History of Early India: From Origins to AD 1300 — Thapar PDF

 PENGUIN BOOKS T H E P E N G U I N H I S T O R Y OF EARLY INDIA Romila Thapar was born in India in 1931 and comes from a Punjabi family, spending her early years in various parts of India. She took her first degree from Punjab University and her doctorate from London...

 PENGUIN BOOKS T H E P E N G U I N H I S T O R Y OF EARLY INDIA Romila Thapar was born in India in 1931 and comes from a Punjabi family, spending her early years in various parts of India. She took her first degree from Punjab University and her doctorate from London University. She was appointed to a Readership at Delhi University and subsequently to the Chair in Ancient Indian History at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where she is now Emeritus Professor in History. Romila Thapar is also an Honorary Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and has been a Visiting Professor at Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania as well as the College de France in Paris. In 1983 she was elected General President of the Indian History Congress and in 1999 a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. Among her publications are Ashoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations, From Lineage to State, History and Beyond, Sakuntala: Texts, Readings, Histories and Cultural Pasts: Essays on Indian History, as well as a children's book, Indian Tales.  ROMILA THAPAR The Penguin History of Early India FROM THE ORIGINS T O A D 1300 PENGUIN BOOKS  PENGUIN BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WCIR ORL, England Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - n o 017, India Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England www.penguin.com First published as Early India by Allen Lane The Penguin Press 2002 Published under the present title in Penguin Books 2003 Copyright © Romila Thapar, 2002 All rights reserved The moral right of the author has been asserted Typeset by Rowland Phototypesetting Ltd, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser  For Sergei: in memoriam and remembering Kaushalya and Daya Ram and our many years together  Contents List of Illustrations viii lx Preface Acknowledgements xi Note on the Bibliographies xii Chronology: c. IOOO B C - A D 1300 xiii Introduction xvii 1 Perceptions of the Past 1 2 Landscapes and Peoples 37 3 Antecedents 69 4 Towards Chiefdoms and Kingdoms: c. 1200-600 BC 98 5 States and Cities of the Indo-Gangetic Plain: c. 600-300 BC 137 6 The Emergence of Empire: Mauryan India; c. 321-185 BC 174 7 Of Politics and Trade: c. 200 B C - A D 300 209 8 The Rise of the Mercantile Community: c. 200 B C - A D 300 245 9 Threshold Times: c. AD 300-700 2.80 10 The Peninsula: Emerging Regional Kingdoms; C. AD 500-900 32.6 11 The Peninsula: Establishing Authorities and Structures; c. AD 900-1300 363 12 The Politics of Northern India: c. AD 700-1200 405 13 Northern India: Distributive Political Economies and Regional Cultures; c. AD 800-1300 44 2 Maps 491 Glossary 510 Select Bibliographies 516 General Bibliography 542 Index 545  List of Illustrations FIGURES I. Buddhist monastery: ground plan 264 2. Great Stupa, Sanchi: ground plan and elevation 266 3- Chaitya hall at Karle: plan and elevation 267 4- Vishnu Temple, Deogarh: plan 3i5 5- Nagara-style temple: elevation 316 6. Virupaksha Temple, Pattadakal: half-plan and section 361 7. Circular Devi temple: plan 477 MAPS 1. Geographical Features 492 2. Archaeological Sites Relating to Pre-history and Proto-history 494 3. Northern India c. 1200 to 500 BC 496 4. Kingdoms and Chiefdoms: Mid-first Millennium BC 497 5. Some Sites of the Mauryan Period 499 6. North India and West Asia c. 200 BC to AD 300 500 7. Central Asia and China 502 8. The India Peninsula c. 200 BC to AD 300 503 9. The Indian Subcontinent: Mid-first Millennium AD 504 10. Indian Contacts with South East Asia 506 11. The Indian Peninsula c. AD 700 to 1300 507 12. Northern India c. AD 700 to 1100 508 13. Northern India c. AD 900 to 1300 509 The external boundaries of India as depicted in the maps are neither correct nor authentic.  Preface It has been almost four decades since the first version of this book was written and in that time there have been substantial changes in the readings of Indian history. These have come about as a result of some new data, together with many fresh interpretations of the known data. My attempt here has been to incorporate the essentials of the new data and interpret- ations while retaining some of the older arguments where they are still relevant. A major amendment to this book lies in its chronological span. It now closes at c. AD I 300 instead of AD 1526 as in the earlier version. After many years, I have finally persuaded Penguin that the history of India should be covered in three volumes and not be restricted to two. The earlier division of two volumes did not do justice to the important period from c. AD 1300 to 1800 and this is now being corrected. The final volume will bring the narrative up to contemporary times. This change also provides more space for each volume. An introduction already exists to the pre-history and proto-history of India in the volume by F. R. and B. Allchin, The Birth of Indian Civilisation, revised in 1993, also published by Penguin, as well as The Origins of a Civilization by the same authors and published by Viking in 1997 (Penguin, 1998). I have therefore given only a brief overview of prehistory and protohistory. In the course of writing this book I have drawn on many friends for comments on various chapters of an earlier draft. Among them I would like to thank R. Champakalakshmi, Madhav Gadgil, Dennis Hudson, Xinru Liu, Michael Meister, Vivek Nanda and K. N. Panikkar. My special thanks go to Susan Reynolds, not only for observations on specific chapters but also for many conversations about the book. I was delighted when Ravi Dayal suggested that he might like to read the penultimate draft and ploughed his way through it, with helpful remarks on what he had read. Naina's postings of 'not clear' have hopefully made the narrative more ix  PREFACE lucid. Lucy Peck gallantly agreed to do rough drafts of all the maps, thus allowing me to include maps relating to every chapter. I would also like to thank the Homi Bhabha Fellowships Council for the award of a Senior Fellowship. The research carried out during this period contributed to the shaping of the earlier half of this book. And I would also like to thank David Ludden for arranging a series of lectures at the University of Pennsylvania which broadly covered the same themes. Gene Smith was fantastically generous with time and effort when he painstakingly scanned the earlier version onto disk and this made the mechanics of rewriting much easier. Shirish and Gautam Patel and Chris Gomes have been unruffled by my frequent cries for help when the computer behaved unpredictably, and have patiently set me right, a patience also shown by Vivek Sharma. Rajani was the one person who over the years kept insisting that I revise the earlier book, and finally her insistence has had effect. Romila Thapar New Delhi 2001 x  Acknowledgements Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders. The publishers shall be happy to make good in future editions any errors or omissions brought to their attention. The author would like to thank the following for permission to use copyright material in this book: extract from The Univer- sal History of Numbers by George Ifrah published by the Harvill Press and used by permission of the Random House Group Ltd; extract from R. Parthasarathy's translation of The Tale of an Anklet by permission of Columbia University Press; extract from S. Radhakrishnan's translation of The Principle Upanisads by permission of HarperCollins Publishers; extracts from Nilakantha Sastri's The Colas and Romila Thapar's Asoka and the Decline of the Maury as by permission of Oxford University Press, New Delhi; extract from Ronald Latham's translation of The Travels of Marco Polo by permission of Penguin Books Ltd; extracts from A. K. Ramanujam's translations of Hymns for the Drowning by permission of Princeton University Press; extracts from A. L. Basham's The Wonder that was India by permission of Macmillan Publishers; extracts from Indira V. Peterson's Poems to Siva: The Hymns of the Tamil Saints by permission of the author; illustration of Nagara-style temple by permission of Michael Meister; Circular Deri temple plan by permission of Vidya Dehejia; Circular Devi temple plan by permission of Nilakanta Sastri and A. K. Ramanujan. xi  Note on the Bibliographies A General Bibliography is included at the end of the book, with a broad coverage of books providing introductions to major aspects of the subject. Select Bibliographies in the nature of further readings and specific to each chapter are grouped according to chapters and their subheadings. Books are listed in the order of the subject matter discussed within the text. Bibliographies are limited to monographs as these are more accessible than articles in journals. However, since much of the new research is in papers in journals these journals are also listed for those who may wish to consult them. xii  Chronology C. I O O O B C - A D 1300 The chronology of the earlier part of Indian history is notoriously uncertain compared to that of China or the Mediterranean world. Literary sources can belong to a span of time rather than a precise date. However, this ambiguity is offset in the data from inscriptions that are usually precisely dated, often in a known era. Most of the important dynasties of the early period used their own system of reckoning, which resulted in a number of unconnected eras. But among the more widely used eras are the Vikrama era of 5 8 - 5 7 BC and the Shaka era of AD 78. The Vikrama era was known earlier as the Krita or the Malava era. Others include the Gupta era of AD 319-20, the Harsha era of AD 606, the Vikrama-Chalukya era of AD 1075 and a variety of others. Buddhist sources generally reckon from the year of the death of the Buddha, but there are three alternative dates for this event - 544/486/483 BC. It is more usual to use either of the two latter dates, the first being generally doubted. Lately, there has been much discussion on the date of the Buddha and suggestions have taken this chronology to almost a hundred years later. But as yet there is no generally accepted agreement on a date, other than the traditional. BC c. 2600-1700 Harappan urbanization: Mature and Late Harappan c. 1500-500 Composition and compilation of the Vedic corpus Neolithic and chalcolithic cultures in various parts of the subcontinent Megalithic burials, largely in the peninsula c. 1000 Availability of iron artefacts Use of iron artefacts gradually increases in range and number after the sixth century BC xiii  CHRONOLOGY c. 6th century Urbanization in the Ganges Plain Formation of the earliest states The rise of Magadha Mahavira Gautama Buddha 519 Cyrus, the Achaemenid Emperor of Persia, conquers parts of north-western India c. 493 Accession of Ajatashatru 486 Death of the Buddha c. 362-321 Nanda dynasty 32.7-3*5 Alexander of Macedon in India 3ZI Accession of Chandragupta, the founder of the Maurya dynasty 268-231 Reign of Ashoka c. 250 Third Buddhist Council held at Pataliputra 185 Termination of Mauryan rule and accession of a Shunga king 180-165 Indo-Greek rule in the north-west under Demetrius c. 166-150 Menander, the best known Indo-Greek ruler c. 94 Maues, the Shaka King, in north-western India 