DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

292 INFLUENCE UPON THE VERNACULARS [8.6
a couple of months later, without much fuss. For the Tigala karaga
festival, every temple in the city, no matter how high and orthodox
the god, sends an idol representing its deity to follow in the procession.
This is mutual acculturation. What interests us most is that a Sanskrit
account (still unpublished) has been fabricated of the cult and ritual,
in true purana-Mbh style, within the last 75 years.
When Indian vernacular literature began in Aryanized regions,
the Sanskrit model was often followed. The names that still remain in the
memory of the common people, the weaver Kabir, the petty kunabi
grain-dealer Tukarama, represent authors who composed in the
popular idiom, using figures of speech familiar to the common man.
Nevertheless, their songs too sing in what may be called religious terms.
Religion had become so generally the tool of the state — which meant
the ruling classes — that any protest had automatically to be
expressed their verses within the same ideological framework. The
theological upheavels at whose foundations lay great changes of
property relations show this just as clearly. Religion was the brahmin’s
existence, serving the court because it held the surplus producers in
its firm grip. Its chief social manifestation, caste, had been a great
advance at one time in the formation of a peaceful society, with
hardening of classes, the very same mechanism served to those who
profited from the status quo.
Notes and References :
1. The chronology of CAT and 1TM is followed, for lack of a better ; cf. J. van
Lohuizen de Leeuw, The “Scythian” Period, (Leyden 1949) ; the general approach to
this and the Gupta period is outlined in my paper on the Basis of ancient Indian history
(JAOS. 75.3-45,;, 226-237).
2. R. E. Mortimer Wheeler : Rome beyond the imperial frontiers (Pelican Books
A. 335; Lomdon 1955), particularly pp. 141-182, gives a comprehensive survey of
archaeological as Well as literary data.
3. V. V. MirSshi described the low-grade lead-alloy coins of the SfttavShanas,
found in the TarKaja hoard, in JNSI. 2, pp. 83-94; the Puifisja list (DKA. 36) is augmented
with three hitherto unknown SSta-vihanas, Kumbha, Kania, and Saka. For the name
SStavShana (incomplete) on a copper coin perhaps of the founder of the dynasty, the
sam« author in JNSL 7, 1945, pp. 1-4. How sleirfer even thisr numismatic evidence
really is for the dynastic history is seen from the discussion