Did the Hindus Lack a Sense of History? Author(s): Arvind Sharma Source: Numen, Vol. 50, No.

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DID THE HINDUS LACKA SENSE OF HISTORY?

ARVIND SHARMA

Summary The view that the Hindus do not possess a sense of history has become so commonplace as to virtually achieve the status of an axiom in the study of Indic religion and culture.It is the argumentof this paperthat this view may standin need of revision in the light of the epigraphic,literary,andeven artisiticevidence presented therein,specially when it is assessed in the context of the variousforeign invasionsto which Indiahas been subject.

The view that Hinduism as a religion, or the Hindus as a people, lack a sense of historyhas been expressedso often as to have become a cliche (Basham 1975:54; Pitt 1958:20; McCrindle1960:10; Ghosal 1965:1).1Even when scholarshave tried to take a more sophisticated as opposed to a cliched view, the effect has often been to reinforceit. ProfessorA.L. Basham, for instance, would concede to the Hindus a sense of the past,but still not of history(1999:44). Elsewherehe allows for a sense of antiquity,if only to suggest thatHinduismpossessed an exaggeratedsense of it (Basham1999:4), while some have arguedthat Hinduismpossessed a sense of historicalpessimism but, again, not of history(Klostermaier1994:117). Even when scholars take a more nuanced view and distinguish between: (1) lack of chronology (Pitt 1958:20), (2) lack of history (McCrindle 1960:109; Aiyangar 1941:145; Mill 1975:35), (3) lack of sense of history (Aiyangar 1941:416), (4) lack of historiography (Majumdar1952:47-51), and (5) the lack of a theory of history (Asthana 1992:20), the net effect is the same. The alleged lack of historiographyand a theory of history in India only buttresses the

1No less thanover

sixty referencesto this effect can be documented. NUMEN, Vol. 50

? KoninklijkeBrill NV, Leiden (2003) Also availableonline - www.brill.nl

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previousclaim of a lack of a sense of history,while its abundant history makes the lack of a sense of it only standout more starkly. Similarly,when Hinduismis comparedto otherreligions of Indian origin, such as Buddhism,Jainismor Sikhism, it suffers by this comparison,in the sense that these latterreligions are usually represented as being endowed, at least relatively to Hinduism, with a greateror better sense of history. It is then noted that the Mahdvarimsa the and record the history of Buddhism in Sri Lafika (Basham DTpavatmia 1964:46);the deathof LordMahavirainitiatesa historicalera in Jainism (Jaini 1979:37-38) and not only is Sikhism'shistoryrelativelyrecent and well documented(Singh 1966; Embree1988:493), a sense of historywithin it is also manifest(Cole and Sambhi 1998:8). The aim of this paperis to examine the thesis thatHinduslacked a sense of history on the basis of the evidence on this point available to us from ancient and, at times, medieval India. Out of the five senses in which the claim that the Hindus lacked a sense of history, namely as indicatinga lack of chronology,history,"sense"of history, and historiography theoryof history,can be made,this paperwill focus on only one understanding it, namely, the lack of historical sense. of This is not to deny that all the five dimensionsare interconnected and mutually relevant. Indeed they will all be engaged but only as they bear on the presence or absence of a "sense" of history. As each of the five senses could constitute the theme of a paper by itself, we wish to place the issue of the absence or presenceof a historicalsense centrestage,in order to make our undertakingmore precise and the outcome more definite.It might be useful to specify what we mean by "sense"of history or "historicalsense" before we proceed further.In this matter,we shall follow the lead providedby Romila Thapar.She writes (1978:268):
Since much of the argumenthinges on the definition of a sense of history, let me begin by suggesting a definition. A sense of history can be defined as a consciousness of past events, which events are relevantto a particularsociety, seen in a chronological frameworkand expressed in a form which meets the needs of that society. It may be arguedthat this is too restricteda definitionand that history implies a concern with political events and, in addition, involves

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the analysis of past events by suggesting causal relationshipsbased on rational explanationandwhich, therefore,assumesa criticaljudgementon the pastby the historian.It is, however,debatablewhetherthis extension of the definitionof an historical sense is not a productof modem thinking, and where such historical writingdoes exist in ancientcultures(as indeedit does even in the Indiantradition at a laterperiod),it is not a consciously thought-out philosophyof historybut the result of an individual and ratheranalytical mind applying itself to historical narrative. I

The place to look for a historical sense, if any, among Hindus, one would imagine, would not so much be the religious literature of the Hindus, with the Brahmanas acting as its custodians and maintaining it through oral transmission. For if Hinduism does not attach the same theological or teleological value to history as the Abrahamic religions and secular Western culture are wont to, then this is obviously not the most promising place to look for it. One should instead turn to the records left behind by those who made history in India as elsewhere: the rulers:
The favouredmedium in which the rulers of India left behind their recordsare inscriptions.About 90.000 inscriptionshave so far been discovered in different parts of India, out of which the largest numbers come from the Tamil-, Kannada-,and Telegu-speakingareas--about 35.000, 17.000 and 10.000 respectively. Many of these inscriptionshave not yet been published.Every year new inscriptionsare being discovered and studied, and our knowledge of early Indian history is being graduallywidened.... The popular belief that all importantinscriptionshave already been discovered, studied and utilised for the of reconstruction history is wrong... (Sircar1977:91)

Whether the Hindus did or did not posses a sense of history-or geography for that matter, will then have to be determined by an examination of these inscriptions. The importance of these inscriptions in the reconstruction of ancient Indian history has been recognized for over a century now, if not longer. Vincent A. Smith writes:
Inscriptionshave been given the first place in the list because they are, on the whole, the most importantand trustworthysource of our knowledge. Unfortu-

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nately, they do not at present go furtherback than the third century BC with certainty,althoughit is not unlikely thatrecordsconsiderablyearliermay be discovered,andit is possible thata very few knowndocumentsmay go back beyond the reign of Asoka. Indianinscriptions,which usually are incised on either stone or metal, may be eitherofficial documentsset forthby kings or otherauthorities, or recordsmade by privatepersonsfor variouspurposes.Most of the inscriptions on stone eithercommemorateparticular events or recordthe dedicationof buildor images. The commemorative documentsrangefrom the simple signature ings of a pilgrim to long and elaborateSanskritpoems detailingthe achievementsof victorious kings. Such poems are called prasasti. The inscriptionson metal are for the most part grants of land inscribedon plates of copper. They are sometimes extremely long, especially in the south, and usually include information aboutthe reigningking andhis ancestors.Exact knowledgeof the dates of events in early Hinduhistory,so faras it has been attained,restschiefly on the testimony of inscriptions.(Smith 1923:xvi-xvii)2

Notwithstanding this tribute, epigraphic evidence on the question of the sense of history as found among the Hindus does suffer from certain limitations. As already noted in the passage just cited, very few known documents go back beyond the reign of Asoka, that is, beyond the third century BC. They are often dated in the regnal year of the king, and when obviously not so, the era is not specified. Moreover, their distribution over the country is not even, although the fact that they relatively abound in those areas where Islamic rule took longest to penetrate invites the proposition that they may also have suffered iconoclastic destruction, in keeping with the pattern of the relative paucity of such evidence from the Hindu period available from areas under prolonged Islamic rule (Spear 1994:15). The stylistic formalism of epigraphic commemorative literature (stuti) may also at times compromise factual and geographical exactitude, or even truth (Sircar 1971a: 1-2). Nevertheless, despite these handicaps, they remain a rich resource for assessing a sense of history among the Hindus. A review of two of such well-known inscriptions: the Junagadh Inscription of Rudradaman (c. 190 AD) and the Allahabad Pillar Inscription of Samudragupta (c. 350 AD) might be helpful in this connection.
2 The passage has been retainedintactin Spear 1994:13.

