Rise and Growth of Gupta Empire - Samudragupta & Chandragupta-II Reign
Rise of Gupta Empire
The Rise and Growth of the Gupta Empire: India's Golden Age
After the fall of the Maurya Empire, major powers like the Satavahanas and Kushans dominated ancient India.
The Gupta Dynasty emerged in northern India, occupying parts of former Kushan and Satavahana territories.
Key regions such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar played an important role in early Gupta rule, evidenced by the discovery of coins and inscriptions.
The Guptas might have initially been feudatories of the Kushans, adopting similar military strategies.
The Gupta Dynasty originated possibly from the Vaishya caste, rising on the ruins of the Kushan empire.
The Guptas capitalized on fertile lands and controlled lucrative trade routes, especially in silk trade with the Byzantine Empire.
Under Chandragupta I, the Gupta Era began in AD 319-320, marking the empire's official founding.
The Gupta Administration and Land Grants: Political Structure, Local Governance, and Agrarian Economy
The Gupta kings took exalted imperial titles, such as maharaja-adhiraja, 'the great king of kings', parameshvara, 'the supreme lord'. These titles, particularly in later rulers, were often exaggerated compared to the 'great kings' of earlier centuries. Such grand titles echo those of rulers from the north-west and beyond, carrying divine connotations.
The fashion for such titles extended even to those who patronized Buddhism, such as the Bhaumakara dynasty of Orissa, where kings referred to themselves as paramopasaka, 'the most devout lay-follower'.
Statements on royal power increasingly drew from ancient Vedic rituals and newly invented rhetoric.
Among the latter were the mahadanas, or great gifts, often given to those performing rituals or bestowing status on the ruler.
In the Ganges Plain, under Gupta control, kings were the center of administration, aided by princes, ministers, and advisers.
Princes held positions similar to viceroys of provinces. Provinces (desha, rashtra, bhukti) were divided into districts (pradesba, vishaya), with their own administrative offices.
Local administration operated mostly independently, with decisions generally made locally unless they directly impacted central authority.
District officers (ayuktaka, vishayapati) and higher provincial officials, like kumaramatya, linked local administration to the central government.
In some cases, the office became hereditary, further emphasizing local significance.
Lower in the bureaucracy were officials like the ashtakula-adhikaranas (village assembly members), mahattaras (community elders), and grama-adhyakshas (village headmen).
Administrative unit terms often carried symbolic meanings, such as ahara, bhoga, and bhukti, denoting nourishment and sustenance.
The Gupta administration was more decentralized compared to the Mauryan system, as indicated by inscriptions and seals, and was less influenced by the Arthashastra.
In contrast, Ashoka emphasized keeping informed of local happenings, while the Guptas delegated responsibilities to kumaramatyas and ayuktakas.
Harsha's royal tours were similar to those of a royal inspector, where he looked into administrative efficiency, tax collection, and charitable donations.
Villages were categorized in various ways: grama (village), palli (hamlet), gulma (military settlement), khetaka (hamlet), and others, all under local rural governance.
Urban administration featured councils consisting of leaders like the nagarashreshthin (city corporation head), sarthavaha (merchant guild leader), prathama-kulika (artisan representative), and prathama-kayastha (chief scribe).
While the Mauryan state focused on revenue collection, the Gupta state made early attempts at restructuring the agrarian economy, especially through land grants.
Land grants were often intended to cultivate fertile, irrigated land and settle wasteland, creating economic improvement in peripheral areas.
Land grants, particularly to religious and ritual specialists or officers, allowed for small centers of prosperity to grow, though they didn't directly benefit the state revenue.
Brahmans became proficient in agriculture, sometimes turning wasteland into productive land, despite normative texts discouraging agriculture for them.
Commercial enterprise flourished through donations to guilds and positions in city councils, fostering investments and expanding the range of state taxes on commerce.
The expansion of land grants over time created a political economy that was distinct from pre-Gupta times.
Kings who conquered neighboring kingdoms often turned defeated rulers into tributary or subordinate kings, known as samanta. This term evolved from its original meaning of 'neighbor' to imply a tributary ruler.
The relationship between kings and samantas became crucial, often leading to conflicts between royal demands and the aspirations of the local rulers.
Where the latter were strong, the king's power weakened. However, he needed the acquiescence of the samantas, forming the samanta-chakra or circle of samantas, to maintain his prestige.
Samantas were in the ambiguous position of being potential allies or enemies.
In addition to tributary rulers, land grants created new categories of intermediaries.
Grants to religious institutions included those to temples, monasteries, and brahmans. These grants empowered the sects that managed the temples, and villages could also be granted to temples for their maintenance.
