The Penguin History of Early India

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The Penguin History of Early India Page 68

by Romila Thapar


  Expanded versions of the format used in the inscriptions were paralleled in chronicles such as the Rajatarangini, the history of Kashmir, or the much shorter one of Chamba, as well as those of kingdoms in Nepal and Gujarat and others from the peninsula. But they provide more detailed histories of the rulers and attempt to present the dynasties and the region in an accessible fashion. They formed a category known as the vamshavalis and their theme was the history of a monastery, or a dynasty or a region. The presumed history of a temple, a sect or a place of pilgrimage was woven into myths and practices that were narrated in the mahatmyas and the sthala-puranas. The Rajatarangini is exceptional in the fact that Kalhana did search for reliable evidence on the past from a variety of sources, so his narrative is infused with events and their explanations, many of which are historically insightful. It is undoubtedly an unusual text, even if rooted in the vamshavali tradition, and his extraordinary sense of history may have evolved from a familiarity with Buddhist writing.

  A characteristic of the inscriptions and some of the text is that they were dated in eras, the samvat. These were often a continuation from an earlier period, such as the Vikrama era of 58 BC, the Shaka era of AD 78 or the Marsha era of 606. Sometimes they were started by contemporary kings, such as the Vilcrama Chalukya era of 1075, or else arose from wider usage such as the Lakshmana era of 1119. The starting of eras became a sign of status, with the era sometimes named after the king or the dynasty. Calculations for starting an era could have been based on local oral and calendrical traditions, or on observations in astronomy. The frequent use of genealogies, dynasties, eras and chronicles was an indication of comprehending the historical importance of linear time. This was immediate, manageable time, largely dictated by human activities, and was distinctly different from the large cycles that went into the making of the time-cycle of the universe. The use of linear time within the cycle creates a fascinating intersection of cyclic and linear time. The intersection is apparent from the fact that the genealogies and dynastic lists were in linear time but were eventually enveloped in the time-cycle of cosmology.

  Grants of land provided foundations for nuclei of brahmanical learning. The widespread distribution of these centres required texts and training that were met through the increasing numbers of agraharas and mathas. This encouraged the growth of lively locations for discourse, parallel to the monastic institutions of the Buddhists and Jatnas. The network of brahmanical and heterodox learning expressed in Sanskrit gradually established dialogue between various schools. This led to some merging, although there were also accusations of borrowing ideas. Some were seen as brahmanical contestations of the Buddhist critique of Vedic thought. From this perspective there was much intellectual activity, although it may have been limited to the learned few. Of the various philosophical theories, Vedanta was gradually coming to the forefront alongside the teachings of Mimamsa and Nyaya.

  There had been an extensive tradition of analytical grammars in Sanskrit. The interpretation of a word in a system of ideas often required grammatical explanation, which encouraged further interpretations and counter-interpretations. The dialectics of these reveal methods of enquiry. Grammar and etymology were essentially rational enquiries and this was conceded by both the orthodox and the heterodox. Both were now using the same language, which would have heightened their contributions to systems of knowledge.

  The brahmanical endorsement of preserving texts continued, especially the Vedic corpus through the oral tradition, but was accompanied by a dependence on literacy. Sanskrit was the language of elite discourse and of literature. But in its more popular forms it carried elements of the local Prakrits. The latter are of linguistic interest. Although their use in creative literature was declining, they nevertheless fostered the emergence of Apabrahmsha in some areas, and eventually some regional languages. The last of the major works in the older tradition of writing in Prakrit included the Setubandha, narrating the invasion of Lanka by Rama, Vakpati’s Gaudavaho, a biography of Yashovarman ruling in Kanauj, and Rajashekara’s play, Karpuramanjari. Apabrahmsha, or ‘falling away’, was a form of Prakrit believed to have evolved in western India. When its speakers moved to more central locations they took the language with them. The Prakrit of Jaina writers sometimes had traces of Apabrahmsha forms and these created a link between the older and newer languages, especially in Gujarati and Maharashtri. Gujarati folk-poetry, particularly that depicting the loves of Krishna, became the nucleus of early Gujarati. Bengali, Assamese, Oriya and some Hindi dialects evolved at a later date from the Prakrits. The new religious sects helped accelerate the growth of regional languages, their compositions being in the language commonly used.

