Row 1 — Top
Jyotirao Phule
Narayana Guru
Sant Ravidas
Rettamalai Srinivasan
Row 2 — Middle
Kanshi Ram
Periyar E. V. Ramasamy
Ayyankali
Jogendranath Mandal
Row 3
Savitribai Phule
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
Annabhau Sathe
“I want love, intimacy, sex, someone to laugh with at night… but I also see that wanting it is craving (taṇhā), craving is attachment, attachment is suffering, and everything ends anyway. So should I just kill the wish and run to the forest as a monk?”
His answer was never a simple “Yes, renounce everything” or “No, go get married.”
He gave a Middle Path that works whether you ever wear robes or not.
The core teaching he repeated (Majjhima Nikāya 13, etc.):
“Craving for companionship is natural, not evil.
The suffering is not the wish itself, it is the three distortions you add on top of the wish:
If you remove those three distortions, the wish for companionship does not disappear, but it stops torturing you.
It becomes like the wish for food: you feel hunger, you eat when food is available, you enjoy the meal, you don’t cry when the plate is empty, and you don’t think the rice completed yourself.
Buddha’s practical solution he actually taught lay people who wanted love without chains
See the craving clearly, without guilt
When the ache for touch or conversation arises, label it gently:
“Craving for companionship… feeling… not I, not my self.”
Do not suppress it, do not feed it with fantasy. Just see it rise and fall like any other feeling.
After some months of this, the ache still comes, but it no longer feels like life-or-death.
Purify the kind of companionship you seek
Buddha told lay people:
“Choose friends and lovers who have five qualities: faith/morality, generosity, learning, energy, wisdom (sīla, cāga, suta, viriya, paññā).”
When you spend time with people who themselves are working on the path, the relationship naturally supports awakening instead of dragging you into more delusion.
Enter relationships with the Four Brahmavihāras as the foundation
Loving-kindness (mettā): “May you be happy.”
Compassion (karuṇā): “May you be free from pain.”
Appreciative joy (muditā): “I rejoice in your happiness even if I’m not the cause.”
Equanimity (upekkhā): “I hold you in my heart, but I do not demand that you stay or behave in a certain way.”
If these four are stronger than possessiveness, the relationship becomes a field of practice instead of a chain.
Hold impermanence as your friend, not your enemy
Before you sleep with someone, before you say “I love you,” silently recall:
“This body will age, this feeling will change, one day we will be separated by death. Knowing this, I still choose to love wholeheartedly right now.”
That single recollection, done honestly, turns clinging into offering.
Lay people who did this reported to the Buddha that their love became deeper and less painful, not colder.
This is the most frequently quoted line from Babasaheb's speech, which he delivered at a public meeting during his last visit to Agra. This speech is remembered for its message to the different collectives of society—featuring a sharp critique of the educated class, concern for landless laborers, and a clear indication of his impending refuge in Buddhism (which took place on October 14, 1956). After the meeting, he went to Chakki Pat, where he installed a Buddha statue, thereby founding the Purvodaya Buddha Vihar.
The original speech in Hindi is regarded by many Ambedkarites as a guideline for the future direction of the movement, emphasizing continued struggle beyond political rights, organizational integrity, economic issues (especially land), social service by the educated, and the path of Buddhism.
Some of the excerpts from the English version of the speech (translated by S.R. Darapuri and earlier made available via Daya Shankar of Agra) are attached above.
At a time when women and oppressed communities were denied education, they dared to challenge the social order and opened schools for those who had been deliberately kept away from learning.
Savitribai Phule walked through humiliation and resistance every day, yet never stopped teaching.
Jyotiba stood beside her and fought against the injustice that denied people the right to learn.
Their legacy reminds us that a true teacher does not merely teach from books—they challenge ignorance, injustice, and inequality.
This Teachers’ Day, let us remember the Phules, who made education a weapon of liberation and a path toward equality.
Pic credit : @bakeryprasad
In many contemporary discussions, a small number of passages, particularly the story of the Eight Garudhammas, are used to claim that the Buddha regarded women as spiritually inferior, that he was reluctant to establish the Bhikkhunī Sangha, and that the ordination of women shortens the lifespan of the true Dhamma. These interpretations are then treated as settled fact.
When we place these passages beside the broader early texts and apply the Buddha’s own criteria for testing authenticity, a very different picture emerges. The issue is not whether the Garudhammas narrative exists in the tradition; it does. The issue is whether that narrative can stand as the decisive or complete representation of the Buddha’s teaching when measured against the standards he himself laid down.
1. The Buddha’s Own Method of Testing Claims
The Buddha did not ask his followers to accept every story or rule uncritically. In the Mahāpadesa Sutta (AN 4.180) he gave the Four Great References:
If someone claims “this was said by the Blessed One” or by senior disciples, one should neither accept nor reject it outright. Instead, the words should be carefully compared with the Suttas and the Vinaya. If they are not in accordance with them, they should be set aside.
He also gave Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī eight principles for recognizing authentic Dhamma (AN 8.53): teachings that lead to dispassion, to being unfettered, to shedding, to fewness of wishes, to contentment, to seclusion, to the arousing of energy, and to being easy to support. The opposites indicate what is not Dhamma.
The same emphasis on personal verification appears clearly in the Mahātaṇhāsaṅkhaya Sutta (MN 38). There the Buddha questions the monk Sāti and then turns to the other monks:
“The Teacher is respected by us. We speak as we do out of respect for the Teacher… Do you speak only of what you have known, seen, and understood for yourselves?”
“Yes, venerable sir.”
This exchange shows that even respect for the Teacher is not enough. What matters is what one has known, seen, and understood for oneself. These instructions comparison with the wider corpus and personal realization form the proper method. Any account, including the Garudhammas story, must be tested by them.
2. The Garudhammas Narrative and Its Tensions
The story of Mahāpajāpatī requesting ordination and the Buddha granting it only after she accepted eight heavy rules appears in the Cullavagga of the Vinaya and in a parallel form in AN 8.51. In this account the Buddha appears hesitant, and the rules establish a permanent hierarchical subordination of nuns to monks.