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which is "among the The Junagadhinscription of Rudradaman, and proves that Rudradaman earliest dated records of ancient India, was reigning in AD 150" (Basham 1999:62), records the repair of a lake called Sudarsana,which had burst under the impact of a violent storm. It is dated in the year 72, thus indicating a sense of chronology,althoughno erais specified.It is usuallytakento represent the Saka era, which places it c. 150 AD. Then the history of the constructionof the dam is mentioned:as originallyconstructedunder the orders of Vaisya Pusyagupta,who was the provincial governor of the region in which the dam is located, namely Saurastra,in the time of CandraguptaMaurya. These names are stated as such in the epigraphand are not being inferred.It is then recordedthat the facilities were upgradedand the conduits for irrigationprovided by Yuvanaraja Tushaspha,the governorof the same province duringthe time of Asoka. Thus the succession of the kings of the Mauryan dynasty is correctly stated. The ancestry of Rudradamanhimself is specified with such precision that it has helped resolve debates: it is stated that the inscription was incised "In the 52nd year, in reign of Rudradaman,son of Jayadaman,grandson of Chashtana and great-grandsonof Ysamotika"(Raychaudhuri 1999:431). It goes time it was seriously damaged by on to say that in Rudradaman's a storm and repaired again by Rudradaman'sorders. Apart from these details, severalotheraspects of the inscriptiondemandattention for the historical sense implicit in them. The inscription describes as Rudradaman resorted to by all the "castes" and chosen as their
lord to protect them (sarva-varna-abhigamya-raksanarthamh patitve

vrtena) (Banerjea 1957:282). This has been regarded as historical evidence of the election of a king in ancient India, along with that of the election of Gopala, the founderof Pala Dynasty in Bengal in the eighth century(Kane 1968-77, 3:30). Another interesting aspect is provided by the claim that Rudradaman was "the restorer of kings who had been deprived of their
kingdoms" (bhrasta-raja-pratisthapaka) (Banerjea 1957:282; Ray-

chaudhuri1999:752). The inscriptionrefers to Rudradaman defeating twice. The exact Lord of the Deccan (daksindpatha-pati) Satakarmi,

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identity of the kind remains uncertain -he has been variously identified by Rapson and B.N. Mukherjee with Vasisthiputra Sri Satakari, by D.R. Bhandarkar with Gautamiputra Satakami himself and by K. Gopalachari with Siva Sri Satakami (Banerjea 1957:282). The crucial point is that apparently the king was reinstated in the regions thus regained by defeating the Satavahanas. This resonates with three kinds of conquests specified in the Arthasastra: "The first is conquest in which the defeated king is forced to render homage and tribute, after which he, or a member of the family is reinstated as a vassal. The second is victory in which enormous booty is demanded and large portions of enemy territory annexed. The third involves the political annihilation of the conquered kingdom and its incorporation in that of the victor" (Basham 1999:124). The Sanskrit terms for these are dharmavijaya, lobhavijaya and asuravijaya respectively. Apparently Rudradaman was following the dharmavijaya model but with a wrinkle. Since areas lost to the Satavahanas were being recovered, this was more like reconquest or punarvijaya: dharmapunarvijaya. History is here grabbing at the coattails of political theory. Such a policy is recommended by Kautilya (vii.161) in the Arthasastra, as well as by Yajiavalkya (i.342-343) in a text of dharmasastra. The epigraphic confirmation it receives here and partially later, indicates a general awareness of its historicity perhaps as much as its sagacity. From the point of view of the historical sense (as distinguished from the political) of the ancient Indians, it is worth noting that this epigraphic information about Rudradaman's conquest is confirmed by an extra-Indic literary source.
In the Geographyof Ptolemy, written about AD 140 with materialsgathereda few years earlier,Ozene, i.e. Ujjayani,capital of Avanti (west Malwa), is mentioned as the headquarters Tiastenes,undoubtedlya Greek corruptionof the of name Chashtana.In the Junagarh that inscriptionof Rudradaman, ruleris represented as the lord of many countriesincluding Akara,Avanti,Anupa, Aparanta, and Saurashtra Anarta(Dvarakaregion in Saurashtra), which had all been confrom Gautamiputra AD 106-30), probablywhen Rudradaman was a (c. quered under his grandfather. Rudradaman furtherclaims to have twice deKshatrapa feated Satakarni,lord of Dakshinapatha, whom he did not destroy,as he was a nearrelative.This Satakarniseems to be no otherthanGautamlputra. closeThe

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ness of relationbetween the two rulers is explained by the Kanheriinscription which refersto a Kardamaka Ru(dra) princessas the daughterof Mahakshatrapa and who is generally identifiedwith Rudradaman, as the wife of Vasisthiputra Pulumavi and a son Satakarni,apparentlya co-uterinebrotherof Vasisthiputra claim to have reinstated Rudradaman's of Gautamiputra. deposedkings may have oustedby Gauof referenceto the reinstatement certainfeudatoriesof Nahapana, Satakari. (Sircar1968:183) tamiputra

In the same inscription, Rudradaman speaks of defeating the Yaudheyas: "Loath to submit rendered proud as they were of having manifested their titles of heroes among all Ksatriyas" (Banerjea 1957:282; Sanskrit text Kane 1968-77, 3:89). A.L. Basham notes (1999:97-98):
The Mahabhdratatakes full cognisance of the existence of republicantribes in WesternIndia,and theirsurvivaluntil the 5th centuryADis attestedby numerous coins and a few shortinscriptions.Perhapsthe most importantwesternrepublic which issued numerouscoins, was thatof the Yaudheyasin NorthernRajasthan, tribe";one of theirofficial seals bearingthe inscription"Victoryto the Yaudheya has been found, with the proud legend, "Of the Yaudheyas,who possess the inscriptionsurvives.This Yaudheya magic spell of victory";andone fragmentary been worn away mentions the chief of the tribe, whose name has unfortunately but by the weatheringstone; he has the regal title of maharaja, he is also called mahasenapati,or general-in-chief,and he is "placedat the head of the Yaudheya people."

There is a widespread impression that monarchy of the hereditary type was the main form of government in ancient India. The Junagadh inscription indicates that this common view may be in need of revision in more ways than one. Here we have an elected king celebrating his martial success against a republican martial tribe! It may make much more sense to consider the texture of ancient Indian polity as weaving the strands of monarchy and republicanism, and sometimes in surprising ways, than thinking of it as characterized by a seamless personal despotism. The Inscription also sheds interesting light on administrative arrangements in ancient India in at least three ways. One should note that Asoka's governor in this region was a Yavanaraja. This means that "foreigners" could find gainful employment in the Indian system of government, as the name YavanarajaTushashpa "is of Iranian origin"

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(Raychaudhuri 1999:601, 617). The Junadagh Inscription confirms this while describing the way repairs were carried out in Rudradaman's time:
Shortlybefore AD 150-51, a terriblecyclone caused a serious breach,as a result of which Sudarsana lake ceased to exist. When the peasantswere fearingfailure of the annualcrops, Rudradaman sent his councillors and executive officers for of the repairof the dam and the reconstruction the lake. All the officials having been unsuccessfulin the task, PahlavaSuvisakha,son of Kulaipa,was appointed governor of Anarta and Surashtra.The efforts of this Parthianofficial in the were crowned with success, and the reservoirwas employmentof Rudradaman into being. (Sircar1968:184) again brought

It also adds to our understanding of ancient Indian administration by drawing a distinction between "deliberative officials (matisaciva or dhlsaciva) and executive officials (karmasaciva). The former were councillors, while the latter approximately corresponded to high ranking civil servants of modem times" (Basham 1999:100; Scharfe 1989:152). But it is the third aspect which is the most striking as it offers an insight into the working of the king's council - a reference one finds lodged in the middle of the following comment by A.L. Basham:
In fact the council often exerted great powers. It might transactbusiness in the king's absence, and the Asokan inscriptions show that it might make minor decisions without consulting him. The Saka satrap Rudradaman referredthe question of rebuildingthe Gimar dam to his councillors, who advised against the at it, so thathe was forced to undertake work againsttheiradvice, apparently the expense of the privy purse and not of public funds. The KashmirChronicle gives one case of a privy council deposing the king, and anotherof its vetoing the king's nominationof his successor.(Basham 1999:99)

The date of the Junagadh inscription is also of interest from another point of view. The cyclical cosmology of the yugas is regularly associated with Hinduism and sometimes adduced as evidence that the Hindus did not develop the concept of linear history. The time when this cyclical concept3 came into vogue is far from certain, although it seems to be firmly in place by around 400 AD. The Junagadh
3 The cycle is repeatedbut not replicated,see Thomas 1997:83-89.

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inscription seems to indicate a transitional phase in its growth. It contains echoes the cataclysmic close of a yuga in the expression: yuga-nidhana-sadrsa-parama-ghora-vegena (Kane 1968-77, 3:890). Some points made pertaining to Rudradaman in the Junagadh Inscription await clarification. He is said "to have enjoyed royal fortune even when he was in his mother's womb. The exact significance of the claim, however, cannot be determined in the present state of our knowledge" (Sircar 1968:185). We referred earlier to the different views regarding the identity of the Satakamrni king twice defeated but due to "nearness of connection" (sambandhavidarata) Rudradaman did not destroy him. B.N. Mukherjee favours his identification with Vasisthiputra, as opposed to the one made with Gautamiputra by D.C. Sircar earlier, when he writes (Raychaudhuri 1999:745):
This Satakarnican be identified with VasisthiputraSatakami whose queen is referredto in an inscription at Kanheri as belonging to the family of the Karddamaka Rudra(Rudradaman I). kings andas the daughterof Makakshatrapa The legend of a coin-type(lion: bow andtree)attributes title of Makakshatrapa the to Vasisthiputra. do not know whetherhe controlled,at least for some time, We the existing Satavahana and especially north-western Deccan (already territory, as annexedby Rudradaman) a subordinate ruler.His Nanaghatinscriptionof the = i.e. regnalyear 13 describeshim as Chatarapana (Khatarapana Kshatrapanam, "of the Kshatrapa family"?).

