The Gupta Empire: Administration, economy, society and religion

Faxian left China in 399 CE because he found the Chinese copies of the Vinaya, the code of monastic discipline, incomplete. He travelled to India to obtain full texts, copied them at Pataliputra and elsewhere, and returned by sea via Sri Lanka. He was a private pilgrim, not an envoy, which is why his account says so little about the reigning king, Chandragupta II.

Garuda, the eagle mount of Vishnu, was the Gupta royal emblem. It crowns the standard (garudadhvaja) on many gold coins and appears on royal seals, and the Prayaga prashasti speaks of charters bearing the Garuda seal (garutmadanka). The emblem fits the Gupta kings' description of themselves as paramabhagavata, supreme devotees of Vishnu.

The Narada Smriti, assigned broadly to the Gupta period, is the most systematic of the law books on procedure. It lists fifteen kinds of slaves (such as those born in the house, bought, received as a gift, inherited, or enslaved for debt) and explains how they could be released. The older Manusmriti gives only seven kinds, and the Arthashastra, though it regulates slavery, does not give this fifteen-fold list.

R.S. Sharma notes that women, like shudras, were allowed to listen to the epics and the Puranas and were advised to worship Krishna. The smritis of the period recognise stridhana, the jewellery, clothes and gifts a woman received from her family and husband, as her property, though her wider rights in property remained limited. Women were not given access to Vedic study; this was a period of growing dependence of women on men, and the first inscriptional evidence of sati also belongs to its end.

The prathama-kayastha appears in the Damodarpur plates as one of the four representatives assisting the district head. R.S. Sharma links the rise of the kayasthas as a community of scribes to the growth of land grants, land sales and record-keeping, which needed people who could draft and keep documents; by early medieval times they formed a caste. The Rigveda knows nothing of kayasthas, and the classical scheme has only four varnas.

R.S. Sharma finds that the position of shudras improved somewhat in the Gupta period. They were now permitted to listen to the epics and the Puranas, which were themselves being given their final form; they could worship a new god called Krishna; and they were allowed to perform certain domestic rites, which naturally meant fees for the priests. From about the seventh century shudras are described mainly as agriculturists. At the same time, untouchability, especially against the chandalas, grew sharper.

The Sanchi inscription of Gupta year 93 (c. 412 CE) records that Amrakardava, an officer who had won fame in Chandragupta II's wars, gave money (dinaras) and a village to the monastery at Kakanadabota (Sanchi). This shows that a Vaishnava court tolerated, and its officers patronised, Buddhism. The Gupta rulers' Vaishnava faith is seen in the legend paramabhagavata on their coins. No Gupta order forbids gifts to Buddhist or Jaina bodies; Jaina images were also set up in Gupta times.

R.S. Sharma and Upinder Singh describe the Gupta age as the time when image worship in temples became central to Brahmanical religion, when the Puranas were compiled or recast, and when the theory of the avataras of Vishnu took shape. But Vedic ritual did not vanish: Samudragupta and Kumaragupta I performed the ashvamedha, as their ashvamedha- type gold coins show, and the Vakatakas performed several Vedic sacrifices. So option (d) is the one that is NOT a feature.

Option (a) is correct. Vishti was forced, unpaid labour that the king, or the holder of a land grant, could demand from villagers. It was treated as a tax paid in labour instead of money or crops, and therefore as a source of income for the state. Option (b) is wrong because Gupta-period inscriptions from central India and the Valabhi grants in Kathiawar mention vishti. Option (c) is wrong because there is no record of weekly wages; by definition it was unpaid. Option (d) is wrong because no source says the eldest son was sent.

Notice the related trend of land grants (agrahara) to Brahmins and temples, which often passed on the right to vishti. Historians link this to the rise of Indian feudalism, an idea argued by R.S. Sharma.

Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.

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