Banyan Tree Adventures

by Keith Forrester

  However, it was not only religion that characterised the Indic civilisation, continued Therborn. As distinctive as its religious features was its political character – namely, the absence of an established imperial head or centre. Astonishingly, until 1947 what is now the Indian Union had never been politically united. Historically as Michael Wood points out in his Story of India television documentary, the major rulers and leaders were the Buddhist Asoka in the third century, the great Muslim Mughals of the seventeenth century and then eventually, from the nineteenth century until 1947, the British who were Christian. It wasn’t political empires or a historical awareness arrived at through historical texts that provided a unified Indic civilisation, argues Therborn. It was uniquely this set of religious conceptions and practices – rebirth, the ten obligations of dharma, the rituals associated with karma, the Brahmin ‘gatekeepers’ with their inherited knowledge of sacred rites and rituals conveyed in the elite language of Sanskrit – that defined and provided the continuity of the Indic civilisation. As Wood puts it, it was “the ten thousand year epic” of the “world’s oldest and most influential civilisation.”

  Wandering around Varanasi – or Benares as it is still traditionally known, perhaps the holiest city in India for Hindus – in 2011 seems to confirm this legacy but also its relevance today. Mark Twain in 1896 described beautifully the city as “older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old than all of them put together.” This great northern city in Uttar Pradesh on the banks of the Ganges is a magnet for travellers. As one of the oldest living cities in the world and one of the holiest places for Hindus, it manages to encompass most aspects of this religiosity – an hour or two at night-time on the ghats on the side of the Ganges will never be forgotten as the lights come on and the pilgrims just keep on coming to immerse themselves in the waters of the river. Washing in the (heavily polluted) Mother Ganges is said to wash away all sin. To die next to the river or to have one’s ashes scattered into the waters and so guaranteeing release from the eternal cycle of birth and rebirth is the goal of every devout Hindu. Seen as the home to the god of creation and destruction Lord Shiva, the city’s life revolves around the seven kilometres of ghats that line the west bank of the Ganges. Around one hundred of these ghats provide the focus for one of the most devotional sites in the world. Sitting on the rooftop of our lodgings amongst the ghats on the side of the river provided us with a continuing spectacle of bathers covered in soap suds immersing themselves in the river, Brahmin priests holding forth under palm umbrellas, pavement barbers shaving the heads of their customers and sadhus in their minimal orange loincloths passing on their wisdom and gratefully receiving gifts of food. We were close enough to one of the ‘burning ghats’ – Manikarnika Ghat – on the edge of the Ganges to see the great pyres of wood burning away releasing yet another soul to the gods. Daybreak or evening time in Varanasi must be one of the most dramatic and lingering memories of any visit to India.

  The attention to rituals and practices of birth, death and purification that are so ‘in your face’ evident in Varanasi have a lineage that Therborn would happily find room for in his outline of the five great civilisations of long ago.

  The Indus Valley civilisation

  The Indic civilisation of 3,500 years ago that Therborn refers to has been in the news more recently, in fact a couple of decades ago, and Varanasi hasn’t anything to do with this breaking news. To a large extent, modern India can trace its archaeological origins to the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. Commonly referred to as the Indus Valley civilisation (named after the great River Indus which gave India its name) this civilisation lasted about 1,000 years evolving from around 5,000 years ago and reaching its peak around 3500 BCE (Before Common Era/AD) although its origins remain a little vague and was based, as mentioned above, around the great cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. Tracing its origin from the earliest known civilisations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley civilisation (sometimes referred to as the Harappan civilisation) covered a huge area stretching across what is today Pakistan, north-west India and eastern Afghanistan. Today there are some 70 excavated sites with more currently being explored by Indian and Pakistani archaeologists. Discovered accidentally by two British engineers only in 1856, it was in 1921 that the first excavation took place. Overnight almost, the birth of India was lengthened another 1,000 years. Almost overnight, world history had to be rewritten – staggering. The last 90-odd years have continued to provide a steady stream of discoveries, excitement and discussion about the sophisticated, carefully planned and well-ordered world of the Indus people. Why did it disappear, what led to its collapse, and where did everyone go were some of the tantalising questions raised and discussed around the world in subsequent years. The Los Angeles Times for example in 2012 had an article on this mysterious decline and disappearance of the Harappans, using the latest satellite technology. They reached two conclusions; first, that the eastward drift of the monsoons which provided the water for the extensive agriculture projects left a dependency on local rains which were insufficient to sustain a large agricultural surplus which was needed for food and trade. As the article puts it, “The cities dried out, the writing was lost, trade halted and the Harappan civilisation was no more.” Secondly, the team believed that they have solved the mystery surrounding the mythical river, the Sarasvati. The ancient Indian scriptures – the Vedas – described the Sarasvati as “surpassing in might and majesty all other waters” and “pure in her course from the mountains to the ocean”. The new data from the recent study, however, suggests that there was no such great river fed by the Himalayan glaciers. If there was such a river, it was a river like others of that time fed by monsoon waters. A quick search around, however, suggests that controversies and debates about the mysterious Sarasvati River continue today unabated.

