XI. The Era of Consolidation and Expansion
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Consolidation by Guptas
[P.116]: We have observed that, by the end of the third century AD, or the beginning of the fourth, the peoples of the Panjab, particularly the Yaudheyas, had uprooted and overthrown Kusana rule from eastern Panjab. By the middle of the fourth century the Guptas had consolidated their hold over Magadha and the Gangetic Valley and undertaken the creation of a unified empire in North India. With that purpose in view, the Gupta monarch Samudragupta launched his expeditions in the West and the North also conquering up to Kashmira as the Manjushrimulakalpa (ed. K.P. Jayaswal, p. 52) states. As a result of these moves , the Yaudheyas, Madrakas, Malavas, Arjunayanas, Prarjunas and Abhiras, ruling over eastern Panjab, Rechna Doab, Rajasthana and Saurashtra, submitted to him, and, as the Allahabad Pratasti states, ‘‘carried out his furious command by paying all tributes, obeying his orders and offering salutation” (sarvakaradānājñākaraṇapraṇāmāgamanaparitoṣitapracaṇḍaṡasanasya). Not only these peoples, but also the Kushana emperor holding the grandiloquent title of daivaputraṡāhiṡāhānuṡahī along with his subordinate Scythian chiefs, the Shakamurundas, surrendered to him, offering the hand of his daughter and soliciting his charter marked with the Garuda seal for the governance of his kingdom (ātmanivedanakanyopāyanadānkasvavishayabhuktishasanayācanādyupāyasevākṛtabahuviryaprasaradharaṇibandhasya). This shows that the Kushana emperor became his vassal and governed his kingdom on his sufferance. It is likely that the coins of Kushana type with the name Samudra were struck by that ruler for circulation in his kingdom.
Kushana attempt of restoring their lost empire
[p.116]: But the Kushana power was not completely crushed. Faustus of Byzantium states that in 367-68, when the Sassanids were engaged in a war with Armenia, they again raised their heads. On
[p.117]: the death of Shahpuhr II in Iran and Samudragupta in India they resuscitated their power and adopted an aggressive policy. Their king Sasana issued gold coins resembling the standard-bearer- type of Samudragupta and launched an invasion in the Panjab. The Gupta king Ramagupta wanted to fop him off by surrendering his beautiful queen Dhruvadevi or Dhruvasvamini, but his gallant brother Candragupta did not swallow this insult and decided to outmanoeuvre him. He dressed himself like Dhruvadevi and reached the Kushana camp in a palanquin followed by choice warriors in a train of other palanquins. As soon as the Kushana king advanced to meet him in his tent, thinking him to be the Gupta queen, he stabbed him to death and gave the signal whereupon the warriors, doffed the female garbs, jumped from the palanquins and massacred the Kushana army with tremendous vigour. This sensational victory, either at Padmapura to the west of Jalalabad or Aliwal in the Jullundur district, quashed the dream of the Kushanas of restoring their lost empire in the Panjab and confirmed their death-warrant in a final way.
Chandragupta penetrated into Bactria and conquered the Balhikas
[p.117]: Thereafter Chandragupta, deposing the weak Ramagupta, came to the throne and planned to solve the problem of the Panjab and the North-West in an original manner.
Candragupta thought that, to safeguard the empire, it was necessary to push the frontier along the Hindukush. Hence he launched an expedition in that direction and, crossing the seven tributaries of the Indus, penetrated into Bactria and conquered the Balhikas (tīrtvā sapta mukhāni yena samare sindhorjitā bālhīkāḥ) (Mehrauli Inscription, J.F, Fleet, Corpus Inseriptionum Indicarumt Vol. III, no. 32). Indian warriors regaled profusely on the delicious wine of Kapishi and Indian horses removed their exhaustion by rolling freely in the saffron fields of Bactria while the national flag of the Guptas, the Garudadhvaja, fluttered triumphantly on the Oxus. At no time before or since the frontier of the Indian empire marched with the Oxus and Indian horses of victory drank its water. This tremendous achievement solved the problem of the Kushanas, Persians and Hephthalites in one stroke and carried the name and fame of India to the pinnacle of glory and glamour. Naturally it became the most sensational and fascinating motif of contemporary literature catching the fancy of poets and artists.