Such grants added local administration to the temple's role, alongside its function as sacred space.
At a time when land grants symbolized special favor, granting land to a brahman emphasized their privileged status.
The agrahara grant of rent-free land or a village could be made to a group of brahmans, and the brahmadeya grant, along with temple and monastery grants, were exempt from taxation.
Brahmans were often proficient in the Vedas and specialized knowledge, particularly astrology.
Gifts to brahmans were expected to ward off the evils of the Kali Age, and astrology became more common in this context.
Even if not a permanent grant, land was often treated as an inheritance by the descendants of the grantee.
The king had the power to revoke a grant unless explicitly stated otherwise. However, revoking a grant carried the risk of creating political opposition.
Many inscriptions included a formulaic statement that preserving a grant was more meritorious than granting one.
Land grants began to replace monetary donations to religious institutions, as land was more permanent, heritable, and less vulnerable to tampering.
These grants encouraged the rise of powerful landlords among brahman grantees, though monasteries were also beneficiaries. As cultivation expanded, this led to greater landlordism.
The grantees were often involved in proselytizing, seeking to propagate their religion.
Some brahmans settled near forested areas or among communities with differing beliefs, sometimes leading to conflicts that required negotiated adjustments.
Puranic sects, known for their flexibility in incorporating local mythology, played a key role in mediating between different religious practices.
The granting of land played a significant role in converting forest tribes to the caste system.
The inscriptional evidence from the sixth century AD mentions the conquest of forest polities and their integration into dynastic rule, often with claims of both brahman and kshatriya heritage.
The emergence of Puranic deities and the construction of early temples in central India reflect the cultural and political integration process.
Land grants gradually transformed the political economy by promoting the conversion of wastelands into arable land.
Grantees were responsible for clearing and cultivating the land with plough agriculture. Cultivated land was classified based on irrigation facilities, with features such as step wells, water wheels, and reservoirs becoming common.
The grantee was entitled to collect revenues from the land, and with time, their powers increased.
The grantee often gained responsibility for more land, which was sometimes granted with peasants, establishing a contractual relationship with the grantees. While not serfs, peasants were exempt from some obligations but could be subject to new taxes imposed by the grantee.
Land revenue was a substantial source of income for the state, with the king often claiming one-sixth of the produce, sometimes rising to a quarter.
While land grants reduced direct state revenue, they expanded the agrarian economy and created new networks of support for the dynasty.
The inscription recording a land grant was often engraved on copper plates or stone slabs, acting as a legal document.
It served as proof of ownership or the grantee's rights, such as in the case of the inscription issued by Prabhavati Gupta, the Vakataka Queen, which detailed a donation of land for religious merit and granted exemptions to the grantee.
System of Knowledge during Guptas
Formal education was available in brahman ashramas, hermitages, and in Buddhist and Jaina monasteries. In the former, it would have been restricted to the upper castes. Theoretically, the period of studentship at the former lasted over many years, but it is unlikely that most would spend long periods as students. Learning was a personalized experience involving teacher and pupil. The emphasis was on memorizing texts such as parts of the Vedas, and gaining familiarity with the contents of the Dharma-shastras and subjects such as grammar, rhetoric, prose and verse composition, logic, and metaphysics.
Subjects included in Sanskrit learning:
Astronomy
Mathematics
Medicine
Astrology
Tangential to medicine were works on veterinary science, relating mainly to horses and elephants, both important to the army. In some subjects, Sanskrit texts reflected the theoretical view, as well as the practical application. Generally, however, the practice of a profession was maintained as a distinctive form of education, handled by the actual professionals.
The writing of a manual in Sanskrit on a particular subject was an indicator of its importance. Varahamihira discussed aspects of agricultural practice that included the cultivation of new crops such as indigo, the effects of rainfall, and methods of water-divining. These discussions were continued in works such as the Manasara and the Krishiparashara.
Buddhist monasteries took students for a shorter time of about ten years, but those wishing to be ordained as monks had to remain longer. Learning for novices began through an oral method but changed to literacy. Libraries in monasteries contained important manuscripts that were copied when they became frayed. Nalanda in south Bihar became the foremost Buddhist monastic and educational centre in the north, attracting students from places as distant as China and southeast Asia. This was possible because it had an income from a large number of villages granted to it for its upkeep.
Excavations at Nalanda have revealed an extensive area of well-constructed monastic residences and halls of worship.