Two other points of a slightly different nature but of comparatively broader interest may also be examined. One of them consists of Rudradaman's claim that he won the title of mahaksatrapa for himself (svayamadhigata-mahaksatrapa-nima). Two converging reasons have been proposed by way of explanation: it might mean that he did not inherit the title from his father, and that this royal house might have faced a serious crisis which he weathered, thereby feeling entitled to call himself mahdksatrapa (Gopalachari 1957:282).4 The precise explanation eludes us at the moment.5

4 Does the case of Skandagupta the Gupta dynasty provide a partialparallel of

here? See Tripathi1967:260. 5 The claim could also containa conventionalelement, see Sircar 1971a:8.

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A more intriguingissue is raised by the question of the degree of his commitmentto the varna order,or the "castesystem"indicatedin as the inscription.Ram SharamSharmaidentifiesRudradaman a "supporterof the vara society" (R.S. Sharma 1980:241), on the basis of the inscription,and elsewherebringshim closer to Manuon this point when he writes: "In the second centuryinscriptionsof Gautamiputra Satakari and Rudradaman emphasize the preservationof varnas as one of the main royal functions.This aspect is also stressedby Manu, who is keen on avoidingvarmasatnkara" Sharma1980:330). (R.S. This enables one to introduce a point which will be elaborated later, as to the extent to which such descriptions are historical or is conventional,for in manyways the tenorof the Junagadh Inscription differentfrom that of Manu. In fact, accordingto Manu, Rudradaman would probably qualify as a "fallen ksatriya"(x.44) on account of his "caste."It should not be overlooked however that in medieval times even the BuddhistPaladynasticrulersclaimedto have prevented
varnasankara.6

dated AD 150, is Finally, the "Girar inscriptionof Rudradaman, the earliest surviving example of courtly Sanskrit prose" (Basham 1999:415). This should serve both as an observationand as a warning. As an observationit helps to locate the inscriptionin the history of Sanskritprose, but as such prose has a tendency to become florid, it also serves as a warning to allow for a measure of literarylatitude. Thus "whenRudradaman claims on line 15 of the Junagadh inscription to have 'been wreathed with many garlands at the svayamvara of kings' daughters'this, too, should be regardedas poetic hyperbolein an inscriptionwhich follows conventionalpoetical standards" (Scharfe 1989:124 n. 773), similar to the claims made by Bilhana about the VI. CalukyaKing Vikramaditya The statementthat "his good rule ...
Emperors,who ruled in Bengal and Bihar from the eighth to the twelfthcentury,claimedto have been staunchfollowers of the Buddhistfaith(paramasaugata). It is, however,interestingto note that, like typically zealous kings avowing the Brahmanicalfaith, the Palas were eager to suppressthe social evil styled varnasankara"(Sircar 1971b:187).
6 "The Pala

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rid his dominions of disease, robbers, wild beasts and other pests" (Sircar 1968:185) may also, at least in part, be conventional,as also the latter parts of his boast "thathe filled his treasuryby means of bali [tax], sulka [tolls] and bhdga [due share]levied accordingto the sastras and that his treasuryoverflowed with heaps of gold, silver, diamonds,lapis lazuli, and other gems" (Kane 1968-77, 3:197). It is worthnoting here that "hopelessexaggerationis less noticeablein the descriptionof the Indianrulersof the earlierperiodof [Indian]history. For this reason,the earlierthe king is, the greateris ourrelianceon his claims, in spite of the obvious fact that there is always a considerable amountof exaggerationin the royalprasastis composed by the court (Sircar1971a:2). poets of Indianmonarchs" The sequel to the repairs performedon Lake Sudarsanatestifies furtherto a historical sense on the part of Hindus. We know from the JunagadhRock Inscriptionof Skandagupta that "breachesagain in the embankmentin G.E. 136 = 456 AD and Parnadatta's appeared who was the governorof Gimar,rebuilt it of solid son, Cakrapalita, at an "immeasurable cost." To commemoratethe successful masonry or completion of the work, a temple of the God Cakrabhrit Visnu was constructedin G.E. 138 = 458 AD. No traces of the lake or the temple are found now" (Tripathi 1967:262). Significantly, the and betray familiarity inscriptionsof both Rudradaman Skandagupta with the technicaltermsfoundin the Arthasastra(Kautilyai.8-10; see 1999:9). Raychaudhuri This takes one into the Guptaperiod and preparesthe groundfor the discussion of the Allahabadpillar inscription of Samudragupta (c. 335-375). The inscription"is unhappilyundated,but it is surely not a posthumousdocument,as supposedby Fleet. It must have been engraved about 360 AD-after the completion of Samudragupta's 'digvijaya' and before the performanceof Asvamedhawhich is not mentionedin it" (Tripathi1967:241;also see Ram 1980:131-133). As the mainfocus of the presentdisquisitionis an assessmentof the historicalsense of the Hindus, and the light that epigraphicevidence might shed on the issue, the location of the inscriptionis worthnoting in itself. Rama ShankarTripathinotes that "with his ideal of war

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and aggrandizement, Samudragupta is the very antithesis of Asoka, who stood for peace and piety. The former's achievements formed the subject of an elaborate panegyric by the court poet Harisena, and, strangely enough, Samudragupta chose to leave a permanent record of his sanguinary conquests by the side of the ethical exhortations of Asoka on one of his pillars, now inside the fort of Allahabad" (Tripathi 1967:241). If this was a deliberate decision on the part of Samudragupta then it tells us a lot about the sense of history of the Hindus. Asoka and Samudragupta are thus comparable not only historically but also epigraphically: "we possess a long eulogy of this king (Samudragupta) by one of his officials named Harishena and engraved on the Asoka pillar of Allahabad. This eulogy or prasasti gives a detailed account of the career and personality of Samudragupta, such as we do not possess of any other king of ancient India, except the great Maurya Emperor Asoka" (Majumdar 1970:7).7 The contents of the inscription, which seem to follow a geographical rather than a chronological order, provide a clear picture of the pattern of Samudragupta's military and political prowess. The pattern consists of four categories. First comes a list of nine kings who were "violently exterminated." One recalls here the designation of Mahapadma Nanda as sarvaksatrantaka, or destroyer of all the ksatriyas, comparable to Samudragupta's claim of being sarvarajocchetta (uprooter of all
7Hemchandra Raychaudhurialso compares him to Asoka: "SamudraGupta favoured poetry as well as the agstras, while Asoka seems to have specialized in scripturalstudies alone. The former undertookmilitary campaigns with the object of sarva-prithivT-jaya, conquest of the whole earth, as known to his panegyrist,the latter eschewed military conquest after the Kalinga war and organized missions to effect Dhamma-vijaya, conquestof the heartsof men, in threecontinents.Yet in spite of these differencestherewas much thatwas common to these remarkable men. Both laid stress on parakrama,ceaseless exertionin the cause in which they believed. Both expressed solicitude for the people committed to their care, and were kind even to no vanquishedenemies. And both laid emphasison Dharma. Samudragupta less than Dharmasoka,made firm the rampartof the true law (Dharma-prachTra-bandhah)" (1999:485-486).

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kings) in Aryavarta (Raychaudhuri 1999:471). These nine monarchs were the following: Rudradeva, Matila, Nagadatta, Candra-varman, Ganapatinaga, Nagasena, Nandin, Acyuta and Balavarman.8 In relation to these kings Samudragupta followed the policy of asuravijaya, a name which, according to Hemachandra Raychaudhuri "may have been derived from the Assyrians, the ruthlessness of whose warfare is well known" (Raychaudhuri 1999:474, n. 1). This view is strengthened by the fact that Kautilya "claims to have studied the practices prevailing in contemporary states" (ii.10) (R.S. Sharma 1980:160; Kangle 1988, 3:74) and although he is not contemporaneous with the Assyrians, his location at Taxila and involvement in national and (as a result of Macedonian incursion) international politics renders the idea less far-fetched than it might appear otherwise. Within this larger category also fall the states with the status of tributaries.
If we now consider the position of the tributarystates on the frontiers of Samudra-gupta'sdominions, we may form an idea of the territorydirectly In of under the administration Samudra-gupta. the east it included the whole of Bengal, exceptingits south-eastern boundaryranalong extremity.Its northern the foothills of the Himalayas.In the west it extendedup to the territoryof the Madrasin the Punjaband probablyincludedits easterndistrictsbetween Lahore and Karnal.From Karnalthe boundaryfollowed the Yamunaup to its junction with the Chambal,andthence along an imaginaryline drawnalmostdue southto and Bhilsa. The southernboundaryran from Bhilsa to Jubbulpore thence along is the Vindhyarangeof hills. Samudra-gupta said to have conqueredall the Atavirajyas (forest kingdoms) which probablydenoted the hilly tracts,full of dense forest, extendingeastwardsfrom Jubbulpore. (Majumdar1970:9)

