Category: History

Indian History Carnival – 19

The Indian History Carnival, published on the 15th of every month, is a collection of posts related to Indian history and archaeology.

  1. Ravi Mundoli summarizes the current debate on the Indus script: “Seems like the lay person can’t do much other than remember that everyone has an axe to grind, and while one needn’t reject everything everyone says out of hand as being motivated by extraneous, non-academic/scientific reasons, it’s good to examine the evidence keeping in mind who is doing the analysis.“
  2. Sandeep scanned through the NCERT history books and found appalling distortions. In his post he goes through four examples.
  3. Three years back, the Kannada actress Jaimala triggered a major controversy when she said that she had entered the sanctum santorum of Sabarimala. varnam writes aboutMt. Athos in Greece where even female animals are not allowed
  4. There have been debates on of if Marco Polo visited China, but now Calicut heritage asks if Marco Polo visited Calicut?
  5. Sarvesh K Tiwari’s series
    on Akbar’s U-Turn continues with a look at Sufis. “Their islamization was to however complete soon, and whatever the origins of their real traditions, the later sUfI-s came down to become zealous missionaries of Islam, often displaying no lesser bigotry than the orthodox ulemA”
  6. Nick Balmer continues his investigation into the coffee plantations of Mananthavadi: “Henry Baber was not the first person to grow coffee at Mananthavadi. As far as it is possible to tell, that honour belongs to Captain Henry Bevan, who was appointed in April 1825 to command the Wynaud Rangers, a force set up from the recently disbanded Seringapatam local battalion.”
  7. Maddy  looks at Sardar K M Panikkar’s contributions – in the Tibet issue, creation of  a naval doctrine — and  his relationship with Nehru and Krishna Menon.

f you find any posts related to Indian history published in the past one month, please send it to jk AT varnam DOT org or use this form. Please send me links which are similar to the ones posted, in terms of content.The next carnival will be up on Aug 15th.

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In Pragati – Book Review: Adventures of Ibn Battuta


