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November was an eventful month. The 85th birthday of Sri Satya Sai Baba was celebrated worldwide. Half a million people gathered in Prashanthinilayam at Puttaparthy. The Prime Minister delivered the Convocation Address of Sri Satya Sai Institute of Higher Learning. The President of India came for Swami’s Darshan. Even the Dy Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister of Karnataka and many other VIPs attended the function. Ratan Tata offered a programme
to spread the message Swami’s message of human values. Other Corporate Organisations and philanthropists have also offered to join the movement to inculcate ethical and moral values in the education system as well as in public life.
The Commonwealth Games were conducted successfully, which was admired by the participating countries. The Asiad has been organized elegantly on a massive scale in China. China won over 400 medals as against 64 by India. China deserves our admiration. India has to go a long way to attain international standard in sports and games.
The Sabarimala season has started in Kerala, which is attracting more and more pilgrims every year. There is a cultural renaissance all over the country, which would promote unity and hope among the people.
In spite of large scale scams, Indian political system is withstanding the strain. The Chief Ministers of Maharashtra and Andhra were changed. The telecom scam, the CWG scandals, the Adarsh Housing scam and many other scandals and corruption charges have shaken India’s confidence in ethical and moral values. Even Sonia Gandhi remarked that greed and graft have exceeded the limit of tolerance. The problem is one of management and systems, which have not received the attention it deserves. Some Corporate organisations have already shown that they can enforce good standards of transparency and fairness.
The poor status of development in the BIMARU States was causing concern. Success of Mr Narendra Modi in Gujarat and Mr Nitish Kumar in Bihar give us hope that politicians could abandon their caste based politics and concentrate on development.
The Centre of Excellence – Animals and Environment of Cartman conducted a two-day exhibition on Biodiversity, on which a report has been included in this issue.
This issue is mainly on What Foreigners think about India‘s contribution and their unique genius. We hope to publish a larger and more comprehensive edition next month. Meanwhile, we request the readers to give us information and comments which would enable us to produce an authentic deluxe edition later.
We are thankful to Prof. K.M.P. Menon, who has made substantial contribution to the production of this journal.
N.S.Ramaswamy - Editor
SECTION - 1
QUALITY OF LIFE IN BANGALORE
By
Prof. N.S. Ramaswamy*
Bangalore is blessed with a beautiful blend of natural endowments and man-made creations, which has made it the most favoured city in India. With the advent of IT and BT sectors, Bangalore is now known all over the world. Bangalore is slowly becoming a world class city, attracting business and professionals from all over the world.
Bangalore is located in the center of South India. It has borders with the other three Southern States as well as Maharashtra and Goa, which has made it the most cosmopolitan city with diverse culture and attractions.
Karnataka people are hospitable, polite, tolerant, sobre, mild mannered and cultured. Bangalore has accepted people from all over India. Bangalore’s culture is an amalgam and integration of cultures, drawn from not only other South India, but also the North. The hospitable and peaceful ambience makes everybody feel that Bangalore is home to all.
Throughout recorded history, civilization and urbanization went together. In the pre-Christian era, Rome, Athens and Alexandria were centers of civilization. In India, Mohanjadaro and Harappa (now in Pakistan) as well as Nalanda and Pataliputra were centers of learning. In modern times, Delhi has been the seat of power for long. Chennai and Madurai were centers of Tamil culture. Mumbai is the financial capital of India. Kolkota gave birth to innumerable scholars and intellectuals in many fields. But Bangalore is unique, where contrasting features complemented each other. It has the potential to grow in several secular and spiritual directions, which will be the most attractive aspect to Indian and universal citizens.
Bangalore is blessed in many natural and man-made features. Its salubrious climate and natural beauty made it a garden city. Cultural inputs have come from every side. Tamilians and Telugu speaking people made Bangalore their home and totally merged with Kannadigas without conflict. Keralites and peoples from other parts of India have come to help Bangalore grow materially and culturally. Maharajas of Mysore were scholars, who left their imprint in the city. Sir M. Visvesvaraya, Sir Mirza Ismail, Lord Cubbon and other Englishmen contributed to Bangalore in their own way. High-tech industries, of non-polluting type, and a large number of PSUs and Central Institutions are adorning Bangalore.
The IT boom has made Bangalore prosperous. Magnificent office buildings, beautiful bungalows and elegant residential apartments make Bangalore look like a modern western city. A large number of educational institutions – from primary school to highest level – are attracting students even from abroad. World class hospitals and educational institutions have made Bangalore an ideal destination for education and medical tourism. A large number of 5-Star and 3-Star hotels and elite restaurants, Country Villas, Golf Clubs and Convention Centres have made Bangalore a modern city. Bangalore has the largest number of civilian clubs, spread all over the city.
Another unique feature of Bangalore is the large number of religious, cultural, philosophical and spiritual institutions. The Brindavan Ashram of Sri Satya Sai Baba brings devotees from all over the world. The ISKCON temple is perhaps the most magnificent modern temple in India. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Ashram in Kanakapura road has become famous all over the world for meditation. Ashrams of Ramakrishna, Vivekanada, Ramana, Aurobindo, Buddha, Nityananda, Muktananda, Chinmaya, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and a few others are the source of education and inspiration to spiritual seekers.
Bangalore has a large number of Hindu temples, Christian Churches, Muslim Mosques, Sikh Gurudwaras, Jain centers, Educational institutions put up by Christian Missions and Hindu Mutts managed by Pejavar Swami, Balagangadhara Swami, Siddhaganga Swami, PSS and many others. Mutts are providing first class education and training.
Yet another good fortune of Bangalore is the presence of large number of Central Government offices, Educational and Research institutions and establishments of Armed Forces, which have given Bangalore not only a cosmopolitan character but also ample open space to function as a lung for the growing population. The Institute of Science, IIM, NAL, NIAS, DRDO, NIMHANS, Kidwai Centre, Bannerghatta National Park, Vidhana and Vikas Soudhas enrich Bangalore life.
Bangalore is centrally located, from where one can reach other centers by overnight train, such as Chennai, Tirupati, Trichi, Thanjavur, Cochin, Hyderabad as well as tourist centers, such as, Sringeri, Bandipur, Hampi, Halebidu, Belur, Nagarhole, etc. The new International Airport would boost Bangalore’s prospects as an international city.
Bangalore is famous for its quiet and peaceful atmosphere, inter-religious harmony, vibrant culture, music and dance festivals, gardens, intellectual atmosphere, etc. Karnataka people have not only promoted but also encouraged others to grow and prosper here, allowing them to retain their identity. All India festivals, such as Ramanavami, Ganesh Chaturthi, Durga Puja, Sivarathri, Krishnashtami, Christian and Muslim festivals add societal joy and splendour.
Though Bangalore has become a modern city, paddy fields are just a few minutes drive from the center of the city. A large number of residential complexes have sprung up in the periphery of the city. Thus Bangalore is a mini India. In the days to come, with the boom of IT and BT companies, there is also a possibility of foreigners opting to work in Bangalore. ITPL and Electronic City are models for emulation. Material progress and religious-cum-spiritual activities take place side by side. Modernity is flourishing side by side with age-old customs and traditions. Bangalore has now good music and dance festivals. Carnatic and Hindusthani music are flourishing. Even Western music and modern dance are popular.
Media world is another attractive feature of Bangalore. English and regional media, movies, TV and Theatre are expanding rapidly, providing entertainment and education for all.
Swami Vivekananda had said that this is going to be India’s Century, which has been endorsed by great western scholars like Arnold Toynbee. Bangalore is likely to become the capital of the world for education and health services, cultural and spiritual pursuits, intellectual and scholarly discourses, research and development, business and industry, etc.
I put forward some suggestions in the next few aragraphs which are points worth considering.
Three-Wheeler Noise :
At the instance of late Shri Devraj Urs, in 1975, at my request the manufacturers redesigned the three-wheeler to reduce noise and gas pollution. But the one lakh three-wheeler drivers are tampering with the silencer, resulting terrible noise and emition of un-burnt poisonous gas. 30 years of my effort to persuade the Transport Commissioner to take drastic action has failed. Kindly advise him to take punitive action by suspending the licences of those drivers who have tampered with the silencer, which is easily detectable from the terrible noise and profuse fumes emitting out of the silencer.
Road Transport :
Road transport is best operated, if it is run by private sector. Kindly allow private sector to come in to supplement the BMTC fleet. Six two-wheelers, four three-wheelers and two cars occupy the same space as a bus. If more small buses are introduced, two lakh two-wheelers, used to commute to work, will go off the road, thus providing more road space and speeding of traffic.
One side parking:
It is a 100-year old universal practice that vehicles should be parked only on one side - Monday, Wednesday and Friday on one side and Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday on the other side. No need for restriction on Sunday. In order to avoid traffic rush, vehicles use narrow streets. This can be easily implemented.
One way :
There is great scope for increasing the number of one-way streets. Kindly advise the Transport Commissioner to visit Koramangala, where a lot of improvements in movement of traffic can be made, simply by enforcing the rule of “only one side parking and one-way-streets”.
Slaughter houses:
Bangalore Slaughter House is 100 years old. The present idea is to relocate it to Horsarahalli. Residents will oppose it, as it has happened all these years. A better method is to slaughter animals in rural locations, where they become available for meat. This simple idea will eliminate all ill-effects of pollution and wastage, and further increase employment in rural areas. Additionally, animals will suffer less during transportation. This is a major problem which can be solved. The Secretary concerned may give time for me to explain.
Public image of the Government:
Public image of the Government would improve if BBMP, BDA, KPTCL, BESCOM, BWSSB, Police and other Utilities and Services improve their efficiency and act courteously to citizens. Dramatic change can be made, if systems are simplified and unnecessary procedures are eliminated. Further, officers and technical personnel should be well-trained to deal with the public. CARTMAN and Indian Heritage Academy have experience of conducting HRD programmes. I request you to kindly advise all Utilities and Services to take advantage of our experience.
Afforestation
Population and traffic have grown enormously. Pollution can be reduced and supply of oxygen increased if available empty space is afforested. BBMP and Karnataka Government had given CARTMAN a two-acre Civic Amenity site in Koramangala, which we have converted into a forest, with more than 1,000 trees of 400 varieties. This can be replicated in all empty areas, now occupied by the Military, PSUs, Educational institutions and Government offices. BBMP is already helping us. The process can be accelerated with tremendous benefits to Bangalore. BBMP may be advised to make the BBMP-CARTMAN Eco Park as model for others.
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IIMs
Prof. N.S. Ramaswamy*
| It is better to make a small improvement in a vital, necessary but neglected area, than a dramatic improvement in an irrelevant and unnecessary area. |
Development depends on the appropriateness and relevance of Management Concepts (MCs) – Education, Training, Research and Application - in all sectors of political, economic and social life. Actually, MC , over the last 50 years, have made impact only in 2% of India’s 450 m work force and 20% of the organised sector of 50 m. Systems in the rest are in primitive conditions from the MC point of view. IIM graduates generally join only the already well managed MNCs and Indian business, where their incremental improvements are only marginal. Though liberalization opened up a part of our economy, most major important sectors, like governance, administration, PSUs, PSBs and infrastructure sectors are being directly managed, and/or, are rigidly controlled, by Government and its vast network of authorities/agencies, to which IIM products or policies are not allowed entry.
It is strange that IIMs, funded by the government, are not utilised to improve the deplorable condition of organizations and systems under the government, but are used to improve the efficiency of already well managed companies in the private sector. Government continues to use 100 year old antiquated, obsolete, cumbersome and meaningless pubic administrative systems and decision making processes for development purposes. Brilliant officers are chained to slow moving files where facts are hidden or camouflaged. Officers have no autonomy, so essential for dynamic managerial decisions.
Western nations govern and leave development to the corporates or autonomous organisations, while our Central-State-Local governments are mainly massive business empires, where illicit money can be easily made by manipulating the files.
Our MC in IIMs are largely pale imitation of the West, and hence inadequate, inappropriate and irrelevant to our complex situation. Most faculty are US trained, and some feel like Alice in Wonderland, if asked to improve the water and sewage system, or garbage cleaning or providing water and toilets for 500 m, who have been given mobiles instead. No wonder China, which started development along with India in 1950, is now 40 years ahead. China is the manufacturing factory of the world, while India is a huge market for Obama who praised us to sell his goods. We gloat and croak like frogs about largest ‘democracy’ and super-power status, bestowed on us by the western nations to satisfy our ever growing ego. Our IIMs are planning to go abroad to improve other countries.
Thanks to the entrepreneurial initiative and huge subsidy and support given by the Central government to IIMs in the initial years, four of the 10 IIMs ( 10 more to come) have achieved world standards. Indians are Deans in prestigious US Universities. India has become the fourth preferred destination for management education. After the torrential entry of the private sector in MC – mostly for making money - the number of Management Institutes now is over 1500. Though most of them do not have the desired quality, India’s huge requirements of supervisory and managerial manpower at widely varying levels of competence can usefully employ them.
While we can be legitimately proud of our IIMs, IIM graduates generally join well-managed MNCs and Indian companies, Investment and financial services etc. employing about 10 million. At the other end, neither IIM graduates join nor appropriate modern management systems installed into the sprawling government sector employing 20 million, Power, Railways, Roadways, PWD, Ports, Irrigation and hundreds of organizations on which the economic machinery depends for fast development. Even the Education system, already immobilized by rigid and complicated procedures, is held in tight leash by a mindless State machinery. These organizations were designed on conventional government pattern, which are now used for development, with disastrous results. This octopus with a million feet blindly blocks or slows down progress and thwarts efforts of efficient officers. The army of indifferent clerks struggle moving mountains of files. An international Conference of Business School Deans found that India had the most obstructive bureaucracy in the world.
Much can be done to increase the effectiveness of IIMs. A massive programme of short Management Development should be conducted for government officials. IIMB established two Management Institutes at Chennai and Trivandrum to excliusively train and conduct research for government. IIMB trained their faculty with a two year full time programme. Since Universities do not offer programmes in sectors, IIMB conducted Sectoral programmes for Transport, Power, Health, Habitat, Environment, Water resources etc, as these there were the bottlenecks for progress. These should be expanded manifold.
Shortage of faculty may be 20,000. IIMs ought to take up this huge assignment with top priority to meet the needs of non-IIM colleges,Sectoral and State administrative Institutes, etc. Fellowship programme (Ph D) should exclusively be set apart for sectors other that Business and Industry, which would produce information for formulating policies.
The vast unorganized sector of 400 m – agriculture and allied activities in rural areas – are being serviced by the sprawling State government machinery , which is corrupt, indifferent and inefficient to such as an extnt that only 15% of development funds allotted reach the intended beneficiaries, while the rest is consumed by the process, including the political apparatus.. IIMB should conduct programmes for the Development Officers in the field and those in the State Secretariat. The Metro and large cities mould public opinion on democracy. Municipal services are the worst managed. Officers have to be trained, and their systems changed.
Finally, India has been declared a very corrupt country. Value-based MC are the only solution to reduce the same to reasonable levels. Tatas and other major corporate companies have achieved this, which some of our temples have not. Singapore, Shanghai and Finland have shown that it is possible to eliminate corruption and insanitation. MC should have a high input of ethical and moral values. After all Education is character building. Now that Harvard has started it, there is a possibility of our IIMs also starting this input. Research in IIMs should be on macro policy to help Centre, States and local bodies, rather than the esoteric gymnastics for Corporate sector which can take care of itself.
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CARTMAN – IHA – NEWS UPDATE
ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS AND EDUCATION
By T.N.K. Kurup
Man, Animal and Nature are mutually dependent. Human beings depend on animals and Nature’s endowments for their sustenance in the Planet. For thousands of years these entities were in balance and in equilibrium. However, during the last hundred years, because of industrialization, rapid increase in population, urban settlements, rising per capita consumption and related factors, animals and plant life have been subjected to high pressure. Thousands of animals and plant species have become extinct. Forest cover and pasture land have shrunk, air and water bodies heavily polluted. These trends if they continue at the present pace may endanger our existence as well. This is evident from the increased global warming happening year after year. The only solution is to take concerted action to reduce consumption and engage in measures individually and globally to arrest the dangerous situation.
Conservation of Natural resources and control of pollution have been discussed at various International forums and individual nations on their part have initiated various corrective measures. One such activity is the creation of awareness and educating the people especially the children on the subject of environment and taking up sustainable methods of development. The Inter-governmental Conference of Environmental Education which took place in the year 1972 at Tbilisi, Capital of Georgia, spelt out the following for educators:
“To develop a world population that is aware of and concerned about the total environment and its associated problems and which has the knowledge, attitude, motivation, commitment and skills to work individually and collectively towards solution of the current problems and the prevention of new ones”.
A publication titled “Essential learnings in Environmental Education” jointly brought out by the Centre of Environment Education, Ahmedabad, and the State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, USA, is of great value. When Cartman was assigned the task of editing a monthly journal “Young World and Environment” by the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board in the year 2003, myself as the Editor of this journal found this book as an excellent resource. With inputs from various sectors, Cartman was instrumental in editing 32 issues of this journal from November 2003 to March 2007. This journal was in English and Kannada and was distributed monthly to around 200 schools in the city of Bangalore.
Centre of Excellence – Animals & Environment
Cartman was recognized as a Centre of Excellence on Animals and Environment by the Ministry of environment and Forests, G.o.I. and in the year 2010 sanctioned the construction of a 1000 sq.ft building as an Environment Education Centre to be located in the Civic Amenity Site No. 18, in Koramangala, given on long lease to Cartman by the Bangalore Development Authority. Now this site is under the control of BBMP and this has been developed into an Eco Park. The Eco Park has many varieties of trees, flowering, fruiting, general purpose, medicinal, etc and ornamental plants, shrubs, palms and a herbal garden. The southern part of the park is a veritable forest thick with the canopy of big trees where the sun rays hardly penetrate and the ambient temperature is considerably lower than outside which is just a mass of concrete jungle. This amply illustrates the fact that a green patch of trees is a good carbon sink and if many people and nations take up planting and growing trees this can offset the increase in temperature to some extent. In fact this is an indication to develop future parks in Bangalore with more tree coverage than ornamental plants and lawns. Commissioner of BBMP said as much when he addressed the department of Horticulture reporting to him. The widening of roads and the construction of Metro have made a deep dent on the greenery that was Bangalore and now it is the turn of BBMP and NGOs and R.W.As to plant and grow trees.
Bio Diversity Exhibition
The very first activity Cartman initiated in the newly constructed building was to organize a Bio Diversity exhibition from 15th to 20th November. This was inaugurated on 15th by Sri B. Ramalinga Reddy, Member of the Legislative Assembly, Koramangala and a Minister of the previous Govt. of Karnataka, with Srimathi Kokila Radhakrishna, the newly elected Corporator of Koramangala as a Guest of Honour. Both of them and Prof. N.S. Ramaswamy, Director of Cartman, spoke on the occasion. The exhibits comprised of Planet Earth, Structure and salient features, the importance of Bio Diversity, Biomes viz., Arctic Tundra, Deserts, Grass Lands, Marine life, Mangroves, Tropical rain forests, Himalayas, Western Ghats with their associated flora and fauna and varieties of animals, birds and marine species – a peep, micro-cosm of the Bio Diversity of the vibrant planet. There was a small section devoted to the subject of global warming and some evocative painting rendered by school children on the same subject during a painting competition held by Cartman a few months back. On the whole, this exhibition and the ambient surroundings of the greens outside were well appreciated. Average attendance was of the order of 300 per day and children and teachers were very appreciative of our effort. This augurs well for the park and we expect more to come in our subsequent functions related to environment, Ecology and pollution control. It is expected that the BBMP also puts in their effort to provide basic amenities like paving the existing walk ways and pathways, set up a gazebo where space has been left and the present water body made more attractive and pollution free. These additions will definitely be appreciated by Cartman and residents of the area and the park may become more visitor friendly.
Bio Diversity and its importance
Bio Diversity or the biological diversity of life refers to the Biosphere’s genetic material contained within the rich variety of life which we share in the planet. Depending on the climatic zones, the flora and fauna vary, as were shown in our exhibition ranging from Arctic Tundra to Tropical Rain forests and Desert region. But when human activity or habitation takes place in these regions, they affect the habitats of these species and over a period of time they become extinct as it happened in the case of Cheetah in India and Dodo elsewhere.
Bio Diversity is important for the continued wellbeing of the earth and its inhabitants. The greater the number of existing species, the more resilient is the biosphere and its eco system. Greater diversity also means greater possibilities of selection of natural resources. Bio Diversity is rapidly decreasing due to human activities e.g. deforestation, improper irrigation and agricultural practices resulting in pollution of water bodies, etc. India has a diversity of environment ranging from deserts to rain forests to alpine meadows all characterized by specific flora and fauna. It is estimated that about 4 to 5 percent of all known plant and animal species on earth are found in India. Today a significant portion of 15,000 plant and 75,000 animal species in India are threatened by human activity, especially on forest land. The ever dwindling numbers of tigers, elephants, black bucks, Sambar deer, lion tailed macaque and the birds like sparrow, vultures are prime examples. As human beings we are part of the diversity of life and must recognize our responsibility in maintaining it. One of the actions taken by the Government is the creation of Biosphere Reserves. They are set aside for the preservation of Biodiversity. The main objectives are to conserve the genetic resources within the natural eco system, allowing evolutionary processes to operate unhindered and also provide opportunities for research and education.