58 Azes I, thought to have founded the Vikrama era c. 50 Rise of Satavahana power in the Deccan c. 50 Kharavela, King of Kalinga AD Peak period of Roman trade with India C. 5 0 B C - A D 5 0 ist century AD Kushana power established ? c. 78 Accession of Kanishka, Kushana King of the north-west Founding of the Shaka era c. 125 Gautamiputra and subsequently Vasishthiputra ruling the Satavahana kingdom c. 150 Rudradaman, the Shaka Kshatrapa King ruling in western India 319-20 Accession of Chandra Gupta I, founder of the Gupta dynasty 335 Accession of Samudragupta 375-415 Chandra Gupta II 405-11 Visit of Fa Hsien c Skandagupta, in whose reign the Hunas attack north India - 455 xiv  CHRONOLOGY 476 Aryabhatta, the astronomer 5°5 Varahamihira, the astronomer 543-66 Pulakeshin I and the rise of the Chalukyas of Badami c. 574-6o Rise of the Pallavas of Kanchi under Simhavishnu 606-47 Harshavardhana, King of Kannauj 630-643 Hsuan Tsang in India 600-630 Establishing of Pallava power under Mahendravarman 609-42 Establishment of Chalukya power under Pulakeshin II Start of rivalry between the Pallavas and Chalukyas 712 Arab conquest of Sind 736 Founding of Dhillika - the first city of Delhi c. 752 Rashtrakuta victory over the Chalukyas c. 770 Pala dynasty founded by Gopala in eastern India c. 780 The rise of the Gurjara Pratiharas c. 788-820 Shankaracharya 814-80 Reign of Amoghavarsha, the Rashtrakuta King c. 840 Establishing of the Pratiharas under King Bhoja c. 907 Parantaka I strengthens Chola power in south India 973 Chalukyas of Kalyani defeat the Rashtrakutas 985-1014 Rajaraja I extends Chola power 1000-1026 Raids of Mahmud of Ghazni into north-western India 1023 Northern campaign of Rajendra Chola 1025 Naval campaign of the Cholas 1030 Alberuni in India c. 1075 Ramanuja 1077-1147 Establishment of the Ganga kingdom 1077 Embassy of Chola merchants to China 1077-1120 Ramapala re-enforces the Pala kingdom IIIO Rise of Vishnuvardhana and Hoysala power I144-71 Kumarapala, the Chaulukya/Solanki King 1148 Kalhana writes the Rajatarangini 1192 Prithviraja Chauhan defeated by Muhammad Ghuri at the battle of Tarain 1206 Establishment of the Delhi Sultanate under Qutb-ud-din Aibak C.1250 Sun temple at Konarak 1246-79 Rajendra III, the last Chola King XV  Introduction A book originally written when one had just been initiated into the pro- fession, now being revised late in life, has elements of an autobiography. Returning to a book of almost forty years ago has brought home to me the substantial changes in the readings of early Indian history, some arising out of new data and many more from new interpretations of the existing data. There has been much discussion on these readings and my participation in these has shaped my own understanding of this period. The attempt here is to incorporate such readings that I think are valid without writing an entirely different book. Inevitably, however, there is much that is different in this book. Many ideas that were merely glanced at in the earlier version have now been further drawn out. One may not have been aware of it at the time, but the earlier version was written at a nodal point of change when early Indian history, which had begun essentially as an interest in Indology, was gradually becoming part of the human sciences - a change that I hope to demonstrate in the first chapter on historiography. I have stayed largely within the framework of the earlier book since I thought it was still viable and did not require radical alteration. Chapters have been re-oriented so that some contain more new material, while in others the emphasis is on new interpretations. The reading of early Indian history has seen considerable changes in the last four decades and I have sought to capture these in the narrative that follows. The new readings emerged from various ongoing assessments. Some were of colonial interpretations of the Indian past, which also had to contend with the attitudes to Indian culture that were prevalent in the period just after Indian independence. In the popular imagination of Europe, India had been the fabulous land of untold wealth, of mystical happenings and of an association with ideas that reached beyond mundane experience. From gold-digging ants to philosophers who lived naked in the forests and medi- tated on the after-life of the soul, these were all part of the picture of India xvii  INTRODUCTION formed by the ancient Greeks, for example, and these images persisted in Europe into more recent centuries. As in every other ancient culture, wealth in India was limited to the few. Publicizing myths, such as that of the rope trick, was also the preoccupation of just a handful of people. It is true, however, that acceptance - sometimes bemused - of such notions was more extensive in India. Whereas in some cultures the myth of the rope trick would have been ascribed to the prompting of the devil, and all reference to it suppressed, in India it was received with a mixture of belief and disbelief. A fundamental sanity in Indian civilization has been due to an absence of Satan. Other reactions contending with earlier colonial and nationalist views of Indian culture were different. One was the rather simplistic reaction of annulling or reversing negative statements about Indian civilization and exaggerating the positive statements - a reaction that now seems to be capturing some part of the popular Indian imagination. The more serious concern with history was its recognition as a discipline with a method, including the search for readings that incorporated viable alternative ways of explaining the past. It is the latter that is being set out in this book. To begin at the beginning then, is to start by asking how histories of India1 came to be written, who the historians were, why they were writing and what were the intellectual and ideological influences that shaped their histories, in short, that which is now called historiography. History is not information that is handed down unchanged from generation to generation. Historical situations need to be explained and explanations draw on analyses of the evidence, providing generalizations that derive from the logic of the argument. With new evidence or fresh interpretations of existing evidence, a new understanding of the past can be achieved. But interpretations have to conform to the basic requirements of using reliable evidence, analytical methods and arguments drawing on logic. Following from these, a sensitivity is needed to the ways in which people from earlier times led their lives and thought about their past. Historiography therefore becomes a prelude to understanding history as a form of knowledge. Interpretations frequently derive from prevalent intellectual modes. These constitute shifts in the way history is read. Looking at how histories are written is in part the intellectual history of the period under discussion and can therefore be vibrant with ideas and explanations. The starting point in the history of a society, therefore, has to be a familiarity with its historio- i This book covers the early part of the history of pre-modern south Asia. Terms such as 'India' and 'Indian' apply to the subcontinent, except where specified as referring to the modern nation state of India. xviii  INTRODUCTION graphy - the history of historical interpretation. This provides recognition of the intellectual context of history, instead of setting this aside with a preference for just a narration of events. Familiarity with the context encourages a more sensitive understanding of the past. This awareness of historiography has contributed substantially to the change in understanding Indian history over the last half-century. Historiographical change incorporates new evidence and new ways of looking at existing evidence. The inclusion of perspectives from other human sciences such as studies of societies, economies and religions has led to some important reformulations in explaining the past, resulting primarily from asking different questions from the sources than had been asked before. If earlier historical writing was concerned largely with politics, today it includes virtually all human activities and their interconnections. These are crucial to the argument that the image of reality, as reflected in the human sciences, is socially and culturally controlled and that actions have multiple causes. Advances in knowledge would inevitably change some of these perspectives. Historical explanation therefore creates an awareness of how the past impinges on the present, as well as the reverse. Among the new sources of evidence, quite apart from the occasional coin, inscription or sculpture, have been data provided by archaeology, evidence on the links between environment and history, and the insights provided by historical and socio-linguistics. Aspects of the oral tradition, when used in a comparative manner, have often illustrated the methods that are used to preserve information, either by societies that are not literate or by those that chose to use the oral form in preference to the literate. The possibility of applying these methods to an earlier oral tradition has been revealing. In recent years the early history of India has increasingly drawn on evidence from archaeology, which has provided tangible, three-dimensional data in the artefacts and material remains discovered through survey and excavation. These were once used to corroborate the evidence from literary and textual sources (and in some theories about ancient India they continue to be thus used). But archaeological data may or may not corroborate literary evidence, and, where they do not, they provide an alternative view. In the absence of written evidence, or where the written evidence remains undeciphered, artefacts can fill lacunae. The corroboration is not one-to-one since archaeological data are substantially in the form of artefacts, whereas textual information is abstract, and both are subject to the intervention of the historian's interpretation. The relationship of archaeological data with literary evidence is complicated and requires expertise in each category. xix  INTRODUCTION Reacting against the earlier tyranny of the text, some archaeologists today would deny the use of texts, even in a comparative way. Sophisticated methods of excavation and the reading of excavated data are far more complex than in the days when an archaeologist had merely to dig and to discover. Various techniques from scientific disciplines are being used in the analyses of archaeological data, and the scope of the information provided by these has expanded enormously to include data on climate, ecology, settlement patterns, palaeo-pathology, flora and fauna. Palaeo- botany - the study of plant and seed remains from an excavation - relates to flora and environmental conditions, and therefore adds another dimen- sion to the understanding of human settlements. Some of this data can lend itself to a modicum of statistical analysis. India still sustains an extensive range of societies, some even suggesting a stone age condition. This 'living pre-history', as it has been called, underlines the continuity of cultural survivals. Attempts are now being made in the cross-discipline of ethno-archaeology to correlate ethnographic studies with the excavations of human settlements. The correlating may raise some doubts, but the usefulness of such studies lies in the asking of questions, for instance, on forms of social organization or on the functions of artefacts. In areas where there are some cultural