The claim to the subjugation of forest kingdoms (atavika-rajya) of Dabhala or the Jabalpur territory is confirmed by another inscription of Samudragupta, that at Eran. Similarly, the defeat of Nagasena, one of the nine uprooted kings, is confirmed by a passage in Bana's Harsacarita which speaks of Nagasena, born in the Naga-family, whose confidential deliberations were divulged by a
Matila, Nagadatta, Although "the dominions of ... five kings, viz. Rudradeva, Nandin, and Balavarmancannot be located at present, we can form an idea of the thus conquered.. ." (Majumdar 1970:8). territory 8

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sarikabird,andwho met his doom in Padmavati (naga-kula-janmanah dsidndso ndgasenasyapadmdvatydm) sdrikasrivita-mantrasya (Rayhaudhuri1999:473). The second category includes rulers towardswhom he followed a or and He policy of dharmavijaya, subjugation reinstatement. adopted this policy during his campaign in peninsularIndia in the course of which he subduedtwelve kings: Mahendra,Vyaghraraja, Mantaraja, Mahendra,Svamidatta,Damana, Visnugupta,Nilaraja,Hastivarman, Ugrasena,Kuberaand Dhananijaya (Tripathi1967:242-243). The geographical location of each king is specified and suggests a march down the easterncoast to the Cherakingdomandreturn-march way by of and Khandesh,although four of these: "Mantaraja of Maharastra Svamidattaof Kottira, Nilarajaof Avamuktaand DhanaiKaurala, cannot be identifiedwith certainty"(Majumdar jaya of Kusthalapura 1970:10). A thirdcategoryconsists of tribesand frontierkings who submitted and gratifiedhis imperial commands to the might of Samudragupta by "paying all kinds of taxes, obeying his orders and coming to pay homage" (Majumdar 1970:10). Nine tribes9 and five frontier states?1are listed in the inscription.These nine tribes can be divided into groups of two, one group comprising the Malavas, Yaudheyas, Madrakasand Arjunayanas,which seen to lie towardsthe west, and anothercomprising the Sanakanikas,Abhiras, Prarjunas,Kakas and of which seems to lie in CentralIndia,the identification Kharaparakas, the last threebeing less certainthanof the firsttwo. Of the five frontier the kingdoms: Samatata,Kamaripa, Nepala, Davaka and Kartrpura, first three are well known, and the last two have been identifiedmore in tentativelywith Nowgong districtof Assam andKartarpur Jalandhar district. It is worth noting that these "five tributarykingdoms are expressly stated to be situated on the frontiers of Samudragupta's
9 Malavas, Arjunayana, Kaka Sanakanika, Yaudheya,Madraka,Abhira,Prarjuna, and Kharaparikas (Tripathi1967:244-245). 10Samatata (South-Eastern Bengal); Davaka (Dacca); Kamarupa(Assam); Nepal and Kartrpura (Tripathi1967:244).

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dominions.The feudatorytribalstates mentionedwith them were also 1970:8). presumablyon the frontier" (Majumdar The fourth category consisted of foreign potentateswho symbolically recognisedhis sovereignty.These included Sri Lafika,and areas whereKusanasandSakasheld sway.They soughtto "winthe favourof the greatemperorby personalattendanceat his court,offeringdaughters in marriage,and askingpermissionfor the use of imperialcoins or soliciting imperialchartersconfirmingthem in the enjoymentof their territories" (ibid.). Although the Allahabadpillar inscriptionenumeratesthis pattern of pan-Indianconquest as it were (with the exception of Malwa) it does not state that Samudragupta performedthe Asvamedhasacrifice. a coin issued by him seems to commemorateit. The gold However, coin shows "a horse standingbefore a sacrificialpost (yupa) on the obverse, and on the reverse the queen and the legend: Asvamedhaparakramah" (Tripathi1967:247). Some matterspertaining the Allahabadpillarinscriptiondo await to clarification. noted earlier,some scholars,following Keilhor, take As it as posthumousin nature(Scharfe1989:63n. 293; Tripathi1967:240) but most scholars think otherwise. The fact that the prasasti does not mention the performanceof the Asvamedha supportsthe latter view. Scharfe(1989:56) points out: "we notice thatpublic ritualswere frequentat the beginning of a dynasty,althoughsome have ventured to read evidence of an Asvamedhain the inscription"(Raychaudhuri 1999:484). The fact that the inscription does not mention the Vakatakasis more puzzling. As Hemchandra notes (1999:477): "It Raychaudhuri is not a little surprisingthat the AllahabadPrasasticontains no clear referenceto the Vakatakaswho are known to have dominatedpartof the regionbetween Bundelkhand the Pengafigain the fifth century and AD."Some explanationshave been offered (Raychaudhuri 1999:478but the fact neverthelessremainsnoteworthy.Similarly,the so479) called Kacha coins and their relationshipto Samudragupta and to the circumstancesin which Samudragupta was selected to succeed remainobscure. The epithet sarva-rdjocchetta found on the coins, is

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and coincides with Samudragupta'sdescription in the inscription. Hemachandra is Raychaudhuri thereforedisposed to identify the two. It is clear from the AllahabadpillarinscriptionthatSamudragupta was selected to succeed to the thronein a "tense atmosphere" (Majumdar 1970:7).
A special case was the appointment Samudragupta successor by his father of as CandraguptaI. As son of the heiress to the Licchavi kingdom, i.e. as the dauhitraof the Licchaviking, Samudragupta entitledto succeedhis maternal was as soon as he came of age. Candragupta's second son would have grandfather claims to eventually succeed his father as king of the original Guptakingdom. But "underthe glances of the witheredface(s) of his relative(s) of equal birth ... [Samudragupta] was told by his father: 'Rule the whole earth!'" (Scharfe 1989:64)

It has been speculatedthat among the witheredglances may have

been those of "Kacha ... the eldest brother of Samudragupta [who]

headed the rebellion against him" (Majumdar1970:7). This is far from certain.The selection of Samudragupta, however,is hinted at in anotherpiece of epigraphicevidence, the Riddhapur in Inscription, the 1999:470). epithettatpadaparigrhlta (Raychaudhuri The martialachievementsof Samudragupta imply a navy, although no direct reference to it is made in the inscription."Althoughthere is no proof of this, we know that many islands in the Indian Ocean were eitherconqueredby the greatGuptamonarchor submittedto him out of fear, thus clearly indicatinghis possession of a powerfulnavy" (Majumdar1964:231). John Keay even proposes that "otherislands" could mean "the Indianised kingdoms of south-east Asia" (Keay reads indirectindicationsof a 2000:137). Hemchandra Raychaudhuri navalpresencein the epigraphitself (1999:482 n. 9). It is thus a major argumentof this paper that if one is looking for evidence to judge the presence or absence of a historical sense among the Hindus, then the place to look for it are the epigraphic records left by the rulers. The fact that such epigraphsare found in large numbersseems to quantitativelytestify to such a sense, and a critical examinationof two famous inscriptionsseems to confirmthe same fact qualitatively.It only needs to be added that what was true

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of the north was also true of the south, as illustratedby the case of the Colas in medieval times. "The exploits of both Rajarajaand his -covering a periodfrom 985 AD to equally aggressiveson"Rajendra 1035 AD-"are celebratedin numerousinscriptionsbeginning from the eighth year of Rajaraja,whose earliest conquest was that of the CheraKingdom"(Spear 1999:224). II A problemassociated with the acceptanceof a historicalsense on the part of the Hindus is their allegedly exaggerated sense of the past, which inclines one to say that they might possess a sense of but antiquity not history(Basham1999:4,44). Thereis some substance to this chargeas the Hinduscheme of yugas andkalpasinvolves mindboggling figures.There is, however,enough evidence now to indicate that both outsiders and insiders to the Hindu traditionwere aware of a distinctionbetween remote antiquityand proximatehistory,and moreover that rational explanation of at least part of the tendency towardschronologicalexaggerationmay be available.The first major foreign source for Hindu chronology is Megasthenes (McCrindle 1960:115-116). The restrainednature of the figures mentioned by him led the translator remark:"It is not known from what sources to Megasthenesderivedthese figures,which are extremelymodest when compared with those of Indian chronology, where, as in geology, years are hardly reckoned but in myriads"(ibid. 208). More than a that thousandyearslater,Albiruniremarks "theHindusdo not consider it wearisometo reckonwith huge numbers,butrather enjoy it" (Sachau 1914, 2:1), but nevertheless proceeds to point out that those eras which "vie with each otherin antiquity" (ibid.), are such "as not only but astronomers, also otherpeople, thinkit wearisomeand unpractical to use them" (2:42). He notes that in their place they employ other eras, what we might call eras of history, associated with Sri Harsa, and Saka,Valabha Gupta(ibid.). Even moreto the point Vikramaditya, is MichaelWitzel'sexplanationof how errorstendto creepinto the use of eras:because of a culturalcommitment,as it were, to reachback to

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the beginning of the Kali Yuga, for "the concept of Kali Yuga, as the period we live in, plays a great role that has not been appreciated in the evaluation of chronicles such as vams'avalls" (Witzel 1990:28-29). The slippage from history to antiquity is thus not a mere flight of fancy, but the consequence (or cause) of systematic errors, such as counting contemporary dynasties as successive, etc. (ibid.). It was noted earlier that the ancient Indian inscriptions tend to be dated (if at all) in the regnal year of the kings, or often in an era which is not specified. This was the case with the inscription of Rudradaman discussed earlier and seems to encourage the belief that the Hindus lacked a sense of history and chronology. A.L. Basham writes (1999:493):
Until the 1st century BC there is no good evidence that India had any regular system of recordingthe year of an eventby datingin a definiteeralike the A.U.C. of Rome or the Christianera of medievaland modem Europe.Earlyinscriptions are dated if at all in the regnal year of the rulingking. The idea of dating over a long period of time from a fixed year was almost certainlyintroducedinto India by the invadersof the Northwest,who have left the earliestinscriptionsthus dated in India. Unfortunately Indiansdid not adopta uniformera, and a numberof the systems of datingwere in use from thattime onwards...