This year – 2010 – is the year of Bio Diversity as announced by the United Nations to focus attention on the depleting trends and to take action towards its conservation. Cartman took the initiative by holding this exhibition in the Eco Park with funds released by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, GoI. We intend to repeat the show with more pictures and write ups during the next year to coincide with the World Environment Day.
Participation from Schools
A brochure prepared in this connection was circulated to more than 50 schools along with our invitation to the Principals for attending the inauguration on 15th and later send batches of students during the following days. Around 15 schools - many of them from neighbouring localities and a few from far off places like Rajaji Nagar, Malleswaram and Kanakapura – responded by sending batches of students. An average of 300 students came every day and they were happy to see and learnt from the exhibits and the wide greenery around. If the schools located from Indira Nagar, Central Bangalore, etc had responded, we would have been more than happy. Local Weeklies and a few national Dailies covered the issue. Cartman would like to thank them and the schools which participated in the important event. We hope that such educative ventures do get their publicity and participation from the Press and the schools. Cartman is thankful to KSPCB for sending their Van housing many exhibits.
Audio Visual Shows
Sponsored by the KSPCB, Cartman had been conducting audio visual shows on environment, bio diversity, pollution control and on allied subjects to various schools in Bangalore Urban and rural areas for the last four to five years. This initiative was taken up by my colleague, Sri N.H. Visweswara, by taking one mobile van with the necessary audio visual equipment. He has covered more than 200 schools during the last few years. They were well appreciated. Now, with the availability of a building in the Eco Park, we intend to have regular A.V. Shows during the coming Academic Year. This building will be equipped with such facilities and with additional number of CDs on the desired subjects we may be able to contribute to the cause of environment in a more sustained way. What we look forward is for the cooperation and participation from the school authorities.
Request to Principals of Schools
While setting the curriculum and the allied activities for the year 2011 - 2012, school authorities may allocate a day or two to send their middle school and high school level students for spending half or full day in the Eco Park and watch a couple of audio visual programmes. If proper appreciation and interest in our activities are forthcoming from schools and media, we could improve upon ourselves and this programme could become better and better.
BBMP is taking up the initiative to make the area more visitor friendly during the next six months and our audio visual centre would be fully equipped for Cartman to roll out interesting programmes for the Young World and this Eco Park would turn out to be a true Centre for disseminating the little we know about the vast subject of Environment. We welcome valuable inputs from experts and environmetalists to make this programme more meaningful and substantive.
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| INDIA CENTURY MISSION (ICM) Educational Booklet - No. 12A THEME INDIA A MISCELLANY OF FOREIGN OBSERVATIONS Produced by INDIAN HERITAGE ACADEMY (IHA) Supported by DHIRUBHAI AMBANI FOUNDATION (DAF) DAF is not responsible for the views expressed in this Booklet |
| K.M.P. Menon, Associate Editor N.S. Ramaswamy - Editor Editorial Technical Support Kurup TNK Rajam Ramaswamy Santhosh AP Balakrishnan AV Gopalakrishnan TK Hombalappa Ramalingam R Sivarama Iyer Suraj Visweswara NH Bamzai TN Murthy Venugopal R Nambissan PUK Latha Ramalingam TR Balasubramanian KK Pushpa Ganesan V Pillai AP Komala |
SECTION - 2
INDIA A MISCELLENY OF FOREIGN OBSERVATIONS
INTRODUCTION
The present generation enjoys and accepts as genuine only those matters which have been authenticated by others. It is also interesting to see how our own country impressed early travellers and scholars in the past. In this booklet we present a collection of quotable quotes gleaned from a variety of sources. They throw light on several aspects of life in India. They are all inevitably coloured by the observers own personality. For example, the Italian missionary Roberto DeNobili became more of a Hindu Brahmin and calling the devout temple goers of Madurai declared The Holy Bible, the fifth Veda. He told his superiors in Rome that they had better learn from India rather than the other way about thus laying himself open to grave charges of apostasy.
India has gone through several cycles of approbation followed by deprecation. Swamy Vivekananda had predicted during a low ebb in the nineteenth century, a world renaissance focused on India. Such an India Century seems very imminent at the present time. As many European thinkers see it they would benefit much by learning from the age-old wisdom of India. ALBERT Schweitzer declares in his book on Hindu thought that a future civilization would gain from a synthesis of Western and Indian thought.
He further dispels the old European enlightenment notion that Ethics had no place in Indian religion. In fact the contrary is true; ethics is the matrix in which Indian religiosity lives. The whole purpose of all aspects of religion is to turn man towards ethical conduct-Dharma.
This random selection of passages by foreigners writing about India contains not only achievements in the matter of the spirit. Indian sciences never conflicted with religion .There was a seamless symbiosis between spirituality and daily life, theory and practice. Whether medicine or music, architecture or astronomy, this was true. As the ancient Greeks would put it all was done in the spirit of architectonike-to show the Glory of God.
There are many passages here which inform, instruct and hopefully, entertain. Indian scientific achievements are many and admittedly the credit has not gone often to the right persons .The sages of India were unassuming .Asserting ones individuality was considered in a poor light and as bad form. The great sages and savants of the past were so erudite that ordinary people thought that they could access knowledge from the cosmos at will. Such knowledge which required a flash of inspiration forms a whole group known as Paravidya “knowledge from on high”. This reminds us of the original meaning of “inspiration”—that is being breathed upon by a muse. That knowledge that can be learned as a matter of course that is such as can be learned without inspiration from on high was termed Aparavidya. Nowadays when India has begun to transform into a ”knowledge society” ,from an agro-based one, it is worth remembering that the Indians had already built a solid base for it and also that at all times that knowledge was held in high esteem.
The Russian savant Nicholas Roerich was intuitively called Maharshi by the unlettered peasants of the Himalyan foothills. He did valuable research on Indian culture as did many foreigners. But for many such great men of many nationalities the ancient past of India may have been less clear. Sufficient tribute is yet to be paid to them. We have made some amends here by bringing together an outline of some of their lives. In fact the history of India in the modern sense starts with foreign observers.
It should not be thought that Indians are deficient in a sense of history. A very enlarged sense of the fleeting moment and at the same time, awareness of the burden of the past is an Indian characteristic. An individual’s birth and death along with the occurrence of important event are all marked by reference to the stars. The astronomical reference points are a sure way of perpetuating them. Till recently the ruling Raja and the relations of the princely states of the South, Travancore, Cochin, etc. were known by the stars under which they were born. For example, Sri Chitra Thirunal Balarama Varma was the last to hold regal power till 1947. Many customs continued in the South even after they had been given up in the North. The West Coast preserved not only the Sanskrit language but also much ancient learning. Astrologers and physicians from that part of India were in great demand all over the country till recently.
The Portuguese poet, Camoens, wrote the epic poem “The Luciad” which is a treasure house of description of India in the 15th Century especially of the Malabar Coast which had not been conquered by any one. It is on that pristine civilization that the Europeans first under Vasco De Gama made their incursion.(That long poem is called the epic of commercialization). We have included some vignettes from that part of India.
Our aim in making this booklet is to develop an interest in India, its people, its past and its promise for the future among foreigners who come here as well as the new generation of Indians who have been described as foreigners in their own country.
This booklet has three sections, one this introduction, secondly the quotations and extracts and thirdly an appendix giving an account of ancient India’s scientific achievements.
We are extremely thankful to all those who have helped in this endeavour including the proprietors of the material from which we have sourced this publication.
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QUOTES AND EXTRACTS
THE STORY OF MOTHER INDIA
- Susan Huntington
Archaeological finds from India give us glimpses of a culture uniquely at ease with itself, argues Susan Huntington
Buddhist worshiper at a reclining Buddha statue in the Chaitya hall, or prayer hall, in Cave 26 at the Ajanta Caves
More than four millennia have passed since the many artifacts of the ancient Indus civilisation were fashioned. Yet one tiny sculpture, made by an unknown artist, still seems strikingly relevant to us today. The seal shows a seated figure on a low platform in a pose that is familiar to modern practitioners of yoga and meditation: the knees spread to the sides with the feet touching, and the arms stretch from the shoulders away from the body with the fingertips resting on the knees. Assuming the symmetrical and balanced form of a triangle, the body of the adept thus posed can endure lengthy sessions of yoga and meditation without needing to shift.
The word yoga means "to unite" and ancient yoga was intended to prepare the body for meditation through which the individual would seek to understand his or her oneness with the totality of the universe. Once this understanding was complete, people could no more hurt another living being than themselves. Today, such practices are routinely prescribed to complement western medical and psychotherapy treatments. Among the documented benefits of yoga and its corollary, meditation, are lowered blood pressure, greater mental acuity and stress reduction.
To the ancients who developed and perfected these mentally and physically challenging methods, however, yoga and meditation were tools for finding inner peace and a harmonious existence. Once you look closely, plenty more evidence points to the non-violent, peaceful nature of these early peoples. For example, the archaeological remains of the cities and towns of the Indus civilisation during its florescence from c2300-1750BC show little if any indication of internal dissent, criminality, or even the threat of war and conflict from the outside. There are no known fortifications, nor is there proof of ransacking and pillaging.
There is also an emphasis on citizenship rather than a ruling elite in this period. Indeed, archaeological evidence suggests there was, in fact, no hereditary ruler – such as a king or other monarch – that amassed and controlled the wealth of the society. Thus, in contrast to the other ancient civilisations of the world, whose vast architectural and artistic undertakings, such as tombs and large-scale sculptures, served the wealthy and powerful, the Indus civilisation leaves nothing in the way of such monuments. Instead, government programmes and financial resources seem to have been directed towards the organisation of a society that benefited its citizens.
Another feature that sets the ancient Indus culture apart from other early civilisations is the prominent role played by women. Among the artifacts we have been able to unearth are thousands of ceramic sculptures representing women, sometimes interpreted as goddesses, and, specifically, mother goddesses. This is a core element in the major religious developments of India, which are populated with goddesses – some supreme and others whose role is to complement male deities who would otherwise be incomplete or even powerless. It is thus hardly surprising that the symbol chosen for the nationalistic independence movement of the early 20th century and the establishment of India's modern democracy was Bharat Mata – that is, Mother India.
Cradle of faiths
The area's first ancient culture, the Indus or Harappan civilisation, was at its peak centred in what is now Pakistan in the northwestern reaches of south Asia. It stretched southward for a thousand miles along the western coastal areas of India. It eventually disappeared around 1750BC, because of a combination of natural and human factors. Earthquakes in the high Himalayas may have changed the course of the rivers that provided life-sustaining agricultural irrigation, leading to the abandonment of cities and towns and relocation elsewhere. In addition, the ancient inhabitants, unaware of the need to replant as they cut down trees to use for building and fuel, deforested the region, thus contributing to its transformation into the desert of today.
Ceramic figure of a woman
from the Indus civilisation
The period that followed the Indus civilisation from c1750BC to the third century BC has left a spotty material record. But we know it was in this time that some of the most important principles of Indic civilisation appeared. Some of these precepts come from the Indus culture, but other ideas arrived in India from the outside, such as with the nomadic, Indo-European Aryans from central Asia. (One important view is that the Aryans are not a race who came from outside and the Indus culture is the same as the Aryan culture. The word ‘Aryan’ denotes a group of languages, the separateness itself is being questioned. – Editors.)
Perhaps the most important figure to emerge in this period was the historical Buddha, born Siddhartha Gautama in the Ganges river region of northern India in the sixth century BC. Attaining perfect knowledge at the age of 36, after a quest that involved ascetic and meditational practices, the Buddha taught what is known as the Middle Way, advocating the abandonment of both extreme asceticism and extreme luxury. The Buddha also taught that all living beings have the capacity to transform themselves from an ignorant, self-centred state to one that embodies unqualified goodwill and generosity. Enlightenment was a matter of personal responsibility: every person had to develop wisely directed compassion for all living beings along with perfect knowledge of their role in the universe.
It's important to note that the historical Buddha is not considered a divine being and his followers do not worship him – rather, they revere and honour him through their practices. In art, he is shown as a human, not a superhuman being. Because there is no all-powerful central deity in Buddhism, the religion is easily compatible with other traditions and there are many people throughout the world today who combine Buddhism with another faith.
Jainism
A contemporary of Buddha was Mahavira: the 24th in a line of perfected human beings known as jinas, or victors, and a major figure in the Jain religion. Like the Buddha, Mahavira is not considered a god but an exemplar to his followers. When depicted in art, he and the other 24 jinas appear as highly perfected humans.
Unlike Buddhism and Jainism, India's third major indigenous religion, Hinduism, did not have a human teacher to whom the beliefs and practices of the tradition may be traced. Instead, it is centred around devotion to specific deities, both supreme and minor, who are numbered among a vast pantheon of gods and goddesses. Shiva destroys the universe with his cosmic dance when it has deteriorated to the degree that it needs to be reborn; Vishnu is the protector and preserver of the world as it struggles to maintain stasis. Archaeological evidence for Hinduism appears later in India's material record than those of Buddhism and Jainism, and stone and metal artifacts portraying the host of deities are rare before the fifth century AD.
All three of these Indic religions share the belief that every living being is subject to a cycle of birth and rebirth over countless aeons. Known as samsara, this cycle of transmigration is not limited to humans but includes all sentient beings. The form one will take in a future birth is determined by one's karma – a term that in modern parlance has come to mean little more than "luck", but the original Indic use of the word specifically refers to one's actions, which are the result of choice, not chance. The escape from samsara, called nirvana by Buddhists and moksa by Hindus and Jains, is the ultimate goal of each of the three religious traditions, and all human activity should, ideally, be directed towards improving one's karma to achieve this end.
Although today we assign different names to these three religious traditions, in many ways they are considered different paths, or margs, toward a similar objective. Within Indic culture, and indeed even within families, individuals have been free to choose their own marg, and we have no evidence of religious conflict among these traditions.
Greece meets India
Around the third century BC, a mix of internal cultural evolution and stimulating contact with ancient western Asia and the Mediterranean worlds brought change to the Indic regions. The arrival of Alexander the Great in the northwestern region of south Asia in 327BC, and the collapse of the ancient Persian Empire, introduced new ideas – including the development of the concept of kingship, and technologies such as the tools and knowledge necessary for large-scale stone carving. Had Alexander succeeded in conquering the Indian subcontinent – mutiny and fatigue among his troops is said to have caused a retreat – one can only imagine how Indian history might have evolved. As it stands, his legacy is mainly cultural, not political, as the pathways across western Asia that he forged remained open for trade and economic exchange for centuries after his death.
One thing to pass through this gateway was a system of rule by kingship, which took hold of northern India in the rich lands fertilised by the life-giving Ganges river. The most renowned of India's first kings was Ashoka, who even today is admired by India's leaders as a paradigm of the benevolent ruler. After years engaged in waging war to aggrandise his empire, Ashoka, having seen some 150,000 people carried away as captives, 100,000 more slain, and many more dead after his final conquest, was struck with remorse at the suffering he had caused. Converting to Buddhism, Ashoka spent the remainder of his life in righteous, peaceful activities. His benevolent kingship was adopted as a model throughout Asia as Buddhism moved beyond its Indic homeland. The set of four lions portrayed on one of his most famous monuments – the stone pillar he erected at Sarnath, where the Buddha taught his first sermon – has become a ubiquitous symbol of India's modern democracy, and is used on coins, stamps, government stationery, and elsewhere to laud the modern nation's roots in enlightened rulership.
Legacy
As suggested by the artifacts that have survived and what we know about the religious and philosophical beliefs of the people, the period 2500BC-AD500 in ancient India was one of extraordinary cultural brilliance, with innovations and traditions that still leave their mark on the world today. Furthermore, the cultural continuity between India's past and present is unmatched in the other regions of the world. The modern societies in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, the Americas and China for the most part bear little resemblance to their ancient counterparts. Indeed, what is striking from an overview of the early phases of India's long and rich cultural development is the fact that so many of the features in evidence through the material record have had a persistent and lasting effect on Indic society and the world.
Ancient India's legacy in the fields of science and mathematics is significant. Mathematics was important to the layout of religious buildings and the philosophical comprehension of the cosmos. The fifth century AD astronomer and mathematician Aryabhata is credited with originating the modern decimal system, which is predicated on an understanding of the concept of zero. Evidence of the Indic origin of the idea of zero, including the use of a small circle to denote the numeral, is found in Sanskrit texts and inscriptions.
Science of life
Another cultural legacy is an ancient branch of medicine known as Ayurveda, still widely practiced in India today. It has also gained popularity in the western world as a "complementary" medicine. Translating literally as "science of life", it conceives basic principles for human health and points to physical and mental balance as the means to wellbeing.
Perhaps ancient India's most lasting legacy is the belief in non-harm to living beings – a centrepiece of Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism – which was transformed into the passive resistance advocated by Mahatma Gandhi during India's early 20th century struggle for independence from British rule. After Gandhi, many other modern luminaries have been guided by the principle of non-violence in their quests for social justice, most famously Reverend Martin Luther King, who spearheaded the struggle for racial equality in the US during the 1960s. In his autobiography, King notes that "Gandhi was the guiding light of our technique of non-violent social change" during the bus boycott in 1956 that ended Alabama's transport segregation on the city's buses. John F. Kennedy, Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama have also claimed inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi and the ancient Indian principle of non-harm, and the Indic compassion towards all living beings and the corresponding non-violent stance has been adopted by groups that advocate vegetarianism, animal welfare and environmental activism. Perhaps there is no greater compliment that can be paid to India's ancient culture than the fact that its sophisticated beliefs and reverence for life can serve as guideposts to the world today.
Susan L Huntington is professor in art history at Ohio State University. Among other books, she is the author of the Art of Ancient India (Weatherhill)
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IBN BATTUTA
Ibn Battuta first set foot in a boat in 1330. He was 27 years old and already an experienced and resourceful traveler. The boat was a jalba, one of the notorious Red Sea craft described more than a millennium earlier in The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, made of planks sewn together with coir and waterproofed with shark oil
He was in Jiddah, about to embark for Yemen and possibly one of the Gujarati ports beyond, for he had already heard that the Muslim ruler of Delhi was recruiting learned men to help with the administration of his sultanate. His companion, Mansur, urged Ibn Battuta to join him in his own jalba, but Ibn Battuta declined: “I did so because his jalba was also loaded with a number of camels, and since I had never before made a sea voyage, this terrified me.”
He was right to be worried. After two days’ sail, the wind shifted and the little fleet was driven off course. A storm rose, waves broke over the gunwales, and the passengers were seasick. The boats were finally beached not in Yemen but on the opposite shore, on the African coast between ‘Aydhab and Suakin.
Top of Form
The travelers hired camels and made their way south through the desert to the little island of Suakin, in the center of a deep bay surrounded by coral reefs. The ruler was Zayd ibn Abi Numayy, son of the governor of Makkah and, as it happened, brother of Ibn Battuta’s traveling companion. Their return trip across the Red Sea took six days, for although the distance is short, the lateral crossing of the Red Sea can be extremely difficult unless the winds are right.
The travelers made their way inland. Ta‘izz was the capital of Yemen and the residence of the sultan of the governing dynasty, the Rasulids, a Turkish military elite like many other dynasties of the time. Later, Ibn Battuta would find that court ceremonies here resembled those of Delhi, “but I don’t know whether the sultans of India copied the sultans of Yemen, or the sultans of Yemen copied those of India.”
Ibn Battuta next went to Aden, at the time the largest and richest of all the emporia on the Indian Ocean. “It is a big city,” he says, “but no crops, trees or water are found there; during the rainy season water is collected in reservoirs. These lie some distance from the town and the Bedouin often cut the road and prevent the townspeople from reaching them unless they are bribed with money and pieces of cloth…. It is the port for the merchants of India.” He goes on to list the Indian ports whose ships called, all on the west coast of India.
If Aden was as rich as Ibn Battuta says, how could the inhabitants allow the Bedouin to cut them off from their water supply? Though the traveler notes this almost in passing, it tells us something about the nature of the ruling dynasties of the 14th-century world.
Quite simply, the Rasulids of Yemen, the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria and the Delhi sultans all ruled vast dominions with too few troops. Control of their hinterlands, the spaces between major cities, was almost impossible. Even at the best of times, the ruler’s authority weakened as distance from the capital increased.
These military dynasties, whose efficacy lay in their “otherness,” had constantly to purchase new members in order to perpetuate themselves. Saladin, the founder of the Ayyubid Dynasty that ruled Egypt and Syria (and, briefly, Yemen), was a Kurd, and the sultans of Delhi and the Rasulids of Yemen were Turks, linguistically and culturally alien to the people they ruled.
The extreme example of this is the Mamluk Dynasty of Egypt, composed of Turco-Mongols and Circassians. Only slaves purchased in Central Asia or the Caucasus, usually as children, were allowed to join the ranks of the ruling caste. They were put through a rigorous course of training in the martial arts, at the completion of which they were granted their freedom.
After visiting Aden, Ibn Battuta sailed in 1331 to the East African coast, where he found another kind of state—port cities that might almost be called merchant republics. Mogadishu, now in Somalia, was the first he visited: “Mogadishu is a very large town. The people are merchants and very rich. They own large herds of camels…and also sheep. Here they manufacture the textiles called after the name of the town; these are of superior quality and are exported to Egypt and other places.”