survivals, these procedures can endorse the assistance occasionally provided by field work as an adjunct to textual studies, and, as has been rightly argued, this is particularly pertinent to the study of religion in India. Fieldwork provides insights that can enhance the meaning of the text. The changes that occur, for instance, in rituals incorporate elements of history, particularly in societies where for many people ritual activity or orthopraxy is more important than theology or orthodoxy. The entirely text-based studies of religions are now being sup- plemented by comparative studies of the practice of various religions. Impressive evidence, both in quality and quantity, has come from sites dating to the second and first millennia BC excavated during the past half-century. It is now possible to map the settlements of the period sub- sequent to the decline of the first urban civilization in north-western India and this provides some clues to the successor cultures. This raises questions of whether there were continuities from the earlier cultures. Equally signifi- cant is the identifying of the nature of successor cultures. There is also evidence on some of the precursor settlements in the Ganges Plain and its fringes in central India, providing clues to the nature of the second urbanization of the mid-first millennium in the Ganges Plain. However, these questions can only be answered after there have been horizontal excavations of the major sites, an activity that awaits attention. Megalithic xx  INTRODUCTION burials of various kinds, dating from the late second millennium BC, are especially characteristic of the peninsula. Their origins and relationships to settlements remain somewhat enigmatic, but at least they provide evidence of cultural levels and networks prior to the information from inscriptions, coins and texts. Recent studies of archaeological data have led to an interest in the environ- ment as a factor in the making of history. This began with the long debate on whether the decline of the Indus cities was substantially due to environmental degradation. To this has been added the evidence of the drying up of the Ghaggar-Hakra River in northern India, with related hydraulic changes and their historical implications. Archaeological evidence has also been used to suggest a decline in urban centres during the Gupta period, thus questioning its claim to being an age of considerable urban prosperity. Artefacts can be examined as pointers to technology, leading to the examination of the role of technological change in history. There has been an extended discussion, for example, on the role of iron technology - particularly in the clearing of forests and the use of the iron ploughshare as processes related to urbaniz- ation in the Ganges Plain. Archaeological evidence has also underlined the significance of geography to history, particularly in understanding the location of settlements, the movements of peoples and the creation of states. Large unitary kingdoms were more easily hosted in the northern Indo-Gangetic Plains. The southern half of the subcontinent, the peninsula, was divided into smaller regions by mountains, plateaus and river valleys - a topography that made the functioning of expansive kingdoms more difficult. In an age of empires, as the nineteenth century was, the large kingdoms of the north attracted the attention of historians. Periods when such kingdoms flourished were described as 'Golden Ages' and those that saw the growth of smaller and more localized states were viewed as the 'Dark Ages'. The history of the peninsula received far less attention, except when it too could boast of large kingdoms. It suffered further from the fact that political strategy in the peninsula and its economic potential differed from that of the north. This is particularly noticeable in the deployment of maritime commerce as part of the economy in some states. Among the more interesting departures from earlier views has been the realization that particular geographical regions do not remain pivotal to historical activity permanently. They can and do change, as do the regions that are their peripheries. Sometimes multiple centres share the same history and at other times the centres have diverse histories. Why such regions change and how this affects historical evolution is in itself a worthwhile xxi  INTRODUCTION exploration. The recognition of the region and its links with geomorphology and ecology is drawing the attention of historians. However, a region in the Indian subcontinent cannot become an isolated historical entity, and regional histories inevitably have to be related to larger wholes. Detailed studies of regions have inducted an interest in landscape and how it has changed. The agencies of change are dependent on geology, geomorphology and human activity, but what needs to be looked at more closely is the effect of a change in landscape on history. The most obvious examples of this are changes in river courses or deforestation. We still tend to presume that the landscape of today was also the landscape of yesterday. Associated with fieldwork is the study of oral traditions, which has been used by anthropologists in deriving material for analysing myths and for kinship patterns. Although myths need not go back to earlier times, they can in some cases carry forward earlier ideas. But because of their fluid chronology, and the fact that they are generally not records of actual happenings, myths can only be used in a limited way. Mythology and history are often counterposed and myth cannot be treated as a factual account. Yet the prizing out of the social assumptions implicit in a myth can be helpful to reconstructing some kinds of history. The interpretation of myths, if handled with caution, can invoke some of the fantasies and subconscious beliefs of their authors, while the structure of the myth can hint at the connections and confrontations in a society of those sustaining the myths. Since history now reflects many voices, some from sources other than those from the courts of rulers, the oral tradition or the more popular traditions are no longer dismissed as unimportant. Obviously the survival of the oral tradition is from a recent period, but a familiarity with the techniques of assessing an oral tradition has been helpful in re-examining texts that were once part of an early oral tradition. Oral sources were sometimes preserved through being so carefully memorized that the text almost came to be frozen, as in some of the Vedic ritual compositions. Alternatively, the memorization was less frozen and more open, with a composition such as the epic poetry of the Mahabharata, and many interpolations became possible. The ways in which oral traditions work provide a variety of approaches to such texts. Linguistics is another field that is proving helpful to historians of early India. Analysing a word helps to explain its meaning and, if it can be seen in a historical context, much is added to the meaning. Words such as raja - initially meaning chief and subsequently king - constitute a history of their own and have a bearing on historical readings. Socio-linguistics provides evidence of how words can point to social relationships through the way in which they are used. Given the connection between languages and the xxii  INTRODUCTION fact that languages change, both through use and through communication between speakers of different languages, such change becomes a significant adjunct to other historical evidence. The study of a language from the perspective of linguistics is not limited to similarities of sound or meaning, but involves a familiarity with the essential structure of the language - grammar, morphology, phonetics - and this is more demanding that just being able to read and write a language. Linguistic diversity may well have been registered in the Indian subconti- nent from earliest times, which might explain part of the problem in attempting to decipher the Indus script. Among the many languages used in India, Tibeto-Burman, for example, has been associated with the north- eastern and Himalayan fringes. The Austro-Asiatic group of languages, particularly Munda, clusters in parts of central and eastern India. It could have been more widespread if one believes the mythology of its speakers or, for that matter, the evidence of some of the linguistic elements which occur as a substratum in the earliest Indo-Aryan compositions. Dravidian is likely to have been more extensively used than it is now, with groups of speakers in central India and with four major languages derived from it in the peninsula, not to mention the pocket of Brahui in the north-west of the subcontinent. The reason why, or the way in which, a language either spreads or becomes restricted, has historical explanations. Indo-Aryan spread gradually over northern India, incorporating some elements of Austro-Asiatic and Dravidian. It bears repeating that Indo- Aryan is in fact a language label, indicating a speech-group of the Indo- European family, and is not a racial term. To refer to 'the Aryans' as a race is therefore inaccurate. The racial identities of speakers of Indo-Aryan languages are not known. When textual sources refer to arya the reference is generally to an identity that involves language, social status and associated rituals and custom. It is in this sense that the term is used in this book. Other than archaeological data, there have been no major sources of new evidence that would radically change our understanding of the period. The recent discovery of important inscriptions and coins has clarified some ambiguities. The exploration of textual data has led to evidence being gathered from texts of historical importance, but in languages other than Sanskrit. Perhaps the most significant change with regard to textual sources is a greater recognition that important authoritative, didactic texts, or even the epics, as we have them today, were not necessarily written at a precise point in time. They have been edited over long time periods and inter- polations have been incorporated. A single authorship for a text is not insisted upon. The tradition of writing and using texts in the early past was xxiii  INTRODUCTION different from the way in which we view authorship and texts today. It was recognized that a succession of authors, generally of the same persuasion, could edit the same text. The authorship, audience and purpose of a text are also now receiving attention when data is gathered. The problems of the chronology of these texts remains as complicated as before, and this prevents their being closely related to a particular period. A large number of texts of other genres, for instance creative literature, are of single authorship, even if their chronology is sometimes uncertain. These have been used in making comparative linguistic analyses. Some attempts have also been made in sifting linguistic style and usage to ascertain the history of the compilation of a text. Such sifting has been facilitated on a few occasions through the use of computers, although this technique is not entirely without hassles. One of the current debates relating to the beginnings of Indian history involves both archaeology and linguistics, and attempts to differentiate between indigenous and alien peoples. But history has shown that communi- ties and their identities are neither permanent nor static. Their composition changes either with the arrival of new people in an area, and the possible new technologies that are introduced, or by historical