Inscriptions of the Vijayanagara Rulers ed. Shrinivas Ritti

Vijayanagara Inscriptions

The rulers of the last great Empire of Peninsular India, the Vijayanagara Raya, issued a large number of inscriptions both on Copper Plates as well as on lithic surfaces. It has been estimated that between 1336 and 1565 when the Empire virtually collapsed following the cataclysmic defeat at Talikota, the Empire issued nearly 25,000 inscriptions. A large number of the Vijayanagara inscriptions are in the vernacular languages leading to the suspicion that Vijayanagara presented itself as a "local" ruler in distant localities by propagating Inscriptions in the local languages. The conflict between Tamil and Sanskrit, a product of the identity battles of the twentieth century was virtually unknown during the Vijayanagara period. The volume under review contains the texts of 241 inscriptions issued in the period under discussion by all four dynasties of Vijayanagara.

The Southern Regional Centre of the Indian Council of Historical Research, Bangalore, has embarked upon this ambitious project of compiling all the known Vijayanagara Inscriptions. So far VI volumes have been published making Vijayanagara more accessible to historians. An interesting feature of Vijayanagara Epigraphy which has not received the attention it deserves is the frequent use of local scripts for inscribing Sanskrit inscriptions and simultaneously using Nandinagari script for incising inscriptions in regional/local/vernacular languages.  This fact suggests that the Empires of medieval India had a more inclusive attitude towards languages compared to the identity infused bedlam that we notice today. Another interesting feature is that sanskrit was not projected during the late medieval period as the language of the "elite". All this suggests that modern Indian approaches to medieval history in particular and history in general are marinated in identity controversies that have their roots only in the twentieth century.  Vijayanagara provides us a fascinating glimpse into a complex realm in which languages coexisted in an atmosphere of mutual respect and interaction.

This book like the others in the series has collected all the published inscriptions and has provided a short summary of each inscription along with other details. It will be useful to historians working on Vijayanagara history. 

Tamils A Biography By David Shulman

Tamil A Biography
David Shulman
Harvard University Press, 2016

Tamil Biography

 The book under review is an account of the Tamil language situated in its historical and linguistic context. It is one of the unfortunate intellectual legacies of the colonial era that many of the discredited theories pertaining to racial origin, evolution of language, scriptal literacy, religion are all wrapped up in the dense fog of ideology that it is today impossible to deal with some of these issues dispassionately. It takes a peace activist from Israel, the well known Indologist and historian, David Shulman to write about these and other issues with integrity and deep commitment to scholarship. 

I have not come across a book that captures the complexity of Tamil literary and political history as eloquently and with scholastic depth as the present book. It is quite obvious that the present breed of Tamil "intellectuals" will rail against the account given by Shulman as he completely destroys the self serving myth, perpetuated over two centuries that Tamil has an origin independent of Sanskrit. Until Cauldwell made "Dravidian" into both a linguistic and racial characteristic, the term Dravida was used in Tamil literary works only as a geographical expression.

 The nineteenth century which saw the crystallization of racially charged theories, bequeathed to India a toxic legacy in the form of the Aryan/Dravidian Dichotomy, the Aryan Invasion Myth, the conflict between the oldest Tamil language and the upstart Sanskrit language. All these theories, though discredited have traction due to the purchase of identity politics in India. Hence, it is essential to read Shulman very carefully as he has argued effectively that throughout the medieval period, the Age of the Cholas, Sanskrit enjoyed a privileged status in the royal court and that status was neither resented nor did it lead to the sort of shadow boxing we find in the last century when the "Pure Tamil " movement sought to expurgate Sanskrit from the Tamil language altogether.

David Shulman, unlike Asko Parpola and others is a recognized authority on Sanskrit Language and Literature and knows nearly 24 languages including Telugu, Kanada and a host of European and Asian Languages. His own early foray into Tamil history when he wrote Tamil Temple Myths marked him as one who uses literary texts in new and novel ways. The tallapuramam of medieval Tamil region were studies against the general background of history and iconography in this work which was followed by King and Clown in South Indian Myth and Poetry a path breaking work on the textual construction of South Indian kingship. More recently, Whitney Cox has added to the thin corpus of historical investigation in his Politics, Kingship and Poetry in Medieval South India (Cambridge University Press, 2016). This line of investigation, a new historicist perspective that melds the fluid poetry of medieval Tamil compositions to the firm foundation of historiography.

