(An edited version of this article was published in the Aug 2008 issue of Pragati)
“The Indus Valley civilization dwarfed Egypt and Mesopotamia in area and population, surpassed them in many areas of engineering and was aggressive in globalization 5000 years back.” These are words from Andrew Lawler’s lead article in the June 2008 issue of Science magazine which had Indus Civilization as the cover story
Previously archaeologists believed that Indus people got their ideas from Mesopotamia and was a civilization without deep roots, but as per new evidence, Indus evolved from the Neolithic site of Mehrgarh in Baluchistan. Archaeology has also found evidence of occupation in Harappa dating to 3700 B.C.E and in Farmana in India to 3500 B.C.E.
Writing about the religious beliefs of the Indus people, Lawler mentions that the proto-Shiva seal has fuelled speculation that the religious tradition of Indus helped lay the basis for Hinduism. While there are questions to be answered on their language, religion and form of government, decades of archaeology has changed the image of Indus from a xenophobic and egalitarian society to one which was vibrant and complex.
Though the article was fairly balanced covering excavations in Harappa, Baluchistan, and Kot Diji in Pakistan and Farmana, Dholavira, Rakhigarhi and Kalibangan in India, it had the usual western hatchet job, blaming Indian archaeologists for using Hindu texts as a guide. This is a no-no, we are told, because (a) it is inflammatory to the Pakistanis and (b) India has a large Muslim population.
The article has other issues too. Drought, as a reason for the demise of Indus, is scoffed at while many other reasons, including “change in a society that they say emphasized water-related rituals” is offered as an alternative. The western scholars quoted in the article themselves admit their theories are pure speculation, but the drying up of Ghaggar-Hakra around 1900 B.C.E is ignored, since it would involve a reference to the Rig Veda.
As Western scholars condescendingly set the rules of the games — a very different one from that practised in their own research centers — we need to evaluate what can be done. Whining about unfairness can be cathartic, but it does not solve the problem.
Different Standards and Inept Government
Few years back, Stanford University offered a course on the Historical Jesus which was an enquiry based on the scriptures. Biblical Archaeology is quite popular in Israel which has the same percentage of Muslim population as India. These techniques are considered communal in India.
After two centuries of searching and not finding anything spectacular, Biblical Archaeology in the past half century has morphed into the archaeology of the Biblical period. Archaeologists now say the Exodus did not happen, not by speculation, but after conducting extensive archaeology in Egypt. We too should not indulge in speculative archaeology, but first Indian archaeologists and scholars need to be unapologetic about knowing the scriptures and using them for clues.
Sadly this attitude cannot be taken by people who work for government funded institutions like the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and Universities. The Saraswati Heritage Project was canned by the government since it was seen as an attempt to push the antiquity of Indian civilization. (If these people were around in 1921, they would have halted archaeology at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa which pushed the antiquity of Indian civilization by many millennia)
Recently the Government of India cut funding for a major Sanskrit program in schools because – it is getting tad repetitive – India has a large Muslim population and there was a fear that it would instil religious and cultural pride among students. In such an atmosphere, it would be naive to expect the government to lead the battle in understanding our history. Instead of wasting time writing letters to ministers, we might be better off digging in our own backyard for Painted Grey Ware.
The second problem is mentioned in the Lawler’s article itself. Indian archaeologists have done excellent work, like R. S. Bisht in Dholavira and Vasant Shinde in Farmana, but they are slow to publish and collaborate. Bisht’s work has revealed “monumental and aesthetic architecture, a large stadium and an efficient water-management system”, but has largely been unpublished. The lack of data from people who had first access to the location helps in sustaining myths about the civilization.
Solutions
There is an urgent need to create institutions where scholarship is free of bureaucracy and political interference. One such institution — the Indus Heritage Center — funded by the Global Heritage Fund is coming up in Vadodara. Besides starting a Smithsonian class center in India, the center also plans to popularize the findings of Deccan College, the Department of Archaeology of Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda and the Archaeological Survey of India.
There have been xenophobic comments regarding this institution due to the involvement of western professors, even though the professors don’t believe in the Aryan Invasion theory. The fear is that they will be applying western frameworks on our history resulting in misinterpretation.
But instead of complaining about west, it is time we adopted some of their techniques for popularizing history. Building a Smithsonian style museum is an insuperable problem for the cash strapped ASI which can barely manage the monuments under its care. The Indus Heritage Center model where private donors in association with various colleges build research centers in which native interpretation of history can happen should be considered. Right now there are few sincere individuals who are involved in correcting Western biases; their efforts are exemplary but not sufficient to make an impact.
