Download - Understanding Itihasa
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
1/146
UNDERSTANDING ITIHASA
Sibesh Bhattacharya
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDY
RASHTRAPATI NIVAS, SHIMLA
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
2/146
First published 2010
Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978-81-7986-084-7
Published by
The Secretary Indian Institute ofAdvanced Study Rashtrapati Nivas, Shimla-171005
Typeset at Sai Graphic Design, New Delhi and printed at Pearl
Offset Pvt. Ltd., Kirti Nagar, New Delhi
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
3/146
In memory of my elder son
Saugata (1965-1992), an
ardent lover of books, A
National Talent Scholar
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
4/146
Contents
Preface ix
Part One The Path that Great Men Walked 1
Part Two In the Shadow of the Absolute 83
Epilogue 155
Bibliography 169
Index 177
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
5/146
Preface
The following pages represent a modest endeavor to examine
the contention that traditional India had no conception of history.
However, instead of approaching the problem from this negative
focus, we have tried to approach it from a positive perspective.
We have rather centered our attention, firstly, on understandinghow the past was viewed and constructed in the traditional Indian
worldview. And secondly, we have tried to consider to what
extent this understanding is compatible with the modern concept
of history. We have thus pursued a twofold objective: (i) to
understand and amplify the traditional Indian point of view on
past, and, (ii) to highlight the similarities and dissimilarities of the
Indian point of view with the current view of history.
The present monograph has developed out of a project on
'History in Early India: Theory and Practice' for which a
fellowship was kindly granted by Indian Institute of Advanced
Study, Shimla. As we pursued the theme of the project it seemedappropriate to us to somewhat enlarge its scope to include how the
traditional understanding has been interpreted and elaborated by
modern Indian scholars. The monograph thus has two main parts;
Part One on early Indian understanding of past and Part Two on
the modern understanding of the tradition. We are of the view that
for the sake of placing the theme in proper perspective this
enlargement was necessary. One more point perhaps calls for
clarification. We have in our formulation often used the
expression 'Indian' to underline the geographical and cultural
contexts of our theme. However, the traditional Indian perspective
did not normally think in the restricted terms of cultural orgeographical identities; it preferred to think in universal and
human terms. And it is in these universal human terms that the
view of itihasa was perceived.
In the preparation of this monograph I have received help and
encouragement from numerous quarters and persons. I am
particularly beholden to the authorities of the Indian institute of
Advanced Study, Shimla for kindly granting me a fellowship to
prepare the monograph. The excellent support system and the
facilities that the Institute provides along with the academic
environment of a truly high order make working in the Institute a
memorable experience. To my teacher, Professor G.C. Pande,who fortunately also happens to be the President cum Chairman of
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
6/146
the Institute at present, I owe a debt too heavy and too subtle to
express in words. But for his kindness and constant
encouragement it would not have been possible to undertake and
complete the work. I would rather remain eternally indebted to
him than belittle his kindness by a wordy expression of gratitude.
Professor Bhuvan Chandel, the Director of the Institute, has
always been unfailingly kind to me. I do not know how to express
my thanks to her for her innumerable acts of kindness and
encouragement.
I shall be failing in my duty if do not mention the cooperation
that I always received from Shri D. K. Mukherjee, the Librarian
and other Library Staff of the Institute. A special word of thanks is
due to Smt. Alekha Jabbar, the Asst. Librarian, who cheerfully
bore my numerous demands on her expertise and knowledge. Dr.
S. A. Jabbar, Dr. Debarshi Sen, Shri T. K. Majumdar, Shri A. K.
Sharma, Shri Kundan Lal and other sectional heads and their staff
at the Institute made my stay at the Institute comfortable and
pleasant. The mess and canteen staff deserves a special word of
thanks. I have also received suggestions and encouragement from
a number of fellows and scholars at the Institute. Professor D. P.
Chattopadhyaya was very kind to spare time from his very busy
schedule of work to
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
7/146
Preface 7
go through the draft of Part One of the monograph and gave a
number of suggestions. I do not know how to thank him
adequately for this kindness. I have also often held stimulating
discussions with a number of Fellows at the Institute. Professor
Suresh Chandra Pande, Professor G. C. Nayak, Professor Kishor
Chakravarti, Dr. Navjyoti Singh, Professor Om Prakash, Professor
S. N. Dube, Professor R. N. Misra deserve special mention. The
monograph has benefited from these discussions. I am grateful to
all of them
Sibesh Bhattacharya
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
8/146
PART ONE
The Path that Great Men Walked
Early Indian Attitude to History
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
9/146
Prologue
The superstition that history has to be similar in all countries must
be abandoned. The person who has become hard-boiled after
going through the biography of Rothschilde, while dealing with
the life of Christ is likely to call for his account books and office
diary. And if he fails to find them then he will form a very poor
opinion of Christ and would say: "A fellow who was not worth
even a nickel, how come he can have a biography?" Similarly,
those who give up all hope of Indian history because they fail to
find the royal genealogies and accounts of the conquests and
defeats in the "Indian official record room" and say, "How can
there be any history when there is no politics?" are like people
who look for aubergine in paddy fields. And when they do not
find it there, in their frustration they refuse to count paddy as a
variety of grains at all. All fields do not yield the same crop. One
who knows this and thus looks for the proper crop in the proper
field is a truly wise person.
Rabindra Nath TagoreBharatavarsher Itihas,
Bhadra 1309 Bengal Era, August 1903; Translated
from original Bengali by Sumita Bhattacharya and
Sibesh Bhattacharya
Human history must in effect aspire after being a spiritualautobiography of man, a 'discovery of lost times' which is
simultaneously a creative transformation of present, a discovery
of what is hidden in the past experiences of the soul.
G.C.Pande, The Meaning and Process of Culture,
Allahabad 1989, Preface
Without Writing, without a literature, the past constantly ate itself
up.
V. S. Naipaul,Beyond Belief,New Delhi, 1998, p.71
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
10/146
For Kramer, the right view of history is his own, i.e., that of a
twentieth century American professor who specializes in
academic expertise in ancient civilizations. He can not bring
himself to admit that the ancient Sumerians might have had
another view. Or if they did, he can not admit that it was a valid
view of history. For to admit that would undermine his own
beliefs about the nature of his discipline.
Roy Harris,History, Science and the Limits of Language,
p. 26, Shimla 2003.
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
11/146
I
The question that we intend to investigate in part one basically
involves two issues. Firstly, was history as a discipline known and
practiced in early India? And, secondly, if it was, then what was
its nature?
History is perhaps not the most appropriate expression in the
context of our investigation. History as a discipline, it is well
known, is a product of Western experience and endeavour.Moreover, since the eighteenth century the discipline of history
has so evolved as to possess certain distinguishable
characteristics. It is regarded as a discipline based on rigorous
study of facts. Among its claimed features, the two factors,
factuality and empiricism, in spite of some recent challenges from
the resurgence of the narrative in history and the assault of the
Post Modernists, continue to be the two principal ones. Over the
greater part of the twentieth century, covering the first
three-quarters, history has been veering more and more towards
social science and moving away from humanities.1 Among the
practicing historians, particularly in India, this still continues to bethe dominant trend. With this growing trend it is empiricism that
has been increasingly becoming the most important instrument in
the tool-bag of historians. Like other social sciences, in the
historical methodology as well, a constant effort has been afoot to
approximate to scientific methodology. Despite being splendidly
unreachable, the Rankean ideal of 'exactly as it had happened'
remains the beacon light of a great many historians. If we intend to
pursue our investigation from this perspective, it ought to be
admitted right at the outset that it is more or less a nonstarter. A
mode of knowledge based on a meticulous and painstaking
collection of all facts, where factuality does not demand anything
more than a mere happening, did not develop in early India.