changes of a more local but far-reaching kind. Some areas are more prone to change, such as borderlands, mountain passes and fertile plains, whereas densely forested areas or deserts may retain their isolation for a longer period until such time as there is a demand on them for resources. To categorize some people as indigenous and others as alien, to argue about the identity of the first inhabitants of the subcontinent, and to try and sort out these categories for the remote past, is to attempt the impossible. It is precisely in the intermixture of peoples and ideas that the genesis of cultures is to be found. Such arguments arise from the concerns of present-day privilege and power, rather than from the reading of history. It was not just the landscape that changed, but society also changed and often quite noticeably. But this was a proposition unacceptable to colonial perceptions that insisted on the unchanging character of Indian history and society. The concentration on dynastic histories in the early studies was due to the assumption that in 'Oriental' societies the power of the ruler was supreme even in the day-to-day functioning of the government. Yet authority for routine functions was rarely entirely concentrated at the centre in the Indian political systems. Much that was seen as essentially centralized in theories such as 'Oriental Despotism' was in actual fact localized through the functions of caste and of other organizations. The understanding of political power in India involves analyses of caste relationships and insti- xxiv  INTRODUCTION tutions, such as the guilds and rural and urban councils, and not merely a survey of dynasties. That the study of institutions did not receive much emphasis was in part due to the belief that they did not undergo much change: an idea derived from the conviction that Indian culture had been static, largely owing to the lethargy of the Indian and his gloomy, fatalistic attitude to life. Yet even a superficial analysis of the changes in social relationships within the caste structure, or the links between politics and economic systems, or the vigorous mercantile activities of Indians through- out the centuries, points to anything but static behaviour or an unchanging socio-economic pattern. At certain levels there are aspects of cultural tra- ditions in India that can be traced to roots as far back as a few thousand years, but such continuity should not be confused with stagnation. The chanting of the gayatri1 hymn has a history of three millennia, but its current context can hardly be said to have remained unchanged from earlier times, and for the historian the context is as important as the content of the hymn. In common with all branches of knowledge, the premium on specialization in the later twentieth century has made it impossible to hold a seriously considered view about a subject without some technical expertise in the discipline. Such expertise enhances both the pleasure and the understanding of what is under study. To be able to read a text or a coin legend or an inscription is the bare minimum of knowledge required: some familiarity with the mathematics of numismatics, the semiotics of symbols and the contextual dimensions of a text make history a far richer discipline than it was thought to be. The interpretation of a text draws on its authorship, intention, audience, historical context and its interface with other texts of its kind. As a result there is a distance between the professional historian and the amateur writing history. The function then of a history such as this is to provide some flavour of the richer taste emerging in historical research. My attempt in this book is to treat political history as a skeletal framework in order to provide a chronological bearing, even if chronology is not always certain. This also introduces a few names of rulers as a more familiar aspect of early Indian history. However, the major focus of each chapter is the attempt to broadly interrelate the political, economic, social and religious aspects of a period with the intention of showing where and why changes have occurred and how these in turn have had an effect on each aspect. Where there are continuities these will become apparent. The subdivisions in each chapter, therefore, are not meant to suggest separate entities, but i A hymn from the Rig-Veda, evoking the solar deity, and regarded as particularly holy. XXV  INTRODUCTION are pointers to what is significant in that period. The contents of the chapters do not exactly match the periods listed in the first chapter in my reconsideration of periodization, but the book does follow the pattern suggested. The pattern of change moves from small societies and states with a relatively uncomplicated organization to the emergence of more complex societies, often accompanied by large states and the requirements of such states. In summary form, the latter included a variety of facets, such as: the need to administer extensive territory, literally, in terms of the reality on the ground; agrarian and commercial economies of varying kinds; diverse social forms, some of which were viewed as part of a uniform caste organization, while others were described as deviant forms; the structures of knowledge and the way in which their ideological formulations were linked to other aspects of society and culture; manifold religious sects expressing social concerns, as well as incorporating ideas that ranged from mythology to philosophical notions; creative literature of various kinds; the location of sacred sites that gave a tangible presence to religious sects and their varied forms of worship. Implicit in the listing of these items are the ways in which they are linked, and their forms are either influential or fade away. The discussion of these links and the changes they bring about, in other words the explanation of historical change, will hopefully unfold in the narrative. It is assumed that much of the history that is discussed here emerges out of the existence of states, or at least the recognition of forms of political organization. The formation of a state is a recognized historical process, accompanied by concentrations of settlements that can evolve into towns. The presence of the state introduces more complexities into a situation than in societies where states are yet to evolve. This also introduces the notion that there can be varieties of states in early history. The patterns taken by a state can differ in accordance with its constituents. Ascertaining the particu- lar pattern of the state, or the way in which the state functions, also becomes a way of observing the history of the period and place. The emergence of states need not be simultaneous in every area, for this transformation can also occur in other times and places. Periodization therefore tends to describe a significant change over a substantial area, but in earlier periods it need not necessarily have applied to every region. The change gradually becomes more uniform. The structure of administration that helped to define the nature of the state began as a rudimentary form of ensuring the functioning of a particular form of government, for instance chiefship or kingship. It tended to become increasingly complex as it had to be adjusted to the environment - forests, xxvi  INTRODUCTION pastures, deserts, fields, mountains, seas - and the environment could be diverse in the large states, which sometimes prevented a neat, uniform administration. The notion of governance, therefore, was modified up to a point by local requirements. The balance between the concentration and the distribution of power was another determining factor of administration, as was the control over resources. Theories of governance would both have influenced, and been influenced by, the form of administration. Territory included within a state could be defined by campaigns where a successful campaign brought in more territory, or else the existing territory could be eroded if the campaign failed. Such demarcations derive from politics, but also, although to a lesser extent, from terrain. Economies were matched to the patterns of states and to the power that they wielded. Agrarian economies varied in relation to ecology, crop patterns, methods of irrigation and the hierarchy of control over agricultural land. The latter was initially diverse, but slowly evolved into forms that extended over large areas. The forms grew out of matters relating to sources of power, resources for the economies and the diverse methods of obtaining and controlling human labour. The growth of cities is also a pointer to commerce, with trade being the most effective economy in some areas. Histories of India in the past have been essentially land-locked, with mari- time trade playing a marginal role. This is now being corrected by the attention given to maritime trade, both in terms of the commercial economy and the creation of new social identities involving traders who settled in India. There has been a tendency to treat caste as a uniform social organization in the subcontinent. But there are variations in terms of whether landowning groups or trading groups were dominant, a dominance that could vary regionally. The hierarchical ordering of society became uniform, but there were ways of handling the hierarchy that introduced regional variations. Both agriculture and commerce allow a different set of freedoms to, and restrictions on, castes. This raises the question of whether in some situations wealth, rather than caste-ranking, was not the more effective gauge of patronage and power. The formation of castes is now being explored as a way of understanding how Indian society functioned. Various possibilities include the emergence of castes from clans of forest-dwellers, professional groups or religious sects. Caste is therefore seen as a less rigid and frozen system than it was previously thought to be, but at the same time this raises a new set of interesting questions for social historians. The manifold expressions of structured knowledge are generally seen as tied to philosophical notions, as indeed they were. But not all categories of xxvii  INTRODUCTION knowledge were invariably divorced from technological practices and texts. The techniques of preserving knowledge or the methods of advancing know- ledge are diverse, ranging from the oral to the literate, and incorporate, at various levels, the technological as well as the theoretical. Equally important are the intellectual contestations between the heterodoxy and the orthodoxy, between the nature of belief and the nature of doubt. Creative literature is characteristic of every period, but the predominant forms that it takes would appear to vary. The great oral compositions, such as the epics, date to earlier times, while the more courtly literature of the educated elite became more frequent from the early centuries of the Christian era. Nevertheless, even if courts fostered poetry and drama of a sophisticated kind, the popularity of the epics continued. This popularity is demonstrated from time to time in the choice of themes for courtly literature, selected from the popular literature, but of course treated in a different manner. Similarly, religious literature ranges from ritual texts to the compositions of religious poets and teachers intended for a popular audience, and the intricacies of the philosophical discourse intended for other audiences. Since the sources are largely those of the elite, we have less information on the religions of ordinary people, and