3. The Historical Problem

Many scholars have dealt with the possible origins of the Śākadvīpīya Brāhmaṇas and have tried to account historically for their presence on Indian soil.^[1] We have already discussed the scarcity of the sources on them and the ahistorical nature of Indian texts. In fact, there is no real historical or historiographical tradition in India, but the narratives, myths and events continuously intermingle. External sources, like epigraphy or other outsider accounts of the Śākadvīpīyas, are scarce. Moreover, scholars have tried to advance many theories about their migratory waves and the relationship of different groups with Iranian and Indian culture. I will try to present a sort of timetable of the evidence and conjectures about the Śākadvīpīyas’ history.

• Achaemenid times: We have the evidence of contact between the Achaemenid Empire and India.^[2] SRIVASTAVA (1972: 246) affirms that some peculiar elements (like the iconography of the sun god or references in Purāṇic texts) takes time to become popular. The same is valid for mentions in other authors’ works. Since we have the first mention of them in the very first centuries A.D., we must presume that they had come to India earlier, during Achaemenid times (sixth to fourth centuries B.C.). Another proof of contact with the Achaemenids may be embedded in the very name of the Maga Brāhmaṇas: ‘Maga’ may be related to the Old Persian magu-, even though the shift from -a- to -u- is not clear. SCHEFTELOWITZ (1933: 294) had already posited the same theory: in his opinion, a first migratory wave came to India in Achaemenid times, while others settled in the Drangiana lands (called Sakastāna)^[3] and reached Indian soil in the first centuries A.D.

• Śakas and Kuṣāṇas:^[4] The most widespread idea is that at least the Magas^[5] arrived in India with the Śaka tribes in the first century A.D. Actually, according to the Purāṇas, they came from Śāka-dvīpa, i.e. ‘Śaka land’ (cf. ch. 2.4), and it is plausible to consider an etymology connected with the Śaka people. Moreover, the syncretistic cult of the Śakas, and later of the Kuṣāṇas, around the second century has many features in common with the Śākadvīpīya cult. The above-mentioned Kuṣāṇa coinage with the figure of Mihira is only one of the many examples we can cite. All the foreign populations that reached North India in the first centuries A.D. deeply influenced northern culture.

In the first centuries A.D.., North India flourished, and amid such a scenario, ‘migrating groups tend to claim high status or to invent links with high status groups where migration involves assimilation with existing populations.’^[6] In fact, foreign rulers, who were actually mlecchas, were able to carry out changes in the political and religious spheres. Those foreign invaders married into local families, promoted the use of Sanskrit and integrated perfectly into Indian society. This change in the ruling class naturally went hand in hand with a change in the people’s rules and customs. This is probably the reason for the transformation of many aspects of the northern Indian society during the first centuries A.D.

• In the second century A.D., there is the first mention of the Maga Brāhmaṇas, in Ptolemy’s Geography (123, 19): ‘74. In like manner the parts under Mount Bêttigô are occupied by the Brahmanoi Magoi as far as the Batai with this city [...].’^[7] This is the first testimony of their existence and settlement by external authors. Furthermore, Ptolemy’s description seems fairly reliable for North India, and finds confirmation in the Purāṇas (at least in the sections set at the Candrabhāgā river).^[8]

• In the first centuries A.D., the Abhidharma literature deals with the Magas’ incestuous customs (cf. paragraph 4.2).