The early expositions of Indian astronomy, used in part to organize the large sacrifices, were recorded in the Jyotishavedanga. Contact with the Hellenistic world had introduced a variety of new systems, some of which were incorporated into Indian astronomy. There was also a shift from astronomy based on the lunar mansions and constellations, as discussed in early sources, to astronomy that placed greater emphasis on the planets. In part, this followed from the dialogue between Hellenistic and Indian astronomers.
The new astronomy marked a departure that gave direction to the new theories influencing astronomy and mathematics in the Eurasian world. Some of this information was included in larger texts of the later period, but some was discussed in texts specific to astronomy. Ujjain, which was on the Indian prime meridian, became a centre for studies in astronomy.
Aryabhata's Contributions:
He calculated pi to 3.1416 and the length of the solar year to 365.3586805 days, both remarkably close to recent estimates.
He believed that the earth was a sphere and rotated on its axis, and that the shadow of the earth falling on the moon caused eclipses.
The explanation for the cause of eclipses was quite contentious as the orthodox theory described it as a demon swallowing the planet, a theory strongly refuted even in later times by the astronomer Lalla.
Varahamihira discussed astrology in his work Panchasiddhantika (Five Schools), which explored five known schools of astronomy, some influenced by Hellenistic astronomy. The exploration of all these systems had not been carried out in isolation: an increasing dialogue existed between Indian and Arab astronomers and mathematicians. Indian works on mathematics, astronomy, and medicine were much prized in the scholarly centres that arose under the Caliphate at Baghdad.
Technical Knowledge remained largely with the guilds, where the sons of craftsmen were trained in hereditary trades. These centres had little general interaction with formal institutions of learning, but in specific categories of knowledge, there appears to have been an exchange. The study of mathematics provided a bridge between the two types of education.
Mathematical Knowledge was more advanced in India than the Greek sources known to Arab scholars. Numerals had been in use for some time and were later introduced to the European world as Arabic numerals. The decimal place-value system was in regular use among Indian mathematicians, and the earliest inscription using zero dates to the seventh century, indicating its familiarity. Algebra was also introduced to the Arabs.
Interest in Medicine triggered a tangential interest in alchemy, which became essential to various experimental forms of knowledge, relating not only to material substances but also to those influencing religious beliefs concerning the transmutation of mind and matter.
A notable feature of intellectual life had been the lively philosophical debates among various thinkers across the spectrum, from Buddhism to Brahmanism. These debates focused on well-defined philosophical systems.
Six Cardinal Philosophical Schools:
Nyaya/Analysis: Based on logic, used in debates with Buddhist teachers.
Vaisheshika/Particular Characteristics: Argued the universe was created from a number of atoms, distinct from the soul.
Sankhya/Enumeration: Atheistic, drew on twenty-five principles of creation, recognizing dualism between matter and soul.
Yoga/Application: Advocated for control over the body and senses as a prelude to knowledge of ultimate reality.
Mimamsa/Inquiry: Focused on the importance of the Vedas and refuted post-Vedic thought.
Vedanta/End of the Vedas: Focused on the union of individual soul with the Universal Soul.
These schools were not isolated but included discussions and refutations of each other's views. The debates among philosophers continued for centuries, with modern focus on Vedanta as the dominant philosophical school in pre-modern India.
Theories of Time included both cyclic and linear concepts. Cyclic time was viewed through the theories of the mahayuga and the manvantara, where the cycle lasts 4,320,000 human years and is divided into fourteen periods, each ending with a recreation of the universe.
The Current Era is in the seventh of fourteen periods in the present cycle, with each period containing four yugas (ages). The Kaliyuga, which began around 3102 BC, is marked by moral decline and is said to lead to the coming of Kalkin, the tenth incarnation of Vishnu, who will reinstate the norms.
Linear Time is used in recounting genealogies of heroes and dynasties in the Puranas, where each generation follows the previous one in a linear fashion, often marked by regnal years and eras.
Much creative literature of this period became the source of studies of dramaturgy, poetry, and literary theory in the subsequent period. Some would date the famous Natya-shastra of Bharata – a foundational treatise on dance, drama, and poetry – to these times, suggesting its catalytic role.
Literary criticism was soon to explore the interface between sound and meaning, mood and evocation, some of which were seminal to the discussion on the theory of rasa, where one of the arguments was that the quality of creativity can be related to the manner in which it evokes a reaction.
Poetry and prose in Sanskrit were largely the literature of the elite, the court, the aristocracy, the urban rich, and those associated with such circles. Kalidasa was an extraordinary poet and dramatist whose work augmented the prestige of the language and was echoed in many later poetic forms.
Meghaduta (Cloud Messenger) was his long lyrical poem, meshing landscape and emotion.