Several observations arise when this narrative is examined carefully:
The eight Garudhammas do not appear as a formal set in the Bhikkhu or Bhikkhunī Pātimokkha.
Of the eight, several have parallel rules in the Pātimokkha, but those rules carry entirely different origin stories.
In some other early Vinaya traditions the story is placed at the very end of the text, which has led scholars to note the possibility of later incorporation.
The narrative sits uneasily beside the many discourses in which the Buddha affirms women’s capacity for the highest attainments.
None of this requires us to reject the Vinaya wholesale. It does, however, require us to apply the Mahāpadesa standard rather than treat one account as automatically decisive.
3. The Four Assemblies as Essential to the Dispensation
The early discourses repeatedly present the presence of competent nuns as a necessary condition for the completeness and longevity of the Sasana:
In the Pasādika Sutta (DN 29) the Buddha states that the spiritual path will not decline so long as the four assemblies, bhikkhus, bhikkhunīs, laymen, and laywomen, remain accomplished, learned, and well-established.
The Mahāvaccha Sutta (MN 73) and related passages make the same point: without the four assemblies who are trained and capable, the holy life would be incomplete.
In the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta (DN 16) the Buddha tells Māra that he will not attain final Nibbāna until he has monks, nuns, male and female lay disciples who are wise, disciplined, confident, and able to refute opposing views and teach the Dhamma. The existence of capable bhikkhunīs is listed among the conditions that must be fulfilled before the dispensation is complete.
These passages directly contradict the idea that the ordination of women is itself a cause of decline.
When the early discourses speak of the decline or disappearance of the true Dhamma, they point to specific failures of practice and transmission:
People no longer properly learn, memorize, and recite the teachings with correct understanding (AN 5.154 and related suttas).
Counterfeit Dhamma arises and is not distinguished from the genuine (AN 1.130–140 series).
The foundations of mindfulness, investigation, and ethical conduct are neglected.
The presence of women in the Sangha is never listed among these causes. On the contrary, the Buddha repeatedly praises individual nuns for their wisdom, meditative mastery, and ability to teach.
Textual and Historical Issues in the Garudhammas Narrative
A closer examination of the Vinaya texts and comparative sources reveals several internal difficulties with the Garudhammas story as it is commonly understood.
Most of the rules that later became known as the Eight Garudhammas have their origin stories in the Bhikkhunī Vibhaṅga (The section of the Vinaya that explains the rules and their origin stories), where they appear to have developed after the Bhikkhunī order had already been established. This is consistent with the Buddha’s usual approach of laying down a rule only when a specific problem arose.
In the Mahāvagga, these rules are associated with serious saṅghādisesa (A serious class of offence requiring formal community proceedings) rather than ordinary pācittiyas (A lesser offence requiring confession). Some textual evidence suggests they may originally have applied to bhikkhus and were later extended.
The eight rules do not form part of the higher ordination procedure (upasampadā) for bhikkhunīs as described in the Pali Vinaya. This is noteworthy, as the traditional narrative presents them as a precondition for the ordination of Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī and the establishment of the Bhikkhunī order.
Comparative study of other early Vinaya traditions shows significant variation in both the content and presentation of these rules. In some Vinayas, such as the Dharmaguptaka, the full story of the Garudhammas appears only toward the end of the Khandhaka (The section dealing with procedures and community regulations) section. Some modern scholars have noted that this may indicate later development or standardization within certain traditions.
Additionally, according to traditional accounts, Ānanda became the Buddha’s attendant many years after the enlightenment. This has been regarded by some scholars as creating a chronological tension, as Ānanda plays a central role in the story of the women’s ordination.
The early texts also record another, simpler form of ordination for women known as ehi bhikkhunī (“Come, bhikkhunī”), in which the Buddha directly ordained women. Awakened nuns such as Bhaddā Kuṇḍalakesā are described in the texts as having received this form of ordination. The Vinaya further records that the Buddha gave explicit allowance for bhikkhus to ordain women directly, an allowance that was never revoked.
When measured against the Buddha’s own standards of investigation, consistency with the broader corpus of early discourses and internal coherence within the texts, the Garudhammas narrative as it currently stands shows several points of tension. While the Vinaya preserves these rules and the traditional account of their origin, multiple early suttas present the four assemblies as essential to the completeness of the dispensation and link the decline of the Dhamma to conduct and transmission rather than to the presence of bhikkhunīs.
5. Women of Excellence in the Early Texts
The same corpus that contains the Garudhammas narrative also records the Buddha’s recognition of outstanding women:
Laywomen such as Visākhā, Khujjuttarā, Sāmāvatī, and others are likewise held up as exemplars. These recognitions are difficult to reconcile with any claim that the Buddha regarded women as inherently limited in spiritual capacity.
6. The Broader Pattern of Misrepresentation
When the Garudhammas story is isolated and treated as the final word, two distortions occur simultaneously:
Women are portrayed as a problem to be managed rather than as full participants in the holy life.
The Tathāgata is made to appear reluctant, gender-biased, and willing to institutionalize subordination, an image that conflicts with his consistent emphasis on investigation, equal access to liberation, and the four assemblies.
Both distortions are avoided when we follow the method the Buddha himself taught: compare any claim with the wider body of the Suttas and Vinaya and examine whether it leads to the qualities he identified as marks of true Dhamma.
The early texts do not ask us to choose between “accepting tradition uncritically” and “rejecting it entirely.” They ask us to investigate. The Garudhammas narrative exists and has been transmitted. Yet when it is weighed against the Mahāpadesa standard, the repeated statements about the four assemblies, the actual causes of decline given in the discourses, and the Buddha’s own praise of awakened women, significant points of tension appear.
The more coherent reading that emerges is this: the Buddha established a path to true Dhamma irrespective of background and genders; the completeness of his dispensation required the four assemblies; and the longevity of the true Dhamma depends on careful learning, practice, and investigation, not on the exclusion or permanent subordination of half the community.
