Post-Gupta Era

Answer : The decline of the Gupta Empire led to a period of confusion and political flux in the northern part of India. With the exception of the reign of Harshavardhan, the entire north India witnessed a continuous struggle, as there were a number of small states, each one of them fighting with the others to gain the upper hand. However, the situation in the Deccan and south India was different from that in the north. Unlike the kingdoms that emerged in the north during this period, the kingdoms of South India were large and powerful. A number of kingdoms emerged in the Deccan and peninsular part of India after the decline of the Satvahana dynasty, which ruled a large part of central India, including the Deccan region and Andhra Pradesh. The important kingdoms of south India between AD 500 and AD 750 were that of the Chalukyas, Pallavas, and the Pandyas. The relationship between most of the kingdoms of the south was not amicable and they constantly fought with each other.

The Chalukyas rose to power in the Deccan from the fifth to eighth century and again from the tenth to twelfth century. They ruled over the area between the Vindhyan Mountain and the river Krishna. The Chalukyas were sworn enemies of the Pallavas and rose to power in Karnataka. The first great ruler of the Chalukya dynasty was Pulakesin I. He founded Vatapi (modern Badami in Bijapur district) and made it his capital. He is said to have performed Ashwamedha Yagna (horse sacrifice). The kingdom was further extended by his sons Kirtivarman and Mangalesa by waging many successful wars against the neighbours including Mauryans of the Konkans.

Vatapi (modern Badami) became the capital of the Chalukyan state. The famous Chalukyan ruler Pulakeshin II (AD 609-642) was a contemporary of Harshavardhan.While Harsha wanted to expand his empire to the south, Pulakeshin II wanted to move to the northern parts of the country. As the ambitions of both the rulers collided, they met in a battle on the banks of River Narmada, where Harsha was defeated. The defeat ended the dreams of Harsha of expanding his empire southwards. On the other hand, the problems of the Chalukyas were far from over, as they had to constantly deal with two adversaries, the Rashtrakutas (from the north) and the Pallavas (from the south). The Rashtrakutas, who ruled a small stretch of area in the north Deccan region, were originally subordinate to the Chalukyas, but in the course of time they began to challenge the power of the Chalukyas. In the 8th century AD, the Rashtrakutas finally defeated the Chalukyas.

During the reign of Pulakeshin II, the Pallavas began to emerge as a powerful force to the south of the Chalukyan kingdom. The struggle between Pallavas and the Chalukyas spanned three hundred years, beginning from the 6th century AD. Pulakeshin II fought a battle against the Pallava ruler Mahendravarman and defeated him in 610 AD. However, after a few years in 642 AD, the Pallava king Narasimhavarman attacked the Chalukyan kingdom, defeated Pulakeshin II and captured Vatapi, the capital of the Chalukyas. After surviving many upheavals, the Chalukyas continued to survive until the 12th century AD, when their rule finally ended.

Vatapi, the capital of the Chalukyan kingdom, was a flourishing city Pulakeshin II had diplomatic links with the rulers of Persia. The Chalukyan rulers were great patrons of art and provided financial aid for constructing temples and cave shrines through different parts of the Deccan hills. The magnificently carved sculptures in the temples and temple complex built by them are splendid examples of their artistic skills. The Badami Chalukya Architecture was a temple building idiom that evolved in the time period of 5th - 8th centuries CE. In the area of Malaprabha basin, in present day Bagalkot district of Karnataka state. This style is sometimes called the Vesara style and Chalukya style. Their earliest temples date back to around 450 in Aihole when the Badami Chalukyas were feudatories of the Kadambas of Banavasi. According to historian K.V. Sounder Rajan, the Badami Chalukya contribution to temple building matched their valor and their achievements in battle.

Their style includes two types of monuments:

• The rock cut halls (caves)
• Structural temples

Badami Cave Temples have rock cut halls with three basic features; Pillared Veranda, Columned Hall and a sanctum cut out deep into rock. Early experiments in rock cut halls were attempted in Aihole where they built three cave temples, one each in Vedic, Buddhist and Jaina styles. Later they refined their style and cut out four marvellous cave temples at Badami.