His play Abhijnana-shakuntala, regarded as an exemplar in Sanskrit drama by literary critics, was to be widely discussed both in Sanskrit literary theory and later throughout Europe, with its impact on German Romanticism.
Bharavi's Kiratarjuniya
Magha's Shishupalavadha
Bhattikavya
Bhavabhuti's Malati-Madhava
The more erotic poetry was that of Bhartrihari and Amaru
Mrichchha-katika (The Little Clay Cart) by Shudraka
Mudrarakshasha by Vishakhadatta
Devi-chandra-gupta by Vishakhadatta
Panchatantra - Written to educate a young prince in the ways of the world
Subandhu's Vasavadatta
Bana's Harshacharita
Bana's Kadambari
Bhamaha - Literary criticism
Paumacariyam of Vimalasuri, a Jaina version of the Rama story
Valmiki's Ramayana (as referenced in the Paumacariyam)
Literary criticism came into its own in the writings of Bhamaha. A striking feature of this intense creativity in literary forms is that the essential concern is not with projecting religious ideas, as some modern commentators maintain, but with reflecting on human behavior even if only of segments of society. The historical context is largely that of the royal court, although some would argue that the court is a metaphor.
Classical Sanskrit became popular as the language of the chancellery, through its being the language of the court and through inscriptions. It was therefore different from the language of ritual, and had earlier been recognized as such by grammarians. The dominance of Sanskrit, however, dates to the Gupta period and continued until about the early second millennium AD, after which the regional languages were widely used. In Turkish and Mughal times, the court language was Persian. The hegemony of Sanskrit was political and cultural and enjoyed the patronage of the elite. But the local languages and cultures were not abandoned. They can be glimpsed in the use of Prakrit in various contexts, such as the elements of some inscriptions and in the languages of religious sects.
The Natya-shastra lists a number of languages and dialects, even after setting aside those spoken by members of the lower castes and chandalas. Since the latter worked for the upper castes, there must have been some degree of bilingualism. The upper castes, it is said, should avoid Prakrit because it is the language of the mlechchha and of the populace. The differentiation between high culture and popular local culture was recognized in the gradual adoption of distinctive terms for each: marga, literally the path, for the former, and deshi, literally the region, for the latter.
Sanskrit also became the language of the scholastic tradition, and doubtless the patronage to brahmans and to Buddhist monasteries encouraged this.
In addition to Sanskrit, literature in Prakrit (more closely related to popular speech than Sanskrit) also had its patronage outside the court circle. Prakrit literature associated with Jaina texts tended to be more didactic in style. The Paumacariyam of Vimalasuri, a Jaina version of the Rama story, is remarkable not only for presenting different views from those of Valmiki, but also for reiterating the function of the epic form as popular literature. A notable feature in the Sanskrit plays of this period is that the high-status characters speak Sanskrit, whereas those of low or ambiguous social status, and all the women, speak Prakrit. Status and gender were linked to language.
Military Achievements of Samudragupta
Samudragupta was known for his military prowess, expanding the Gupta Empire significantly, in contrast to Asoka's policy of peace.
His conquests covered regions from the Ganga-Yamuna doab to modern-day Afghanistan, solidifying Gupta power.
Many foreign rulers sought his permission for various matters, extending his influence even outside of India.
The Allahabad Pillar Inscription immortalizes his military conquests and achievements.
Achievements of Chandragupta II
Also known as Vikramaditya, Chandragupta II expanded the empire through strategic alliances and conquests.
His court became famous for scholars like Kalidasa and Amarasimha.
The title Vikramaditya symbolizes his victory over the Sakas, further solidifying Gupta control in northwestern India.
Decline and Fall of the Gupta Empire
The Gupta Empire faced invasions from the Hunas in the 5th century, weakening its dominance.
Territorial losses and internal fragmentation further accelerated the collapse of the empire.
By the end of the 6th century AD, the Gupta Empire had splintered into smaller kingdoms.
The Rise of the Gupta Empire: Key Insights
The Gupta Empire initially expanded under Chandragupta I and his successors, becoming a dominant force in northern India.
Its growth relied on fertile land, rich trade, and military conquests, reaching its peak under Chandragupta II.
Samudragupta's Major Conquests
Samudragupta conquered several regions, including the Ganga-Yamuna doab and eastern Himalayan states.
He defeated forest kingdoms, expanded to southern India, and subdued the Pallavas.
Chandragupta II's Golden Age : Explained
The reign of Chandragupta II marked the height of Gupta power, with the empire flourishing in trade, culture, and military strength.
The Gupta era under his rule is often referred to as the Golden Age of India.
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