This passage creates the further impression that reckoning from a fixed point was introduced in India by foreigners. All this, however, must be viewed in the light of another set of facts. For instance, "the traditional date of Mahavira's death is fixed near the end of the rainy season in 527 BC; it is from this date that Jainas count the Viranirvana period, the longest continuous 'era' in Indian history" (Jaini 1979:37-38, emphasis supplied). Thus it is simply not true that Indians lacked any reckoning in a fixed era. The remark holds true only of the epigraphic evidence so far available, and should not be transferred uncritically to the Hindu or Indic mentality. Another point in relation to this era deserves mention. "One Jaina source (Hemacandra's Parisistaparva viii.341) places this event in 427 BC" (ibid. 38 n. 88). If this amendment is accepted, then the chronology calculated on this basis purely from Indian sources almost coincides with the current chronology of ancient India evolved by Western

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scholarship over the past two hundred years (Sastri and Srinivasachari 1971:65). The Parinirvana of the Buddha could also provide another fixed point, although in this case also, as in the case of the Viranirvana, there is even greater debate as to the exact point (Ch'en 1968:13-15; Majumdar 1968:38, 92-94). But even when there is a difference as to where the point is to be fixed exactly, it does not compromise the claim that calculation from a fixed point was in use, with the attendant sense of history involved. What is true is that evidence of this kind from Hindu sources is not (yet?) available. (The fact that Hinduism does not have a historical founder may be a factor.) As further evidence of historical sense in general one may add that "according to the unanimous tradition of the Buddhists, the Buddha died in the 8th year of the reign of Ajatasatru" (ibid. 36). In any case, the very fact that Hindu or ancient Indian kings employ a number of eras also testifies to their sense of history, although this fact complicates our chronological computations. The example of the Harsa Era should suffice. Dr. Devahuti lists two inscriptions of Harsa and seven others as generally believed to be dated

ll A.L. Basham (1999:493-494) lists (1) Era of the Kaliyuga (3102 BC); (2) Sri LankanBuddha Era (544 BC); (3) Era of Mahavira(528 BC); (4) VikramaEra (58
BC); (5) Saka Era (78 AD); (6) Licchavi Era (110 AD); (7) Kalacuri Era (248 AD);

(8) GuptaEra (320 AD); (9) HarsaEra (606 AD); (10) Kollam Era of Malabar(825 VI AD);(11) Nevar Era (878 AD);(12) Era of Vikramaditya Calukya(1075 AD);and (13) LaksmanaEraof Bengal (1119 AD). A.L. Bashamalso mentionsthe saptarsi, or LaukikaEra of Kashmir,as belonging to the Middle Ages but does not specify the initial year.Alblruinlists the following Eras:(1) the beginningof the existence of the day of the presentNychthemeronof Brahman,i.e., the beginningof the Kalpa;(2) the in Manvantara, which we are now; (3) the beginningof the twenty-eighthCaturyuga, in which we are now; (4) the beginningof the fourthYugaof the presentCaturyuga; i.e. (5) Pandava-Kala, the time of the life and the wars of Bharata;(6) Sri HarsaEra; Era;(8) Saka Era;(9) ValabhaEra;(10) GuptaEra;(11) Era of the (7) Vikramaditya canonKhanda-Khadyaka; Eraof the canonof Paicasiddhantikaof Varahamihira; (12) (13) Era of the canon of Karanasara;and (14) Era of the canon of Karana-tilaka (Sachau 1914, 2:lff.). Michael Witzel refers additionallyto a SudrakaSamvat (170 BC)and ManadevaSamvat(576 AD) (1990:36).

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in the Harsa Era of 606 AD. (Devahuti 1970:235). Albirini provides an interesting note about this Era. He writes (Sachau 1914, 2:5):
... His [i.e. Sr Harsa's]erais used in Mathura the countryof Kanoj.Between and Sri Harsaand Vikramaditya there is an intervalof 400 years, as I have been told of calendarI have read by the inhabitants thatregion.However,in the Kashmirian that Sri Harsawas 664 years laterthanVikramaditya. face of this discrepancy In I am in perfectuncertainty...

Dr. Devahuti suggests the following resolution of this difficulty (1970: 236):
To demonstratethe application of the various eras to a given date, the year 400 of Yazdajird,al-Biruinicalculates the commencement of the Harsha era accordingto the Mathuraand Kanaujtradition,which placed Harsha400 years before Vikramaditya,i.e. in 457 BC. But on the authority of the Kashmir the calendar, Harsha being "664 years later than Vikramaditya," Harsha era should be placed in AD 606-7. We think it was this era, which was prevalent in al-Biruin's time in Mathuraand Kanauj. It seems that the inhabitantsof the region deliberatelymisguided the Muslim scholar in order to impress him with the antiquityof the era they used. Al-Blruini,though in possession of the correctinformation throughthe Kashmirsource,naturallyplacedgreaterreliance on local tradition,which seemed more authenticon its face value. It is well known that he misunderstood,similarly, the traditionsrelating to the Gupta era. His critical pen, however, has preserved for us the valuable information he got from the KashmirCalendar,that Sri Harshawas "664 [years] later than Vikramaditya."

She then proceeds to add (ibid.):

The astronomicaldataprovidedby the Harsha-charitahelps us to determinethe date of Harsha'sbirth in AD 590. All the circumstancesof that period support the view that Harshaascended the throne at an early age after his elder brother was killed in his early youth. The Harshaera, beginningin AD 606, when Harsha would be only 16, is in accordancewith this fact.

It also resolves a slight discrepancy introduced by Zuanzang's account (ibid. 236-237). Albirfini himself enumerates no less than eleven eras and distinguishes between a set of six eras which "vie in antiquity" from another set of five (Sachau 1914, 2: 1, 7) in favour of which the former ones had been abandoned. This itself implies a distinction between antiquity

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and history. It is therefore mildly surprising that Albiruni castigates the Hindus for lacking a sense of chronology on the one hand and on the other enumerates the many eras they employ. The same sense of history is indicated by the fact that, according to Albirini, Hindus celebrate a historic victory as a festival, although he is somewhat sceptical about the facts. His account runs as follows (ibid. 2:178):
The 2nd of the month Caitra is a festival to the people of Kashmir, called Agdus (?), and celebratedon account of a victory gained by their king, Muttai, over the Turks.According to their account he ruled over the whole world. But this is exactly what they say of most of theirkings. However,they are incautious to enough to assign him to a time not much anterior our time, which leads to their lie being found out. It is, of course,not impossiblethata Hindushouldrule (over a huge empire),as Greeks,Romans,Babylonians,andPersianshave done, but all the times not much anteriorto our own are well known. (If, therefore,such had been the case, we should know it.) Perhapsthe here mentionedking ruled over the whole of India, and they know of no othercountrybut India and of no other nationsbut themselves.

There is however some evidence which actually supports this fact if Muttai is read as a reference to King Muktapida of the Karkota dynasty of Kashmir, who is said to have defeated the Turks in the eighth century thrice (A. Sharma 1982:131-136). We may now revert to the discussion of the point that different cultures may have different ways of expressing their sense of history, and this may also be reflected in their choice of the medium for doing so. Stone and not parchment seems to have been the medium of choice in ancient India. Even in the case of documents, however, the sense of history finds its niche in slightly unusual places, such as the colophons of manuscripts. The question of manuscripts, however, raises the important issue of their survival, a problem less acute in the case of inscriptions. It might be possible, with only slight exaggeration, to maintain the thesis that historical records in the broadest sense may have abounded but have simply perished for climatic reasons, combined with political factors. Michael Witzel writes (1990:9):
A little used source of history have been the colophons of manuscriptswhich often mentionthe nameof the reigningmonarchandotherhistoricallyinteresting

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details. This is due to the fact that in Indiapropermost mss. are only of relative late date.Exceptfor the desertareasof Gujarat/Rajasthan, have not survived mss. much more than 500 years, and Hindus in general did not care much for their preservationas only the living, recited work, in the mouth of the teacher,poet or priest was important.Fortunately,the Jainas and Buddhists preservedtheir texts as far as the early ninth century AD (in dated form), and a few older undatedones, so much so that when Bendall first made use of their colophons for historical purposes at the Berlin congress about a hundredyears ago, he was simply not believed at first. In Nepal the temperateclimate and the almost complete absence of Muslim incursions worked together to preserve these old mss. Such ms. colophons, which also contain much of other valuableand so far unusedinformation,such as on local personaland geographicalnames,religious trends,etc., should be used for the elucidationof the "darkspots" in the history of particular local areasandtheirpoliticalhistory,say, for partsof Orissa,Kerala, and Gujarat.

