Book Review: Bhairabi Sahu (with a chapter contributed by Kesavan Veluthat),Society and Culture in Post-Mauryan India,c. 200 BC–AD 300

This monograph is the companion volume to Vol. 6 in the same series (already published), where the political history and economy during the period c. 200 BC–AD 300 has been treated. This volume accordingly deals essentially with society, religion, art and literature during the same period. Professor B.P. Sahu is the main author and Professor Kesavan Veluthat contributes the chapter on literature. Both authors are well-known scholars of ancient India and, as one would expect from them, the treatment of the subject is scholarly, taking into account the latest research and concentrating on the fundamentals. There are extracts from sources and inscriptions and notes on important themes, in the manner we have come to expect from volumes of this series.

In discussing the structure of society, the main author does well to stress that this was the period when the caste system diffused all over India. The point about the dynastic rulers’ seeking legitimisation by invoking their Brahman mothers’ gotras was a peculiar feature of the period, and the author does well to link this practice with the strengthening and diffusion of the caste system. I have a feeling that a little more elucidation was necessary here to make the reader fully aware of the context of this curious practice of reinforcing royal legitimacy, not by establishing a Kshatriya but a Bråhmaµa lineage.

The chapter on religion explains with much clarity the schism that occurred in Buddhism owing to the development of the Mahåyana doctrine of merit-transfer. Similarly, the corresponding development of bhakti, that is, the philosophy of devotion and divine grace, within Brahmanism is well brought out. One can perhaps argue that the author could have been more expansive on matters like functions of the Bodhisattvas, removal of the Åjivikas from the Barabar caves, Śiva’s avatårs and the nature and roles of beings like yakshas, yakshis and någas and någinis, so much featured in religious lore and figured in sculpture of the period. The note on ‘Religion in History’ does not relate to the period, but is really thought-provoking.

The chapter on art is mainly devoted naturally enough to sculpture, though there is a clear enough discussion of the forms of architecture. I found the description of the evolution of sculpture from Bharhut to Amravati especially illuminating, and the note on the terminology related to sculpture particularly useful. Since the volume bears the imprint of ‘people’s history’, should we not have been given some glimpses of ordinary life that the sculptures provide us with?

Professor K. Veluthat presents in the final chapter a survey of Prakrit, Sanskrit and Tamil literatures of the period. His reconstruction of the origins of the Pali language and, still more, his critical account of the growth of Sangam literature in Tamil, I found most stimulating. The Kāvya part of Sanskrit literature is also well covered; probably, the uncertainties about early dates of the medical texts led him to devote only a small paragraph (p. 85) to them.

Typographical mistakes in the volume are few. But the curious errors in both the author’s name and title in the reference to Professor S. Jaiswal’s book Caste: Origins, Functions and Dimensions of Change on page 18 may be corrected in the reprint edition.

All in all, it is a book one can readily recommend to the general readers as well as the graduate and undergraduate students.