Past many decades of research have found no archaeological evidence for the Aryan Invasion theory. It has been discredited through genetic research as well. The demise of Indus valley is understood to be due to hydrological changes. Still, pick up a book like Karen Armstrong’s The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions, which is used as text book in graduate courses, and you will find that colonial politics is still alive and any divarication is branded as nationalism.
One Indus Heritage Center cannot change such entrenched ideas. To give the megaphone to differing voices, more Indus Heritage Centers which are financially secure are required. This dovetails into the larger debate about the need to free higher education and research from government control and facilitate an atmosphere where private capital can provide funding. With such freedom, scholars would be able to delve into research as they see fit, instead of surrendering to artificial political fears.
Five thousand years back our ancestor living in the Indus Valley sailed across the vast Arabian sea in reed boats with cotton sails and made the best of the Bronze age globalized world. It would be a shame, if we did not show even a fraction of their ingenuity in making our voice heard in a debate about our history.
Category: History: General
The State of Absaroka
While the history of United States is reasonably well documented, there are some less known facts, such as the existence of a short lived plan to create a state called Absaroka in 1939.
The tale of the would-be rebels, who called their new state Absaroka (pronounced ab-SOR-ka), from the Crow word meaning “children of the large-beaked bird,” then faded into the mist. Details were forgotten — how a baseball-player-turned-street-commissioner in Sheridan named A. R. Swickard appointed himself governor and began hearing writs of grievance, and how license plates were distributed along with pictures of Miss Absaroka 1939, the first and apparently last of her breed. There was even an Absarokan state visit, when the king of Norway made a swing through Montana. [Going Down the Road – A State That Never Was in Wyoming – Series – NYTimes.com]
Video Tour of Bamiyan Caves
Earlier this year, archaeologists looking into the caves behind the destroyed Buddha in Bamiyan found oil paintings believed to be earliest in the world. BBC has a video tour of those caves
Japanese, European and American scientists restoring the cave murals dating back to around 650AD, discovered oil was used in the paint.Yoko Taniguchi, one of the Japanese experts working on the caves, told reporters this is the earliest known use of this technique in the history of art. She said it was previously thought the technique originated in Europe during the Renaissance, eight centuries later. But wandering through the Buddhist temples carved out of the rock, there is little left of the murals destroyed in the last 30 years of war after surviving for centuries.[Rediscovering treasures of Bamiyan]
Defining the Historian
 |
| (Asoka’s Edict in Greek and Aramaic. Found in Khandahar) |
In an opinion piece in The Hindu, Upinder Singh writes highly about Marxist historians and offers the following criticism:
While making these valuable interventions and contributions, Marxist writings often tended to work with unilinear historical models derived from Western historical and anthropological writings. Texts were sometimes read uncritically, with insufficient attention paid to their problematic chronology and peculiarities of genre. Archaeological data were included, but the basic framework of the historical narrative remained text-centric. Initially, the focus on class meant less attention to other bases of social stratification such as caste and gender. Religion and culture were sidelined, or mechanically presented as reflections of socio-economic structures [Changing interpretations of early Indian history]
The bigger problem is in applying a 19th century model in analysing ancient India without accepting that people of ancient India lived by different codes and philosophy. For example, when you apply Marxist historiography, with the theme of of social class and economic constraints in determining historical outcomes, on the Asokan empire, the results are ridiculous, but in India that passes off as serious research.
The Codex Sinaiticus Model
The Codex Sinaiticus, a Greek Bible written between 330 – 350 C.E., is now available online. This is believed to be one of the fifty copies of Bible commissioned by the Roman Emperor Constantine and the earliest complete copy of the New Testament. Besides displaying the scanned manuscript, the website displays verse by verse transcription and translation in various languages on the right side.
In India, the National Mission for Manuscripts was established to “not merely to locate, catalogue and preserve India’s manuscripts, but also to enhance access, spread awareness and encourage their use for educational purposes.” Right now the cloth, paper and bamboo leaf manuscripts scanned by the mission can only be used as thumbnails and is not of use to any serious remote researcher. By adopting the Codex Sinaiticus model of the British Library, the Mission can genuinely enhance access and spread awareness.
Middle East History in 90 Seconds
Not The Oldest Church
A month back a report from Jordan mentioned the discovery of the world’s first church. An inscription mentioned the date of completion of the structure as “one hundred and twenty-four” and since the Roman provinces used a calendar that starts on March 22, 106 C.E, the edifice was dated to 230 C.E. Then a cave was discovered below the pavement and it was dated to almost the first century,
If all these were true, then it would be evidence of early Christian worship and practices. It would also give clues on how various Christian communities spread out of Jerusalem.