The early discourses make it clear that investigation and personal verification are not optional. They are essential safeguards that keep the Dhamma from turning into mere tradition or dogma. When teachings are accepted without careful examination, they can easily be misunderstood or used to justify views that the Buddha himself rejected.
This is why the Buddha repeatedly encouraged his followers to take responsibility for their own understanding. Respect for the Teacher is valuable, but it must be accompanied by personal insight. Anything less risks turning the Dhamma into something to be followed blindly rather than something to be realized.
This is simply the application of the very principle the Buddha gave us:
“Kālāmas, don’t go by oral transmission, don’t go by lineage, don’t go by testament, don’t go by canonical authority, don’t rely on logic, don’t rely on inference, don’t go by reasoned train of thought, don’t go by the acceptance of a view after deliberation, don’t go by the appearance of competence, and don’t think ‘The ascetic is our respected teacher.’ But when you know for yourselves: ‘These things are skillful, blameless, praised by sensible people, and when you undertake them, they lead to welfare and happiness’, then you should acquire them and keep them.”
- Aṅguttara Nikāya 3.65
Deconstructing the massive disconnect between Brahmanical texts, material archaeology, and colonial timelines.
TL;DR
Surviving Sanskrit manuscripts are medieval. Early Indian writing is overwhelmingly Prakrit in Brahmi. The earliest physical form of “one” (eka) in India appears in 3rd - century BCE Prakrit administrative inscriptions (Mahasthan/Ashoka). Mitanni forms (~1400 BCE) are related dialectal evidence, not Classical Sanskrit. Early “Vāsudeva” records (Heliodorus, Agathocles coins, Ghosundi/Hathibada) use Prakrit/Brahmi, name no Krishna or Vishnu, and share symbols with Buddhist contexts. Ancient South Asia was a fluid, overlapping landscape, not a continuous text - driven Vedic civilization projected backward.
A core problem in how ancient Indian history is taught is the gap between late Brahmanical literary claims (plus colonial reconstructions based on them) and the actual material and epigraphic record.
When Puranic genealogies, idealized smṛti texts, and 18th - 19th century colonial frameworks are set aside, the physical evidence shows a decentralized, evolving landscape. Monastic networks (Buddhist and Jain), local cults, and emerging ritual groups negotiated power using the popular language of the time, Prakrit in Brahmi rather than a continuous high-Sanskrit tradition.
1. Early Vāsudeva Cult: Heliodorus, Coins, and Inscriptions vs Later Identities
Traditional accounts present the post-Mauryan period as a Brahmanical revival that mainstreamed Bhāgavatism as early Vaiṣṇavism centered on Krishna - Vishnu. The physical record does not support this projection.
Heliodorus pillar (Besnagar, c. 113 BCE)
Prakrit in Brahmi. Heliodorus, a Greek ambassador, calls himself a bhāgavata and erects a Garuda - dhvaja for “Vāsudeva, the god of gods.” The names Krishna and Vishnu do not appear. Garuda as a powerful bird already circulates in Jātaka literature; early Buddhist sites with Jātaka depictions (Sanchi, Bharhut horizon) predate surviving Vedic/Puranic manuscripts. Shared animal motifs across traditions are normal and do not prove exclusive later Puranic ownership.
Agathocles coins (c. 180 BCE)
Bilingual (Greek + Prakrit in Brahmi/Kharoshthi). They name the king (Rajane Agathuklayasa). Figures hold plow + mace and wheel + conch-like objects. Modern labels often call them Balarama-Saṃkarṣaṇa and Vāsudeva-Krishna. The coins themselves write neither “Krishna” nor “Vishnu.” Limited-spoke wheels (including 8-spoke forms) appear in early Buddhist contexts (Dhammacakka). Mace, plow, wheel, and umbrella motifs also occur in Indo - Greek and Buddhist royal imagery (e.g., Menander). Symbols travel; the physical objects do not force a fully formed Puranic identity.
Ghosundi and Hathibada inscriptions (c. 1st century BCE)
Early Brahmi. They mention Saṃkarṣaṇa and Vāsudeva as bhagavat / supreme lords and refer to a Nārāyaṇa - vāṭikā. They contain no mention of Krishna, Vishnu, or any Vedic genealogy or ritual system. The language is not the Sanskrit of the later manuscript tradition. Similar names circulate in early Buddhist literature. Equating these figures automatically with the later Puranic complex is a retrospective reading.
In all three cases the medium is Prakrit (or early mixed forms) in Brahmi. The records demonstrate a cult of Vāsudeva (sometimes with Saṃkarṣaṇa and Garuda - dhvaja) in the popular epigraphic language of the period. They do not demonstrate Classical Sanskrit, continuous Vedic textual authority, or the full later theology.
The term bhagavat/bhāgavata was not exclusive to later Vaiṣṇava usage. In the earliest layers of the Pali Canon the Buddha is routinely addressed as Bhagavā. The Piprahwa steatite vase inscription (late 3rd - early 2nd century BCE) uses Budhasa bhagavate. This shared vocabulary points to a fluid religious landscape in which localized cults, such as the Vrishni heroes including Vāsudeva were being elevated and synthesized through the same popular linguistic medium (Prakrit/Brahmi) that carried Buddhist and Jain dedications. Fully formed Puranic identities of Kṛṣṇa - Viṣṇu crystallize later.
2. “Veda/Vijjā” and Semantic Reconfiguration
Internal historical records within early Buddhist traditions provide a powerful perspective on how Brahmanical literature was retroactively constructed by absorbing and distorting much older oral traditions. A prime example is the origin of the word Veda (Veda or Vijja):
The Authentic "Three Higher Knowledges": In original analytical frameworks (such as the Sangiti Sutta), a "Veda" was not a book of external priestly rituals. It referred strictly to the three higher super-knowledges achieved through profound internal mental cultivation (Jhana):
The Ritualistic Distortion: Buddhist history records that these mental sciences were taught by an ancient, historical Buddha named Kassapa. Long after his dispensation faded, early human ascetics who lacked the mental capacity to actually achieve these meditative states kept the words but lost the meanings. They twisted these internal psychological sciences into mundane, external musical verses, converting a path of mental liberation into a social tool for ritualistic animal sacrifice and priestly control.