  The translation of Sanskrit works into the regional languages was usually an adaptation, incorporating much of regional culture rather than invariably being literal. Narratives familiar from the epics were a constant source for themes to be elaborated upon and sometimes substantially altered in the new literature. Confidence in the regional language is apparent when inscriptions use it alongside Sanskrit, or when the Sanskrit used carries recognizable elements of the regional language. This would point to some bilingualism. Even if Sanskrit was the dominant language, it could not exclude the local linguistic idiom at court or elsewhere. Regional languages did not surface overnight. These were substratum languages spoken by many. When social groups using these languages rose in status, the status of their language also rose. Identities were gradually created out of multiple expressions in literature, the arts, intellectual discourse and daily functioning.

  Migrant brahmans might have found it more expedient to be bilingual, especially in the peninsula. Or was the world of courtly literature transregional but limited to using Sanskrit? Further diversification would have followed from the recognition of the multiplicity of languages identified by location. The Natya-shastra listed such languages. The diversification was perceived in part as the function of language. Where the courts of new kingdoms responded to Sanskrit, the larger spectrum of society gradually began to respond to other languages. When chronicles of temples and dynasties were written in the regional language, these became signals of different cultural norms. The new languages often became the carriers of new ideas.

  Kings were said to be authors of significant literary or scholarly works. The training of future kings would have involved some intellectual expertise, but when literary forms became the mark of high culture it would be expected that they would be attributed to reigning kings, even if this were not the fashion earlier. Sanskrit was largely taught in institutions attached to temples, in mathas and monasteries, but princes of the royal family would have had special tutors.

  Although the older system of training in guilds as apprentices to artisans continued for professionals, a number of technical books were written in Sanskrit on subjects such as agriculture, architecture, medicine and the veterinary sciences, pertaining especially to horses and elephants. This would suggest collaboration between those knowing Sanskrit and specialists in the profession. There was little embarrassment about scholars writing on seemingly mundane subjects, since some of these had become germane both to handling economic resources and kindling curiosity about knowledge and its applications. In each case the subjects treated pertained to practical knowledge for current requirements, such as temple-building or the care and maintenance of animals crucial to the army. Commentaries on earlier texts were another method of updating knowledge.

  In studies of medicine the tendency was to write commentaries, for example those of Vagabhatta and Chakrapanidatta on Charaka. References to empirical knowledge in these areas were less common. Where experiments were made practical results ensued, such as the use of iron and quicksilver in medicine. The interest in magic among votaries of Tantric sects led to some experiments with chemicals and metals in particular. The Tantrics claimed that the taking of mercury in combination with certain other chemicals could prolong life. They must also have taken part in alchemical experiments, which
became popular particularly during the latter part of this period.

  Interest in astronomy was encouraged. At a scholarly level this was linked to advanced work in mathematics, which continued the studies of Aryabhatta and his successors. The study of numbers led to algebra and initiated aspects of the exact sciences. Algebra remained a significant contribution to mathematics and was a source of great interest to Arab mathematicians as had been medicine and astronomy earlier. The Arab interest in Indian sciences continued with some ideas being taken by them to Europe. Among the more brilliant mathematicians was Bhaskaracharya (not to be confused with the earlier Bhaskara), whose mathematical problems were sometimes set in unusual contexts. A problem from his famous work, the Lilavati, was set out as follows:

  Whilst making love a necklace broke

  A row of pearls mislaid.

  One-sixth fell on the floor

  One-fifth fell on the bed

  The woman saved a third

  One-tenth were caught by her lover.

  If six pearls remained on the string

  How many pearls were there altogether?