The poet Kalidasa made use of it in his account of the north-western expedition of Raghu against the Persians (Parasikas) which is shown to have culminated
[p.118]: sin a stirring victory over the Hunas on the bank of the Oxus (Raghuvansha, IV, 67-68). The poet Śyāmilaka lionised the hero of this conquest in the character of Mahapratihara Bhadrayudha, the master of the northern countries, the Balhikas, as well as Karusa (कारुष) (Shahabad district of Bihar) and Malada (Malda district of Bengal) (etajjangamatīrthamudīcyānām bālhīkānām kārūṣamaladānām ceśvaro mahāpratihāro bhadrāyudha eṣaḥ) (Pādatāḍitakam, in Caturbhani ed. V.S. Agrawala and Moticandra, p. 193), After making these magnificent achievements he reduced the kings of Aparanta [[Konkana[[), Shakas (of Saurashtra) and Malavas (western Malva) and spread the sway of the empire of the Gangetic Valley over those regions. His fame was sung by women while playing with creepers on seashore, and a popular saying about him was that he, who would think of rivalling him in humanity and valour, would be eating the flesh of pig (Ibid., p. 196).
The story of the conquests of king Pramati in the Matsyapurana and that of the expedition of Arjuna into the land of the Rishikas and Paramarshikas in the Sabhaparvan of the Mahabharata also seem to be based on the motif of Balhikavijaya current in early Gupta age. The coins of Kushana type with the name Candra is also a pointer to the same fact, and the growth of the Indo-Afghan school of art, found in Fondoukistan, Maranjan and Bamiyan, is also an index to it.
Skandagupta's achievements
[p.118]:The conquest of western Panjab, Kabul Valley and Bactria ensured peace in that region for about half a century. But, in 437 A.D., a branch of the Kushanas, called Kidarites, spread their sway in Gandhara. Under their chief, Kungkas, son of Kidara, they consolidated their power. At that time another branch of Iranic or Scythic people, called the- Hephthalites or Hunas, pressed into Bactria. Menaced by them the Sassanids and the Kidarites came close to each other. By 455 they and the Hephthalites or Hunas, following and some even accompanying them, invaded the Panjab. In that crisis the Gupta emperor entrusted the command of the army to his gallant son Skandagupta.
Like Karttikeya, the General of the Gods, the young prince advanced with irresistible drive and speed and inflicted a crushing defeat on the invaders. The Buddhist text Candragarbhaparipṛcchasūtra describes this heroic struggle as follow:
- "Mahendra’s (Kumaragupta’s) kingdom was invaded upon by three foreign powers in concert, Yavanas, Palhikas (pahlavas)
- [p.119]: and Shakunas who first fought among themselves. They took possession of Gandhara and the countries to the north of the Ganges. The young son of Mahendrasena, of weighty hands and other congenital military marks distinguishing his person, asked for permission to lead his father’s army. The enemy army numbered three hundred thousand men under the commands of the foreign kings, the chief of whom was the Yavana. The son of Mahendra put his army of two hundred thousand men divided under five hundred commanders, sons of ministers and other orthodox Hindus. With extraordinary quickness and a terrible drive he charged the enemy. In fury his veins on the forehead appeared like a visible mark and his body became steeled. The prince broke the enemy army and won the battle”. (K.P. Jayaswal, An Imperial History of India, p. 36).