Engineering Sanskrit: This explains why classical Sanskrit (Samskrta meaning "refined" or "assembled") heavily relies on older, popular Prakrit and Pali root words but fundamentally changes their definitions. For instance, the psychological concept of Kamma (intent/cause - and - effect) was engineered into ritualistic Karma (performing sacrifices to appease deities).
3. Manuscript Gap, Mitanni Forms, and the Earliest Attested “One” in India
Physical manuscripts of the Vedas, early Upaniṣhads, Epics, and classical Sanskrit literature are overwhelmingly medieval (earliest Rigvedic manuscripts from the 11th century CE). There is no continuous chain of physical Sanskrit manuscripts from ancient India. There is also no archaeological or epigraphic evidence from the Indian subcontinent of the written forms aika, eka, or aikya in any Sanskrit context before the late centuries BCE.
Earliest physical form of “one” inside India
The Mahasthan (Mahasthangarh) Brahmi inscription (3rd century BCE, Mauryan period) is an administrative record concerning grain storage and relief. It uses Prakrit eka to mean “one unit.” This belongs to the same horizon as the Ashokan edicts: early Brahmi, Prakrit, quantitative/administrative usage. It is currently one of the earliest securely dated written occurrences of a form meaning “one” recovered from the Indian subcontinent.
Mitanni data (primary evidence only)
The Kikkuli text and Šattiwaza treaty (~1400–1350 BCE) contain the syllabic writings a-i-ka, ti-e-ra, pa-an-za, ša-at-ta, na-a-wa/na, and wa-ar-ta-an-na, plus theonyms rendered as mi-it-ra, u-ru-wa-na/a-ru-na, etc. These are the actual sign sequences. The form satta already shows the pt → tt change later regular in Middle Indo-Aryan.
Aika and the later Indian Prakrit eka are reasonably treated as related forms within a dialectal continuum (comparable to regional variation inside a single language family). No fully formed Classical Sanskrit is required or attested to explain the relationship. The Mitanni evidence does not prove related speech forms were absent from India earlier absence of writing is not evidence of absence. Finding related forms in one region at one time is like finding water in one location: it does not establish a single exclusive source. Multiple regions can develop, retain, or exchange related features through ordinary processes of contact, parallel change, and population movement for basic needs (resources, climate, demography). Post-glacial and Neolithic movements of this kind are normal evolutionary biology, not a unique event requiring colonial-era racial packaging.
The 19th - 20th century “Indo-Aryan” framework carried heavy colonial and racial baggage. Linguistic classification of shared vocabulary and sound changes remains observable, but turning those classifications into unidirectional invasion narratives or exclusive origin claims goes beyond the primary data. Languages evolve through multiple inputs (as Urdu did from several sources, not solely Persian). Shared basic vocabulary can arise from common inheritance, long-distance contact, or independent similar developments.
Colonial-era historiography (Warren Hastings, Nathaniel Halhed, Charles Wilkins, and the pandit networks they employed) treated late texts such as the Manusmṛti and Puranic king-lists as essentially linear historical documents. This produced a Brahmanical-centric framework that filled centuries of sparse material evidence with genealogical continuity. Modern archaeology and epigraphy reveal instead long periods of regional cultures, limited literacy outside administrative and monastic contexts, and gradual Sanskritization of prestige registers rather than an unbroken high-Sanskrit civilization from the 2nd millennium BCE.
4. Urban Collapse and Rural Continuity: Harappan De-urbanization
The mature Indus Valley/Harappan urban system (c. 2600 - 1900 BCE) featured planned cities, standardized weights, extensive drainage, and long-distance trade. Its decline was gradual, not a sudden invasion or total extinction. Recent multi-proxy paleoclimate studies identify repeated, multi-decadal to multi-century river droughts and reduced monsoon rainfall between roughly 4400 - and 3400 - years BP, coinciding with de-urbanization, eastward and southward settlement shifts, crop diversification toward drought-tolerant millets, and the disappearance of large-scale civic infrastructure.
The people did not vanish. Archaeological sequences show continuity into Late Harappan and subsequent regional cultures. Painted Grey Ware (PGW) pottery (c. 1200 - 600 BCE in the upper Gangetic and Punjab plains) appears in some of the same regions after the urban phase, though its precise relationship to “Vedic” culture remains debated and is no longer treated as a simple one - to - one ethnic marker. The transition from large - scale urban agrarianism supported by reliable river systems to more localized, pastoral - agrarian village networks is consistent with ecological stress followed by reorganization, not with a clean civilizational rupture or replacement.
5. The Machilipatnam Analogy and Hydrological Memory
The Paradigm Shift: Once a booming, globally critical market and trade center on the eastern coast, Machilipatnam’s importance rapidly faded when the British East India Company shifted its primary administrative and commercial weight to Bombay and Madras.
Desolation vs. Continuation: The shifting of the economic center left Machilipatnam's grand commercial infrastructure "desolate" compared to its peak, but the actual population stayed. People continued to live normal, localized lives completely irrespective of the institutional collapse of the market.
The Saraswati/Sarsuti Reality: This explains why the complete "drying up and disappearance" of the Saraswati River is historically exaggerated. While its glacial connections changed over millennia, it remained a geographically active network of seasonal sub - Himalayan tributaries. Medieval observers still recorded active seasonal streams.
Al-Biruni (early 11th century) notes the Sarsuti in the Kurukshetra region. The modern Sarsuti is a modest ephemeral stream rising in the Siwaliks and joining the Ghaggar; geological work has traced broader paleochannels of the Ghaggar-Hakra system that once carried greater volumes. The “drying of the Sarasvati” is therefore better understood as progressive reduction of a major Himalayan - fed system into seasonal and groundwater - fed remnants, with cultural memory preserved in place - names, pilgrimage sites, and literature long after the urban economic base had shifted. It never vanished into thin air; the large-scale state systems built around it simply shifted.
