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Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 6:57 PM[ind-Arch] Changing interpretations of early Indian history - Upinder SinghIndiaArchaeology <IndiaArchaeology >

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.hindu.com/2008/06/30/stories/2008063052631000.htm

 

Online edition of India's National Newspaper

Monday, Jun 30, 2008

 

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

 

Changing interpretations of early Indian history

 

Upinder Singh

 

History is not one but many stories; only a few of them have been written.

The challenges to build on the advances so far are many.

 

The historiography of ancient and early medieval India reveals significant

changes over time; these can be understood against the background of the

political and intellectual contexts in which they emerged and flourished.

The various 'schools' of history writing are often presented and understood

in terms of one school making way for the other in a neat, forward

progression. The reality is more complex. There was considerable variety

within the schools; some of them co-existed in dialogue or conflict with one

another, and there are examples of writings that go against the grain and do

not fit into the dominant historiographical trends of their time.

Antiquarians' domination

 

The 18th and 19th centuries were dominated by the writings of European

scholars, referred to as Orientalists or Indologists, although they often

described themselves as 'antiquarians'. Many of them worked for the East

India Company or the British Government of India. The founding of the

Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784 provided an institutional focus for

scholars working in fields such as textual study, epigraphy, numismatics,

and history. A major contribution of the Indologists lay in their efforts to

collect, edit, and translate ancient texts. In this, they depended heavily

on information provided by 'native informants.' Indology soon spread beyond

the British empire and became a subject of study in European universities.

 

Apart from the study of ancient texts, the 19th century witnessed

developments in epigraphy, numismatics, archaeology, and the study of art

and architecture. The decipherment of Ashokan Brahmi and Kharoshthi scripts

were breakthroughs. The analysis of coins contributed to the construction of

a framework of political history. Officers of the Geological Survey

discovered prehistoric stone tools and laid the basis of Indian prehistory.

The Archaeological Survey of India, established in 1871, has over the

decades made important contributions to unearthing and analysing the

material remains of India's past. The contributions and breakthroughs of the

18th and 19th centuries were rooted in a colonial context, and this is

evident in certain features of Indological writing. The Brahmanical

perspective of ancient Sanskrit texts was often uncritically taken as

reflecting the Indian past. Social and religious institutions and traditions

were critiqued from a Western viewpoint. Indian society was presented as

static, and its political systems despotic, over the centuries. Race,

religion, and ethnicity were confused with one another, and there was a

tendency to exaggerate the impact of foreign influence on ancient India.

This is when the classification of the Indian past into Hindu, Muslim, and

British periods took root.

 

Indian scholars of the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th

century made major contributions to constructing a connected narrative of

ancient India. These historians, who wrote against the background of an

emergent, and later increasingly strong, national movement, are generally

referred to as Nationalist historians. They wove together data from texts,

inscriptions, coins, and other material remains to show the contours of the

ancient Indian past. Contributions were made in the field of political

history. South India was brought into the narrative and the study of

regional polities progressed.

 

The nationalist tinge in these scholars' writings can be seen in their

insistence on the indigenous roots of cultural developments. It is reflected

in their search for golden ages, which led to their exalting the age of the

Vedas and the Gupta Empire. Non-monarchical polities were discovered and

celebrated to counter the idea that India had never known anything but

despotic rule. The periodisation of the Indian past into Hindu, Muslim, and

British periods was, however, retained. It coalesced with a communal

tendency to valorise the 'Hindu period' and to project the advent of the

Turks and Islam as a calamity and tragedy.

 

The 1950s saw the emergence of Marxist historiography, which went on to play

an influential role in the construction of the history of ancient and early

medieval India. In the long run, the Marxist historians shifted the focus

from an event-centred history dominated by political narrative to the

delineation of social and economic structures and processes, especially

those related to class stratification and agrarian relations. Marxist

historiography contributed to uncovering the history of non-elite groups,

some of which had suffered subordination and marginalisation.

 

While making these valuable interventions and contributions, Marxist

writings often tended to work with unilinear historical models derived from

Western historical and anthropological writings. Texts were sometimes read

uncritically, with insufficient attention paid to their problematic

chronology and peculiarities of genre. Archaeological data were included,

but the basic framework of the historical narrative remained text-centric.