  Quoted in Georges Ifrah, The Universal History of Numbers (London, 1998), p. 431

  The presence of scholars from others parts of Asia and the subcontinent probably encouraged a more catholic outlook in the Buddhist monasteries compared to the mathas. Such monasteries survived mainly in eastern India. Nalanda was perhaps the best known, but the attack by the Turks virtually closed it. Jaina centres of education were closer in spirit to the Buddhist than the brahmanical, and these were concentrated in Gujarat, Rajasthan and, to a more limited extent, in Karnataka.

  Both Buddhist and Jaina centres of learning were now using Sanskrit quite extensively. The Jainas were prolific in the writing of biographies, chronicles and narratives of kings and courts, in addition to texts on religion. Keeping track of the activities of various Jaina sects and their teachings gave some historical flavour to their narratives, as it had done earlier in the Buddhist tradition. Authors such as Hemachandra in the twelfth century, and Merutunga in the fourteenth century, contributed substantially to this genre of writing, and the Jaina tradition paralleled the concerns of the Buddhist tradition in many ways. The Dvayashraya-kavya was a fine example of sophisticated scholarship combining grammatical exegesis with some history, and the Parishishtaparvan and Prabandhachintamani drew on the prabandha or chronicle tradition. The writing of biographies and hagiographies included works on the life and activities of Mahavira, such as the Mahavira-charita. An interesting aspect of Jaina literature was the continuation of narratives about the story of Rama from the Jaina perspective. Texts, both by Jaina authors and others, often deviated to a lesser or a greater extent from the established versions, including the Ramayana of Valmiki. Other traditions drew upon the patriarchal and orthodox versions of the story, and changes had included Sita being eventually sent once again into exile; or a shudra being killed because he had dared to practise the austerities and rites permitted only to the upper castes.

  The Jaina insistence on literacy required that texts be written, maintained and preserved as part of the bhandara or treasury of the Jaina temple. These developed into impressive libraries of manuscripts and remain so to this day. Texts were frequently written on palm leaves, but could also be on bhurjapatra or birchbark. The strips were written upon, and held together by cord passed through a hole in the strip. Wooden covers made the manuscript more secure and were occasionally painted in the current style. Specially prepared cloth could also be used, but generally only for a few purposes. Paper was a later, borrowed innovation. The scripts and styles of writing were still derived from the earlier brahmi script, although this had evolved into new forms, such as the sharada script, that were closer to the later Devanagari.

  Poetry and prose romances were often embellishments of themes familiar from epic and Puranic legends, and the narrative aspect could be subordinated to the linguistic. Prosody and the technicalities of composition were studied in some detail. Anandavardhana and Abhinavagupta explored some of the ideas first mooted in the Bharata Natya-shastra, such as the suggestive meaning and sound of words, and the place of poetry in drama. Writers and poets were welcome at the new courts, evoking the court establishments of earlier times. An exception to the romantic courtly style was the eleventh-century anthology of prose stories, the Kathasaritsagara (The Ocean of the Stream of Stories), by Somadeva, with its mix of folk and courtly themes, some of which suggest commentaries on travels to distant places.

  Drama, patronized by various courts, retained the individuality of earlier plays. A sharp edge to the dialogue was given by the religious sectarian rivalry that entered the better-known plays, such as Rajashekhara’s Karpuramanjari and Krishna Mishra’s Prabodhachandrodaya. Satire was directed at Buddhist or Jaina monks and some Shaiva sects were pilloried for their anti-social behaviour. Occasional Shaiva ritual practices were regarded as abhorrent, a critique also extended to practices among some Kaula and Tantric sects. The new cults were probably discussed at court as much as among ordinary people.

