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PRE-BUDDHIST INDIA A POLITICAL, ADMINISTRATIVE, ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEY OF ANCIENT INDIA BASED MAINLY ON THE JATAK.A STORIES BY RATILAL N. MEHTA, M. A. BOMBAY EXAMINER PRESS 1939 TO THE DAWN OF LOVE —“Between the shores of Me and Thee, there is the loud ocean, my own surging self, which I long to cross ”— “Let rm light my lamp ” says the Star, “And never debate if it will help to remove the darkness ” —Rabindranath Tagore. FOREWORD I NDIAN History is progressing fast in the direction of its ob¬ ject, the past. Some years ago the History of India began with Alexander’s campaign through the Panjab and the East. Then the rise of Buddhism and Jainism was added. The pre¬ sent book deals with a period prior to the appearance of Gautama and MahSvIra. The book is all the more welcome since the author has taken as a subject a portion of that period which has been styled “the Dark Ages of India.” This denomination refers to the subjective state of ignor¬ ance of the students of history, rather than to the objective panorama of the past, which was not dark at all. Illustrious kings ruled the country with justice and wisdom. Of one of them, Aivapati Kaikeya, who ruled in the North- Western area, the Chmdogya Upanisai, V, 11, 5, states that when he got up in the morning he said: “In my country there are no thieves, nor misers, nor drunkards, nor people who do not perform sacrifices, nor ignorant, nor debauchees, nor much less harlots.” Such personal statement of the king himself is a credit to the excellent administration that India enjoyed in that early age. The student of history, while going through the pages of this book, will easily detect some of the principles that lateT on crystalized in the immortal ArthaSdstra of Kautalya, and which were so much admired by the Greek envoy Megasthenes. The economic conditions of India were also prosperous. Agri¬ culture, mining, fisheries, farming, cottage industries, building industries and other sources of wealth are described minutely, and sometimes with such abundance of detail as to make us believe we are living in those Temote ages. Trade was brisk, and the reports we have about sea-voyages incline us to believe that it was the cause of many settlements of Indians abroad, both in the east and in the wests Special interest is attached to the sociological conditions of the country, which may be wisely compared with those prevail¬ ing at present. The superiority of the kings in matters spiritual is indeed an eye-opener which has not been sufficiently accounted for. Those good administrators of the country were also pro¬ found thinkers and wise philosophers, at whose school many emi¬ nent brahmanas learned the secrets of the ancient lore or India{ Some authors have seen in them representatives of the old pre- Aryan rulers of the country, and if this view is finally accepted, it will lead us to revise our opinion about the origin of Indian VI philosophy and asceticism. Such kings, whose intellectual pur¬ suits still shine after perhaps thirty centuries, fostered liberal education in their doipinions. It was precisely during this period that the first dirama of life was constituted on practical bases. The agglomerations of Brahmacdrins in the same towns were the nuclei of all those ancient famous centres of learning, the main ones being Taksafila and ‘Varanasi, which were rivalled by Nalanda, Odantapura, Vallabhipura and others in a subsequent historical period. This one, the history of which Mr. Ratilal N. Mehta presents to the public to-day, is a period of extraordinary importance, during which the final amalgamation of the two main races of India, the Dravidians and the Aryans, which began in the Vedic period, was accomplished. The student of Proto-Indian History will easily discover the constituent elements of this amalgg,mar tion in many pages of this book. This is a subject of research which Mr. Mehta had neither time nor opportunity to study in the course of his post-graduate research. It was totally outside the scope of his work. Other students may undertake it, and the country will be grateful to them for it. It is a subject about which much darkness still prevails in the minds of many. The main source of information which the author has tapped has been the collection of Buddhist stories of the pre- births of the Buddha, called the Jdtakas. These stories un¬ doubtedly depict conditions and situations of a period of time prior to that of the revered teacher. The fact that similar episodes are at times found in the Jdtakas and in the Mahd- bhdrata seems to point to a common older source, which is now lost. About the historicity of these stories we cannot doubt at present. The very incidental way in which they are narrated, is a guarantee of their trustworthiness and accuracy. Whenever the mythical element is introduced, it is easily detected. The work of Mr. Ratilal N. Mehta is a credit to him and to this Institute, his Alma Mater. His views are always impartial, his method is faultless, his criticism well founded and precise. I hope that his work will be widely read throughout this country and abroad, and help to dispel the darkness still perhaps existing ip some minds, and to disclose the brilliancy of that ancient Culture which was the foundation of the culture and achievements of the Indians of later periods. H. Heras, S.J, Indian Historical Research Institute, St. Xavier’s College, Bombay. Jply 23,1939. ' AUTHOR’S PREFACE I N the following pages a humble attempt has been made to visualise the picture of Ancient India through the J ataka stories. Ever since the publication of these stories, scholars have attemp¬ ted to' draw from them as much help as they could to enhance their researches. They have been studied and utilised by vari¬ ous hands for shedding more light on the various aspects and problems of Ancient Indian History. And they have undoubted¬ ly been recognised as an important source for this purpose. A synthetic history embracing the long period through which Indian Life and Society have grown and developed is yet a desideratum. Before this is possible, an intensive study has to be njade of the different ages through which they have grown. And this study of a particular age or period has to be made through different sources—literature, art, archaeology, ethno¬ logy, anthropology and the like. It is obvious that this is not the task for one hand. V arious hands have to work to create a complete whole. Thus what Zimmer in his AUmdisches Leben has done for the early Vedic Period, still remains to be done for the subsequent periods. The Buddhist and Jaina literatures together must yield a sufficiently clear picture of Ancient India of the