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An
Approach To Indian History
-Prof. Kittu Reddy |
Shankaracharya
Around the end of the eighth century, there was born in India a remarkable man who had a tremendous influence on the people of India. This man was Adi Shankaracharya. Born in the state of Kerala in 788 AD, in the short span of 32 years, he left an indelible stamp on the Indian people by his towering personality, his gigantic intellect and his spiritual hardihood. He founded the Advaita Vedantic School of thought, established mutts all over the country and gave a new direction to Hindu religion.
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Shankara was born in 788 AD in a small village, named Kaladi, situated on the banks of the river Purna, in Kerala. His father expired when he was only three years old and he was brought up by his mother. At the age of five he was sent by his mother to a "gurukula". He lived there as a young mendicant, memorizing the Vedic texts and mastering the scriptures. His mother wanted him to get married and fulfill his family duties; but Shankara refused. Instead, he begged his mother to permit him to take the monastic vows, and promised that he would visit her before she died. In the course of his wanderings, the dualities of life -good and evil, joy and sorrow, wisdom and ignorance, all crossed his path. In his search for the truth that lies beyond the temporal world, Shankara went to the banks of the Narmada, where lived the great teacher, Govinda. Recognizing the innate wisdom of the young scholar, and aware of the distortions creeping into orthodox Hinduism, the guru entrusted Shankara with the task of writing a new commentary on the Vedic texts. Those were the times when the interpretations of the old texts were full of contradictions and inconsistencies and rituals and conventions were getting excessively important in the practice of the religion. The mysteries of existence and their inner truth were finally revealed to Shankara; and thenceforward he became a teacher, a guru. He then traveled from Kerala's green countryside, through Central India to the snow-clad peaks of the Himalayas. In Benares, the city of Hindu learning, the king hearing of his arrival, came to pay him homage. All through his travels, the learned sought him out; the ignorant followed him to receive his wisdom. But Shankara was immune to all the adulation he received. On one occasion an untouchable crossed his path. "Keep off!" cried his disciples in horror. The untouchable answered with a riddle. "Who should keep off?" he asked. "My body, or my inner self?" In front of the shocked eyes of his disciples, Shankara touched the feet of the man. "He who gives me this truth is my greatest teacher," he said. Shankara, with his brilliant logic preached that knowledge lies at the root of salvation. He established the validity of his own philosophy through long debates and discourses with the greatest teachers in the land. He created his own monastic order, and monasteries were established all over India – Badrinath, Puri, Dwarka and Kanchipuram - where the followers of Shankara could study and practice. But Shankara continued wandering as before, carrying only his staff and his begging bowl. Defying the Brahmin community he performed his mother's funeral rites. For him the rituals of Hinduism were as much illusions as the human body and the entire physical world. At the young age of only thirty-two years, Shankara rose from his sick bed to bathe in the river; then, taking leave of his sorrowing disciples, he walked away alone towards the majestic, snow-covered mountain peaks. The time had come for that final union of his soul with the Brahman, the one eternal, unchanging reality and the true goal of all existence. |
It is necessary to understand the spiritual philosophy of Shankara. For the spirit of his philosophy has weighed with a tremendous power on the thought, religion and general mentality of India: everywhere broods her mighty shadow, everywhere is the impress of the three great formulas, the chain of Karma, escape from the wheel of rebirth and Maya. In the words of Sri Aurobindo: “It is this revolt of Spirit against Matter that for two thousand years, since Buddhism disturbed the balance of the old Aryan world, has dominated increasingly the Indian mind. Not that the sense of the cosmic illusion is the whole of Indian thought; there are other philosophical statements, other religious aspirations. Nor has some attempt at an adjustment between the two terms been wanting even from the most extreme philosophies. But all have lived in the shadow of the great Refusal and the final end of life for all is the garb of the ascetic. The general conception of existence has been permeated with the Buddhistic theory of the chain of Karma and with the consequent antinomy of bondage and liberation, bondage by birth, liberation by cessation from birth.”
As mentioned earlier, distortions had crept into the Vedic teachings; excessive stress was placed on rituals and external ceremonies. The spirit was waning and a restatement of the spiritual truths was imperative. The task fell upon Shankara to reinterpret the Vedanta and Upanishads. Thus was created the Advaita philosophy.
