Day .19-JAWAHARLAL NEHRU - The Discovery of India (Continued)

Mahavira and Buddha : Caste

Some such background existed in North India from the time of the Epics onwards to the early Buddhist period. It was ever changing politically and economically, and the processes of synthesis and amalgamation, as well as the specialization of labour, were taking place. In the realm of ideas there was con-tinuous growth and often conflict. The early Upanishads had been followed by the development of thought and activity in many directions; they were themselves a reaction against priest-craft and ritualism. Men's minds had rebelled against much that they saw, and out of that rebellion had grown these early Upa-nishads as well as, a little later, the strong current of materialism, and Jainism and Buddhism, and the attempt to synthesize various forms of belief in the Bhagavad Gita. Out of all this again grew the six systems of Indian philosophy. Yet behind all this mental conflict and rebellion lay a vivid and growing national life.

 Both Jainism and Buddhism were breakaways from the Vedic religion and its offshoots, though in a sense they had grown out of it. They deny the authority of the Vedas and, most funda-mental of all matters, they deny or say nothing about the existence of a first cause. Both lay emphasis on non-violence and build up organizations of celibate monks and priests. There is a certain realism and rationalism in their approach, though inevitably this does not carry us very far in our dealings with the invisible world. One of the fundamental doctrines of Jainism is that truth is relative to our standpoints. It is a rigorous ethical and non-transcendental system, laying a special emphasis on the ascetic aspect of life and thought.

Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, and Buddha were contem-poraries, and both came from the Kshatriya warrior class. Buddha died at the age of eighty, in 544 B.C., and the Buddhist era begins then. (This is the traditional date. Historians give a later date 487 B.C., but are now inclined to accept the tradi-tional date as more correct.) It is an odd coincidence that I am writing this on the Buddhist New Year's Day, 2488—the day of the full moon of the month of Vaisakha—the Vaisakhi Purnima, as it is called. It is stated in Buddhist literature that Buddha was born on this full moon day of Vaisakha (May-June); that he attained enlightenment and finally died also on the same day of the year.

Buddha had the courage to attack popular religion, supersti-tion, ceremonial, and priestcraft, and all the vested interests that clung to them. He condemned also the metaphysical and theo-logical outlook, miracles, revelations, and dealings with the super-natural. His appeal was to logic, reason, and experience; his emphasis was on ethics, and his method was one of psychological analysis, a psychology without a soul. His whole approach comes like the breath of the fresh wind from the mountains after the stale air of metaphysical speculation.

Buddha did not attack caste directly, yet in his own order he did not recognize it, and there is no doubt that his whole attitude and activity weakened the caste system. Probably caste was very fluid in his day and for some centuries later. It is obvi-ous that a caste-ridden pommunity could not indulge in foreign trade or other foreign adventures, and yet for fifteen hundred years or more after Buddha, trade was developing between India and neighbouring countries, and Indian colonies flourished. Foreign elements continued to stream into India from the north-west and were absorbed.

It is interesting to observe this process of absorption which worked at both ends. New castes were formed at the bottom of the scale, and any successful invading element became trans-formed soon into Kshatriyas or the ruling class. Coins of the period just before and after the beginning of the Christian era show this rapid change in the course of two or three generations. The first ruler has a foreign name. His son or grandson appears with a Sanskrit name and is crowned according to the traditional rites meant for Kshatriyas.

Many of the Rajput Kshatriya clans date back to the Shaka of Scythian invasions which began about the second century B.C. or from the later invasion of the White Huns. All these accepted the faith and institutions of the country and then tried to affiliate themselves to the famous heroes of the Epics. Thus the Kshatriya group depended on status and occupation rather than on descent, and so it was much easier for foreigners to be incorporated into it.

It is curious and significant that throughout the long span of Indian history there have been repeated warnings given by great men against priestcraft and the rigidity of the caste system, and powerful movements have risen against them; yet slowly, im-perceptibly, almost, it seems, as if it were the inevitable course of destiny, caste has grown and spread and seized every aspect of Indian life in its strangling grip. Rebels against caste have drawn many followers, and yet in course of time their group has itself become a caste. Jainism, a rebel against the parent religion and in many ways utterly different from it, was yet tolerant to caste and adapted itself to it; and so it survives and continues in India, almost as an offshoot of Hinduism. Bud-dhism, not adapting itself to caste, and more independent in its thought and outlook, ultimately passes away from India, though it influences India and Hinduism profoundly. Christianity comes here eighteen hundred years ago and settles down and gradu-ally develops its own castes. The Moslem social structure in India, in spite of its vigorous denunciation of all such barriers within the community, is also partly affected.

