king. Colonel Sykes* has already remarked the close agreement of this description with the account of the Chinese pilgrim Fa Hian, who travelled through India just one century after the death of Porphyrius. But the details given by Porphyrius become the more valuable, when we know that his own religion and philosophical principles were almost the same as those of the Indian Buddhists. He believed in one Supreme Being; and held that "Reason" or Intellect (Buddha) was superior to "Nature" (Dharma); for by reason we are uplifted towards the Deity, while we are only degraded by our natural appetites and material desires. Man's chief object therefore should be to free himself from all outward and sensual influences. With this view Porphyrius rejected animal food, and refrained from making material offerings to the Supreme Being, because all material objects are unclean. Like the Buddhist also Porphyrius recognized four degrees or classes of virtue, of which the lowest was political virtue, or the moral goodness acquired by temperance and moderation of the passions. The next grade was purifying virtue, in which man has entirely conquered all human affections. In the third grade man is wholly influenced by Reason, and more and more resembles the Deity, until at last he has acquired such perfection that he becomes "one with the one *Notes on Ancient India, in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. Supreme Being."* These principles have so much in common with the doctrines of Buddhism, that we can only account for the coincidence by supposing that Porphyrius must have possessed the most ample and correct details of the religious beliefs and philosophical speculations which then prevailed in India. We need therefore no longer wonder at the accuracy with which he has described the daily discipline and outward observances of the Buddhist monks. The learned Pagan was in fact a European Buddhist. 12. The travels of Palladius and of the Thebæan Scholastikos only preceded the pilgrimage of Fa Hian by a few years. The former, it is true, did not reach India; but he could have obtained much information regarding the Indians from the merchants of Egypt and of Persia; and he gives at some length the account of Scholastikos, who was detained for six years as a prisoner in the pepper districts of Malabar. The result of his information is given in some imaginary conversations between Alexander the Great and the Indian Sage Dandamis; in which the Indian declares that "God, the great king, causes injury to no man; but gives light, peace, and life, a human body and soul; and that God was his master and only Lord." This sage Dandimis was therefore a monotheistic Buddhist, as indeed might be inferred from his name which is evidently a compound of * C. P. Mason: Article Porphyrius, in Dr. Smith's New Biographical Dictionary. Dharma in the Páli form of Dhama; perhaps Dhamadháni, the "receptacle of Dharma.", 13. The prevalence of Buddhism about this period is further proved by several passages in the Brahmanical Dramas and in the Institutes of Manu. The uncertain date of these compositions, however, somewhat lessens their value as precise authorities. The Mrichhakati, which is the oldest Hindu Drama now extant, exhibits "not only absolute toleration, but a kind of public recognition" of the Bauddha faith, by the appointment of a Buddhist ascetic as chief of all the Vihars of Ujain. That virtuous city could not "tolerate even the death of an animal." This play is of later date than the Hindu code, for the Judge in the 9th act quotes Manu†; and as Manu himself mentions NUNS, or "female anchorites of an heretical religion," it is certain that the Buddhist faith was still honoured and flourishing when these works were composed. There is internal evidence that the code of Manu is posterior to the Rámáyana and the Mahábhárata in the mention of "heroic poems,"§ which should be read at the celebration of obsequial rites in honour of ancestors; and in the allusions to imageworship, which is not mentioned either in the Rá * Wilson's Hindu Theatre, vol. i. p. viii. + The Mrichhakati, or "Toy-cart," act. viii. Toy-cart," act. viii. Wilson's Hindu Theatre, i. 140. Haughton's Laws of Manu, viii. 363. § Haughton's Laws of Manu, iii. 232. Wilson, Preface to Vishnu Puván, p. xiii. máyana or Mahábhárata. Bentley assigned the Rámáyana to the fourth century of our era, and the Mahábhárata to the eighth century or even later. But the latter date is certainly too low; for the Great War is mentioned in a copper plate inscription of a date not later than the first half of the sixth century, along with the names of Vyása, Parásara, and Yudhishtara. Bentley's method of compression is in fact too much like the Prokrustean bed of Damastes, into which the large were squeezed, and the small were stretched until they fitted. The composition of the Mahábhárata cannot therefore be dated later than the beginning of the fifth century, and it should no doubt be placed even earlier; perhaps about A. D. 200 to 300. The code of Manu is a mere compilation, filled with the most contradictory injunctions; but in its present state it is certainly later than the great epics, and may be dated about A. D. 400. * This valuable inscription is the property of Captain Ellis The date is thus stated: Likhitam samvatsara satadwaye chaturdasa—“ written in the year two hundred and fourteen." As the characters are similar to those of the Gupta inscriptions, the date is most probably of the Gupta era, or 319 + 214 = 533, A. D. If of the Sáka era, the date will be 78 + 214 292, A. D.; but the characters are not so old as those of the early Gupta inscriptions of A. D. 400. CHAPTER XII. THE GUPTA DYNASTY.-DECLINE AND FALL OF BUDDHISM. 1. AT the period of Fa Hian's pilgrimage, the Gupta dynasty occupied the throne of Magadha. Their dominions extended from Népal to the Western Gháts,* and from the Indus to the mouths of the Ganges. The family was established by Maharaja GUPTA, in 319 A. D., which became the first year of the Gupta era. This epoch is not mentioned in the Allahabad inscription of Samudra Gupta; but it is used in the Sánchi and Udayagiri inscriptions of Chandra Gupta; in the Kuhaon Pillar inscription of Skanda Gupta; and in the Eran Pillar inscription of Budha Gupta. It is besides especially mentioned by Abu Rihán,† who, in his account of Indian eras, identifies the GUPTA-KAL, or Gupta era, with the BALLABA-KAL, or era of Balabhi, which commenced * The Western Ghats are called Sainhádri; and the inscription on the Allahabad pillar records Samudra Gupta's influence over that country. + M. Reinaud: Fragments Arabes et Persans inédits relatifs à l'Inde, pp. 138-143. |