The Bhitari inscription (J.F. Fleet, Corpus, Vol. III. No. 13) gives lucid details of this memorable battle. It states that the enemy had a vast army backed by adequate financial resources (samuditabalakoṡān) and that he had shaken the Gupta empire toils foundations (vicalitakulahkshmi). But Skandagupta fought valiantly and shook the earth by his arms ( dorbhyām dharā kampitā). The volleys of arrows, flung by him, created a terrible vortex in the ranks of the Hunas (bhimāvarttakarasya ṡatruṣu). The fighting raged the whole day and did not stop even at night so that he had to rest on the bare ground of the battlefield that night (kṣititalaṡayanīye yena nitā triyāmā). But, next day, he shattered the enemy and completely smashed and routed them so that his fame travelled even in the lands of the Mlecchas (Junagarh Inscription , verse 4) and people in all quarters began to sing his glorious achievements. Even the Chinese emperor conferred on him the title of the “General who solidly established his authority”. The Kathasaritsagara mentions the Persian king Nirmūka as one of his vassals. He is surely one of the greatest heroic figures of Indian history. Since his father had died in the meantime, he reported his victory to his mother and then ascended the throne.
Jat Raja Yashodharman expelled the Hunas.
[p.119]: That the people of the Panjab, particularly the Jats, played a notable part in winning this victory is manifest from a remark of the grammarian Candragomin that the Jartta (Jat) had conquered the Hunas, ajayajjarto hūṇān. (अजयज्जर्तो हूणान्)
[p.120]: This stirring victory, won by the heroic Skandagupta somewhere in Hariyana or the Panjab, immured North India from the attack of the Hunas and other tribes for about Half a century. But since, on account of internal problems, he could not pay adequate attention to the regions beyond the Indus, the Hephthalite ruler Hephthal III entrenched his rule of Balkh and extended it to Persia, the Tarim Basin and Gandhara.
In 477 one of the Hephthalite clans, the Jaulas, conquered Gandhara and, in the beginning of the sixth century, started their inroads in the Panjab. Their chief Toramana set himself up on the Chenab and raided East Panjab destroying such sites as Sanghol (Sanghapura) in the Ludhiana district where his coins have been found. From there he invaded the Gangetic Valley occupying Kaushambi, where his seal has been discovered, and thence took the road to East Malwa and defeated a Gupta army at Eran killing its commander Goparaja in 510-11 A.D. After this decisive victory he also advanced into the Gauda country and also launched incursions in Rajasthana as can be gathered from the Bhimchaunri inscription of the Kota region which refers to one chief Dhruvasvamin who fell fighting with the Huna army (M.L. Sharma, History of Kota, p. 35).
But Huna rule in India could not last long. The gallant Malavas threw up a hero in Yashodharman Vishnuvardhana to expel the Hunas. They were a branch of the famous Madras, who had their home in eastern Panjab, then settled in southern Panjab, from there migrated to eastern Rajasthana and thence went over to western Avanti, on the one hand, and the Mahi Valley in Gujarat, on the other. Their role in fighting with the Shakas was tremendous. In the sixth century they girded up their loins to expel the despicable Hunas and, under the leadership of Yashodharman Vishnuvardhana, drove them out from the whole of northern India. Marching under the banner of Shiva, bearing the figure of the bull Nandi with the palm impression of Parvati, they conquered the vast territory from the river Lauhitya (Brahmaputra) and the mountain Mahendra (in Orissa) to the Himalayas, embraced by the Ganges, and the western seas (Mandasore Inscription, verse 5, Fleet, Corpus, Vol. III, no. 33). Their writ ran in those regions which were neither conquered by the Guptas nor by the Hunas (Ibid., verse 4). Even the indomitable and relentless Mihirakula adored the feet of their chief with the offerings of the flowers of the chaplet on his head (Ibid., verse 6). Having conquered many kings of the east and the north, by
[p.121]: conciliation or coercion, he ranked as the paramount emperor (rajadhirajaparameshvara) (Fleet, Op. cit., no. 35, verse 7). His governor Abhayadatta administered the regions from the Vindhyas to the Indus (Ibid., verse 21). Thus the Panjab was completely under his sway. Over it, as in other parts of his empire, the Vedic religion was fostered, and, as the epigraph says, the smoke, arising from the sacrificial altars, enveloped the sun (Ibid., verse 8). Hence it is no wonder that, by his meteoric rise and superhuman performance, Yashodharman Vishnuvardhana made such a tremendous impression on the minds of the common people that they considered him the Kalki Avatara of Vishnu who was destined to appear at the end of the Kali age to destroy sin and restore virtue. In the Mahabharata (III, 190, 93), the name of Kalki is given as Vishnuyashas (Kalki vishnuuyashā nāma dvijah kālapracoditah) which is exactly an abbreviation of Vishnuvardhana and Yashodharman the parts of the name of the Malava conqueror. He is said to be the harbinger of the Kṛta yuga or the age of truth or virtue (bhavishyati kṛte prāpte kriyavanṡca janastathā (III, 191, 7) just as the reign of Yashodharman is said to mark the advent of Kṛta era in the Mandasore incription, verse 22 (kṛta eva kṛtametadyena rājyam nirādhi). It surely must have been a very thrilling and gripping period of history.