One of the important assumptions in the Upanishads is that man suffers from bondage in the course of his life in this world. This means that man is caught in an endless cycle of births and deaths. The quest therefore is to seek a way out of this bondage, to break the cycle of rebirths and attain moksha or liberation. The Advaita school of Shankara is of the view that the only way to liberation is by knowledge of man's true nature. Bondage arises from ignorance of man's true nature, and therefore removal of ignorance roots out this bondage. Liberation is therefore nothing more or nothing less than knowing one’s true nature. This true nature is his innermost essence, the Atman, which is nothing other than Brahman. He, who knows this, through his own experience, is liberated even when living.
In order to arrive at this liberation, Shankara in his interpretation of the Vedanta came to the conclusion that this world and universe was an illusion or Maya; the only Reality was Brahman. This is summed up in the famous phrase attributed to him: “ Brahma Satya, Jagat Mithya.” Thus Shankara created a world negating philosophy similar to what Buddha had preached a few centuries earlier. Both of them supposed the world to be radically false and miserable; therefore escape from the world was to them the only wisdom. Shankara is therefore sometimes referred to as prachanna Buddha and was even denounced by his adversaries as a masked Buddhist. It is true that the later Indian mind has been powerfully impressed by his idea of Maya; but at the same time one must remember that popular thought and sentiment was never wholly shaped by it. The religions of devotion, which see in life a play or Lila of God, had a growing influence.
However the intention of Shankara was to restore the Vedic teachings; but the Vedas did not reject the world as an illusion; rather they taught that the world was meant to be a manifestation of the Divine. It is rather difficult to say nowadays what really was Shankara's philosophy: there are numberless exponents and there are different perceptions. It is suggested by many commentators that Shankara referred to the world as Maya only as a temporary truth till one got rid of the attractions and temptations of the world in order to identify with the Supreme Brahman. For it is known to all spiritual seekers that the attractions and temptations of the world have to be overpassed. One of the means suggested to do this is to regard the world as Maya or as an illusion. In the words of Swami Vivekananda: ”The senses drag the human soul out. Man is seeking pleasure and happiness where it can never be found. For countless ages we are all taught that this is futile and vain, there is no happiness here. But we cannot learn; it is impossible for us to do so, except through our own experiences. We try them, and a blow comes. Do we learn then? Not even then. Like moths hurling themselves against the flame, we are hurling ourselves again and again into sense-pleasures, hoping to find satisfaction there. We return again and again with freshened energy; thus we go on, till crippled and cheated we die. And this is Maya.”
Without entering into any debate on this issue, it is enough to say that Shankara’s influence on India was very great. His teachings cast a powerful impress on the mind of India, which generally interpreted the teachings as a negation of the world and led to the institution of Sanyasa. The institution of Sanyasa, which was the natural consequence of the theory of illusion, led to ascetic renunciation. True spirituality in this view, consisted in escape from life and withdrawal from action. The play of the natural instincts and propensities, which comprise the ordinary social life of man, was considered the lower nature. In order to attain the true self, man would have to control his outgoing tendencies, stop them and finally turn them inward. It is evident that a creed whose fundamental principle is to escape from life cannot but dry up the sap of life.
But the ancient and genuine spirituality of India as embodied in the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Gita has never approved the renunciation of life and action. As the Upanishad says, "Doing verily works in this world one should wish to live a hundred years. Thus it is in thee and not otherwise than this; action cleaves not to a man." Thus with the institution of Sanyasa as a basic principle of Indian spirituality, the life force in India began to ebb.
Inevitably, new shackles were imposed from outside on the life energy; new codes were prescribed to regulate life in all its details. The thinking power ceased and life followed the rut of rules laid down by others. The customs that were in the beginning merely a spontaneous discipline had now been changed into an inexorable chain and bondage. An excessive regulation of life in the name of discipline clogged life. As a result, the art of maintaining freedom in the midst of bondage was lost.
And lastly there was the caste system. The caste system was in its origin a fine arrangement of society based according to the temperament of each individual; but with the loss of life power it degenerated into a rigid bondage and a means of showing one's arrogance. Bloated with the pride of one's origin it became one of the most degrading features of Indian society.