Tamil A Biography demolishes three fundamental myths of the dominant political ideology prevalent in Tamil Nadu today and pervades the entire gamut of academic studies on early Tamil Language and Literature. As he says, "In modern South India Tamil has become a major criterion for collective identity, often seen now as forged in opposition to Sanskrit and an invasive north Indian culture and ideology". Shulman goes on to show that the Chola royal court was bilingual with Sanskrit enjoying the same status as Tamil and there is no sign of any conflict, real or imagined during the four centuries of Chola rule. The advent of the anti brahmin movent meant that the South Indian brahmins were represented as agents of the alien culture and that was used as a justification for excluding them form public and cultural life altogether. The scholarship of David Shulman goes a long way in correcting the distortions of the past. His discussion of the enduring presence of the Agasthya Myth, a north Indian therefore a putative Aryan as the founder of Tamil Grammar is both convincing and sound.

The date of the so called Cankam literary works and the presence of the enigmatic Kalabrahs are two vexed issues in early Tamil literary history. Following Tieken, Shulman also argues for a late date for the Cankam works, There is little evidence to show that the puram and akam varieties of poems were contemporaneous with the Roman presence in South India and the graffiti marks found on pot shrds from sites like Arikamedu, Porunthal, Kodumanal and other places do not help in tading the Cankam literary works. There seems to be a close association between Bhakti literature and the redacted bardic poetry of early Tamil region. His disdussion of the Sangam tradition based on the Velvikkudi Copper plate Inscription is interesting.

The work under review is a classic and will remain a reliable introduction to Tamil language and literary history. 
 

Shadow of Gods: Images, Deities and the Archive

Shadows of Gods: An Archive and its images
French Institute, Pondicherry, 2016
Gopinath Sricandane


South Indian images of Gods, goddesses, Deities and saints occupy an ambivalent space in the contemporary world. Historians trained in the western discipline of Art History whose hallowed names include Ermin Panofsky and the Warburgh Institute concern themselves with the historical changes in the whole domain of art and its change over time. India defies such an approach to art history, as there is little change over nearly a millennium in the techniques, modes of depiction or style. Indian art seems to be extra territorial to history and therefore Indian Art History remains essentially a study of  religion and its representation though sculpture, iconography and architecture. T A Gopinath Rao's monumental work, Elements of Hindu Iconography still remains the standard work, though it was published more than a century ago. The book under review is a welcome departure form the standard narratives of Indian art history.

The book was released during the state visit of the President of the Republic of France to India on the occasion of the Republic Day in January 2106.t consists of 15 short chapters which documents the alarming increase in cases of theft of Icons from temples, particularly Chola monuments in the Tamil region. There is an international market for stolen art and since the investigation and prosecution of criminals associated with art heist is  rather weak in India, Subash Kapoor and the like have been able to flourish. It goes without saying that given the nexus between Government agencies and the International art galleries it is extremely difficult to bring art thieves to justice. Ironically USA has shown greater sincerity in pursuing cases of theft of Indian art objects than India. In fact, the initial investigation into the illegal trade of Subash Kapoor in stolen Indian art was undertaken by the FBI. The noted British scholar of Indian art, Douglas Barrett had pointed
out  long ago that South Indian icons were disappearing from Temples at an alarming rate. UNESCO convention on the Restoration of stolen cultural property can be used successfully, but India has not developed the legal and the scientific means of authenticating the provenance of Indian artistic artifacts.

 Unlike Europe where a rich tradition of documentation of art existed, India does not have a home grown tradition of Historiography. Pausanias, while he lamented the loss of Greek Independence to Rome, was also interested in documenting and describing the   sanctuaries that he visited and described during the course of his travels on mainland Greece. His eye for detail and keen knowledge of local history allowed the historians of a later age to identify the sculptural pieces with great accuracy. India does not have a tradition of documenting its cultural treasures and in this the creation of the Archive of Sculpture and Iconography by the French Institute is an invaluable resource. The American Institute of Indian Studies at Varanasi has a similar archive but the access is so heavily restricted that India scholars find it difficult to get material from that Archive. The French archive was created by Francois Hernault, a researcher at the Institute of Indology which is part of the French Institute at Pondicherry. The repatriation of thr Puttur Bronze and the return of the Rockfeller Nataraja are two instances in which India successfully pressed its claims in a foreign court of law.

The French Institute has provided the legal basis for the identification of stolen art from South India as its photographic archive establishes provenance of the art and also establishes the probable date of its theft from India as the date when it entered the French register of icons is well known. This book is an interesting study of art at the border of law and history, legality and crime.

Noboru Karashima (1933-2015): A Tribute

Dr Noboru Karashima, the well known historian of medieval South India died yesterday at Tokyo and the field of medieval history stands impoverished today as he was responsible for some path breaking research. In 1996 Professor Burton Stein passed away and with the death of Karashima, a whole generation of stalwart historians has ended. A few years back Dr James Heitzman passed on and I can say that medieval history of Peninsular India will never be the same again.