what we do know comes indirectly from the sources. Possibly the excavation of settlements in the future will provide more data on popular religion. But from what can be gathered there appears to have been a considerable continuity at the popular level, for example in the worship of local goddesses - as would be expected. Apart from the study of texts, on which the initial understanding of Indian religions was based, the history of religions in India has been studied by investigating cults with information on ritual and belief, and working on the history of sects that extends to the social groups supporting particular beliefs and forms of worship. Arguing that Vedic Brahmanism - drawing its identity from the Vedic corpus - was a religious form associated with socially dominant groups, supporting practices and beliefs that could be seen as an orthodoxy, there have been studies of movements that have distanced themselves in various ways from Vedic Brahmanism. The Shram- ana group - Buddhism, Jainism and various 'heterodox' sects - is one such well-established group. More recently, sects within the Hindu tradition deriving their identity from the texts known as the Agamas and the Puranas, variously linked with or distanced from the orthodoxy, are being seen as constituting what some historians of religion prefer to call Puranic Hinduism or the Puranic religions. The distinguishing features relate to differences in belief and ritual from Vedic Brahmanism. The history of these sects points xxviii  INTRODUCTION to processes that either retain their distinctiveness or else encourage an accommodation with Vedic Brahmanism, although the two are not equated. Close identities between religious sects and castes are frequent in Indian religion and the multiplicity of reasonably independent sects has led some scholars to speak of the Hindu religions (in the plural). The term 'Hindu' to describe a religious identity came into currency as late as the second millen- nium AD. Prior to that, sectarian identities were more frequently referred to, since the over-arching term Dharma included not only sacred duties but also a range of social obligations. Sects are not invariably formed by breaking away from a historical religious mainstream, but are at times born from a mosaic of belief, worship and mythology coming together. Relating religious sects to castes as segments of society provides pointers to where religious and social concerns overlap. What is of greater interest is the manner in which some of these popular manifestations of religion find their way into the religious activity of the elite. This last aspect also introduces a dimension relating to the history of art that perhaps requires a fuller integration into history. The history of art is no longer confined to discussing an image isolated in a museum or a structure seen as an entity by itself. Each is part of a larger history. Architecture, for instance, has also to be viewed as representing an institution, and both institutional and aesthetic needs would determine form. In many ways narrative art provides a bridge, whether it be stories relating to the life of the Buddha or the mythology surrounding deities. At one level these are representations of reality, but are not merely that, and their other meanings also have to be read. Similarly, there remains the perennial question of whether the icon of a deity is to be viewed primarily as an aesthetic object or a religious representation, or both, or much more. There is also the question raised by art historians as to when an image becomes a stereotype. This is related to the question of the identities of artists or architects. These remain largely anonymous in the earlier periods, barring an occasional name, and it is only in the later period that names are mentioned more frequently so that we learn something about them. But even this information is limited, although we know relatively more about their patrons. Our contemporary aesthetic concerns become primary, although these are differ- ent from the aesthetics of earlier times. As has been rightly said, we have to assess how much was routine and how much was inspired by the ideals of their time, which means that historians have to recover 'the period eye'. Implicit in these lists of items, and in their narration and discussion as aspects of the past, are theories of explanation. My attempt to address these aspects leads to a presentation of how history moved and societies changed xxix  INTRODUCTION in the Indian subcontinent. There is now far greater sensitivity among historians of early India about the way in which early history is written and the intellectual dimensions of this historiography. Four decades ago, this was a preliminary inquiry but it has since become a theme of considerable historical interest. This has also made historians more aware of their own location on the historiographical map. To that extent, historical argument has become more demanding and more taut. Given the centrality of theories of explanation in the historical research that has followed, the narrative of history has been encouraged to present connections between the personali- ties of the past, their activities and the degree to which they made or were made by their historical context where information is available. However, barring a few exceptions, it is the historical context that has primacy, which is evident also in the shift of focus to the group. Inevitably, the range of players has increased with some attention to groups earlier thought to be insignificant and to activities earlier thought to be marginal. The change aims at a more integrated understanding of a complex society, its various mutations, its creativity and its efforts at enhancing its contributions to civilization. xxx  I Perceptions of the Past Colonial Constructions: Orientalist Readings The modern writing of Indian history began with colonial perceptions of the Indian past that were to be seminal to its subsequent interpretations. It took shape with the beginnings of colonial rule in various parts of the subcontinent from the eighteenth century onwards. European scholars searched for histories of India but could find none that conformed to the familiar European view of what a history should be, a view influenced in part by the thinking of the European Enlightenment. The only exception according to them was the twelfth-century history of Kashmir, the Raja- tarangini, written by Kalhana. They saw India only as a Hindu and Sanskritic civilization, so they set aside the numerous chronicles written largely in Persian by court poets and chroniclers of the Turkish, Afghan and Mughal rulers. These were regarded as alien to Indian civilization, even though their contents concerned Indian society and politics and the people whom they wrote about had settled in India to become part of Indian society. There was as yet little familiarity with other sources in Sanskrit such as local chronicles or, for that matter, the lengthy inscriptions issued by various rulers that were in effect dynastic annals. Hindu and Sanskritic elements were highlighted as the contribution of India to world history and the presence of other religious and linguistic cultures, such as Buddhism, Jainism or even Islam as it evolved in India, were barely recognized in terms of constructing Indian civilization. Concession to the importance of Buddhism came later. The initial hostility to Islam was doubtless aggravated by European antagonism due to historical reasons, beginning with the Crusades. If the role of Islam was conceded at all, it was said to be negative, and such judgements were based on little or no evidence since the history of Islam in India had not been investigated at this point. i  EARLY I N D I A That there could be other ways of perceiving the past or that Indians might have seen their history in a different manner was discounted. Societies were divided into those who have a sense of history and those who lack it. Indian civilization was described as a-historical. Not only were there no histories of India, but the absence of history was also explained by arguing that the concept of time in early India was cyclic. Therefore, all human activities were continually repeated in each cycle. This was inimical to a historical perspective that required each event to be seen as unique, a view endorsed by a linear concept where time moves not in a circle but in a straight line, from a given beginning to a stipulated end. Ways of looking at the Indian past in the form of genealogies, chronicles and annals, which conformed to linear time, were certainly studied for the reconstruction of the chronology of rulers, but their obviously linear dimension was ignored in discussions on the concept of time. That there is evidence of both linear and cyclic time in early India, and that the most insightful way of appreciat- ing this would be to see the intersections of the two, was an idea alien to these scholars. Since there was no recognizably connected narrative of the happenings in the Indian subcontinent since earliest times, the modern writing of history began with narratives constructed from this early European inquiry: hence the references to the 'discovery' or the 'rediscovery' of the Indian past. History as a distinctive discipline was coming into its own in Europe and was being moulded by a variety of practitioners. The sense of the past that emerged from ideas fostered by the European Enlightenment gave shape to the writing of history, as did influential historical works such as the narrative of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon. Inevitably, the imprint of the European image of India drew on these earlier reconstructions, an imprint that has now faded with the questioning of these readings. Initially, there were two major strands in the European interpretation of Indian civilization, which came to be known as the Orientalist and the Utilitarian. These developed from the studies made by British officials working for the British East India Company, trading with India, some of whom held office in India and some in England. The administrative functions of the East India Company required that its officers be knowledgeable about Indian practices and norms, particularly when parts of India came under the administration of the Company and eventually became colonies. This led to the officers studying Sanskrit, Persian, Bengali, Tamil and various other Indian languages, as well as writing grammars in English that became essential tools for this study. Administrative requirements also encouraged 2  P E R C E P T I O N S OF THE PAST the translation of what were believed to be legal codes, such as the Dharma- shastras, which were actually not codes of law but norms relating to social obligations and ritual requirements. Much of this activity was fostered by the belief that knowledge about the colony would enable a greater control over it and would provide a firm foundation to the power that the colonial authorities exercised. This was thought to be 'the necessary furniture of empire' and the recasting of this knowledge became as important as its acquisition. In the course of investigating what came to be called Hinduism, together with various aspects of its belief, ritual and custom, many were baffled by a religion that was altogether different from their own. It was not monotheistic, there was no historical founder, or single sacred text, or dogma or ecclesiastical organization - and it was closely tied to caste. There was therefore an overriding need