As soon as he was settled in Mogadishu, the sultan sent him two small welcoming gifts: a plate of betel leaves and areca nuts, and a vial of Damascus rosewater. The first was the ritual welcoming gift of India, a custom that had spread to East Africa, and the rosewater from Damascus was to rinse his hands—another indication of far-flung commercial contact. The ceremonial meal that followed makes a similar, if more elaborate, point:
They eat rice cooked with ghee, which is served on a large wooden platter. On top they set dishes of kushan. These are relishes, composed of chicken, meat, fish and vegetables. In one dish they serve green bananas in fresh milk, in another yogurt with pickled lemon, bunches of pepper pickled in vinegar and salt, green ginger and mangoes. These are like apples, but with a pit. They are very sweet when ripe, but when immature are acid like lemons; they pickle the unripe mangoes in vinegar. They eat a mouthful of rice, then some of the salted and pickled relishes.
The Indian influence on this meal is obvious, but it has been adapted to local tastes. The rice and pepper would have been imported, but the mangoes were probably now grown locally, as was another Indian fruit, the jammun or jambul (Eugenia jambolana, java plum), which he encountered in Mombasa. Bananas also came to East Africa from India, perhaps as early as the 10th century. Although Ibn Battuta does not mention it, the meal was almost certainly served in Chinese bowls, much prized all along the East African coast. Special niches were built into the walls of dwellings in order to display the finer pieces.
After Mogadishu, Ibn Battuta sailed further south to Mombasa and Kilwa, both important trading cities. The wealth of these cities was later to strike the Portuguese, for it was based on the export not only of gold, but also of iron, which was sent to India, worked into steel, then re-exported to the Middle East. Ivory and tortoise-shell were other valuable exports. From Kilwa Ibn Battuta sailed to Dhufar, on the coast of the Arabian Peninsula, now in Oman. This was the Incense Coast of classical times. Millet and barley, he reports, were grown near the town, irrigated from deep wells, and rice was imported from India.
The people of Dhufar are traders and have no other means of livelihood. When a ship arrives from India, the sultan’s slaves go out to meet it in little boats, taking a full set of robes for the owner and captain, as well as for the kirani, the ship’s accountant…. Everyone on board is granted hospitality for three days; when the three days are up, they are fed in the sultan’s residence. The people do this in order to win the friendship of the ship-owners. They wear cotton clothes imported from India, fastening a length of cloth around their waist in place of trousers….They manufacture silk, cotton and linen cloth of excellent quality.
The fact that a local manufacturing industry was based on imported raw materials shows how regular shipping must have been, and how Indian Ocean traffic was not just in high-value, low-bulk items like spices. Textiles were always the bread and butter of the Indian Ocean trade, their production involving many ancillary techniques and employing thousands.
Bananas and betel, both of Indian origin, were cultivated in irrigated plantations on the outskirts of Dhufar. Since remote antiquity, southern Arabia, with its maritime links to India and Ethiopia, had been the corridor for plant introductions from both East and West. Durum wheat, sorghum, cotton, sugarcane, taro, indigo, oranges, lemons and many other plants had traveled this way. Some, like wheat and sorghum, returned from India in improved varieties and were then widely diffused in Africa and Europe.
After visiting Oman, Ibn Battuta sailed across the Gulf to Hormuz. Until 1300, Hormuz had been located on the mainland. But in that year the ruler moved to the island of Jarun for greater security. “New Hormuz” was appallingly hot and dependent on the mainland for food, fuel and water, but it was strategically placed, controlling both sides of the Gulf at its narrowest point. It was “a big handsome city with excellent markets, for it is the port of India and Sind. Indian goods are exported from here to the two Iraqs, Fars and Khurasan.” Later, Hormuz would grow to rival Aden as the western hub of Indian Ocean commerce, replacing earlier Gulf emporia like Siraf, Kish and Suhar.
On September 12, 1333, after a two-year detour through Iran, Anatolia and Central Asia, Ibn Battuta finally stood on the banks of the Indus River, the western border of the domain of Muhammad Shah II, Sultan of Delhi.
To discourage casual visitors, each person wanting to enter India had to sign a statement in front of a notary swearing that he would remain forever. He also had to bring a substantial gift for the sultan—there were agents at the border who would advance money to travelers for this purpose—in order to demonstrate the seriousness of the immigrant’s intentions; when he presented his gifts in Delhi, the newcomer would receive many times their value in reciprocal gifts from the sultan. This exchange cemented a bond with tacitly understood mutual obligations.
Ibn Battuta was advanced money by an Iraqi merchant from Tikrit and bought 30 horses and a camel-load of arrows. These were acceptable gifts for a ruler engaged in enlarging his domains, and Ibn Battuta’s prudent investment was rewarded with the post of chief jurist (qadi) of Delhi at an annual salary of 12,000 dirhams—the revenues of two villages—and a lump-sum sweetener of 12,000 dinars. Overnight, the obscure Moroccan law student became a rich man.
Two years later, famine broke out in the sultan’s territories and lasted for seven years, leading to widespread rebellion. Ibn Battuta saw that the Delhi sultanate was unraveling and applied for permission to make the pilgrimage to Makkah, the only politic way of leaving the sultan’s service. At the last minute, the sultan asked him instead to lead 15 Chinese envoys and several shiploads of gifts to the Mongol Yuan emperor Toghon Temur. Ibn Battuta leapt at the chance for a graceful exit from a difficult situation combined with the opportunity to visit a new country.
The official delegation set out in the late summer of 1341 for the port of Cambay. It was attacked on the way by Hindu marauders, showing Muhammad Shah’s tenous hold on the countryside. Ibn Battuta was captured, escaped and rejoined his party. In Cambay he found a port whose wealth was based on the export of the finest cotton textiles in India, produced in the villages of Gujarat.
The mission met the sea captain and shipowner Ibrahim, who owned six ships. They must have been large, for into one of them, the Jakar, they loaded 70 horses, gifts for the Chinese emperor. They loaded 30 other horses, together with their own mounts, into the Manurt. Ibn Battuta embarked in the Jakar, along with 50 bowmen and 50 Abyssinian warriors: “They are the lords of this sea, for even if there is only one of them in a ship, pirates and Hindus think twice about attacking.”
As they sailed down the west coast of India, Ibn Battuta counted 12 semi-autonomous states, each of which owed its existence to the Indian Ocean trade. Whether the rulers were Muslim or Hindu, commerce was largely in the hands of Muslim merchants of the most varied origins. The rajas of these little states collected a percentage from every transaction and in return allowed the merchant communities freedom of worship.
The richest towns of all were along the Malabar coast, the main source of the pepper that commanded such high prices in the markets of China, Alexandria and Venice but also of the teak used for building ships. The romance of the spice trade often obscures the fact that the bulk of Indian Ocean shipping was devoted to cargoes like rice, hardwoods, tin, iron ore, horses, weapons, textiles and other essential commodities.
When the little fleet reached Calicut, there were 13 junks anchored in the harbor, into which their cargo was transferred for the voyage to China. Their construction fascinated Ibn Battuta, who was especially struck by the self-contained compartments into which the hull was divided to minimize the danger of sinking. The junks had large cabins in which a number of people could travel in comfort, with private bathrooms and even stewards. A large junk could carry a crew of 1000, he wrote. This seems incredible, and scholars hotly debate the question of the size of medieval junks.
That night, a storm arose. Two large junks into which everything had been loaded put to sea, only to run aground and be smashed to pieces. Most of the passengers drowned, and the gifts for the Chinese emperor sank to the bottom.
Ibn Battuta escaped, for he had gone ashore to attend Friday prayers in the mosque. A small junk, called a kakam, with his wife aboard, also put to sea. With no possessions but his prayer rug and 10 dinars, Ibn Battuta set off on foot for Quilon, 300 kilometers (180 mi) down the coast, where he was told her ship was bound. There, he found no sign of the kakam. He later learned it had been captured by ships from Sumatra and that his wife was dead and all his possessions lost. Ibn Battuta nevertheless decided to continue to China on his own. After multiple stops and multiple mishaps, he reached Sonargaon, in today’s Bangladesh, where he bought passage on a junk for Sumatra.
Samudra, the port on the northern coast of Sumatra that has lent the island its name, was the first outpost of Islam in the huge Hindu–Buddhist area of what is now the Indonesian archipelago; it was the model for the Malay-speaking Muslim principalities which, over the next 300 years, were to spring up there.
The ruler of Samudra, Al-Malik al-Zahir, sent Ibn Battuta on to Guangzhou, the city Marco Polo called Zaitun, in a junk outfitted at his own expense. He set sail in April 1346 as soon as the southwest monsoon began to blow.
China at the time was ruled by the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, whose most famous ruler had been Kubilai Khan, who ruled during the years Marco Polo traveled in China. Although not Muslim, the Yuan relied heavily on Muslim officials and military advisors and encouraged Muslim trade. It was under the Yuan that Muslim merchants established themselves at key nodes along the rivers and canals of the empire. This harnessing of the hugely productive Chinese economy to the overseas maritime routes stimulated the growth of the new Muslim principalities in the Indonesian archipelago and the establishment there of Chinese merchant communities. Malaya and Indonesia became the turntable through which Chinese manufactures were distributed to the West.
Though Ibn Battuta was impressed with China, particularly with paper money and the quality of Chinese silks and porcelain, it was the only country he ever visited that affected him with culture shock. “Every time I left my house, I saw reprehensible things. I was so disturbed that I stayed home most of the time, only going out when necessary.” Yet at the same time, he opined, “China is the safest and pleasantest country in the world for the traveler.”
His account of travels within China lacks the characteristic detail that makes the rest of Ibn Battuta’s travels so entertaining, and his trips to Hang-chou and what is now Beijing are so vaguely described as to raise the suspicion that they are invented. His stay was brief, and by December 1346 was back in Quilon, en route to his native Morocco.
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AL-BERUNI'S INDIA
The first significant intrusion of Islam into India was led by Mahmud of Ghazni who, quite justifiably, lives in Indian history as a cruel and bloodthirsty fanatic, destroyer of temples, and plunderer of their wealth, but in his own dominion he was known as a patron of the arts, literature, and science (not unlike Genghis Khan who is a great and beloved hero in Mongolia today, gracing its currency, plazas, airports, etc.). He assembled in his court and the university he established at Ghazni (in modern Afghanistan) the greatest scholars and writers of the age.
Al-beruni
One such scholar was al-Beruni (973-1048; another was Firdausi), "commissioned" by Mahmud of Ghazni to produce his monumental commentary on Indian philosophy and culture – Kitab fi tahqiq ma li'l-hind. “In his search for pure knowledge he is undoubtedly one of the greatest minds in Islamic history.”* Romila Thapar calls him "perhaps the finest intellect of central Asia ... His observations on Indian conditions, systems of knowledge, social norms, religion ... are probably the most incisive made by any visitor to India."
Born near modern Khiva in Uzbekistan, he possessed "a profound and original mind of encyclopedic scope ... conversant with Turkish, Persian, Sanskrit, Hebrew, and Syriac (Armenian) in addition to the Arabic in which he wrote. He applied his talents in many fields of knowledge, excelling particularly in astronomy, mathematics, chronology, physics, medicine, mineralogy and history."*
Al-Beruni wrote his work on India to provide, in his own words, "the essential facts for any Muslim who wanted to converse with Hindus and to discuss with them questions of religion, science, or literature." He traveled in India for thirteen years, observing, questioning, studying. The result was a comprehensive exposition of Indian thought and society. "Not for nearly 800 years would any other writer match al-Beruni's profound understanding of almost all aspects of Indian life."*
He read the major Indian religious and astronomical texts; in his account he highlights choice parts of the Gita, the Upanishads, Patanjali, Puranas, the four Vedas, scientific texts (by Nagarjuna, Aryabhata, etc.), relating stories from Indian mythology to make his point. He also compares Indian thought to the Greek thought of Socrates, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Galen and others, and at times with Sufi teaching. Here is one of his observations on the Hindus of his day:
"The Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no kings like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs. They are haughty, foolishly vain, self-conceited, and stolid. They are by nature niggardly in communicating that which they know, and they take the greatest possible care to withhold it from men of another caste among their own people, still much more, of course, from any foreigner ... Their haughtiness is such that, if you tell them of any science or scholar in Khorasan and Persis, they will think you to be both an ignoramus and a liar. If they traveled and mixed with other nations, they would soon change their mind, for their ancestors were not as narrow-minded as the present generation is."
His translator, Edward Sachau, observes:
"To al-Beruni the Hindus were excellent philosophers, good mathematicians and astronomers, though [out of a certain self-confidence] he believes himself to be superior to them, and disdains to be put on a level with them. He does not conceal whatever he considers wrong and unpractical with them, but he duly appreciates their mental achievements ... and whenever he hits upon something that is noble and grand both in science and in practical life, he never fails to lay it before his readers with warm-hearted words of approbation. Speaking of the construction of the ponds at holy bathing-places, he says: “In this they have attained a very high degree of art, so that our people (the Muslims), when they see them, wonder at them, and are unable to describe them, much less to construct anything like them.”
Al-Beruni records some of the more egregious plundering by his boss, Mahmud of Ghazni (esp. at Mathura and Somnath); for obvious reasons he doesn't explicitly denounce it though his text betrays a definite sense of lament. He does say that Mahmud "utterly ruined the prosperity of the country", created a hatred of Muslims among the locals, and caused the Hindu sciences to retreat "far away from those parts of the country conquered by us" to places "where our hands cannot yet reach." Sachau also notes that "he dares not attack Islam, but he attacks the Arabs", reproaching the original Arabs for destroying the civilization of Persia.
Besides his work on India, "In his works on astronomy, he discussed with approval the theory of the Earth's rotation on its axis and made accurate calculations of latitude and longitude. In those on physics, he explained natural springs by the laws of hydrostatics and determined with remarkable accuracy the specific weight of 18 precious stones and metals. In his works on geography, he advanced the daring view that the valley of the Indus had once been a sea basin. In religion he was a Shi'ite Muslim, but with agnostic tendencies. His poetical works in the main seek to combine Greek wisdom and Islamic thought."* He also corresponded with the famous philosopher Ibn Sina (Avicenna). A lunar crater is named after him.
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MARCO POLO’S INDIA
“The part of India known as Malabar was the richest and noblest country in the world”.
It was the accounts of Marco Polo’s travels that fired the European imagination that led to the Age of Discovery
Returning home from China in 1292 CE, Marco Polo arrives on the Coromandel Coast of India in a typical merchant ship with over sixty cabins and up to 300 crewmen. He enters the kingdom of the Tamil Pandyas near modern day Tanjore, where, according to custom, ‘the king and his barons and everyone else all sit on the earth.’ He asks the king why they ‘do not seat themselves more honorably.’ The king replies, ‘To sit on the earth is honorable enough, because we were made from the earth and to the earth we must return.’ Marco Polo documented this episode in his famous book, The Travels, along with a rich social portrait of India that still resonates with us today:
The climate is so hot that all men and women wear nothing but a loincloth, including the king—except his is studded with rubies, sapphires, emeralds and other gems. Merchants and traders abound, the king takes pride in not holding himself above the law of the land, and people travel the highways safely with their valuables in the cool of the night. Marco Polo calls this ‘the richest and most splendid province in the world,’ one that, together with Ceylon, produces ‘most of the pearls and gems that are to be found in the world.’
The sole local grain produced here is rice. People use only their right hand for eating, saving the left for sundry ‘unclean’ tasks. Most do not consume any alcohol, and drink fluids ‘out of flasks, each from his own; for no one would drink out of another’s flask.’ Nor do they set the flask to their lips, preferring to ‘hold it above and pour the fluid into their mouths.’ They are addicted to chewing a leaf called tambur, sometimes mixing it with ‘camphor and other spices and lime’ and go about spitting freely, using it also to express serious offense by targeting the spittle at another’s face, which can sometimes provoke violent clan fights.
They ‘pay more attention to augury than any other people in the world and are skilled in distinguishing good omens from bad.’ They rely on the counsel of astrologers and have enchanters called Brahmans, who are ‘expert in incantations against all sorts of beasts and birds.’ For instance, they protect the oyster divers ‘against predatory fish by means of incantations’ and for this service they receive one in twenty pearls. The people ‘worship the ox,’ do not eat beef (except for a group with low social status), and daub their houses with cow-dung. In battle they use lance and shield and, according to Marco, are ‘not men of any valor.’ They say that ‘a man who goes to sea must be a man in despair.’ Marco draws attention to the fact that they ‘do not regard any form of sexual indulgence as a sin.’
Their temple monasteries have both male and female deities, prone to being cross with each other. And since estranged deities spell nothing but trouble in the human realm, bevies of spinsters gather there several times each month with ‘tasty dishes of meat and other food’ and ‘sing and dance and afford the merriest sport in the world,’ leaping and tumbling and raising their legs to their necks and pirouetting to delight the deities. After the ‘spirit of the idols has eaten the substance of the food,’ they ‘eat together with great mirth and jollity.’ Pleasantly disposed by the evening entertainment, the gods and goddesses descend from the temple walls at night and ‘consort’ with each other—or so the priest announces the next morning—bringing great joy and relief to all. ‘The flesh of these maidens,’ adds Messer Marco, ‘is so hard that no one could grasp or pinch them in any place. ... their breasts do not hang down, but remain upstanding and erect.’ For a penny, however, ‘they will allow a man to pinch [their bodies] as hard as he can.’
Dark skin is highly esteemed among these people. ‘When a child is born they anoint him once a week with oil of sesame, and this makes him grow much darker’ (replaced since by ‘Fair & Lovely’ creams!). No wonder their gods are all black ‘and their devils white as snow.’ A group of their holy men, the Yogis, eat frugally and live longer than most, some as much as 200 years. In one religious order, men even go stark naked and ‘lead a harsh and austere life’—these men believe that all living beings have a soul and take pains to avoid hurting even the tiniest creatures. They take their food over large dried leaves. When asked why they do not cover their private parts, they say, ‘It is because you employ this member in sin and lechery that you cover it and are ashamed of it. But we are no more ashamed of it than of our fingers.’ Among them, only those who conquer sexual desire become monks. ‘So strict are these idolaters and so stubborn in their misbelief,’ opines Marco.
Though the king here has 500 wives, he covets a beautiful wife of his brother—who rules another kingdom nearby, and as kings are wont to, also keeps many wives—and one day succeeds in ‘ravishing her from him and keeping her for himself.’ When war looms, as it has many times before, their mother intervenes, knife in hand and pointing at her breasts, ‘If you fight with each other, I will cut off these breasts which gave you both milk.’ Her emotional blackmail succeeds once again; the brother who has lost his woman swallows his pride and war is averted. But it is only a matter of time, thinks Marco, that the mother is dead and the brothers destroy each other.
The region breeds no horses but imports them from Aden and beyond. Over 2,000 steeds arrive on ships each year but within a year, all but 100 die ‘due to ill usage’ and lack of horse-handling knowledge. Marco believes that foreign merchants ‘do not send out any veterinaries or allow any to go, because they are only too glad for many of the horses to die in the king’s charge.’ Further north, in a little town near modern Chennai, is the tomb of St. Thomas the Apostle, a place of pilgrimage for both the Christians and Muslims of the region.
After the eastern Coromandel Coast, Marco sails up the western Malabar Coast, but his observations are sparse, partly because most of the same customs—the kind accessible to a foreign traveler—prevail there too. Of the flora and fauna, he says, ‘everything there is different from what it is with us and excels both in size and beauty. ... lions, leopards, and lynxes abound,’ as do peacocks and scarlet and blue parrots of which there is ‘no lovelier sight in the world.’ Some monkeys in the region have ‘such distinctive appearance that you might take them for men.’
He notes pepper and indigo plantations, incense, a date wine that is ‘a very good drink.’ Further north, workshops make cotton and leather goods, shiploads of which go west every year. With such precious cargo plying the sea, piracy too operates on a large scale. In Aden, the cargo is transferred to smaller ships and carried via rivers and camels to the Nile and downriver to Alexandria and beyond. These goods include cushions and ‘mats of scarlet leather, embossed with birds and beasts and stitched with gold and silver ... of more consummate workmanship than anywhere in the world. ... so exquisite that they are a marvel to behold.’
What kind of a man was Marco Polo? Raised in the cosmopolitan and mercantile city-state of Venice, Marco embraced something of its spirit and brought a merchant’s pragmatic eye to bear on the world. His father and uncle—both enterprising merchants of Venice who accompanied him on his famous journey but left no records of their own—were early role models. When Marco began this journey he was only seventeen. He returned in his late-thirties and a few years later, in 1298 CE, teamed up with a romance writer, Rustichello of Pisa, to tell his story—a vast panorama of nations largely unknown to his fellow Venetians. As his translator, Ronald Latham, says:
‘Persians, Turks, Tartars, Chinese, Tibetans, Indians, and a score of others defile before us, not indeed revealed in their inner thoughts and feelings, but faithfully portrayed in all such particulars as might meet the eye of an observant traveler, from the oddities of their physical features or dress to the multiplicity of strange customs by which they regulated their lives from the cradle to the grave.’