Finally, with the loss of life power, there came the inevitable loss of thinking power. This marked the beginning of the decline of the Indian civilization just before the next series of invasions started.
And yet let us not minimize the tremendous importance of the teachings of Shankara; for in the words of Sri Aurobindo: “it corresponds to a truth of existence, a state of conscious realization which stands at the very summit of our possibility. In practice also the ascetic spirit is an indispensable element in human perfection and even its separate affirmation cannot be avoided so long as the race has not at the other end liberated its intellect and its vital habits from subjection to an always insistent animalism.
A more complete affirmation of spirituality which will integrate Matter and Spirit will be taken up in the later chapters of Indian history.
The Muslim Invasions
In the eighth century AD there began a series of invasions, which had a profound and lasting effect on India. These were the invasions of the Muslims first through the Arabian Sea into Sind and later by the Turks through the passes on the northwest of India. Though the Arabs were the first Muslim conquerors to invade India, their invasion was merely an episode in the political history of India. But from the cultural point of view, it was important. It facilitated the dissemination of the seeds of Indian culture in foreign lands. The Arabs acquired from the Indians knowledge in Philosophy, Religion, Medicine, Mathematics and Astronomy. The Arabs in turn passed these on to Europe; in fact it was the Arabs who passed on the concept of zero to the West from India.
The next invasions came through the north- western passes, the Khyber Pass and the Bolan Pass. This was the beginning of the Mohammedan conquest of India.
The world famous historian, Will Durant has written in his Story of Civilisation that "the Mohammedan conquest of India was probably the bloodiest story in history".
India before the advent of Islamic imperialism was not exactly a zone of peace. There were plenty of wars fought by Hindu princes. But in all their wars, the Hindus had observed some time-honoured conventions sanctioned by the Shastras. The Brahmins and the Bhikshus were never molested. The cows were never killed. The temples were never touched. The chastity of women was never violated. The non-combatants were never killed or captured. A human habitation was never attacked unless it was a fort. The civil population was never plundered. War booty was an unknown item in the calculations of conquerors. The martial classes, who clashed, mostly in open spaces, had a code of honor. Sacrifice of honor for victory or material gain was deemed as worse than death. This was the honour of the Kshatriya.
Islamic imperialism came with a different code--the Sunnah of the Prophet. It required its warriors to fall upon the helpless civil population after a decisive victory had been won on the battlefield. It required them to sack and burn down villages and towns after the defenders had died fighting or had fled. The cows, the Brahmins, and the Bhikshus invited their special attention in mass murders of non-combatants. The temples and monasteries were their special targets in an orgy of pillage and arson. Those whom they did not kill, they captured and sold as slaves. The magnitude of the booty looted even from the bodies of the dead, was a measure of the success of a military mission. And they did all this as mujahids (holy warriors) and ghazls (kafir-killers) in the service of Allah and his Last Prophet.
Hindus found it very hard to understand the psychology of this new invader. For the first time in their history, Hindus were witnessing a scene, which was described by Kanhadade Prabandha (1456 AD) in the following words:
"The conquering army burnt villages, devastated the land, plundered people's wealth, took Brahmins and children and women of all classes captive, flogged with thongs of raw hide, carried a moving prison with it, and converted the prisoners into obsequious Turks."
That was written in remembrance of Alauddin Khalji's invasion of Gujarat in the year l298 AD.
But the gruesome game had started more than three centuries earlier when Mahmud Ghaznavi had vowed to invade India every year in order to destroy idolatry, kill the kafirs, capture prisoners of war, and plunder vast wealth for which India was well known.
He was an insatiable invader and it is said that he invaded India 17 times. The main object of these invasions was the acquisition of the wealth of India and the destruction of the morale of the rulers in India. He drained the wealth of the Punjab and despoiled it of its military resources to an appalling extent. The occupation of the Punjab by Mohamed Ghazni served as the key to unlock the Indian interior.
