Mathura A District Memoir Chapter-5

THE BUDDHIST CITY AND ITS ANTIQUITIES

APART from its connection with the deified Krishna, the city of Mathura has been a place of note from the most distant antiquity. In Buddhist times it was one of the centres of that religion, and its sacred shrines and relics at tracted pilgrims even from China, two of whom have left records of their travels. The first, by name Fa Hian, spent, as he informs us, three years in Western Asia, visiting all the places connected with events in the life of the great teacher or of his immediate successors; his main object being to collect authentic copies of the oldest theological texts and commentaries, to take back with him to his own country. Commencing his journey from Tibet, he passed success- ively through Kashmir, Kabul, Kandahar, and the Panjab, and so arrived in Central India, the madhya-des of Hindu geographers. Here the first kingdom that he entered was Mathura, with its capital of the same name situate on the bank of the Jamuna. All the people from the highest to the lowest were staunch Buddhists, and maintained that they had been so ever since the time of Sakya Muni's translation. This statement must be accepted with considerable reserve, since other evidence tends to show that Hinduism was the prevalent religion during part of the interval between Buddha's death and Fa Hian's visit, which was made about the year 400 A. D. He assures us, however, that many of the ecclesiastical establishments possessed copper plates engraved with the ori ginal deeds of endowment in attestation of their antiquity. In the capital—where he rested a whole month--and its vicinity, on the opposite banks of the river, were twenty monasteries, containing in all some 3,000 monks. There were, moreover, six relic-towers, or stupas, of which the most famous was the one erected in honour of the great apostle Sari-putra. The five other stupas are also mentioned by name; two of them commemorated respectively Ananda, the special patron of religious women, and Mudgala-putra, the great doctor of Samadhi or contemplative devotion. The remaining three were dedicated to the cultus of the Abhi-dharma, the Sutra, and the Vinaya divisions of the sacred books, treating respectively of Metaphysics, Religion, and Morality, and known in Buddhist literature by the collective name of the Tri-pitaka or' three baskets.'

Some 200 years later, Hwen Thsang, another pilgrim from the Flowery Land, was impelled by like religions zeal to spend sixteen years, from 629 to 645 A.D., travelling throughout India. On his return to China, he compiled, by special command of the Emperor, a work in twelve Books entitled ‘Memoirs of Western Countries,' giving succinct geographical descriptions of all the kingdoms, amounting in number to 128, that he had either personally visited, or of which he had been able to acquire authentic information. After his death, two of his disciples, wishing to individualize the record of their master's adven tures, compiled in ten Books a special narrative of his life and Indian travels. This has been translated into French by the great Orientalist, Mons. S. Julien. Mathura is described as being 20 li, or four miles in circumference, and as con taining still, as in the days of Fa Hian, 20 monasteries. But the number of resident monks had been reduced to 2,000, and five temples had been erected to Brahmanical divinities; both facts indicating the gradual decline of Buddhism. There were three stupas, built by King Asoka, and many spots were shown where the four former Buddhas had left the marks of their feet. Several other stupas were reverenced as containing relics of the holy disciples of Sakya Muni, viz., Sari-putra, Mudgalayana, Purna-maitrayani-putra, Upali, Ananda, Rahula, Manjusri, and other Bodhi-satwas. Every year (he writes) in the months of the three long fasts (the first, fifth, and ninth) and on the six monthly fasts the religious assemble in crowds at these stupas, and make their several offerings at the one which is the object of their devotion. The followers of Abhi-dharma offer to Sari-putra, and those who practise contemplation (dhyana) to Mudgal ayana. Those who adhere to the Sutras pay their homage to Purna-maitrayani-putra ; those who study the Vinaya honour Upali ; religious women honour Ananda ; those who have not yet been fully instructed (catechumens) honour Rahula ; those who study the Maha-yana honour all the Bodhi-satwas. Banners enriched with pearls float in the air, and gorgeous umbrellas are grouped in procession. Clouds of incense and constant showers of flowers obscure the sight of the sun and moon. The king and his ministers apply themselves with zeal to the practice of meritorious works. Five or six li—i.e., about a mile and a quarter—to the east of the town is a monastery on a hill, the sides of which have been excavated to allow of the construction of cells. The approach is by a ravine. It is said to have been built by the venerable Upagupta. In its centre may be seen a stupa which encloses some nail-parings of the Tathagata. At a hill to the north of this monastery is a cave in the rock, twenty feet high and thirty feet broad, where had been collected an immense number of little bambu spikes, each only four innhes long. When a married couple, whom the venerable Upagupta had converted and instructed, obtained the rank of Arhat, he added a spike. But he took no note of other per-sons, even though they had attained the same degree of sanctity. Twenty-four or 25 li to the south-east of this cave was a large dry tank with a stupa by its side, where it was said that one day as Buddha was pacing up and down, he was offered some honey by a monkey, which he graciously told him to mix with water and divide among the monks. The monkey was so charmed at the condescension that he forgot where he was, and in his ecstasy fell over into the tank and was drowned: as a reward for his meritorious conduct, when he next took birth, it was in human form. A little to the north of this tank was a wood with several at stupas to mark the spots that had been hallowed by the presence of the four earlier Buddhas, and where 1,250 famous teachers of the law, such as Sari -putra and Mudgala-putra, had given themselves up to meditation. When the Tathagata (he adds) lived in the world, he often travelled in this kingdom, and monuments have been erected in every place where he expounded the law.