Marco was supremely inquisitive, attentive to a region’s geography and natural resources, birds and beasts, climate and flora, foods and drinks. He was also drawn to the local arts and crafts, and assessed their commercial value for fellow Venetians. In Marco’s day, cultures were classified by religion, and so arriving in a new place, he described the locals simply as Christians, Jews, Saracens (Muslims), or idolaters (catchall for Tartars, Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, and others). He admired hard-working, law-abiding people, and criticized indolent, unruly ones. There are hardly any personal incidents in the book. What makes his account truly worthwhile are his vignettes of social life, such as how the tartars pitch their tents or go to war, how some central Asians extract musk from gazelles, how a girl’s virginity in Cathay is verified before marriage, why men in a Tibetan province prefer to take as wives women with lots of prior sexual experience, or how the Great Khan’s ‘admirably contrived’ postal service works.
Marco was no scholar, however, and had scant interest in history, philosophy, or language (unlike, say, Al-Beruni, another famous traveler to India in early 11th century). He was a pious Christian and admired other cross-cultural expressions of piety. He believed in magic, incantations, and the power of astrologers to ‘bring on tempests and thunderstorms when they wish and stop them at any time.’ He used superlatives too readily and was prone to wild exaggeration (for example, he claimed the city of Hangzhou had 12,000 bridges, the Great Khan went hunting with 10,000 falconers, and every tree on the 7,448 islands in the China Sea gave off ‘a powerful and agreeable fragrance’). He was gullible too, lending credence to hearsay about giant birds that lift up elephants, men with tails as thick as a dog’s, and a legendary Christian king of Asia called Prester John (were some of these Rustichello’s embellishments?). He could also be very naive about human relationships, relying too much on surface appearances. For instance, he claimed that the multiple wives of tartar chieftains live together happily, with no conflict whatsoever.
In Ceylon, he relates the story of the Buddha with admiration, adding that ‘had he been Christian, he would have been a great saint with our Lord Jesus Christ.’ While largely tolerant towards idolaters, particularly those with a developed material culture, he betrays a garden-variety prejudice against Muslims, best assessed in light of a post-Crusades Christendom. For instance, he deems Christians ‘far more valiant than Saracens.’ Taking sides in a conflict, he declares that ‘it is not fitting that Saracen dogs should lord it over Christians.’ But these and other expressions of contempt—the ‘quite repulsive’ women of Zanzibar, tartars who live like ‘brute beasts’ because they smear food on the mouth of their gods, Indians being ‘paltry creatures and mean spirited’—are vastly outnumbered by expressions of admiration, fair-mindedness, and wonder. He had no role models in his writing and the result such as it is, warts and all, is nothing short of a miracle.
Marco Polo spent many months, perhaps the better part of a year, in India. Except for a brief mention of an inland kingdom that is ruled by a queen and is known for its ‘high standard of justice and equity,’ and which produces all of the diamonds in the world, his account of India is limited to a coastal belt and ends with this tantalizing remark, ‘Of the inland regions I have told you nothing; for the tale will be too long in the telling.’
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CUSTOMARY TRIAL OF STRENGTH,
GAMES AND FESTIVALS
(The Malabar Coast in Western Reports)
THE MAMAMKAM TOURNAMENT – TRIAL OF STRENGTH
Hamilton in his “New Account of the East Indies” published in 1744,writes:-
“It was an ancient custom for the Samorin (Zamorin, then the local potentate) to reign but twelve years and no longer, If he died before his term was expired it saved him a trouble some ceremony of cutting his own throat on a public scaffold erected for that purpose. He first made a feast for all his nobility and gentry, who were very numerous. After the feast, he saluted his guests, went on the scaffold, and very nearly cut his own throat in the view of the assembly. His body was, a little while after, burned with great pomp and ceremony, and the grandees elected a new Samorin. Whether that custom was a religious or a civil ceremony I know not, but it is now laid aside and a new custom is followed by the modern Samorin that a jubilee is proclaimed throughout his dominion, at the end of twelve years, and a tent is pitched for him in a spacious plain, and a great feast is celebrated for ten or twelve days with mirth and jollity, guns firing night and days, so at the end of the feast any four of the guests that have a mind to gain a crown by a desperate action in fighting their way through 30, or 40,000 of his guards, and kill to Samorin in his tent, he that kills him succeeds to him in his empire. In Anno 1695 one of these jubilees happened and the tent pitched near Ponnany (Ponani) a seaport of his about 16 leagues to the southward of Calicut. There were but three men would venture on that desperate action, who fell on, with sword and target, among the guards, and after they had killed and wounded many were themselves killed. One of the Desperadoes had a nephew of fifteen or sixteen years of age, that kept close by his uncle in the attack on the guards, and when he saw him fall, the youth got through the guards into the tent and made a stroke at his majesty’s head and had certainly dispatched him, if a large brass lamp which was burning over his head, had not marred the blow; but before he could make another, he was killed by the guards; and I believe the same Samorin reigns yet. I chanced to come that time along the coast and heard the guns for two or three days and nights successively.”
THE ONAM FESTIVAL.
The popular festival, about the time when the first crop paddy is harvested. As a rule the Onam season is one of bright sunshine following the almost continuous rain of June, July, and August.
I once witnessed a very interesting game called eitu (eiththu) played by the Nayars in the Southern portion of Kurumbranad during the ten days preceding Onam. Curiously, the locality and the period are, so to speak, fixed. There is a semi-circular stop-butt, about two feet in the highest part, the centre and sloping to the ground at each side. The players stand 25 to 30 yards before the concave side of it, one side of the players to the right. the other to the left. There is no restriction of numbers as to “sides” Each players is armed with a little bow made of bamboo about 18 inches in length, and arrows or what answer for arrows, these being no more than pieces of the midrib of the cocoanut palm leaf, roughly broken off, leaving a little a bit of the leaf at one end to take the place of the feather. In the centre of the stop butt, on the ground, is placed the target, a piece of the heart of the plantain tree, about 3 inches in diameter, pointed at the top, in which is stuck a small stick convenient for lifting the “cheppu” as the mark which is the immediate objective of the players is called. They shoot indiscriminately at the mark, and he who hits it (the little arrows shoot straight and stick in readily) carries of all the arrows lying on the ground. Each “side” strives to secure all the arrows and to despite the other side of theirs. A sort of “beggar my neighbour “ He who hits the mark last takes all the arrows: that is, he who hits it, and runs and touches the mark before any one else hits it. As I stood watching , it happened several times that as many as four arrows hit the mark, while the youth who had hit it first was running the 25 yards to touch the “cheppu” Before he could touch it, as many as four other arrows had struck it: and of course, he who hit it last and touched the mark secured all the arrows for his side. The game is accompanied by much shouting gesticulation, and laughter. Those returning after securing a large number of arrows turned somersaults, and in salutatory motions expressed their joy.
THE VISHU FESTIVAL
“Vishu , like the Onam and the Thiruvathira Festival, is a remarkable event amongst us. Its duration is limited to one day. The 1st of Metam (some day in April) is the unchangeable day on which is falls. It is practically the Astronomical New Year’s Day*. This was one of the periods when in olden days the subjects of ruling princes or authorities in Malabar under whom their lots were cast, were expected to bring their New Year’s offerings to such princes. Failure to company with the customary demands resulted in the king’s displeasure. The British Government finding this was a great burden pressing rather heavily upon the people stopped it in 1790. Consequently it is now shorn of much of its ancient sanctity and splendour.
“Being thus the commencement of a New Year native superstition surrounds it with a peculiar solemn importance. It is believed that a man’s whole prosperity in life depends upon the nature, auspicious, of the first things that he happens to fix his eyes upon this particular morning, According to Nair and even general Hindu Mythology there are certain objects which possess an inherent inauspicious character. For instance ashes, firewood, oil and a lot of similar objects are inauspicious ones which will render him who chances to notice them first fare badly in life for the whole year, and their obnoxious effects will be removed only on his seeing holy things, such as, reigning princes, oxen, cows, gold etc on the morning of the next New Year. The good consequences can be produced by the sight of auspicious objects. The effects of the sight of these various materials are said to apply even to the attainment of objects by a man starting on a special errand who happens for the first time to look at them after starting. However, with this view, almost every family religiously takes care to prepare the most sight -worthy objects on the New Year morning. Therefore, on the previous night they prepare what is known, in native phraseology, as a Kani, A small circular bell-metal vessel is taken and some holy objects are arranged inside it. A Grandha or old book made of palmyra leaves, a gold ornament, a new clothes, some flowers of the Konna (Labernum) tree, a measure of rice, a so-called looking glass made of bell metal and a few other things, are all tastefully arranged in the vessel and placed in a prominent room inside the house. On either side of this vessel two brass or bell-metal lamps filled with cocoanut oil “clear as diamond sparks” are kept intensely burning and a small plank of wood or some other seat is placed in front of it. At about 5o’clock in the morning of the day some one, who has got up first wakes up the inmates, both male and female, of the house and takes them blindfolded so that they may not gaze at anything else, to the seat near the Kani. The members are seated one after another in the seat and are then and not till then asked to open their eyes and carefully look at this Kani. Then each is made to look at some venerable member of the house or sometimes a stranger even. This over, the little playful urchins of the house begin to fire small crackers which they have bought and stored for the occasion. The Kani is then taken round the place from house for the benefit of the poor families, which cannot afford to prepare such a costal adornment, With the close of the carelessly confused noise of the crackers the morning breaks and preparations are begun for the morning meal. This meal is in some parts confined to rice-kanji with a grand appendage of other eatable substances and in others to ordinary rice and its accompaniments, but in either case on grand scales.
“Immediately the day dawns the heads of the families gives to almost, all the junior members and servants of the household and to wives and children, money presents such as a rupee or two. Children preserve these presents to serve as their pocket money. In the more numerically large families similar presents are also made by the heads of particular branches of the same family to their juniors, children, wives and servants. These presents are intended to be the forerunners of incomes to them more splendid all the year round.
“But one other time connected with the festival deserves mention. On the evening of the previous day. About four or five o’clock most well-to-do families distribute paddy or rice as the case may be, in varying quantities with some other accessories to the family workmen, weather they live on the family-estates or not. In return for this, these laborers bring with them for presentation the fruits of their own labours such as vegetables of divers sorts, cocoanut oil, jaggery, plantains, pumpkins, cucumbers, brinjals, & in ways such as their respective circumstances might permit.
“With the close of the noon-meal the festival practically concludes, and nothing remains of it for the next day or for the same evening for that matter. In some families after the noon-meals are over, dancing and games of various kinds are carried on, which contribute to the enhancement of the pleasantries incidental to the festival. As on other prominent occasions card-playing and other games are also resorted to”.
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A’THARUL BILAD, AL-QUAZVINI.
Indian Rivers
The whole of India is traversed by rivers. Some of these flow together into the two largest rivers, the Indus and the Ganges, whereas others empty into the sea by their own mouths. They have their sources, one and all, in the Caucasus ; and they all flow first towards the south, and then, though some of them continue to flow in the same direction, in particular those which flow into the Indus, others bend towards the east, as for example, the Ganges.
The flooding of the rivers and the absence of land breezes is confirmed also by the statement of Onesicritus ; for he says that the sea-shore is covered with shoal-water, and particularly at the mouths of the rivers, on account of the silt, the flood-tides, and the prevalence of the winds from the high seas. Megasthenes indicates the fertility of India by saying that it produces fruit and grain twice a year.
Banyan Tree
In truth, India produces numerous strange trees, among which is the one whose branches bend downwards and whose leaves are no smaller than a shield. Onesicritus, who even in rather superfluous detail describes the country of Musicanus, which, he says, is the most southerly part of India, relates that it has some great trees whose branches have first grown to the height of twelve cubits, and then, after such growth, have grown downwards, as though bent down, till they have touched the earth ; and that they then, thus distributed, have taken root underground like layers, and then, growing forth, have formed trunks ; and that the branches of these trunks again, likewise bent down in their growth.
CARE OF THE BODY : For exercise the approve most of all of rubbing ; and, other ways, they smooth out their bodie through means of smooth sticks of . Their funerals are simple and their mound ; small. But, contrary to their simplicity general, they like to adorn themselves ; for they wear apparel embroidered with gold, and use ornaments set with precious stones, and wear gay-coloured linen garments, and accompanied with sun-shades ; for, since they esteem beauty, they practice everything that can beautify their appearance. Further, they respect alike virtue and truth ; and therefore they give no precedence even to the age of old men, unless these are also superior in wisdom.
The character of the people is here, as elsewhere, formed by the position of their country and its climate. They cover their persons down to the feet with fine muslim, are shod with sandals, and coil round their heads cloths of line (cotton). They hang precious stones as pendants from their ears, and persons of high social rank, or of great wealth, deck their wrist and upper arm with bracelets of gold. They frequently comb, but seldom cut, the hair of their head. The beard of the chin they never cut at all, but they shave off the hair from the rest of the face, so that it looks polished. The luxury of their king, or as they call it, their magnificence, is carried to a vicious excess without a parallel in the world.
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ABUL FAZL ON AKBAR
QUOTED BY H.G. RAWLINSON
“One could easily recognize even the first glance that he is King. He has broad shoulders, somewhat bandy legs well suited for horsemanship, and a light brown complexion. He carries his head bent towards the right shoulder. His fore head is broad and open his eyes so bright and flashing that they seem like a sea shimmering in the sunlight. His eye lashes are very long. His eyebrows are not strongly marked. His nose is straight and small though not insignificant. His nostrils are widely open though in derision. Between the left nostril and the upper lip there is a mole. He shaves his beard but wears moustache. He limps in his left leg though he has never received any injury there. His body is exceedingly well built and is neither too thin nor too stout. He is sturdy, hearty and robust. When he laughs his face becomes almost distorted. His expression is tranquil, serene and open, full also of dignity, and when he is angry awful majesty.”
Akbar lived in an age of great monarchs. His contemporaries were Elizabeth of England, Henry IV of France and Shah Abbas of Persia, but he towers head and shoulders above them all. He was no0 pacifist. His ambition was to create for himself a mighty empire, and he carried out his purpose ruthlessly. Terrible in his wrath, he inflicted punishments on those who opposed him which shock modern humanitarian sentiment. But he was not a mere conqueror. The justification of imperialism is that the conquered benefit by the exchange, and Akbar at once set himself to establish throughout his kingdom the rule of justice land law, to ascertain that the peasant was fairly taxed, and that all men should receive a fair hearing and a fair trial. The greatness of his work is shown by the fact that his administrative system is the basis of that which is in vogue in India to-day. His sayings, preserved by Abul Fazl, testify to his earnest desire to do what was right, and his recognition of the enormous responsibilities of his position. “If I could but find anyone capable of governing the kingdom, I should at once place this burden on his shoulders and withdraw there from.” He was the first of his race to be inspired with the visions of a united India, Where everyone, Mussalman, Brahmin and Jain, Christian and Parsee, could live side by side on terms of perfect equality before the law. His enforcement of religious toleration at the time when the rack and the stake were the accepted weapons of religious controversy in Europe places him centuries in advance of his age. At the same time, he did his best to repress barbarous customs practiced in the name of religion, such as child-marriage, suttee and animal sacrifices. “Formerly I persecuted men in conformity with my faith,” he said, “and deemed it Islam. As I grew in knowledge, I was overwhelmed with shame. What constancy is to be expected from proselytes on compulsion?...” “If men walk in the way of God’s will, interference with them would be in itself reprehensible: if otherwise, they are under the malady of ignorance and deserve my compassion….” “Miracles occur in the temples of every creed…” “Each person according to his condition gives the Supreme Being a name, but in reality to name the Unknowable is vain.”
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THE ENDURING POWER OF HINDUISM
Valentine Chirol
India's civilisation, intimately bound up from its birth with the great social and religious system which we call Hinduism, is as unique as it is ancient. Its growth and its tenacity are largely due to the geographical position of a great and populous sub-continent, on its land side exposed only to incursions from the north through mountainous and desolate regions, everywhere difficult of access and in some parts impenetrable, and shut in on the other two sides of a roughly isosceles triangle by broad expanses of sea which cut it off from all direct intercourse with the West until, towards the close of the Middle Ages, European navigators opened up new ocean highways to the East. India owes her own peculiar civilisation to the gradual fusion of Aryan races of a higher type that began to flow down from Central Asia before the dawn of history upon the more primitive indigenous populations already in possession. Its early history has only now begun to emerge from the twilight of myths and legends, and cannot even now be traced with any assurance of accuracy nearly as far back as that of other parts of the world which preceded or gave birth to our own much more recent civilisation. The pyramids of Ghizeh and Sakkara and the monumental temples of Thebes bore ample witness to the greatness of Egyptian civilisation long before the interpretation of her hieroglyphics enabled us to determine its antiquity, and the discovery of its abundant art treasures revealed the high degree of culture to which it reached. Excavations in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates have yielded an almost equally valuable harvest in regard to Babylonian and Assyrian civilisation, and Cnossus has told us its scarcely less wonderful story. Yet the long line of Pharaohs was coming to an end and Egypt was losing the national independence which she has never once recovered; Nineveh had fallen and Jerusalem was destroyed; Greece and even Rome had already started on their great creative careers before any approximately correct date can be assigned to the stages through which Indian civilisation had passed. India only becomes historical with the establishment of the Sasunaga dynasty in the Gangetic kingdom of Magadha, which centred in what is now Behar, about the year 600 B.C.
As to the state of India before that date, no sort of material evidence has survived, or at any rate has yet been brought to light—no monuments, no inscriptions, very little pottery even, in fact very few traces of the handicraft of man; nor any contemporary records of undoubted authenticity. Fortunately the darkness which would have been otherwise Cimmerian is illuminated, though with a partial and often uncertain light, by the wonderful body of sacred literature which has been handed down to our own times in the Vedas and Brahmanas and Upanishads. To none of these books, which have, for the most part, reached us in various recensions often showing considerable discrepancies and obviously later interpolations, is it possible to ascribe any definite date. But in them we undoubtedly possess a genuine key to the religious thought and social conceptions, and even inferentially to the political institutions of the Aryan Hindus through the many centuries that rolled by between their first southward migrations into the Indian peninsula and their actual emergence into history. The Vedic writings constitute the most ancient documents available to illustrate the growth of religious beliefs founded on pure Nature-worship, which translated themselves into a polytheistic and pantheistic idea of the universe and, in spite of many subsequent transformations, are found to contain all the germs of modern Hinduism as we know it to-day—and, indeed, of all the religious thought of India. In the Vedic hymns Nature itself is divine, and their pantheon consists of the deified forces of Nature, worshipped now as Agni, the god of Fire; Soma, the god and the elixir of life; Indra, the god of heaven and the national god of the Aryans; and again, under more abstract forms, such as Prajapati, the lord of creation, Asura, the great spirit, Brahmanaspati, the lord of prayer; and sometimes, again, gathered together into the transcendent majesty of one all-absorbing divinity, such as Varuna, whose pre-eminence almost verges on monotheism. But the general impression left on the Western mind is of a fantastic kaleidoscope, in which hundreds and even thousands of deities, male and female, are constantly waxing and waning and changing places, and proceeding from, and merging their identity in, others through an infinite series of processes, partly material and partly metaphysical, but ever more and more subject to the inspiration and the purpose of the Brahman, alone versed in the knowledge of the gods, and alone competent to propitiate them by sacrificial rites of increasing intricacy, and by prayers of a rigid formalism that gradually assume the shape of mere incantations.
This is the great change to which the Brahmanas bear witness. They show no marked departure from the theology of the Vedas, though many of the old gods continue to be dethroned either to disappear altogether, or to reappear in new shapes, like Varuna, who turns into a god of night to be worshipped no longer for his beneficence, but to be placated for his cruelty; whilst, on the other hand, Prajapati is raised to the highest throne, with Sun, Air, and Fire in close attendance. What the Brahmanas do show is that the Brahman has acquired the overwhelming authority of a sacerdotal status, not vested merely in the learning of a theologian, but in some special attribute of his blood, and therefore transmissible only from father to son. The Brahman was doubtless helped to this fateful pre-eminence by the modifications which the popular tongue had undergone in the course of time, and as the result more especially of migration from the Punjab to the Gangetic plains. The language of the Vedic hymns had ceased to be understood by the masses, and its interpretation became the monopoly of learned families; and this monopoly, like all others, was used by those who enjoyed it for their own aggrandisement. The language that had passed out of common usage acquired an added sanctity. It became a sacred language, and sacred became the Brahman, who alone possessed the key to it, who alone could recite its sacred texts and perform the rites which they prescribed, and select the prayers which could best meet every distinct and separate emergency in the life of man.
