DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

9.2] THE FIRST FLOWERING 303
payment, or conversion of their product into commodities. This meant
that the tax in kind had not only to be collected but increasingly to be
consumed by local officials and dispersed gulma police garrisons, or
by a constantly travelling court, because the trade whereby the grain
could have been converted into cash (essential to maintain
stationary concentrations of the imperial forces) had dwindled. This
in turn led to the decline of a central army, the rise of local princelings
from new tribes, ambitious feudatories, or daring officials. Tribute
collection would become impossible ; hence the inevitable collapse of
Empire aft£r which the whole vicious round started once again.
Foreigners who had come for trade or service would now change
into invaders — a time-honoured metamorphosis — when more could
be gained by force of arms.
9.2. The new economy showed two simultaneous but opposing
trends ; prosperity and concentration of wealth at a few ports and
capitals, with decline of the greater cities in general. Fa-hsien reported
that Sravasti had barely 200 families. The Koliyan headquarters
Ramagrama was deserted, its surroundings, a jungle. Kapilavastu,
Kusinara, old Rajglr, and Gaya, were almost as desolate. Hsiuen Chuang’s
Kapilavastu is located in an irreconcillably different position, so that
the very site must have been forgotten in the intervening 200 years.
This meant that the old track-route was no longer of importance, and
that the villages had become supreme. Patna still flourished, and was
the largest city in the whole “Middle Kingdom” ; but Asoka’s palaces
were in ruins, and their superb carving and sculpture regarded the
work of genii and spirits, not of common mortals. The courts, both
central and provincial, shone with a new luxury. The finest sculpture and
paint ing, the best caves at Ajanta, belong to this period, though the
fine multiple cooperation that produced Sanci and Karle was
increasingly replaced by donations from the court, nobility, and men of
wealth. In the criticisms made, however, it is essential not to forget that
there WAS for some time a beautiful new literature as well as
sculpture, painting, architecture; the new society at the first success of
feudalism from above was not only more peaceful, less extortionate,
but also decidedly more cultured. The progressive decay with ingrowth