DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9541#0032
10
HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE.
distinct from, and generally antagonistic to, the Solar race, which was
the proud distinction of the purer and earlier Aryan settlers in
India.
Five or six hundred years after this, or about b.c. TOO, Ave again
find a totally different state of affairs in India. The Aryans no longer
exist as a separate nationality, and neither the Solar nor the Lunar
race are the rulers of the earth. The Brahmans have become a priestly
caste, and share the power with the Kshatriyas, a race of far less parity
of descent. The Vaisyas, as merchants and husbandmen, have become
a power, and even the Sudras are acknowledged as a part of the body
politic ; and, though not mentioned in the Scriptures, the Nagas, or
Snake people, had become a most influential part of the population.
They are first mentioned in the ' Mababharata,' where they play a most
important part in causing the death of l'arikshit, which led to the
great sacrifice for the destruction of the Nagas by Janemajaya, which
practically closes the history of the time. Destroyed, however, they
were not, as it was under a Naga dynasty that ascended the throne
of Magadha, in 691, that Buddha was born, b.c. (>23, and the Nagas
were the people whose conversion placed Buddhism on a secure basis
in India, and led to its ultimate adoption by Asoka (b.c. 250) as the
religion of the State.1
Although Buddhism was first taught by a prince of the Solar
race, and consequently of purely Aryan blood, and though its first
disciples were Brahmans, it had as little affinity with the religion of
the Vedas as Christianity had with the Pentateuch, and its fate was
the same. The one religion was taught by one of Jewish extraction
to the Jews and for the Jews; but it was ultimately rejected by
them, and adopted by the Gentiles, who had no affinity of race or
religion with the inhabitants of Judaea. Though meant originally, no
doubt, for Aryans, the Buddhist religion was ultimately rejected by
the Brahmans, who were consequently utterly eclipsed and superseded
by it for nearly a thousand years; and we hear little or nothing of
them and their religion till they reappeared at the court of the great
Vicramaditya (490-530), when their religion began to assume that
strange shape which it now still retains in India In its new form it
is as unlike the pure religion of the Vedas as it is possible to conceive
one religion being to another; unlike that, also, of the older portions
of the 'Mahabharata'; but a confused mess of local superstitions and
imported myths, covering up and hiding the Vedantic and Buddhist
doctrines, which may sometimes be detected as underlying it. What-
ever it be, however, it cannot be the religion of an Aryan, or even
of a purely Turanian people, because it was invented by and for as
1 All tins lias becu so fully gone into I Worship,'pp. 63, et scqq., tliatit will not
by me in my work on ' Tree and Serpent I be necessary to repeat it. here.
HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE.
distinct from, and generally antagonistic to, the Solar race, which was
the proud distinction of the purer and earlier Aryan settlers in
India.
Five or six hundred years after this, or about b.c. TOO, Ave again
find a totally different state of affairs in India. The Aryans no longer
exist as a separate nationality, and neither the Solar nor the Lunar
race are the rulers of the earth. The Brahmans have become a priestly
caste, and share the power with the Kshatriyas, a race of far less parity
of descent. The Vaisyas, as merchants and husbandmen, have become
a power, and even the Sudras are acknowledged as a part of the body
politic ; and, though not mentioned in the Scriptures, the Nagas, or
Snake people, had become a most influential part of the population.
They are first mentioned in the ' Mababharata,' where they play a most
important part in causing the death of l'arikshit, which led to the
great sacrifice for the destruction of the Nagas by Janemajaya, which
practically closes the history of the time. Destroyed, however, they
were not, as it was under a Naga dynasty that ascended the throne
of Magadha, in 691, that Buddha was born, b.c. (>23, and the Nagas
were the people whose conversion placed Buddhism on a secure basis
in India, and led to its ultimate adoption by Asoka (b.c. 250) as the
religion of the State.1
Although Buddhism was first taught by a prince of the Solar
race, and consequently of purely Aryan blood, and though its first
disciples were Brahmans, it had as little affinity with the religion of
the Vedas as Christianity had with the Pentateuch, and its fate was
the same. The one religion was taught by one of Jewish extraction
to the Jews and for the Jews; but it was ultimately rejected by
them, and adopted by the Gentiles, who had no affinity of race or
religion with the inhabitants of Judaea. Though meant originally, no
doubt, for Aryans, the Buddhist religion was ultimately rejected by
the Brahmans, who were consequently utterly eclipsed and superseded
by it for nearly a thousand years; and we hear little or nothing of
them and their religion till they reappeared at the court of the great
Vicramaditya (490-530), when their religion began to assume that
strange shape which it now still retains in India In its new form it
is as unlike the pure religion of the Vedas as it is possible to conceive
one religion being to another; unlike that, also, of the older portions
of the 'Mahabharata'; but a confused mess of local superstitions and
imported myths, covering up and hiding the Vedantic and Buddhist
doctrines, which may sometimes be detected as underlying it. What-
ever it be, however, it cannot be the religion of an Aryan, or even
of a purely Turanian people, because it was invented by and for as
1 All tins lias becu so fully gone into I Worship,'pp. 63, et scqq., tliatit will not
by me in my work on ' Tree and Serpent I be necessary to repeat it. here.