to fit it into the known moulds of familiar religions, so as to make it more accessible. Some scholars have suggested that Hinduism as it is formulated and perceived today, very differently from earlier times, was largely born out of this reformulation. In India, diverse and multiple religions were practised, with royal patronage extending to more than one. This was a contrast to the European experience where a single religion - Christianity - and sometimes only a single division within this religion, either Roman Catholicism or Protestantism, received royal patronage. Such activities encouraged what have come to be called Orientalist studies, and the major British scholars initially associated with them were William Jones, Henry Colebrooke, Nathaniel Halhead, Charles Wilkins and Horace Hyman Wilson. Some of their initial research and seminal papers were published as monographs, with many more in Asiatic Researches, a periodi- cal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal established in 1784. There was much discussion at the meetings of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta, focusing largely on the origins and reconstruction of language and on religion and custom. But, curiously, membership of the Society was not open to Indians for many years, even though those presenting their findings were being trained by Indian scholars. European missionaries and visitors to India in preceding centuries had noticed the similarities between Sanskrit and some European languages. William Jones now set the connections in a more systematic framework. He also suggested the monogenesis of these languages, tracing them back to a common ancestor. Grammars and analyses of Sanskrit confirmed connec- tions between Sanskrit, Greek and Latin, and led eventually to the discipline of comparative philology. Some attempts were also made to relate the chronology of the ancient texts, the Puranas, with Biblical chronology, but 3  EARLY I N D I A this was not successful. A son of Noah was said to have migrated to India to establish the Indian population but the evidence for this was found wanting! Comparisons between Greco-Roman and Indian deities were among the early attempts at comparative religion, and Indian mythology fired the romantic imagination of Europe. Interpretations of the Indian past, growing out of these studies, were inevitably influenced by colonial concerns and interests, and also by preva- lent European ideas about history, civilization and the Orient. Orientalist scholars studied the languages and the texts with selected Indian scholars, but made little attempt to understand the world-view of those who were teaching them. The readings therefore are something of a disjuncture from the traditional ways of looking at the Indian past. European preconceptions imprinted on the readings gradually came to influence the way in which Indians themselves viewed their own culture. This reordering of Indian culture facilitated the direction given even to the self-perceptions of Indians. Orientalism fuelled the fantasy and the freedom sought by European Romanticism, particularly in its opposition to the more disciplined Neo- Classicism. The cultures of Asia were seen as bringing a new Romantic paradigm. Another Renaissance was anticipated through an acquaintance with the Orient, and this, it was thought, would be different from the earlier Greek Renaissance. It was believed that this Oriental Renaissance would liberate European thought and literature from the increasing focus on discipline and rationality that had followed from the earlier Enlightenment. This in part accounts for the enthusiasm for India in the writings of German authors, such as Herder, or the brothers Wilhelm and Auguste Schlegel, or Novalis. Others, such as the English poets Wordsworth and Coleridge, were apprehensive of the changes introduced by industrialization and turned to nature and to fantasies of the Orient. However, this enthusiasm gradually changed, to conform with the empha- sis later in the nineteenth century on the innate superiority of European civilization. Oriental civilizations were now seen as having once been great but currently in decline. The various phases of Orientalism tended to mould European understanding of the Indian past into a particular pattern. In the late nineteenth century it also influenced the emerging Indian middle class in its understanding of its own past. There was an attempt to formulate Indian culture as uniform, such formulations being derived from texts that were given priority. The so-called 'discovery' of India was largely through selected literature in Sanskrit. This interpretation tended to emphasize non- historical aspects of Indian culture, for example the idea of an unchanging continuity of society and religion over 3,000 years; and it was believed that z4  P E R C E P T I O N S OF THE PAST the Indian pattern of life was so concerned with metaphysics and the subtleties of religious belief that little attention was given to the more tangible aspects. German Romanticism endorsed this image of India, and it became the mystic land for many Europeans, where even the most ordinary actions were imbued with a complex symbolism. This was the genesis of the idea of the spiritual east, and also, incidentally, the refuge of European intellectuals seeking to distance themselves from the changing patterns of their own societies. A dichotomy in values was maintained, Indian values being described as 'spiritual' and European values as 'materialistic', with little attempt to juxtapose these values with the reality of Indian society. This theme has been even more firmly endorsed by a section of Indian opinion during the last hundred years. It was a consolation to the Indian intelligentsia for its perceived inability to counter the technical superiority of the west, a superiority viewed as having enabled Europe to colonize Asia and other parts of the world. At the height of anti-colonial nationalism it acted as a salve for having been made a colony of Britain. Colonial Constructions: A Utilitarian Critique The other strand in the European interpretation of the Indian past was a critique of Indian culture. It drew from the Utilitarian, legalistic philosophy current in Britain, and was largely the contribution of those writing on India but based in Britain. This interpretation is best represented in the views of James Mill and Thomas Macaulay and was partially endorsed, but for quite other reasons, by the Evangelicals among the Christian missionaries. Mill, writing his History of British India in the early nineteenth century, was the first to periodize Indian history. His division of the Indian past into the Hindu civilization, Muslim civilization and the British period has been so deeply embedded in the consciousness of those studying India that it prevails to this day. It is at the root of the ideologies of current religious nationalisms and therefore still plays a role in the politics of south Asia. It has resulted in a distorting of Indian history and has frequently thwarted the search for causes of historical change other than those linked to a superficial assessment of religion. Indian civilization was said to lack the qualities that Europe admired. For instance, the perceived emphasis on the values of rational thought and individualism was said to be absent, and India's culture was seen as stagnant.  EARLY I N D I A This attitude was perhaps best typified in Macaulay's contempt for things Indian, especially traditional Indian education and learning. The political institutions of India, visualized largely as the rule of Maharajas and Sultans, were dismissed as despotic and totally unrepresentative of public opinion. And this, in an age of democratic revolutions, was about the worst sin. Mill's History of British India, in which he argued these propositions, became a hegemonic text in the nineteenth century which influenced many commentators and administrators associated with India. Mill's views were echoed in aspects of colonial policy, increasingly concerned with the con- quest of the subcontinent and the restructuring of its economy to suit colonial requirements. The Utilitarian critique of India argued that backwardness can be rem- edied through appropriate legislation, which could be used by the British to change the stagnant nature of Indian society that had prevented its progress. Mill's insistence on these negative features reflected his use of this description as part of his campaign to legislate change in Britain. Many of the debates assessing the condition of India can be better explained through a familiarity with the current debates on political economy in Britain at that time. A theory often associated with the Utilitarian view of Asian civilizations was that of Oriental Despotism. This visualized a system of government consisting of a despotic ruler with absolute power, said to be characteristic of Asian societies. Such societies featured the existence of isolated, self- sufficient village communities whose surplus produce was creamed off by the despotic ruler and his court, governing through an autocratic bureau- cracy. The latter controlled irrigation, which was a prerequisite for agricul- ture dependent on water management, and also organized the collection of surplus produce. Much of Asia was thought to be arid and dry, irrigation being provided by the state and controlled by the bureaucracy to ensure a surplus agricultural income providing revenue for the despot. The peasant was kept subjugated and had little freedom; cities were largely administrative centres and there was hardly any commercial exchange; the association of divinity with kingship strengthened the status of the king. According to this theory, Oriental Despotism encapsulated the political economy of Asian empires. This view can be traced to early Greek sources perceiving the Persian Achaemenid Empire of the mid-first millennium BC as despotic. The Greeks themselves were not averse on occasion to despotic behaviour, but their view of Asian societies as culturally alien led to exaggerated accounts. To this was added the vision of luxurious Oriental courts, a vision deriving in z 6  P E R C E P T I O N S OF T H E PAST part from the luxury trade with the east since early times, and partly on the fantasy world of the east as described by Greek visitors. The Greek physician Ktesias at the Persian court, for instance, let his imagination run riot in describing the marvels, mysteries and wealth of the eastern lands. The Crusades and the ensuing literature on the Turks would have strengthened these notions, many of which were exaggerated to impress European audiences. Given the concerns of eighteenth-century France and England, the central question was seen as private ownership of land. The theory of Oriental Despotism assumed there was no private ownership of land in Asia and that the king owned all the land. There had been a controversy between Voltaire, supported by the Physiocrats, arguing against the state ownership of land in Asia and Montesquieu, who held the contrary opinion. The standard text on the traditional economy of India used in Haileybury College, where administrators were trained before going to India, was that of Richard Jones who endorsed the theory. The standard history was that of James Mill who also did not question this idea. Those who came to administer India assumed the essential viability of the theory, and some among them were also the pre-eminent historians of the period writing on India. The theory became