The prospect, however, considerably brightens up if we
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
12/146
The Path that Great Men Walked 12
deviate a little from the above perspective. The room for this
adjustment in standpoint is available even within the bounds of the
current conception of history. 'Varieties of history' is an accepted
notion within the discipline. The expression 'varieties' does not
only signify different divisions of history, like political,
diplomatic, social, economic, etc., but various perspectives from
which events can be viewed. It is now readily accepted that history
can be viewed and pursued from different standpoints and that
these different standpoints do not necessarily contradict and cancel
out each other. They may often be complimentary and help
illuminate different aspects of the past human life. There can be
history of smaller range (approximating the notion of particular);
there can be history of larger range (moving towards the notion of
universal). Moreover, the demands of factuality will varyaccording to the chosen range. We will deal with these issues in
some more details later. For the present it will suffice to take note
of the fact that the notion of perspectival history allows space for
viewing the past from different viewpoints.
In view of the above, we may rephrase the basic issues of our
investigation. We will try to understand the following questions.
What was the Early Indian attitude towards past? What were the
modes of its articulation? What were the implications of this
attitude?
II
The received wisdom and the burden of Western Indological
scholarship are that the sense of history was lacking in early India.
Indian mind reveled in myths and legends, often displaying a keen
sensitivity to the essence of human life, a refined moral vision, and
a touching quest for fulfillment in the life beyond. But the Indian
mind failed to come to terms with 'facts' and to produce what can
really be termed as history.
Various explanations of this 'deficiency' were also offered; the
most persistent being the one that Indian outlook in its
philosophical and psychological makeup was anti-historical. This
anti-historicity has been seen both as a virtue as well as a glaringdefect. The following remark of Amaury de Riencourt is a good
example of the former. "If the history of the Indians is as shadowy
as has already been pointed out on more than one occasion, it is
largely because, of all the peoples on this earth, they were the least
interested in history. The picture of India's historical development
is as blurred as the development of Indian soul is clear and sharply
defined. The key to an understanding of Indian culture lies
precisely in this total indifference toward history, toward the very
process of time. Aryan India had no memory because she focused
her attention on eternity and not on time."2Reactions of Hegel and
James Mill to the 'anti-historical' character of the Indian attitude
represent the latter.3
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
13/146
13 Understanding Itihasa
The point has been stretched in different directions with added
nuances. Macdonell, Winternitz and Keith may be cited asexamples. Macdonell observed that history was an area of
conspicuous weakness in Indian literature. As a matter of fact, it
was more than a weakness; it was actually non-existent. A total
lack of historical sense and a complete lack of precise chronology
characterized the whole course of Sanskrit literature. These
defects have gravely vitiated the history of Sanskrit literature.
Even the date and time of the greatest Indian poet, Kalidasa, can
not be ascertained. The controversy regarding his time is so great
that dates as distant as thousand years from each other have been
suggested. Mostly, precise dates of authors were not recorded;
only approximate dates have to be surmised on the basis of
indirect evidence. "Two causes seem to have combined to bring
about this remarkable result. In the first place, early India wrote no
history because it never made any. The ancient Indians never went
through a struggle for life like the Greeks in the Persian and the
Romans in the Punic wars, such as it would have welded their
tribes into a nation and developed political greatness. Secondly,
the Brahmanas, whose task it would naturally have been to record
great deeds, had early embraced the doctrine that all actions and
existence are a positive evil, and could therefore have felt but little
inclination to chronicle historical events."4
According to Winternitz, it was not that the Indians did not
have a taste for history, what the Indians lacked was a taste forcritical inquiry into historical truths. And, he attributed this
uncritical attitude to the kinds of people who made it their
business to write history in early India. These authors belonged to
two classes: either they were court-poets or they were
religious-minded persons. The court-poets were mainly interested
in composing eulogies of their patron princes and their ancestors.
In the process they glorified not only the achievements of their
patrons and their ancestors, but also invented stories. The saints on
their parts were keen to protect and augment the interests of their
own sects. So they praised their sects and promoted their points of
view and gave preaching and sermons to the members of theirsects. The Indian historian "will not penetrate deep into the
connected topics, set down the historical data critically and
explain them psychologically; on the contrary he will entertain
and instruct as a poet (kavi), above all teach morals, when he will
explain with examples the influences of moral behaviour on the
destiny of man."5In his work on Sanskrit literature Keith observed
'in the whole of the great Sanskrit literature there is not one writer
who can be seriously regarded as a critical historian.' According to
him the probable causes of 'this phenomenon' were the lack of 'any
sentiment of nationalism', the belief in the doctrine of Karman, the
absence of 'the scientific attitude of mind which seeks to find
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
14/146
The Path that Great Men Walked 14
natural causes for the events of nature' and the 'tendency of the
Indian mind to prefer the general to the particular'.6
The status of current opinion on the issue has been summarized
in the latest publication on the subject:
" The view that Hinduism as a religion, or the Hindus as a
people, lack a sense of history has been expressed so often as to
have become a clichE. Even when scholars have tried to take a
more sophisticated as opposed to a cliched view, the effect has
been to reinforce it. Professor A.L. Basham, for instance, would
concede to the Hindus a sense of the past, but still not history.
Elsewhere he allows for a sense of antiquity as well, if only to
suggest that Hinduism possessed an exaggerated sense of it, while
some have argued that Hinduism possessed a sense of historical
pessimism but, again, no history.
Even when scholars take a more nuanced view and distinguish
between: (1) lack of chronology, (2) lack of history, (3) a lack of a
sense of history, (4) a lack of historiography, and (5) the lack of
theory of history, the net effect is the same. The alleged lack of
historiography and a theory of history in India only buttress the
previous claim of a lack of a sense of history, while its abundant
history makes the lack of sense of history only stand out more
starkly."7
Many scholars no longer accept the Orientalist formulation that
ancient Indians lacked a sense of history.8For instance, writing in
the late 1950s A.K. Warder reacted sharply against the two majorpostulates of the formulation. He dismissed both the propositions
that 'ancient India produced little or no historical literature' and
that the ancient Indians did not possess a sense of history because
they were too engrossed in religious affairs to pay any attention to
history. "We need not trouble ourselves overmuch with the
analysis of such superficial misconceptions."9The impatience of
Warder is not wholly unjustified. To say that a people did not have
a sense of history amounts to saying that they had no view of the
past or an awareness of time. Such an obviously untenable
proposition could have been hardly seriously made about early
India. Early Indian philosophical systems reflect an acuteconsciousness of time.10Thus the central contention of scholars
like Macdonell, Winternitz and Keith seems to have been that the
way the discipline of history developed in the West is found
practically absent in early Indian literary tradition. Ghoshal and
Warder have succeeded in demonstrating that even this contention
is not fully maintainable.11
But the proposition may also be approached and evaluated from
another perspective. We may try to understand the kind of past
events that occupied or engaged the interest of ancient Indians and
how they viewed those events and in what manner they related
themselves to those events.12In other words, we may try also to
understand the conceptual and analytical universe within which
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
15/146
15 Understanding Itihasa
past events were viewed in early India. However, before we take
up these issues for consideration it may be profitable to turn ourattention to some of the features of history as a discipline.
III
In the context of our study, the most significant development in
the contemporary philosophy of history has been a vigorous
assertion that "history is essentially a narrative mode of knowing,
understanding, explaining and reconstructing the past."13 This
assertion has generated a fresh series of excited debates on the
nature of history as a discipline. In some ways history, its nature
and relevance, has long been a subject of debate among thinkers.Louis Mink, a leading protagonist of the narrativist school, begins
one of his influential essays by underlining the low esteem in
which the Western philosophers had been traditionally holding
history. "Philosophers have always betrayed a certain scorn for
both history and romance. 'I knew that the delicacy of fiction
enlivens the mind,' says Descartes, explaining how he had
liberated himself from the errors of the schools, and 'that famous
deeds of history ennoble it.' But in the end, he concluded, that
these are negligible merits, because 'fiction makes us imagine a
number of events as possible which are really impossible, and
even the most faithful histories, if they do not alter or embroider
things to make them more worth reading, almost always omit the
meanest and least illustrious circumstances, so that the remainder
is distorted.' This was Descartes first and final word on all the tales
and stories of human life, and until very recently it could have
served to sum up the consensus of Western philosophy."14
However, in spite of Descartes, many Western philosophers,
especially the Idealists, found the historical process a fascinating
subject of philosophical reflection.15The debates in philosophy of
history currently revolve around the analysis of issues related to
historical knowledge, or history as a discipline. The study of
historical process has gone out of fashion; it is greeted with some
suspicion and scorn. But, nonetheless, it remains a fact thatphilosophy of history, including its present analytical concerns,
developed out of the interest in the historical process and the
debates that this interest had generated.