One note worthy feature of these cave temples is the running frieze of Ganas in various amusing postures caved in relief on each plinth. The outside Veranda of the cave temples is rather plain, but the inner hall contains rich and prolific sculptural symbolism. In Pattadakal are their finest structural temples. Of the ten temples in Pattadakal, six are in Dravidian style and four in Rekhanagara style. The Virupaksha temple in many ways holds resemblance to the Kailasanatha temple in Kanchipuram which came into existence a few years earlier. This is a fully inclusive temple; it has a central structure, nandi pavilion in front and has a walled enclosure that is entered by a gateway. The main sanctum has a Pradakshinapatha and mantapa. The mantapa is pillared and has perforated windows (pierced window screens). The external wall surface is divided by pilasters into well spaced ornamental niches filled with either sculptures or perforated windows. Art critic Percy brown says about the sculptures that they flow into the architecture in a continuous stream. It is said that the Virupaskha temple is one of those monuments where the spirit of the men who built it, still lives. Many centuries later, the serene art of the Badami Chalukya reappeared in the pillared architecture of the Vijayanagar Empire. Their caves include finely engraved sculptures of Harihara, Trivikrama, Mahisa Mardhini, Tandavamurthi, Paravasudeva, Nataraja, Varaha, Gomateshvara and others. Plenty of animal and foliage motifs are also included.

Answer : By the middle of the 10th century India witnessed the decay of three of the most powerful states which had dominated east, north and central India during the two preceeding centuries. These were the pala empire with its capital at Mongyr, the Gurjara Pratihara empire with its capital at Kanauj and the Rashtrakuta empire with its capital at Manyakhet.

The pala empire was founded by the elected ruler Gopal in 750. He was succeeded by his son Dharmapala who raised the pala Kingdom to greatness. Soon after his accession Dharmapala was involved in a struggle with the two main powers the Pratiharas and the Rashtrakutas. ThePratihara ruler Vastaraja defeated Dharmapala in a battle which took place in the Gangetic Doab. But before Vastraja could reap the fruits of victory, he was defeated by the Rashtrakuta king Dhruva. Thereafter Dhruva defeated Dharmapala and a little later left for the Deccan.

Despite these reverses, Dharmapala gained more than what he had anticipated. With the defeat of the Pratihara power and the retreat of the Rashtrakutas, Dharmapala could dream of building up a mighty empire. Dharmapala installed Chakrayudha on the throne of Kanauj. But it was soon challenged by his Pratihara adversary, Nagabhatta II, who conquered Kanauj and drove away Dharmapla’s protege Chakrayudha.

Struggle for supremacy between the two rivals became inevitable., The Pratihara ruler advanced up to Mongyr and defeated Dharmapala in a pitched battle. But Dharmapala was rescued by the timely intervention of the Rashtrakuta king Govinda III to whom he might have appealed for aid. The power of the palas is attested, to by an Arab merchant Sulaiman who visited India in the middle of the 9th Century. He says that the pala ruler was at war with his neighbours, the Pratiharas and the Rashtrakutas, but his troops were more numerous than his adversaries.

The object of political ambition at that time was to conquer and hold the city of Kanauj, which had become a symbol of imperial power perhaps owing to its connection with Harsha and with Yashovarman, who maintained this status for the city. It became a bone of contention between these three powers and much of their military activity of these powers was directed towards its conquest.

Control fo Kanauj also implied control of the upper Gangetic valley and its rich resources in trade and agriculture. In addition, the palas and the Pratiharas clashed with each other for the control of the area extending from Benaras to south Bihar which again had rich resources and well developed traditions. The Pratiharas clashed with the Rashtrakutas also. Gujarat and Malwa was the bone of contention between them.

The Gurjara Pratihara empire extended from the foothills of the Himalyas to Ujjain in the south and from Gujarat in the west to Mongyr in the east. Bhoja, the real founder of the Gurjara Pratihara empire, tried to extend his sway in the east, but he was defeated and checkmated by the Pala ruler, Devapala. He then turned towards central India and the Deccan and Gujarat. This led to the revival of the struggle with the Rashtrakutas. In a battle on the bank of the Narmada, Bhoja was able to retain his control over considerable parts of Malwa, and some parts of Gujarat.