Synthesis
Pottery, coins, Prakrit - Brahmi inscriptions, settlement data, paleoclimate proxies, and the limited early written forms from Mitanni portray a landscape of overlapping networks. Prakrit dominates the earliest Indian epigraphic record (including the 3rd - century BCE eka at Mahasthan). Early Vāsudeva - related monuments and coins use the same popular medium and do not write the later Puranic names or theology. Surviving Sanskrit manuscripts are medieval.
Later idealized textual cultures cannot be projected backward as continuous ancient realities without creating large chronological and material gaps.
Discussion starters
Sources and References
Primary Epigraphic & Numismatic Sources
Heliodorus (Besnagar) Pillar Richard Salomon, Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo - Aryan Languages (Oxford University Press, 1998). D.R. Bhandarkar’s early readings in Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Standard Prakrit text and translation widely reproduced in ASI reports.
Piprahwa Vase Inscription Harry Falk’s re - edition and discussion of authenticity; earlier treatments by Georg Bühler, Auguste Barth, and J.F. Fleet (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society and Indian Antiquary).
Ghosundi & Hathibada Inscriptions Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XVI and Vol. XXII (Archaeological Survey of India). D.R. Bhandarkar’s editions and translations of the fragments mentioning Saṃkarṣaṇa and Vāsudeva.
Mahasthan Brahmi Inscription (3rd century BCE) D.R. Bhandarkar’s reading in Indian Antiquary / Asiatic Society of Bengal proceedings (1930s). Records administrative use of Prakrit eka in the context of grain storage and relief at Pundranagara. Palaeographically Mauryan Brahmi.
Agathocles Coins (c. 180 BCE) Osmund Bopearachchi catalogues of Greco-Bactrian and Indo - Greek coinage. Bilingual issues (Greek + Prakrit in Brahmi/Kharoshthi) naming the king; figures with plow/mace and wheel attributes. Primary legends do not write “Krishna” or “Vishnu”.
Buddhist Canonical Texts
Saṅgīti Sutta (DN 33) - three higher knowledges (tevijjā): pubbenivāsānussati ñāṇa, sattānaṃ cutūpapāte ñāṇa, āsavānaṃ khaye ñāṇa. Pali Text Society edition; accessible translations by Bhikkhu Bodhi and Bhikkhu Sujato.
Tevijja Sutta and related discourses on the three knowledges.
Brahmāyu Sutta (MN 91) - brahmin Brahmāyu reciting the qualities of a Buddha (iti pi so bhagavā...).
Mitanni Material
Kikkuli horse-training text (CTH 284 and related tablets). Primary cuneiform publications from Boğazköy/Hattuša excavations. Discussion of the numeral compounds (aika -, tera -, panza -, satta -, nāwa - wartanna) in standard Indo - European linguistic literature (e.g., works referencing the forms directly from the tablets).
Manuscript & Chronological Studies
Earliest surviving Rigvedic manuscripts: 11th century CE onward (Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute collections; UNESCO Memory of the World documentation).
General observation on the late physical survival of Sanskrit manuscripts versus early Prakrit epigraphy (standard in Indological surveys of writing history in South Asia).
Archaeology & Paleoclimate
Indus/Harappan de-urbanization: Liviu Giosan et al., “Fluvial landscapes of the Harappan civilization,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2012). Recent multi - proxy studies on prolonged droughts (e.g., Solanki et al. and related 2020s paleoclimate papers in Communications Earth & Environment and similar journals).
Traditional Buddhist Interpretation (noted as such)
Pure Dhamma analysis linking certain concepts and the three Vedās to the dispensation of Buddha Kassapa (traditional Tipiṭaka - based reading, not archaeological claim)
Secondary Surveys & Historiographical Critiques
Upinder Singh, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India (for material culture overview).
Johannes Bronkhorst, “India’s Past Reconsidered” In At the Shores of the Sky: Asian Studies for Albert Hoffstädt, edited by Paul W. Kroll and Jonathan A. Silk (Brill, 2020), pp. 12–27. DOI: 10.1163/9789004438200_004.
Bronkhorst directly challenges the Brahmanical self - presentation of an ancient, unchanging, pan-Indian tradition. He argues that at the time of the Buddha, Brahmanism was largely confined to the northwestern region (Āryāvarta as described by Patañjali), while Greater Magadha and much of the rest of the subcontinent followed different cultural and religious patterns. The later success of Brahmanism involved a retrospective colonization of the past. This aligns closely with the material - evidence approach of the post (Prakrit epigraphic dominance, late physical Sanskrit manuscripts, and the danger of projecting later textual identities backward).
Related major works by the same author (optional supporting references):
Greater Magadha: Studies in the Culture of Early India (Brill, 2007)
Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism (Brill, 2011)
Deconstructing the massive disconnect between Brahmanical texts, material archaeology, and colonial timelines.
TL;DR
Surviving Sanskrit manuscripts are medieval. Early Indian writing is overwhelmingly Prakrit in Brahmi. The earliest physical form of “one” (eka) in India appears in 3rd - century BCE Prakrit administrative inscriptions (Mahasthan/Ashoka). Mitanni forms (~1400 BCE) are related dialectal evidence, not Classical Sanskrit. Early “Vāsudeva” records (Heliodorus, Agathocles coins, Ghosundi/Hathibada) use Prakrit/Brahmi, name no Krishna or Vishnu, and share symbols with Buddhist contexts. Ancient South Asia was a fluid, overlapping landscape, not a continuous text - driven Vedic civilization projected backward.
A core problem in how ancient Indian history is taught is the gap between late Brahmanical literary claims (plus colonial reconstructions based on them) and the actual material and epigraphic record.
When Puranic genealogies, idealized smṛti texts, and 18th - 19th century colonial frameworks are set aside, the physical evidence shows a decentralized, evolving landscape. Monastic networks (Buddhist and Jain), local cults, and emerging ritual groups negotiated power using the popular language of the time, Prakrit in Brahmi rather than a continuous high-Sanskrit tradition.