In the Brahmanas we can follow the growth of a luxuriant theology for the use of the masses which, in so far as it was polytheistic, tended to the infinite multiplication of gods and goddesses and godlings of all types, and in so far as it was pantheistic invested not only men, but beasts and insects and rivers and fountains and trees and stones with some living particle of the divine essence pervading all things; and we can follow there also the erection on the basis of that theology, of a formidable ritual of which the exclusive exercise and the material benefits were the appanage of the Brahman. But we have to turn to a later collection of writings known as the Upanishads for our knowledge of the more abstract speculations out of which Hindu thinkers, not always of the Brahmanical caste, were concurrently evolving the esoteric systems of philosophy that have exercised an immense and abiding influence on the spiritual life of India. There is the same difficulty in assigning definite dates to the Upanishads, though many of the later ones bear the post-mark of the various periods of theological evolution with which they coincided. Only some of the earliest ones are held by many competent authorities to be, in the shape in which they have reached us, anterior to the time when India first becomes, in any real sense, historical; but there is no reason to doubt that they represent the progressive evolution into different forms of very ancient germs already present in the Vedas themselves. They abound in the same extravagant eclecticism, leading often to the same confusions and contradictions that Hindu theology presents. The Sankhya Darshana, or system, recognising only a primary material cause from which none but finite beings can proceed, regards the universe and all that exists in it and life itself as a finite illusion of which the end is non-existence, and its philosophic conceptions are atheistic rather than pantheistic. In opposition to it the Vedantic system of mystic pantheism, whilst also seeing in this finite world a mere world of illusion, holds that rescue from it will come to each individual soul after a more or less prolonged series of rebirths, determined for better or for worse by its own spirituality according to the law of Karma, not in non-existence, but in its fusion with God, whose identity with the soul of man is merely temporarily obscured by the world illusion of Maya. Only the inconceivable is real, for it is God, but God dwells in the heart of every man, who, if and when he can realise it and has detached himself from his unworthy because unreal surroundings, is himself God. Akin to Vedantic mysticism is the Yoga system, which teaches extreme asceticism, retirement into solitude, fastings, nudity, mortification of the flesh, profound meditation on unfathomable mysteries, and the endless reiteration of magic words and phrases as the means of accelerating that ineffable fusion of God and man. The materialism of the Sankhya and the idealism of the Vedanta combine to provoke the reaction of yet another system, the Mimansa, which stands for the eternal and divine revelation of the Vedas, codifies, so to say, their theology into liturgical laws, admits of no speculation or esoteric interpretation, and seems to subordinate the gods themselves to the forms of worship that consecrate their existence.
Of all the doctrines that these early speculations evolved, none has had a more enduring influence on Hinduism than that of the long and indeed infinite succession of rebirths through which man is doomed to pass before he reaches the ultimate goal either of non-existence or of absorption into the divine essence. For none has done more to fortify the patriarchal principle which from the earliest times governed the tribal family, and to establish the Hindu conception of the family as it prevails to the present day. With that curious inconsequence which frequently characterises Hindu thought, even when it professes to be ruled by the sternest logic, the belief that every rebirth is irrevocably determined by the law of Karma, i.e. in accordance with the sum total of man's deeds, good and bad, in earlier existences, is held to be compatible with the belief that the felicity of the dead can only be assured by elaborate rites of worship and sacrifice, which a son alone, or a son's son, can take over from his father and properly perform. The ancient patria potestas of tribal institutions has been thus prolonged beyond the funeral pyre, and the ancient reverence for the dead which originally found expression in an instinctive worship of the ancestors has been translated into a ceremonial cult of the ancestral manes, which constitutes the primary duty and function of every new head of the family. Hence the Hindu joint family system which keeps the whole property of the family as well as the governance of all its members under the sole control of the head of the family. Hence also the necessity of early marriage, lest death should overtake the Hindu before he has begotten the son upon whose survival the performance of the rites essential, not only to his own future felicity, but to that of all his ancestors depends, and, as an alternative, to mitigate the awful consequences of the default of heirs male of his own body, the introduction of adoption under conditions that secure to the adopted son precisely the same position as a real son would have enjoyed. Hence again the inferiority of woman, whom early marriage tended to place in complete subjection to man. Her chief value was that of a potential breeder of sons. In any case, moreover, she passed on her marriage entirely out of her own family into that of her husband, and terribly hard was her lot if she were left a widow before having presented her husband with a son. Even if she were left an infant widow of an infant husband and their marriage could not possibly have been consummated, she was doomed to an austere and humiliating life of perpetual widowhood, whilst, on the other hand, if she died, her widowed husband was enjoined to marry again at once unless she had left him a son. To explain away this cruel injustice, her fate was supposed to be due to her own Karma, and to be merely the retribution that had overtaken her for sins committed in a former existence, which condemned her to be born a woman and to die a childless wife, or worse still, to survive as a childless widow. The misfortune of the widowed husband who was left without a son should logically have been imputed in the same way to his own Karma, but it was not. All through life, and in death itself, man was exalted and woman occupied a much lower plane, though in practice this hardship was mitigated for the women who bore sons by the reverence paid to them in their homes, where their force of character and their virtues often gave them a great and recognised ascendancy. However hard the laws that governed the Hindu family might press on individual members, the family itself remained a living organism, united by sacred ties—indeed more than a mere living organism, for the actually living organism was one with that part of it which had already passed away and that which was still awaiting rebirth. It is undoubtedly in the often dignified and beautiful relations which bind the Hindu family together that Hinduism is seen at its best, and Hindu literature delights in describing and exalting them.
Traditional usages, or Smriti, were ultimately embodied in codes of law, of which the most famous is that of Manu; and though disfigured by many social servitudes repugnant to the Western mind, they represent a lofty standard of morality based upon a conception of duty, or Dharma, narrowly circumscribed, but solid and practical. Though these codes of law, and notably that of Manu in the form in which we possess them, are of uncertain but probably much later date, they afford us, in conjunction with the vast body of earlier religious and philosophic literature, and with a certain amount of scientific literature dealing with astronomy and astrology, with mathematics and specially with geometry, and with grammar and prosody, sufficient materials for appraising, with a fair measure of accuracy, the stage of progress which the Aryan Hindus had reached in the sixth century B.C. When the world was young, and they revelled in their recent conquest of a fair portion in it, they delighted to worship the bright gods who had helped them to possess it, and worship and war were the ties that kept their loose tribal organisation together. Out of the primitive conditions of nomadic and pastoral life, under the leadership of tribal elders who were both priests and warriors, they gradually passed, after many vicissitudes of peace and war, into more settled forms of agricultural life and developed into distinct and separate polities of varying vitality, but still united by the bond of common religious and social institutions in the face of the indigenous populations whom they drove before them, or reduced into subjection and slowly assimilated as they moved down towards and into the Gangetic plain. As the conditions of life grew more complex, with increasing prosperity and probably longer intervals of peace, differentiation between classes and professions grew more marked. There was time and leisure for thinking as well as for fighting, for contemplation as well as for action.
To the supremacy which the Brahman, as the expounder of the scriptures and of the laws deduced from them, and the ordained dispenser of divine favour, through prayer and sacrifice, was able to arrogate to his own caste, the code of Manu, above all others, bears emphatic witness:
The very birth of Brahmans is a constant incarnation of Dharma.... When a Brahman springs to light he is born above the world, the chief of all creatures, assigned to guard the treasury of duties, religious and civil. Whatever exists in the world is all in effect, though not in form, the wealth of the Brahman, since the Brahman is entitled to it all by his primogeniture and eminence of birth.
Every offence committed by a Brahman involves a relatively slight penalty; every offence committed against him the direst punishment. Next to the Brahman, but far beneath him, is the Kshatrya and beneath him again the Vaishya. The Shudras are the fourth caste that exists chiefly to serve the three twice-born castes, and above all the Brahman. As Sir William Jones observes in the preface to the translation which he was the first to make a little more than a century ago of these extraordinarily full and detailed ordinances, they represent a system of combined despotism and priestcraft, both indeed limited by law, but artfully conspiring to give mutual support with mutual checks. But though they abound with minute and childish formalities, though they prescribe ceremonies often ridiculous, though the punishments they enact are partial and fanciful, for some crimes dreadfully cruel, for others reprehensibly slight, though the very morals they lay down, rigid enough on the whole, are in one or two instances, as in the case of light oaths and of pious perjury, dangerously relaxed, one must, nevertheless, admit that, subject to those grave limitations, a spirit of sublime devotion, of benevolence to mankind, and of amiable tenderness to all sentient creatures pervades the whole work, and the style of it has a certain austere majesty that sounds like the language of legislation and extorts a respectful awe. Above all it is well to remember that the ordinances of Manu still constitute to-day the framework of Hindu society, and Brahman judges of the Indian High Courts, who administer our own very different codes, still cling to them in private life and quote them in political controversies as the repositories of inspired wisdom.
It is on this background of tangled religious beliefs and abstruse philosophic speculations and very precise and elaborate laws framed to safeguard the twofold authority of priests and kings, but of the latter always in subordination to the former, that we see men and cities and organised states assume for the first time historic substance towards the sixth century B.C. From that date onwards we are on firmer ground. For though even in much later times the Hindus never produced historians in the strict sense of the term, we are able to call in aid the valuable testimony not only of a few indigenous chroniclers but also of Greek and Chinese and Arab writers and travellers, as well as the authoritative evidence supplied by epigraphy and numismatics; and though for many centuries still very infrequently, the precious remains of ancient monuments. But the original background is never effaced, for the whole religious and social system, the whole philosophic outlook upon the world of which I have sought to outline the long and laborious evolution through prehistoric ages, remained fundamentally immune against change until the advent of the British to India subjected them to the solvent of Western civilisation.
One of the most striking peculiarities of Hinduism is that its origin cannot be associated with any single great teacher or prophet, however legendary. Still less can it be identified with the personal inspiration of a Moses or a Christ, of a Confucius or a Mahomed. Only when we reach the firmer ground of historic times does any commanding personality emerge to leave a definite and abiding impress upon successive ages. The first and the greatest is Buddha, and we can still trace to-day his footsteps in the places where he actually stood and delivered his message to the world. It was at Buddh Gaya that, after fleeing from the pomp and luxury of his father's royal palace, he sat and meditated under the Bo-tree on the vanity and misery of human life, but it was at Rajagriha, "the King's House," that he first began to preach. Rajagriha, about 40 miles S.S.E. of the modern Patna, was then the capital of one of the many small kingdoms that had grown up in the broad valley of the Ganges. It was already an ancient city of some fame, for the Mahabharata mentions all the five hills which, as the first Chinese pilgrim, Fa-Hien, puts it, "encompass it with a girdle like the walls of a town." It was itself a walled city, and some of the walls, as we can still see them to-day, represent most probably the earliest structure raised in India by human hands that has survived down to our own times. They were no jerry-builders then. Strengthened at sundry points by great square bastions, the walls of Rajagriha measure in places over seventeen feet in width and eleven or twelve feet in height, and they are faced with undressed stones three to five feet in length, without mortar or cement, but carefully fitted and banded together with a core of smaller blocks not less carefully laid and packed. They merely supplemented and completed the natural line of defences provided by the outer girdle of hills, rising to 1200 feet, which shut off Rajagriha from the plain of Bihar. On one of those peerless days of the cold season in Upper India when there is not a cloud to break the serenity of the deep blue sky, I looked up to the mountain Ghridrakuta, on whose slopes Buddha dwelt for some time after he had found enlightenment at Buddh Gaya, and saw it just as the second Chinese pilgrim to whom we owe most of our knowledge of Rajagriha described it—"a solitary peak rising to a great height on which vultures make their abode." Many had been the revolutions of the wheel of time since Hiuen-Tsang had watched the circling of the vultures round the sacred peak some twelve and a half centuries before me, and as Buddha himself, another twelve and a half centuries earlier, must have watched them when he miraculously stretched forth his hand through a great rock to rescue his beloved disciple Ananda from the clutch of the demon Mara, who had taken on the shape of a vulture. The swoop of those great birds seemed to invest the whole scene with a new and living reality. Across the intervening centuries I could follow King Bimbisara, who reigned in those days at Rajagriha, proceeding along the causeway of rough, undressed stones, which can be traced to-day to the foot of the mountain and up its rocky flanks, after his men had "levelled the valley and spanned the precipices, and with the stones had made a staircase about ten paces wide," so that he should himself be carried up to wait in his own royal person on the Lord Buddha. There, marked to the present day by the remains of two large stupas, was the place where the king alighted from his litter to go forward on foot, and farther up again the spot where he dismissed his followers and went on alone to invite the Buddha to come down and dwell in his capital.
That must have been about 500 B.C., and Buddha spent thereafter a considerable portion of his time in the bamboo garden which King Bimbisara presented to him on the outskirts of Rajagriha. There, and in his annual wanderings through the country, he delivered to the poor and to the rich, to the Brahman and to the sinner, to princes and peasants, to women as well as to men, his message of spiritual and social deliverance from the thraldom of the flesh and from the tyranny of caste.
With the actual doctrines of Buddhism I do not propose to deal. There is nothing in them that could not be reconciled with those of the Vedanta, and they are especially closely akin to the Sankhya system. But the driving force of Buddhism, as also of Jainism, which grew up at the same time as Buddhism under the inspiration of another great reformer, Mahavira, who is said to have been a cousin of King Bimbisara, was a spirit of revolt against Brahmanical Hinduism, and a new sense of social solidarity which appealed to all classes and castes, and to women as well as to men. The Vedanta reserved the study of the scriptures to men of the three "twice-born" castes, and placed it under the supreme authority of the Brahmans. Both Buddha and Mahavira recognised no such restrictions, though they did not refuse reverence to the Brahman as a man of special learning. The religious orders which they founded were open to all, and these orders included nuns as well as monks. This was the rock on which they split with Hinduism. This was the social revolution that, in spite of the religious and philosophical elasticity of Hinduism, made Buddhists and Jains unpardonable heretics in the eyes of the Brahmans, and produced a conflict which was to last for centuries.
Though King Bimbisara welcomed the Buddha to his capital, and Buddhism made rapid headway amongst the masses, he does not appear to have himself embraced the new religion, and it is not till after Alexander the Great's expedition had for the first time brought an European conqueror on to Indian soil, and a new dynasty had transferred the seat of government to Pataliputra, the modern Patna, on the Ganges, that perhaps the greatest of Indian rulers, the Emperor Asoka, who reigned from 272 to circa 232 B.C., made Buddhism the state religion of his Empire. Tradition has it, that when Buddha on his last wanderings passed by the fort which King Ajatasatni was building at Pataliputra, he prophesied for it a great and glorious future. It had already fulfilled that prophecy when the Greek Ambassador, Megasthenes, visited it in 303 B.C. A few remains only are being laboriously rescued from the waters of the Ganges, under which Pataliputra is for the most part buried. But at that time it spread for ten miles along the river front; five hundred and seventy towers crowned its walls, which were pierced by sixty-four gates, and the total circumference of the city was twenty-four miles. The palace rivalled those of the Kings of Persia, and a striking topographical similarity has been lately traced between the artificial features of the lay-out of Pataliputra and the natural features of Persepolis, King Darius's capital in Southern Persia.
Pataliputra became the capital of India under Chandragupta Maurya, who, soldier of fortune and usurper that he was, transformed the small kingdom of Magadha into a mighty empire. Known to Greek historians as Sandrokottos, young Chandragupta had been in Alexander's camp on the Indus, and had even, it is said, offered his services to the Macedonian king. In the confusion which followed Alexander's death, he had raised an army with which he fell on the Macedonian frontier garrisons, and then, flushed with victory, turned upon the King of Magadha, whom he dethroned. After eighteen years of constant fighting he had extended his frontiers to the Hindu Kush in the north, and nearly down to the latitude of Madras in the south. He had, at the same time, established a remarkable system of both civil and military administration by which he was able to consolidate his vast conquests. His war office was scientifically divided into six boards for maintaining and supplying his huge fighting force of 600,000 infantry, 30,000 cavalry, 9000 elephants, and 8000 war chariots, besides fully equipped transport and commissariat services. No less scientific was the system of civil government as illustrated by the municipal institutions of Pataliputra. There, again, there were six boards dealing respectively with trade, industries, wages, local taxation, the control of foreign residents and visitors, and, perhaps most extraordinary of all, with vital statistics. Equally admirable was the solicitude displayed for agriculture, then, as now, the greatest of Indian industries, and for its handmaid, irrigation. The people themselves, if we may believe Megasthenes, were a model people well worthy of a model government, though if he does not exaggerate, one is driven to wonder at the necessity for such fearful penalties as were inflicted for the most trivial breaches of the law. But behind Chandragupta the power of the Brahman was still clearly entrenched, for his chief minister was a Brahman, Chanakya, who had followed his fortunes from their first adventurous beginnings.
The stately fabric which Chandragupta built up during his own twenty-five years' reign, circa 322-297 B.C., endured during the reign of his son Bendusara, of whom scarcely anything is known, and at the end of another twenty-five years passed on, undiminished, to his great successor, Asoka, whose unique experiment would have been scarcely possible had he not succeeded to an empire already firmly consolidated at home and abroad. When he came to the throne, about 272 B.C., Asoka had served his apprenticeship in the art of government as viceroy, first in the north at Taxila, and then in the west at Ujjain. He had been brought up by Brahmans in the manner befitting his rank. Buddhist tradition would have us believe that until his conversion he was a monster of cruelty; but there is scarcely enough to warrant that indictment in the fact that he began his reign with a war of aggression, for which he afterwards expressed the deepest remorse. It was, indeed, from that moment that he determined to be henceforth a prince of peace; but it is quite as probable that his determination inclined him more and more to turn his ear to Buddhist teaching as that Buddhist teaching prompted his determination.
No monarch has ever recorded the laws which he gave to his people in such imperishable shape. They are to be seen to the present day cut into granite pillars or chiselled into the face of the living rock in almost every part of what was then the Empire of the Mauryas, from the Peshawar district in the north to Mysore and the Madras Presidency in the south, from the Kathiawar Peninsula in the west to the Bay of Bengal in the east. The pillars are often at the same time monuments of artistic design and workmanship, as, above all, the Garnath pillar near Benares with its magnificent capital of the well-known Persepolitan type and its four lions supporting the stone Wheel of the Law, first promulgated on that spot. Many more of Asoka's monuments may yet be discovered, but the eleven pillar edicts and the fourteen rock edicts, not to speak of minor inscriptions already brought to light and deciphered, constitute a body of laws which well deserve to have been made thus imperishable. For no temporal sovereign has ever legislated so fully and exclusively and with such evident conviction for the spiritual advancement and moral elevation of his people. Scarcely less important is the autobiographical value of these inscriptions, which enable one to follow stage by stage the evolution of the Apostle-Emperor's soul. Within a year of the conquest of the Kalinjas, for which he afterwards publicly recorded his remorse, Asoka became a lay disciple of the Buddhist law, and two and a half years later studied as a Buddhist monk. In 257 B.C., the thirteenth year of his reign, he began to preach his series of sermons in stone—sermons that were at the same time laws given to his Empire. His profession of faith was as lofty as it was simple:
The gods who were regarded as true all over India have been shown to be untrue. For the fruit of exertion is not to be attained by a great man only, because even by the small man who chooses to exert himself immense heavenly bliss may be won.... Father and mother must be hearkened to. Similarly, respect for living creatures must be firmly established. Truth must be spoken. These are the virtues of the law of piety which must be practised.... In it are included proper treatment of slaves and servants, honour to teachers, gentleness towards living creatures, and liberality towards ascetics and Brahmans.... All men are my children, and just as I desire for my children that they may enjoy every kind of prosperity and happiness in both this world and the next, so I desire the same for all men.
These principles are applied in all the instructions to his officials. He commends to their special care the primitive jungle folk and the untamed people of the borderlands. He bestows much thought on the alleviation of human suffering, and his injunctions in restriction of the slaughter and maiming of animals and the preservation of life are minute and precise. It is in this connection that the influence of Buddhism on Hinduism has been most permanent, for whilst the primitive Aryan Hindus were beef-eaters, their descendants carried the vegetarian doctrines of Buddhism to the extreme length of condemning cow-killing as the most awful of crimes, next to the killing of a Brahman.
Determined to preserve the unity and discipline of his own church, Asoka's large tolerance sees some good in all creeds. He wishes every man to have the reading of his own scriptures, and whilst reserving his most lavish gifts for Buddhist shrines and monasteries, he does not deny his benefactions to Brahmans and ascetics of other sects. Nor is he content merely to preach and issue orders. His monastic vows, though they lead him to forswear the amusements and even the field sports which had been his youthful pastimes, do not involve the severance of all worldly ties. He is the indefatigable and supreme head of the Church; he visits in solemn pilgrimage all the holy places hallowed by the memory of Buddha, and endows shrines and monasteries and convents with princely munificence; he convenes at Pataliputra a great Buddhist council for combating heresy. But he remains the indefatigable and supreme head of the State. "I am never fully satisfied with my efforts and my despatch of business. Work I must for the welfare of all, and the root of the matter is in effort." He controls a highly trained bureaucracy not unlike that of British India to-day, and his system of government is wonderfully effective so long as it is informed by his untiring energy and singular loftiness of purpose.
With Asoka Buddhism attained to a supremacy in India which may well be compared with that of Christianity in Europe under Constantine; and it is only by measuring the height to which Buddhism had then risen that we can realise the enduring power of Hinduism, as we see it through successive centuries slowly but irresistibly recovering all the ground it had lost until Buddhism at last disappears almost entirely off the face of India, whereas it continued to spread, though often in very debased forms, over the greater part of Eastern Asia, and still maintains its hold there over more than a third of the total population of the globe.
As with most of the great rulers and conquerors that India has from time to time thrown up, Asoka's life-work fell to pieces almost as soon as he had passed away. Not only did the temporal empire which he built up disintegrate rapidly in the hands of his feeble successors, but Buddhism itself was dethroned within fifty years with the last of his dynasty, slain by the usurper Pushyamitra Sunga, who, after consecrating himself to the Hindu gods with the rites of Rajasuya, celebrated his advent to Paramount Power by reviving the ancient ceremony of Asvamedha, the Sacrifice of the Horse—one of the most characteristic of Brahmanical rites.