Generally speaking, it was the thinkers and theorists who
carried on these debates. Practicing historians usually kept away
from them. They preferred to stay focussed on their chosen area of
concrete evidence and the study based on them without being
affected by the currents and the crosscurrents of philosophical
debates.16At least, that was what the historians claimed, and that
was the impression they succeeded in giving.17 Since the 1960s the
scene, however, began changing markedly. Professional historiansbegan taking much more active interest in the problems of
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
16/146
The Path that Great Men Walked 16
historical understanding being discussed in philosophy of history.
Metahistory, which till then occupied only a marginal territory inthe concerns of philosophy, and commanded practically no space
in the concerns of history, since 1960s and 1970s began exercising
a considerably wider measure of influence among historians.
Moreover, the traffic of influence was no longer one way;
historians were no longer just listening to the debates, they began
participating in them.
For the discipline of history a more significant aspect of this
development was the entry in the philosophy of history of what
has been called 'the linguistic turn'. This entry was not a sudden
event. It was effected gradually and in stages. In the 1960s and
1970s when the practicing historians were excitedly pursuing
various forms of the 'New History' under the predominant
influence of social sciences, something of a paradigm shift was
taking place in the field of philosophy of history. The focus of
philosophical interest in historical knowledge began moving away
from the traditional debates about the epistemological problems of
historical knowledge. The earlier debates centered on such
questions as how past can be known? What do historical
explanation and causation mean? What are their implications? Is
objective knowledge possible in history?18 These issues were
displaced by a new set of questions engendered by the acceptance
that the narrative embodies the essential or the typical mode of
historical knowledge. "With this linguistic turn, the topics ofnarration and representation replaced law and explanation as
burning issues of the theory and philosophy of history. And
because what might be called the poetics of history now came to
the fore, the question 'how is history like and unlike fiction?'
replaced 'how is history like and unlike science?' as the guiding
question of metahistorical reflection."19 "There was a certain irony
about this growing philosophical interest in narrative history since
it came at a time when there was what Paul Ricoeur subsequently
called the 'eclipse of narrative' in the discipline itself."20 The
practicing historians were still profusely using concepts and
methods borrowed from different social sciences in their works.Within the discipline of history, it was the diverse forms of 'New
History' that was the dominant trend. The influence of the French
Annales School, the Marxists of various persuasions, quantitative
history and new social history in various parts of the world that
conditioned the major part of historical research and study. This
widespread influence produced such an impact on the practice of
history that it appeared that the old fashioned narrative history has
been shown the door for good. Perhaps the affect of the impact
was exaggerated; the narrative had never been completely
subjugated or banished from history. Lawrence Stone who himself
had fallen under the spell of New History21 later exultantly
declared: "Historians have always told stories. From Thucydides
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
17/146
17 Understanding Itihasa
and Tacitus to Gibbon and Macaulay the composition of narrative
in lively and elegant prose was always accounted their highestambition. History was regarded as a branch of rhetoric. For the last
fifty years, however, this storytelling function has fallen into ill
repute among those who regarded themselves as in the vanguard
of the profession . . . . Now, however, I detect evidence of an
undercurrent which is sucking many prominent 'new historians'
back into some form of narrative."22
The entry of the linguistic turn in history was itself a part of a
larger shift that was taking shape right across the humanities.23
This shift began in the fifties. It questioned some of the basic
premises of positivist framework that dominated the thinking in
social sciences as well as humanities. " O thinkers increasingly
criticized a number of the concepts and distinctions central to
positivism: the analytic vs. the synthetic; fact vs. theory;
description vs. explanation; fact vs. value; the verifiable vs. the
non-verifiable; science vs. metaphysics. In so doing they began to
emphasize the perspectival character of all knowledge."24 In
contrast to the scientific attitude nurtured by the positivist
framework, a different attitude towards language and its relation
to reality began to assert itself. While the positivist view looked at
language as something transparent through which reality is seen,
the linguistic turn viewed language as something opaque and that
it 'creates or structures what is called Real'.25Reality thus can not
be represented; it is interpreted or constructed. There can be noobjective representation of fact, but only a reflexive construction.
All statements are thus rhetoric. In contradistinction to the
positivist scientific attitude, this is called rhetorical attitude. Since
1970s the rhetorical attitude has been playing a very significant
role in shaping the contemporary outlook on the nature of history.
In the first phase of its influence the rhetorical attitude restored
the narrative back to history as its characteristic mode. The issue
that dominated the debates during this phase centered on the
narrative as the device of explanation of the past. How narratives
perform the job of explanation of past events? How narrative
explanations are different or similar to causal explanations? Whatis the relation between the narrator and the narrative? These were
some of the important questions in the debate. It is in answers to
these questions that thinkers like Louis O Mink, Hayden White
and F. R. Ankersmit gave the rhetorical attitude its most radical
departure from the positivist positions.26
They asserted that history is not something given, it is
constructed; it is not discovered, it is produced. The construction
takes the form of a narrative; it is essentially a story. The narrative
structure does not naturally emerge from the evidences but rather
results from a specific discursive ordering of the evidence.27The
narrative is a form in which the outcome of the historian's
conclusion is embedded in the narrative itself; 'it is directly
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
18/146
The Path that Great Men Walked 18
reported'. "It is the narrative history itself which claims to be a
contribution to knowledge, not something else which the narrativehistory merely popularizes or organizes. The claim of a narrative
history is that its structure is a contribution to knowledge, not just
a literary artifice for the presentation of a series of factual
descriptions."28Historical narratives are imaginative construction
based on the ordering of evidences. And they draw their meanings
not just from the 'so-called facts they describe' but also from the
form of narrative in which facts are packed.29Historical narratives
are thus stories in which fictional devices like 'emplotment,
story-types, figurative language, and so on' are employed. These
stories do not replicate actual life, they are made by the historian.
"But to say that the qualities of narrative are transferred to art from
life seems a hysteron proteron. Stories are not lived but told. Life
has no beginnings, middles or ends; there are meetings, but the
start of an affair belongs to the story we tell ourselves later, and
there are partings, but final partings are only in the story. There are
hopes, plans, battles and ideas, but only in retrospective stories are
hopes unfulfilled, plans miscarried, battles decisive, and ideas
seminal."30
Selectivity characterizes every stage of the construction of the
narrative. From the choice of the theme to the selection of the
narrative form, it is the historian who makes the decision but he is
guided by the demands of the story he has chosen to relate.
Michlet and Tocqueville wrote different kinds of histories of theFrench Revolution. " Neither can be said to have had more
knowledge of the 'facts' contained in the record; they simply had
different notions of the kind of story that best fitted the facts they
knew. Nor should it be thought that they told different stories of
the Revolution because they had discovered different kinds of
facts, political on the one hand, social on the other. They sought
out different kinds of facts because they had different kinds of
stories to tell."31
It is the cultural heritage, particularly the inherited literary
tradition and attitude, that presents the menu for the choice of the
form or the 'emplotment' the historian recourses to. It is the sharedcultural milieu that on the one hand enables the historian to weave
the intended meaning in his emplotment, and on the other, it
enables the reader to grasp that meaning. The reader is able to
identify the particular form the historian has chosen and get the
meaning embedded in the form. He can thus follow the story and
understand it. It is in this manner that the narrative performs the
task of explicating. And this is the real nature of historical
explanation. "How a given historical situation is to be configured
depends on the historian's subtlety in matching up a specific plot
structure with the set of historical events that he wishes to endow
with a meaning of a particular kind. This is essentially a literary,
that is to say fiction-making operation. And to call it that in no
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
19/146
19 Understanding Itihasa
way detracts from the status of historical narratives as providing a
kind of knowledge. For not only are the pregeneric plot structuresby which sets of events can be constituted as stories of a particular
kind limited in number, as Frye and other archetypal critics
suggest; but the encodation of events in terms of such plot
structures is one of the ways that a culture has of making sense of
both personal and public pasts." The issue of meaning in history in
the narrativist formulation is linked to the culture complex where
the encodation and the decodation of the narrative take place. The
significance and relevance of itihasa-purana or carita as historical
artifacts resided within the culture complex where they were
produced and they can not be fully and fairly assessed in terms of a
different set of culture-norms.
