by the name of the hero of that battle,
the most illustrious of their history; the other ten centuries, or 1000
years before the same date, and called it by the name of his father, Sri
Harsha--a title he himself often bore in conjunction with his own
name--the first consequently dated for 56 B.C., the second from 456. It
need hardly be added that no Sri Harsha existed in the fifth century
B.C., any more than a Vicramaditya in the first.
The co-existence of these eras may be gathered from the following
passage in Albiruni:--
“On emploie ordinairement les ères de Sri Harscha, de Vicramaditya, de
Saca, de Ballabha, et des Gouptas.” “D’après cela, en s’en tenant à l’an
400 de l’ère de Yezderdjed, on se trouve sous l’année 1488 de l’ère de
Sri Harscha--l’an 1088 de l’ère de Vicramaditya--l’an 953 de l’ère de
Saca--l’an 712 de l’ère de Ballabha, et de celle des Gouptas (A.D.
1032).”--‘Journal Asiatique,’ series iv. vol. iv. pp. 280, 286.
The Sri Harsha era, exactly 400 years before that of Vicramaditya, was
avowedly conventional, and seems never to have come into use, and no
further mention is made of it afterwards.
* * * * *
If this view of the matter can be sustained, the advantage will be not
only that the date of the battle of Korûr, and of the expulsion of the
Sakas, Hunas, Yavanas, &c., from India will be fixed with mathematical
precision in 544, but that one of the greatest mysteries connected with
the history of the period will be cleared up, and the revival of the
Hindu religion relegated to a much later period. If, on the other hand,
it can be shown that this view of the matter is not tenable, we shall
lose these advantages, but it will require a great deal more than that
to prove that Vicramaditya, or any Hindu king, reigned in the first
century B.C. Buddhism was then in its palmiest state, and there is no
trace of the Hindu religion then existing, and the expulsion of Sakas,
Yavanas, and Hunas did not take place for long afterwards.
* * * * *
Be this as it may, having now cursorily run through the whole
chronology, in so far as it admits of controversy, I feel very
confident, on a calm review of the whole, that none of the important
dates quoted above can be disturbed to a greater extent than say ten, or
at the utmost twenty years--except, perhaps, that of Kanishka. From the
Anjana epoch, 691 B.C., to the death of Lalitaditya, A.D. 761, all seems
now tolerably clear and fixed, and, with a very little industry, minor
blemishes might easily be swept away. If this were done, the chronology
of mediæval India for the Buddhist period might be considered as fixed
on a secure and immoveable basis of ascertained facts. The advantages of
this being done can hardly be over-estimated for improving our knowledge
of India generally, while, among other things, it would give a precision
and solidity to all our speculations about that country, which, for want
of it, have hitherto been generally so vague and unsatisfactory.
APPENDIX B.
The following are the last of the twenty-four Buddhas, beginning with
Dipankara I., who appeared to instruct and enlighten mankind, and to
whom Sakya Muni succeeds in the present Kalpa:
22. Kakusanda, born at Khémawatinagara.
His Bo-tree the Sirisia (_Sirisa accasia_).