axiomatic to the interpretation of the Indian past in the nineteenth century, particularly that aspect which concerned land relations and the rights of the state over the cultivator. The nature of ownership of land was debated, as was the question of who was the owner - the king/state, the individual cultivator or the village community. The village community was sometimes projected as an autonomous republic or as a collective for gathering and paying taxes. These debates were reflected in the writings of administrators and historians, such as Henry Maine, Baden-Powell, Munroe and Montstuart Elphinstone. In the process of answering these questions, conditions in pre-colonial India began to assume importance. Land ownership and revenue collection by the state became themes of historical study, but the exploration of these questions was influenced by the prevailing preconceptions about the Indian past. India as 'The Other' Trends such as these, deriving from Orientalist and Utilitarian notions about Asia, led, in the latter part of the nineteenth century to treating Asia as significantly different - 'the Other' of Europe. The central question related to the lack of a capitalist system in Asia, and the answers were thought to 7  EARLY I N D I A lie in the pre-modern history of Indian society and religion. The analyses of Karl Marx, in what he called the Asiatic Mode of Production, envisaged despotism and stagnancy as key characteristics which nullified movements towards change parallel to that of Europe. In the absence of private property there were no intermediary groups between king and peasant, nor classes or class conflict of a kind that would lead to dialectical change. This was further nullified by the absence of commercial centres and cities specializing in production for a market which, if they had existed, might have encouraged economic change. The theory of the Asiatic Mode of Production has been resorted to from time to time in the last century for reasons of current politics to explain the inability of Asian societies to develop capitalist systems. Accepting the idea of Oriental Despotism, Karl Wittfogel argued that the control of the irrigation system - the hydraulic machinery - lay in the hands of the bureaucracy in Asian states, and this allowed the ruler to be despotic. The theory was widely discussed by Asian Marxist historians, who pointed out that there was little historical evidence to support it. The question of technologies, such as irrigation and their impact on Indian history, is in any case far more complex than the simplistic notion of bureaucracies controlling water management and thereby the entire economy. Another area that brought forth debates among those involved with Indian administration in the nineteenth century concerned the origins of caste. The possible genesis was said to be from regulations of kinship and marriage or occupation, religious functions or political hierarchies. Caste was linked to religion and the close connection between the two was seen as a barrier to economic change. This was discussed in Max Weber's study of the religion of India, focusing on Hinduism. Castes were projected as distinct and separate, with no social action across castes being possible. Max Weber was also concerned with the non-emergence of capitalism in India, but his perspective was different from that of Karl Marx. He surveyed a variety of religious sects, and the underlining feature that he emphasized was the absence of a Puritan ethic in their belief and function. This for him was a crucial factor in the emergence of capitalism in Europe. The Puritan ethic favoured frugality, saving and investment of wealth, a commitment to a vocation and a concern with the salvation of the soul. Economic rationality had to be present in the religious teaching of the ethic. The economic rationality of a number of Hindu, Buddhist and Jaina sects was thought to have played a marginal role. Even those Islamic sects in India that were significant to its commerce, and whose religious perceptions were heavily infused with the local religious interests of commercial castes, were excluded, z8  P E R C E P T I O N S OF T H E PAST since India was seen as a Hindu civilization. Curiously, the contribution of colonialism to the emergence of capitalism in Europe was given no attention in this analysis. The intention was to depict a situation in contrast to the European, even if the depiction had to be exaggerated. Weber's study of Indian society in terms of its caste components and its interface with religious activity was not an isolated interest. This was an area in which a number of philologists, sociologists and specialists of religious studies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had developed an interest, often seeing the Indian evidence as indicative of a different system from those now familiar to European scholars. Emile Durkheim's studies helped to recognize survivals from earlier societies in the rituals of later historical periods. His demarcation between beliefs and rituals was significant to later studies of Vedic sacrifice, and the centrality of deity to religion and its absence in Buddhism was also a matter of considerable debate in defining religion. Marcel Mauss and H. Hubert analysed the ritual of sacrifice in some detail, particularly in attempts to separate the sacred from the profane. Mauss's work on gift-giving was pathbreaking in examining the links between social and religious relation- ships, and early Indian texts were central to these studies. Celestin Bougie raised the question of whether caste was characteristic of Hindu society alone, or whether it could be found in other societies. This led him to define caste as more pertinent to jatis - hereditary groups arranged hierarchically, with unequal rights, a separation based on taboos of marriage rules, food and custom, and a resistance to unification with others. This was a different analysis from that of many Indologists, for whom the definition of caste was restricted to varna or ritual status and viewed in terms of brahmanical culture. Jati and varna did not annul each other, but had different origins and functions. 'Discovering' the Indian Past When European scholars in the late eighteenth century first became curious about the past of India their sources of information were largely brahmans, who maintained that the ancient tradition was preserved in Sanskrit works about which they alone were knowledgeable. Thus, much of the early history of India was reconstructed almost entirely from Sanskrit texts, and reflected views associated with their authors. Many of these works were texts on religion or manuals of ritual, which coloured the interpretation of early Indian culture. Even texts with other concerns often had brahman authors 9  EARLY I N D I A and commentators, and were therefore biased in favour of those in authority, generally adhering to brahmanical theories of society irrespective of whether or not they had widespread historical applicability. For example, caste as described in texts such as the Dharma-shastras referred to varna distinc- tions, a hierarchy of ritual status creating a closed stratification of society, apparently imposed from an early period and thereafter preserved almost intact for many centuries. The lower castes were seen from the perspective of the upper-caste brahman authors of the texts. Yet the actual working of caste in Indian society permitted of variation, in accordance with local conditions, which the authors of the Dharma-shastras were reluctant to admit. It is curious that there were only a few attempts to integrate the texts studied by Indologists with the data collected by ethnographers. Both consti- tuted substantial but diverse information on Indian society. Presumably the bifurcation was influenced by the distinction between 'civilized' and 'primitive' peoples, the latter being said to have no literature. Those who studied oral traditions were regarded as scholars but of another category. Such traditions were seen as limited to bards, to lower castes and the tribal and forest peoples, and as such not reliable when compared to the texts of the higher castes and the elite. Had the two been seen as aspects of the same society, the functioning of caste would have been viewed as rather different from the theories of the Dharma-shastras. The use of evidence from a variety of different sources that were later to become dominant was a challenge to certain aspects of textual evidence, but a corroboration of others, thus providing a more accurate and less one-sided picture of the past. Evidence from contemporary inscriptions, for example, became increasingly important. A small interest developed in genealogies and local chronicles. James Tod gathered information from bards and local chronicles for a history of various Rajput clans, but this did not lead to greater interest in collecting bardic evidence or assessing the role of bards as authors of local history. Tod tended to filter the data through his own preconceptions of medieval European society, and was among those who drew parallels with European feudalism, albeit of a superficial kind. He popularized the notion that the Rajputs were the traditional aristocracy and resisted Muslim rule, disregarding their political alliances and marriage relations with Muslim rulers. L. P. Tessitori made collections of genealogies and attempted to analyse them, but these never found their way into conven- tional histories. He too consulted local bards in Rajasthan and collected their records. Those interested in studying the Indian past and present through its z 10  P E R C E P T I O N S OF THE PAST languages and literatures, its ethnology and religion, gradually increased. The nineteenth century saw considerable advances in what came to be called Indology - the study of India by non-Indians, using methods of investigation developed by European scholars in the nineteenth century. In India the use of modern techniques to 'rediscover' the past came into practice. Among these was the decipherment of the brahmi script, largely by James Prinsep. Many inscriptions pertaining to the early past were written in brahmi, but knowledge of how to read the script had been lost. Since inscriptions form the annals of Indian history, this decipherment was a major advance that led to the gradual unfolding of the past from sources other than religious and literary texts. Epigraphic sources introduced many new perspectives that have as yet not been exhausted. They were used for firming up historical chronology but their substantial evidence on social and economic history, as also on the history of religious sects, was recognized only subsequently. Numismatics took off from reading bilingual coin-legends, some in Greek and brahmi on the Indo-Greek coins minted at the turn of the Christian era. The name of the king written in Greek had an equivalent written in brahmi, which provided some clues to the decipherment of brahmi. Alexander Cunningham explored the countryside searching for archaeological remains, using the seventh-century itinerary of the Chinese Buddhist monk, Hsiian Tsang, as a guide, and summarized his explorations in The Ancient Geog- raphy of India. Professionally, many of these scholars were surveyors and engineers, charting the colony in more senses than one. Textual analyses, which had begun with Sanskrit texts, were now slowly including Pali texts associated with Buddhism and, later, Prakrit texts of the Jaina tradition. This was careful, meticulous work and enlarged