IV
Contemporary philosophical interest in history is restricted almost
exclusively to the questions that pertain to what is called critical
philosophy of history. These questions do not show much concern
with the historical process33. Although interest in universal history
or 'the grand narrative' in the academic circle is fast becoming a
synonym for charlatanism, the relevance of 'history as events', as
distinct from 'history as account', can not be shaken off.34 The
issue of historical understanding, its nature and its value, can not
be completely detached from the issue of understanding the
historical process. Even the most radical narrativist formulation
will not be able to defend a complete disregard for history as
events. It is the past events that provide the basic impetus for the
generation of the narrative even if the narrative does not represent
the events.35 The solicitation of meaning in history through the
narrative, through the device of emplotment, metonymy and
synecdoche,36can not be completely divorced from the desire to
locate the meaning of events.
And once we grant legitimacy to the seeking of meaning of
'events', or if one prefers, the seeking of the meaning of history
through the events, then it is difficult see how the grand narrative
can be avoided. The notion of meaning in this context can not bedetached from the notions of significance and value. And
significance presupposes relationship. Once embarked, this
trajectory finally takes us on to the fundamental question of value
and significance of human life. It is from this point of view that all
the grand narratives were constructed. And there has been a long
line of grand narrativists, from St. Augustine to Toynbee and
Sorokin.37
V
An important function that history performs is that it keeps alive
an awareness of one's debt to the past, gives one a sense ofbelonging to what might be called a tradition and heritage and
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
20/146
The Path that Great Men Walked 20
generates a sense of continuity.38 This sense of belonging and
continuity is not necessarily the same as conservatism or abackward looking attitude. This sense of belonging and continuity
gives a temporal depth to one's existence, a depth that is absolutely
necessary and without which life runs the risk of becoming
rootless. The cultural and the intellectual orientation of early India
bears diverse marks of sensitivity towards past. Conscious steps
were taken to maintain and promote the sense of belonging to a
tradition coming down from the past. Ancestors were called
departed fathers (pitar) and they were remembered with reverence
and gratitude. It was one's sacred duty to repay the debt of the
fathers (pitr rna). No ritual, no ceremony, could begin without
offering food and water to the departed fathers. It was also a
sacred duty to remember the debt one owed to the sages of yore
(rsi rna) and preserve and increase the cultural and intellectual
heritage they had bequeathed. The importance given to kula, desa,
etc., the laws and customs (dharma, aca~ra) of kula, jati, grama,
desa, etc., the system of gotra-pravara were all designed to
reinforce the awareness of continuity from the past, a sense of
belonging, an awareness of history. All these were also reminders
of one's responsibility to what has been bestowed by the past. It is
extremely significant that the two primary divisions of the
knowledge system of early India should bear the names of sruti
(that what has been heard) and smrti (the remembered wisdom of
past). Practically the entire intellectual output of early India wasbut an elaboration of these two. And both of these hark back to
past for their source and inspiration.
Awareness of past is found embedded in the Veda itself. The
Vedic poets refer to kings and dynasties of past. This awareness
was more than just a disparate relic of past stuck in the memory.
The Vedic poets were keenly conscious of the passage of time
from the past into the future and the responsibility of the present
generation for preserving the heritage for futureyuga.39
Witzel has
noted that Indian languages have all preserved, in their own way,
some aspects of the evolution of their history. "They all have quite
involved systems of expressing various stages in the past, and thusa whole array of forms relating to several past 'tenses'." The
beginnings of this attitude can be seen already in the authors of the
Vedic texts."40He remarked that Indians often provided a social
framework for these changes. Thus theMaitrayani Samhita states
that while the form ratrim was alright for men, the devatas used
the purer form of ratrim for night. What is actually meant is that
the form with dirgha i was an earlier form.41 There are also
references to older times and learned persons of yore in the
Rgveda itself.42
The way the Veda was preserved without distortion for
thousands of years is truly a unique feat of conservation of history;
no parallel to this can be instanced from anywhere else in the
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
21/146
21 Understanding Itihasa
world. It is noteworthy that while the srutipersevered to preserve
the patrimony of past without change, the smrti preserved asocially constructed tradition that was ever responsive to the
demands of changing time and situation. The dynamics of
kaiadharma and desadharma were readily recognized and
appreciated in smrti. It was not a frozen, solidified past that smrti
represented but a moving dynamic continuity. It may be noted that
itihasa-Purana was a part of smrti.43
The chosen instrument for
keeping abreast of time in thepurana was upavrmhana. Viewed
from the perspective that every culture strives to preserve from its
past heritage what it regards valuable, early India in no way can be
called less history-conscious than Greece or Rome or China. Only
that this consciousness articulated itself differently.
The high premium that early India had put on preserving this
awareness of continuity, ironically, instead of creating the
impression that India was keenly history-conscious, resulted in
producing the opposite effect. It gave birth to the stereotype of
unchanging India, India that had turned its back on history.
Fortunately, this stereotypical reading of Indian culture as a
stationary one unable to respond to the calls of change is no longer
taken seriously.44
It was not just at the collective level but at the individual level
as well that we find instances of a keen sensitivity to the past
history. Writers belonging to all branches of literature kept on
referring to earlier works and authors. It was a common practice.Grammar, linguistics, art, in all the various disciplines, we find the
later authors show close familiarity with earlier authors and
acknowledge their indebtedness to them. In a large number of
instances the names and works of earlier authors survive only in
the references made to them by later writers. Even the colossal
figures like Panini, Yaska, Bharata, Caraka, etc., those who were
the defining authorities of their respective disciplines, freely spoke
of their intellectual ancestors.45
In the Raghuvamsa, Kalidasa expresses his debt to the
predecessors (purvasun) in his inimitable style. He says that the
predecessors had already done all the hard works, only the easiertask remained for him. The predecessors had collected the
diamonds and left them cut and ready, all that he had now to do
was to just pass the thread through them.46In theMeghadutam he
refers to village elders who were experts in ancient lore
(kathakovid gramavrddha).47
While describing the city of Ujjayini
he mentions certain 'historical' spots in the city that were hallowed
by the memory of Pradyota, Udayana, etc.48 Memory of old events
and episodes thus continued to survive in diverse forms and
manners and they were continually evoked.
The notion that the early Indian lacked a sense of history seems
to have been set in motion by Alberuni. In his account of India
Alberuni observed, "Unfortunately the Indians do not pay much
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
22/146
The Path that Great Men Walked 22
attention to the historical order of things, they are very careless in
relating the chronological succession of their kings, and when theyare pressed for information they are at a loss, not knowing what to
say, they invariably take to tale-telling. But for this we should
communicate to the reader the traditions, which we have received
from some people among them."49This statement has assumed a
kind of a sovereign status among modern practitioners of Indian
history.50It is not necessary at this stage to go in detail into the
question why Alberuni formed this impression. For the present it
may suffice to note that in early India the study of historical events
in precise chronological order did not enjoy the same degree of
attention and popularity in the intellectual world as some other
disciplines. The light in which past was viewed in early India was
also quite different from the one that Alberuni was familiar with.
We will try to deal with these aspects in some subsequent sections.
It is, however, pertinent to point out that neither the Greco-Roman
nor the Chinese travelers seem to have exactly shared this
perception.51
It is not that records were not kept or that care was not taken to
maintain them properly. Evidences rather tell a different story.
Kautilya tells us that the state used to have a very elaborate record
keeping system.52 The main record office was known as
aksapatala. It was situated in the capital and housed in a spacious
building containing many halls and rooms for keeping records.
