The Penguin History of Early India

by Romila Thapar

  The temples had a wider symbolism in that they were monuments to royal grandeur as well as to a deity. Moreover, the variation in style gave the architecture a regional character, as distinct as the language and literature of the region. Again, while the style was local, the plan and elevation had features recognizable throughout the subcontinent. The political ascendancy of the Cholas, although resented by the powers of the western and northern Deccan, serves to force home the fact that the centre of power in the subcontinent was not confined to one region: it could and did shift spatially. The classicism of the south saw the birth of new ideas and experiments. The evolution of local civic responsibility, the multiple roles of the temple as an institution, the philosophy of Shankaracharya and Ramanuja, and the new religious forms of the devotional movement, were all part of the changes of this time. Equally noticeable was the further growth of mercantile activity, involving a more extensive Indian participation in the commercial economy of Eurasia. At many levels, therefore, this was a period when the south was in the ascendant and set the pattern for cultural forms in the subcontinent.

  12

  The Politics of Northern India

  C. AD 700–1200

  The Struggle over the Northern Plains

  The emergence of states more firmly rooted in earlier core areas that gave them a regional coherence was characteristic of this period. But their distant boundaries tended to change frequently, despite the political ambition to build consolidated kingdoms. There was contestation therefore over prize areas among those who thought of themselves as significant powers. An example of this has been encapsulated in the phrase ‘the tripartite struggle for Kanauj’. Another aspect of this complexity was that the changing frontiers blurred the demarcation between the north and south at the western and eastern ends of the peninsula. Notwithstanding similar characteristics within the regional states, generalizations about these states always have to be qualified by local conditions and ecologies.

  The structure of the new kingdoms marked a departure from earlier forms: the tributary status of conquered kings had to be established, for this often had priority over the annexation of their territory; landed magnates had to be accommodated and ranked in the emerging hierarchy; and administrative changes involved reassessing the channels of revenue and income. An increase in the number and size of grants of land, among other things, evolved into a new political economy in many states. This change occurred in two phases: from the eighth to the tenth centuries, when some earlier forms were carried over, and then during the subsequent period, when the change is more noticeable. The terms and conditions of the grants resembled those of the peninsula, but were not identical. That many of the grants were permanent and could be inherited by descendants – or, to use the words of the inscriptions, were to last as long as the moon and sun endure – was assumed. But this was not invariable, since some grants could be revoked.

  Some new kingdoms faced intervention from the Arabs, from the Turkish and Chinese pressures in central Asia, and from Tibet. Arab writers comment at some length on these states, which they refer to as the Al-Ballhara or the Rashtrakuta rajas, the Al Jurz or Gurjara-Pratiharas and the Dharma or Pala kings. These were the major states battling to control the northern plains, a contest that eventually focused on capturing the city of Kanauj. The manoeuvres of these states can perhaps be better viewed as a form of political chess. But the game was circumscribed by the doctrine of mandala – the circle of friends and enemies – where the neighbour may be a natural enemy but the king beyond the neighbour a natural friend. The application of the doctrine was of course governed by political realities, but the theoretical exposition of the doctrine became quite elaborate. The concept was first set out in the Arthashastra of Kautilya, but continued to be discussed in a number of later texts such as the Vishnudharmottara.

  The urban focus in the Ganges Plain had shifted from Pataliputra westwards to Kanauj, now the hub of activity. It was closer to the north-west which was at the receiving end of interventions, and, as a distribution centre, Kanauj was linked to routes going eastwards into the Ganges Plain as well as to those going south. Its strategic importance to the politics of the post-Gupta period had been emphasized by Harsha and by Yashovarman, who established the city as a symbol of royal power in the northern plains. Subsequently, Lalitaditya from Kashmir sought to control Kanauj in the eighth century. Additionally, it was the focus of an agrarian concentration in the western Ganges Plain, which encouraged grants to brahmans in that area. For the next few centuries, brahmans who migrated from Kanauj to seek employment elsewhere were highly respected for their knowledge of ritual and their learning. As a prized city, the Rashtrakutas, Pratiharas and Palas directed their military activity towards its conquest from the eighth to the tenth centuries. The struggle over Kanauj was also an attempt to revive the notion of a single kingdom having primacy, and the choice of Kanauj was a concession to its earlier importance with its strategic location for purposes of contemporary politics. However, with the rise of many powerful regional kingdoms, the significance of Kanauj decreased. Subsequently, it was part of the Gahadavala kingdom during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, before its ultimate decline.

  The ‘tripartite struggle for Kanauj’ has to be located in the context not only of south Asian politics, but also of the relations between Indian kingdoms and those beyond the subcontinent. Of the latter, the Chinese now had a presence in central Asia, and their interest in the power struggles of northern India was due to many reasons. One was their erroneous assumption that their occasional diplomatic interventions in the politics of northern India meant that Indian kingdoms were willing to pay tribute to the Chinese emperor. Having intervened after the death of Harsha, they also claimed that kings of Kashmir had asked for help from China on various occasions. Another reason was that the Chinese faced a threat from the Arab presence in central Asia and this was putting pressure on the Turks, setting off a movement of peoples in central Asia, an activity about which the Chinese were always apprehensive. The Chinese were also beginning to take an interest in the Indian Ocean, and maritime routes from south China were to touch trading centres along the Bay of Bengal, being extended to south India with stopping-points for trade going further west.