This was followed by the invasions of Mohamed of Ghor. He invaded India year after year but was not successful in his earlier attempts. He realized that it was not possible to conquer India through Sind and Multan and the key to Hindustan lay through the Punjab. From the year 1179 to 1191 he repeatedly invaded India and became the master of Punjab, Multan and Sindh. But he was far from being master of Hindustan. The proud Rajputs refused to surrender and led by Prithvi Raj Chauhan, the Raja of Ajmer, they decided to check the advance of Mohamed Ghori. He marched against the Ghori chief at the head of a large army which included 2,00,000 horses and 3000 elephants. He was joined by all the Rajput princes except Jai Chand, the Raja of Kanauj. The armies met at Tarain, a village 14 miles from Thanesar in 1191 AD. Mohamed Ghori followed the tactics of right, left and centre and he occupied a position in the centre. The Rajputs attacked both the wings of the Muslim army, which was scattered in all directions. Mohamed Ghori attacked Govind Rai, brother of Prithwi Raj on the mouth with his sword and broke his teeth. Govind Rai returned the blow and struck Ghori in the arm and gave a severe wound. Stunned by the blow he turned back and began to bleed profusely and was about to fall down from his horse. However a Khilji soldier helped him and carried him off the field. The Muslims dispersed in all directions and Mohamed Ghori went back to Ghazni.
On his return, Mohamed Ghori punished all officers and soldiers who had run away from the battlefield. They were publicly disgraced and paraded around the city. In 1192, he marched from Ghazni at the head of a large army consisting of 1,20,000 men and encamped again at Tarain. There followed a bloody battle. As many as 150 princes fought on the Rajput side. At the beginning the Rajput cavalry was able to check the advance of the Muslims. The battle continued from morning to sunset. However, towards the end. Mohamed Ghori with the help of 12,000 horses made a desperate charge and carried death and destruction through the Rajput camp. The Rajputs were not able to stand the charge and were defeated. Prithwi Raj was captured and taken to the town of Sirsuti. It is said that Prithwi Raj was made blind in both the eyes. Prithwi Raj was famous for his skill in archery and it is said that he could shoot unerringly by hearing the sound only. Mohamed Ghori had him called to his court and shouted at Prithwi Raj to show his skills in archery. Prithwi Raj immediately took up his bow and shot the arrow at Mohamed Ghori and killed him on the spot. After that Prithwi Raj was put to death. Thus ended the resistance of one of the great Rajput princes.
This victory was decisive as it laid the foundations of Muslim domination in Northern India. We shall not go into the details of all the invaders and rulers that followed. A few names and salient features will be mentioned. Immediately after the victory of Mohamed Ghori over Prithwi Rai, the Delhi Sultanate was installed. It was founded after the capture of Delhi in 1192. In 1206, Qutb ud-Din Aibak, one of his generals, proclaimed himself sultan of Delhi and founded a line of rulers called the Slave dynasty, because he and several of the sultans who claimed succession from him were originally military slaves. The history of the sultanate was filled with bloodshed, tyranny, and treachery; it was divided among five dynasties (the "Slave" kings, the Khaljis, the Tughlugs, the Sayyid, and the Lodis). Iltutmish (1210-35) and Balban (1266-87) were among the Slave dynasty's most illustrious rulers. Constantly faced with revolts by conquered territories and rival families, the Slave dynasty came to an end in 1290. Under the Khalji dynasty (1290-1320), the conquests of Ala ud-Din Khalji brought Muslim dominion in India to its greatest height until the Mughul Empire. Muslim power again suffered a setback after the death of Alauddin Khalji in 1316 AD. But it was soon revived by the Tughlaqs. By now most of the famous temples over the length and breadth of the Islamic occupation in India had been demolished, except in Orissa and Rajasthan which had retained their independence. By now most of the rich treasuries had been plundered and shared between the Islamic state and its swordsmen. Firuz Shah Tughlaq led an expedition to Orissa in 1360 AD. He destroyed the temple of Jagannath at Puri, and desecrated many other Hindu shrines. According to 'Sirat-i-Firoz Shahi' which he himself wrote or dictated,
"Allah who is the only true God and has no other emanation, endowed the king of Islam with the strength to destroy this ancient shrine on the eastern sea-coast and to plunge it into the sea, and after its destruction he ordered the image of Jagannath to be perforated, and disgraced it by casting it down on the ground. They dug out other idols which were worshipped by the polytheists in the kingdom of Jajnagar and overthrew them as they did the image of Jagannath, for being laid in front of the mosques along the path of the Sunnis and the way of the 'musallis' (Muslim congregation for namaz) and stretched them in front of the portals of every mosque, so that the body and sides of the images might be trampled at the time of ascent and descent, entrance and exit, by the shoes on the feet of the Muslims."