  I am no archaeologist but I remember my amazement and excitement when watching Michael Wood wandering around Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro in his television series on India. Michael Wood is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable commentator on India (among many other subject matters) and I remember being riveted while he wandered around what remains today of the “sensational finds” as he put it, accompanied by various Indian experts. As is his manner, we get a lot of information but also a lot of questions and links to everyday life today in the Indus regions. Despite the recent accidental stumbling upon one of the earliest great ancient civilisations, a lot seems to be already known. The well-planned, uniform, almost regimented cities, the gridiron street plan with streets divided into blocks of roughly equal size, the hierarchical arrangement of the burnt brick (no stone) two-roomed tenements through to the palatial mansions all with their careful planned bathrooms and elaborate drainage systems all contribute towards suggesting a system of local government and town planning, unknown before and perhaps unmatched until the Romans many years into the future. The pottery remains together with the size and number of vast granaries suggest a thriving agricultural economy, huge surpluses, a high standard of living and a well-developed system of trade and commerce, suggests Sinharaja Tammita-Delgoda in his very readable A Traveller’s History of India. As he points out, the process of spinning cotton into yarn and weaving it into cloth was first developed by the Indus people at around the 2500 BCE period. “This discovery ranks amongst India’s greatest gifts to the world.” Since these first awakenings for me of the Indus Valley civilisation from the televised series, I have always kept an eye on the media reports of excavations and discoveries. What a continuing detective story.

  But here is something. Even today apparently, the written script of the Indus civilisation remains a complete mystery. Comprising a total of 400 characters which remained almost unchanged throughout its history of about 1,000 years, all efforts to decipher the language have failed. As a result, little is known about the Indus people themselves. Until further efforts at unlocking the language are successful, tantalising suggestions of this non-violent, co
nflict-resolving society which honoured women will remain unresolved. Mother Goddess for example was the most important of the many gods, and women were seen as the origin of life, the font of fertility from which everything – man, animals, trees and plants – sprang. The seemingly enhanced role of women in Indus society is particularly striking.