• Although we cannot date the Mahābhārata and the Purāṇic materials with precision—because they essentially belong to an oral tradition that took its written form over centuries—it is not easy to establish a chronology for their various references to the Magas, the Bhojakas etc. For the Mahābhārata, scholars generally agree on a period of composition between the third century B.C. and the third A.D.; the Purāṇas definitely evince a more extended time frame. We have already discussed the problem of dating the Purāṇic material; in general, it is believed that the central core of this literature was established between the third and fifth centuries A.D. (cf. HAZRA 1958: passim). Even the relatively recent Bhaviṣya-purāṇa contains one section, the Brāhma-parvan, which probably dates to the sixth century A.D. (ibid.). We have seen that other Purāṇas sometimes mention the names of the classes of Śākadvīpa, while in others they simply narrate the legend without mentioning these names (or other names). According to SRIVASTAVA (1996: 45), the ‘[…] Skanda Purāṇa testifies that these Magas were brought from the Śākdvīpa twice, once in connection with the Sāmba-legend and the next time with the sacrifice of Brahmā in Bodh Gaya. It is also stated that they migrated to Magadha (Patna region of India) at the invitation of king Vasu.’

The Bṛhaddharma Purāṇa (3.13.52) tells of a devala(ka) who was brought from Śākadvīpa by Garuḍa and called śākadvīpī vipra (brāhmaṇa).^[9] This is very interesting in light of the accusation of the Śākdvīpīyas being devalakas for taking care of the sun god’s property. Even nowadays, they are not always considered Brāhmaṇas as having an equal status as other Brāhmaṇas (cf. chapter 5.1).

• In the fifth century A.D., the sovereign Narasiṃhagupta Bālāditya ruled over Magadha. It is written in the Deo-Baraṇārk inscription (cf. 4.1) that this king granted some land to the Bhojakas.

• During the fifth century, other foreigners arrived in India, namely the Hūṇas. By the time they reached North India, the population was already accustomed to mleccha rulers. They adopted Sanskrit as the official language and transformed the Gangetic plain into a region of different religious streams and new cults as well.

The Brāhmaṇical class also had to update their ritual practices and cultural habits under the new ruling class. During this period, we witness a monotheistic turn in Brāhmaṇical religion, and many different branches of Hinduism many new branches of Hinduism emerged amid this trend.^[10] This kind of open and variegated religious (and social!) reality probably attracted foreign rulers.^[11]

• During the Gupta period (ca. third to sixth century A.D.), ‘[…] the Saura-cult which was popularised by the priests like the Magas and the Bhojakas as well, met with wonderful success and the whole region of India got studded with beautiful sun-icons and temples. In fact the period falling in between the Gupta age and the 13th Century A.D. can reasonably be described as the classical age of Sun-worship in India’ (PANDEY 1971: 189). Furthermore, it is during Gupta age that the iconography of the sun god assumed its peculiar features in North India (cf. 4.3).

• The Hūṇas, as we discussed before, allowed North India to harbor a variety of religious streams. These rulers are remembered for having been especially devoted to the sun god. In the first half of the sixth century, there ruled the previously mentioned Hūṇa king Mihirakula, who built a temple consecrated to Mihireśvara (cf. 2.3).

• In the sixth century A.D., we also find the important figure of Varāhamihira. We have discussed the information on the Magas contained in his Pañcasiddhāntikā and Bṛhatsaṃhitā. BANERJEA (1974: 143) recalls that in the Bṛhatsaṃhitā (II, 13, on Saṃvatsarasūtra), Varāhamihira alludes to the fact that the Bhojakas have this name because they prepare the food for offerings.

• Bhāvaviveka mentioned the Magas and their customs in the seventh century (cf. 4.2), equating them with the Persians.

• In the seventh century, we have also the Sūryaśataka by Mayūra, who celebrates the sun god and compares himself, who had contracted leprosy, with Sāmba.

• Also in the seventh century, we have Bāṇabhaṭṭa’s Harṣacarita, in which it is stated that Tāraka, the astrologer at king Prabhākaravardhana’s court (second half of the seventh century) was a Bhojaka.^[12] Based on the fact that the Bhojakas were never mentioned before the sixth century, HUMBACH (1969; 1978: passim) believes they may have reached India around the sixth century, in a subsequent migratory wave.