1. Early Vāsudeva Cult: Heliodorus, Coins, and Inscriptions vs Later Identities
Traditional accounts present the post-Mauryan period as a Brahmanical revival that mainstreamed Bhāgavatism as early Vaiṣṇavism centered on Krishna - Vishnu. The physical record does not support this projection.
Heliodorus pillar (Besnagar, c. 113 BCE)
Prakrit in Brahmi. Heliodorus, a Greek ambassador, calls himself a bhāgavata and erects a Garuda - dhvaja for “Vāsudeva, the god of gods.” The names Krishna and Vishnu do not appear. Garuda as a powerful bird already circulates in Jātaka literature; early Buddhist sites with Jātaka depictions (Sanchi, Bharhut horizon) predate surviving Vedic/Puranic manuscripts. Shared animal motifs across traditions are normal and do not prove exclusive later Puranic ownership.
Agathocles coins (c. 180 BCE)
Bilingual (Greek + Prakrit in Brahmi/Kharoshthi). They name the king (Rajane Agathuklayasa). Figures hold plow + mace and wheel + conch-like objects. Modern labels often call them Balarama-Saṃkarṣaṇa and Vāsudeva-Krishna. The coins themselves write neither “Krishna” nor “Vishnu.” Limited-spoke wheels (including 8-spoke forms) appear in early Buddhist contexts (Dhammacakka). Mace, plow, wheel, and umbrella motifs also occur in Indo - Greek and Buddhist royal imagery (e.g., Menander). Symbols travel; the physical objects do not force a fully formed Puranic identity.
Ghosundi and Hathibada inscriptions (c. 1st century BCE)
Early Brahmi. They mention Saṃkarṣaṇa and Vāsudeva as bhagavat / supreme lords and refer to a Nārāyaṇa - vāṭikā. They contain no mention of Krishna, Vishnu, or any Vedic genealogy or ritual system. The language is not the Sanskrit of the later manuscript tradition. Similar names circulate in early Buddhist literature. Equating these figures automatically with the later Puranic complex is a retrospective reading.
In all three cases the medium is Prakrit (or early mixed forms) in Brahmi. The records demonstrate a cult of Vāsudeva (sometimes with Saṃkarṣaṇa and Garuda - dhvaja) in the popular epigraphic language of the period. They do not demonstrate Classical Sanskrit, continuous Vedic textual authority, or the full later theology.
The term bhagavat/bhāgavata was not exclusive to later Vaiṣṇava usage. In the earliest layers of the Pali Canon the Buddha is routinely addressed as Bhagavā. The Piprahwa steatite vase inscription (late 3rd - early 2nd century BCE) uses Budhasa bhagavate. This shared vocabulary points to a fluid religious landscape in which localized cults, such as the Vrishni heroes including Vāsudeva were being elevated and synthesized through the same popular linguistic medium (Prakrit/Brahmi) that carried Buddhist and Jain dedications. Fully formed Puranic identities of Kṛṣṇa - Viṣṇu crystallize later.
2. “Veda/Vijjā” and Semantic Reconfiguration
Internal historical records within early Buddhist traditions provide a powerful perspective on how Brahmanical literature was retroactively constructed by absorbing and distorting much older oral traditions. A prime example is the origin of the word Veda (Veda or Vijja):
The Authentic "Three Higher Knowledges": In original analytical frameworks (such as the Sangiti Sutta), a "Veda" was not a book of external priestly rituals. It referred strictly to the three higher super-knowledges achieved through profound internal mental cultivation (Jhana):
The Ritualistic Distortion: Buddhist history records that these mental sciences were taught by an ancient, historical Buddha named Kassapa. Long after his dispensation faded, early human ascetics who lacked the mental capacity to actually achieve these meditative states kept the words but lost the meanings. They twisted these internal psychological sciences into mundane, external musical verses, converting a path of mental liberation into a social tool for ritualistic animal sacrifice and priestly control.
Engineering Sanskrit: This explains why classical Sanskrit (Samskrta meaning "refined" or "assembled") heavily relies on older, popular Prakrit and Pali root words but fundamentally changes their definitions. For instance, the psychological concept of Kamma (intent/cause - and - effect) was engineered into ritualistic Karma (performing sacrifices to appease deities).
3. Manuscript Gap, Mitanni Forms, and the Earliest Attested “One” in India
Physical manuscripts of the Vedas, early Upaniṣhads, Epics, and classical Sanskrit literature are overwhelmingly medieval (earliest Rigvedic manuscripts from the 11th century CE). There is no continuous chain of physical Sanskrit manuscripts from ancient India. There is also no archaeological or epigraphic evidence from the Indian subcontinent of the written forms aika, eka, or aikya in any Sanskrit context before the late centuries BCE.
Earliest physical form of “one” inside India
The Mahasthan (Mahasthangarh) Brahmi inscription (3rd century BCE, Mauryan period) is an administrative record concerning grain storage and relief. It uses Prakrit eka to mean “one unit.” This belongs to the same horizon as the Ashokan edicts: early Brahmi, Prakrit, quantitative/administrative usage. It is currently one of the earliest securely dated written occurrences of a form meaning “one” recovered from the Indian subcontinent.
Mitanni data (primary evidence only)
The Kikkuli text and Šattiwaza treaty (~1400–1350 BCE) contain the syllabic writings a-i-ka, ti-e-ra, pa-an-za, ša-at-ta, na-a-wa/na, and wa-ar-ta-an-na, plus theonyms rendered as mi-it-ra, u-ru-wa-na/a-ru-na, etc. These are the actual sign sequences. The form satta already shows the pt → tt change later regular in Middle Indo-Aryan.