This conclusion is significant as indicative of the kind of evidence of a sense of history now lost to us. There is evidence that detailed administrative records were kept in Mauryan times. The office of the aksapatala, or depository of documents, as detailed in the Arthasastra (2.7.1) provides such convincing evidence of this12 that Hartmut Scharfe is led to remark (1989:139):
In view of the careful bookkeeping in the aksa-patala the virtual absence of archives and chronicles in India is surprising;but the climate would destroy most documents. The frequent change of administrative centres as a result of the rise of new dynastieswith a strictlyregionalpowerbase furtherpreventedthe developmentalof an archivaltradition. 12"Anoffice of very great importance,situatedin the capital, is the aksapatala. It is a sort of records-cum-audit office. There is an adhyaksain charge, with a special building of his own with many halls and record rooms (2.7.1). The records to be maintainedthere pertainto (1) the activity of each state department, the working (2) of statefactoriesand conditionsgoverningproduction them, (3) prices, samplesand in standards measuringinstruments variouskinds of goods, (4) laws, transactions, of for customs, and regulationsin force in differentregions, villages, castes, families and corporations,(5) salaries and other perquisites of state servants, (6) what is made over to the king and other members of the royal family, and (7) payments made to and amounts received from foreign princes, whether allies or foe (2.7.2). A more comprehensiverecord-housecan hardlybe thoughtof" (Kangle 1988, 3:201).

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There is, however, enough evidence of the presence of such a tradition (Kane 1968-77, 3:308-312). It is even proven by the Manusmrti (x.55; ix.332; viii.255) which is usually placed between the Mauryan and the Guptan Period (Agrawala 1970:50). The Allahabad pillar inscription depicts suppliant kings seeking confirmation through royal decrees (Tripathi 1967:246). Once again no trace of them is left. Zuanzang clearly refers to records kept at the provincial level (Beal 1969:78), which also are no longer available.13 An extreme case of the conspiracy of negative forces in relation to the manuscript tradition is provided by Kashmir, where "no mss. older than c. 1500 AD remain. Local Hindu and Muslim chroniclers agree in blaming the Sultans Sikander and Ali (1389-1419/20) for their wholesale destruction by burning and dumping them in the Dal Lake" (Witzel 1990:44 n. 35). One may now turn one's attention to such literary evidence which might have a bearing on the historical sense of the Hindus as has survived. This would include the Vedas, the Puranas, the tradition of historical kavyas in Sanskrit and literature in general. The problem with the evidence provided by the Vedas is that it has been constantly reworked. "How this reworking took place can be closely studied if we compare the RgVedic form of such a popular tale as that of Pururavas and Urvasi (RV 10.95), with its form in Satapatha Brahmana 11.5.1 or the Baudhayana Srauta Sutra 18.44, in the Mahabharata 1.70 and in Kalidasa's Kavya" (Witzel 1990:8). So what we have here are materials for the cultural history of Hinduism
13The care which of went into the preparation some of these documents apparently makes their loss all the more painful. A.L. Basham writes (1999:100): "To transmit the royal decrees a corps of secretariesand clerks was maintained,and remarkable Underthe Colas, for instance,orderswere first were takento preventerror. precautions writtenby scribes at the king's dictation,and the accuracyof the draftswas attested by competent witnesses. Before being sent to their recipients they were carefully and transcribed, a numberof witnesses, sometimes amountingto as many as thirteen, again attestedthem. In the case of grants of land and privileges an importantcourt official was generally deputed to ensure that the royal decrees were put into effect. Thus records were kept with great care, and nothing was left to chance; the royal scribes themselves were often important personages."

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ratherthan history itself. This has the unfortunateconsequence that the "ancienthistoricaltraditionof India,as found in the Mahdbhdrata and the Puranas, thus is flawed from the beginning:it is not history but the bardic reworking of the old epic tradition, often based on Vedic traditionitself" (ibid.). However,while itself not history it has providedenough materialfor the writing of one, at least at the hands of H.C. Raychaudhuri,the full title of whose benchmarkbook is revealing: Political History of Ancient India from the Accession of Parikshitto the Extinctionof the GuptaDynasty. What is significantin the Purdna, however,is the "idea of genealcase may be beyond recovery,but which ogy,"which in this particular providedthe model for the writingup of genealogies in latermore historical times. That these royal genealogies can be of historicalvalue has been demonstrated painstakinglyby Michael Witzel's work on the of Nepal. It was discovereda hundredyears ago GopalarajavamsdavalT Bendall and initially even arousedsome scepticism. by Its text consists of two parts.The firstpartis in Sanskrit,which, after presentinga legendaryaccountof early kings offers a detailedaccount of King Sivadeva(NepalaSamvat219 = 1098 AD)andtowardsthe end recordsa descriptionof an Islamicincursioninto the valley underSams ud-Din in November 1349, and the victory of King JayasthitiMalla c. 1389 ad, afterwhich it trails off (Witzel 1990:12). The second part covers the period from Nepala Samvat 177 (= 1057 AD) the year of birthof King Sivadeva-to Nepala Samvat508 (= 1388), thatis, until a few yearsbefore the deathof King Jayasthiti Malla. It is also initially in Sanskrit but with occasional entries in old Newari; the account from 1219 AD being entirely in old Newari (ibid.). The significance of such works becomes apparentwhen one realizes that "the core of historicaltraditionin India was the genealogical records.These have remained constant in the Indian scene throughoutthe centuries and in fact up to the present day" (Thapar1978:278) including subaltern India (Dube 1998:219). It shouldthereforenot come as a surprisethat the Gopalardjavams'avalT "certainlynot the only text of its sort. is
There are more ... perhaps many more than we might expect. The

from HimachalPradeshare comparatively vamsavalTs well knowndue

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to Atkinson's work. They cover the Katyurisof Kangra,the Chands of Kumaon (c. 1150 AD) and the Panwarsof Garwal. In Rajasthan, there are a large numberof vamsavalWsdealing both with the royal houses as well as some high caste persons. In this region they are maintainedby special classes of people" (Witzel 1990:37). As is known, in "the Puranasthe genealogies are carefully preservedand follow an historicalorder"(Thapar1978:278) and F.E.Pargiter (1922) famously tried to reconstructthe history of pre-BuddhistIndia from hereis thatwhile the "stresson local dynastic these. Whatis interesting may "havepreventedthe history and the size of the area involved"14 of a universal'history of South Asia ... even this is not 'composition altogetherabsent. It has been attemptedin the Puranas,interestingly guise of dynastichistory,throughthe linking againin the Brahmanical with theirmythicalancestors, of all royal families of the subcontinent sons" (Witzel 1990:40-41). Manuand his constitutea class of classical SanskritliterThe historicalnarratives ature.To this class belong such worksas: (1) the Navasahasadkacarita of of ParimalaPadmagupta 1005); (2) the Vikramainkadevacarita (c. of Bilhana (11thcentury);(3) the RajatararnginT Kalhana(c. 1148-9);
(4) the PrthvTrdjavijaya of Jayanaka (c. 1192); (5) the Dvyasrayamahakavya of Hemacandra Suri (12th century); (6) the Rdmacarita of (12thcentury);(7) the KTrtikaumudfof Somesvaradeva Sandhyakara of (13th century); (8) the SukrtasamkTrtana Arisirha (c. 1229); (9) the

Vasantavildsaof BalacandraSuri (c. 1200); (10) the Hammlramahdkdvya of Nayacandra Suri (15th century); (11) the Madhuravijaya of

of Dindima Gangadevl(c. 1371); (12) the Saluvdbhyudaya Rajanatha (c. 1480) (Prabha1976). To these one must add the famous prose romance of Bana-the Harsacaritawhich belongs to the seventhcenturyand the Gaudavaho in of Vakpatiraja Prakrit,which belongs to the eighth century.These works suffer from certain limitations such as the use of poetic conceit and their obviously panegyricalcharacterbut they do serve to draw attentionto the fact that "there are more historical texts than
14For a useful

summaryaccountsee Majumdar1964:68-73.

