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Essays on Gupta Culture

Bardwell L. Smith

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Description:The history of human civilization is marked by certain periods when, in one or other region of the world, human culture reached a peak, from which it afterwards in some measure declined. As examples, think of Periclean Greece, T'ang China, Elizabethan England. They were periods of comparative peace within the borders of the land concerned, when a benevolent government gave a reasonably comfortable and secure life to a large section of the population, and made it possible for artists and writers, assimilating the thought and experience of previous generations, to produce works of art and literature of exceptional merit, and for craftsmen and scholars to develop their techniques and sciences beyond all earlier skill and learning. In India probably the most outstanding of such periods was that of the Gupta Empire, covering approximately two hundred years, from the fourth to the sixth centuries A.D. In this period India was the most civilized land in the world, for this was a time when in other parts of the Eurasian land-mass the nomads of Central Asia were on the move, and in both east and west stable empires were shattered by waves of barbarians. When in 320 A.D., Candra Gupta I assumed imperial titles, hordes of nomads were attacking both the Roman and the Chinese empires, and Western Europe had entered a period of decline from which it only began to recover in the Eighth century; and when the Gupta Empire faded away in the middle of the sixth century the Byzantine Empire under Justinian had restored the glory of Rome in the Eastern Mediterranean and the T'ang dynasty was about to emerge in China, to raise Chinese civilization to new cultural levels. In the period of about five hundred years, between the end of the Mauryan dynasty and the rise of the Guptas, the theologians, learned men, authors and artists of India had not been idle. The religious life of India underwent great changes. The gods Visnu, chiefly in his incarnation Krishna-Vasudeva, and Siva, not so important in earlier days, steadily gained strength at the expense of the older gods of the Vedas, such as Indra and Brahma. A time of the Bhagavad Gita, the Mahabharata, the Visnu Purana, and the Ramayana, new forms of Hinduism and Buddhism flourished side by side.The papers in this collection, aside from the two bibliographical essays, were written for and discussed at a 1977 symposium on the Gupta period of Indian history (c. 320-550 A.D.), held in conjunction with a seminar on this period conducted at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Since the fifteen-week seminar dealt with the principal historical, social and cultural features of India's "golden age", the papers written for the symposium approached specific topics with this background taken for granted. This volume, therefore, does not purport to be a synoptic coverage of Gupta history and culture, but a collection of essays which focuses on a limited number of particular areas of importance arising out of or in relationship to this classical period.After discussing at some length the relationship between religion and the state in pre-Gupta length the relationship between religion and the state in pre-Gupta India, A.K. Narain examines numismatic and epigraphic sources of the Gupta period and shows how official political policy both recognized and protected forms of religious belief and practice at the same time as Gupta kings and chiefs used "the mystique of the Vedic rituals and symbolism" to enhance their authority.Professor Asher shows how religious symbolism serves as a visual metaphor conveying the analogous relationship between the ideal monarch and divine power and authority. His examples are both Vaisnavite and Saivite, and are drawn from South India as well as the core area of Gupta rule.The essay by Burton Stein is primarily about the importance of public ritual in sustaining the monarchical institution. In discussing this, he looks both at the role of ritual in pre-Gupta and Gupta India, seeing a transition from "sacred kings" to "sacred kingship", and shows how royal sacrifices such as the asvamedha and the rajasuya were regenerative rituals whose purpose was to replenish the sacred power of kings so they might fulfill their obligation of protecting and nourishing all within their realm. While these particular sacrifices were both revived and tended to fade with the Gupta, their place was taken by other rituals, especially in South India, whose inspiration included ancient yajna, Puranic festivals, Ramayana motifs, and particularly the symbolic universe of South Indian temples. Thus, while Stein goes far beyond the Gupta in time and dwells at length on South India, he provides insight into the relationship between kingship and ritual generally and shows how the Gupta stress on sacred kingship had a persisting influence in medieval and even modern times.The essay by Professor Basham examines the fifth century inscription by Vatsabhatti, a local B...We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Essays on Gupta Culture. To get started finding Essays on Gupta Culture, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
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Pages: 360