After the sack of the temples in Orissa, Firoz Shah Tughlaq attacked an island on the sea-coast where "nearly 100,000 men of Jajnagar had taken refuge with their women, children, kinsmen and relations". The swordsmen of Islam turned "the island into a basin of blood by the massacre of the unbelievers".
A worse fate overtook the Hindu women. Sirat-i-Firuz Shahs records: "Women with babies and pregnant ladies were haltered, manacled, fettered and enchained, and pressed as slaves into service in the house of every soldier."
Still more horrible scenes were enacted by Firuz Shah Tughlaq at Nagarkot (Kangra) where he sacked the shrine of Jvalamukhi. FirishtaEarly in the reign of Muhammad Tughluq, founder of the Tughluq dynasty (1325-98), the power of Delhi was acknowledged even in the extreme S of India. His eccentric rule and ferocious temperament provoked a series of revolts, notably that of the Hindu Vijayanagar kingdom in the south, and a steady loss of territory; by his death (1351) the Hindu south had recovered its independence and the Deccan had become a separate Muslim state, the Bahmani kingdom. Under Tughluq's successors the sultanate of Delhi began to disintegrate into several small states. With the sack of Delhi by Timur in 1398, the once great sultanate fell, although local rulers lingered on at Delhi until the invasion of Babur and the Mughal conquest. The climax came during the invasion of Timur in 1399 AD. He starts by quoting the Quran in his Tuzk-i-Timuri: "O Prophet, make war upon the infidels and unbelievers, and treat them severely."
He continues: "My great object in invading Hindustan had been to wage a religious war against the infidel Hindus...[so that] the army of Islam might gain something by plundering the wealth and valuables of the Hindus." To start with he stormed the fort of Kator on the border of Kashmir. He ordered his soldiers "to kill all the men, to make prisoners of women and children, and to plunder and lay waste all their property". Next, he "directed towers to be built on the mountain of the skulls of those obstinate unbelievers". Soon after, he laid siege to Bhatnir defended by Rajputs. They surrendered after some fight, and were pardoned. But Islam did not bind Timur to keep his word given to the "unbelievers". His Tuzk-i-Timuri records:
"In a short space of time all the people in the fort were put to the sword, and in the course of one hour the heads of 10,000 infidels were cut off. The sword of Islam was washed in the blood of the infidels, and all the goods and effects, the treasure and the grain, which for many a long year had been stored in the fort, became the spoil of my soldiers. They set fire to the houses and reduced them to ashes, and they razed the buildings and the fort to the ground."
Yet, it is important to note that all Muslim invaders were not of this kind; there were many different kinds of Islamic invaders. There were those who came primarily to pillage and loot, and left quickly after their plunder. Such invaders undoubtedly had a very debilitating effect. At the same time there is evidence of collaboration between Islamic and Hindu rulers such as between Ibrahim Shah Sharqi (1401-40) ruler of Jaunpur with Kirti Singh of Tirhut. The sultans of Jaunpur were frequently helped by the Hindu chiefs against their Muslim opponents, particularly the Lodis.
Hence, it would be incorrect to paint the Islamic rulers with a broad brush. While some were decidedly oppressive towards the local population and vandalized temples and sculpture, others like Ahmed Shah of Ahmedabad or Adil Shah of Bijapur built brand new cities with fresh building materials. Sher Shah Suri in his short reign played a particularly decisive role in creating several new urban centres. The Lodhis and Mughal rulers like Akbar also built several new towns.
It is also a fact that while some rulers stayed aloof from their subjects, and were strongly biased towards cultural practices imported from Turkey, Central Asia, Persia or Iraq - others preferred to study Sanskrit, encourage indigenous arts and employ Hindus in their administration without much discrimination. Ahmed Shah incorporated Hindu and Jain architectural motifs into his buildings without inhibition, others like the Deccan rulers created brand new styles. Some of the more enlightened Islamic rulers (particularly those who were born and raised in India) came to understand Indian geographic and climatic conditions, and like their Hindu counterparts in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh or Tamil Nadu (and elsewhere), invested in vital water-works like canals, dams, artificial lakes, step-wells and underground water-channels.