Between 915 and 918 the Rashtrakuta king Indra III attacked Kanauj and devastated the city. This weakend the Pratihara empire, and probably passed into the hands of the Rashtrakutas, for al Masudi says that the Pratihara empire had no access to the sea. The loss of Gujarat, which was hub of the overseas trade and main outlet for north Indian goods to the west Asian countries, was another blow to the pratiharas. Another Rashtrakut ruler, Krishna III, invaded north India in about 963 and defeated the Pratihara ruler. This was followed by the rapid dissolution of the Pratihara empire.

The rivalry between them was self destroying. This was to exhaust all three of them leaving the field open to their feudatories, which resulted in the founding of small regional kingdoms all over Northen India. Al Masudi, who visited Kanauj in the early tenth century, wrote that the king of Kanauj kept a large army and was surrounded by smaller kings always ready to go to war.

A hundred years later the Pratiharas were no longer a power in northern India. The Turkish army sacked kanauj in 1018 and this virtually ended the Pratihara rule. In the western Deccan, the Rashtrakutas as had been supplanted by later Chalukyas.

The almost simultaneous decline of the three rival powers, the Pratiharas, palas and Rashtrakutas, was most surprising. Their strength was closely matched and depended on large well organized armies. Sources of revenue to maintain these army were similar and excessive pressure on these sources was found to produce the same result.

The continued conflict over the possession of Kanauj diverted attention from their feudatories, who succeded in making themselves independant. The subordination of feudatories and invason from the north -west and the south destroyed what little had remained of political unity of northern India.

On the periphery of what had been the three major kingdoms, there had arisen a number of small states. The most prominent among them were the Chauhans of Sakambari, the Paramaras of Malwa and the Chalukyas of Gujarat. These in turn had many feudatories which sometimes helped their overlords but more often aspired to become independan.

Answer : The Pallavas was the first well-known dynasty which came into power in the South after the fall of the Andharas. For about two hundred years from 550 to 750 A.D., the Pallavas were the dominant power in the South. Their rule extended over a vast region including the modern territo­ries of the Madras, Arcot, Trichnopoly and Tanjore but the whole of the South was under their influ­ence.

The Aryanization of South India was com­pleted during the period of the Pallavas. Their grants show that the Aryan structure of society had gained firm hold on the south by the sixth century. Grants to Brahmins are specifically men­tioned which show that the north Indian Dharma Sastras had acquired authority in the Pallava King­dom.

Kingship was attributed to divine origin. The kings claimed their descent from the god Brahma. It has here-dietary. Yet, on one occasion a king was elected. Most of the kings were accomplished sCholars. Mahendravaram I wrote the famous bur­lesque, Masttavilasa Prahasana. Many of the Vaishnava Alvars and Saiva Nayanars flourished during their rule.

The kings adopted high-sounding titles like Moharajahiraja, Dharma-maharajadhiraja (great king of kings ruling in accordance with the dharma), Agnistoma-vajapeya, Asvamedha yaji (he who has performed the agnishtoma-vajapeya and asvamedha sacrifices). They were assisted by min­isters. History shows that the ministerial council played a great part in the state policy in the later period.

A hierarchy of officials in provincial adminis­tration: the governor of a province was assisted by district officers, who in turn worked in collaboration with autonomous local bodies. In local ad­ministration the meetings of assemblies were fre­quent; and the assemblies were of many varieties and of many levels often special meetings were held. As the village level the assemble was the sabha which looked after almost all the matters of the village, along with endowments, irrigation, crime, maintaining census and other necessary records.

Courts at village level dealt with minor crimi­nal cases. The judicial courts of the town and dis­tricts were presided over by government officials, climaxing with the king as the supreme arbiter of justice. The sabha worked in close association with the ur an informal gathering of the entire vil­lage. Above this unit was a district council, which worked in co-ordination with the nadu or district administration. Finally, the headman of eth vil­lage was the link between the village assembly and the official administration.