The records pertained to '(1) the activity of each state department,(2) the working of state factories and conditions governing
production in them, (3) prices, samples and standards of
measuring instruments for various kinds of goods, (4) laws,
transactions, customs and regulations in force in different regions,
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 foes.'53
One will heartily endorse the remark of Kangle, 'A more
comprehensive record-house can hardly be thought of.'54Besides
the central record office, the aksapatala, functionaries in charge ofadministrative and financial affairs, for example, an officer like
samahartr as also his subordinates sthanika, gopa,etc., had to
maintain their own records pertaining to the areas of their charge
and function.55 In the Rajatarahgini there is a reference to an
officer with special expertise in the preparation of documents.
This officer was called pattopadhyaya. And he belonged to the
establishment of aksapatala and had the responsibility of
preparing appropriate documents in execution of royal grants.56
Epigraphic evidence also refer to other categories of record
keepers apart from aksapatalika (in charge of aksapatala) like
pustapala, pustakapala, petapala, pettapala, pedapala, etc.57 "To
transmit the royal decrees a crops of secretaries and clerks was
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
23/146
23 Understanding Itihasa
maintained, and remarkable precautions were taken to prevent
error. Under the Colas, for instance, orders were first written byscribes at the King's dictation, and the accuracy of the drafts was
attested by competent witnesses. Before being sent to their
recipients they were carefully transcribed, and a number of
witnesses, sometimes amounting to as many as thirteen, again
attested them. In the case of grant of land and privileges an
important court 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."58
There are numerous evidences to the effect that states used to
take great pains to prepare and maintain records. In an extensive
note Arvind Sharma has given a neat summary of the
dharmasastra material pertaining to the significance, preparation,
preservation and classification of documents. Documents were
numerous as well as varied. There were official documents
bearing official seals and stamps. There were several varieties of
official documents. And then, there were peoples' documents
(laukika, janpada); there were private documents. Elaborate
procedures were developed to verify their validity.60
Arvind Sharma gives an interesting account of the way the
dharmasastra writers projected the importance of documentation.
It is the Creator himself who created documents.59 This divine
initiative was necessary because without documents ' the worldwould have come to grief', there would have been no 'indubitable
means of apprehending the time, the place, the object, the
material, the extent and the duration of a transaction'. Since people
begin to entertain doubts about a transaction even in a matter of six
months, 'the Creator created in the hoary past letters' to be put on
record 'on writing material (patra).61The viewpoint articulated by
the dharmasastri in the above formulation is significant. It shows
that the view that the early Indians were so completely swamped
by their concept of the cosmic time flowing incessantly without
beginning and end that they lost all perspective of historical time
is apt to be very one sided. The outlook of Narada or Brhaspatiwas firmly and unambiguously historical.
It is also clear that all records did not pertain to administrative,
legal and financial matter. Documents more directly historical in
nature were also prepared and preserved. Yuan Chuwang referred
to the official practice of maintaining records of events both at the
royal court in the capital as well as in the provinces. There were
special officers who were entrusted with the task. It is interesting
that these records were called 'blue deposit'. These records
'mentioned good and evil events, with calamities and fortunate
occurrences'.62Alberuni had noticed genealogical lists of the Sahi
rulers of Afghanistan written on silk. These lists were kept for
preservation at the fortress of Nagarkot. From the manner of
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
24/146
The Path that Great Men Walked 24
Alberuni's statement it appears that this was a dynastic chronicle
of the Sahi kings spanning a period of more than one thousandyears from the foundation of Kusana power to the fall of the
Brahmana Sahis in the 11th century.63 According to D. C. Sircar
official charters of many ruling families of post-Gupta period
contain historical accounts covering many generations spread
over, sometimes, several centuries. Such accounts would have
been difficult to prepare without the assistance of written records
already existing.64
It is well known that Kalhana in the preparation of his book had
before him twelve earlier works on the history of Kashmir.65
Besides written works, he had also consulted other evidences like
grants, consecration-inscriptions,prasastis, etc.66There is also no
reason to believe that the methodology of scrutiny, verification,
collation, etc., that Kalhana followed was not known earlier. The
tradition of composing chronicles was not limited to Kashmir
alone. There are definite evidence of their existence in Assam ( in
the form of Burahjis) and in Nepal (in the form of Vamsavalis).
On the basis of what we have observed above regarding the
custom of keeping records of 'events', it can be safely surmised
that the keeping of chronicles was a common custom all over the
country.67To this may be added the chronicles maintained by the
various religious organizations. The Buddhist Mahavamsa and
Dipavamsa are well-known examples of this class.68
There are a number of inscriptions that mention past eventswith dates. We find the narration of events belonging to the reign
of a single monarch in chronological order. There are inscriptions
that describe events that happened at different dates and belonged
to the reigns of different rulers and were under the charge of
different officers and took place at different places, but the
chronological order of enumeration was strictly maintained.69
This is a suitable point to take note of another small problem.
Sometimes the assertion that early India lacked a sense of history
is formulated in the shape of another assertion that early India did
not possess a sense of chronology. It is not clear what actually is
meant by the lack of a sense of chronology. Does it mean anapprehension of the affairs of the world as though they exist in a
dateless expanse of time, where the passage of time in its
sequential order is not properly comprehended and where no
method of calibration of the passage is used? In such a case it will
be a kind of cognition "where all generations become as it were
contemporaries."70Such a formulation about early India is totally
untenable. India's familiarity with the computation of time
sequence goes back to very early period. Jyotisa was one of the
Vedahgas and the very inspiration behind the study ofjyotisa was
the precise determination of appropriate time for the performance
of ritual. Even in theRgveda there are suggestions that passage of
time was computed through succession of years.71
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
25/146
25 Understanding Itihasa
Another way the lack of a sense of chronology has been
formulated is that there was an absence of a long term datingsystem as well as the consciousness that such a system was
necessary. Early India by no means can be accused of suffering
from an absence of a long term perspective of time. The pumnic
concept of the cyclic succession of huge eons,para, kalpa, yuga
encompasses a time dimension that is mind-boggling in its
vastness; and its very immensity makes it appear meaningless.72
The thesis that there was a lack of a sense of chronology among
early Indians thus has also been presented in the following form:
as early India subscribed to the cyclic concept of time, it inhibited
the growth of the concept of linearity of time. Therefore, early
India did not develop any system of reckoning of time like an era
till such dating system was introduced by invading ruling
dynasties.73
We will take up the question of the interrelationship between
the concepts of circular and linear time and the parts they played in
forming the notion of history in early India in a later section. As
regards the question of the prevalence of dating and era, the
practice of a dating system and the practice of reckoning based on
an era are not exactly the same. And, the idea of chronology does
not have to be necessarily identified with either of them. The
consciousness of chronology simply means a consciousness of
sequence of events. A dating method takes form when in addition
to the consciousness of sequence, the sequenced events are alsoplaced in some kind of reckoning, irrespective of the length of
scale. Moreover, it can not be definitely ascertained whether or not
there were some old and indigenous eras current in the country.
There are some indications that eras dating from important events
like the onset of Kaliyuga or the demise of Mahavira or Buddha
were current in early India.74The practice of dating according to
the year of reign of the ruling monarch does not necessarily prove
that reckoning in eras was unknown. A large number of powerful
rulers continued to use regnal years in their inscriptions long after
the use of eras had become widely known.75
VI
A large number of terms denoting past events were in continuous
vogue in ancient India right from the Vedic age. It is true that the
exact connotations of these terms are debatable and that it is not
possible to ascertain how far these terms referred to actual
historical past and to what extent to mythical time. But all the
same they do represent the prevalent attitude towards past. And
they are significant from that point of view.
Despite the fact that religion is the basic theme of Vedic
literature, it contains references to certain forms of compositions
that may be termed as historical. Songs and verses were composedin praise of worthy deeds. TheRgveda states that kings were very
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
26/146
The Path that Great Men Walked 26
fond of eulogies as a form of literary composition.76It appears that
there was a class of versifiers and singers similar to the latter-daybards: gathin, vinagathin, vinaganagin, etc., who specialized in
the composition and narration of this kind of eulogies.77Besides
the eulogies, mainly of royal power and glory, the beginnings of a
different tradition of history writing are found in the succession
lists of Vedic sages. Relatively earlier lists are found in some
brahmanas and in Sahkhyayana Aranyaka and Brhadaranyaka
Upanisad and somewhat later lists in some grhya and srauta
sutras. These lists are called vamsa and gotra-pravara lists.78
These lists differed from the gatha, narasamsi in the sense that
they show a conception of continuity, an idea of a relatively longer
time span and connectivity between events, and that they were not
purely episodic.