It was not till after another great conquering inflow from Central Asia in the first century of our era that Kanishka, the greatest of a new dynasty which had set itself up at Purushpura, situated close to the modern Peshawar, shed a transient gleam of glory over the decline of Buddhism and even restored it to the position of a state religion. But it was a Buddhism already far removed from the purity of Asoka's reign. The most striking feature of this short-lived revival is the artistic inspiration which it derived from Hellenistic sources, of which the museums of Peshawar and Lahore contain so many remarkable illustrations. The theory, at one time very widely entertained, that Alexander's brief incursion into India left any permanent mark on Indian civilisation is now entirely discarded by the best authorities. No Indian author makes even the faintest allusion to him, nor is there any trace of Hellenic influence in the evolution of Indian society, or in the elaborate institutions with which India was endowed by the Mauryan dynasty that followed immediately on the disruption of Alexander's empire. But the Kushans, or Yueh Chis, during the various stages of their slow migration down into Northern India, came into long and close contact with the Indo-Bactrian and Indo-Parthian kingdoms that sprang up after Alexander. The populations were never Hellenised, but their rulers were to some extent the heirs, albeit hybrid heirs, to Greek civilisation. They spoke Greek and worshipped at Greek shrines, and as they were in turn subjugated by the forebears of the Kushan Empire, they imparted to the conquerors something of their own Greek veneer. In the second century of our era Kanishka carried his victorious arms down to the Gangetic plain, where Buddhism still held its own in the region which had been its cradle; and, according to one tradition, he carried off from Pataliputra a famous Buddhist saint, who converted him to Buddhism. But as these Indo-Scythian kings had not been long enough in India to secure admission to the social aristocracy of Hinduism by that slow process of naturalisation to which so many ruling families have owed their Kshatrya pedigrees, Kanishka, having himself no claim to caste, may well have preferred for reasons of state to favour Buddhism as a creed fundamentally opposed to caste distinctions. Whatever the motives of his conversion, we have it on the authority of Hiuen-Tsang that he ultimately did great things for Buddhism, and the magnificent stupa, which he erected outside his capital, five-and-twenty stories high and crowned with a cupola of diamonds, was still 150 feet high and measured a quarter of a mile in circumference when the Chinese pilgrim visited Purushpura five centuries later. To the present day there are traces outside the northern gate of Peshawar of a great Buddhist monastery, also built by Kanishka, which remained a seat of Buddhist learning until it was destroyed by Mahomedan invaders; and it was only a mile from Peshawar that the American Sanskritist, Dr. Spooner, discovered ten years ago the casket containing some of Buddha's bones, which is one of the most perfect specimens of Graeco-Buddhist art. The Buddhist statues and bas-reliefs of that period are Greek rather than Indian in their treatment of sacred history, and even the head of Gautama himself might sometimes be taken for that of a young Greek god.
These exotic influences may indeed have acted as a further solvent upon Buddhism. But in any case, its local and temporary revival as a dominant state religion under Kanishka, whose empire did not long outlive him, failed to arrest its steady resorption into Hinduism. On the one hand, Buddhism itself was losing much of its original purity. The miraculous legends with which the life of Buddha was gradually invested, the almost idolatrous worship paid to him, the belief that he himself was but the last of many incarnations in which the Buddha had already revealed himself from the very beginning of creation—all these later accretions represent, no doubt, the reaction upon Buddhism of its Hinduistic surroundings. But they doubtless helped also to stimulate the growth of the more definite forms of anthropomorphism which characterised the development of Hinduism when the ancient ritual and the more impersonal gods of the Vedas and of the Brahmanas gave way to the cult of such very personal gods as Shiva and Vishnu, with their feminine counterparts, Kali and Lakshmi, and ultimately to the evolution of still more popular deities, some, like Skanda and the elephant-headed Ganesh, closely connected with Shiva; others like Krishna and Rama, avātaras or incarnations—and in many ways extremely human incarnations—of Vishnu. At the same time, the Aryan Hindus, as they went on subduing the numerous aboriginal races of India, constantly facilitated their assimilation by the more or less direct adoption of their primitive deities and religious customs. The two great epics, the Mahabharata, with its wonderful episode, the Baghavat-Ghita, which is the apotheosis of Krishna, and the Ramayana, which tells the story of Rama, show the infusion into Hinduism of a distinctly national spirit in direct opposition to the almost cosmopolitan catholicity of Buddhism, sufficiently elastic to adapt itself even to the political aspirations of non-Hindu conquerors as well as of non-Hindu races beyond the borders of Hindustan, in Nepal and in Ceylon, in Burma and in Tibet, in China and in Japan. The conflict between Buddhist and Hindu theology might not have been irreconcilable, for Hinduism, as we know, was quite ready to admit Buddha himself into the privileged circle of its own gods as one of the incarnations of Vishnu. What was irreconcilable was the conflict between a social system based on Brahmanical supremacy and one that denied it—especially after Hinduism had acquired a new sense of Indian patriotism which only reached fuller development in our own times when it was quickened by contact with European nationalism.
Hindus themselves prefer, however, to-day to identify Indian nationalism with the period when from another long interval of darkness, which followed the downfall of the Kushan kingdom, Indian history emerges into the splendour of what has been called "the golden age of Hinduism" in the fourth and fifth centuries of our era under the great Gupta dynasty, who ruled at Ujjain. Few Indian cities are reputed to be more ancient or more sacred than the little town of Ujjain on the Sipra river, known as Ozenī to the Greeks, and where Asoka had ruled in his youth as Viceroy of Western India. It owes its birth to the gods themselves. When Uma wedded Shiva her father slighted him, not knowing who he was, for the mighty god had wooed and won her under the disguise of a mere ascetic mendicant, and she made atonement by casting herself into the sacrificial fire, which consumed her—the prototype of all pious Hindu widows who perform Sati—in the presence of gods and Brahmans. Shiva, maddened with grief, gathered up the bones of his unfortunate consort and danced about with them in a world-shaking frenzy. Her scattered bones fell to earth, and wherever they fell the spot became sacred and a temple sprang up in her honour. One of her elbows fell on the banks of the Sipra at Ujjain, and few shrines enjoy greater or more widespread fame than the great temple of Maha-Kal, consecrated to her worship and that of Shiva. Its wealth was fabulous when it was looted and destroyed by Altamsh and his Pathan Mahomedans in 1235. The present buildings are for the most part barely 200 years old, and remarkable chiefly for the insistency with which the lingam and the bull, the favourite symbols of Shiva, repeat themselves in shrine after shrine. But it attracts immense numbers of pilgrims, especially in every twelfth year, when they flock in hundreds of thousands to Ujjain and camp as near as possible to the river. The peculiarity of the Ujjain festival is that, in memory of the form which Shiva took on when he wooed Uma, it attracts a veritable army of Sanyasis, or mendicants, sometimes as many as fifty thousand, from all parts of India. Seldom, except at the great Jaganath festivals at Puri, is a larger congregation seen of weird and almost inhuman figures; some clothed solely with their long unkempt hair, some with their bodies smeared all over with white ashes, and the symbol of their favourite deity painted conspicuously on their foreheads; some displaying ugly sores or withered limbs as evidence of lifelong mortification of the flesh; some moving as if in a dream and entirely lost to the world's realities; some with frenzied eyes shouting and brandishing their instruments of self-torture; some with a repulsive leer and heavy sensuous jowls affecting a certain coquetry in the ritualistic adornment of their well-fed bodies.
Chandragupta I., the founder of the great dynasty which Hindus extol above all others, was only a petty chieftain by birth, but he was fortunate enough to wed a lady of high lineage, who could trace a connection with the ancient Maurya house of Magadha, and, thanks to this alliance and to his own prowess, he was able at his death to bequeath real kingship to his son, Samadragupta, who, during a fifty years' reign, A.D. 326-375, again welded almost the whole of India north of the Nerbudda river into one empire, and once even spoiled Southern India right down to Cape Comorin. His victories are recorded—with an irony perhaps not wholly accidental—beneath the Asokan inscription on the Allahabad pillar. Of his zeal for Hinduism we have a convincing proof in gold coins of his reign that preserve on the obverse in the figure of the sacrificial horse a record of the Asvamedha, which he again revived. Strange to say, however, his fame has never been so popular as that of his son, Chandragupta II., Vikramadytia, the Sun of Power, who reigned in turn for nearly forty years, and has lived in Hindu legend as the Raja Bikram, to whom India owes her golden age. It was his court at Ujjain which is believed to have been adorned by the "Nine Gems" of Sanskrit literature, amongst whom the favourite is Kalidasa, the poet and dramatist. Amidst much that is speculative, one thing is certain. The age of Vikramadytia was an age of Brahmanical ascendancy. As has so often happened, and is still happening in India to-day in the struggle between Urdu and Hindi, the battle of religious and political supremacy was largely one of languages. During the centuries of Brahmanical depression that preceded the Gupta dynasty, the more vulgar tongue spoken of the people prevailed. Under the Guptas, Sanskrit, which was the language of the Brahmans, resumed its pre-eminence and took possession of the whole field of literature and art and science as well as of theology. Oral traditions were reduced to writing and poetry was adapted to both sacred and profane uses in the Puranas, in the metrical code of Manu, in treatises on sacrificial ritual, in Kalidasa's plays, and in many other works of which only fragments have survived. Astronomy, logic, philosophy were all cultivated with equal fervour and to the greater glory of Brahmanism. Local tradition is doubtless quite wrong in assigning to Raja Bikram the noble gateway which is the only monument of Hindu architecture at its best that Ujjain has to show to-day. But to that period may, perhaps, be traced the graceful, if highly ornate, style of architecture, of which the Bhuvaneshwar temples, several centuries more recent, are the earliest examples that can be at all accurately dated. To the credit of Brahmanism be it said that in its hour of triumph it remained at least negatively tolerant, as all purely Indian creeds generally have been. Fa-Hien, who visited India during the reign of Vikramadytia, though dismayed at the desolation which had already overtaken many of the sacred places of Buddhism, pays a generous tribute to the tolerance and statesmanship of that great sovereign. The country seems, indeed, to have enjoyed real prosperity under a paternal and almost model administration.
Yet the Gupta dynasty endured only a little longer than had that of the Mauryas. Its downfall was hastened by the long reign of terror which India went through during the invasion of the White Huns. Europe had undergone a like ordeal nearly a century earlier, for when the Huns began to move out of the steppes of Eastern Asia they poured forth in two separate streams, one of which swept into Eastern Europe, whilst the other flowed more slowly towards Persia and India. What Attila had been to Europe, Mihiragula was to India, and though the domination of the Huns did not long outlive him, the anarchy they left behind them continued for another century, until "the land of Kuru," the cradle and battle-field of so many legendary heroes, produced another heroic figure, who, as King Harsha, filled for more than forty years (606-648) the stage of Indian history with his exploits. He had inherited the blood of the Gupta emperors from his mother, though his father was only a small Raja of Thanesvar, to the north of Delhi. The tragic circumstances in which he succeeded him made a man of him at the early age of fourteen. By the time he was twenty he was "master of the five Indias"—i.e. of nearly the whole of Northern India from Kathiawar to the delta of the Ganges, and henceforth he proved himself as great in peace as in war. In his case the knowledge we owe to Chinese sources is supplemented by the valuable record left by the Brahman Bana, who lived at his court and wrote the Harsha-Charita. Taxation, we are told, was lightened, and the assessment of land revenue was equitable and moderate. Security for life and property was enforced under severe but effective penalties. Education received impartial encouragement whether conducted by Brahmans or by Buddhist monks, and both as a patron of literature, which he himself cultivated by composing dramas, and as a philanthropic ruler King Harsha bestowed his favours with a fairly equal hand on Hinduism and on Buddhism alike. For Buddhism still lingered in the land, and Harsha, who was a mystic and a dreamer as well as a man of action, certainly inclined during his later years towards Buddhism, or, at least, included it in his own eclectic creed.
Hiuen-Tsang, who spent fifteen years in India during Harsha's reign, searching for the relics of early Buddhism in a land from which it was steadily disappearing, has given us a wonderful picture of a religious state-pageant which makes Prayaga, at the triple confluence of the Ganges and the Jumna with the sacred but invisible river, Saraswati, near to the modern city of Allahabad, stand out as another striking landmark in Indian history. Hindus attach great holiness to rivers and their confluence, and this Triveni, or triple confluence, had been specially consecrated by Brahma, who chose that spot for the first Asvamedha. "From ancient times," says the Chinese chronicler, "the kings used to go there to distribute alms, and hence it was known as the Place of Almsgiving. According to tradition more merit is gained by giving one piece of money there than one hundred thousand elsewhere." So King Harsha having invited all alike, whether "followers of the law or heretics, the ascetics and the poor, the orphans and the helpless," the kings of eighteen subordinate kingdoms assembled there with their people to the number of 500,000, and found immense refectories laid out for their refreshment, and long rows of warehouses to receive silk and cotton garments and gold and silver coins for distribution to them. "The first day a statue of Buddha was placed in the shrine erected on the Place of Almsgiving, and there was a distribution of the most precious things and of the garments of greatest value, whilst exquisite viands were served and flowers scattered to the sound of harmonious music. Then all retired to their resting-places. On the second day a statue of the Sun-god was placed in the shrine, and on the third day the statue of Shiva," and the distribution of gifts continued on those days and day after day for a period of over two months, ten thousand Brahmans receiving the lion's share, until, having exhausted all his wealth, even to the jewels and garments he was wearing, King Harsha borrowed a coarse and much-worn garment, and having "adored the Buddhas of the ten countries," he gave vent to his pious delight, exclaiming: "Whilst I was amassing all this wealth I was always afraid lest I should find no safe and secret place to stow it away. Now that I have deposited it by alms-giving in the Field of Happiness I know that it is for ever in safety. I pray that in my future lives I may amass in like manner great treasures and give them away in alms so as to obtain the ten divine faculties in all their plenitude."
Here one sees India as it was before the Mahomedan invasions, in the days of the last of the great Indian rulers who succeeded for a time in bending the whole of Northern India to his will. As always in India, behind whatever form of temporal power might for the moment appear to be paramount, religion and the social order which it consecrates represented the real paramount power that alone endures. In this extraordinary festival which marked the close of Harsha's reign the picture left to us is singularly complete. The first day is a sort of farewell tribute to the waning glory of Buddha, and the second to the ancient majesty of the Vedic gods; but they only prepare the way for the culminating worship, on the third day, of the terrific figure of Shiva, who had already been raised to one of the highest, if not the highest, throne in the Hindu pantheon, which he still retains—Shiva, the master of life and death, whose favourite emblem is the phallus, and from whose third eye bursts forth the flame which is one day to consume the world. Around Harsha, and devouring his gifts until, at the end of two months, they are wholly exhausted, are the Brahmans, "born above the world, assigned to guard the treasury of duties, civil and religious," through whom alone the wrath of angry gods can be appeased and present and future life be made safe in the descending hierarchy of caste.
Shortly after Harsha's death in A.D. 648, India, as is her wont as soon as the strong man's arm is paralysed, relapses once more into political chaos. Her history does not indeed ever again recede into the complete obscurity of earlier ages. We get glimpses of successive kingdoms and dynasties rising and again falling in Southern India, as the Hindu Aryans gradually permeate and subdue the older Dravidian races and absorb the greater part of them, not without being in turn influenced by them, into their own religious and social system. The most notable feature of the post-Harsha period of Hindu history is the emergence of the Rajput states, whose rulers, though probably descendants of relatively recent invaders, not only became rapidly Hinduised, but secured relatively prompt admission to the rank of Kshatryas in the Hindu caste system, with pedigrees dated back to the Sun and Moon, which to the popular mind were well justified by their warlike prowess and splendid chivalry. I need only recall the name of Prithvi-Raja, the lord of Sambhar, Delhi, and Ajmer, whose epic fame rests not less on his abduction of the Kanauj princess who loved him than on his gallant losing fight against the Mahomedan invaders of India. But fierce clan jealousies and intense dynastic pride made the Rajputs incapable of uniting into a single paramount state, or even into an enduring confederacy fit to withstand the storm of which Harsha himself might have heard the distant rumblings. For it was during his reign that militant Islam first set foot in India, in a remote part of the peninsula. Just at the same time as the Arabs, in the first flush of victory, poured into Egypt, a small force crossed the Arabian Sea and entered Baluchistan, and a century later the whole of Sind passed into Arab hands. Another two centuries and the Mahomedan flood was pouring irresistibly into India, no longer across the Arabian Sea, but from Central Asia through the great northern passes, until in successive waves it submerged for a time almost the whole of India.
Now if we look back upon the fifteen centuries of Indian history, of which I have sought to reconstitute the chief landmarks before the Mahomedan invasions, the two salient features that emerge from the twilight are the failure of the Aryan Hindus to achieve any permanent form of political unity or stability, and their success, on the other hand, in building up on adamantine foundations a complex but vital social system. The supple and subtle forces of Hinduism had already in prehistoric times welded together the discordant beliefs and customs of a vast variety of races into a comprehensive fabric sufficiently elastic to shelter most of the indigenous populations of India, and sufficiently rigid to secure the Aryan Hindu ascendancy. Of its marvellous tenacity and powers of resorption there can be no greater proof than the elimination of Buddhism from India, where, in spite of its tremendous uplift in the days of Asoka and the intermittent favours it enjoyed under later and lesser monarchs, it was already moribund before the Mahomedans gave it its final deathblow. Jainism, contemporary and closely akin to Buddhism, never rose to the same pre-eminence, and perhaps for that very reason secured a longer though more obscure lease of life, and still survives as a respectable but numerically quite unimportant sect. But indomitably powerful as a social amalgam, Hinduism failed to generate any politically constructive force that could endure much beyond the lifetime of some exceptionally gifted conqueror. The Mauryan and the Gupta dynasties succumbed as irretrievably to the centrifugal forces of petty states and clans perpetually striving for mastery as the more ephemeral kingdoms of Kanishka and Harsha. They all in turn crumbled away, and, in a land of many races and languages and climates, split up into many states and groups of states constantly at strife and constantly changing masters and frontiers. Hinduism alone always survived with its crowded and ever-expanding pantheon of gods and goddesses for the multitude, with its subtle and elastic philosophies for the elect, with the doctrine of infinite reincarnations for all, and, bound up with it, the iron law of caste.
The caste system, though it may be slowly yielding in non-essentials to the exigencies of modern life, is still vigorous to-day in all its essential features, and cannot easily be extruded from their family life even by the Western-educated classes. It divides up Indian society into thousands of water-tight compartments within which the Hindu is born and lives and dies without any possibility of emerging from the one to which he has been predestined by his own deeds in his former lives. Each caste forms a group, of which the relations within its own circle, as well as with other groups, are governed by the most rigid laws—in no connection more rigid than in regard to marriage. These groups are of many different types; some are of the tribal type, some national, some sectarian, some have been formed by migration, some are based upon a common social function or occupation past or present, some on peculiarities of religious beliefs and superstitions. A distinguished French writer, M. Senart, has described a caste as a close corporation, in theory at any rate rigorously hereditary, equipped with a certain traditional and independent organisation, observing certain common usages, more particularly as to marriage, food, and questions of ceremonial pollution, and ruling its members by the sanction of certain penalties of which the most signal is the sentence of irrevocable exclusion or out-casting. The Census of 1901 was the first to attempt a thorough classification of Indian castes, and the number of the main castes enumerated in it is well over two thousand, each one divided up again into almost endless sub-castes. The keystone of the whole caste system is the supremacy of the quasi-sacerdotal caste of Brahmans—a caste which constitutes in some respects the proudest and closest aristocracy that the world has ever seen, since it is not merely an aristocracy of birth in the strictest sense of the term, but one of divine origin. An Indian is either born a Brahman or he is not. No power on earth can make him a Brahman. Not all Brahmans were learned even in the old days of Hinduism, though it was to their monopoly of such learning as there then was that they owed their ascendancy over the warrior kings. Nor do all Brahmans minister in the temples. Strangely enough the minority who do are looked down upon by their own castemen. The majority pursue such worldly avocations, often quite humble, as are permissible for them under their caste laws. The Brahmans were wise enough, too, to temper the fundamental rigidity of the system with sufficient elasticity to absorb the new elements with which it came into contact, and in most cases gradually to reabsorb such elements as from time to time rebelled against it. The process by which new castes may be admitted into the pale of Hinduism, or the status of existing castes be from time to time readjusted to new conditions, has been admirably explained by Sir Alfred Lyall. But the process can be worked only under Brahmanical authority, and the supreme sanction for all caste laws rests solely with the Brahmans, whilst of all caste laws the most inexorable is the supremacy of the Brahman. Therein lies the secret of the great influence which, for good as well as for evil, he has always wielded over the masses. For though in theory there could be no escape from the bondage of caste, individuals, and even a whole group, would sometimes find ways and means of propitiating the Brahmans who ministered to their spiritual needs, and the miraculous intervention of a favouring god or the discovery of a long-lost but entirely mythical ancestor would secure their social uplift on to a higher rung of the caste-ladder.