Aika and the later Indian Prakrit eka are reasonably treated as related forms within a dialectal continuum (comparable to regional variation inside a single language family). No fully formed Classical Sanskrit is required or attested to explain the relationship. The Mitanni evidence does not prove related speech forms were absent from India earlier absence of writing is not evidence of absence. Finding related forms in one region at one time is like finding water in one location: it does not establish a single exclusive source. Multiple regions can develop, retain, or exchange related features through ordinary processes of contact, parallel change, and population movement for basic needs (resources, climate, demography). Post-glacial and Neolithic movements of this kind are normal evolutionary biology, not a unique event requiring colonial-era racial packaging.
The 19th - 20th century “Indo-Aryan” framework carried heavy colonial and racial baggage. Linguistic classification of shared vocabulary and sound changes remains observable, but turning those classifications into unidirectional invasion narratives or exclusive origin claims goes beyond the primary data. Languages evolve through multiple inputs (as Urdu did from several sources, not solely Persian). Shared basic vocabulary can arise from common inheritance, long-distance contact, or independent similar developments.
Colonial-era historiography (Warren Hastings, Nathaniel Halhed, Charles Wilkins, and the pandit networks they employed) treated late texts such as the Manusmṛti and Puranic king-lists as essentially linear historical documents. This produced a Brahmanical-centric framework that filled centuries of sparse material evidence with genealogical continuity. Modern archaeology and epigraphy reveal instead long periods of regional cultures, limited literacy outside administrative and monastic contexts, and gradual Sanskritization of prestige registers rather than an unbroken high-Sanskrit civilization from the 2nd millennium BCE.
4. Urban Collapse and Rural Continuity: Harappan De-urbanization
The mature Indus Valley/Harappan urban system (c. 2600 - 1900 BCE) featured planned cities, standardized weights, extensive drainage, and long-distance trade. Its decline was gradual, not a sudden invasion or total extinction. Recent multi-proxy paleoclimate studies identify repeated, multi-decadal to multi-century river droughts and reduced monsoon rainfall between roughly 4400 - and 3400 - years BP, coinciding with de-urbanization, eastward and southward settlement shifts, crop diversification toward drought-tolerant millets, and the disappearance of large-scale civic infrastructure.
The people did not vanish. Archaeological sequences show continuity into Late Harappan and subsequent regional cultures. Painted Grey Ware (PGW) pottery (c. 1200 - 600 BCE in the upper Gangetic and Punjab plains) appears in some of the same regions after the urban phase, though its precise relationship to “Vedic” culture remains debated and is no longer treated as a simple one - to - one ethnic marker. The transition from large - scale urban agrarianism supported by reliable river systems to more localized, pastoral - agrarian village networks is consistent with ecological stress followed by reorganization, not with a clean civilizational rupture or replacement.
5. The Machilipatnam Analogy and Hydrological Memory
The Paradigm Shift: Once a booming, globally critical market and trade center on the eastern coast, Machilipatnam’s importance rapidly faded when the British East India Company shifted its primary administrative and commercial weight to Bombay and Madras.
Desolation vs. Continuation: The shifting of the economic center left Machilipatnam's grand commercial infrastructure "desolate" compared to its peak, but the actual population stayed. People continued to live normal, localized lives completely irrespective of the institutional collapse of the market.
The Saraswati/Sarsuti Reality: This explains why the complete "drying up and disappearance" of the Saraswati River is historically exaggerated. While its glacial connections changed over millennia, it remained a geographically active network of seasonal sub - Himalayan tributaries. Medieval observers still recorded active seasonal streams.
Al-Biruni (early 11th century) notes the Sarsuti in the Kurukshetra region. The modern Sarsuti is a modest ephemeral stream rising in the Siwaliks and joining the Ghaggar; geological work has traced broader paleochannels of the Ghaggar-Hakra system that once carried greater volumes. The “drying of the Sarasvati” is therefore better understood as progressive reduction of a major Himalayan - fed system into seasonal and groundwater - fed remnants, with cultural memory preserved in place - names, pilgrimage sites, and literature long after the urban economic base had shifted. It never vanished into thin air; the large-scale state systems built around it simply shifted.
Synthesis
Pottery, coins, Prakrit - Brahmi inscriptions, settlement data, paleoclimate proxies, and the limited early written forms from Mitanni portray a landscape of overlapping networks. Prakrit dominates the earliest Indian epigraphic record (including the 3rd - century BCE eka at Mahasthan). Early Vāsudeva - related monuments and coins use the same popular medium and do not write the later Puranic names or theology. Surviving Sanskrit manuscripts are medieval.
Later idealized textual cultures cannot be projected backward as continuous ancient realities without creating large chronological and material gaps.
Discussion starters
Sources and References
Primary Epigraphic & Numismatic Sources
Heliodorus (Besnagar) Pillar Richard Salomon, Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo - Aryan Languages (Oxford University Press, 1998). D.R. Bhandarkar’s early readings in Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Standard Prakrit text and translation widely reproduced in ASI reports.
Piprahwa Vase Inscription Harry Falk’s re - edition and discussion of authenticity; earlier treatments by Georg Bühler, Auguste Barth, and J.F. Fleet (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society and Indian Antiquary).
Ghosundi & Hathibada Inscriptions Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XVI and Vol. XXII (Archaeological Survey of India). D.R. Bhandarkar’s editions and translations of the fragments mentioning Saṃkarṣaṇa and Vāsudeva.
Mahasthan Brahmi Inscription (3rd century BCE) D.R. Bhandarkar’s reading in Indian Antiquary / Asiatic Society of Bengal proceedings (1930s). Records administrative use of Prakrit eka in the context of grain storage and relief at Pundranagara. Palaeographically Mauryan Brahmi.
Agathocles Coins (c. 180 BCE) Osmund Bopearachchi catalogues of Greco-Bactrian and Indo - Greek coinage. Bilingual issues (Greek + Prakrit in Brahmi/Kharoshthi) naming the king; figures with plow/mace and wheel attributes. Primary legends do not write “Krishna” or “Vishnu”.
