None of the Buddha's speeches were written down during his lifetime. After his death his teachings were compiled by his disciples at a council of "elders" or senior monks at Vesali (Pali for Vaishali in present-day Bihar).
These compilations were known as Tipitaka - literally, three baskets to hold different types of texts. They were first transmitted orally and then written and classified according to length as well as subject matter.
Vinaya Pitaka - It included rules and regulations for those who joined the sangha.
Sutta Pitaka - Buddha's teachings were included in the Sutta Pitaka.
Abhidhamma Pitaka - It dealt with philosophical matters.
Each pitaka comprised a number of individual texts. Later, commentaries were written on these texts by Buddhist scholars.
Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa - As Buddhism travelled to new regions such as Sri Lanka, other texts such as the Dipavamsa (literally, the chronicle of the island) and Mahavamsa (the great chronicle) were written, containing regional histories of Buddhism.
Many of these works contained biographies of the Buddha. Some of the oldest texts are in Pali, while later compositions are in Sanskrit.
When Buddhism spread to East Asia, pilgrims such as Fa Xian and Xuan Zang travelled all the way from China to India in search of texts. These they took back to their own country, where they were translated by scholars.
The Therigatha
This unique Buddhist text, part of the Sutta Pitaka, is a collection of verses composed by bhikkhunis. It provides an insight into women's social and spiritual experiences.
Why were stupas built
There were some places that were regarded as sacred. This was because relics of the Buddha such as his bodily remains or objects used by him were buried there. These were mounds known as stupas.
The tradition of erecting stupas may have been pre-Buddhist, but they came to be associated with Buddhism. Since they contained relics regarded as sacred, the entire stupa came to be venerated as an emblem of both the Buddha and Buddhism.
Stories in stone
A part of the northern gateway of Sanchi depict a rural scene, with thatched huts and trees. However, art historians who have carefully studied the sculpture at Sanchi identify it as a scene from the Vessantara Jataka. This is a story about a generous prince who gave away everything to a Brahmana, and went to live in the forest with his wife and children.
Symbols of worship
Art historians had to acquire familiarity with hagiographies of the Buddha in order to understand Buddhist sculpture.
According to hagiographies, the Buddha attained enlightenment while meditating und a tree. Many early sculptors more...
The ancient thinkers laid down that a person should strive for the attainment of four goals. These were economic resources or Artha, regulation of the social order or Dharma, physical pleasures or Kama, and salvation or Moksha.
Each of these objectives was expounded in writing. Matters relating to economy were treated in the Arthashastra.
Laws governing the state and society became the subject of the Dharmashastra, and physical pleasures were discussed in the Kamasutra. All these three branches of knowledge were primarily concerned with the material world and its problems.
They occasionally touched on the question of salvation in a marginal manner.
Salvation or moksha became the main subject of the texts on darshana or philosophy.
It meant deliverance from the cycle of birth and death, which was first recommended by Gautama Buddha but later emphasised by some brahmanical philosophers.
By the beginning of the Christian era, six schools of philosophy
These were known as Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimamsa and Vedanta.
Samkhya
Samkhya, literally "count9, seems to have originated earlier. According to the early Samkhya philosophy the presence of divine agency is not essential to the creation of the world. The world owes its creation and evolution more to Nature or Prakrit! Than to God.
This was a rational and scientific view. Around the fourth century A.D., in addition to Prakriti, Purusha or spirit was introduced as an element in the Samkhya system, and the creation of the world was attributed to both.
According to the new view. Nature and the spiritual element together create the world. Thus.in the beginning the Samkhya School of philosophy was materialistic.
Then it tended to be spiritualistic. However, according to this school a person can attain salvation through the acquisition of real knowledge.
This knowledge can be acquired through perception (pratyaksha), inference (anumana) and hearing (shabda). Such a method is typical of scientific system of inquiry.
Yoga
According to the Yoga school, a person can attain salvation through meditation and physical application.
Practice of control over pleasure, senses and bodily organs is central to this system.
In order to obtain salvation, physical exercises in various/postures called asana are prescribed and the breathing exercise called pranayama is recommended.
It is thought that through these methods the mind gets diverted from worldly matters and achieves concentration.
Nyaya
Nyaya or the school of analysis was developed as a system of logic.
According to it salvation can be attained through the acquisition of knowledge.
