Short notes on India in the times of Harsha

He set out in 629 at the age of 29, and passing through Tashkant and Samarqand, reached Gandhara in 630. He came to study at Nalanda and to collect Buddhist texts.

He left India in 643. Providing information on the social, political, economic, religious, and administra­tive aspects of life in India in the first half of the seventh century, the importance of the account lies in the fact that it was from a person who stayed in the country for a long time, knew the language of the country and recorded what he actually saw.

Bana’s Harshacharita is a record of the reign of Harsha. The first chapter is on Bana himself, the second, third and fourth chapters are devoted to Harsha’s ancestry, the fifth and sixth deal with the wars and conquests of Harsha and the last is a description of religious sects of those days residing in the Vindhyan hermitage of the sage Divakaramitra.

Towns and Villages According to Hsuan-Tsang the towns and villages had inner gates with walls high and wide. The streets were winding and tortuous and had stalls on both sides.

Houses had balconies and belvederes made of wood, coated with lime or mortar and covered with rushes and tiles. The walls were coated with lime or mud mixed with cow dung for purity.

Butchers, scavengers, fishermen and so on lived outside, their houses formed the suburb. They were required to keep to the left side of the road while going about the city.

The sangharamas (monasteries) were built with extraordinary skill, containing a tower at each of the four corners.

Doors and windows were profusely painted and the monks’ cells were ornamental inside and plain outside. In the very middle of the building was the assembly hall, high and wide.

Hsuan-Tsang was impressed by the prosperity of India. The soil was rich, agriculture varied and production abundant. Consequently, people had a high standard of living.

Their staple food was wheat cakes, parched grains, sugar, ghee and milk prep­arations; fish, mutton and venison were eaten during ceremonies, but beef was forbidden. Gold and silver coins along with pearls and cowrie shells were used for commercial transactions.

Industrial life was based on castes or organised by guilds of artisans. Brahmans never took part in such manufacturing activities and only performed religious duties.

Kshatriyas formed the governing class; Vaishyas, the traders and merchants; and shudras performed menial work. The upper classes were clean and wholesome in their way of life. The ordinary people displayed uprightness and absence of guile.

“In their rules of government, there is remarkable rectitude; while in their behaviour, there is much gentleness and sweetness.”

Although there was no custom of widow remarriage and sati was practised (Harsha’s mother Yasomati committed sati), women generally were not sequestered (Harsha’s sister Rajyassi did not observe purdah while listening to Hsuan-Tsang’s lectures).

Hsuan-Tsang found Pataliputra on the decline and Kanauj a growing town. There were lofty structures, beautiful gardens, tanks of clear water, 200 temples and hundreds of sangharamas. Prayaga was a place of importance and Nalanda and Valabhi were centres of Buddhism. Sravasti was, however, in ruins.

The townspeople were refined and educated and usually dressed in silk. Manufacture of cotton, silk and woolen cloth had reached perfection. There was kansiya made of cotton, ksauma or linen made of flax jute and hemp, and finally kambala made of wood.

Sanskrit was the language of the learned and Brahmi was the common script. Education was mostly religious in nature and it lasted from 9 to 30 years of age.

Normally, centres of learning were monasteries, like the famous University of Nalanda. Seminars were held regularly on a variety of subjects.

Assemblies an assembly was held in ad 643 by Harsha at Kanauj to discuss aspects of Mahayanism. The session lasted for 23 days, Hsuan- Tsang was in the chair and over 3,000 Buddhist monks participated.

For this purpose, a monastery and shrine was built on the banks of the Ganga and a golden lifelike statue of the Buddha was kept in a tower 100 ft. high.

Another smaller statue was taken in a procession every day by 20 rajas and 300 elephants, in which Harsha appeared, dressed as God Sankara and the prince of Kamarupa as God Brahma.

In the same year (AD 643) Harsha held another assembly (Moksha-Parishad) at Prayaga. This lasted for 75 days and was the sixth such assembly held after a gap of five years.

During the ceremonies, Harsha gave away all the treasures and riches accumulated over the past five years to monks and mendicants.

According to Hsuan-Tsang, Harsha gave away even his royal robes and put on an ordinary dress given by his sister Rajyasri. The 18 feudatories were also present on the occasion.

Administration Harsha believed in an efficient administration and worked tirelessly to this end, says Hsuan-Tsang. He wanted to see things for himself and frequently went on inspection tours.

Based on benign principles, the government did not interfere with the lives of the people. Theoretically an autocracy, a large measure of autonomy, however, was allowed to the people. Village communities did a lot of work and were helped by the central authority.

There was a council of ministers that looked after succession to throne and foreign affairs. It seems Rajyavardhana was not properly advised when he accepted the invitation of King Sasanka and was killed.