  From another direction, Tibet was asserting its presence along the Himalayan borders and claiming conquest of certain areas. Increasing references are made in Indian sources to the presence of the bhauttas or Tibetans along the Himalaya. Not only were the politics of other areas thus impinging on northern India, but there was a threat to the kingdoms as well. Yet the focus of political interest appears to have been directed to the north Indian heartland.

  The Arab presence in western India was gradually increasing. Sind, conquered in AD 712., was at the eastern extremity of the Arab expansion through Asia, Africa and Europe. The politics involved in the conquest of the lower Indus Plain were enmeshed in the conflict over the Caliphate and the internal politics of the Islamic world. Arab intentions in India seem to have preferred capturing trade routes rather than territory, judging by the places that they wished to control and their subsequent arrangements. Sind, for instance, was hardly an agriculturally rich region but had revenue from trade. Furthermore, Arab conquests were resisted by various rulers, although this resistance was not organized as an effort to permanently exclude the Arabs from the subcontinent. The Rashtrakutas employed Arabs at a senior level in their administration of the coastal areas, and recognized, as did the Gujarat Chaulukya kings of a subsequent period, that as traders the Arabs had the potential of bringing in impressive profits. The fact that an Arab empire was developing further west seemed to receive little attention from Indian rulers, perhaps because their predominant interest was commerce. This concern with trade may have deflected the Rashtrakutas from concentrating on Kanauj, although they occupied it on two occasions, but like the others were unable to hold it for a substantial length of time.

  The kingdoms involved in the struggle were the Rash
trakutas based in the Deccan, the Pratiharas in western India and the Palas who were their counterparts in eastern India. Since they were relatively equally matched, it became a war of attrition which was to exhaust all three. This encouraged their samantas to break away and found smaller kingdoms. With Kashmir, Gandhara and Punjab drawn into the vortex of the politics of the borderlands, Kanauj controlled the Ganges Plain, and the watershed was effectively becoming the northern frontier, rather than the passes of the Hindu Kush.

  Kingdoms rising in the Deccan sometimes had the choice of participating in the politics of both or either the north or the south, or playing the role of a bridge. The Satavahanas were the initial transmitters of goods and ideas from one to the other. The Vakatakas preferred to opt for a closer alliance with the north through the Guptas. The Chalukyas held back northern incursion into the Deccan and were active in the politics of the peninsula. Had the Rashtrakutas restricted their ambition to the same end, they could have built a more powerful kingdom in the Deccan. But their ambition was domination over the north and the Deccan. By the time they came to power, communication between the two was well established, and therefore the political pull on the Rashtrakutas was equally strong in both directions, which to an extent dissipated their control. Arab sources, however, describe them as the most powerful of the three.

  The participation of the Rashtrakutas in the politics of the peninsula has already been described. Dantidurga was a tributary raja of the Chalukyas, who declared his independence in the eighth century and took full imperial titles. Amoghavarsha in the ninth century, and Krishna III in the tenth, stabilized the kingdom despite internal problems and the additional ambition of capturing Kanauj. After defeating Arab incursions along the west coast, the Rashtrakutas converted a relationship of hostility to one of trade, to their mutual advantage. They therefore had the wealth to back their political ambitions. Shipments of teak and cotton textiles went west, while horses came to India to be sold at great profit to kingdoms further inland.

  Historians have described the Pratiharas as being of an uncertain social origin and associated with the Hunas, or else descended from the Gurjara pastoralists of Rajasthan. Their enemies the Rashtrakutas claimed that they were literally pratiharas, doorkeepers, in order to mark them with an insultingly low origin. They may have been officials who rose to power, a pattern known among rulers who had been administrators. Some credence, however, is given to the bardic tradition that the Pratiharas acquired Rajput status. The first important Pratihara King, Nagabhata, ruling in the eighth century, is said to have been a fierce enemy of the mlechchhas, those outside the pale of caste society, though who these mlechchhas were is not mentioned. Possibly this was a reference to the Arabs in Sind. Or it could have been the people not brought under any administration earlier and therefore regarded as unsettled. Jaina texts, such as the Kuvalyamala, supported the Pratihara kings and among them the ninth-century ruler, Bhoja, received the maximum coverage. The Pratihara court provided patronage to the poet Rajashekhara, who in turn endorsed their ancestry as descended from the Suryavamsha lineage and the line of the epic hero Rama. The Pratiharas ruled from Bhinmal near Mt Abu, and, significantly, the fire sacrifice, which embodies the myth of the four pre-eminent clans of Rajputs, was supposedly held at Mt Abu. Having successfully resisted the Arabs, the Pratiharas looked eastwards, and by the end of the millennium were not only ruling over a large part of Rajasthan and Malwa but had briefly held Kanauj.