Rise of Pushpabhutis of Thanesar
[p.121]: In the latter half of the sixth century the Sassanids and the Turks combined to wreck the Huna empire in the north. The chief of the Western Turks, Istami (552-575 A.D.), conquered Tukharistan and Gandhara, that is Afghanistan to the north and south of the Hindukush, and issued his coins with legends in Tukharian and Brahmi for circulation in that region. His successor, probably Tardu, Ta-t’eon of Chinese texts, had an extensive kingdom, as his coins with Tukharian, Brahmi and Pehlavi legends, found from Kabul and Manykiala to Sind and Kacch, indicate. Under the pressure of the Turks the Hunas were confined to the Gazni-Kandahar region called Zabulistan after them.
[p.121]: While these new forces were hovering over the North-West and menacing the people of the Panjab, a new power was rising in eastern Panjab to cope with them. It was the Pushpabhutis of Thanesar, who established themselves during the campaigns of the Vardhanas of Malwa; probably they were a branch of them, as their name-ending vardhana and profession of the Saiva religion suggest. Their first two rulers Naravardhana and Rajyavardhana were ordinary feudatories, but the third ruler, Adityavardhana,
[p.122]: enhanced his power by marrying Mahasenagupta, probably the sister of Mahasenagupta of the later Gupta Dynasty, which had carved out its kingdom in eastern Malwa. Adityavardhana’s son, Prabhakaravardhana, greatly expanded his realm and became the paramount ruler of the Panjab and the North-West and was known among the people as Pratapashila. At that time the Maukharis were emerging as the dominant power in the Gangetic Valley. But they were the enemies of the Later Guptas of eastern Malwa. Neverthless Prabhakarvardhana adopted the bold policy of befriending them and, to that end, married his daughter Rajyasri to the Maukhari prince Grahavarman, though it must have chagrined his Gupta relatives and even led to a showdown between them. This step may have been dictated by the growing incursions of the Hunas who were trying to spread out from their realm in Zabulistan. Prabhakaravardhana rightly thought that the Maukharis could be of more use to him in repelling the Hunas than the Later Guptas. This was demonstrated when the elephant corps of the Maukharis “threw aloft in battle the infuriated troops of the Hunas" as the Aphsad inscription relates (Fleet, Corpus; Vol.III, p.200), and Prabhakaravardhana proved a lion to the Huna deer (hunaharinakesari), as Bana states In his Harshacharita (ed. Jivananda, p. 342).
The victory over the Hunas enabled Prabhakaravardhana to follow a bold policy on the frontier and be a “burning fever to the king of the Sindhu region” (sindhurajajvarah) , “a troubler of the sleep of the Gurjaras” (gurjaraprajagarh) and “a bilious plague to the scent-elephant that was the lord of Gandhara (gandhāradhipagandhadvipakūṭapākalaḥ) (Harshacharita, p, 342). Thus the Pushpabhuti monarch reduced the king of the Sindhu region, the Hunas of Zabul, the Turks of Gandhara and the Gurjaras hovering over the North-West. Towards the closing years of his reign the Hunas made another determined move to invade the Panjab, but Prabhakaravardhana, alive to the occasion, sent a strong force under his elder son Rajyavardhana to scare them away. The fight with the Hunas was terrible and the Pushpabhuti prince received numerous wounds in it. But he broke their back and drove them off though he could not completely decimate them, because the news of the sudden illness of his father forced him to hurry home with his body covered with long white bandages over the wounds of arrows (huṇanirjayasamaraṡaravraṇabaddhapaṭṭairdirghadhavalaih). However the blow on the Hunas was so severe that they were cowed
[p.123]: down for a long time to come and were no longer a menace on the frontier.