  The Ashoka discoveries

  During our visit to Calcutta in 2012, I stumbled upon (not literally unfortunately) another early towering figure in India’s history – Ashoka or Ashoka the Great who ruled most of the Indian subcontinent from around 260–232 BCE. The walk from our hotel in Calcutta passed the Asiatic Society just off Park Street. The name rang a bell. Moreover while wandering around the wonderful, shady South Park Cemetery I noticed that recent renovations had been funded by this Asiatic Society. Founded in 1784 by Sir William Jones, the Asiatic Society of Bengal was once a world centre of archaeologists, geologists, linguists and historians with the aim of “inquiring into the history, civil and natural, the antiquities, arts, sciences and literature of Asia.” It seemed that it was members of the Society together with people from the Archaeological Survey of India that unearthed (literally) the forgotten Ashoka; and all very recently in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I did go into the Society’s building, up the dark stairs and into the entrance foyer. There was no one there apart from the security guard and it looked a little rundown and foreboding so I didn’t go further. I remember, however, the excitement of reading Charles Allen’s Ashoka: The Search for India’s Lost Emperor (2012) around that time. It was like a popular detective novel as layer upon layer of evidence was uncovered by these British orientalists. We now know that Ashoka was the Indian Emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled most of the Indian subcontinent from around 269–232 BCE. For over a hundred years in the nineteenth century, a series of scholars unearthed the missing history of Ashoka, and what a history it was. After conquests and complete domination over the whole of the subcontinent from eastern Afghanistan, Ashoka seemed overcome with remorse at the violence and savagery required in the consolidation of the Mauryan Empire. He embraced the new emerging religion of Buddhism with its emphasis on compassion and non-violence. A Dharma or universal law based on Buddha’s teachings was proclaimed throughout the Empire. Non-violence, tolerance, helping one another together with animals, hospitality to others and respect for the environment were some of the espoused sentiments. The means of propagating these new, strange views were through inscribing edicts on the face of cliffs, huge rocks or giant pillars and all written in Prakrit, a non-standard vernacular language of North India popular at that time. Bizarrely though, despite the far-reaching consequences of Ashoka’s rule and enlightened practices (for most of the time anyway), Ashoka disappeared from the history books. Far from being a celebrated figure, he was ignored and invisible for the next two thousand years or so. It wasn’t really until the twentieth century that his achievements and distinctiveness were recognised worldwide. Arguments and debates continue today in attempting to explain this invisibility. One argument for example has it that while Buddha was incorporated into Hinduism, there was less tolerance of Buddhism as a religious faith by an assertive Hinduism. Furthermore, Buddhism always had a greater reach and audience outside of India, and in this Buddhist literature, there is a recognition of Ashoka’s importance. Apart from the stone and rock edifices displaying Ashoka’s edicts in India, much other evidence has disappeared over time. Again similar to the Harappan civilisation, no one could understand or decipher the language inscribed on the pillars or rock faces. Despite their undoubted imperial motives, it was the formidable skills and passion of orientalists working through the Asiatic Society of Bengal and Indian Archaeological agencies that in 1837 unlocked the language on the edifices, mapped out the history, dates and achievements of the Mauryan Empire and identified and preserved a number of stupas and rock edicts. Today as Burjor Avari points out there are, in all, 14 major rock edicts, three minor rock edicts and seven pillar edicts spread across 30 sites throughout the subcontinent – national treasures supported by government funding. Given that the uncovering of Ashoka and the Mayans was at the same time, an uncovering of the historical Buddha himself added to the global significance of these breakthroughs. An amazing story that comes alive when for example gazing upon an Ashoka column in Delhi.

  Ajanta and Ellora Caves

  I was reminded of these Ashoka discoveries and stories as I sat on the train leaving Bombay and heading towards Aurangabad, some 350 kilometres east of the city. It was early 2016 and I was off to see the fabled painted caves of Ajanta, another of India’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites. My guidebook had whetted my anticipation but it was William Dalrymple’s article in a 2014 edition of the New York Review of Books that really set me going. Here was another of those wonderful India stories of archaeological discovery, serendipity, global significance, mystery and splendour. The Ajanta Caves comprise 31 caves dug into an amphitheatre of solid rock. Excavated between 90–70 BCE (it is believed today) shortly after the collapse of Ashoka’s great empire, the Caves, as Dalrymple puts it, “contained probably the greatest picture gallery to survive from the ancient world, and along with the frescos of Pompeii, the fabulous murals of Livia’s Garden House outside Rome, and the encaustic wax portraits of the Egyptian Fayum, (the) walls represented perhaps the most comprehensive depiction of civilised life to survive from antiquity.”

  Phew – who wouldn’t want to make a visit – and I wasn’t disappointed. Although it was very hot with very few visitors about, I managed to view “the most beautiful and ancient paintings in Buddhist art” in around half the caves – art that as Dalrymple put it, “rank as some of the greatest masterpieces of art produced by mankind in any century.” Engulfed in darkness, the caves are filled with wall murals, sculptures, carved pillars and ceiling paintings showing tales from the life of Buddha. Representing lifelike, detailed aspects of everyday life – military battles, Buddhist themes, dancing women, animist gods, hunting parties – the Caves unveiled understandings of an earlier Buddhism, devoid of texts that are seen as essential today in practising Buddhism. Each of the caves has their own physical characteristics and layout although all suggest a monastery with residential facilities. Cave One, for example, has what appears to be a square congregational area with an adjacent aisle leading to fourteen chambers, has 20 carved and painted pillars, ceiling paintings and the large shrine of the Buddha at the rear of the cave.

