A
couple of years ago, after visiting 'Naneghat' cave located near a
pass in the 'Western Ghat mountain range' on west coast of India, I
had taken upon myself a task of visiting places that still carried
traces in some form or other, of the ancient Satvahana empire that
ruled the Deccan plateau for about 400 years beginning somewhere
before 200 BCE and up to at least 200 CE.
In my
quest, most of the places I visited, were Buddhist rock cut temples
excavated along the mountain faces of the 'Western Ghat mountain
ranges.' I have narrated my journeys to these places in great
details in my book
'Traces of an Empire'
and interested readers would be able to read this book, available on
the net. All these places except Naneghat cave, were thriving
Buddhist monasteries once, with hundreds or even thousands of monks
living there. It would be obvious to any one that such large human
settlements, even if they are strictly religious, can not run unless
there is substantial monetary support from some source or other.
The
Buddhist monks in those days ( as are even today) were supposed to
follow strict discipline and code of conduct. This code of conduct
was stipulated in an ancient text (still being followed at least in
letter) known as 'Vinaya.' This code of conduct stipulates firstly
that for monks, nuns and preachers of law any possession of
property is strictly forbidden. They were not allowed even a contact
with gold, silver, jewels and such precious commodities. Secondly
they were supposed to eat food that was given to them after begging
and they had to wear robes stitched by themselves from discarded
rags.
A
question
therefore
naturally comes to mind that with these kind of stipulations, how
could monasteries located on remote mountain slopes and housing
hundreds or even thousands of monks could survive, particularly in
the monsoon months when any contact with outside world was almost
impossible. One eminent scholar of yesteryear, Late Dr. D.D.Kosambi
has tried to give an explanation of this difficulty. He says and I
quote:
“ The
caves were· located where they are, because the trade-routes passed
by, and the larger complexes were invariably near the junctions of
such routes..... The main problem at the time the caves were first
carved out of the rock was to find the routes up the Western Ghat
mountain range to the Deccan plateau. ”
Thus
we can say with certainty that all major Budddhist rock cut temples
such as those at Karle'n, Bhaje, Shelarwadi, Bedse etc. were located
near the junctions of major trade routes and a vast number of small
caves were dug near minor trade routes. This raises another question
as to with whom the trade was being carried? Luckily records from
Gracco-Roman accounts such as those written by the Pariplus
and
Ptolemy clearly indicate that the trade was carried with Greece as
well as Rome and the goods arrived at the trade ports that lay on the
west coast of India. These trade posts were mostly up the creeks and
estuaries of rivers to the extent navigation permitted. Ports which
lay in the vicinity of these Buddhist caves in the Western Ghat
mountain ranges can be listed as Broach (Bhadoch) Sopara (Nala
Sopara), Kalyan and Choul.
Coming
back to the problem of sustenance of the Buddhist monks living at
these Monasteries, Late Dr. D.D.Kosambi, gives the example of Chinese
monasteries which were developed more or less on the lines of Indian
establishments. He says that:
“ The
documentary evidence exists at the other end of the Buddhist world,
in Chinese records and translations particularly from
cave-monasteries such as Tun Huan and Yuen Kang (Ta-tung) of the ways
in which Vinaya rules were modified by the cave monasteries without
deviating from the letters.
Thus
cave monasteries in India avoided Contact with gold, silver. Jewels
and such precious commodities by using an intermediary servant called
as “Upasaka” for the manipulation, or in extreme cases by
insulation with a piece of cloth! These two Orders further deposited
the bulk of' the donated wealth with the monastery treasurer, who not
only handled the gifts, permissibly used the money for repairs to the
dwellings, but directly contravened the original rules by using the
funds also for the purchase of necessities (such as food) that should
have been obtained by begging, and for the robes that should have
been pieced together from discarded rags. ”
It
should be now clear that the Buddhist monasteries in the Western Ghat
Mountain ranges largely depended, besides financial help received
from the King, on the donations and endowments received from the
wealthy in the society. This fact can be confirmed from the large
number of inscriptions that liter all the cave temples.
Regarding
assistance from the state or the king, it was mostly provided by
awarding or assigning a village to the monastery. No taxes were
collected from that village by the state and the entire yield from
that village was collected by the monastery. Thus we have Usavdatta,
who was son-in law of Satrap Nahapana, donating village of Karajaka
for the sustenance of the monks at Karle'n Monastery and later when
he was defeated by the great king Goutamiputra Satakarni, the new
ruler immediately confirmed the endowment. Both these deeds of
endowment can be still seen in inscriptions numbered 13 and 19 at the
Rock Cut temple at Karle'n.
However,
what I am more interested here are the individual donations by
wealthy citizens to the monastery. In the rock cut temples at Karle'n,
there are at least 37 inscriptions and most of them speak about grant of
some money to the monastery. But what is really surprising is the
fact that in at least 17 of the 37 inscriptions, name of a place
called “DHENUKAKATA” appears, saying that the donors were from
this place. In none of the other rock cut temples spread all over
Western Ghat Mountains, this name appears anywhere except at two
caves: one in Shelarwadi and the other in Kanheri (near Mumbai.) It
is obvious that people from Dhenukakata loved the Karle'n Monastery
much more than the others. But why did they liked only this
monastery? And neglected all others.
Secondly,
the most important riddle perhaps is the location of this mysterious
place Dhenukakata, where so many wealthy lived at the beginning of
our era.
Where
the hell was this place, Dhenukakata?
(To
be continued)
18th
January 2014
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