Various terms connoting 'historical' compositions like gatha,
narasamsi, itihasa, purana, akhyana, etc., are found referred to in
Vedic literature. These compositions, it appears, became a part of
the ritualistic tradition that dominated the Vedic literature. The
recounting of glorious and heroic stories of past was a part of the
great Vedic sacrifices like asvamedha.19These were also narrated
in the course of some domestic rituals.80 Similarly, the vamsa and
gotra-pravara lists harked back to divine ancestors and mythical
sages.81 The dominance of religion and ethics over history in
varying degrees remained a permanent feature of Indian view of
history and the two were never fully de-linked.However, there are certain indications that these historical
compositions originated independently of the ritual tradition in a
milieu that was mainly secular and later got incorporated into the
ritual system. The term narasamsi signified 'verse celebrating
men.'82The Aitareya Brahmana distinguished gatha from rk by
stating that while the former is merely human, the latter is divine.83
Although gatha and narasamsi had often been distinguished, they
had as often been represented as kindred terms.84A passage in the
Atharvaveda enumerated the following kinds of works: rk, saman,
yajus, brahmana, itihasa, purana, gatha, narasamsi.85 The
passage seems to refer to two different classes of compositions,the one may be termed as religious or adrstarthaka (rk, saman,
yajus, and brahmana) and the other secular or historical or
drstarthaka (itihasa, purana, gatha, narasamsi). The Kathaka
Samhita describes both gatha and narasamsi as false (anrtam).86
There is a statement in the Satapatha Brahmana, which appears
interesting in this context: "Twofold, verily, is this, there is no
third, viz. truth and untruth.87And verily, the gods are the truth
and man is the untruth." Anrta here seems to connote apara or
earthly. It appears that gatha and narasamsi did not belong to the
domain of religious-spiritual, but to the human and secular.88 It
may perhaps be surmised that right from the early Vedic age there
was a floating tradition of historical compositions, originally
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
27/146
27 Understanding Itihasa
non-Vedic and non-ritualistic, which celebrated the heroic and
noble deeds of men. These were mainly eulogistic songs and theirmain patrons were kings who were fond of such compositions.89In
consequence of the growth of big Vedic sacrifices historical
narratives acquired a place in the ritual system because the kings
who were the clients of these elaborate Vedic scarifies were also
the patrons of historical narratives. This paved the way for the
inclusion of secular heroic narratives as parts of religious
sacrificial lore. Narasamsa, from which narasamsi was derived,
was associated with rites devoted to deceased fathers.90 The
recounting of glories of departed ancestors or past generations
thus formed an important component of what was regarded as
historical narratives. The recitation of lore of past became an
important element in the performance of rajasuya, asvamedha,
etc.91 There were experts, akhyanavid, puranavid, etc., in the
narration of historical lore, whose services were utilized in the
rituals.92According to Yaska the school of aitihasikas specialized
in interpreting Vedic hymns through itihasa, in contrast to the
nairuktas who relied on etymology for Vedic interpretation.93
Gatha, narasamsi, akhyana, etc. seem to have been
predominantly legends celebrating heroic and noble deeds. In
them the line separating the human and superhuman was not
important. Thus there were indragathas andyajnagathas, and the
akhyana of the union of a divine nymph with a mortal hero and its
inevitable tragic consequences.94 These narratives in the Vedicliterature were considered as having a mystical aspect about them
which facilitated their way into the ritual system.
Among the various history-denoting terms current in early
India, the central space was occupied by the twin terms: itihasa
andpurana, often joined together in a compound. It is not easy to
define these terms precisely and to bring out the precise
relationship between the two. Both the terms apparently were very
old; itihasa clearly and unambiguously had made its appearance
already in the Atharvaveda.95
Then in the Brahmanas and
Upanisads, it is a frequently occurring term and usually in
association withpurana.96
And already in the Vedic period itihasaand purana, jointly or separately, had acquired the status of a
Veda.97 It is clear that itihasa and purana had a very intimate
relationship; their subject matter must have covered a great deal of
common ground and must have often overlapped. The
continuation of both the terms over a very long period suggests
that they were not regarded as synonymous to begin with. With the
passage of time the points of distinction between the two got
blurred and confused. This confusion is strikingly illustrated by
the contradictory positions taken by such famous authorities as
Medhatithi and Sankaracarya on the one hand and by Sayanacarya
on the other. Whereas Sankaracarya and Medhatithi describe the
creation account (sristiprakriya) as constituting purana and
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
28/146
The Path that Great Men Walked 28
Urvasi-Pururava legend as itihasa, Sayana regards creation
account as itihasa and Urvasi-Pururava legend aspurana998
In thearthavada (i.e., explanatory) portions of theBrahmanas, however,
the akhyanas of Urvasi-Pururava and that of Sunahsepah have
been given as examples of itihasa and creation account as that of
purana.99 There is a very interesting and revealing passage in the
Arthasastra of Kautilya. The passage gives us a fairly accurate
and broad idea about the perspective in which itihasa was viewed
at that time. The Arthasastra perspective is also additionally
significant because it is the product of an age in which Puranic
literature was receiving its standardized form.100It may indicate
that Kautilyan view might have had linkages with that of the
purana.
TheArthasastrapassage occurs in the chapter on the training of
the prince. The training programme had a clearly structured
character. The training started at a very early age immediately
after the tonsure ceremony (caula) was performed. At this primary
stage the prince was first introduced to alphabet and numbers as a
foundation for the more rigorous intellectual training to follow.
After the sacred thread ceremony (upanayana)began the training
on the three Vedas and the philosophical systems and the
management of economic and political affairs. After gaining a
thorough grounding in these and after the prince attained manhood
he was asked to cultivate constantly the association of wise and
knowledgeable people 'for the sake of improving his training'.101Itis in this context that Kautilya prescribed that the prince should
spend the second half of everyday in 'listening to itihasa'.102And
then comes the passage describing the scope and constituents of
itihasa. "The puranas, itivrtta, akhyayika, udaharana,
dharmasastra and arthasastrathese constitute itihasa".11003
Despite sharing certain common elements the purana,
dharmasastra and arthasastra represented distinct classes of
literature. And each has a distinctive personality. It may be
surmised that the other three, i.e., itivritta, akhyayika and
udaharana, too must have had their separate existences and
distinctive characters. Again, purana, itivrtta, akhyayika andudaharana appear to have shared a common family trait; all of
them seem to have been narratives of old events. They differed
from one another not so much in character as in scope and range.
Udaharana, as the term suggests, probably signified a
collection of separate events exemplifying success and failures.
Kautilya apparently gives us a few samples of udaharana in the
chapter entitled 'Casting out the Group of Six Enemies' dealing
with the necessity of controlling the evil impulses and passions by
the prince.104 The udaharana narratives were strung together
because of their illustrative value. The narratives did not seem to
have any temporal order or sequential unity. The incidents in an
akhyayika, on the other hand, had internal relatedness and unity.
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
29/146
29 Understanding Itihasa
Akhyayika was a variant of, or derivation form, akhyana. This
form of narratives appears to have been popular since the Vedicperiod for their dramatic quality and for their morals and was
given a place in the ritual system.105 Generally akhyana dealt with
a particular story. Sometimes, however, a number of akhyanas
were strung together as in thepariplavani cycle.106Even the whole
of theMahabharata was sometimes called an akhyana although it
contained within itself numerous independent akhyanas.107
Akhyayika later appeared to have acquired a standardized
narrative form pertaining to the lives and activities of rulers.108
Anyway, this seems clear that akhyana-akhyayika had for its
theme a single thread: an
'event' or a string of events constituting a 'story' with a beginning,middle and end. Itivrtta and its synonym puravrtta perhaps
signified events covering a longer period and range than
akhyayika; the suffix vrtta suggests a sequential order.Itivrtta also
seems to hint at a circular or cyclical concept of history.Itivrtta or
the variantpuravrttaperhaps meant a cycle of events.