What is more important, the veracity of a proposition or statement can be tested through inference, hearing and analogy.
An example of how they use logic is given below :-
India maintained contacts with its Asian neighbours since Harappan times. Many Harappan seals between 2400 B.C.-1700 B.C. have been found there.
From the beginning of the Christian era onwards, India maintained commercial contacts with China, South-East Asia, West Asia and the Roman Empire. Indian land routes were connected with the Chinese Silk Route.
India sent its missionaries, conquerors and traders to the neighbouring countries where they founded settlements.
The propagation of Buddhism promoted India's contacts with Sri Lanka, Myanmar, China and Central Asia.
In the early centuries of the Christian era Buddhism spread from India to Burma (modem Myanmar). The Burmese developed the Theravada form of Buddhism.
The Burmese and Sri Lanka Buddhists produced a rich corpus of Buddhist literature, not to be found in India. All the Pali texts were compiled and commented upon in Sri Lanka.
Beginning with the reign of Kanishka a large number of Indian missionaries went to China, Central Asia and Afghanistan for preaching their religion.
From China Buddhism spread to Korea and Japan, and it was in search of Buddhist texts and doctrines that several Chinese pilgrims such as Fa-hsien and Hsuan Tsang came to India.
The Indians leamt the art of growing silk from China, and the Chinese leamt from India the art of Buddhist painting.
The two other great centres of Buddhism in ancient times were Afghanistan and Central Asia. In Afghanistan many statues of the Buddha and monasteries have been discovered.
Begram and Bamiyan situated in the north of this country are famous for such relics.
Begram is famous for ivory work, which is similar to Indian workmanship in Kushan times. Bamiyan had the distinction of possessing the tallest Buddha statue sculptured out of rock in the early centuries of the christian era.
It has thousands of natural and artificial caves in which the monks lived.
Indian culture also spread to South-East Asia, but not through the medium of Buddhism.
Except in the case of Burma it was mostly diffused through the brahmanical cults.
The name Suvarnabhumi was given to Pegu and Maulmein in Burma, and merchants from Broach, Banaras and Bhagalpur traded with Burma.
Considerable Buddhist remains of Gupta times have been found in Burma.
From the first century A.D. India established close trading relations with Java in Indonesia, Which was called suvarnadvipa or the island of the gold by the ancient Indians
In the early centuries of the Christian era the pallavas founded their colonies in Sumatra.
Eventually these flowered into the kingdom of Sri Vijaya, which continued to be more...
The Central factor that ultimately transformed the ancient Indian society into medieval society was the practice of land grants.
Contemporary Puranic texts complain of a situation in which vamas or social classes discarded the functions assigned to them.
Several measures were adopted to overcome the crisis. The almost contemporary law book of Manu advises that the vaishyas and shudras should not be allowed to deviate from their duties. This may have led to coercive measures.
But a more important step to meet the situation was to grant land to priests and officials in lieu of salaries and remuneration.
Rise of Landlords
Land grants became frequent from the fifth century A.D.
According to this the brahmanas were granted villages free from taxes.
All the taxes which were collected by the king from the villages were transferred to the brahmanas. In addition to this, the beneficiaries were given the right to govern the people living in the donated villages.
In later times the beneficiaries were authorised to punish all criminal offenders.
In the Maurya period the officers of the state from the highest to the lowest were generally paid in cash.
The practice continued under the Kushans, who issued a large number of copper and gold coins. But from the sixth century A.D. the position seems to have changed.
The law-books of that century recommended that services should be rewarded in land From the time of Harshavardhana public officials were paid in land revenues.
New Agrarian Economy
We notice an important change in the agrarian economy.
Hsuan Tsang describes the shudras as agriculturists, which suggests that they no Ionger cultivated land mainly as slaves and agricultural labourers.
Decline of Trade and Towns
From the sixth century A.D. onwards there started a sharp decline.
Trade with the western part of the Roman Empire ended in the third century, and silk trade with Iran and the Byzantium stopped in the middle of the sixth century.
The decline of trade for well over 300 years after the sixth century is strikingly demonstrated by the practical absence of gold coins in the country.
The decline of trade led to the decay of towns. The post-Gupta period witnessed the ruin of many old commercial cities in north India.
In the late fifth century a group of silk weavers from the western coast more...