In our own period numerous movements to break the tyranny of caste have arisen among the middle classes and they have made a difference, but not a vital one, so far as the masses are concerned. Their method was usually one of direct attack. Then Gandhi came and tackled the problem, after the immemorial Indian fashion, in an indirect way, and his eyes were on the masses. He has been direct enough, aggressive enough, persistent enough, but without challenging the original basic functional theory underlying the four main castes. He has attacked the rank undergrowth and overgrowth, knowing well that he was under-mining the whole caste structure thereby (Gandhiji's references to caste have been progressively stronger and more pointed, and he has made it repeatedly clear that caste as a whole and as it exists must be eliminated. Referring to the constructive programme which he has placed before the nation, he says: '/( has undoubtedly independence, political, social and economic, as its aim. It is a moral, non-violent revolution in all the departments of life of a big nation, at the end of which caste and untouchability and such other superstitions must vanish, differences between Hindu ahd Muslim become things of the past, enmity against Englishmen or Europeans must be wholly forgotten And again quite recently: 'The caste system, as we know, is an anachronism. It must go if both Hinduism and India are to live and grow from day to day.) .He has already shaken the foundations and the masses have been powerfully affected. For them the whole structure holds or breaks altoge-ther. But an even greater power than he is at work: the condi-tions of modern life—and it seems that at last this hoary and tenacious relic of past times must die.

But while we struggle with caste in India (which, in its origin, was based on colour), new and overbearing castes have arisen in the west with doctrines of racial exclusiveness, sometimes cloth-ed in political and economic terms, and even speaking in the language of democracy.

Before the Buddha, seven hundred years before Christ, a great Indian, the sage and lawgiver Yagnavalkya, is reported to have said: 'It is not our religion, still less the colour of our skin, that produces virtue; virtue must be practised. Therefore, let no one do to others what he would not have done to himself.'

Chandragupta and Chanakya. The Maurya Empire Established

 Buddhism spread gradually in India. Although in origin a Kshatriya movement, and representing a conflict between the ruling class and the priests, its ethical and democratic aspect, and more especially its fight against priestcraft and ritualism, appealed to the people. It developed as a popular reform move-ment, attracting even some Brahmin thinkers. But generally Brahmins opposed it and called Buddhists heretics and rebels against the established faith. More important than the outward progress was the interaction of Buddhism and the older faith on each other, and the continuous undermining of Brahmins. Two and a half centuries later, the Emperor Ashoka became a con-vert to the faith and devoted all his energies to spreading it by peaceful missionary efforts in India and foreign countries.

These two centuries saw many changes in India. Various processes had long been going on to bring about racial fusion and to amalgamate the petty states and small kingdoms and republics; the old urge to build up a united centralized state had been working, and out of all this emerged a powerful and highly developed empire. Alexander's invasion of the north-west gave the final push to this development, and two remarkable men arose who could take advantage of the changing conditions and mould them according to their will. These men were Chandragupta Maurya and his friend and minister and counsellor, the Brahmin, Chanakya. This combination functioned well. Both had been exiled from the powerful Nanda kingdom of Magadha, which had its headquarters at Pataliputra (the modern Patna); both went to Taxila in the north-west and came in contact with the Greeks stationed there by Alexander. Chandragupta met Alexander himself; he heard of his conquests and glory and was fired by ambition to emulate him. Chandragupta and Chanakya watched and prepared themselves; they hatched great and ambitious schemes and waited for the opportunity to realize them.

Soon news came of Alexander's death at Babylon in 323 B.C., and immediately Chandragupta and Chanakya raised the old and ever-new cry of nationalism and roused the people against the foreign invader. The Greek garrison was driven away and Taxila captured. The appeal to nationalism had brought allies to Chandragupta and he marched with them across north India to Pataliputra. Within two years of Alexander's death, he was in possession of that city and kingdom and the Maurya Empire had been established.

Alexander's general, Seleucus, who had inherited after his chief's death the countries from Asia Minor to India, tried to re-establish his authority in north-west India and crossed the Indus with an army. He was defeated and had to cede a part of Afghanistan, up to Kabul and Herat, to Chandragupta, who also married the daughter of Seleucus. Except for south India, Chandragupta's empire covered the whole of India, from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal, and extended in the north to Kabul. For the first time in recorded history a vast centra-lized state had risen in India. The city of Pataliputra was the capital of this great empire.