  Lyric poetry had a more personal appeal, although often couched in sophisticated form. Perhaps the most spontaneous was the outburst of erotic poetry, characteristic of this period, with a possible ancestry in the earlier single-stanza poems of Bhartrihari. Erotic mysticism, expressing the relationship between the individual and his deity, seems to have caught the imagination of people. Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda, written in the twelfth century, describes the love of Krishna for Radha, the lyrical quality of the poetry being virtually unsurpassed. Bilhana, in his Chaurapanchashika, describes the love between a princess and a man who has broken into the palace, a theme where the erotic is inevitable.

  Articulation of the erotic is evident in poetry and temple sculpture, perhaps released by the rituals and ideas current in Tantric belief and practice which were being assimilated among the elite. Nineteenth-century colonial authors wrote about it as the depravity of taste, the pandering to the sensuous and the degradation of morals in India – a view emerging largely out of Victorian definitions of morality. Possibly the absence of the imprint of ‘original sin’ may have encouraged a freer treatment of the erotic in India. The representation of erotic themes is striking, whether in the Gita Govinda or in the sculptures at Khajuraho. Some are sensitively rendered, others are more audacious. In some other societies elsewhere the expression of these were suppressed or sublimated, but in segments of Indian society they were a part of aesthetic expression. This may also have been a way of challenging social conventions.

  Monuments and their Historical Role

  Regional variation was not only expressed in the emergence of new languages, but was also visible in styles of architecture and in art. Temples grew in size from small places of worship to impressive, monumental structures, built in almost every region. The latter were built at times when, according to the chronicles of the Turkish rulers, raids on temples by the Turks were becoming more frequent. Curiously, there is little reference to such raids nor much concern that the temples being built should be specially protected.

  The overall architectural requirements and their ground-plans evolved from the earlier temples. The flat-roofed forms had acquired a shikhara or central tower over the main shrine and now there were smaller shikharas over subsidiary shrines as well, sometimes adjoining the main shrine. The central tower was tall, often tapering slightly in a convex shape. This altered the elevation and provided scope for new styles and decorative features in the Nagara or north Indian style. But this did not exclude regional variation in the design of the elevation. The north Indian temples were also centres of civic and corporate life although the area enclosed by most was less than that of their southern counterparts. However, the component parts were the same. The garbha-griha was where the main image was placed and the shikhara was built over it. This location was approached through the mandapas – the halls or antechambers – some with open spaces, creating a play of light and shadow
s, and were used for various occasions.

  The small, early temples were essentially places of worship, and were experimenting with new aesthetic forms. Temples of the later period were considerably larger and were the locations for major ceremonies of royal initiation and legitimation, linking the icon, the deity and the king. Such state spectacles required space. Sculptured panels often depicted state occasions such as the consecration of the king, and this was again the encapsulation of a sense of power. The earlier, smaller temples tended to fall into disrepair and only some were renovated. The later, larger ones were rich and therefore more frequently renovated, although their wealth made them potential targets for looting.

  The Salt Range in the north-west was the site of temples rebuilt by the Hindu Shahiyas in the ninth and tenth centuries, such as Malot, their unusual architecture hinting at an almost Romanesque or even Baroque style in their fluted columns and decorative features. These could have evolved from earlier Gandhara forms and from the temples in Kashmir. The small Ambamata temple at Jagat (Rajasthan) is exquisitely proportioned. The early Shiva temple at Eklingji near Udaipur is plainer and housed the deity of the rulers of Mewar. The ninth-century Harshadmata temple at Abaneri in Rajasthan is among those that had fallen into disrepair, but despite this the sculpture is of an impressive quality. The Maladevi temple at Gyaraspur in Madhya Pradesh commands a view of the countryside from its location halfway up a hill, with an unusual form that is partly structural and partly rock-cut. The Mukteshvara and Gauri temples at Bhuvaneshwar in Orissa are also of this period. The temple to Surya – the Sun god – at Osian in Rajasthan points to the transition from early to late. This is also true of the Sun temple at Martand in Kashmir, which although of an earlier date than the one at Modhera in Gujarat, was equally renowned. During this period the construction of temples also began in the hills in Kumaon and Garhwal.

 

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