It is not possible to trace the evolution of the termpurana with
precision. That it referred to accounts of 'olden past' is obvious;
the very expression purana is a sufficient indication. Whether
Puranic traditions antedated the Vedas, whether they were
anti-Vedic and anti-Brahmanic are questions that will have to wait
for precise answers.109This, however, seems clear that by the time
the Arthasastra was composed and the Puranic literature was
getting formalized, the scope of the theme of puranas had
acquired a truly vast sweep. It included the entire process of
creation and evolution and accommodated within this frame a
number of secondary beginnings and disintegration of the world
and the succession of theyugas and the accounts of all significant
beings and events. It is not only the sumptuousness of the
marvelous elements in these accounts, but also the vastness of the
scope that disagrees so strikingly with our contemporary
sensibilities. The point that we are trying to make here is that
udaharana, akhyayika, itivrtta andpurana represented a series of
graded perspectives in history; the scope of akhyayika was widerthan udaharana, itivrtta was wider than akhyayika, and purana
was wider than itivrtta. According to Kautilya, itihasa included all
of the above and even more; it also included dharmasastra and
arthasastra. The inclusion of dharmasastra and arthasastra
appears particularly interesting as it seems to underline the social
perspective of history.110 The underlying suggestion seems to say
that events ought to be situated against the dharma and artha
perspectives. To act as an aid to the realization of thepurusarthas
was the central raison d'etre of ithasa.111
Itihasa in the light of theArthasastrapassage appears to have
been considered as a wholesome study of the affairs of this worldpreparing man to comprehensively meet his social obligations. Its
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
30/146
The Path that Great Men Walked 30
study seemed to have an especial value for a ruler. It ranked in
importance next to the three Vedas and anviksikl. The Vedas andanviksikl were geared predominantly to the realization of moksa,
and vartta and dandanlti to economics and politics.112Itihasa, in
contrast, put equal emphasis on all of the caturvargas .113
TheArthasastrapassage would also afford us an idea about the
way that an 'event' in history was conceived. Any narrative was
not necessarily historical; to acquire the status of history a
narrative had to be instructive.114 It is the ability to teach and
instruct that invests an event with significance. The notion of
significance from this point of view is essentially ethical because
only that has the ability to instruct which can contribute to
well-being and happiness and because the attainment of
well-being hinges on the ability to make the distinction between
right and wrong. It is noteworthy that although Kautilya's
Arthasastra was a text that predominantly dealt with such secular
matter as the success of royal policies; the way history (itihasa)
was perceived by Kautilya had a strong ethical underpinning.115
This is clear from the narration of events of excesses committed
by the rulers of yore that led them to their doom. Kautilya narrated
those events as part of instructions to the prince as illustrations of
conduct to be abjured.116
Normally an event was also regarded as one with a fulsome
story. It usually contained one or more of akhyana/akhyayika
characterized by different parts that succeeded in sequential order.Prof. V.S. Pathak has described and illustrated these parts in his
work.117 These parts were: beginning (prarambha), the efforts
(prayatna), the hope of achieving the objective (praptyasa), the
certainly of achievement (niyataptV) and the achievement
(phalagama). A book of itihasa could consist of a single
akhyana/akhyayika likeHarsacarita.imIt could also include many
akhyanas sewn around a central theme as in the
Mahabharata that was also called Bharatakhyana though it
contained a large number of other independent akhyanas.119
The Arthasastra passage also sheds some light on the
relationship between itihasa and purana. In Kautilya's view, wehave noted above,purana was a part of itihasa, and the two were
thus intimately related. The scope of itihasa was perhaps wider
thanpurana, forpurana was only one of the various elements or
forms of itihasa. Generally, the Arthasastra passage has been
interpreted as indicating that purana was only one among the
several elements which together constituted itihasa. However, the
passage is also liable to interpretation to the effect that iitihasa had
many forms or variants as specified by Kautilya and that these
variants separately or together merited the name of itihasa. We
have also noted above that the relation between itihasa andpurana
and the scope and content of them were a matter on which famousauthorities disagreed and took opposite positions. Thus it is not
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
31/146
31 Understanding Itihasa
possible to decide whether the passage in the Arthasastra
represented merely Kautilya's personal view of itihasa or itreflected the commonly perceived perception of his time. That
Kautilya included dharamasastra and arthasastra in itihasa may
help us to understand why the Epics andpuranas included didactic
material and dharmasastra and arthasastra matters in such
abundance.
It is worth trying to understand why the expression purana
stood both for ancient lore as well as for a specific class of
literature. Winternitz has surmised that a mass of ancient lore and
traditions existed as a floating body which served as a common
storehouse from which various forms of literary expressions like
gatha, narasamsi, vamsa, akhyana, etc., drew their material.120
The Puranic form seems to have developed by absorbing many of
these forms within it. The Visnupurana, for example, tells us that
there were three constituent elements of the puranas: gatha,
akhyana and supplementary akhyana.121
They were collated
within the framework of vamsas to produce the vamsanucarita to
provide the puranas with some of its so-called distinctive
marksthe pahcalaksanas.122 The development of puranas
through adaptation, absorption and integration of earlier mass of
historical traditions and compositions represented a process of
growth of historical narratives. It represented growth even in
physical terms in the sense that purana came to constitute a
collection of an enormous corpus much larger in scope andvolume than the earlier forms of historical narratives. However,
the growth of purana reflected more than mere physical
expansion; it also marked the broadening of the scope and subject
matter of history as new elements and aspects were added by
puranakaras. puranas thus also represented a widening of the
perspective in the conceptual framework of history. Sincepuranas
became the repository of diverse aspects of past, the expression
purana came to signify both the old lore as well as the class of
literature preserving the old lore.
From another perspective also, pumnas may be considered as
marking a continuous and dynamic growth of the historicalnarrative. Through the process of upabrimhana new material
covering immediate past was continuously added to the existing
corpus updating the narrative and keeping it attuned to
contemporary requirements and tastes.123This saved the narrative
from getting stale investing it with a certain amount of evergreen
quality. This, moreover, also underlined the relevance of past to
the present by relating the past to the contemporary.
It is clear that the custom of documenting the past in India had a
very long and old history. There were bards and minstrels whose
business was to compose, narrate and preserve glorious and heroic
deeds. It seems that a class of specialists arose who developed
expertise in preserving the records of past; these experts
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
32/146
The Path that Great Men Walked 32
constituted the 'school of historians' for the society. We have noted
above that originally they did not seem to have been an integralpart of the Vedic ritualistic tradition. The matter that was of
primary concern to the preservers of heroic lore, the school of the
aitihasika-puranika, was mainly secular in character. These were
heroic and noble deeds of great men.