What was this new state like ? Fortunately we have full accounts, both Indian and Greek. Megasthenes, the ambassador sent by Seleucus, has left a record and, much more important is that contemporary account—Kautilya's 'Arthashastra,' the 'Science of Polity,' to which reference has already been made. Kautilya is another name for Chanakya, and thus we have a book written, not only by a great scholar, but a man who played a dominating part in the establishment, growth and preservation of the empire. Chanakya has been called the Indian Machiavelli, and to some extent the comparison is justified. But he was a much bigger person in every way, greater in intellect and action. He was no mere follower of a king, a humble adviser of an all-powerful emperor. A picture of him emerges from an old Indian play—the Mudra-Rakshasa—which deals with this period. Bold and scheming, proud and revengeful, never forgetting a slight, never forgetting his purpose, availing himself of every device to delude and defeat the enemy, he sat with the reins of empire in his hands and looked upon the emperor more as a loved pupil than as a master. Simple and austere in his life, uninterested in the pomp and pageantry of high position, when he had redeemed his pledge and accomplished his purpose, he wanted to retire, Brahmin-like, to a life of contemplation.

There was hardly anything Chanakya would have refrained from doing to achieve his purpose; he was unscrupulous enough; yet he was also wise enough to know that this very purpose might be defeated by means unsuited to the end. Long before Clause- vvitz, he is reported to have said that war is only a continuance of state policy by other means. But, he adds, war must always serve the larger ends of policy and not become an end in itself; the statesman's objective must always be the betterment of the state as a result of war, not the mere defeat and destruction of the enemy. If war involves both parties in a common ruin, that is the bankruptcy of statesmanship. War must be conducted by armed forces; but much more important than the force of arms is the high strategy which saps the enemy's morale and disrupts his forces and brings about his collapse, or takes him to the verge of collapse, before armed attack. Unscrupulous and rigid as Chanakya was in the pursuit of his aim, he never forgot that it was better to win over an intelligent and high-minded enemy than to crush him. His final victory was obtained by sowing discord in the enemy's ranks, and, in the very moment of this victory, so the story goes, he induced Chandragupta to be generous to his rival chief. Chanakya himself is said to have handed over the insignia of his own high office to the minister of that rival, whose intelli-gence and loyalty to his old chief had impressed him greatly. So the story ends not in the bitterness of defeat and humiliation, but in reconciliation and in laying the firm and enduring found-ations of a state, which had not only defeated but won over its chief enemy.

The Maurya Empire maintained diplomatic relations with the Greek world, both with Seleucus and his successors and with Ptolemy Pliiladelphus. These relations rested on the solid found-ation of mutual commercial interest. Strabo tells us that the Oxus river in central Asia formed a link in an important chain along which Indian goods were carried to Europe by way of the Caspian and the Black Sea. This route was popular in the third century B.C. Central Asia then was rich and fertile. More than a thousand years later it began to dry up. The Arthashastra mentions that the king's stud had 'Arabian steeds'!

The Organization of the State

What was this new state like that arose in 321 B.C. and covered far the greater part of India, right up to Kabul in the north? It was an autocracy, a dictatorship at the top, as most empires were and still are. There was a great deal of local autonomy in the towns and village units, and elective elders looked after these local affairs. This local autonomy was greatly prized and hardly any king or supreme ruler interfered with it. Nevertheless, the influence and many-sided activities of the central government were all-pervasive, and in some ways this Mauryan state reminds one of modern dictatorships. There could have been then, in a purely agricultural age, nothing like the control of the individual by the state which we see to-day. But, in spite of limitations, an effort was made to control and regulate life. The state was very far from being just a police state, interested in keeping external and internal peace and collecting revenue.

There was a widespread and rigid bureaucracy and there are frequent references to espionage. Agriculture was regulated in many ways, so were rates of interest. Regulation and periodical inspection took place of food, markets, manufacturers, slaughter-houses, cattle-raising, water rights, sports, courtesans, and drink-ing saloons. Weights and measures were standardized. The cornering and adulteration of foodstuffs were rigorously punish-ed. Trade was taxed, and, so also in some respects, the practice of religion. When there was a breach of regulation or some other misdemeanour, the temple monies were confiscated. If rich people were found guilty of embezzlement or of profiting from national calamity, their property was also confiscated. Sanitation and hospitals were provided and there were medical men at the chief centres. The state gave relief to widows, orphans, the sick, and the infirm. Famine relief was a special care of the state, and half the stores in all the state warehouses were always kept in reserve for times of scarcity and famine.

All these rules and regulations were probably applied far more to the cities than to the villages; and it is also likely that practice lagged far behind theory. Nevertheless, even the theory is interesting. The village communities were practically auto-nomous.