Theoretically the king owned the land. The status of a village depended on the prevalent land tenure. The first variety was the village with inter-caste population where in the people paid taxes to the king. The second was the Brahmadeya vil­lage in which the entire land was donated to a single Brahmin or a group of Brahmins. A varia­tion of this village was the Agrahara grant which was an entire village settlement of Brahmins. Both these forms were exempt from royal taxes. In the Devadana village the revenue was donated to a temple, and the temple authorities in turn provided employment for the villagers in the temple when­ever possible. In the Pallava period the first two categories of villages were in vogue.

Apart from these major points relating to land there was a special category of land, the sripatti or tank land. The revenue from such a land was set apart for the maintenance of the village tank. The tank itself was built by the efforts of the entire vil­lage. All shared the water stored in the tank. Very many inscriptions of the Pallavas refer to the up­keep of tanks.

There are two points about land taxes. The land revenue varied from one-sixth to one-tenth of the produce of land. This was paid to the state. The local taxes that were collected in a village were spent for the needs of the village. As land revenue was necessarily small, the state revenue was supplemented by additional taxes on cattle, marriage-parties, potters, makers of clari­fied butter, textile manufacturers, washer-man and weavers. The major source of revenue was from land, since the revenue from mercantile activity was not fully exploited.

Regarding expenditure, most of the revenue wants for the maintenance of army. The king pre­ferred a standing army instead of feudal levies, the army primarily consisting of foot soldiers and cavalry along with a sprinkling of elephants. In­deed the Pallavas developed a navy although the mercantile activity was not great. Two dockyards were built at Mahablipuram and Nagapatnam. This pioneering effort of the Pallavas reached its climax during the days of Cholas. The navy served a double purpose. It was meant for defence and also assisted the maritime trade with south-east Asia, particularly with the three kingdoms of Kambuja (Cambodia), Champa (Annam) and Shrivijaya (Malayan peninsula and Sumatra).

The Pallavas were not only great rulers but they were also great builders. Their rock-cut and structural temples and other architectural works have a great charm of their own and they occupy a high place among the ancient monuments of In­dian. Their buildings are of three or four kinds and they show a regular evolution of the Pallava art. First kind of buildings is those which were built during the reign of Mahendra Varman (600-625 A.D.). They were excavated out of solid rocks and are characterised by cubical pillars, circular “lingams” and the existence of “Dvarapalas” at the gates. Such edifices wer erected by Mahandra Varman of Dalavanur, Pallavaram and Vallam and they represent a new style (cave style of Mahendra style) introduced in South India by that illustrious ruler (i.e., Mehendra Vrman).

The second type of buildings is those which were built by Narasimha Varman I ‘Mahamalla’ (625-645 A.D.) and the style of these buildings is known as the Mahamalla style after his title of ‘Mahamalla’. His earlier shrines built at Pudukotta and Trichinopoly (such as those of Trimurti, Varaha, Durga) are rock-cut like those of his fa­ther Mahendra Varman, but they have more orna­mental facades (or face of building) octagonal and better proportioned pillars and above all their pil­lars are supported by sitting lions, which are conspicuous by their absence in the temple of Mahendra Varmen. In his new capital Mahabalipuram he got “Five Rathas” (named af­ter the five Pandavas) excavated out of boulder­like-rocks standing on the sea-shore.

The third type of buildings is those built by Narasimha Varman II “Rajasimha” (690-720 A.D.) and the style of these buildings is known as the “Ramasimha style”. The chief examples of this style are the structural shore temple at Mahabalipuram and Kailash Temple at Kanchi. These temples are made of bricks and stone and their lofty towers rise in tiers like pyramids. An­other featuer of these shrines is that they are adorned by life-like images of Pallava kings and queens. In these temples the Pallava art is more evolved and more elaborate. The fourth and last type of buildings was erected by the last Pallava ruler, Aparajita Varman (876-895 A.D.) and the style of his buildings is known as the “Aarajita style”. Here we find a further evolution of the Pallava art. The lingams are cylindrical and the capital is more ornamental and conspicuous. An example of this style is represented by a shrine at Bahur near Pondichery.