The Lalita Vistara, which is the oldest and most authentic record that the Buddhists possess, gives a most elaborate account of Sakya Muni's early adventures, and of the six years of preliminary penance and seclusion that he spent in the woods of Uruvilva (now Buddh Gaya) before he commenced his public ministry; but the narrative terminates abruptly with his departure for Bananas, which was the first place to which he betook himself after he had attained to the fulness of perfect knowledge. There is no equally trustworthy and consecutive record of the second and more important half of his life—the 40 years which he spent in the promulgation of his new creed—and it is therefore impossible to say at what period he paid those frequent visits to Mathura of which Hwen Thsang speaks. There is, however, no reason to doubt that they were paid; for the place was one of much importance in his time and, like every other new teacher, it was the great centres of population that he laboured most to influence. In Beal's translation of the Chinese ver sion of the Abhinishkramana Sutra we find Mathura styled the capital of all Jambu-dwipa, and on that account it was one of the first suggested as a fit place for Buddha to take birth in. He rejected, it however, on the ground that the king by whom it was ruled, a powerful monarch, Subahu by name, was a heretic. The objections to other large cities were, either that the king's pedi gree had some flaw; osr that he was a Brahman, not a Kshatriya by caste; or that he had already a large family; or that the people were insubordinate and self-willed. Banaras and Ujaiyin were considered unworthy for a similar reason as Mathura, viz., that at the former there were four heretical schools of philosophy, and that the king of the latter did not believe in a future state. The use of the word ‘heretical' is to be noted, for it clearly indicates that Buddha did not intend to break entirely with Hinduism ; or rather, like the English ' Re- formers' of the 16th century, and Dr. Dollinger and his "old Catho lics" on the continent of Europe at the present day, or Babu Kesav Chandra Sen in Calcutta, or, in short, like all subverters of established systems, he found it politic to disguise the novelty of his theories by retaining the old terminology, and thus investing them with the prestige of a spurious antiquity.

In consequence of the changes in religion and the long lapse of time, the whole of the ancient Buddhist buildings described by the Chinese pilgrims had been overthrown, buried, and forgotten, till quite recently, when some fragments of them have been again brought to light. The first discovery was made by General Cunningham, in 1853, who noticed some capitals and pillars lying about with in the enclosure of the Katra, the site of the Hindu temple of Kesava Deva. A subsequent search revealed the architrave of a gateway and other sculptures, including in particular a standing figure of Buddha, three and-a half feet high, which was found at the bottom of ‘a well, with an inscription at its base recording the gift of the statue to the ' Yasa Vihara,' or 'Convent of Glory,' which may be taken as the name of one of the Buddhist establish ments that had existed on the spot. The date of the presentation was recorded in figures which could not be certainly deciphered