Prabhakaravardhana soon died, but just then news came of the attack of the Malava king on Kanauj and the death of the Maukhari king Grahavarman and the imprisonment of Rajyasri. It turned the anguish of Rajyavardhana into a rage and, with ten thousand cavalry, under Bhandi (भाण्डी), he galloped off to chastise and destroy the Malava miscreant. By quick marches he reached Kanauj, like lightning, and defeated the Malava forces in a trice. Even the ally of the Malava king, Shashanka of Gauda, made a show of submissive friendliness, offered him the hand of his daughter and invited him for festivity and entertainment, but treacherously assassinated him when he was alone and unarmed and off his guard. This stunning news shook Harsha and steeled him in his resolve to punish the Gauda king and also to conquer the whole earth. With a vast army, he marched on Kanauj, occupied it, the armies of Gauda having fled, but, instead of pursuing Shashanka, penetrated into the Vindhya forest to trace and rescue his embittered sister Rajyasri who had repaired there from Kanauj out of excruciating discomfiture. Happily he reached her when she was just going to consign herself to the flames and persuaded her to return with him. Then, on the suggestion of the ministers, he agreed to take charge of the government of Kanauj, and, after consolidating himself, set out to punish the Gauda king and conquer the whole of northern India.
Harsha was one of the wisest and bravest kings of India. He was keenly conscious of the frontier. Therefore, while conquering the states in the interior of India, he did not neglect the Panjab and the North-West. On this subject we get some interesting information from the itinerary of the Chinese pilgrim Hsuan Chwang. He says that, to the south of the Hindukush, the king of Bamiyan held the quinquennial assembly at which he gave away all his possessions from the queen down to the monks and later his ministers redeemed them. Adjoining his kingdom was that of Kapishi ruled over by a king of Kshatriya caste. The pilgrim describes him as intelligent and courageous as well as benevolent and philanthropic and says that his power extended over more than ten of neighbouring lands. Foucher thinks
[p.124]: “that his kingdom adjoined the independent country called Ghur in the west, marched along the chains of the Koh-i-Baba and Hindukush and reached up to Kafiristan in the north and met the kingdoms of Kashmira and Takka in the east. Thus the entire valley of the Kabul from the Hindukush to the Indus and the region along the right bank of the latter up to the frontier of Sind formed part of his kingdom. Hsuan Chwang says that every year he made a silver image of Buddha, 18 feet high, and, at the mokshapariṣad, gave liberally to the needly and widowers (Thomas Watters, On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, p. 123). When, in course of his homeward journey, he crossed the Indus at Und, that ruler accorded him a welcome and entertained him for forty days at a monastery. Then he went with him to Lamghan, Lampaka, and, crossing the Safed Koh and the Kurram Valley, reached Varnu (Pa-na) or modern Waziristan where lie held a darbar. Then the pilgrim moved into Vrijistliana, now called Ujaristan, and thence entered into Hazereh whose local king belonged to the race of the Tou-k’iue but probably acknowledged the suzerainy of the king of Kapishi (Foucher, La vieille route de l'inde de Bacires a Taxiia, p, 232).