period immediately encircling round the figures of the Buddha and Mahavira. An attempt in this direction was- made years ago by Prof. Bhys Davids, in his Buddhist India. But he mostly relied upon Buddhist sources, and that too not exhaus¬ tively, whereas the study of the history of the Buddhist period, to be complete, must be made by a careful collation of different sources, the Upanisadic, the Buddhist and the Jaina literatures, over and above the archaeological and other evidences. Every piece of literature has to be thoroughly ransacked. It was witn this object that I took up the study of the Jatakas—a part of the extensive Buddhist literature. As I said before, these stories have been utilised by various scholars. Richard Pick has studied these stories chiefly from the social point of view, keeping always the ‘Caste’ and tne ‘Priest’ before his eyes, which fact, m my opinion, has at times hindered a purely impartial judgment. Dr. Ray Ohaudhury has derived from these stories such data as could be helpful to his ‘Political History,’ and this again not exhaustively* Mrs. Rhys Davids and Mr. N. S. Subbarao have given us the ‘Economic Conditions’ For ‘Administrative Aspect’ something has been done by Mr. Bent Prasad in his work ‘The State in Ancient India.’ Lastly I must mention a really valuable work by Dr. B. C. Sen, ‘Studies ip vii vm Jdtahaspublished in the Journal of the Department of Letterst Calcutta University, dealing mainly with political and adminis¬ trative matters. But all these studies were more or less iso¬ lated. In the absence, therefore, of a work comprehensive and critical in its treatment, and systematically written with a view to present a connected idea of Ancient Indian life as portrayed in these stories, I feel myself justified in taking up this subject. I have endeavoured, not only to gather all that research has done, but to put it in a systematic scientific and connected nar¬ rative form. The work has, for convenience’s sake, been divided into five Sections, dealing with five different aspects : political, adminis¬ trative, economic, social and geographical. As regards political history, there are several chronological strata dimly recognis* able in the stories. The kings and princes there mentioned did not belong to a single period of time: they were often wide apart from one another in respect of age. So that the infor¬ mation derived goes to supplement our knowledge of the poli¬ tical history from the Ved%o times down to the time of the Buddha, Only the last chapter of this section, entitled the Mahajanapada Period, gives us a fair idea of the period imme¬ diately preceding the Buddha. And all the remaining aspects of life, namely, administrative, economic, social and geographi¬ cal, delineated in the stories, fall, in my opinion, in this Mahaja- napada or pre-Buddha period. Hence the title of this work. It is a moot point whether history should be subjective or objective. To write objectively has been the avowed aim of historians from Herodotus to H. G. Wells. But it seems im¬ possible for the historian to remain unperturbed over the vicis¬ situdes in life which he observes. And even H. G. Wells had in the end to confess: “There never .will be an outline of history written that is not tendential.” These tendencies of the historian, his pre-conceived notions and prejudices, are bound to be interwoven in the delineation of the subject he treats. And what is wrong in it ? However unscientific this method of approach might be termed, it has its value and its interest; The historian should not dive into an. ever-receding and ir¬ revocable past, simply for the sake of the past; . He has to revaluate the past in the light of the present. Instead of ap¬ pearing in the fashion of a colourless spectator, he has to assume the r.61e of a representative of the people of whom he-speaks; He is to share their thoughts and reciprocate* or at -least - under¬ stand, their sentiments. He may grow eloquent over their glori¬ ous achievements, as he should stress their drawbacks. In this way, attempting to . write history is, inevitably - though IX imperceptibly, like subjecting oneself to. psycho-analysis. It draws out not only the historian’s opinions but his ‘repressions,’ not only, his intellectual character but its ‘complexes.’ Even those historians who profess to be most impartial and purely objective have their hidden snags and tags. " Anyhow, it is quite obvious that every historical study should have more than purely academic interest. Up till now it has always been regarded as dry as dust, a jumble.of dates, an unmeaning medley of wars and massacres. To have any value, history must be viewed as a kaleidoscope. It should be a pre¬ sentation of life, complete and-whole. The Jdtahas offer us a clear advantage in this respect. Though their aims and objects are not avowedly secular, they nevertheless depict society from an independent point of view, give details, specially of the darker phases of social life, with the lull ness and. variety that we naturally, miss in the ‘sacred texts.’ We can see here merchants and artisans, workers and peasants, women and children, old people and ascetics, Brahmins and Princes—all engrossed in their daily life. The characters we witness are lively and realistic, and the incidents narrated are also taken from real life. In the words of Prof. Rhys Davids, the Jdtahas are the oldest, most complete and most important collection of Folklore extant. I am not unmindful of my inabilities. My claim to these stories as being a faithful representation of the pre-Buddha period will particularly be questioned. The fear of uncertain ground on which I was standing at first prevented me from giv¬ ing the title which has been given to this work, and I thought it wise to make myself secure by vaguely describing the work as Ancient India in the Jdtahas. But repeated reading of the book, page after page, while plodding through the unending proofs, reassured me, and finally encouraged me in giving the present title. I leave it now to the readers to decide whether the title is justified or not. But I take consolation in the fact that there was, after all, very litole possibility of change in the general milieu of Ancient Indian life within a few centuries, as its per¬ sistent conservatism is only too well-known. The present work is a revised form of the' Thesis submitted to the University of Bombay for the M.A. Degree in 1935. It took two years for it to go into the Press, and it is after about the same period that it comes out of the Press, to see the light of day. Four long years have thus passed by since it was written. Journalism having lured me away from an academic career, it was well-nigh impossible for me to keep pace with the fast-growing