Chanakya's Arthashastra deals with a vast variety of subjects and covers almost every aspect of the theory and practice of government. It discusses the duties of the king, of his ministers and councillors, of council meetings, of departments of govern-ment, of diplomacy, of war and peace. It gives details of the vast army which Chandragupta had, consisting of infantry, cavalry, chariots, and elephants (The game of chess, which had its origin in India, probably developed from this fourfold conception of the army. It was called 'chaturanga', four-limbed, from which came the word 'shatrang'. Alberuni gives an account of this game as played in India by four players). And yet Chanakya suggests that mere numbers do not count for much; without discipline and proper leaderhip they may become a burden. Defence and fortifications are also dealt with.Among the other matters discussed in the book are trade and commerce, law and law courts, municipal government, social customs, marriage and divorce, rights of women, taxation and revenue, agriculture, the working of mines and factories, arti- sans, markets, horticulture, manufactures, irrigation, and water-ways, ships and navigation, corporations, census operations, fisheries, slaughter houses, passports, and jails. Widow remar-riage is recognized; also divorce under certain circumstances.

There is a reference to chinapatta, silk fabrics of China manu-facture, and a distinction is made between these and the silk made in India. Probably the latter was of a coarser variety. The importation of Chinese silk indicates trade contacts with China at least as early as the fourth century B.C.

The king, at the time of his coronation, had to take the oath of service to the people—'May I be deprived of heaven, of life, and of offspring if I oppress you.' 'In the happiness of his sub-jects lies his happiness; in their welfare, whatever pleases him-self he shall consider as not good, but whatever pleases his sub-jects, he shall consider as good.' 'If a king is energetic, his subjects will be equally energetic.' Public work could not suffer or await the king's pleasure; he had always to be ready for it. And if the king misbehaved, his people had the right to remove him and put another in his place.

There was an irrigation department to look after the many canals, and a navigation department for the harbours, ferries, bridges, and the numerous boats and ships that went up and down the rivers and crossed the seas to Burma and beyond. There was apparently some kind of navy, too, as an adjunct of the army.

Trade flourished in the empire and great roads connected the distant parts, with frequent rest-houses for travellers. The chief road was named King's Way and this went right across the coun-try from the capital to the north-west frontier. Foreign mer-chants are especially mentioned and provided for, and seem to have enjoyed a kind of extra-territoriality. It is said that the old Egyptians wrapped their mummies in Indian muslins and dyed their cloth with indigo obtained from India. Some kind of glass has also been discovered in the old remains. Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador, tells us that the Indians loved finery and beauty, and even notes the use of the shoe to add to one's height.

There was a growth of luxury in the Maurya Empire. Life becomes more complicated, specialized," and organized. 'Inns, hostelries, eating-houses, serais, and gaming-houses are evidently numerous; sects and crafts have their meeting places and the latter their public dinners. The business of entertainment pro-vides a livelihood for various classes of dancers, singers, and actors. Even the villages are visited by them, and the author of the Arthashastra is inclined to discourage the existence of a common hall used for their shows as too great a distraction from the life of the home and the fields. At the same time there are penalties for refusal to assist in organizing public entertainment. The king provides in amphitheatres, constructed for the occasion, dra-matic, boxing, and other contests of men and animals, and also spectacles with displays of pictured objects of curiosity.. .not seldom the streets were lighted for festivals.'* There were also royal processions and hunts.

There were many populous cities in this vast empire, but the chief of them was the capital, Pataliputra, a magnificent city spread out along the banks of the Ganges, where the Sone river meets it (the modern Patna). Megasthenes describes it thus: 'At the junction of this river (Ganges) with another is situated Palibothra, a city of eighty stadia (9-2 miles) in length and fifteen stadia (1-7 miles) in breadth. It is of a shape of a parallelogram and is girded with a wooden wall, pierced with loopholes for the discharge of arrows. It has a ditch in front for defence and for receiving the sewage of the city. This ditch, which encompassed it all round, is 600 feet in breadth and thirty cubits in depth, and the wall is crowned with 570 towers and has four and sixty gates.'

Not only was this great wall made of wood, but most of the houses also. Apparently this was a precaution against earth-quakes, as that area was peculiarly liable to them. In 1934 the great Bihar earthquake forcibly reminded us of this fact. Because the houses were of wood, very elaborate precautions against fire were taken. Every householder had to keep ladders, hooks, and vessels full of water.

Pataliputra had a municipality elected by the people. It had thirty members, divided up into six committees of five members each, dealing with industries and handicrafts, deaths and births, manufactures, arrangements for travellers and pilgrims, etc. The whole municipal council looked after finance, sanitation, water supply, public buildings, and gardens.