This account of the trans-Indus region, given by Hsuan Chwang, clearly shows that, to the south of the Hindukush, Tou-K’iue or Turkish rule had been eradicated and two rulers were installed at Bamiyan and Kapishi who followed in the footsteps of Harsha in their philanthropic programmes very faithfully. Obviously they were under the profound influence of Harsha and had some sort of connection with him. Though they were independent rulers, they owed their rise to the atmosphere of pressure to which the Pushpabhuti monarch Prabhakaravardhana had subjected the Turkish ruler of the Kabul Valley and the Huna chief of the Zabul region. They profitably fished in the troubled waters of the struggle of the Pushpabhutis and Turks and succeeded in carving out independent kingdoms for themselves. It is also not unlikely that they worked hand-in-glove with the Pushpabhutis and probably got some assistance from them in overthrowing and eradicating the Turks. When Harsha came to the throne, they strengthened their links with him and emulated his charitable activities. What happened in Bamiyan every fifth year was a reenactment of the charity camp at Prayaga. Likewise there were close links between Kapishi and Kanauj. All
[p.125]: this shows that Harsha was keen to have his friends on the frontier with a view to safeguarding his empire.
Hsuan Chwang’s keen observations on Indian society
[p.125]: Hsuan Chwang’s keen observations on Indian society in the first half of the seventh century enable us to form some idea of how the people lived and thought in the Panjab at that time. He wrote that the Kshatriyas and Brahmanas were clean-handed and unostentatious, pure and simple in life and very frugal (T. Watters, Op. cit ., p. 151). The Kshatriyas had held sovereignty for many generations and their aims were benevolence and mercy (Ibid., p. 168). The army consisted of elephants, chariots, horses and foot-soldiers. The war-elephant was covered with coat-of-mail and his tusks were provided with sharp barbs The commander-in-chief rode on such an elephant with a soldier on each side to manage the animal. The chariot, in which an officer sat, was drawn by four horses, while the infantry guarded it on both sides. The infantry were choice men of valour; they bore large shields and long spears; some were armed with swords and sabres and dashed to the front of the advancing line of battle. The soldiers were perfect experts with all the implements of war such as spear, shield, bow and arrow, sword, sabre etc. having been drilled in them for generations. Of the army a special section was the National Guard consisting of heroes of choice valour. In peace they guarded the sovereign’s residence and in war they became the intrepid vanguard. As the military profession was hereditary, they became adepts in military tactics (ibid, p. 171). At the back of this well-trained and organized army was a sound and honest administration and the high moral calibre of the people. The pilgrim noted that the people would not take anything wrongfully and yielded more than fairness required. They did not practise deceit and kept their sworn obligations. Among them the criminal class was small and they feared the retribution for sins in other lives (Ibid., p. 171).
Hsuan Chwang has given us interesting sidelights on the peoples of the Panjab. He says that the country between the Indus and the Beas was called Cheh-ka (Takka). Its soil was fertile, climate was hot and the people were rude, mostly devoted to theistic religions and speaking a low vernacular. However, there were dharmashalas, where the needy and the distressed received relief and food, and medicines were distributed free of cost and the travellers could stay comfortably. The capital town of this
[p.126]: region was Shakala which had witnessed the ferocity and vandalism of the dreadful Huna ruler Mihirakula. Near to it a new city, probably Asarur, was founded. In a forest near it a band of fifty robbers entrapped him and his party, stripped , them of their possessions and drove them into the bed of a dried-up pond and began to truss them up with ropes. But the pilgrim escaped through a gap in the thick growth of creepers and ran a mile towards a village. A Brahmana, who was tilling his field, heard the episode, rushed to the village and blew his conch on which eighty villagers took up arms and rushed towards the robbers. On their approach the robbers made off and the villagers un trussed the companions of the pilgrim and provided them food and clothing, and other necessaries. Next day the pilgrim and his party reached the Ashrama of a Brahmana who had a good knowledge of Vedic and Madhyamika texts and was reputed to be seven hundred years old. On the coming of the visitors he approached a neighbouring town from where three hundred prominent people came with provisions to entertain them. This incident shows that, though in the neighbouthood of Sialkot in the Takka country bands of brigands infested the highways, the villagers were ready to encounter and overpower them on getting slightest hints of their whereabouts and that they as well as the neighbouring townsmen were very courteous and hospitable to outside visitors and ministered to their comforts with offerings of provisions and clothing.