A far more important discovery was made in 1860, in digging the foun dation of the Magistrate and Collector's new court-house. The site selected for this building was an extensive mound overhanging the Agra road at the entrance to the civil station. It had always been regarded as merely the remains of a series of brick-kilns, and had been further protected against exploration by the fact that it was crowned by a small mosque. This was, for military reasons, blown down during the mutiny ; and afterwards, on clearing away the rubbish and excavating for the new foundations, it was found to have been erected, in accordance with the common usage of the Muhammadan conquerors, upon the rains of a destroyed temple. A number of Buddhist statues, pillars, and basso-relievos, were disinterred ; and the inscriptions, as partially deci phered, would seem to indicate that the mound was occupied by several dif ferent monasteries ; three of which, according to General Cunningham, bore the names of Sanghamittra-sada Vihara, Huvishka Vihara, and Kundokhara,' or as it may be read, Kunda-Suka Vihara. On the pedestal of a seated figure was found recorded the first half of a king's name, Vasu; the latter part was broken away, but the lacuna should probably be supplied with the word 'deva,' as a group of figures inscribed with the name of King Vasudeva and date 87 was discovered in 1871 at a neighbouring mound called the ' Kankali tila.' The most numerous remains were portions of stone railing of the particular type used to enclose Buddhist shrines and monuments. The whole were made over to the Agra museum, where the railings were roughly put together in such a way as to indicate the original arrangement. The entire collection has since been again removed elsewhere, I believe to Allahabad; but as there is no proper building for their reception there, nobody appears to know anything about them, and it is very much to be regretted that they were ever allowed to be taken from Mathura. Many of the pillars were marked with figures as a guide to the builder; and thus we learn that one set, for they were of various sizes, consisted of at least as many as 129 pieces. There were also found three large seated figures of Buddha, of which two were full, the third a little less than life-size; and the bases of some 30 large columns. It was chiefly round these bases that the inscriptions were engraved. One of the most noticeable fragments was a stone hand, measuring a foot across the palm, which must have belonged to a statue not less than from 20 to 24 feet in height.

Most of the sculptures were executed in common red sandstone and were of indifferent workmanship, in every way inferior to the specimens more recently discovered at other mounds in the neighbourhood. The most artistic was the figure of a dancing-girl, rather more than half life-size, in a tolerably natural and graceful attitude. (Two representations of this figure are given in Cunningham’s Archaeological Survey). Like the so-called figure of Silenus, discovered by James Prinsep in 1836, of which a detailed description will be given fur ther on, it was thought that it might have been the work of a Greek artist. This conjecture, though I do not accept it myself, involves no historical, diffi culty, since in the Yuga-Purana of the Gargi-Sanhita, written about the year 50 B. C., it is explicitly stated that Mathura was reduced by the Greeks, and that their victorious armies advanced into the very heart of Hindustan, even as far as Patali putra. The text is as follows:-

तत: साकेतमाक्रम्य पञ्चालान् मथुरां तथा ।
यवनादुष्टविक्रान्ता: प्राप्स्यन्तिकुसुमध्वजम् ।
तत: पुष्यपुरे प्राप्ते कर्दमे प्रथिते हिते ।
अकुला विषया: सर्वे भविष्यन्ति न संशय: ।

“Then those hateful conquerors, the Greeks, after reducing Saketa, the country of Panchala and Mathura, will take Kusuma-dhvaja (Patali-putra) ; and when Pushpa-pura (i. e., Patali-putra) is taken, every province will assuredly become disordered."

In close proximity to the mound where the antiquities, which we have des cribed above were discovered is a large walled enclosure, called the Damdama, for some years past occupied by the reserves of the district police, but originally one of a series of saraes erected in the time of the Delhi Emperors along the road between the two royal residences of Agra and Delhi. Hence the adjoin ing hamlet derives its name of Sarae Jamalpur; and for the sake of conver nience, when future reference is made to the mound, it will be by that title. As it is at some distance to the south-east of the katra, the traditional site of ancient Mathura, and so far agrees with the position assigned by Hwen Thsang to the stupa erected to commemorate Buddha's interview with the monkey, there is plausible ground for identifying the two places. The identification is confirmed by the discovery of the inscription with the name Kundo-khara or Kundasuka; for, whichever way the word is read, it would seem to contain a reference to a tank (kunda), and a tank was the characteristic feature of Hwen Thsang's monkey stupa. It at first appears a little strange that there should be, as the inscriptions lead us to infer, four separate monasteries on one hill, but General Cunningham states that in Barma, where Buddhism is still the national religion, such juxtaposition is by no means uncommon.