According to HAZRA (1958: 98), another migratory wave, this time of fireworshipping Zoroastrian people, arrived in India around the seventh century, after the Islamic conquest of the Iranian lands. These people may have added the Zoroastrian ritual elements to the Bhaviṣya-purāṇa (ibid.).

• Further testimony from the seventh century comes from the Chinese pilgrim Xuánzàng, who states that Multān is known as Sāmbapura, and that people there celebrate a festival called Sāmbapurayātrā (cf. 2.1)

• The Sāmbapañcāśikā was probably composed in the eighth century A.D. (its terminus ante quem is the appearance of Kṣemarāja’s commentary in the eleventh century). The text exhibits a tendency to identify the sun god with Śiva, even though the latter is never explicitly mentioned in the poem (cf. 2.1).

• Jīvagupta II’s inscription (cf. 4.1), which also dates back to the eighth century, confirms a grant of land to the Bhojakas. In fact, this is the last mention of the Bhojakas in an inscription or in other authors’ works. Previously we discussed the supposition that Bhojakas were not mentioned from that moment on because they lost their status (cf. 4.1). HUMBACH (1978: 245) states, ‘In the BhP. the term Bhojaka alternates with Maga, whereas in the Sāmba-purāṇa it is usually replaced by Yājaka, “sacrificer”. Hence one may infer that the Bhojakas considered themselves Magas but were not recognized by the latter.’ He indeed endorses HAZRA’s theory (1952: 109 f.; 1958: 96) that the Bhojakas were held in high esteem until the eighth to ninth centuries, then progressively lost their status due to their owning of property and the accusation of their being devalakas. The Bhaviṣya-purāṇa contains a defense in support of the Bhojakas’ status. In parvan I. 117, 5b it is directly stated that they are different from the devalaka priests. In the Bhaviṣyapurāṇa (I. 146, 1–11), the story of the ṛṣis Nārada and Parvata is narrated. They go to the celestial dwelling of the Bhojaka Ādityakarman to prove that Bhojakas’ food is edible and that their hospitality must be accepted. Only corrupt Bhojakas must be condemned. These statements might indeed suggest a real social accusation and a lowering of the Bhojakas’ status.

On this point, THAPAR (1984: 135 f.) writes:

The process of the assimilation of the Maga brāhmaṇs, who practised cults deeply influenced by sun-worship, is characteristic of the acquiring of brāhmaṇa status by rather similar groups. So low was their position within the brāhmaṇ hierarchy that the brāhmaṇs are contemptuously described as associated with the mlecchavaṃśa, although in the Bhaviṣya Purāṇa they acquire respectability. It could be argued that every tribe or occupational group has its own priests to minister to its religious needs, and as the tribe or the group moved up in the social scale and improved its ritual status, the priests likewise moved into and up in the brāhmaṇ hierarchy. […] A religious movement could also become a mechanism for social mobility.

Furthermore, in the ninth/tenth century, the Bhojakas were also mentioned in the Manubhāṣya^[13] by Medhātithi; the author listed ‘all those outside [the Veda]’ (SANDERSON 2015: 160). Like the Jainas, the Buddhists, and other Hindū communities (especially Tantric ones), the Bhojakas ‘do not claim that their religious practices derive […] from the […] Veda; and indeed their teachings contain doctrines that directly contradict it’ (ibid.)^[14]. This is particularly meaningful in relation to different issues: first, we have a break with the Maga Brāhmaṇas ‘versed in the Vedas’ (cf. the abovementioned Sāmba-purāṇa 26, 46a/Bh I. 139, 90a; Sāmba-purāṇa 24, 7/Bhaviṣya-purāṇa I. 127, 8; Sāmvavijaya, adhyāya 13; even contemporary communities rely on the Vedas). Moreover, Medhātithi associated the Bhojakas with the Tantric groups like the followers of the Pañcarātra. We discussed the importance of Tantric elements in the Saura tradition, and it is possible that the Bhojakas were considered expert in the matters of Tantric sun worship. The fact that they were placed outside Vedic orthodoxy may be due to their lower social status, their alleged association with devalakas and their exclusion from the brāhmaṇa class.