Another point which this incident bears out is that the Brahmanas tilled and sowed land just as they excelled in study and learning, in other words, professional mobility was not hedged by birth by and large.
Attached to the Takka country was the Multan region in South Panjab. It had a good soil and mild climate. Its people were upright, loved learning and led moral lives, though few of them were Buddhists. Of the ten monasteries most were in ruins and only a few had some monks, but the temples of gods were many and the foremost among them was tire temple of sun all round which were tanks and flowery gardens making a delightful resort. About 140 miles north-east of it was another dependency of the Takka Country, called Po-fa-to or Parvata, encompassing the Salt Range. It was productive and well-peopled having ten monasteries and one thousand monks belonging to both the vehicles and four Ashokan stupas.
[p. 127]: From the Takka district, Hsuan Chwang reached Chi-na-p’uh-ti (modern Chine). There the people had settled occupation and their income was abundant. Among them both Buddhism and Brahmanism coexisted. A special attraction was the prince Vinitaprabha, who had become a monk, ranked as an authority on logic and wrote commentaries on Mahayana works like the idealist treatise Trimṡikā.
From Chine the pilgrim reached a Buddhist centre called Tāmasavana where an Ashokan stupa dominated hundreds and thousands of topes nearby and 300 monks of the Sarvāstivāda sect led strictly pure lives. Then the party reached Jullundur, a region abounding in grains, fruits and flowers, having fifty monasteries with two thousand monks and three temples with five hundred sectaries of the Pashupata school. A former king of that state embraced Buddhism and travelled all over the country, erecting stupas and monasteries, and ranked as the patron and protector of Buddhism all over the country. At the time of Hsuan Chwang, a monk Chandravarman of the Nagaradhana vihara was a leading authority on the Vibhāṣa with whom he stayed and studied for four months. Jullundur was the administrative centre of North India and its governor was one Udita who treated the pilgrim very courteously.
From Jullundur Hsuan Chwang went to the Kullu Valley, rich in grains and greenery, having twenty monasteries with one thousand monks, mostly mahayanists, and fifteen temples of gods with many followers of them living pell-mell. The region was studded with the retreats of arhats and rishis who repaired to the hills for penance. The stupa of Ashoka was a prominent feature of the region.
From Kullu the pilgrim and his party came to the Sutlej region (She-to-t’u-lu) which was mainly agricultural and fruit-producing. Its inhabitants were affluent and led moral lives observing social decorum and devoutly adhering to Buddhism. In and about the capital there were ten monasteries but they had become desolate. However, the two hundred Feet high Ashokan stupa dominated the scene. From there the pilgrim went south and reached the Aravalli region, called Pariyatra, and thence went to Mathura and then returned to Hariyana or Sthanishvara. He says that its soil was
[p.128]: fertile and the crops were rich; the people were affluent and vied, with each other in extravagence. They were mostly traders, devoted to magical arts and prizing outlandish accomplishments. The Buddhist monasteries were three with seven hundred monks, though, the temples of gods were upwards of one hundred and their followers quite numerous. An Ashokan stupa of bright orange; bricks, however, dominated the scene and, at about twenty miles, was the Govinda Vihara with high chambers in detached terraces where the monks led pure life.
About eighty miles north-east of Thanesar was Srughna (modern Sugh). Its soil and climate were like those of Thanesar. The people, though mostly non-Buddhist, were honest, and respected learning and esteemed religious wisdom. Buddhist monasteries were five with one thousand monks, experts in the exposition of their doctrines, though the number of temples of gods was one hundred. On the western side of the Yamuna outside the eastern gate of a large monastery was an Ashokan stupa.
It is clear from the above account of the Panjab, given by Hsuan Chwang, that it was a fertile and affluent land and its people were upright, tolerant, benevolent, hospitable and lovers of learning. The dreadful days of fighting with the Hunas were over and the palmy years of the reign of Harsha had brought peace and amity the fruit of which was a sedate and settled life. Heroes in war, warriors in combat, gallant against the enemy, the Panjabis were also productive in peace, philanthropic in prosperity and generous and humane in restful periods.