In their secular practice, the best of the Islamic rulers contributed to the expansion of urban life and culture, just as other rulers had done in preceding eras.
It must be remembered that the vast mass of the Muslims in India were and are Indians by race, only a very small admixture of Pathan, Turkish and Moghul blood took place, and even the foreign kings and nobles became almost immediately wholly Indian in mind, life and interest.
The vast mass of Muslims were converted Hindus. Although the majority of conversions may not have been forced, Ibn Batuta does point to coercion in forcing people to attend the daily prayers. Indians who were used to religions where they had considerable autonomy in terms of when and how often they went to the temple - initially resisted the regimen of frequent daily prayers. Imams often had to threaten and cane the converted Hindus into attending the prayers.
Another negative consequence of Islam was that because Islam was against idol worship, the rich ancient Indian tradition of sculpture suffered a major setback. This also had certain profound though less apparent consequences. Daily and forced obeisance to an invisible god with the power to punish with eternal damnation was potentially far more spirit deadening and mind-numbing.
Islamization also led to a steady loss of independent thinking and religious dissent. Unlike Hinduism which was an amalgam of both liberal and conservative traditions allowing atheism and goddess worship to coexist with Brahminical orthodoxy, Islam more often demanded complete submission to its precepts and allowed much less room for different beliefs.
While obscurantist ideas emasculated followers of both faiths, the power of the Islamic clergy was considerably greater in enforcing social conservatism. Being a religion of the book, Islam was more easily hijacked by dogmatic currents than Hinduism, which lacked the formal and centralizing institutions that came with Islam. There was no council of Ulemas with the power to issue fatwas (threatening religious edicts). There were no daily prayers. There wasn't even a single sacred book that could resolve religious disputes. While some followed the Gita or the Upanishads, others followed the Ramayana which itself came in multiple versions. Many of these texts were highly polemical, embodying intense philosophical ambiguity and debate. Concepts like "dharma" were loosely defined and abstract in their conception, enabling them to be adjusted to the changing needs of changing times.
The Quran offered no such ambiguity or dialectical possibilities. Quranic interpreters could only spend their time quibbling over historic minutiae, obsessed with statements of the 'prophet' and what judgment day might bring and who would enter heaven. It was questions of the after-life that concerned them, not day-to-day reality. Although there were currents within Hinduism that emphasized detachment from real life - there was space for more realistic and worldly currents. Prior to the arrival of Islam, Hindu rulers supported scientists and rational scholars. This support allowed India's secular and rational traditions to survive. Some Hindu rulers like Raja Bhoj were particularly notable in that they were renowned architects and engineers and were highly respected for their many building projects.
But over time the conservative Islamic clergy attempted to limit or quash flexibility in such matters. Using their Friday sermons and power to issue fatwas they were able to exercise greater influence on the polity than the Hindu priests. With the rulers on their side, it was much harder to challenge them. The retreat from India's long tryst with rationalism began with the arrival of Islam and was further aided and abetted by the conquest of India.
It is clear therefore that by the middle of the thirteenth century, not only the whole of north India but also the major portion of South India had come under Muslim rule. The green flag of Islam floated all over the country. It seemed that the Islamisation of India was a definite and foregone conclusion, just as it had happened in Egypt and Iran. But within a century, by the middle of the 15th century, the Hindu people had not only effected an astonishing recovery but were fighting back.
To sum up: The problem in the 13th and 14th century was the challenge of Islam to Hinduism. The question then was whether the continuity of India’s life – her separate identity of culture, social organization, religion and thought could be maintained or whether she should be merged in the expanding commonwealth of Islam. It was the revival of the Hindu religious and political spirit that kept the soul of India alive.
But at the same time it was also determined forever that India was to remain a plural society, with Muslim national feeling as an important element in it. It was clear that India was not destined to be a Muslim country and that whatever the extent of Hindu resurgence, it would have to be a country with a very considerable Muslim population held together by the powerful ties of nationalism and spirituality.
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