And it appears that the orthodoxy did not always view the
composition of these accounts kindly. Even if one does not
wholeheartedly agree with Pargiter's view124 that purana-itihasa
tradition represented Ksatriya tradition in contrast to the Vedic
Brahmanicalthe two might not have been as antithetical as
Pargiter contendsthere is no denying the fact that they originally
belonged to two distinct traditions.A large number of terms for these specialists are found. Some
of the more frequently used terms in Pauranic literature were
puravid, puranavid, puranajna, puranika, vamsavid,
vamsacintaka, vamsa-puranajna, anuvamsapuranajna, etc. It is
not possible to locate and demarcate specific areas of
specialization associated with these terms. They were often used
loosely without adhering to a fixed meaning.125From thepuranas
it appears that these specialists were also known by a common and
broader term, the suta. The duties and functions of suta can be
sketched with certain amount of definiteness. "The sutas special
duty as perceived by goodmen of old was to preserve the
genealogies of gods, rishis and most glorious kings, and the
traditions of great men, which are displayed by those who declare
sacred lore in the itihasa and puranas."126
It was thus suta's
function to preserve the memories of 'glorious kings', 'the
traditions of great men', 'the eulogies' of famous people and 'the
genealogies.' The suta was a pauranika, a specialist in ancient
lore, a vamsakusala, an expert in genealogies.127
The pauranika sutas were different from the varna samkara
sutas mentioned in the smrti literature. Kautilya makes a clear
distinction between the two.128 The pauranika sutas appear to
have been learned people and apparently they belonged to the
cultivated class. V.S. Pathak has drawn the attention of scholars tothe fact that the Bhrigvangirasa families had shown special
aptitude and interest in the preservation and propagation of
historical lore.129The close relation between the Bhrigvangirasas
and itihasa-purana has been recorded especially in the Candogya
Upanisad. At one place it states that the Atharvavedabears the
same relation to itihasa-purana as theRgveda to rik, Samaveda to
saman, Yajurveda to yajus. At another place we find a clearer
statement: "Atharvangirasas are the bees, the itihasapurana is the
flower." At yet another place it states that the hymns of the
Atharvangirasas brooded over the itihasapurana.130
It is possible
that thepaumnika sutasbelonged to the Bhrigvangirasa extraction
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
33/146
33 Understanding Itihasa
and the antiquity of the itihasapurana was not very much shorter
than that of theVedas.131
An account of the compilation ofpurana is found in the Vayu,
Brahmanda and Visnu purana. There the compilation is attributed
to Veda Vyasa. After accomplishing the stupendous task of
systematization and division of Vedas into four, the Rk, Saman,
Yajus and Atharva and entrusting them to four of his disciples
Paila, Vaisampayana, Jaimini and Sumantu respectively,
Maharsi Krisna Dvaipayana complied a purana samhita and
entrusted it together with itihasa to his fifth disciple suta
Lomaharsana or Romaharsana. After that he composed the
Bharatakhyanam.132
This account of the systematization of the Vedas, the
compilation of the purana and the composition of the
Mahabharata is highly interesting. Even though generally
scholars have treated this account with skepticism, no really valid
argument can be advanced for completely dismissing off its
authenticity. If Vedic literature is silent about this tradition of
Vyasa's dividing the Veda into four; there is nothing surprising
about this omission. Vyasa had merely organized the Vedas; there
is no reason why the texts should contain any reference to him, he
only arranged the Vedic texts without, presumably, any kind of
interference with the texts themselves which were already in
existence before his own time and which were traditionallyregarded as of non-human (apauruseya) origin. It is also natural
that the language, culture and the universe reflected in the Vedas
on the one hand and thepurana and theMahabharata on the other
should be quite distinct because the methods followed by Vyasa in
regard to the Vedas and purana-Mahabharata were quite
different. In the case of the Vedas, Vyasa's work was limited
merely to arrangement and organization, in the case of thepurana
and the Mahabharata he was not just an organizer but also a
composer author. It is interesting further to note that whereas for
the Vedas he divided a single text into four divisions, for the
puranas he collected a large number of existing traditions andaccounts into a single whole. As for the Mahabharata Vyasa is
credited with composing it.
That the later history of the development of Vedic Literature
andpurana itihasa should take on different lines was also natural;
the reason for this lay inherent in the very nature of the texts. Vedic
texts were finished products, they dealt with things become, the
purana on the other hand dealt with things becoming, there was
scope for continuous addition of new material to it as new
historical facts kept piling up. When looked at from this point of
view, Vyasa's work in regard to the arrangement of the Vedas
proved much more enduring than his compilation of the
purana-samhita; the Veda-samhitas as arranged by Vyasa have
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
34/146
The Path that Great Men Walked 34
remained intact, the purana-samhita compiled by Vyasa has got
buried under later growth.The traditional number of the purnnas is considered eighteen,
although the extant numbers of puranas greatly exceed this
traditional number. These different puranas appear to have
branched out of the originalpuranasamhita compiled by Vyasa.
This originalpurana could hardly have condensed all the existing
past traditions, there must have been other existing ancient
traditions leading to its augmentation and later proliferation into a
number ofpuranas. Thepuranasby their very nature easily lent
themselves to augmentation and adaptation. According to Pargiter
the later Brahmana editors of the puranasthe custody of the
puranapassed from the hands of professional sutas into those of
sectarian Brahmana priestly classtook full advantage of the
situation to introduce a great deal of extraneous matters,
particularly religious and didactic, besides the fresh historical
material that were accumulating over the time and stamp the
puranas with their sectarian views and attitude. Thus the
handiwork of Vyasa got lost.133The Brahmanical embellishments
led to a change in the nature of thepuranasby giving the original
secular Puranic accounts a religious character and thus narrowing
the gulf that divided the theological Vedic traditions and the
non-religious Puranic heritage.134
The traditional account of the compilation of the original
purana-samhitaby Vyasa tells us that he had collected akhyana,upakhyana, gatha and kalpa-jokti for the same.135 In this
connection it may also be noted that traditionally purana was
regarded as a class of literature that contained the following five
characteristics (pahcalaksana): original creation (sarga),
dissolution and re-creation (pratisarga), genealogy (vamsa),
transition of Manus (manvantara) and accounts of persons
mentioned in the genealogies (vamsanucarita).136These give us a
fair idea about the kinds of materials originally used for the
composition of the Puranic literature. Same kinds of material must
have also constituted the basic raw material of the itihasa. The
subject matter of the originalpurana thus seems to have consistedmainly of traditions about gods, about ancient rsis and kings,
about ancient genealogies and biographies.
No great distinction seems to have been made between
itihasa-purana and akhyana; they were often treated as
synonymous. "As collective terms itihasa and purana are often
mentioned as distinct, and yet are sometimes treated as much the
same; thus the Vayu calls itself both apurana and an itihasa, and
so also theBrahmanda. TheBrahma calls itself apurana and an
akhyana; theMahabharata calls itself by all these terms."137An
akhyana, however, does not seem to have been just any kind of old
tales. It seems to have been a tale of special nature, a tale to
illustrate a moral or a lesson. It was generally didactic. It is
-
8/11/2019 Understanding Itihasa
35/146
35 Understanding Itihasa
important to remember that the concept of history in ancient India
generally had always been strongly didactic in nature. However,according to Pargiter, the didactic dharma matter which loom very
large in the extant puranas were added later by the Brahmanas
into whose hands the task of the preservation of the puranas had
passed from their original custodians, the sutas.138It is significant
that dharma does not directly figure at all among the five
characteristic features of thepuranas (thepahcalaksana).Neither
does it figure in the list of the materials used by Vyasa for his
compilation of the originalpuranasamhita. Upakhyana obviously
belonged to the same genre as akhyana, the difference being
perhaps in size and dimension.139Gatha meant a song in praise of
noble and heroic deeds.140 Besides the kalpajoktis, the heroic
traditions, lore and tales of past embodied in akhyana, upakhyana,
gatha, etc., constituted the main Puranic material.
Of the original five characteristics of the purana, the
pahcalaksana, (original creation, dissolution and recreation, the
manvantaras, ancient genealogies and accounts of persons
mentioned in the genealogies) Pargiter writes "The first three
subjects thatpuranas should treat of, are based on imagination, are
wholly fanciful, and do not admit of any practical examination,
hence it would be a vain pursuit to investigate
them ... The fourth and fifth subjects are, however, genealogies
and tales of ancient kings, profess to be historical tradition and do
admit of chronological scrutiny, hence they are well worthconsidering."141
Not questioning the validity of Pargiter's observation it may be
pointed out that although it is true that the first three subjects are
not valuable for empirical history, nevertheless they provide a
grand sweep to the concept of history. Such sweeps form one of
the chief characteristics of some of the most influential schools of
historical interpretations. An obvious example is the Christian
idea of history, which encompasses all empirical events within a
single all comprehensive framework of divine plan.142 Similarly,
the Puranic framework of creation and dissolution, within which
the vamsa and vamsanucarita have their existence, give allempirical events a meaningful perspective and from that point of
view these three subjects sarga, pratisarga, manvantara are
highly valuable. They provide a synthesist framework and try to