According to Bana, the secretariat at the capital consisted of the following ministers and officials under Harsha:

Minister of Foreign Relations and War-Avanti Commander-in-chief-Simhanada

Chief of Cavalry-Kuntala

Chief of Elephant Corps-Skanda Gupta

In the Madhuban copper plate, Skandagapta is called Mahaparamatara Mahasamanta and Samanta Maharaja, and Isvara Gupta as keeper of records. However, in the Banskhera copper plate, Bhanu is the keeper of records.

There were other officers like paramatara, daussadharadhanika, vishayapati, uparika and so on. Messengers were called dirghadvaghas, and sarvagatahs were in the secret service. The officers were paid in land/kind/cash.

Ordinary soldiers were chatas and bhatas, and the chief of staff was mahasenapati. Baladhikritas were infantry officers and brihaswaswara were officers in cavalry.

Provinces of the kingdom were divided into bhuktis and those into many vishayas. In each vishaya, there were many pathakas.

The administration of the pathaka (a village probably) was under the gramakshapatalika who was assisted by a number of karanikas. Taxes were of three kinds: bhaga, hiranya and balu Bhaga was the share of the produce (1/6th for the king) given in kind, hiranya was the tax paid in cash, and about Bali not much is known. Hsuan- Tsang said that taxation was light.

Chopping-off the ears or nose was the punish­ment for certain offences but capital punishment was not there. For petty offences, a small fine was imposed and there was the system of trial by ordeal.

Hsuan-Tsang says that there were few criminals and rebels, an observation he must have regretted. It appears he was attacked by brigands while on a journey, and was saved by a Brahman who blew on his conch shell to summon help.

According to Dr. Altekar, the administration was not as efficient as it was in the time of the Mauryas or Euptar.

Religion and Learning a great conqueror, Harsha was a learned man and patron of men of letters, like Banabhatta (his court-poer and the author of Kadambari), Haridatta, and Jayasena.

Harsha verified the story of the Bodhisattva Jinuta-bahana and called the play Nagadanda. He wrote two other plays Ratnavali and Priyadarsika and was mentioned by Jayadeva in Prasannaraghaba along with poets like Bhana and Kalidasa.

Belonging to a family where religion was a matter of personal preference (his ancestors were sun worshippers, his brother was a Buddhist) Harsha apparently was a devotee of Surya, Siva and Buddha.

However, the Banskhera and Madhuban inscriptions of ad 628 and 631 describe him as a Saivite.

His capital had temples of Chandi and Mahakala and before embarking on campaigns he offered prayers to Nilolohita (Siva). Perhaps, under the influence of Hsuan-Tsang he converted to Mahayana Buddhism and forbade slaughter of an­imals.

Banas Harshacharita, however, gives an account of the vigour of Brahmanism in Harsha’s times. There were “followes of Krishna, of Kapila, Kanada, the Nyaya and the Upanishads, the Lokayatikas and so forth”.

The diversity of the religious and cultural conditions in the country was best represented by the hermitage of the sage Divakaramitra in the Vindhyas.

It was an advanced school of learning with students busy “pondering, urging objections, rising doubts, resolving them, giving etymologies, disput­ing, studying and explaining” (Harshacharita).

They represented Saiva and Vaishnava ascetics, Brahmanical ascetics, Digambar and Swetambar jainas, experts in law, linguistics and Puranas and even metallurgy (karandhamins).

Hsuan-Tsang said these scholars were mostly ascetics who felt no disgrace in being des­titute. For studies in religion, there were about 5,000 monasteries in working order according to Hsuan- Tsang. Among them, the most famous was Nalanda,

In the inscriptions, Nalanda University is called Sri Nalanda. A seat of learning for Brahmanical and Buddhist studies, it was also called Mahagrahara in some inscriptions and was at the peak of its excel­lence during Harsha’s times and Hsuan-Tsang’s visit.

A post-graduate institution with tough admission criteria, (it admitted l/5th of the number of aspirants who sat for the entrance examination), it was where Hsuan-Tsang spent two years for studies.

Discussions and interrogations were the methods of study and the subjects were logic, philology, medicine among others.

The teachers led the discussions; 100 lectures on 100 different subjects were held daily. 1500 teachers were there for 10,000 students, quite a number of them from distant places like Korea, Japan, China and Tibet. Notable among the teachers were Nagarjuna, Aryadeva, Anga, Sitabhadra, and Dharmapala.

Public Works of Harsha Hsuan-Tsang made a remarkable observation on Harsha’s measures for public welfare.

In all the highways of the towns and villages throughout India, he erected hospices (punyasalas) provided with food and drink and stationed there physicians with medicines for trav­ellers and poor persons.”

Here, perhaps, Harsha surpassed Asoka whose rest houses were not known to have offered to traveller’s free food and medical aid.

Panikkar, however, says that it is not quite correct to compare Harsha with Asoka. He is of the opinion that at a later date, Akbar was similar to Harsha.

Like Harsha, he was also a conqueror and like Harsha’s “dilettante’s interest” in different faiths, Akbar also indulged in similar discussions in his ‘Ibadat Khana’: nothing really came out of these discussions.