Such a system, by creating and perpetuating arbitrary and yet almost impassable lines of social cleavage, must be fatal to the development of a robust body politic which can only be produced by the reasonable intermingling and healthy fusion of the different classes of the community. It was perhaps chief among the causes that left Hinduism with so little force of organised political cohesion that the Hindu states of ancient India, with their superior culture and civilization, were sooner or later swept away by the devastating flood of Mahomedan conquest, whilst the social structure of Hinduism, just because it consisted of such an infinity of water-tight compartments each vital and self-sufficing, could be buffeted again and again and even almost submerged by the waves without ever breaking up.
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AMRITSAR – INDIA IN 2010
(Courtesy : The Guardian Newspaper)
This entry is a piece of writing by way of an open letter of gratitude to the Sikh community in general, and specifically that of the Harminder Sahib or Golden Temple of Amritsar. Of all the many tenets of Guru Nanak's youngling religion (barely 600 years old) - its mutual respect for all religions; the abandonment of the divisive and socially iniquitous Hindu caste system (this though mostly ignored by caste-conscious Sikhs at home and abroad) to name but two - it is the adherence to codes of overwhelming hospitality, that as a tourist and a guest one learns to appreciate so profoundly during a stay in residence at The Golden Temple in Amritsar. The epicentre of the capital of the Sikh homeland of the Punjab.
My three days stop in the travel-renowned Sri Guru Ram Das Niwas ‘foreigners’ dormitory and my observations and little communal interactions within the jewelled bubble of the world of the Golden Temple complex gave me one of the richest experiences of my journey thus far. A time for warm feelings and friendships new and old. I arrive in Amritsar on the ’stupid o’clock’ bus ( 3.30am start!) from McLeod Ganj/ Dharamsala in the company of Jantine my Dutch pal and new acquaintances Jade (France), Petra (Germany) and David (Israel). We meet Lucy for the first time who will soon endure the Vipassana meditation course in Dehradun with Jantine and I as well as becoming my firm friend and travel pal for two weeks in Varanasi. 
Bathing for faith in the sacred amrit pool - which must be aaaabsolutely fecking freeezing!
Also, stepping into the dorm one evening a lady sits cross-legged upon one of the dorm beds with her back to me talking to two Brit lads. I recognise the New Zealander accent, though the hair’s darker than it was a year ago. I spot a heavily kitted bicycle leant up against the dormitory wall and start plotting ’2 + 2 = ?’ in my mind. Could it really be?! I sit and listen some more. ’Kylie?!’ ’Steeeeeeve!! Ohmygod!’ Yep, almost precisely one year to the day since I traveled with her in Petra in Jordan it’s the Kiwi Queen of Adventuring Kylie Phaup-Stephens. She’s currently in the middle of a London to New Zealand bike journey (!!!), returning home after over half a decade living and working in Britain.
The ‘free’ dormitory is a bit of a travel legend and often referred to by those who‘ve gone before you as ‘an experience‘ but always in slightly negative tones I‘ve found. Tones implying great privations; discomforts and ’you might wanna look elsewhere’ kinda vibes.
Maybe I’m misinterpreting. Either way, speaking now as somebody who’s juuuust about beginning to think he has some small experience in travel qualities and comforts, listen up good : Do not pass this ‘experience’ by! The Golden Temple dorm and its amenities are a true haven for the budget-conscious and experience hungry traveler. In the Sri Guru Ram Das Niwas complex free beds, lockers, hot showers, washing machines, mineral water refills in a dorm of approx 20 beds guarded 24/7 and a communal toilet block that’s the cleanest you’ll ever find in India are yours for nothing more than a free-will donation. And that’s just for starts...
... because what you are reminded of and encouraged to reconsider while staying at the Golden Temple is what it is to have a sense of Community.
... because what you are reminded of and encouraged to reconsider while staying at the Golden Temple is what it is to have a sense of Community.
This fabulous looking Sikh gentleman is dubbed and known to Jantine and I only as 'The Dude' :D
It can be a community of faith. A community of fellow travellers. A community of nations. The way all represented communities here commingle and come together as one. A community of friendship then. The community of ‘Man’ actually, just for once, seeming to work in perfect accord. A little spot of harmony - although this has not always been the case within this halloed grounds. Whichever way you view it, a sense of community and involvement therein is a rare commodity, something you miss when you've moved hobo-like through 30 countries or so in barely a year and a half.
The real fun is to be had in and around the Gura-Ka-Langar dining hall. It is incumbent upon Sikhs as a keystone of their faith that food and shelter be provided to strangers; to travelers, whether of the faith or not, when visiting a Gurdwara - the name given to any Sikh temple or building that covers a copy of their holy book the Adi Granth or Guru Granth Sahib.
The real fun is to be had in and around the Gura-Ka-Langar dining hall. It is incumbent upon Sikhs as a keystone of their faith that food and shelter be provided to strangers; to travelers, whether of the faith or not, when visiting a Gurdwara - the name given to any Sikh temple or building that covers a copy of their holy book the Adi Granth or Guru Granth Sahib.
I had made a previous pit-stop at a Sikh Gurdwara in Chandigarh, again food and accommodation provided for a 'donation'. Here at The Golden Temple - the very heart of the Sikh faith - this obligation to hospitality means a major, major operation!
Between the hours of about 8.00am and 23.00pm meals are served without cease to the thousands upon thousands of people that visit every day. Kitted out with your metal thali trays and water bowls you ascend the white marble steps and scurry across to grab your spot on the floor of the huge two-storied dining hall where long thin strip lengths of hessian carpet rapidly fill up with the bums of those with hungry tums. Sat in a grinning line Jantine, Jade, Petra, Dave and I bask in the quizzical gazes of our Sikh co-munchers and watch as the serving boys and men dash along the line with military canteen efficiency slopping and dolling out all kinds of curious looking yumminess.
Between the hours of about 8.00am and 23.00pm meals are served without cease to the thousands upon thousands of people that visit every day. Kitted out with your metal thali trays and water bowls you ascend the white marble steps and scurry across to grab your spot on the floor of the huge two-storied dining hall where long thin strip lengths of hessian carpet rapidly fill up with the bums of those with hungry tums. Sat in a grinning line Jantine, Jade, Petra, Dave and I bask in the quizzical gazes of our Sikh co-munchers and watch as the serving boys and men dash along the line with military canteen efficiency slopping and dolling out all kinds of curious looking yumminess.
Dahl and rice (of course!), fresh cut salad, a potato/ vegetable curry, a sweet rice pudding with coconut shreds and raisins perhaps and hands held out together in a gesture almost of prayer to receive the fresh hot backed chapattis. If you're lucky the warm, sweet dough parsad that is sacrosanct to the Sikhs and used in wedding ceremonies and as offerings to The Guru will be on the menu too. Refills a-plenty. The meals, incredibly, vary throughout the day and from day to day. You can eat as much as you want pre-breakfast bowls of sweet chai, breakfast, lunch and dinner! I was a regular queuing up for my langar - the name given for this charitable meal. And I just loved watching the guy in the nifty little floor cleaning electric cart that neatly skims up and down the smooth marble floors washing away a million spillages in a trice, the title 'Man Machine' written across the front of his device). I wish I could give you some stats on the numbers of meals prepared and served at The Golden Temple every day but sadly I can't at this time.
A Canadian guy in the dorm said they have a machine that churns out '8,000 chapattis either per minute or hour', he couldn't recall which. But hey that's still 120,000 chapattis a day during 'opening hours' even at the outside margin! In fact the calculator informs me that 8,000 per minute would deluge the Golden Temple with 7.2 million chapattis a day, so it must be per hour... hell, we were hungry, but not that hungry!
Two obvious realisations that spring from so many thousands upon thousands of meals a day. That's a lot of food preparation and whole heck of a lot of washing up to do! And this is where the community spirit kicks into full throttle.
Two obvious realisations that spring from so many thousands upon thousands of meals a day. That's a lot of food preparation and whole heck of a lot of washing up to do! And this is where the community spirit kicks into full throttle.
Because what the community needs, the community must provide. And the system; this incredible mass conveyor belt of goodwill cannot stop for a second!
The grounds in the immediate surrounds of the dining hall positively hum and judder with the activity of hundreds of people, all visitors to the Temple, surrendering portions of their day to support the never ending provision of langar. Men, women and children of all ages sit about on the floor in groups peeling and cutting potatoes, chopping vegetables, sifting dahl, finely chopping onion and garlic bulbs, the latter operation first requiring whole teams of people to painstakingly sit and peel the garlic bulb by bulb by bulb. One of my favourite visions in Amritsar is that of the superbly, formidably dressed, regally bearded old Sikh men - representatives of this proud warrior community - hunkered down picking and laughing about trying to get their fingers (more used to clutching the handles of their traditional Kirpan swords) under the skin of a solitary garlic bulbs.
The grounds in the immediate surrounds of the dining hall positively hum and judder with the activity of hundreds of people, all visitors to the Temple, surrendering portions of their day to support the never ending provision of langar. Men, women and children of all ages sit about on the floor in groups peeling and cutting potatoes, chopping vegetables, sifting dahl, finely chopping onion and garlic bulbs, the latter operation first requiring whole teams of people to painstakingly sit and peel the garlic bulb by bulb by bulb. One of my favourite visions in Amritsar is that of the superbly, formidably dressed, regally bearded old Sikh men - representatives of this proud warrior community - hunkered down picking and laughing about trying to get their fingers (more used to clutching the handles of their traditional Kirpan swords) under the skin of a solitary garlic bulbs.
One after the other and another and another. 'How’s this for a laugh, my ancestors used to chop off the heads of infidel scum!' Humbled indeed. But happily so. And this is the pure joy of life at the temple. All pretensions and divisions seemingly set aside for the honesty activities of mass domesticity.
I of course happily do my bit. A three hour stint in the metal-clattering, pot and pan battering madness and mayhem of the washing up troughs. A large covered annex of the dining hall area filled with row after row of industrial sized metal washing troughs. Time to roll up your sleeves, grab a scrap of cloth-knotted soap and get scrubbing! The never ending river of diners exit the hall and hand their dirties to a group of guys that hurl them, leftovers a-flying, into huge two-man-handle metal tubs that are then hauled over to the washing troughs, lifted and cascaded, smashing and splashing down into the ever murkier wash waters where like fish fighting for scraps of thrown bread all of us volunteers scrabble around to grab utensils to enthusiastically wash and smash onto the drying racks so as to feel we're doing our bit for the process of community.
I of course happily do my bit. A three hour stint in the metal-clattering, pot and pan battering madness and mayhem of the washing up troughs. A large covered annex of the dining hall area filled with row after row of industrial sized metal washing troughs. Time to roll up your sleeves, grab a scrap of cloth-knotted soap and get scrubbing! The never ending river of diners exit the hall and hand their dirties to a group of guys that hurl them, leftovers a-flying, into huge two-man-handle metal tubs that are then hauled over to the washing troughs, lifted and cascaded, smashing and splashing down into the ever murkier wash waters where like fish fighting for scraps of thrown bread all of us volunteers scrabble around to grab utensils to enthusiastically wash and smash onto the drying racks so as to feel we're doing our bit for the process of community.
The phenomenal beauty of the Golden Temple, heart of the Sikh faith.
Our Temple Community. Great fun, but definitely a sensory overload after three hours of noise and mess and damp and barefoot washing. I get absolutely drenched, as being a little shorter than the average, it seems logical that ten thousand dripping plates etc be passed over my head to get to and from the trough. 'Darn it!' I love the experience though. An unspoken, natural segregation; the women and girls down one side, the men facing them on the other, but everyone in it together, and I'm thinkin' I bet the women are thinkin' 'Better make the most of this, it's the only flippin' time I'll ever get him to do any washing or cooking!' :)
Activity in all its forms - the washing, cutting, chopping, cooking and eating; the laughter and prayer; the expressions of faith; the music that is played and broadcast live almost without break from the heart of the Temple; the clicks of a thousand cameras; the chatter of a thousand tongues; the kids and their running and screaming and fun; people living and sleeping and dreaming and weeping in awe at the beauty of the Temple- the activity never stops, all around the clock at The Golden Temple.
Activity in all its forms - the washing, cutting, chopping, cooking and eating; the laughter and prayer; the expressions of faith; the music that is played and broadcast live almost without break from the heart of the Temple; the clicks of a thousand cameras; the chatter of a thousand tongues; the kids and their running and screaming and fun; people living and sleeping and dreaming and weeping in awe at the beauty of the Temple- the activity never stops, all around the clock at The Golden Temple.
Gold shines in the night.
Yes, the Temple. The perfect beauty of the temple! I haven't even mentioned that yet have I. Just friendship and community and garlic bulbs. What an odd travel waffler I can be! I shall seek to make amends shortly. But for now it's gotten late, and cold, and I must carefully step my way through the carpet of humanity that lies and slumbers huddled together under blankets for warmth upon the floor and in the passages of the Guru Ram Daw Niwas to go brush m'teeth and have a final pee. All these pilgrims and strangers and friends stretched out under the stars, a community happening of a scale I've never before seen.
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DAVID FRAWLEY in ARISE ARJUNA
The new Hinduism is bringing back traditional Hindu accounts of history, like the rejection of the Aryan invasion theory, which recent archeological discoveries in India, like the rediscovery of the Saraswathi River, are also proving. They are rejecting the idea that the discovery if India should be written from a European perspective, as if anything good in India only came from the West (which is the present view). They hold that Hindu values, a cultural of Dharma, has its place in the education system of India, which should not merely imitate western intellectual or political views, like the Marxist views which have dominated most of the Universities of India over the past several decades.
Many westerners have developed an interest in Eastern spirituality including Hindu Yoga, Vedanta and Ayurveda following a west to east moment. There are now Ashrams, Temples and Yoga centers through out the Western World and in much of Asia as well. Gurus from India have often gained large followings in the West. Projecting Hindu spirituality not as backward but as progressive, futuristic and universal in its orientation, they have found it to be appealing to people all over the world. This moment, which began largely in late Sixties, is still increasing on a yearly basis. Now it is moving to Eastern Europe as well, with the collapse communism.
It is strange to see, however, that the first major university text book to seriously question the Aryan theory as not come from India but from the west. In his recent edition of survey Hinduism (Suny, State university of New York press 1994), Professor Klaus Klostermaier has noted important objection to this theory. He suggests that the weight of evidence is against it and that should no longer be regarded as a main model of interpreting ancient India. Survey of Hinduism is perhaps the main text book used in North America for university courses on the study of Hinduism.
Klostermaier is not a Hindu, in fact he is catholic priest. He is not speaking to relative to any Hindu agenda but as a scholar and academician. Though as a teacher of Hinduism he appears to have some sympathy with tradition, he cannot be regarded as promoting Hinduism. He is critical o0f Hindu beliefs and practices in different parts of his book, but the Aryan invasion theory is something he questions on the evidence.
He states (page 34): “Both the spatial and temporal extant of the Hindu civilization has expanded dramatically on the basis of new excavations and the dating of the Vedic as well as a required to completely reconsider not only certain aspects Vedic India, but the entire relation ship between India civilization and Vedic culture.” Later he adds (Page 38): “The certainty seems to be growing that the Indus civilization was carried by the Vedic Indians, who were not invaders from Southern Russia but indigenous for an unknown period of time in the lower central Himalayan regions.”
He questions the difference proposed between Vedic and Indus culture and shows a continuity or possibility of identity between the two. He mentioned the data on the Saraswathy River, which according to scientific studies dried up around 1900B.C. As Saraswathy is the main River of Vedas, he states (pg. 36): “If, As muller suggested the Aryan invasion to place around 1500 B.C, it does not make much sense to locate villages along the banks of the dried up Saraswathy.
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THE BHAGAVAD GITA
W.Weaver & E. J. Sharpe
The Bhagavad Gita (‘The Song of the Adorable One’), which forms a section of the sixth book of the Mahabharatha, is the most popular of all Indian sacred writings. It probably reached its final form between the second century B.C and the second century A.D. It is indebted to the Upanishads, it may contain elements of Buddhism, and it alludes to certain ideas which later became crystallized within the six orthodox schools. An attempt is made to draw these threads together and to mould them into a comprehensive synthesis.
The poem takes the form of a dialogue between the prince Arjuna and his charioteer, the god Krishna, whose true nature as an avatar of Vishnu gradually becomes apparent. The scene is set on the battlefield of Kuru, where the forces of the five sons of Pandu (one of whom is Arjuna) are preparing to do battle with their cousins, the sons of Dhritarashtra. Arjuna’s nerve suddenly fails him ; he is appalled by the fact that he is preparing to stay his kinsmen. He asks Krishna’s advice, and is told that it is his duty to fight ( he is a kshatriya), but the discussion soon moves on to topics that have no direct bearing on this issue. The author of the Gita takes up and develops many themes that have already appeared in the Upanishads, and adds to these the notion of bhakti (loving devotion) – the adoration of God as a means of salvation.
Immanent & Transcendent
When the Upanishads consider the one Reality which lies behind the phenomenal world, they alternate between a view of Reality as the transcendent ‘That’ which defies description, and a view which sees Reality as an immanent and omnipresent Lord. Both these attitudes are represented in the Gita (VII.3-5). The Supreme has a twofold nature : a lower (apara) which encompasses and controls the world of change, and a higher (para) which is the life force of all creation but which remains completely transcendent and unaffected by the changing world order. This double position is enforced by the position of Krishna, who is both immanent as an avatar, and transcendent as the one Realty. The foolish and ignorant see only the human form and fail to realize the Reality that is hidden behind it. The wise see the Supreme in Krishna, and follow the way of bhakti, which brings about a deliverance from the round of rebirth.
According to the Gita, the truly spiritual man is characterized by tranquility and balance. He has transcended the realm of mater (prakriti) with all its apparent contradictions, and is no longer tossed about by his passions and emotions. The soul (purusha, atman) resembles matter only in so far as both are indestructible, but for the purposes of the Gita’s argument it is held captive by matter, passing through endiess rebirths. However, it is unaffected by what happens to matter : even when the body is slain, the soul is untouched.
Non-attachment
This tranquility in the midst of change is, however, not to be gained by withdrawing from the world, but by living in a spirit of non-attachment within the world. This the Gita calls karma-yoga, and also nishkama karma (desireless action). Although karma normally leads to retribution, where there is no desire, there is no retribution, and hence all actions should be undertaken free from desire for reward or result. Since desire binds man to matter, it is this selfish motivation which should be renounced by the wise man. However, such renunciation is not easy : the senses are always liable to attract man back into their grip. So on hand the Gita recommends the practice of technical yoga, culminating in the centring of the mind on the Lord. Concentration on Ishvara is knownin all forms of yoga, but in the Gita concentration passes over into living devotion, through which salvation may be obtained.
Mention has already been made of Krishna as an avatar of Vishnu. In the Gita we find the normative statement of the avatar doctrine : whenever the law of righteousness declines, then the Lord generates himself on earth in one or another form. It is of the essence of the doctrine that avatars may occur just as often as they are needed, in succeeding kalpas (ages of the world).
Theophany
The Gita culminates in a great theophany, in which Krishna, at Arjuna’s request, reveals his true nature to him. Arjuna is unable to see Krishna’s nature with normal vision, and is given a ‘celestial eye’, with which he then beholds the entire universe converging in the body of the Supreme Lord Krishna is also revealed as Lord of Time, with many mouths, into which the warriors of the original battlefield (which now seems rather remote) rush, to be ground to powder. ‘Time am I’, says Krishna, ‘wreaker of the world’s destruction’. At this point Arjuna ceases to regard Krishna as his charioteer and comrae : he bows down and does worship, and prays that Krishna will return to his more familiar form. Krishna does so, reminding Arjuna that the sacrificial practices of the Vedas, the asceticism of the munis, the giving of alms, are all inadequate for the obtaining of such a vision : only by bhakti can Krishna be seen in such a form. And the dialogue resumes.
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INDIAN RENAISSANCE – PETER WATSON
The real start of the Oriental renaissance, however, properly began with the arrival in Calcutta of William Jones and the establishment of the Bengal Asiatic Society on 15 January 1784. This society was established by a group of highly talented English civil servants, employed by the East India Company, who, besides their official day-to-day duties helping to administer the subcontinent, also pursued broader interests, which included language studies, the recovery and translation of the Indian classics, astronomy and the natural sciences. Four men stood out. These were, first, Warren Hastings (1732-1818), the governor of Bengal, and a highly controversial politician, who was later impeached for corruption (and, after a trial that lasted, on and off, for seven years, acquitted), but throughout it all energetically encouraged the activities of the society. It was Hastings who ensured that learned Brahmans gathered at Fort William to supply the most authentic texts, which illustrated Indic law, literature and language. The others in the group were William Jones, a judge, Henry colebrooke (the ‘Master of Snskrit’) and Charles Wilkins. Between them, these men accomplished three things. They located, recovered, and translated the main Indian Hindu and Buddhist classics, they kick-started the investigation of Indian history, and Jones, in a brilliant flash of insight, uncovered the great similarities between Sanskrit on the one hand and Greek and Latin on the other, in the process reshaping history in a manner we shall explore throughout the rest of this chapter.
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These men were all brilliant linguists, Jones especially. The son of a professor of mathematics, he was, on top of everything else, an accomplished poet. He published poems in Greek at the age of fifteen, while at sixteen-having learned Persian from ‘a Syrian living in London’ – he translated Hafiz into English. He later said that he had studied twentyeight languages and had a thorough knowledge of thirteen.
