 NAMASKAR Krishnakanta khandi koi rajik mukta vissabhidda lawyer aji eonu sanole apna svakaton janaisu Mai doctors of maya lama itihar vibhagar fahokari adhapika Aji eonu sanop ami alusuna korebhok laga bhi khoi tu hol Society, religion, culture and economy andata kuptar This video lecture is part of the paper titled History of India from prehistory till the beginning of 13th century CE And it is meant for the first semester students pursuing BA history for the new course Before we move on to the topic let me give you the objectives of this particular video lecture The objectives of this lectures are to discuss the society under the gupta rule to discuss the economic situation under the gupta rule to discuss the religious conditions under the gupta rule and to discuss the culture and art that developed during the or under the gupta rule Let us first try to understand the sources that helps us to reconstruct this entire study of the society, culture, religion and art or economy for that matter under the gupta rule The sources are indigenous literatures of which I have mentioned a few the Puranas, the Shastras, the Nidhi Shastras of Narada Dramas by Kalidas and so many others Among the foreign literature I have mentioned about Fahiyan's account and also besides the literature we can also derive a lot of information to study about this particular topic from inscriptions and the coins that were circulated or established during the gupta period Let us first begin with the social conditions or what kind of society that prevailed during the gupta rule What we have understood from all the sources whether it be literary or epigraphic or inscriptions or coins we see that the society was divided along the lines of the caste or vernas and these four castes or vernas were the Brahmins, the Shatriyas, the Vaishyas and the Shudras The prevalence of the caste system during the gupta period is very much understood or the prevalence is very much revealed by the account of Fahiyan who himself has mentioned the plights or the poor conditions faced by the Shudras and the Shudras were the lowest of the four castes This caste or the verna system that was prevalent in the gupta period is nothing but the hierarchical structure or the hierarchical stratification of the society and this particular system gave legitimacy to certain privileges enjoyed by the upper caste The system enforced the pursuance of a prescribed craft or occupation more or less a particular caste or verna was associated or linked with a particular craft or occupation For example, the Brahmins were assigned the role of pursuing the study of Vedas and deal with religious practices and sacrifices etc Now, these Brahmins assumed the highest status They earned the highest status in the society and at the same time their sons and their successors would continue doing the same occupation or pursue the same profession Same was the case of people belonging to the other caste However, there are references of certain exceptions The Brahmins in the gupta society or under the gupta society earned immense honor and respect which is revealed from the inscriptions of the gupta period which mentions the large number of land grants and agrahara lands that were granted or donated to the Brahmins Such lands were granted and the gupta period marks the increase of such land grants The Shatriyas and Vaishyas were also among those caste social groups who enjoyed privileges just like the Brahmins Despite the disabilities within the caste system intercast marriage, interdining was prevalent during the gupta period There are records which give reference to the intercast marriage For instance, Vaanu gupta, Ashatriya was married to Brahmin Ravikirti Fahin also mentions about the Chandalas a social group which were treated very harshly and they lived in the outskirts among the other outcast social groups were the untouchables or the antajyas and the chalmarakars who were considered very very impure The position of women in the society was low and they were considered as belonging to the same category as that of the Shudras Polygamy was prevalent during the gupta period and the records show and the records tell us that the gupta kings and the feuditory lords or the contemporaries of those times did engage in polygamy Sati was known in the gupta age and the mandasur stone inscription of Kumara gupta 1 refers to the practice of Sati during the gupta period We now move on to the economic conditions The seals discovered from Vaisali points to the importance of the city as a centre of trade and commerce From this we get to know that business commerce were continuing in full swing during the guptas These seals also bring into light the working of the guilds or shrinis under which the industries or handicrafts were organised The guilds or shrinis were formed by the bankers the artisans and the traders The indoor copper plate inscription mentions about the guild of oilmen Taylata shrini The mandasur inscription also mentions a guild of silk weavers Patavaya shrini Money economy was the base of the group time empire the circulation of the coins in gold, silver and copper With regard to the construction of the public utility works mentioned must be made of sudarshana reservoir originally constructed during the time of chandra gupta The next work is mentioned in the gandhar stone inscription which talks of the construction of temples tanks, causeways, parks, etc Similarly the mandasur inscriptions also mentions how Lata Vishaya was decorated with viharas on temples Here Vishaya means districts Beside trade and commerce agriculture provided the backbone of the gupta economy and amarakosha has mentioned various types of crops that were produced during the gupta period Similarly the literary text and inscriptions also mention a large section of officers appointed for the purpose of collecting revenue As far as the soils or the kind of lands that existed amarakosha mentions 12 types of soils or the lands The cultivable land was termed as shaitra and the uncultivable land was termed as khilla or aprahat Land grant offers a lot to the historians as a source material The land grants of the gupta period tells us not just about the land measurement but also about the quality of the land whether it be agricultural or non-agriculture There was a diversity in land measurements during the gupta period Irrigation works were practiced during the gupta period and as we talked about earlier the construction of tanks and ponds, causeways, parks were already mentioned have been mentioned in the contemporary kopa plates What is very interesting to note during the gupta period especially when it comes to land economy we see that there was a growth of the or not just the growth but the emergence of the landed intermediaries during this period We have already discussed earlier that the Brahmins were donated huge areas of land for religious purposes and also administrative officers were offered lands as form of remuneration and as a result of which the donies would own the land but they did not cultivate it and we see that this three-tier system is mentioned in some of the text where we find mention of the term Mahipati or the king Swami or the one who owns the land and Karshaka or the cultivator This three-tier character itself tells us that there was a class of land owners who were not the actual cultivators as a result of which the burden of the entire economy fell on the actual tillers of the cultivators