Answer : The new power which rose into prominence after the fall of the Chalukyas of Badami in the south was that of the Rashtrakutas. Manyakhet was their capital from where they ruled for about two centuries (from 753-973 A.D.). Dantidurga, Krishna I, Govinda III, Amonghvarsha and Indra III were some of great rulers of this dynasty. They tried to exploit their position as a bridge to dominate banks, the north­ern and the southern. By the time that the Rashtrakutas came to power, communication be­tween the north and the south was well estab­lished, and therefore the political pull on the Rashtrakutas was equally strong in both direc­tions. This to a large extent prevented their estab­lishing themselves as a dominant power as they might well have done.

Dantidurga (735-755 A.D.) was the real founder of the greatness of the family. He was the sonofIndraIfromhisChalukyaqueen Bhavanaga. He took part in the battle against the Arabs near Nausari from the side of his Adhipati, Chalukya King Vikramaditya II in 736-737 A.D. The Chalukya king respected Dantidurga with the title of Prithvi Ballabaha as a token of victory over the Arabs. Dantidurga also assisted Chalukya Yuvaraj Kirtivarman in his expedition against the Pallavas of Kanchi at about 743 A.D. He also helped the Chalukya a king to control over the Shail king. Dantidurga won Nandipuri in Gujarat and ap­pointed his cousin Govind as the ruler of his re­gion. The regions of Malwa, Mahakoshal and Chattisgarh were brought under his influence. Some rulers of Kalinga were also defeated by Dantidurga. Chalukya king Vikramaditya II died in 747 A.D. and irtivarman ascended the throne. A war between Dantidurga and Kirtivarman took place in 753 A.D. somewhere at Maharashtra in which the former emerged victorious. Thus, Dantidurga had ensured a stronghold over Karnataka in south by this time.

Dantidurga died issueless and hence his uncle Krishna I (758-773 A.D.) ascended the royal throne. Krishna I defeated Shripurush of the Ganga dy­nasty of Mysore and sent his son Govind to settle Vishnu Vardhan of the Chalukya family of Vengi. The whole Hyderabad region came under the Rastrakuta kingdom after this event. Konkan was also under his control and the claim of the Chalukya ruler, Kirtivarman was finally made futile. Govind II (773-780 A.D.) had a long experi­ence of royal warfare. He was appointed the ruler of Gujarat by Dantidurga and then he was made the Yuvaraj by his father Krishna I. He had fought many wars against various powers including the Vengi king Vishnu Vardhan. He took the titles of Pratapavaloka, Vikramavaloka and Prabhutvarsha at the time of his coronation. But very soon he in­dulged in luxurious means and his brother Dhurva began to look after the kingdom.

Dhurva (780-173 A.D.) after defeating his brother in a battle became the king and took the titles of Dharavarsha, Nirupam, Kalivallabh and Shrivallabh. His first campaign was against the ruler of Gangwadi or Mysore Muttaras. His son Stambha was ultimately made the ruler of Gangwadi. According to Radhanpur copper­plate, Dhurva led an expedition against the Pallava ruler Dantivarman. But the latter settled the matter after giving elephants in good number to the Rastrakutass Dhurva was an ambitious king who also took Palas. He followed a planned policy against North India. According to the Radhanpur inscription, Dhurva caused Vatsaraj of the Pratihara dynasty to enter upon the path of mis­fortune in the centre of the Maru desert. From Vatsaraj he took away the Dharmapal’s umbrella of state, i.e., Kannauj. The Baroda inscription men­tions that Dhurva added the glory of the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers to the glorious mark of his royal emblem.

Dhurva after the victory of Kannauj under Indrayudh and Vatsaraj confronted Dharamapal and defeated him. Then he returned to his capital with a huge amount of wealth. However, at the close of his reign, the Rastrakuta power had reached its zenith. There ws no power in the coun­try to challenge the supermacy of his empire. Dhurva had four sons-Korka, Stambha, Govind and Indra. Karka died at his prime age during his father’s reign. Stamba was made the independent ruler of Gangawadi. But the most able was Govind III (793-814 A.D.) and hence he was chosen for the post of Yuvaraj by his father. After his father’s death, he ascended the throne. A war of succession was declared by his elder brother and ruler of Gangwadi, Stambha. He organised twelve neighbouring kings in a confederation against Govind III. The Ganga crown-prince, Shivmar had been in the Rastrakuta prison since the reign of Dhruva. Govind III freed Shivmar in order to take the place of Stambha. But Shivmar decided to join Stambha on the contrary. Govind III was a diplo­matic ruler who, after giving royal charges to his younger brother Indra, made an attack on Stambha. Stambha was taken in prison before he could have the support of his ally kings. Govind III treated him with sympathy and he was made the ruler of Gangwadi again.