Transcripts and translations of many of these inscriptions have been since made by different scholars and have been published by General Cunningham in Volume III. of his Archaeological Survey ; but they are for the most part of a very tentative character and leave much room for uncertainty, both as regards reading and interpretation. They are all brief votive records, giving only the name of the obscure donor, accompanied by some stereotyped religiousformula. The dates, which it would be specially interesting to ascertain, are indicated by figures, the value of which has been definitely determined; but the era to which they refer is still matter of dispute. Dr. Rajendra-lala Mitra has consistently maintained from the first that it is the Saka era, beginning from 76 A. D.; and if so, the series ranges between 120 and 206 A. D. But the era intended might also be that of Vikramaditya, or of the Seleucidae, or of Buddha's Nirvana, or of the particular monarch whose name is specified.

Before the discovery of these and similar inscriptions, the history of India, from the invasion of Alexander the Great to that by Mahmud of Ghazni, was almost an absolute blank, in which however the name of Vikramaditya, the repu ted founder of the era still most in vogue among Hindus, enjoyed such universal celebrity that it seemed impossible for any question to be raised regarding him. This solitary stand-point has completely given way under the weight of modern researches, and not only Vikramaditya's paramount sovereignty, but even his existence, is now denied, and that by disputants who will scarcely find a single other matter on which to agree. Mr. Fergusson writes: " No authentic traces exist of any king bearing the name or title of Vikramaditya having lived in the first century before Christ; nor "—though here his assertion will be disputed-" has it been possible to point to any event as occurring B. C. 56, which was of sufficient importance to give rise to the institution of an era for its commemoration." Similarly, Professor Bhau Daji, of Bombay, declared that he knew of no inscription, dated in this Sambat, before the eleventh cen tury of the Christian era ; and, though this appears to be carrying incredulity a little too far, General Cunningham, upon whose accuracy every reliance can be placed, says that the earliest inscription of the Vikramaditya era, that he has seen, bears date 811, that is A. D. 754. Now, if the era was really established before the birth of Christ, it is difficult to understand why it should have lain so long dormant and then have become so curiously revived and so generally adopted.

Various solutions of the difficulty have been attempted. It has been definitely ascertained that the title Vikramaditya was borne by a king Sri Harsha, who reigned at Ujaiyin, in the first half of the sixth century A. D., and General Cunningham conjectures with some probability that it was he who restored the general use of the old era (which had been to a great extent superseded by the introduction of the Saka era in 79 A. D.) and made it his own, simply by changing its name to that which it now bears. The king by whom it was really established about the year 57 B. C. he conceives to have been the Indo-Scythian Kanishka.

This is a personage who as yet scarcely figures at all in histories intended for the general reader ; but it is certain that he was one of the greatest sover eigns that ever held sway in Upper India and, if not the first to introduce Bud dhism, was at least the one who definitely established it as the state religion. The Sanskrit Chronicle, entitled the Raja-Tarangini, mentions among the successors of the great Asoka, in the latter half of the century immediately preceding the birth of Christ, three kings of foreign descent named Hushka (or Huvishka), Jushka, and Kanishka. The later Muhammadan writers represent them as brothers: but it is not so stated in the original text, the words of which are simply as follows:-

हुष्कजुष्ककनिष्काख्यास्त्रयस्तचैव पार्थिवा: ।
ते तुरुष्कान्वयोद्भूताअपि पुण्याश्रयानृपा: ।
प्राज्ये राज्यक्षणे तेषां प्राया: काश्मीरमण्डलं ।
भोज्यमास्ते च वौद्धानां प्रब्रज्योर्जिततेजसां ।

“There, too, the three kings, Hushka, Jushka, and Kanishka, born of Turushka descent, monarchs of eminent virtue. In their exalted reign a great part of the region of Kashmir was occupied by peripatetic Buddhist ascetics."