  Twenty-six of the thirty-one caves – all the most elaborate ones – were developed in the fifth century, some six hundred years after the first ones were excavated. By now under a wider Hindu influence, these later cave developments were, it is argued, constructed at high speed in a mere sixteen years – amazing if true. By this time, Buddhism was in decline and the ‘new caves’ were built to commemorate wealthy individuals and patrons although still clearly of a Buddhist nature.

  As in all good India stories, mysteries remain. Why were some of the later cave paintings unfinished, what purpose did the caves serve, was it possible to build so many caves so quickly in the fifth century, who were the foreigners depicted in some of the paintings – of different skin colour, in strange clothes, hairdos – and what was their role and why were the caves abandoned are some of the questions left hanging in the air.

  And again as in many good Indian archaeological stories, there is a touch of bewilderment about its discovery, just as in Ashoka’s or Harappa’s case. It was in 1819 that a British hunting party following a tiger bumbled into the rock-cut temples known today as the Ajanta Caves. Cut into the face of a mountain high above the Wangorah River, the caves formed a horseshoe shape that even today remain pretty well camouflaged. Although local people used the caves for prayer and shelter, in the main, the caves were overrun with tangled undergrowth, piles of collapsed rubble and home to bats, birds and larger animals. News of the caves was announced to the wider world through publications from the Royal Asiatic Society in 1829. Subsequently a number
of dedicated archaeologists such as Dr James Burgess, James Fergusson in the early days and more recently, and above all, Walter Spink have worked with Indian specialists in preserving and documenting the unique collection from the caves.

  Two or three hours’ drive from the Ajanta caves are the Ellora caves which the Archaeological Survey of India says are one “of the largest rock hewn monastic-temple complexes in the entire world”. The most famous of these caves – Cave 16, known as Kailasa – is the world’s largest single piece of rock cutting and all with primitive tools that date back thousands of years. 200,000 tonnes of rock were removed and it took some hundred years to complete. Comprising 34 caves and constructed between the fifth and tenth centuries, the ‘caves’ are structures chipped out of the vertical face of the Charanandri Hills up in the Western Ghats. Many other caves are evident apparently but not open to tourists. The historical and cultural significance of the Ellora complex, however, is the religious harmony suggested by the caves; 12 Buddhist caves are followed by 17 Hindu caves with the remaining 5 caves being of Jain influence. In one visit and along a two-kilometre stretch, visitors can study and compare the differing architectural splendours and artistic expressions and representations from the three great religions. Unlike the Ajanta caves, those at Ellora have been in continual use over the centuries with written texts recording numerous visits by royal visitors as well as traders. Instead of destroying the religious buildings of other beliefs, the Ellora caves suggest an earlier period of tolerance, coexistence and acceptance of other religions.

  Down south – the temple trail and their dynasties

  Chennai, or Madras as it is still popularly known, is India’s fourth largest city and proud capital of Tamil Nadu. I was there in 2014 arriving by train from Bangalore. I didn’t stay too long – I had only arrived in the country a couple of weeks ago and was still a little overwhelmed by the heat and crowds. As mentioned in the previous chapter, I probably didn’t give myself enough time to explore the city’s histories and delights. I needed instead some time to ‘adjust’ and, anyway, I had the whole of Tamil Nadu’s famed ‘temple trail’ ahead of me. A week later as I wandered around the Shore Temple at the coastal town of Mahabalipuram (now officially renamed to Mamallapuram) south of Chennai and located on white sands of the Coromandel Coast, I felt that I had made the right decision. As an introduction to this Tamil-speaking (India’s oldest living language), cinema mad, creamy rice pudding eating land, and of course, to the temple towns of Kanchipuram and Madurai, Mahabalipuram was an ideal spot to rest and plan the next steps. However, the sheer spectacle, extent and excellence of the astonishing legacy of the monolithic rock-cut temples, caves and reliefs in this one town alone resulted in another experience of ‘picking up history on the hoof’. It’s not possible to visit, for example, Kanchipuram with its thousand-odd temples or the fortress-like towering Meenakshi Temple in Madurai without coming across references to the ancient dynasties of the Cholas, the Pandyas and the Cheras. More great dynasties and empires from the past – I was flagging on my history stuff. Distinct from the great northern kingdoms, the southern dynasties provided and continues to provide the distinctive culture, language, cuisine, dance, literature of India’s south-east.