Dr Noboru Karashima began his study of medieval South India by adopting a new method one that looks at history from the locality or nadu outwards. He studied the inscriptions found in a particular locality and dissected the internal variations in the structure of the inscriptions in terms of social groups mentioned, revenue terms, the titles of the parties involved in the transactions and the personal names of the functionaries mentioned in the record. One of his early publication was a comprehensive computerized data base of personal names found in Chola inscription. One can say that Karashima was a pioneer in the use of machine searchable databases. Another important contribution of Karashima lay in his comparative stusy of the social and economic resources of brhamadeya and ordinary peasant villages, the ur. His pioneering paper on Allur and Isanamangalam still hold the field. Under his leadership micro study of peasant localities became the norm. The work of Mitzhushima on the Nattar in the 18th century was inspired by the methodological implications of Karashima's work. The publications edited by Professor Noboru Karahima under the rubric of the Institute of Oriental Cultures are impressive micro studies based on a wealth of information culled from the archaeological sources. Unlike Burton Stein who raised medieval historiography to  a very high level of theoretical abstraction with the use of the concept of the segmentary state, Noboru Karashima based his analysis entirely on the empirical evidence at hand and eschewed theoretical consideration. I would say that like most Japanese historians, Karashima oriented his work broadly toward material factors. There is no place for oriental notionas of "caste" "identity" and "satic society" in the works of Karashima.

Towards the last phase of his life, Karashima trned his attention towards Vijayanagara History. His book Towards a New Formation and Concordance of Nayakas in Vijayanagara Inscriptions, both pub;lished by Oxford University Press mark important milestones in Vijayanagara historiography. The death of Noboru Karashima is a great loss and those of us in the filed of medieval history will remain indebted to him.

Sir Jadunath Sarkar and his Calling: Historiography on a grand scale

The Calling of History: Sir Jadunath Sarkar and his Empire of Truth
Dipesh Chakrabarthy
Orient Blackswan and Ashoka University, 2015

Dipesh Chakrabarthy, the celebrated author of Provincializing Europe has published an outstanding volume on the life and intellectual climate in late nineteenth and early twentieth century India, even as the stirring of "Indian Nationalism" was gathering strength. Historiography in India has completely neglected the pioneers in the reconstruction of India's past. Labels come easy and handy as a shorthand for dismissing such illustrious pioneers" Imperialist Historian", "Cambridge-Namierist Historian", "Communal Historian","Reactionary Nationalist Historian" etc. In no other society can the serious study of Historiography be reduced to pamphleteering as  unfortunately is the case with India. Historians have become "public intellectuals" and therefore calibrating historical interpretations to the prevailing politcal climate became the order of the day. Consequently serious research into India's tangled and complex past has barely begun.

The book under review is an excellent study of the ideas, methods and contributions of Sir Jadunath Sarkar, the historian who spent the best part of his life collecting documents relating to the Mughal Empire and the Maharattas. Dr Chakrabarthy has documented in great detail the trials and tribulations of this pioneer and the difficulties he encountered. Unlike historians who work in Universities today, Sir Jadunath Sarkar was well equipped to handle the task at hand. He had studies Persian, Dutch, Sanskrit, and French and so was able to reach the materials in the original language rather than rely on the 8 volumes of Elliot and Dowson. The very idea of History was in its infancy during the time when Sir Jadunath Sarkar began his researches and the very idea of reseach as Professor Chakrabarthy points out meant the "quest for truth" and the "verification of facts" drawn from the primary sources. The protocol of Truth and Verification appears naive in the context of Indian historiography today when the inanities   of post colonialism has become enshrined in the University system. Dipesh Chakrabarthy has pointedly argued that the intellectual horizon of Sarkar's work included search for primary sources, drawing facts that can be independently verified, writing the narrative based on the facts and presenting the slice of time as a true and indeed, incontrovertible slice of time. These ideas may appear far fetched to practicing historians today who have inculcated a healthy skepticism drawn from a steady diet of Hayden White and Edward Said. However, Sir Jadunath Sarkar life was spent living up to these ideals and he found meaning for his rather tragic life in these ideals.

As India debates its past more vigorously and historical battles have spilled tonnes of ink and blood, hitorians may draw comfort and inspiration from a historian from a more genteel time, Sir Jadunath Sarkar. His work as I discovered after reading the book under review does not deserve the oblivion to which they have been relegated.