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the legendary Puranas"(Witzel 1990:5), and that these "have been very little used so far" (ibid. 38) as source material for sober history. Their significance is obvious when one considers the fact that Ramacaritaof Sandhyakara "canbe readas applyingeitherto the legRamaof Ayodhyaor to the historicalking Ramapala Bengal, of endary who was the poet's contemporaryand patron"(Basham 1999:424). That such a work should be written under the aegis of the Buddhist Pala dynastyoffers commenton the state of Hindu-Buddhist relations in medieval India. The fact that the court ladies of the Vijayanagara Empire wrote such historical epics, as documentedby Julie Hiebert (1988), has importantculturalimplications. But these are nevertheless self-proclaimedkavyas. Sanskrit literaturein general also provides some evidence of a sense of history. For instance, the grammarian Panini (c. 400 BC) refers to sixty-four previous grammarians (Agrawala 1958:283); and the etymologist Yaska (c. fifth century BC) refers to grammatical,ritualist,euhemeristand ascetic approachesto Vedic exegesis (Agrawala 1958:294). Texts on AyurVeda similarly refer to earlier figures (Carakashimhita1.7-14 mentioning over fifty). Although Bharata'sNityasastra (anachronistically) lists a hundredexpertsin dramaturgy texts (1.26-39), the Arthas'astra (Kautilya1.15) referto previoussavantsin the fields. Even the RgVeda (7.87.4) speaks of earlier and later yugas and Vedic recitation still preserves lost tonal accents in early Sanskrit(Witzel 1990:3).j5 The mannerin which Patanijali been assigned to the second century has BC is also instructive(Tripathi1967:185-186). Dramas also provide evidence of historical sense in their own way. Those with historical themes such as the Malvikagnimitra, Mudrdraksasa, DevTcandragupta obviously display some sense of history, while a number of medieval dramasfrom Nepal provideconsiderablehistoricalinformation (Witzel 1990:38-39). But beyond this it has even been claimed that the Sanskritpoets themselves may have possessed a sense of history.
15"Theauthorsof astronomicalbooks generallyalso give the exact date of the day on which they completed their work" (Wintemitz 1927:30). Aryabhattatells us his precise age (Kane 1968-77, 3:895).

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Some have read a covert allusion to the "link of kings beginning [?] with the Samudragupta" in asamudraksitisandm (Raghuvamsa i.5); to the Gupta kings in gopte guptamendriyah (i.55); and anvdsya gopta grhinl-sahayah (ii.24); to Kumaragupta in iksucchayanisadinyas tasya gopturganodyami;dkumarakathodghatam saligopyo jagur yasah (iii.2) (De 1972:155-156). H.C. Raychaudhuri does not go so far but he does remark (1999:477):
The capture and liberation of the southern kings [by Samudragupta] notably the rulerof Kotturanear Mt. Mahendragiri remindus of the following lines of Kalidasa'sRaghuvamsam: sa nripah Grihlta-pratimuktasya dharma-vijayT jahara natu medinlm Sriyari Mahendra-nathasya "The righteous conqueror(Raghu) took away from the lord of the Mahendra Mountain,who was made captive and then released, his glory but not his territory."

III Evidence in support of this new perspective is also encountered in the work of Heinrich von Stietencron-and in a very new form: not in written word but in plastic art. Stietencron began with the same "trite observation," (his own words), that "to the modem viewer, therefore, there appears to be an a-historic and non-political attitude in indigenous Indian art which, true to the alleged spiritual quest for the ultimate unchanging reality, did not bother to preserve in stone the transitory achievements of mortal kings" (Stietencron 1985-86:1516). Like Professor Witzel, he eventually arrived at a very different conclusion: that even in artistic representations the Hindus displayed a sense of history. Consider, for instance, the depiction of Siva as Gangadhara (ibid. 18):
... The myth tells the storyof the descent of the celestial riverGangato the earth for in orderto make her purifyingwaters availableto mankind,particularly the purificationritualsafter death. A mortal,Bhagiratha,afterpractisingausterities for a long time, obtains Gafga's consent to come down to earth. But in order to save the earth from the danger of burstingunder the impact of the cascade of heavenly waters, Lord Siva is requestedto receive the celestial river on his mighty head.

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Siva agrees and thus becomes mediatorbetween heaven and earth in one of the importantcosmogonic acts, which brings life-giving and sanctifyingwaters to the human world. It is for this act that he is praised as Gafgadhara,the god "who carriesGaiga."... Gafga has doubtswhetherSiva will be strongenough to withstandthe impact of her fall. Convinced of her own strengthshe believes that the power of her descent will push Siva down into the nether worlds. But Siva, stretchingout one or two locks of his hair like a hammock,receives her with perfect ease and immediatelypunishes her for her self-conceit; for many years she roams about in the endless labyrinthof his crown of mattedhair withoutfindingher way out. And it is only on account of the renewed and powerfulausteritiesof Bhaglratha that Siva finallyreleases the thoroughlyhumiliatedgoddess.

So far we are in the realm of myth. To enter in the realm of history we need to recall that ancient Indian history in the south was characterized by rivalry between the Calukya dynasty of Badami and the Pallava dynasty of Tiruchirapalli in the seventh century (Spear 1994:221-222). Stietencron (ibid.) draws our attention to the fact that,
The first image of Gangadharabased on this form of myth was created at in I Tiruchirapalli the Pallavacountryduringthe reign of king Mahendravarman (ca. 610-630). This king was in bitterconflict with his neighbour,king Durvinita of the WesternGafigadynasty,who had brokenaway from the century-oldfeudal alliance with the Pallavas and joined the camp of their rivals, the Calukyas of Badami.Durvinitaattackedthe young king Mahendravarman from the Norththe Northwest, andsimultaneously, CalukyaarmiesinvadedMahendravarman's eastern territoriesin Vengi. The Pallavakingdom seemed truly in great danger achieved a victory over his "foremostenemies" at Puluntil Mahendravarman lalur, ca. 15 miles north of his capital Kanici.It is to be added that the Ganga kings were Jains while Mahendravarman, formerly also a Jain, had become a devotee of Siva. It was after this victory that the first Gangadhara image of the type described above was created in south India. It shows the four-armedSiva, hailed by celestials, standing in leisurely pose with one leg supportedby his bull Nandin, as he gracefully stretchesout a lock of hair to receive the descending goddess Gafga who appearscomparativelysmall and insignificant.To any contemporary the message of this image was clear enough. Justas Siva stood in ease againstthe impact of (the water of the river) Ganga who, in her self-conceit, had believed she could send him to hell, even so the Saivaking Mahendravarman stood in each againstthe impactof (the armyof) the Gangaswho, in theirself-conceit, had believed they could destroy the Pallavaking. No image of any other form of Siva

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and no other myth could have served to translatethis actual historicalsituation more effectively into a work of religious art. We can be sure the artistsand kings and the educatedpublic were conscious of this message of the Gangadhara image becauseit retainedits directallusionto the Gangadynastyduringthe following centuries....

A more dramatic example of the interaction between the political history of art is provided by the famous depiction of Visnu's incarnation as the Boar (varahavatara) in the Udayagiri cave. Three interpretations of this depiction, inviting the reader to note how they become progressively more historical, in accordance with the assumption of the degree of the sense of history on the part of the Hindus entertained by each scholar, are provided below. One may commence with A.L. Basham's interpretation. He writes (1999:371):
Perhapsthe most immediatelyimpressive of all Guptansculpturesis the Great Boar, carved in relief at the entranceof a cave at Udayagiri, near Bhilsa. The body of the god Vishnu, who became a mighty boar to rescue the earth from the cosmic ocean, conveys the impressionof a greatprimevalpower workingfor good against the forces of chaos and destruction,and bears a message of hope, strengthand assurance.The greatnessof the god in comparisonwith his creation is broughtout by the tiny female figure of the personifiedearth,clinging to his tusk.The deep feeling, which inspiredthe carvingin this figure,makesit perhaps the only theriomorphic image in the world's art, which conveys a trulyreligious to modem man. message

There is virtually no historical element in Basham's artistic appreciation of this piece. We turn next to H.C. Raychaudhuri. He writes (1999:165):
According to sacred legends Vishnu in the shape of a boar had rescued the earthin the aeon of universaldestruction.It is significantthatthe worshipof the BoarIncarnation became widely popularin the Gupta-Chalukya period.The poet identifies the man in whose arms the earth found refuge Visakhadatta actually when harassedby the Mlechchhas,who "shook the yoke of servitudefrom the neck"of his country,with the VardhTtanu (Boarform)of the Self-ExistentBeing. Powerful emperorsboth in the north and south recalled the feats of the Great Boar, andthe mightiestrulerof a dynastythatkept the Arabsat bay for centuries actually took the title of Adivarahaor the PrimevalBoar. The Boar Incarnation

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then symbolizedthe successful struggleof Indiansagainstthe devastatingfloods to issuing from the regions outside theirbordersthatthreatened overwhelmtheir and civilizationin a common ruin. country

Stietencron is more willing than either Basham or Raychaudhuri to concede a sense of history to the Hindus, and espies an even more specific historical significance in the depiction under discussion. He writes (Stietencron 1985-86:21):
There is special feature in the Varaharelief of Udayagiri which is repeated nowhere else. The ocean out of which the dominatingimage of Varaharises with greatstrengthis represented with meticulouscare by its endless waves, and again twice in personifiedform as a man standingin this ocean with a water-pot in his hands. The two river goddesses Gafiga and Yamunaare seen flowing towardshim. Laterimages do not show the ocean at all. But here the ocean (Sanskrit:samudra) has a special meaning. A word play takes on plastic form. Just as Varaha issuing from the mighty (ocean) samudrarescued the earthfrom asura oppression, even so did Candragupta issuing from his mighty (father)Samudragupta II, rescuedthe earthfromasura (i.e. WesternKsatrapa) oppression.The personwith the water-potstandingin the ocean has thus a double meaning. He is the ocean in anthropomorphic fatherSamuform, but he is also an image of Candragupta's dragupta. The ocean was droppedaltogetherin later representations, since it could not carrysimilarconnotationswith otherdonors.