The Greek inscription found in the edifice was translated as follows by scholars from the University of Toronto:
(1) In the name of the Holy Trinity, (2) from the offerings of Thomas son of Gaianus, (3) the sole founder. (4) The oratory of Saint George was completed in (5) the month of Apellaios at the time of the eighth indiction of the year four hundred and twenty-four (6) through the zeal of Sergius the watchman. [The Oratory of St. George in Rihab]
Initially the date was read as one hundred and twenty four, but it was incorrect. The correct translation was four hundred and twenty four and adding it to 106 C.E, gave a date of 530 C.E. Supporting this date is the fact that the Holy Trinity, which came after the councils of Nicea and Constantinople, is mentioned. Also it was after the fifth century that St. George cult gained popularity.
Besides this, the basilica plan of the St. George church is similar to the ones dating to sixth and seventh centuries, than to the third century. Regarding the cave beneath the church – there is no evidence that caves were used for worship in the first century and if the cave was indeed a place of worship, it would the first such discovery.
The authors of the paper conclude that this is not the oldest church, but just another church belonging to the Byzanthine period. The researchers left out one little thing. On the floor of the church was an inscription which read, “the 70 beloved by God and the divine.” The theory was that this 70 referred to the seventy disciples who fled Jerusalem fearing Roman persecution. For this they have no explanation.
Making History Interesting
When I learned history in school, my teachers taught it in such a way that watching paint dry was more exciting. For Engineering, we had one subject – The History of Science and Technology – which was so boring that students often locked the classroom and went for matinees.
Chris Heard, Associate Professor of Religion at Pepperdine University, recently found a technique to make history classes interesting.
This course, called “Reacting to the Past,” involves students in complex live-action role-playing games to help them experience dramatic historical moments. Now, students don’t have to stat out characters or dress up (though I suppose they are allowed to dress up) or anything like that; basically, they spend a lot of time making speeches and politicking with each other. For example, one game casts students as Parisians during the French Revolution; another game I played in a conference at the University of Kansas cast us in the roles of Athenians debating democracy and other topics right around the time of Socrates’s trial and death. I got so excited about this pedagogical method—which is not all fun and games, but requires a lot of reading and writing as well as public speaking from students—and resolved to employ it as a pilot project in my Religion 101 class this fall.[Convergence of geekdoms: Reacting to the Biblical Past]
An Important Debate in Kerala Assembly
There was a historical debate in the Kerala State Assembly last week. CPI (M) MLA Babu M Palissery pontificated that a Caliph had ordered the burning of books in the Library of Alexandria in Egypt about 1500 years ago. When it appeared in the papers the next day, it said that Caliph Umar had ordered the burning of the books. This obviously upset various secular parties like Congress (I) and Muslim League and they demanded an explanation.
Founded in third century B.C.E by Ptolemy, the library was destroyed by Roman emperors and a Pope. The final destruction happened during the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 642 C.E. According to A Short Account of the History of Mathematics By Walter William Rouse Ball, the following happened:
The same story, with minor variations, is repeated across many books, but historian Bernard Lewis thinks it is a myth.
To accept the story of the Arab destruction of the library of Alexandria, one must explain how it is that so dramatic an event was unmentioned and unnoticed not only in the rich historical literature of medieval Islam, but even in the literatures of the Coptic and other Christian churches, of the Byzantines, of the Jews, or anyone else who might have thought the destruction of a great library worthy of comment. That the story still survives, and is repeated, despite all these objections, is testimony to the enduring power of a myth.[The Vanished Library]
Back in the Kerala Assembly, the MLA apologized and reaffirmed that he intended the word Caliph to mean “a Caliph” and not Caliph Umar. He also stated that Caliph Umar was a book lover and would have never ordered the destruction of the library. Thus peace was restored to the galaxy.
People in other states might be wondering if Kerala is free of all problems that the Assembly debates historical events just to spend time. The answer is: yes, we have no other issues to debate. Kerala is God’s own country and the honourable Amartya Sen wants this model, where a literate society would spend time reading Herodotus and Josephus, to spread all over the world.
Now that the Caliph’s name has been cleared, next item on the agenda would be to make it official that St. Thomas actually arrived in Kerala in 52 C.E.
A Tomb Robber's Tale
A man identified only as Quan has died after a Liao Dynasty (907-1125 AD) tomb he was attempting to rob collapsed on him. Six people who were also involved in the attempted theft were still trying to extract him when police arrived.
Ironically, the tomb he was trying to raid had nothing in it – most likely because it was emptied by previous tomb robbers.[Tomb Raider Dies as Grave Collapses on Top of Him]
Only a limerick can do justice to this adventurer:
There lived a man in China called Quan.
He wanted a bag full of yuan
His role model was Indiana Jones
But all people heard were loud moans
When under a tomb, they found him withdrawn.