A Concise History of South India: Issues and Interpretations

A Concise History of South India: Issues and Interpretations 
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014
Ed. Prof. Noboru Karashima

For nearly 50 years Nilakanta Sastri's A History of South India held the field as a synthetic account of the history of Peninsular India. The chronological limit of this book, the Battle of Talikota in 1565 made Sastri's approach to the narrative history of South India a tad suspect as it was founded on the assumption that the end of Vijayanagara Empire marked a decisive disjuncture in the history of the region. The lines of continuity and change represented by the emergence of post Talikota polities such as the nayakdoms in different regions the peninsula were ignored in favor of a larger identity based narrative, one that has been reconstructed by Sumathi Ramswamy in her outstanding book, Passions of the Tongue. The twin challenges of identity founded narratives and nationalist hagiographies have made the study of history not only difficult but also professionally dangerous. South India with its obsession with caste and linguistic identities, particularly the Tamil region. has projected over the past 4 decades a historiography that is nourished in the soil of distortion, misinformation, fabrication and worse outright forgery. The book under review is a sound and welcome contribution to  the study of the past of a historically and culturally vibrant region.

Even since Robert Cauldwell published his Comparative Grammar of Dravidian Languages the Aryan - Dravidian dichotomy became the stock in trade of historians who posited a Dravidian utopia which was upset of the Aryan invasion. This theory which found political resonance in the Pure Tamil Movement and the caste politics of the Dravidian Movement was not question seriously until the 1990s and even then the arguments against the Aryan- Dravidian Theory was stymied by the progressive/secular/communal fault lines of Indian historiography of the post colonial period. Karashima needs to be congratulated for steering clear of such intellectual and political minefields though  there is some concession to the Dravidian origin of the Tamil language in the early chapters of this edited volume.

The archaeology of the South Indian past is being explored by a number of historians some of whom have contributed chapters to this volume. Unlike the Gangetic valley in which we have a clear and datable archaeological horizon in the form of NBP ware, in south India the ubiquitous presence of Black and Red ware makes the task of using ceramic tradition as a marker for cultural and social change extremely difficult. Added to this is the problem  posed by the Megalithic Culture whose antiquity still remains a subject of deep controversy. In the recent excavations undertaken by Prof. K Rajan in the site of Porunthal a vast burial mound has been excavated and ceramics with graffiti scratches have been discovered. Can these marks be read as a primitive kind of Brahmi which would make the advent of literacy coterminous with the black and red ware, an interpretation which cannot be sustained. Cultural and historical changes as reflected in the historical and material evidence need to be studied carefully before generalization made. The Iron Age in the region was at best a society of pastoral and semi agricultural people who were drawn into a nexus of trade which linked parts of the Peninsula with the wider world which sources beads, metals and textiles and perhaps exotic animals from the region.

The bulk of the book deals with the Chola and Vijayanagara Empires which stretched from the ninth century till the end of the seventeenth century. Karashima and Subbarayalu have themselves contributed to the study of these empires and the analysis of the data is essentially around their works. Burton Stein and other historians have also made singular contribution though there is not much discussion on their contributions.   An aspect of medieval society which is neglected in this volume in the Right Left division of  society and its gradual consolidation into jati/ caste formations in the Vijayanagara period which witnessed the rise of a mature caste society. The use of water and disputes over water which were abundant in the Vijayanagara period has not been dealt with in this work. The fact that during the Vijayanagara period the dry region was opened for settlement has not been studies in the work. The use of tribal people and their transformation into armed auxiliaries during the Vijayangara period can be attested by the history of communities such as the Gollas and the Boyas.

The book under review can be recommended as a text book for introductory courses at the graduate and advanced senior courses.  

Historical Atlas of Chola Inscriptions and Epigraphy

The Tamil Nadu Archaeological Society has published an interesting atlas which was prepared by Professor Y Subbarayalu, Muttusankar and Balamurugan. Though the Atlas is in Tamil, it provides a wealth of information about the Nadu units and village settlements during the Chola period. The only major Historical Atlas for medieval India is the prepared by Irfan Habib using the information found in the Ain-i- Akbari. Y Subbarayalu's own work, the Political Geography of the chola Country which was published more than four decades back has remained the only published source for locating the nadu -s, valanadu -s, and ur mentioned in medieval inscriptions. The work undertaken by Subbarayalu as part of his thesis was based entirely on the published inscription which were available uto 1968. Since then many more inscriptions have come to light.

The book under review is a collection of 13 maps which cover all the major regions of the Chola Empire: Tondaimandalam, Cholamandalam, Gangai Mandalam, Naduvil Nadu and pandya Mandalam. The maps have been prepared using the standard Survey of Indian Topographic Sheets. The palaces mentioned in the inscription are marked in the maps using the GPS coordinates. Since there is a minor error factor in the use of GPS data, the overall accuracy of the maps may be called to question. However since we are dealing with place names which have survived from the medieval past, slight variation will not rally affect the utility of these maps.

The small volume brought out is an important contribution to the study of the historical geography of the medieval period.