The Penguin History of Early India
Page 1
ROMILA THAPAR
The Penguin History of Early India
FROM THE ORIGINS TO AD 1300
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Note on the Bibliographies
Chronology: c. 1000 BC-AD 1300
Introduction
1 Perceptions of the Past
2 Landscapes and Peoples
3 Antecedents
4 Towards Chiefdoms and Kingdoms: c. 1200-600 BC
5 States and Cities of the Indo-Gangetic Plain: c. 600-300 BC
6 The Emergence of Empire: Mauryan India; c. 321-185 BC
7 Of Politics and Trade: c. 200 BC-AD 300
8 The Rise of the Mercantile Community: c. 200 BC-AD 300
9 Threshold Times: c. AD 300-700
10 The Peninsula: Emerging Regional Kingdoms; c. AD 500-900
11 The Peninsula: Establishing Authorities and Structures; c. AD 900-1300
12 The Politics of Northern India: c. AD 700-1200
13 Northern India: Distributive Political Economies and Regional Cultures; c. AD 800-1300
Maps
Glossary
Select Bibliographies
General Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
PENGUIN BOOKS
THE PENGUIN HISTORY 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 Collège 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.
For Sergei: in memoriam
and
remembering Kaushalya and Daya Ram and our many years together
List of Illustrations
FIGURES
1. Buddhist monastery: ground plan
2. Great Stupa, Sanchi: ground plan and elevation
3. Chaitya hall at Karle: plan and elevation
4. Vishnu Temple, Deogarh: plan
5. Nagara-style temple: elevation
6. Virupaksha Temple, Pattadakal: half-plan and section
7. Circular Devi temple: plan
MAPS
1. Geographical Features
2. Archaeological Sites Relating to Prehistory and Protohistory
3. Northern India c. 1200 to 500 BC
4. Kingdoms and Chiefdoms: Mid-first Millennium BC
5. Some Sites of the Mauryan Period
6. North India and West Asia c. 200 BC to AD 300
7. Central Asia and China
8. The India Peninsula c. 200 BC to AD 300
9. The Indian Subcontinent: Mid-first Millennium AD
10. Indian Contacts with South East Asia
11. The Indian Peninsula c. AD 700 to 1300
12. Northern India c. AD 700 to 1100
13. Northern India c. AD 900 to 1300
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 interpretations 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 1300 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 prehistory and protohistory 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 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
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.
Chronology
c. 1000 BC-AD 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 58-57 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
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
327-325 Alexander of Macedon in India
321 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
c. 50 BC-AD 50 Peak period of Roman trade with India
1st 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. 455 Skandagupta, in whose reign the Hunas attack north India
476 Aryabhatta, the astronomer
505 Varahamihira, the astronomer
543-66 Pulakeshin I and the rise of the Chalukyas of Badami
c. 574-60 Rise of the Pallavas of Kanchi under Simhavishnu
606-47 Harshavardhana, King of Kannauj
630-643 Hsüan 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
c. 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
1110 Rise of Vishnuvardhana and Hoysala power
1144-71 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
Introduction
A book originally written when one had just been initiated into the profession, 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 reoriented 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 meditated on the after-life of the soul, these were all pan of the picture of India 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 be
ginning then, is to start by asking how histories of India 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 historiography - 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.
1 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 modem nation state of India.