the data on the Indian past. The interpretation of what was found was of course most often within the framework of a colonial perspective on the Indian past. Many who had visited India from afar in the early past recorded their impressions for various purposes, and these are available as Greek, Latin, Chinese and Arabic writings, which provide different perspectives from the Indian. The descriptions of the visitors can sometimes be correlated with the more tangible remains of the past made possible through exca- vations. The corpus of evidence on Buddhism, for instance, was increased with the availability of the chronicles from Sri Lanka. Buddhist Canonical texts translated into Chinese and various central Asian languages filled in lacunae, in some cases providing significant variant readings. Similarly, texts in Arabic and Persian relating to the history of India began to be studied in their own right, and ceased being regarded only as supplements to Islamic culture in western Asia. Strangely, Indians travelling outside the 42  EARLY I N D I A subcontinent do not seem to have left itineraries of where they went or descriptions of what they saw. Distant places enter the narratives of story- telling only very occasionally. Notions of Race and their Influence on Indology Linguistic studies, especially those of Sanskrit grammarians, helped develop the discipline of comparative philology in Europe, which in turn led not only to encouraging the study of the early languages of Asia but also to re-reading the early history of Eurasia. The study of Sanskrit and the ethnography of India also fed into what was emerging as a new perspective on human society, the discipline of 'race science' as it came to be called. Race was a European invention that drew from a variety of contemporary studies and situations, such as the categorizing of plants by Linnaeus, Social Darwinism arguing for the survival of the fittest, and the triumph of imperialism that was used to claim superiority for the European. Social concerns, which later incorporated racial attitudes, governed the British approach towards their empire. Traditional aristocracies were regarded as racially superior and their status upheld prior to their being incorporated into the new colonial hierarchy. This also enhanced the status of the colonizer. Traditions could be invented, drawing on a supposed history and legitimizing authority. But theories of race were also applied to larger categories of people, believed to be the authors of civilizations. F. Max Miiller is one example of a scholar who reflected on race while studying Sanskrit. His major contribution to the interpretation of Indian history was the reconstruction of a perceived Aryan presence, or even on occasion a race, from his study of the Vedas. Like Mill, Max Miiller did not think it necessary to visit India, yet he projected Indian society as a reversal of the European, evidenced by his books India, What Can it Teach Us? and Biographies of Words and the Home of the Aryas. His fanciful descriptions of Indians made of them a gentle, passive people who spent their time meditating. His study of Vedic Sanskrit and philology brought him to his theories about the Aryans. In showing the similarities between Sanskrit, Greek and Latin, William Jones had argued for a monogenesis of language, suggesting that they had all descended from an ancestral language. Indo- European was now projected as such a language, a hypothetical language reconstructed from known languages that were related to each other within a structure of linguistic rules. This was often incorrectly extended to equating all those who spoke Indo-European languages with membership of an Aryan z 12  P E R C E P T I O N S OF T H E PAST race. In the latter half of the nineteenth century discussions on social inequality were often projected in racial terms as in the writings of Gobineau. Max Muller maintained that the Aryans had originated in central Asia, one branch migrating to Europe and another settling in Iran, with a segment of the Iranian branch subsequently moving to India. He dated the earliest composition of the latter, the Rig-Veda, to about 1200 BC. The Aryans, he maintained, had invaded in large numbers and subordinated the indigenous population of northern India in the second millennium BC. They had intro- duced the Indo-Aryan language, the language of the conquerors who rep- resented a superior civilization. The latter emerged as Vedic culture and became the foundation of Indian culture. Since a mechanism for maintaining racial segregation was required, this took the form of dividing society into socially self-contained and separate castes. The racial imprint may also have been due to the counterposing of arya with dasa, since it was argued that in the earliest section of the Vedic corpus, the Rig-Veda, the dasa is described as physically dissimilar to the arya, particularly with reference to skin colour. This was interpreted as the representation of two racial types. Race was seen as a scientific explanation for caste and the four main castes or varnas were said to represent the major racial groups. Their racial identity was preserved by the strict prevention of intermarriage between them. The equation of language and race was seen to be a fallacy even by Max Muller, but there was a tendency to use it as a convenient distinction. In his later writings he clarified this fallacy, but by then it had become common currency. That Aryan should have been interpreted in racial terms is curious, since the texts use it to refer to persons of status who speak Sanskrit and observe caste regulations. The equation had still wider ramifications. It appealed to some of those working on Dravidian languages, who proposed that there was a Dravidian race speaking Dravidian, prior to, and distinct from, the Aryan. They quoted in support the fact that Indo-Aryan is an inflected language, and therefore quite distinct from the Dravidian languages which are agglutinative. Gradually, Proto-Dravidian was projected as the original language and came to be equated with Tamil, which is not a historically or linguistically valid equation. Proto-Dravidian, like Indo- European, is a hypothetical language reconstructed from known Dravidian languages of which Tamil was one, and therefore Tamil would have evolved later. The theory of a Dravidian civilization prior to the coming, of the Aryans was to be reinforced in the 1920s by the discovery of the cities of the Indus civilization, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, dating to the third millennium BC. The reaction in India to the theory of Aryan race was wide-ranging, even 13  EARLY I N D I A among those who were not historians. It came to be used - and continues to be used - in the political confrontations of various groups. This is demonstrated by two examples at the extreme ends of the spectrum. Jyotiba Phule, an authority for the Dalits, argued in the late nineteenth century that the Sanskrit-speaking brahmans were descended from the Aryans who were alien to India, and that the indigenous peoples of the lower castes were therefore the rightful inheritors of the land. This argument assumes a conflict between the dominant upper caste and the conquered, oppressed lower castes. This was the foundation of caste confrontation and an explanation for caste hierarchy. It was later to be used extensively in those political movements that sought to justify their non-Brahmin and anti-Brahmin thrust, especially in south India. At the opposite end, some are now propagating an interpretation of Indian history based on Hindu nationalism and what has come to be called the Hindutva ideology. Since the early twentieth century, this view has gradually shifted from supporting the theory of an invasion to denying such an event, now arguing that the Aryans and their language, Sanskrit, were indigenous to India. The amended theory became axiomatic to their belief that those for whom the subcontinent was not the land of their ancestors and the land where their religion originated were aliens. This changed the focus in the definition of who were indigenous and who were alien. The focus moved from caste to religion: the aliens were not the upper castes, but Muslims and Christians whose religion had originated in west Asia. The Communists were also added to this group for good measure! According to this theory only the Hindus, as the lineal descendants of the Aryans, could be defined as indigenous and therefore the inheritors of the land, and not even those whose ancestry was of the subcontinent, but who had been converted to Islam and Christianity. Mainstream historians of an earlier period differed from both these interpretations, particularly the second. They accepted the theory of an invasion, with the introduction of Indo-Aryan and its speakers as the founda- tion of Indian history. This appealed to members of the upper castes who identified themselves as the descendants of a superior race - the Aryans - some insisting that membership of this race implied a kinship connection with the British! The theory provided what was thought to be an unbroken, linear history for caste Hindus. However, the discovery of the Indus civiliz- ation and its city culture in the 1920s contradicted this theory of linear descent. The cities of the Indus civilization are of an earlier date than the composition of the Vedic corpus - the literature of the Indo-Aryan speaking people - and do not reflect an identity with this later culture. The insistence z4  P E R C E P T I O N S OF T H E PAST on a linear history for the Hindus is now the reason for some attempts to take the Vedic culture back in time and identify it with the Indus civilization. Today mainstream historians argue that despite little archaeological evi- dence of a large-scale Aryan invasion with a displacement of the existing cultures, there is linguistic evidence of the Indo-Aryan ianguage belonging to the Indo-European family, having been brought to northern India from beyond the Indo-Iranian borderlands and evolving through a series of probably small-scale migrations and settlements. A close affinity can be observed between the present-day Hindutva view of 'the Aryans' and nineteenth-century colonial views, in particular the theories of some Theosophists. Colonel Olcott, for example, was among the early Theosophists who maintained that the Aryans were indigenous to India, as was the language Indo-Aryan; that Aryan culture as the cradle of civilization spread from India to Europe; and that the Aryan literature - the Vedic corpus - was the foundation of knowledge. Such Theosophical views attracted some of the nineteenth-century Indian socio-religious reform movements, such as the Arya Samaj. The Theosophical movement in India had a number of British and European members, some of whom may have endorsed these ideas as a form of sympathy for Indian nationalism. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were times when there were links between various wide ranging or alternatively narrowly focused assortments of ideas, some of which involved theories of race, of the Aryans, of Theos- ophy and of nationalisms. By the mid-twentieth century, the notion that language and race can be equated was found to be invalid, and indeed the entire construction of unitary races was seriously doubted. The concept of an Aryan race fell apart. Race is essentially a social construct, although initially it was claimed to be based on biology. Recent genetic studies have further invalidated this claim. It is ther