Initially, the focus on class meant less attention to other bases of social

stratification such as caste and gender. Religion and culture were

sidelined, or mechanically presented as reflections of socio-economic

structures.

 

Despite important differences, the major historiographical schools shared

similarities. Certain tenets of these schools continue to thrive. Some of

the fundamental premises and methods of Orientalist historiography still

hold their ground, and histories of Third World countries such as India

remain Eurocentric. Appeals to the ancient and early medieval past are often

dictated by nationalist or communalist agendas. Marxist historiography

continues to be an influential force in early Indian historiography.

 

A critical understanding of historiography, one that recognises the

contributions and limitations of past and present ideological and

theoretical frameworks, is essential to understanding where the history of

ancient and early medieval India stands. However, the advances of the future

are likely to be the result of questioning and thinking beyond the

boundaries of existing historiographical positions and methodologies.

 

History is not one but many stories; only a few of them have been written.

The challenges to build on the advances so far are many. Currently, there

are two parallel images of ancient South Asia — one based on literary

sources, the other on archaeology. Texts and archaeology generate different

sorts of historical narratives and suggest different rhythms of cultural

continuity, transition, and change. Historians generally use archaeological

evidence selectively as a corroborative source when it matches hypotheses

based on their interpretation of texts. Archaeologists have not adequately

explored the historical implications of archaeological data. Correlations

between literature and archaeology tend to be simplistic and devoid of

reflection on methodology. We need to consider whether, given their inherent

differences, textual and archaeological evidence can be integrated, or

whether we should simply aim at juxtaposition.

 

The tradition of extracting supposedly self-evident 'facts' from literary

sources needs to be replaced by an approach that is more sensitive to their

genre, texture, and cadence. However, in view of the information and

insights offered by rapidly growing archaeological data, historical

narratives can no longer remain text-centric. A more sophisticated approach

towards textual study has to be accompanied by an incorporation of

archaeological evidence. This will lead to a more nuanced image of ancient

India. It will reveal the complexities and diversities of cultural

processes, and will incorporate the ordinary and everyday into our

understanding of the ancient past.

 

Histories of early India should ideally represent the various regions and

communities of the subcontinent in their diversity. However, while the

heartlands of great empires and kingdoms are well represented, many regions

are not. These have to be brought in. Bringing more people into history

requires initiatives to uncover groups that have been subordinated and

marginalised. This is not easy, given that a great proportion of the source

material available to historians has been created by elite groups and

reflects their ideas and interests. Nevertheless, the past of people who

have been hidden from history has to be uncovered and written, and these

histories must become an integral part of the narrative of the ancient

Indian past. Explorations of gender, the family, and the household need to

be pushed further and have to become part of larger social histories. Issues

and institutions such as the family, class, varna, and jati need long-term

perspectives, showing how the different bases of social identity intersected

and changed over time.

 

India's varied and complex cultural traditions need attention. While these

continue to be the focus of research among scholars working in South Asian

studies, religious studies, and art history departments abroad, they have in

recent decades remained somewhat marginal to mainstream historical writing

in India.

Need to enlarge debate

 

There is a close relationship between history and identity; the past has,

therefore, always been contested terrain. In contemporary India, the ancient

past is invoked in different ways in political discourse, including

propaganda with chauvinistic or divisive agendas. There are debates over the

state's right to project and propagate certain interpretations of the past

through school textbooks. Communities frequently take offence at things

written about them in historians' scholarly writings. In such a charged and

intolerant atmosphere, there are several dangers — of the deliberate

manipulation and distortion of the past to achieve political ends, of

historical hypotheses being judged on the basis of their political

implications rather than academic merit, and of historians being criticised

for writing objective history. The need to define and enlarge a liberal

academic space which nurtures level-headed dialogue and debate has perhaps

never been greater.

 

(This article is excerpted from the Introduction of Upinder Singh's

forthcoming book, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the

Stone Age to the 12th Century, Pearson Longman, Rs. 3,500.)

 

 

 

 

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