Heinrich von Stietencron goes on to say (ibid.):

Whetherthe Udayagiriimage is an illustrationof the poet's words, or whether the poet was in turninspiredby the image, cannotbe determinedwith certainty, nor is it relevant in the present context. That such identificationof kings and gods was not simply flatteringtalk of eager panegyrists,but formed part of a royal ideology of divine kingship and was proclaimedby kings in their own inscriptions is shown, among many other instances, by the Allahabad pillar fatherSamudragupta. inscriptionof Candragupta's

IV Thus far from lacking a sense of history the Hindus even imparted a plastic dimension to historiography. If this is so then this provides added force to the argument developed by Professor Witzel that

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Hindu historiographysuffered serious obscurationduring the period of Islamic occupation,as this period also involved the destructionof holy images and temples which were one form of materialin which such historywas preserved.The numerousinternaldynasticevolutions would, of course, prove equally destructiveof such evidence along with foreign invasions. It should also be rememberedthat Hindu learning and the Hindu educationalsystem possessed a markedoral character,a featurealso noticed by Megasthenes (Bevan 1922:413). In fact, this has been identified by Professor Kane as one of its weaknesses (1974:347vulnerableto historical 349), a weakness which made it particularly that vicissitudesresultingfromforeignconquests.Albruini'sstatement as a resultof Mahmud'sdevastating raids"Hindusciences have retired far away from those parts of the countryconqueredby us, and have fled to places where our hand cannot yet reach, to Kashmir,Benares, and other places" (Sachau 1914, 1:22) becomes far more significant than it would be in the light of this embodied characterof Hindu learning.The Islamic presence in India in many ways was a positive but factor in promotinghistoriography in this respect its impact may have been negative. The claim that the sheer destructioncaused by political vicissitudes is responsible for the mistakenimpression that the ancient Indianskept no historicalrecords (because they are lost) howeverbegs credulity.It soundstoo superficial smootha response and to the charge that ancient Indians possessed no sense of history, to the point of sounding apologetic. Our task then is to renderit more plausible. One may begin by startingwith an extremeposition stated as follows: the perfectgenocide is one which never occurred,because no one was left behindto tell the story.The point to be made is thatthe scale of destructioncan be such as destroysthe very evidence of that destruction. One then faces whatmight be called an evidentiary"black hole." Some evidence on the nature and scope of such destruction involvedin the foreigninvasionsto which ancientIndiawas subjected, needs to be introducedat this stage. After the fall of the Mauryanand then the Sufiga Empire, north Indiaexperienceda majorpolitical upheavalin the form of numerous

Did the Hindus Lack a Sense of History? invasions (Altekar 1995:350):

221

The periodof 500 years between 200 BC and 300 ADwas a very darkand dismal one for NorthernIndia. The fertile plains of the Punjaband the Gangetic valley Firstcame were subjectedduringthis periodto one foreigninvasionafteranother. the Greeks, who under Demetriusand Menander(c. 190-150 BC) were able to penetrateright up to Patnain Bihar,and then came Scythiansand the Parthians
(c. 100 BC to 50 AD). These ... were followed by the Kushanas, who succeeded

in overrunning practicallythe whole of northernIndia by the middle of the 2nd

century AD.

The GdrgTsamhitdsection of the Yuga Purana assesses the damage caused by the invasion of Sakas as follows: caturbhdgam tu sastrena nasayisyanti pranindm. Sakah sesam harisyanti caturbhdgam svakam puram. Vinaste sakardjye tu sunyd prthvTbhavisyati. In other words, these wars of conquest reduced the population of North India by "one half, 25 per cent being killed and 25 per cent being enslaved and carried away" (ibid.). The Yuga Purana (167) further informs us that during this period even women took to ploughing, presumably as a result of this decimation (R.S. Sharma 1980:350).16 Indian opinion at the time seemed to blame Asoka's pacifism for this disaster, for the same GdrgTsarihita declares: "the fool established the so-called conquest of dharma" (sthdpayisyati mohdtmd vijayar ndma dhdrmikam) (Raychaudhuri 1999:324 n. 3). This is not the place, however, to assess Asoka's rule but to point out in this context that some Indologists seem to overlook the implication of the scale of the destruction involved. While describing the state administration under the Mauryas, Hartmut Scharfe writes (as noted earlier): "In view of the careful bookkeeping in the aksa-patala the virtual absence of archives and chronicles in India is surprising; but the climate would destroy most documents" (Scharfe 1989:139 n. 114). Without discounting the role of climate one
16Ram Sharan Sharma also finds evidence of this socio-economic crisis in a passage in the Manusmrti(viii.418) when he writes:"Atanotherplace Manu ordains thatthe king should carefullycompel the vaisyas and the sudrasto performthe tasks assigned to them; since, if these two varas swerve from their duties, they will throw the whole world into confusion. This passage is of particular importance,for it is not to be found in any earliertext"(1980:193).

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might wish to urge that the reason may not be just climatic but also "climactic," if we use that expression to refer to the cataclysmic invasions just alluded to. Professor A.L. Basham perhaps comes closer to assessing the full significance of these invasions when he connects them with the Hindu conceptualizations of the Kaliyuga. He writes (1999:321):
The end of the Kali-yuga, according to many epic passages, is marked by confusion of classes, the overthrowof establishedstandards, cessation of all the and the rule of cruel and alien kings. Soon after this the world religious rites, is destroyedby flood and fire. This view is propoundedstronglyin texts, which date from about the beginningof the Christianera, when alien kings did in fact rule much of India, and establishedpractices were shaken by heresies such as Buddhismand Jainism.An earliertraditionwould place the Mahabharata c. War 900 BC, accordingto which the 1.200 years of the Kali-yuga,if read as human years and not as "years of the gods," would at this time be nearing their end. Evidently some pious Hindus thought that the dissolution of the cosmos was imminent.Perhapsit is to the departure this fear in later times that we must of attributethe devising of the "yearsof the gods," which made the dissolution of the world comfortabledistant.

We need only refer to the remarks about the Boar Incarnation made earlier to see the force of the point. It is also worth noting that after political stability was restored in North India under Gupta rule, the tradition of maintaining archives was also revived. According to the usually dependable testimony of Zuanzang (Hiuen Tsang) who visited India in the seventh century, detailed records were kept in each district during the reign of King Hara. These too have vanished - perhaps for the same reason as the Mauryan. It is worth recalling that by the end of the 12thcentury the two major universities of ancient India, those of Taksasila and Nalanda had disappeared. An example might help make the point. What prospect would we hold out for British historiography in the future, if the universities of Oxford and Cambridge were utterly destroyed today along with all the libraries. It is striking that even in the context of relatively proximate events, some of the conclusions reached earlier seem to apply in some degree. Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister and himself a historian of some merit wrote in 1946 regarding the Indian mutiny of 1857-1858:

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The very circumstancesof defeat and disruptionpreventedthe Indianside of the storyfrombeing properlyrecorded,andmanyof the recordsthatexisted suffered destructionduringthe greatrevoltof 1857. The papersthatsurvivedwere hidden away in family archives and could not be published for fear of consequences. They remained dispersed, little known, and many perished in the manuscript stage from the incursions of termites and other insects which abound in this country.At a later stage when some of these paperswere discovered,they threw a new light on many historicalincidents.(Nehru 1946:289). V

One could offer the sensational conclusion that the claim that the Hindus lacked a sense of history may itself indicate a lack of a sense of history on our part-for to make such a claim is to overlook the fact that the very evidence of the fact that the Hindus possess it may have been lost on account of historical vicissitudes. But it is best to conclude on a sober note: that the proposition that the Hindus lacked historical sense -is rendered questionable by the weight of the cumulative evidence presented above. The absence of historiography still needs to be explained; if anything, the need becomes even more acute. A parallel from the field of philosophy may be helpful here. Ancient India never produced philosophical texts of the modem European kind but it is no longer necessary to argue that India lacked a philosophical tradition, although this tradition never divorced itself from religion along the lines of Western philosophy. In a similar fashion, in the light of evidence presented above it seems difficult to sustain the proposition that the Hindus lacked a sense of history. Could it be that, as in the case of philosophy, it was also not divorced from a broader normative and liberatory context? Do both these facts have a common explanation? Faculty of Religious Studies McGill University 3520 University Street Montreal, PQ H3A 2A7 Canada Arvind.Sharma@ staff.mcgill.ca ARVIND SHARMA

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