The Rigveda and the historical sense of Indians

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The Rigveda and the historical sense of Indians

By T.P. Sankaran Kutty Nair

 

 

 

History divorced from truth, does not help a nation—its future should

be laid on the stable foundations of truth and not on the quicksands

of falsehood, however alluring it may appear at present. India is now

at the crossroads and I urge my young friends to choose carefully the

path they would like to tread upon.

 

 

—Ramesh Chandra Majumdar

 

 

History has had assigned to it the task of judging the past; of

instructing the present for the benefit of the ages to come

 

 

—Leopold von Ranke

 

These two views of two great historians carry considerable weight

even today. Ranke is the father of modern scientific history and

R.C.Manjumdar, doyen among Indian historians.

 

With the opening of the Vascoda Gama epoch in Indian history, began

the long interaction between the East and the West. In those days,

one of the charges against India was that India produced, "no great

historian or historical work, and Indians had no historical sense,

although Indians excelled in other branches of learning". The western

scholars charged Indians of not having written a proper history of

India. To this charge, Indians reacted by projecting the Rigveda,

which remains even today the oldest book of knowledge. Cole Broke had

revealed that the oldest product of Indian literature is the Rigveda.

The three German scholars Bopp, Grimm and Humboldt established the

intimate relationship among all Aryan languages, the most primitive

form of which was shown to be preserved in the language of the

Rigveda. Max Mueller (1823-1900) a German Orientalist and Indologist

settled at Oxford acquired a mastery over Sanskrit without the help

of a teacher. He then turned to comparative language studies which

involved him in the study of the Zend Avesta. The Zend Avesta led him

to the study of comparative religion and of the editing of the whole

text of the Rigveda (1845-79) with the commentary of Sayana. His

History of Sanskrit literature (1859) mapped out in chronological

order all the Sanskrit texts known till then. His interest in

mythology on which he wrote appealing essays led him further into the

study of comparative religion and to the publication of The Sacred

Books of the East (1879-1904) A monumental achievement, this

collaborative enterprise made available in English, translations of

50 major oriental non-Christian scriptures. The Rigveda is neither a

historical nor a heroic poem, but mainly a collection (Samhita) of

hymns by a number of priestly families, recited or chanted by them

with appropriate solemnity at sacrifices to the God. Of the various

recensions of the Rigveda known in tradition only one, namely the

Sakala recension consisting of 1017 hymns of very unequal length has

come down to us apparently complete, and it is this Sakala recension

that is meant when one speaks of the Rigveda. The Rigveda is not— as

it is often represented to be—a book of folk poetry nor does it mark

the beginning of a literary tradition. Bucolic, heroic and lyrical

elements are not entirely absent, but they are submerged under a

stupendous mass of dry and stereotyped hymnology dating back to the

Indo-Iranian era and held as a close preserve by a number of priestly

families whose sole object in cherishing those hymns was to utilise

them in their sacrificial cult.

 

Most of the hymns were not composed as such but were mechanically

manufactured out of fragments of a floating anonymous literature and

the process of manufacturing hymns in this manner must have continued

for a long time. The division of the whole Samhita into ten mandalas

and the number and arrangement of hymns in these mandalas are not at

all arbitrary. It is hardly an accident that the number of hymns

contained in the first and the last mandalas is exactly the same,

namely 191. The kernel of the Rig Samhita is however constituted by

the so called family mandalas ie. the six consecutive mandalas from

the second to the seventh, each of which is supposed to have been

composed by a particular family of priests. The ninth mandala is most

pronouncedly a ritual mandala. The principle governing the original

arrangement of hymns in the family mandalas seems to have been

determined by three considerations—deity, metre and the number of

verses contained in the hymns concerned. Each family a mandala opens

with a group of hymns dedicated to Agni, immediately followed by

another group addressed to Indra, then dedicated to various gods.