their position however declined in the society especially the practice of vishti or unpaid labour made their conditions more worse slaves were also used to work in the fields by their masters females slaves were exploited in the gupta period the gupta period is marked by craft production of various types and it range from ordinary household items to luxury items Amarakosha and Brihat Samhita mentions about different categories of craftsmen and we have also as earlier we have seen that some of the trainees or guilds were constituted by the artisans and the craftsmen Next we move on to the religious conditions Brahminical Hinduism was practiced at a large scale Vedic sacrifices termed as ashramedha was revived by the gupta rulers various other forms of sacrifices were also prevalent Most gupta rulers were worshippers of vishnu and they introduced coins with laxmi garuda the vehicle of vishnu and vishnu's wheel chakra temples dedicated to lord vishnu were constructed under the patronage of the gupta rulers and this finds mentioned in the inscriptions Saivism was also present as Shiva was worshipped under various names and this finds mentioned in the inscriptions coins with bull figure bull which is associated with Shiva's nandi such coins were circulated during the times of the gupta ruler the Bihar stone pillar inscriptions and other inscriptions mentioned the construction of a group of temple dedicated to divine mothers including Goddess Shakti and here we can come to the conclusion that Shaktism was also prevalent at that point of time gupta coins show Goddess Durga seated in a lion or slaying a lion as far as Hinduism was concerned the gupta rulers even though they followed Hinduism they did not impose it on their subjects the result was the existence of other religion during the gupta rule besides Hinduism Buddhism for example flourished and Sanchi and Sarnath continued to remain great centers of Buddhist learnings inscriptions refers to the endowment or donation of a village as a gift to the Bihara in Sanchi along with dinars or coins for feeling with issues two images of Buddha bearing the inscriptions of the gupta rulers specially Kumara gupta 2 and Buddha gupta was founded at Sarnath Jainism also flourished during the gupta rule the construction of the image of Jinawara parshwa was mentioned in the Udaidri cave inscriptions similarly the Kahum stone pilla inscriptions refer to the endowment in favor of Jainism that was made we also see that sun god was worshipped during the gupta period the mandasura inscription of Kumara gupta 1 records that a guild or straini of silk weavers built a temple for the sun god now let us move on to the cultural development that was that was taking place under the guptas first we will look into the literature and its development learning was at its speed during the gupta period such terms like the charya, upadhyaya sishya have been mentioned in the inscriptions and besides the vedas, vedangas puranas, mimamsas and others also were included within the subject of study the learned brahmins were often well versed in all such areas of knowledge lessons were imparted orally far he and during his course of travel did not find any written text except for disciplines in pataliputra 2 copies of sutra and adal and some abstracts from abhidhamma so basically what we understand here is this that the teacher would pass on his knowledge to his sishyas or to his students orally Sanskrit replaced prakrit as the medium of instruction and the gupta inscriptions were written in sanskrit the gupta rulers patronized the spread of sanskrit karidasa wrote his dramas and epics in sanskrit, other sanskrit writers of the time were shudraka beshakadatta among the few the gupta rulers were themselves great poets like samudra gupta whom harisena has himself termed as kaviraja they were equally accomplished musicians most of the gupta rulers were not just proficient in literature but they also had great taste in music contemporary feudatories of the gupta kingdom too had knowledge of various branches of study the inscriptions that belong to the time of the gupta rule themselves speak a lot about literary brilliance the labhat prashasthi the mandasura inscriptions are an example of the literary brilliance phahiyan mentions udhyana gandhara, mathura, panjha, pataliputra as centers of learning due to the existence of viharas or residency colleges both religious and secular texts were produced during the gupta period coming to art gupta art finds its expression of cultures and monuments when we talk of coins we have already discussed earlier that coins in both gold copper silver were being produced and circulated and the coins were of various designs the pattern that was followed was a portrait of the king in the obverse and a goddess along with its associated symbols in the rivers the sculpture is concerned the sculptures are connected to the religion then prevailing cyber culture or any of the sculptures that are related to saivism were found at temples located in kanpur deogar, alabad, ajmer kho and bumra cyber images or lingas were found basically the sculptures depicting the various phases of krishna's life is found in deogar, jodhpur giri hills buddhi's images and statues and saranath are prominent specimens of gupta art these gupta sculptures made effort to eliminate those features that indicated the foreign origin of the buddha image the image of buddha seated in the act of preaching at saranath is a masterpiece of gupta art images of buddha were installed in the religious spaces bodhisattva culture also dominated the gupta sculptural art the gupta art seems to have been influenced by brahmanical sources and this is revealed by the featuring of the different gods from the brahmanical pantheon in some of the temples two schools of art developed under the gupta rule matura and banaras matura was the oldest one and model red stone was basically used as the material and it continued with the old kushan gandhara tradition of art the banaras school however used chunar sand stone and its artistic feature was free from any influence the patali putra school of art features the metal images of buddha found in nalanda and bhagalpur district temple architecture under the gupta period is marked by the use of stone masonry some flat roofed temples sometimes surrounded by the pillard halls are characteristics of the early gupta period the doors of the garbha griha were decorated or you can say ornamented with beautiful foliage and floral designs the gupta period also saw the development of paintings the chitrasutra talks about the paintings of this period the ajanta paintings and paintings in bhag must be specially mentioned here the ajanta paintings are religious in nature while the paintings at bhag tend to be more secular here i would like to give you certain pictures that talks about the gupta art and the pictures here are of the sanchi temple the buddha image at saranath and the ajanta paintings if you look into the sanchi temple here as i have mentioned above the temple has a flat roof and it is surrounded by the pillard halls so you see that this was the pattern that was followed during the gupta period and on the other hand we also have the image of buddha sitting in a preaching position as well as the ajanta paintings so this was some of the pictures that was covered for this particular topic on gupta art and with this we come to the end of today's video lecture session thank you very much