Shivnar was imprisoned for the second time and his brother Vinayaditya attempted to continue the battle against Govind III, but in vain. Then the ruler of Nolambadi Charupower surrendered the Rastrakuta king. The Pallava king Dantivarman was also defeated and the Rastrakutas entered Kanchi as well. Like his father Dhurva, Govind III also took part in the tripartite struggle for Kannauj. The powerful Pratihara king Nagabhatta II, who was aspiring for Gujarat and Malwa, was de­feated. The Sanjan inscription mentions that Govind III carried away in battles the fair and unshakable fame of Nagabhatta. This is also sup­ported by the text of Radhanpur inscription. This happened around 802 A.D. Then came the turn of the ruler of Kannauj Chakrayudh and his regent Dharmapal of Bengal who jointly surrendered the Rastrakuta King.

In course of returning of his capital Govind III defeated the rulers of Malwa, Kosala, Vanga, Vengi, Dahal, Odraka and other places. His absence for a long time from his captial gave rise to a group of rebellious kings in which the Pallavas, the Keralas, the Pandyas and the Gangas were included. Govind III took a bold step and reached up to Kanchi. Even the king of Ceylon, in fear of his rapid victories, presented his some valuable statues. Thus in the words of the Vani Dindori inscription, Govind III was undoubtedly the ablest of the Rastrakutas and never again did the prestige of this empire rise so high. He has been described with Arjuna of the Mahabharata. The weakness of Amoghvarsha (814-878 A.D.) appeared when Ujjain was won by Pratihar King Mihir Bhoj. But, according to Bagumbara Edict, the Samanta of Amogvarsha, Dhruva II easily put to flight the very strong army of the Gurjara-Pratiharas. Indra III (914-918 A.D.) however, tried to check the forces of disruption for some time but after him there was none to check those forces and ultimately about 937 A.D. the last ruler of the Rastrakutas, Karka II or Kakka II, was defeated and killed by Talipa II, the founder of the new line of the Chalukyas of Kalyani.

Answer : With the passing of the power and influence of the Guptas and their immediate successors in northern India, the centre of interest shifts southwards against to the western Deccan and even further south to Tamil Nadu. Until the rise of Harsha in the early seventh century the political scene is confused, and there are few records to illuminate it. The large-scale displace­ment of peoples continued for some time. This was a period when petty kingdoms vied with each other to succeed to the past glory of the Guptas. In the courage of the forty-one years (606-647 A.D.) that he ruled, Harsha included Punjab, Kashmir, Nepal and Valabhi but he was unable to extend his power into the Deccan or southern India. In fact he suffered his one major defeat at the hands of a Deccan king, Pulakeshin II.

The political history of the Deccan and further south evolved a pattern based on the geo-political influences of the region. It resulted from the con­flict of two geographical regions, the western Deccan and Tamil Nadu. For three hundred years after the mid sixth century three major kingdoms were involved in conflict. These were the Chalukyas of Badami, the Pallavas of Kanchipuram, and the Pandyas of Madurai.

The Chalukyas began with a base in northern Mysore at Vatapi or Badami and the adjacent Aihole, from where they moved northwards and annexed the former kingdom of the Vakatakas, which was centered around Nasik and the Upper Godavari. Ikshvaku rule in the deltas of the Krishna and the Godavari ended with its conquest by the Pallavas. The latter were also responsible for the overthrow of the Kadamba rulers and the annexation of their kingdom, which lay to the south of the Chalukya kingdom.

The most significant events of the period took place south of the Vindhyas and in Spheres other than the purely political. A synthesis of the domi­nant cultural strains of the time was to emerge-the assimilation of the Aryan pattern with Dravidian culture. The institutions of South India were more firmly established at this time and were to main­tain a remarkable continuity. The Pallava period in south India saw the culmination of what had been a gradual process of assimilating Aryan in­stitutions, greater assimilation of Aryan ideas be­ing limited to the upper strata of society. Amongst the rest there was a reaction in which the indig­enous culture sought to assert itself.