That the tenth mandala is later in origin than the first nine is

however perfectly certain from the evidence of the language. But it

is also certain that the whole of the Rig Samhita including the tenth

mandala has assumed practically the same form in which we find it

today, already before the other Samhitas came into existence. The

hymns of the Rigveda contain abundant geographical data including

reference to the mighy Himalayas. Out of the 31 rivers mentioned in

the Vedic texts about 25 names occur in the Rigveda alone. The

Rigveda enumerates several streams most of which belongs to the Indus

system. The Rigvedic people not only knew the sea but were mariners

and had trade relations with the outside world. Vedic literature

confined itself to religious subjects and notices political and

secular occurrences only incidentally so far as they had bearing on

the religious subjects. As Pargiter has very pertinently

observed, "ancient Indian history has been fashioned out of

compositions which are purely religious and priestly, which

notoriously do not deal with history and which totally lack

historical sense. The extraordinary nature of such history may be

perceived if it was suggested that European history should be

constructed merely out of theological literature. What would raise a

smile if applied to Europe, has been soberly accepted when applied to

India. The force of these remarks is undeniable and no student of

Indian history should ignore legendary element in the Puranas and

epics. It is necessary to remember that the traditions are not

genuine historical facts so long as or so far as they are no

corroborated by contemporary texts as other reasonable evidence. But

the traditional history is valued beyond doubt because it helped us

to reconstruct genuine history. The historical sense of Indians as we

projected earlier through the Rigveda is then proved to be not a

reality but more a myth.

 

The Rigveda is neither a historical nor a heroic poem, but mainly a

collection (Samhita) of hymns by a number of priestly families,

recited or chanted by them with appropriate solemnity at sacrifices

to the God.

 

The Rajatarangini and the Indian historical sense

 

Some Indian scholars pointed out the importance of Rajatarangini

written by Kalhana of Kashmir. It is not only a classic of Sanskrit

narrative poetry but is the earliest extant history of Kashmir

written in the middle of the 12th century, in the age when the

crusaders of Europe were fighting in western Asia. It is a unique

masterpiece of Kalhana, a blend of authentic chronicle and

imaginative poetry inspired by the poet's passionate love of his

exquisitely beautiful homeland. It was in 1892 that Pandit Durga

Prasad published the Rajatarangini in a Sanskrit text form, followed

by similar efforts made by Sir Aurel Stein. Stein brought out an

English translation in two volumes in 1900 under the caption

Chronicle of the Kings of Kashmir based on a French translation done

by Troyer during 1840-1852.

 

The name of the book indicates the meaning as saga of the kings of

Kashmir or river of kings. It is narrated in eight cantos, each canto

being called a taranga or wave by the author. It is a continuous

history of the kings of Kashmir from mythical time (1184 BC) to the

date of its composition ie. 1148-1149. The colophon of the work

informs us that its author Kalhana was the son of Champaka, the

Minister of King Harsha of Kashmir (1088-1100). The Rajatarangini is

the only Sanskrit work, with a historical perspective.

 

To quote Jawaharlal Nehru, "Rajatarangini is the only work hitherto

discovered in India having any pretensions to be considered as

history. Such a book must necessarily have importance for every

student of old Indian history and cultural." (sic-Ancient Indian

History)

 

The principle governing the original arrangement of hymns in the

family mandalas seems to have been determined by three considerations—

deity, metre and the number of verses contained in the hymns

concerned.

 

It is a history and it is a poem, though the two perhaps go ill

together, and in translations we see their unavoidable admixture of

myth and reality combined together. Written eight-and-half centuries

ago the work covers the history of over two millenniums. The early

part of mythological phase is brief and vague and sometimes fanciful

(first three taranginis) but Kalhana's period had been covered in a

close up narrative. It is not at all a pleasant story as it was a

period of romanticism and warfare side by side. Consider it as the

romantic age in Indian history as testified to by the romances of

Rajput princes and princesses, spread all over the Indian

subcontinent. It was also an age of quixotic chivalry and knighthood

wherein the people of Kashmir suffered under mighy feudal barons. It

is too much of palace intrigue, murder, treason, tyranny and civil

war. It is the story of autocracy and military oligarchy. In essence

it is a story of the kings, the royal families and the nobility, not

of common folk. No wonder it is given the title "River of Kings".

 

(To be continued)

 

(The author retired as Head, Department of History, University

College, University of Kerala.)

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