Format: PDF, EPUB & Kindle Edition

Publisher: —

Release: 1983

ISBN: 0836408713

Description: The history of human civilization is marked by certain periods when, in one or other region of the world, human culture reached a peak, from which it afterwards in some measure declined. As examples, think of Periclean Greece, T'ang China, Elizabethan England. They were periods of comparative peace within the borders of the land concerned, when a benevolent government gave a reasonably comfortable and secure life to a large section of the population, and made it possible for artists and writers, assimilating the thought and experience of previous generations, to produce works of art and literature of exceptional merit, and for craftsmen and scholars to develop their techniques and sciences beyond all earlier skill and learning. In India probably the most outstanding of such periods was that of the Gupta Empire, covering approximately two hundred years, from the fourth to the sixth centuries A.D. In this period India was the most civilized land in the world, for this was a time when in other parts of the Eurasian land-mass the nomads of Central Asia were on the move, and in both east and west stable empires were shattered by waves of barbarians. When in 320 A.D., Candra Gupta I assumed imperial titles, hordes of nomads were attacking both the Roman and the Chinese empires, and Western Europe had entered a period of decline from which it only began to recover in the Eighth century; and when the Gupta Empire faded away in the middle of the sixth century the Byzantine Empire under Justinian had restored the glory of Rome in the Eastern Mediterranean and the T'ang dynasty was about to emerge in China, to raise Chinese civilization to new cultural levels. In the period of about five hundred years, between the end of the Mauryan dynasty and the rise of the Guptas, the theologians, learned men, authors and artists of India had not been idle. The religious life of India underwent great changes. The gods Visnu, chiefly in his incarnation Krishna-Vasudeva, and Siva, not so important in earlier days, steadily gained strength at the expense of the older gods of the Vedas, such as Indra and Brahma. A time of the Bhagavad Gita, the Mahabharata, the Visnu Purana, and the Ramayana, new forms of Hinduism and Buddhism flourished side by side.The papers in this collection, aside from the two bibliographical essays, were written for and discussed at a 1977 symposium on the Gupta period of Indian history (c. 320-550 A.D.), held in conjunction with a seminar on this period conducted at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Since the fifteen-week seminar dealt with the principal historical, social and cultural features of India's "golden age", the papers written for the symposium approached specific topics with this background taken for granted. This volume, therefore, does not purport to be a synoptic coverage of Gupta history and culture, but a collection of essays which focuses on a limited number of particular areas of importance arising out of or in relationship to this classical period.After discussing at some length the relationship between religion and the state in pre-Gupta length the relationship between religion and the state in pre-Gupta India, A.K. Narain examines numismatic and epigraphic sources of the Gupta period and shows how official political policy both recognized and protected forms of religious belief and practice at the same time as Gupta kings and chiefs used "the mystique of the Vedic rituals and symbolism" to enhance their authority.Professor Asher shows how religious symbolism serves as a visual metaphor conveying the analogous relationship between the ideal monarch and divine power and authority. His examples are both Vaisnavite and Saivite, and are drawn from South India as well as the core area of Gupta rule.The essay by Burton Stein is primarily about the importance of public ritual in sustaining the monarchical institution. In discussing this, he looks both at the role of ritual in pre-Gupta and Gupta India, seeing a transition from "sacred kings" to "sacred kingship", and shows how royal sacrifices such as the asvamedha and the rajasuya were regenerative rituals whose purpose was to replenish the sacred power of kings so they might fulfill their obligation of protecting and nourishing all within their realm. While these particular sacrifices were both revived and tended to fade with the Gupta, their place was taken by other rituals, especially in South India, whose inspiration included ancient yajna, Puranic festivals, Ramayana motifs, and particularly the symbolic universe of South Indian temples. Thus, while Stein goes far beyond the Gupta in time and dwells at length on South India, he provides insight into the relationship between kingship and ritual generally and shows how the Gupta stress on sacred kingship had a persisting influence in medieval and even modern times.The essay by Professor Basham examines the fifth century inscription by Vatsabhatti, a local B...We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Essays on Gupta Culture. To get started finding Essays on Gupta Culture, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

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Essays on Gupta Culture

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