Buddhist Canonical Texts
Saṅgīti Sutta (DN 33) - three higher knowledges (tevijjā): pubbenivāsānussati ñāṇa, sattānaṃ cutūpapāte ñāṇa, āsavānaṃ khaye ñāṇa. Pali Text Society edition; accessible translations by Bhikkhu Bodhi and Bhikkhu Sujato.
Tevijja Sutta and related discourses on the three knowledges.
Brahmāyu Sutta (MN 91) - brahmin Brahmāyu reciting the qualities of a Buddha (iti pi so bhagavā...).
Mitanni Material
Kikkuli horse-training text (CTH 284 and related tablets). Primary cuneiform publications from Boğazköy/Hattuša excavations. Discussion of the numeral compounds (aika -, tera -, panza -, satta -, nāwa - wartanna) in standard Indo - European linguistic literature (e.g., works referencing the forms directly from the tablets).
Manuscript & Chronological Studies
Earliest surviving Rigvedic manuscripts: 11th century CE onward (Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute collections; UNESCO Memory of the World documentation).
General observation on the late physical survival of Sanskrit manuscripts versus early Prakrit epigraphy (standard in Indological surveys of writing history in South Asia).
Archaeology & Paleoclimate
Indus/Harappan de-urbanization: Liviu Giosan et al., “Fluvial landscapes of the Harappan civilization,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2012). Recent multi - proxy studies on prolonged droughts (e.g., Solanki et al. and related 2020s paleoclimate papers in Communications Earth & Environment and similar journals).
Traditional Buddhist Interpretation (noted as such)
Pure Dhamma analysis linking certain concepts and the three Vedās to the dispensation of Buddha Kassapa (traditional Tipiṭaka - based reading, not archaeological claim)
Secondary Surveys & Historiographical Critiques
Upinder Singh, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India (for material culture overview).
Johannes Bronkhorst, “India’s Past Reconsidered” In At the Shores of the Sky: Asian Studies for Albert Hoffstädt, edited by Paul W. Kroll and Jonathan A. Silk (Brill, 2020), pp. 12–27. DOI: 10.1163/9789004438200_004.
Bronkhorst directly challenges the Brahmanical self - presentation of an ancient, unchanging, pan-Indian tradition. He argues that at the time of the Buddha, Brahmanism was largely confined to the northwestern region (Āryāvarta as described by Patañjali), while Greater Magadha and much of the rest of the subcontinent followed different cultural and religious patterns. The later success of Brahmanism involved a retrospective colonization of the past. This aligns closely with the material - evidence approach of the post (Prakrit epigraphic dominance, late physical Sanskrit manuscripts, and the danger of projecting later textual identities backward).
Related major works by the same author (optional supporting references):
Greater Magadha: Studies in the Culture of Early India (Brill, 2007)
Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism (Brill, 2011)
Video credit: - https://www.instagram.com/raged.buddhist/
BAWS Vol. 17 Part - 3
Ānanda, there are these eight dimensions of mastery. These are another way of describing the different experiences of jhāna. What eight?
Perceiving form internally, someone sees forms externally, limited, both pretty and ugly. “Perceiving form (rūpa) internally” refers to someone developing meditation based on an aspect of their own body, such as the breath or the parts of the body. The “forms” (rūpā) seen externally are the lights or other meditation phenomena that today are usually called nimitta. An “ugly” form is the mental image that arises in such contemplations as the parts of the body. A “beautiful” image arises from practices such as mindfulness of breathing. Mastering them, they perceive: ‘I know and see.’ This is the first dimension of mastery.
Perceiving form internally, someone sees forms externally, limitless, both pretty and ugly. Mastering them, they perceive: ‘I know and see.’ This is the second dimension of mastery.
Not perceiving form internally, someone sees forms externally, limited, both pretty and ugly. “Not perceiving form internally” refers to meditations such as the external elements, or the decaying of another’s body. Mastering them, they perceive: ‘I know and see.’ This is the third dimension of mastery.
Not perceiving form internally, someone sees forms externally, limitless, both pretty and ugly. Mastering them, they perceive: ‘I know and see.’ This is the fourth dimension of mastery.
Not perceiving form internally, someone sees forms externally that are blue, with blue color and blue appearance. This is the meditation where one contemplates an external color, either a prepared disk or a natural phenomena such as the sky or a flower, which eventually gives rise to a “counterpart” image. Today such meditations are called kasiṇa following the Visuddhimagga, but in the early texts kasiṇa means “totality” and refers rather to the state of samādhi that results. They’re like a flax flower that’s blue, with blue color and blue appearance. Or a cloth from Varanasi that’s smoothed on both sides, blue, with blue color and blue appearance. In the same way, not perceiving form internally, someone sees forms externally, blue, with blue color and blue appearance. Mastering them, they perceive: ‘I know and see.’ This is the fifth dimension of mastery.
Not perceiving form internally, someone sees forms externally that are yellow, with yellow color and yellow appearance. They’re like a champak flower that’s yellow, with yellow color and yellow appearance. Or a cloth from Varanasi that’s smoothed on both sides, yellow, with yellow color and yellow appearance. In the same way, not perceiving form internally, someone sees forms externally that are yellow, with yellow color and yellow appearance. Mastering them, they perceive: ‘I know and see.’ This is the sixth dimension of mastery.
Not perceiving form internally, someone sees forms externally that are red, with red color and red appearance. They’re like a scarlet mallow flower that’s red, with red color and red appearance. Or a cloth from Varanasi that’s smoothed on both sides, red, with red color and red appearance. In the same way, not perceiving form internally, someone sees forms externally that are red, with red color and red appearance. Mastering them, they perceive: ‘I know and see.’ This is the seventh dimension of mastery.
Not perceiving form internally, someone sees forms externally that are white, with white color and white appearance. They’re like the morning star that’s white, with white color and white appearance. Or a cloth from Varanasi that’s smoothed on both sides, white, with white color and white appearance. In the same way, not perceiving form internally, someone sees forms externally that are white, with white color and white appearance. Mastering them, they perceive: ‘I know and see.’ This is the eighth dimension of mastery.
These are the eight dimensions of mastery.
- Dīghanikāya 16