When the Bengal Asiatic Society was instituted, in 1784, Warren Hastings was offered the presidency, but declined, and so it was offered to Jones. He had been in India barely eighteen months. His great discovery, the relationship of Sanskrit to Greek and Latin, was first aired in his third anniversary address to the Asiatic Society. Each year for eleven years he commemorated the founding of the society with a major address, ‘On the Hindus’, delivered on 2 February 1786, was by far the most momentous. He said: ‘The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of the verbs and the forms of the grammar, then could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists’.
It is difficult for us today to grasp the full impact of this insight. In linking Sanskrit to Greek and Latin, and in arguing that the Eastern tongue was, if anything older than and superior to the Western languages, Jones was striking a blow against the very foundations of Western culture and the ( at least tacit) assumption that it was more advanced than cultures elsewhere. A major ‘reorientation’ in thought and attitude was needed. And it was more than merely historical. Anquetil’s translation for the Zend Avesta was the first time an Asian text had been conceived in a way that completely ignored both the Christian and classical traditions. This is why Schwab the world only became truly round now: the history of the East was at last on a par with that of the West, on longer subordinate to it, on longer necessarily a part of that history. ‘The universality of the Christian god had been ended and a new universalism put in its place’. In his study of the French Societe Asiatique, Felix Lacote said in an article entitled ‘L’ Indianisme’ that ‘Europeans doubted that ancient India was worth the trouble of knowing . This was a tenacious prejudice against which Warren Hastings still had to struggle in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, by 1832 thing had been turned upside down and the German romantic August Wilhelm Schlegel took a different line. He said that his own century had produced more knowledge of India than ‘the twenty-one centuries since Alexander the Great.
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SECTION – 3
OUR ANCIENT SCIENTIFIC WISDOM
Many ancient civilizations such as the Aztecs, Egyptian, Mayan, Babylonian no doubt had remarkable scientific and technical knowledge but their heritage has disappeared for ever. Thus it is all the more remarkable that India’s scientific heritage despite its hoary antiquity should have survived at all! It is worth knowing how old Indian Civilization really is. In the ancient world, there was a symbiotic relationship between Religion and Science and scientific achievements took place in the Vedic Age – that is about 8000 years back. Raimon Panikkar, the author of ‘The Vedic Experience’ offers this comparison: Each 100 years of history being counted as one year of human life, Christianity is now just past 20, Islam is a teenager at 14, Buddhism, Taoism, Jainism, Confucianism are all 25, Zaroastrianism is 26, Shintoism is in its late 20s, Judaism is a mature 37. Sikhism is only 5 years old whereas Hinduism is at least 80 years old. By the same token, taking Francis Bacon as the herald of Modern Science with its inductive emphasis and amazing techno achievements is less than five years old compared to Indian Scientific Heritage which is eighty year old. (Francis Bacon who lived in the 16th century – the period of the European Renaissance, is the ‘father of modern science’ – often known as ‘Baconian Science’ lived at the same time as the early Gurus who established Sikhism). Thus, when we compare Indian Scientific Heritage with that of Modern European Scientific achievements, we can appreciate its antiquity.
SOME GREAT FOUNDERS OF INDIAN SCIENCE
ARYABHATT(476CE)
MASTER ASTRONOMER AND MATHEMATICIAN
Born in 476 CE in Kusumpur ( Bihar ), Aryabhatt's intellectual brilliance remapped the boundaries of mathematics and astronomy. In 499 CE, at the age of 23, he wrote a text on astronomy and an unparallel treatise on mathematics called "Aryabhatiyam." He formulated the process of calculating the motion of planets and the time of eclipses. Aryabhatt was the first to proclaim that the earth is round, it rotates on its axis, orbits the sun and is suspended in space - 1000 years before Copernicus published his heliocentric theory. He is also acknowledged for calculating p (Pi) to four decimal places: 3.1416 and the sine table in trigonometry. Centuries later, in 825 CE, the Arab mathematician, Mohammed Ibna Musa credited the value of Pi to the Indians, "This value has been given by the Hindus." And above all, his most spectacular contribution was the concept of zero without which modern computer technology would have been non-existent. Aryabhatt was a colossus in the field of mathematics.
BHASKARACHARYA II (1114-1183 CE)
GENIUS IN ALGEBRA
Born in the obscure village of Vijjadit (Jalgaon) in Maharastra, Bhaskaracharya's work in Algebra, Arithmetic and Geometry catapulted him to fame and immortality. His renowned mathematical works called "Lilavati" and "Bijaganita" are considered to be unparalled and a memorial to his profound intelligence. Its translation in several languages of the world bear testimony to its eminence. In his treatise " Siddhant Shiromani " he writes on planetary positions, eclipses, cosmography, mathematical techniques and astronomical equipment. In the " Surya Siddhant " he makes a note on the force of gravity: "Objects fall on earth due to a force of attraction by the earth. Therefore, the earth, planets, constellations, moon, and sun are held in orbit due to this attraction." Bhaskaracharya was the first to discover gravity, 500 years before Sir Isaac Newton . He was the champion among mathematicians of ancient and medieval India . His works fired the imagination of Persian and European scholars, who through research on his works earned fame and popularity.
ACHARYA KANAD (600 BCE)
FOUNDER OF ATOMIC THEORY
As the founder of " Vaisheshik Darshan "- one of six principal philosophies of India - Acharya Kanad was a genius in philosophy. He is believed to have been born in Prabhas Kshetra near Dwarika in Gujarat . He was the pioneer expounder of realism, law of causation and the atomic theory. He has classified all the objects of creation into nine elements, namely: earth, water, light, wind, ether, time, space, mind and soul. He says, "Every object of creation is made of atoms which in turn connect with each other to form molecules." His statement ushered in the Atomic Theory for the first time ever in the world, nearly 2500 years before John Dalton . Kanad has also described the dimension and motion of atoms and their chemical reactions with each other. The eminent historian, T.N. Colebrook , has said, "Compared to the scientists of Europe , Kanad and other Indian scientists were the global masters of this field."
NAGARJUNA (100 CE)
WIZARD OF CHEMICAL SCIENCE
He was an extraordinary wizard of science born in the nondescript village of Baluka in Madhya Pradesh . His dedicated research for twelve years produced maiden discoveries and inventions in the faculties of chemistry and metallurgy. Textual masterpieces like " Ras Ratnakar ," "Rashrudaya" and "Rasendramangal" are his renowned contributions to the science of chemistry. Where the medieval alchemists of England failed, Nagarjuna had discovered the alchemy of transmuting base metals into gold. As the author of medical books like "Arogyamanjari" and "Yogasar," he also made significant contributions to the field of curative medicine. Because of his profound scholarliness and versatile knowledge, he was appointed as Chancellor of the famous University of Nalanda . Nagarjuna's milestone discoveries impress and astonish the scientists of today.
ACHARYA CHARAK (600 BCE)
FATHER OF MEDICINE
Acharya Charak has been crowned as the Father of Medicine. His renowned work, the " Charak Samhita ", is considered as an encyclopedia of Ayurveda. His principles, diagoneses, and cures retain their potency and truth even after a couple of millennia. When the science of anatomy was confused with different theories in Europe , Acharya Charak revealed through his innate genius and enquiries the facts on human anatomy, embryology, pharmacology, blood circulation and diseases like diabetes, tuberculosis, heart disease, etc. In the " Charak Samhita " he has described the medicinal qualities and functions of 100,000 herbal plants. He has emphasized the influence of diet and activity on mind and body. He has proved the correlation of spirituality and physical health contributed greatly to diagnostic and curative sciences. He has also prescribed and ethical charter for medical practitioners two centuries prior to the Hippocratic oath. Through his genius and intuition, Acharya Charak made landmark contributions to Ayurvedal. He forever remains etched in the annals of history as one of the greatest and noblest of rishi-scientists.
ACHARYA SUSHRUT (600 BCE)
FATHER OF PLASTIC SURGERY
A genius who has been glowingly recognized in the annals of medical science. Born to sage Vishwamitra, Acharya Sushruta details the first ever surgery procedures in " Sushrut Samhita ," a unique encyclopedia of surgery. He is venerated as the father of plastic surgery and the science of anesthesia. When surgery was in its infancy in Europe , Sushrut was performing Rhinoplasty (restoration of a damaged nose) and other challenging operations. In the " Sushrut Samhita ," he prescribes treatment for twelve types of fractures and six types of dislocations. His details on human embryology are simply amazing. Sushrut used 125 types of surgical instruments including scalpels, lancets, needles, Cathers and rectal speculums; mostly designed from the jaws of animals and birds. He has also described a number of stitching methods; the use of horse's hair as thread and fibers of bark. In the " Sushrut Samhita ," and fibers of bark. In the " Sushrut Samhita ," he details 300 types of operations. The ancient Indians were the pioneers in amputation, caesarian and cranial surgeries. Acharya Sushrut was a giant in the arena of medical science.
VARAHAMIHIRA (499-587 CE)
EMINENT ASTROLOGER AND ASTRONOMERA
Renowned astrologer and astronomer who was honored with a special decoration and status as one of the nine gems in the court of King Vikramaditya in Avanti ( Ujjain ). Varahamihir's book "panchsiddhant" holds a prominent place in the realm of astronomy. He notes that the moon and planets are lustrous not because of their own light but due to sunlight. In the " Bruhad Samhita " and " Bruhad Jatak ," he has revealed his discoveries in the domains of geography, constellation, science, botany and animal science. In his treatise on botanical science, Varamihir presents cures for various diseases afflicting plants and trees. The rishi-scientist survives through his unique contributions to the science of astrology and astronomy.
ACHARYA PATANJALI (200 BCE)
FATHER OF YOGA
The Science of Yoga is one of several unique contributions of India to the world. It seeks to discover and realize the ultimate Reality through yogic practices. Acharya Patanjali , the founder, hailed from the district of Gonda (Ganara) in Uttar Pradesh . He prescribed the control of prana (life breath) as the means to control the body, mind and soul. This subsequently rewards one with good health and inner happiness. Acharya Patanjali 's 84 yogic postures effectively enhance the efficiency of the respiratory, circulatory, nervous, digestive and endocrine systems and many other organs of the body. Yoga has eight limbs where Acharya Patanjali shows the attainment of the ultimate bliss of God in samadhi through the disciplines of: yam, niyam, asan, pranayam, pratyahar, dhyan and dharna. The Science of Yoga has gained popularity because of its scientific approach and benefits. Yoga also holds the honored place as one of six philosophies in the Indian philosophical system. Acharya Patanjali will forever be remembered and revered as a pioneer in the science of self-discipline, happiness and self-realization.
ACHARYA BHARADWAJ (800 BCE)
PIONEER OF AVIATION TECHNOLOGY
Acharya Bharadwaj had a hermitage in the holy city of Prayag and was an ordent apostle of Ayurveda and mechanical sciences. He authored the " Yantra Sarvasva " which includes astonishing and outstanding discoveries in aviation science, space science and flying machines. He has described three categories of flying machines: 1.) One that flies on earth from one place to another. 2.) One that travels from one planet to another. 3.) And One that travels from one universe to another. His designs and descriptions have impressed and amazed aviation engineers of today. His brilliance in aviation technology is further reflected through techniques described byhim:
1.) Profound Secret: The technique to make a flying machine invisible through the application of sunlight and wind force.
2.) Living Secret: The technique to make an invisible space machine visible through the application of electrical force.
3.) Secret of Eavesdropping: The technique to listen to a conversation in another plane.
4.) Visual Secrets: The technique to see what's happening inside another plane.
Through his innovative and brilliant discoveries, Acharya Bharadwaj has been recognized as the pioneer of aviation technology.
2.) Living Secret: The technique to make an invisible space machine visible through the application of electrical force.
3.) Secret of Eavesdropping: The technique to listen to a conversation in another plane.
4.) Visual Secrets: The technique to see what's happening inside another plane.
Through his innovative and brilliant discoveries, Acharya Bharadwaj has been recognized as the pioneer of aviation technology.
ACHARYAKAPIL(3000BCE)
FATHER OF COSMOLOGY
FATHER OF COSMOLOGY
Celebrated as the founder of Sankhya philosophy, Acharya Kapil is believed to have been born in 3000 BCE to the illustrious sage Kardam and Devhuti. He gifted the world with the Sankhya School of Thought. His pioneering work threw light on the nature and principles of the ultimate Soul (Purusha), primal matter (Prakruti) and creation. His concept of transformation of energy and profound commentaries on atma, non-atma and the subtle elements of the cosmos places him in an elite class of master achievers - incomparable to the discoveries of other cosmologists. On his assertion that Prakruti, with the inspiration of Purusha, is the mother of cosmic creation and all energies, he contributed a new chapter in the science of cosmology. Because of his extrasensory observations and revelations on the secrets of creation, he is recognized and saluted as the Father of Cosmology.
Hortus Malabaricus
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The cover page of the original Latin edition of Hortus Malabaricus Hortus Malabaricus (meaning Garden of Malabar) is a comprehensive treatise that deals with the medicinal properties of the flora in the Indian state of Kerala. Originally written in Latin, it was compiled over a period of nearly 30 years and published from Amsterdam during 1678-1693. The book was conceived by Hendrik van Rheede, who was the Governor of the Dutch administration in Kochi (formerly Cochin) at the time. The book has since been translated by Dr. K. S. Manilal into English and Malayalam.
Van Rheede is said to have taken a keen personal interest in the compilation of the Hortus Malabaricus. The work was edited by a team of nearly a hundred including physicians [such as Ranga Bhat, Vinayaka Pandit and Appu Bhat] professors of medicine and botany, amateur botanists (such as Arnold Seyn, Theodore Jansson of Almeloveen, Paul Hermann, Johannes Munnicks, Joannes Commelinus, Abraham a Poot), and technicians, illustrators and engravers, together with the collaboration of company officials, clergymen (D. John Caesarius and Carmelite Mathaeus of St. Joseph). Van Rheede was also assisted by the King of Cochin and the ruling Zamorin of Calicut. Prominent among the Indian contributors were three Gouda Saraswat Brahmins named Ranga Bhat, Vinayaka Pandit, and Appu Bhat.
The ethnomedical original information in the work was provided by these three working on it for two continuous years morning and evening as certified by them. Their certificate to this effect is given in the first volume of the book
A page from the Preface to the book in which names of Carmelite Father Joannis Matthaei, the brahmin physicians Ranga Bhat, Vinayaka Pandit, and Appu Bhat and the Ayurveda vaiya Itti Achuthan can be seen. The comprehensive nature of the book is noted by Whitehouse in his Historical Notices of Cochin.
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INDIAN DISCOVERIES WHICH PREDATE WESTERN ACHIEVEMENTS
Indian discoveries predate Western achievements in a variety of scientific areas. Some of these are listed here. The following table is compiled from Heritage Publication Series – 66 of Dr. N. Gopalakrishnan. We are thankful to him for permitting the reproduction.
| No. | Subject | Discovered by | Year |
| 1 | Discovery and Use of Zero | Pingalacharya | 200 B.C. |
| 2 | Loans and Interests | Vishnusmruthi 100 BC | 100 BC |
| 3 | Charging Interest | Vishnu Smruthi | 100 B.C. |
| 4 | Pythagorus Theorem | Boudhayana | 700 BC |
| 5 | Binomial Theorem | Pingalachaaarya | 200 BC |
| 6 | Geometry in Sulbasutra-II | Boudhayana | 700 BC |
| 7 | Rules of Bodies in Motion | Aryabhata - I | 499 AD |
| 8 | Arc and Chord | Aryabhatta-I | 499 AD |
| 9 | Circle – Value of Phy | Aryabhaaata - I | 499 AD |
| 9-A | Circle – Value of Phy | Bhaskaracharya - I | 628 AD |
| 10 | Triangles | Aryabhatta - I | 499 AD |
| 11 | Rotation of Earth – II | Aryabhata - I | 499 AD |
| 12 | Eclipse-I | Aryabhata - I | 499 AD |
| 13 | Four Quadrants of Earth | Aryabhatta - I | 499 AD |
| 14 | Nrushiyojanam | Aryabhatta - I | 499 AD |
| 15 | Day Diameter | Panchasiddhantika 4 | 505 AD |
| 16 | Meridian and Time | Varahamihira | |
| 17 | Knowledge on Infinity | Brahmaguptha Bhaskaracharya - II | 600 AD 1148 AD |
| 18 | Use of Ratio and Proportion | Bhaskaracharya - I | 628 AD |
| 19 | Use of Fractions | Bhaskaracharya - I | 628 AD |
| 20 | Partnership and Shares | Bhaskaracharya I | 628 AD |
| 21 | Progression of the Type 1 sq. + 2 sq.+3 sq+4 sq. | Bhaskaracharya I | 628 AD |
| 22 | Progression of Type 1 cu+2 cu+3 cu+4 cu | Bhaskaracharya I | 628 AD |
| 23 | Triangles – (Quiz) | Bhaskara I | 628 AD |
| 24 | Rotation of Earth-I | Brahmagupta | 629 AD |
| 25 | Place Values-I | Vyasa Bhashaya to Yoga Sutra | 650 AD |
| 26 | Parallax-II | Lallacharya | 700 AD |
| 27 | Parallax-III | Lallacharya | 700 AD |
| 28 | Apogee, Perigee and Orbit of Earth | Lallacharya | 700 AD |
| 29 | Appearance of circumference of earth | Lallacharya | 700 AD |
| 30 | Shape of Earth | Lallacharya | 700 AD |
| 31 | Globe | Varahamihira | 505 AD |
| 32 | Meridian and Time | Bhaskara I | 628 AD |
| 33 | Eclipse – II | Lallacharya | 700 AD |
| 34 | Eclipse-II | Lallacharya | 700 AD |
| 35 | Angular Dimensions | Vateswara | 880 AD |
| 36 | Horizon | Vateswara | 880 AD |
| 37 | Astronomical Definitions | Vateswara | 880 AD |
| 38 | Equator | Vateswara | 880 AD |
| 39 | 6 0’Clock Circle | Vateswara | 880 AD |
| 40 | Circle of Diurnal Motion | Vateswara | 880 AD |
| 41 | Day Radius | Vateswara | 880 AD |
| 42 | Ecliptic | Vateswara | 880 AD |
| 43 | Setting Point of Ecliptic | Vateswara | 880 AD |
| 44 | Rising – Setting Line | Vateswara | 880 AD |
| 45 | Day Radius and Earthsine | Vateswara | 880 AD |
| 46 | Sun’s Prime Vertical | Vateswara | 880 AD |
| 47 | Progression of the Type En+En Sq + En Cu | Sreedharacharya | 900 AD |
| 48 | First Degree Indeterminate Equation | Sreedharacharya | 900 AD |
| 49 | Newton Gauss (1670AD) | Vateswara | 904 AD |
| 50 | First Order Equation – II | Sreedharacharya | 990 AD |
| 51 | Equations of Higher Order – I | Sreedharacharya | 990 AD |
| 52 | Permutations and Combination - I | Sridharachaarya | 990 AD |
| 53 | Interest Calculation | Sridharacharya | 990 AD |
| 54 | Meeting place of the two surfaces | Aryabhata I | 499 AD |
| 55 | Meridian | Sankaranarayana I | 950 AD |
| 56 | Eclipse – I | Sankaranarayana | 950 AD |
| 57 | Knowledge on Infinity | Brahmaguptha Bhaskaracharya II | 600 AD 1148 AD |
| 58 | Calculations with Zero | Sripati | 1039 AD |
| 59 | Permutations and Combination - II | Bhaskaracharya | 1114 AD |
| 60 | First Order Equation – I | Bhaskaracharya II | 1114 AD |
| 61 | Equations of Higher Order – II | Bhaskaracharya II | 1114 AD |
| 62 | Area of Circle and Sphere | Bhaskaracharya | 1114 AD |
| 63 | Polygonal | Bhaskara II | 1114 AD |
| 64 | Lenth of ARC – Chord | Bhaskara II | 1114 AD |
| 65 | Arc and Arrow | Bhaskara II | 1114 AD |
| 66 | Volumes of Cones | Bhaskara II | 1114 AD |
| 67 | Gravity | Bhaskara II | 1114 AD |
| 68 | Use of Average Values | Bhaskaracharya II | 1150 AD |
| 69 | Gregory’s (1632 AD) | Madhava | 1350 AD |
| 70 | De Moivre’s (1650 AD) approximation | Madhavacharya | 1350 AD |
| 71 | Lhuiler’s (1782 AD) formula | Madhavacharya | 1360 AD |
| 72 | Lebnitz(1673 AD) Power series | Puthumana Somayaji | 1440 AD |
| 73 | Newton’s Infinite GP convergent series | Nilakanta | 1444 AD |
| 74 | Taylor (1685 AD) series of Sine and Cosine | Nilakanta | 1444 AD |
| 75 | Somayaji’s Theorems | Puthumana Somayaji | 1450 AD |
| 76 | ARC and Chord | Puthumana Somayaji | 1450 AD |
| 77 | Sine, Cosine Radius and ARC | Puthumana Somayaji | 1450 AD |
| 78 | Newton’s (1660 AD) power series | Puthumana Somayaji | 1450 AD |
| 79 | Velocity of Planets per day | Puthumana Somayaji | 1450 AD |
| 80 | Place Values - II | Sankaracharya | - |
| 81 | Tycho Brahe Reduction of Ecliptic | Achyuta Pisharoti | - |
| 82 | Parallax - I | Lallacharya | - |