Their dominions are known to have included Kabul, Kashmir, and the Panjab; and recently discovered inscriptions imply that their sway extended thence as far south as Mathura. It is true that many of the religious buildings in holy places have been founded by foreign princes, who had no territorial connection with the neighbourhood; but there seems to have been some special bond of union between Mathura and Kashmir. Incredible as it has been deemed by most geographers, it is yet within the range of possibility, as pointed out by Professor Wilson, that Ptolemy intended, by the close similarity of names, to indicate a connection between Kασπηρία νπξ ŕάs rev Biξά σπov kaί rov Σavξoβaλ kai rov Ροαξιos πηγάs, that is, Kasperia, or Kashmir, at the sources of the Vitasta, the Chandra bhaga, and the Ravi—and the Kash peircei, dwelling lower down on the Vindhya range, and the banks of the Jamuna, one of whose chief towns was Mathura. For, further, Ptolemy repre sents ή πανξώov Χώρα ‘ the country of Pandu,' as lying in the neigbour hood of the Vitasta, or Jhelam ; while Arrian, quoting from Megasthenes, says it derived its name from Panda, the daughter of Hercules, the divinity specially venerated by the Suraseni on the Jamnna. Thus, as it would seem, he identifies Mathura, the chief town of the Suraseni, with Panda. Balarama, one of its two tutelary divinities, may be certainly recognized as Belus, the Indian Hercules ; while, if we allow for a little distortion of the original legend, Pritha, another name of Kunti, the mother of the Pndavas and sister of Krishna and Balarama's father, Vasudeva, may be considered the native form which was corrupted into Panda.

In historical illustration of the same line of argument, it may be remarked that Gonanda I, the king of Kashmir contemporary with Krishna, is related (Raja-Tarangini, I, 59) to have been a kinsman of Jarasandha and to have assisted him in the siege of Mathura He was slain there on the bank of the Kalindi, i.e., the Jamuna, by Balarama. His son and successor, Damodara, a few years later, thinking to avenge his father's death, made an attack on a party of Krishna's friends, as they were returning from a wedding at Gandhara near the Indus, but himself met his death at that hero's hands. The next ‘occupant of the throne of Mathura in succession to Jarasandha was Karna, the faithfulally of the Kauravas, against whom the Great War was waged by Krishna and the Pndavas. Gonanda II, the son of Damodara, was too young to take any part in the protracted struggle; but the reigning houses of Mathura and Kash mir acknowledged a common enemy in Krishna, and the fact appears to have conduced to a friendly feeling between the two families, which lasted for many generations. Thus we read in the Raja-Tarangini (IV., 512)

तस्मिन् जयपुरेकोटटे जयदत्तोव्यधान्मठं ।
राजक्षत्तु: प्रमोदस्य जामाता मथुरापते: ।
आचाभिधोव्यचरयच्छुचिराचेश्वरं हरं ।

that when Jayapida, who reigned over Kashmir at the end of the eighth century after Christ, built his new capital of Jayapura, a stately temple was founded there and dedicated to Mahadeva under the title of Achesvara, by Acha, the son-in-law of Pramoda, the king of Mathura.

Three inscriptions have been found bearing the name of Kanishka. Of these one is dated 9, another 28; in the third the year has unfortunately been broken away. The memorials of his successor, the Maharaja Huvishka, are more numerous, and the dates range from 33 to 50. In one instance, however, the gift is distinctly made to the king's Vihara, which does not necessarily imply that the king was still living at the time ; and the same may have been the intention of the other inscriptions ; since the grammatical construction of the words, which give the king's name and titles in the genitive case, is a little doubtful, the word upon which they depend not being clearly expressed. Huvishka was succeeded by Vasudeva, who, notswithstanding his purely Indian name, must be referred to the same dynasty, since ordinarily he is honoured with the same distinctive titles, Maharaja Rajatiraja Devaputra; and for Devaputra is in one legend substituted Shahi by which the Indo-Scythian Princes were specially distinguished. On gold coins, moreover, his name is given in Greek characters, Bazodeo.

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