For the history of society from the time of the Rig Veda onwards we can also use written texts. They tell us that the Rig Vedic society despite its good familiarity with agriculture was primarily pastoral.
People were semi-nomadic, and their chief possessions consisted of cattle and horses.
Cattle were considered to be synonymous with wealth. Wars were fought for the sake. cattle and therefore, the main duty of the king was to protect the cows.
Although artisans, peasants, priests and warriors appear even in the earlier portions of the Rig Veda, society as a whole was tribal, pastoral, semi-nomadic and egalitarian.
Cattle and women slaves were generally given as gifts.
The Rig Vedic society did not have a serving order in the form of the shudras.
Agriculture and the Origin of Upper Orders
When the Vedic people moved from Afghanistan and Punjab to western Uttar Pradesh they became mostly agriculturists.
But the later Vedic peasant could not contribute to the rise of trade and towns; this feature became prominent in the age of the Buddha.
The later Vedic society did not know the use of metal money.
The Vedic communities had established neither a taxation system nor a professional army. There did not exist collectors of taxes apart from the kinsmen of the prince.
The tribal militia of the pastoral society was replaced by the peasant militia of agricultural society. The vis or the tribal peasantry formed the sena or the armed host. The peasantry in later Vedic times was called bala (force).
Varna System of Production and Government
The use of iron tools for crafts and cultivation created conditions for the transformation of the comparatively egalitarian Vedic society into a fully agricultural and class-divided social order in the sixth century B.C.
Large territorial states resulted in the formation of the Magadhan empire.
All this was possible because of the iron ploughshare, sickles and other tools.
The new technique and the use force enabled some people to possess large stretched of land which needed a good number of slaves and hired labourers.
Slaves and wage-earners engaged in cultivation became a regular feature in the age of the Buddha. The king appointed tax-collectors to assess and collect taxes.
But it was also important to convince people of the necessity of obeying the raja, paying him taxes and offering gifts to the priests. For this purpose the vama system was devised.
In addition to Brahmanism, India gave rise to Jainism and Buddhism.
Buddhism disappeared from India in course of time, though it had spread as far as. Japan in the north-west. In the process of diffusion. Buddhism projected a good deal of art, language and literature in the eighbouring areas.
Jainism continued in India and helped the development of its art and literature.
The Varna System
Religion influenced the formation of social classes in India in a peculiar way.
In India vama laws enjoyed the sanction of both the state and religion.
The functions of priests, warriors, peasants and labourers were defined in law and supposed to have been laid down by divine agencies.
Those who departed from their functions and were found guilty of offences were subject to secular punishments.
In course of time social classes and castes were made hereditary by law and religion.
All this was done to ensure that vaishyas produce and pay taxes and shudras serve as labourers so that brahmanas act as priests and kshatriyas as rulers.
The need of carrying out their respective functions was so strongly ingrained in the minds of the various classes that ordinarily they would never think of deviating from their dharm.
The Bhagavadgita taught that people should lay down their lives in defence of their own dharma rather than adopt the dharma of others, which would prove dangerous.
The lower orders worked hard in the firm belief that they would deserve a better life the next world or birth,
What was done by slaves and other producing sections in Greece and Rome under the threat of whip was done by the vaishyas and shudras out of conviction formed through brahmanical indoctrination and the vama system.
Philosophical System
Ancient India is considered famous for its contribution to philosophy and spiritualism but the Indians also developed a materialistic view of the world.
In the six system of philosophy which the Indians created we find elements of materialist philosophy in the samkhya system of kapila, who was born around 580 B.C.
He believed that the soul can attain liberation only through real knowledge, which can fee acquired through observation, inference and world.
The samkhya system does not recognize the existence of God.
According to it, the world has not been created by God but by nature, and the world and human life are regulated by natural forces.
Materialist philosophy received the greatest impetus from Charvaka, more...
The Ancient Indians left innumerable material remains. The major part of these remains lies buried in the mounds scattered all over the country.
The mound is an elevated portion of land covering remains of old habitations.
Excavations have brought to light the cities which the people established around 2500 B.C. in north-western India. Similarly they tell us about the material culture which was developed in the Gangetic plains.
They show the layout of the settlements in which people lived, the types of pottery they used, the form of house in which they dwelt, the kind of cereals they used as food, and the type of tools and implements they handled.