The Pallava period, therefore, also saw the emergence of what might be broadly described as the Tamil personality, which was to contribute substantially to the development of Indian civili­zation. The process of assimilation and reaction can be seen in various spheres: for instance, the early inscriptions are in Prakrit and Sanskrit, but soon Tamil is introduced until finally the main corpus of inscriptions is in Tamil and Sanskrit. The kingdoms of the western Deccan maintained their historical role of acting as the bridge between north and south and facilitating the transmission of ideas from one area to the other. But this was not a passive role, as is clear from the example of architectural history in this period, where the Deccan style provided new forms both for the northern and for the Dravidian styles.

The seesawing of dynasties was partly due to the fact that they were all fairly equally balanced in political and military strength. There was an absence of a highly centralized governmental sys­tem and corresponding local autonomy at levels of village and district administration without too much interference from the capital. This autonomy was preserved to a far greater degree in Tamil Nadu, where the tradition was actively maintained for many centuries, than in western India. The use of term feudatory in this context applies almost exclusively to political vassalage, the economic contract of feudal tenure and obligations not be­ing identical in every case. The feudal system with feudatories in the usual sense of the term was a later development.

Further north in the Deccan there was less autonomy in administrative institutions. In the Chalukya domains, government officers were more involved in routine administration, even at the village level, than in the system prevalent further south. Village assemblies did function but under the paternalistic eye of the official. The role of the headman as the leader of the village was also of a more formal nature. From the eighth century on­wards some of the Deccan rulers adopted the deci­mal system of administrative division, where groups of ten villages or multiples of ten were formed into districts. Grouping in multiples of twelve was also known but was not in frequent use as yet.

For the Pallavas their navy had other purposes as well as fighting. It assisted in the maritime trade with south-east Asia, where by now there were three major kingdoms: Kambuja (Cambodia), Champa (Annam), and Shrivijaya (the southern Malay peninsula and Sumatra), which were in close contact with India, with south Indian mer­chants in particular traveling out in search of trade. On the west coast, the initiative in the trade with the Occident was gradually passing into he hands of the foreign traders settled along the coast, mainly the Arabs. Indian traders were becoming suppli­ers of goods rather than carriers of goods to for­eign countries, and communication with the west became indirect, via the Arabs, and limited to trade alone. With south-east Asia, however, the conti­nuity of cultural contacts increased, with Pallava architectural styles and the Tamil script exten­sively used amongst the local royalty. Tamil-nadu was to make a major contribution to the evolution of ideas and forms in this region with the cultural pattern, which it exported to south-east Asia.

The above study is sufficient to prove that the strength and vigour of Indian history during c. A.D. 500-750 lay in the South of the Vindhyas.

Answer : Arabs in India: The Arabs, no doubt, con­quered Sind but this conquest did not prove per­manent. Neither they could retain their hold on Sind for long nor could they take any practical step towards the permanent conquest of India. But still the Arabs conquest of Sind left some effects. By conquering Sind the Arab exposed the weak­ness of India to the world and thus India became a prey to the foreign invaders one after the other. The failure of the Arabs in Sind brought another fact of great importance before the foreigners i.e., it was very difficult to conquer India while begin­ning from the Sind Side. Sind was a wrong quar­ter to proceed with the task of the conquest of In­dia. The Arabs themselves wrote about Sind that “Water is scarce, the fruits are poor and the rob­bers are bold. If a few troops are sent they will be slain, if many, they will starve.”

The Arabs were Muslims in their faith and as a result of their conquest of Sind they won some followers for their faith. In a way the Arab con­quest of Sind led to the spread of Islam. As a result of this conquest the trade and commerce of India with the western countries flourished to some ex­tent. In the cultural field the Indians taught a good deal to their Arab masters. According to one historian, “A great many of the elements of Ara­bian culture, which afterwards had such a mar­velous effect upon the European civilizations, were borrowed from India.” India, then, stood on a much higher intellectual plane and the Arab Cholars sat at the feet of Buddhist monks and Brahman pandits to learn philosophy, astronomy, math­ematics, medicine, chemistry and other subjects of study.