• In ninth century, we have the Ghaṭīyāḷā inscription of Kakkura, in which the name of a Maga is mentioned (cf. 4.1).

• During the tenth century, al-Bīrūnī wrote his account on India, and stated: ‘[…] There are some Magians up to the present time in India, where they are called Maga’ (SACHAU 1983: I, 21; it is also quoted in BRONKHORST 2015: 471).

• In the twelfth century, we find Gaṅgādhara’s inscription in Govindpur, in which many particulars of Sāmba’s legend are cited (cf. 4.1).

• Koṇārka’s sun temple was built in the thirteenth century. It is clearly one of the most majestic examples of Tantric art. In fact, during the medieval period, even the sun cult spread in its Tantric version (PANDEY 1971: 189; on Tantric sun cult, cf. SRIVASTAVA 1996: 67-82).

• Finally, we cannot date the later poems Magavyakti, Sāmvavijaya and Khalavaktracapeṭika with precision. According to its declaration of authorship, the Magvyakti can at least be traced to court of Akbar in the sixteenth century (cf. 3.1). Since the other two texts seem to be the product of the same environment, because they deal with very similar topics, they may be roughly contemporaneous with the Magavyakti. As for the Khalavaktracapeṭikā, the self-avowed author places himself in Vārāṇasī. In the same manuscript, the text is followed by a list of the names of the Magavyakti; for this reason, we may presume that it is almost contemporary, or maybe slightly later than the other one.

This chronology highlights the constant presence of the Śākadvīpīya Brāhmaṇas in northern India. Even though it is not possible to trace a real history of this group and the sources are too scarce to admit certainties, it is undeniable that Śākadvīpīyas were indeed influential at a social level and probably at court, too. In fact, the presence of foreign rulers must have fostered this peculiar sun cult. Moreover, the people from Śākadvīpa have all the syncretistic features that characterized the cultures of the populations that settled in between India and Iran.

Footnotes and references:

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[1]:

A brief discussion of some historical problems related to the Śākadvīpīyas is contained in PALLADINO 20??a.

[2]:

Cf. CHATTOPADHYAYA 1950.

[3]:

Cf. GNOLI 1967; DAFFINÀ 1967; SCHOFF 1976.

[4]:

For more information on these populations, cf. for example SCHEFTELOWITZ 1933; JUNGE 1939; DIKSHIT 1952 and 1953; EMMERICK 1968; CHAKRABERTI 1981; BAILEY 1985; MUKHERJEE 1988 and 2004; GRENET 2015.

[5]:

Cf. STIETENCRON 1966: passim; the scholar postulates that the Magas did not have Zoroastrian origins, because in the texts they are presented as Brāhmaṇas versed in the Vedas. According to him, the Bhojakas, who reached India in a second wave, were probably real Zoroastrian priests.

[6]:

THAPAR 2000: 729.

[7]:

MCCRINDLE 1974: 167.

[8]:

KOSAMBI 1964: 36.

[9]:

BRONKHORST 2007: 12.

[10]:

THAPAR (2000: 971 f.) states, ‘The evolution of Hinduism is not a linear progression from a founder through an organizational system, with sects branching off. It is rather the mosaic of distinct cults, deities, sects and ideas and the adjusting, juxtaposing or distancing of these to existing ones, the placement drawing not only on belief and ideas but also on the socioeconomic reality.’

[11]:

Idem. 1984: 177.

[12]:

HUMBACH 1978: 245.

[13]:

Erudite commentary on the Manusmṛti (cf. SANDERSON 2015: 159).

[14]:

SANDERSON’s translation is based on the Manubhāṣya contained in the Gangānātha Jhā. Bibliotheca Indica edition (256. 3 vols, Allahabad, 1932–1939) of the Manusmṛti, vol. 1, p. 57, ll. 5–6.