  The third power involved in the conflict over Kanauj was the Pala dynasty, which controlled much of the eastern Ganges Plain. The granting of land in this area had started in the Gupta period when land was sometimes bought with the intention of granting it to a religious beneficiary. This process was now accelerated through agricultural settlements in hitherto uncleared areas, the settlements being activated by brahman grantees. When cleared the land was lowlying and fertile, watered by the vast rivers of the east and the tributaries of the Ganges Delta, which suited the cultivation of rice. The new settlements hosted the more prestigious brahmans from Kanauj, but the process of settlement also led to local priests being recruited into the brahman fold. The grants were frequently recorded on copper plates, such legal and easily retrievable documents being necessary in areas newly settled.

  In addition, the Palas derived an income from their substantial commercial interests in south-east Asia. This commerce was to be furthered by the circuit of Arab trade with south-east Asia and the arrival of Chinese trade on the way to east Africa, both using ports in the Bay of Bengal. Buddhism provided a link between eastern India and Java and Sumatra. Pala patronage towards the building of Buddhist monasteries, such as Vikramashila and Odantapuri in Bihar and Somapuri in modern Paharapura (Bangla Desh), together with their continuing patronage to Nalanda, was also related to commercial interests in Buddhist kingdoms further afield. The King of Shrivijaya in Sumatra participated effectively in an endowment to Nalanda. Centres such as Lalmai and Mainamati in the eastern part of Bengal were also important to Buddhist connections.

  The earliest Pala ruler of importance who became king in the eighth century did so in an unusual way. Gopala attained renown because he was not the hereditary king, but was elected, and his son maintained that the election terminated the state of anarchy in the land. The sixteenth-century Tibetan Buddhist monk Taranatha, referring to this event in his history of Buddhism, states that Bengal was without a king and suffered accordingly. Although the local leaders continually gathered to elect a king, on each occasion the person elected was killed by a demoness on the night following his election. Finally, when Gopala was elected, he was given a club by the goddess Chandi (a consort of Shiva) with which to protect himself. He used it to kill the demoness and survived. The story suggests that Gopala was elected because of his ability to protect, while it also endorses the Chandi cult which Gopala may have supported. This could imply that Gopala did not have royal antecedents but nevertheless succeeded in acquiring a kingdom – a pattern that was to become common in this period.

  His successor, Dharmapala, made the Pala kingdom a force in north Indian politics. Despite the fact that he began with a severe setback – a defeat at the hands of the Rashtrakutas – by the end of his reign Pala power was dominant in eastern India. Towards the late eighth century Dharmapala led a successful campaign against Kanauj, resulting in the removal of the reigning king, a protégé of the Pratiharas, with Dharmapala claiming suzerainty. This affronted the Rashtrakutas and the Pratiharas, but Dharmapala stood his ground. Devapala later extended Pala control eastwards into Kamarupa (in Assam). Trade routes through Assam to the north-east and to the centres in Myanmar, as well as access to gold panned in the eastern rivers, is believed to have enriched the Palas, together with wealth from the south-east Asian trade. A still later king, Ramapala, faced the threat of the Kaivarta revolt aimed at preventing Pala expansion. This was barely put down through a combination of diplomacy in handling Ramapala’s samantas and others with subordinate ruling powers, and a somewhat desperate military effort. Diplomacy required lavish gifts to the samantas and to the forest-chiefs to ensure their alliance, a procedure graphically described by Sandhyakaranandin in his biography of Ramapala, the Ramacharita. The biographical highlighting of this event provided a wealth of detail on the subtleties of relations between the king and his tributary rajas. The Kaivarta revolt has also been seen as a peasant rebellion, since the Kaivartas were traditionally a low caste of cultivators and fishermen. However, the description seems more appropriate to a rebellion of lesser landowners, who would have mobilized the peasants.

  Although threats from Tibet required constant vigilance from the Palas, friendly relations ensured the safety of their northern borders. The Palas and the subsequent dynasty of the Senas, ruling from the eleventh century, included, in their patronage to religious institutions, the Buddhists who had a visible presence in eastern India. Buddhism in eastern India, influenced by Tantric belief and practice, was linked to Buddhism in Tibet. Patron
age to Buddhism declined in the late Sena period, from the twelfth century, the boundaries between Buddhism and Tantric worship becoming faint.

  Meanwhile the Pratiharas had consolidated their position and gained the initiative. The first step was obvious. Kanauj, which had been taken by the Rashtrakutas from the Palas, was now captured by the Pratiharas and the other two powers were driven back to their own borders. The Arab menace was firmly tackled by Bhoja, probably the most renowned of the Pratiharas. But his efforts to hold back the Arabs on the one side, and the Palas on the other, made it impossible for him to extend his control in the Deccan, which may have been his intention.