Some people in south India buried along with the dead, their tools, weapons, pottery and other belongings in the graves, which were encircled by big pieces of stone. These structures are called Megaliths.
The science which enables us to dig the old mounds in a systematic manner, in successive layers, and to form an idea of the material life of the people is called
Material remains recovered as a result of excavation and exploration are subjected to various kinds of scientific examination. Their dates are fixed by following the method of radiocarbon dating.
Radiocarbon or Carbon 14 (C14) is a radioactive isotope of carbon which is present in all living objects. It decays, like all radioactive substances, at a uniform rate.
By measuring the loss of C14 content in an ancient object, its age can be determined.
It is known that the half-life of C14 is 5568 years.
Thus on this basis it is suggested that agriculture was practiced in Rajasthan and Kashmir around 7000-6000 B.C.
Coins
The study of coins is called
Coin moulds made of burnt clay have been discovered in large numbers. Most of them belong to the Kushan period.
Our earliest coins contain a few symbols, but the later coins mention the names of kings, gods or dates. The areas where they are found indicate the region of their circulation.
Some coins were issued by the guilds of merchants and goldsmiths with the permission of the rulers. This shows that crafts and commerce had become important.
Coins helped transactions on a large scale and contributed to trade.
We get the largest number of coins in post-Maurya times. These were made of lead, potion, copper, bronze, silver and gold.
The guptas issued the largest number of gold coins.
All this indicates that and commerce flourished, especially in post maurya and a good part of gupta times.
Coins also portray kings and gods, and contain religious symbols and legends, all of which throw light on the art and religion of the time.
Inscriptions
The study of the old writing used in inscriptions and other old records is called
Inscriptions were carved on seals, stone pillars, rocks, copper plates, temple walls and bricks or image.
The Palaeolithic Period: Hunters and Food Gatherers
The Earth is over 4000 million years old.
Man is said to have appeared on the earth in the early pleistocene,
The fossils of the early men have not been found in India.
The early man in India used tools of stone roughly dressed by crude chipping, which have been discovered throughout the country except the alluvial plains rivers.
In this period man barely managed to gather his food and lived on hunting.
He had no knowledge of cultivation and house building.
This phase generally continued till 9000 B.C.
Palaeolithic tools, which could be as old as 1,00,000 B.C., have been found in the Chotanagpur plateau. In association with them bone implements and animal remains have also been discovered.
Animal remains found in the Belan Valley in Mirzapur district in Uttar Pradesh show that goats, sheep and cattle were exploited.
However, in the earliest Palaeolithic phase man lived on hunting and food gathering.
In the Pleistocene period ice sheets covered a great portion of the earth's surface, particularly in the higher altitudes and their peripheries.
But the tropical regions, excepting the mountains, were free from ice. On the other hand, they underwent a period of great rainfall.
Phases in the Palaeolithic Age
The Palaeolithic Age in India is divided into three phases according to the nature of the stone tools used by the people and also according to the nature of change in the climate.
The first phase is called Early or Lower Palaeolithic, the second Middle Palaeolithic and the third Upper Palaeolithic.
The first phase may be placed broadly, between 5,00,000 B.C. and 50,000 B.C.; the second between 50,000 B.C. and 40,000 B.C.; and the third between 40,000 B.C. and 10,000 B.C. The Lower Palaeolithic or the covers the greater part of the Ice Age.
Its characteristic feature is the use of hand-axes, cleavers and choppers.
The Early Old Stone Age sites are found in the valley of river Soan or Sohan in Punjab, now in Pakistan.
The Lower Palaeolithic tools have also been found in the Belan valley in Mirzapur District in Uttar Pradesh.
Those found in the desert area of Didwana in Rajasthan, in the valleys of the Belan and the Narmada, and in the caves and rock shelters of Bhimbetka near Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh roughly belong to 1,00,000 B.C.
The Middle Palaeolithic industries are mainly based upon flakes.
These flakes are found in different parts of India and show regional variations.
The principal tools are varieties of blades, points, borers and scrapers made of flakes.
The Upper Palaeolithic phase was less humid. It coincided with the last phase of the
Ice Age when climate became comparatively warm.
In the world context it marks the appearance of new flint industries and of men of the modem type (Homo sapiens).
Caves and rockshelters for use by human beings in the Upper Palaeolithic phase have been discovered at Bhimbetka, 45 km south of Bhopal.