The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century (Paperback), by Ross E. Dunn, 379 pages, University of California Press; 1 edition (December 9, 2004)
The first thing that Prof Matthew Herbst asks students to do in the introductory lecture of the series New Ideas/Clash of Cultures at University of California, San Diego is to draw a map of the world and label as many countries as possible. A minute later they are asked to keep their pens down and  name the country at the centre of the map. Some have Italy, a few have North America, and some the Atlantic Ocean.
This instinctive action, which illustrates the cultural bias of historians, is amplified if education starts with the typical Western Civilization till 1600 followed by the Western Civilization since 1600 course. A student could thus specialise in the Ancient Near East with tangential knowledge about India, China, Africa, or the Muslim empires.
Affinity towards one’s homeland is natural, but it should be balanced with knowledge about other civilisations. It is natural that for Indians, the centre of their world is India, but when they read about the Buddha, knowledge of the Axial age — when Socrates, the Jewish prophets, and Confucius  revolutionised thinking — gives better perspective. Such perspective provides awareness that the empiricism of John Locke and scepticism of David Hume could be derived from the dialogue between Indra and Prajapathi in Chandogya Upanishad. Proper context for local history will be obtained by taking an introductory course in World Civilisation instead of Western Civilisation, as well as by reading the works of ancient travellers like Ibn Battuta.
In 1325, this twenty-one year old Moroccan left home to perform the haj. In fact he visited Mecca four times—first from Morocco via North Africa, Egypt, Palestine and Syria, the second after visiting Iraq and Persia, the third after going down the Swahili coast up to Tanzania and the final one after visiting Anatolia, Delhi, Calicut, Maldives and China. When he returned  to Morocco, surviving the Black Plague that devastated Europe, he had visited about forty countries in the modern map covering a distance of 117,000 km.
Settling down in Tangier he collaborated with a young literary scholar, Ibn Juzayy, to compose the rihla—a book of travels in Arabic literature—about his impressions of all the countries and his experience which included working as a judge for Mohammed bin Tughluq, becoming penniless near the Doab, and attempting a coup in Maldives.
Since Ibn Battuta wrote his rihla towards the end of his itinerant career, some details are incorrect and fuzzy; after visiting Constantinople, Ibn Battuta was impressed by the markets, monasteries and the Genoese colony of Galata while in reality, by that time, it was a city on the decline. Also his book is not an encyclopedia; he wrote about things which fascinated him, like saints, life among the upper crust of society, and Muslim culture.
So using the rihla as spine, Ross E Dunn has fleshed out this book by providing the history of each city that Ibn Battuta visited. The chapter on Anatolia provides a brief history of the transformation of a country of Greek and Armenian Christians into Turkey and the sections on Cairo and Delhi provides background information on how they both rose to prominence, thanks to the Mongol empire. Since Ibn Battuta’s objects of fascination were few, Dr Dunn juxtaposes the missing pieces from other history books and writings from other travellers like Simon Semeonis, Ludolph von Suchem, and Ibn Jubayr, making this book comprehensive.
Ibn Battuta’s World
Some time after the first haj Ibn Battuta heard about India’s riches and wanted to seek employment there. He already had exposure to Indians; some selling drugs and food items in Mecca, some as pages accompanying Princess Bayalun of the Golden Horde, and some scholars in Oman. He knew that Indian ships sailed to Aden regularly. He also knew that the Delhi Sultanate welcomed foreigners and paid well.
It is interesting to contrast some of the places Ibn Battuta visited with their current state. Mogadishu, currently invokes the images of civil war, militias and poverty, but at the time of Ibn Battuta’s visit, it was one of the richest ports owing to the connections with the Horn of Africa and Ethiopia. Ibn Battuta met the ruler, Abu Bakr, who wore a “robe of green Jerusalem stuff” above “fine loose robes of Egypt with a wrapper of silk.” During a meal of chicken, meat, fish, green ginger, mangoes and pickled lemon, he observed that a single resident of Mogadishu ate more than a whole company of visitors.
While the Mongols had reduced Baghdad to a small provincial town, Cairo was prospering under the Mamluk Sultanate—members of a slave dynasty—due to the Red Sea trade. Jerusalem, which was under Mamluk control, was a small town of no great importance; Ibn Battuta spent a week there meeting various scholars and Sufi masters. By the time he arrived in Delhi, Mohammed bin Tughluq, who had succeeded a Slave Dynasty, had finished his experiment in shifting capitals. A seven year drought and the first of the twenty-two rebellions that would bring his downfall was about to start.
On his first visit, the sultan’s mother gave Ibn Battuta 2000 silver dinars. Even before he got the job of the judge, Tughluq ordered him to be paid 5000 silver dinars and the revenue from two villages. On his appointment, he got 12,000 dinars as perquisite with an annual salary of 12,000 dinars.  According to Dunn, at that time an average Hindu family lived on 5 dinars per month; a soldier, 20.
Even though he was rich, the cost of living in Delhi was high. The hamster that kept the Delhi’s economic wheel turning, much like the present, was sycophancy. Nobles borrowed money to buy expensive gifts for the sultan and other nobles, who then reciprocated with gifts of higher value. Soon Ibn Battuta amassed debts of more than 55,000 dinars to get out of which, quite interestingly, he composed an ode to the Sultan.
Also he faced first hand the job risks in working with a pixilated Sultan. Tughluq took umbrage at Ibn Battuta’s association with a Sufi ascetic who had fallen out of favour. Tughluq first got the ascetic’s beard plucked hair by hair, then later tortured and beheaded him. Ibn Battuta was put under house arrest for nine days and expected to be executed. Surprisingly he was freed and entrusted with a mission to China.
Arriving in Calicut and Quilon on his way to China as the Mughal emissary to the Mongol court carrying a gift of 200 Hindu slaves, he found that the entire trade of the Malabar and Coromandel coast was controlled by Muslims. He also found that the Hindu rulers of those provinces allowed Muslims to worship as they pleased and encouraged these trade communities. Also, similar to the frequent battles between the countries on the African coast, battles among small provinces along the Indian west coast was also common and Ibn Battuta participated in the battle by Honavar against Sandapur (Goa).
Ibn Battuta’s travels showcase the importance of Muslim trade networks and the prosperity it bought to the trading communities in India and elsewhere. He travelled during a period of relative calm; the crusades were over, the Mongols were Islamised and the Muslim caravan routes throbbed with activity carrying not just merchants, but scholars, craftsmen, Sufis and converts. Thus a Muslim grandee seized by wanderlust could travel through Dar al-Islam staying in mosques, or with the scholars, kings, and saints receiving gifts of robes, horses and camels.
The relative peace during Ibn Battuta’s time soon changed. In China, Genghis Khan’s heir fled with his entire court unable to halt the advance of the rebels. The Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople and turned the Hagia Sophia into a mosque. Timur invaded Delhi and by his own account killed 10,000 infidels in an hour.  The most important event happened, a century later, in the Malabar coast with the arrival of Vasco da Gama’s fleet. This was not just a great navigational feat, but a major geo-political event by which Europeans cut off the Muslim middlemen.
Dr. Dunn’s book presents Ibn Battuta’s world not in isolation, but in a global context helping us better understand  the world of 14th century. It is not surprising that this book was required reading in Prof. Herbst’s class.
Image Credits: cgsheldon, lloydi, mckaysavage
(This review appeared in the June 2009 edition of Pragati)

Experiments in brahmacharya

The post on Europe’s Sabarimala generated an interesting discussion on brahmacharya and what it takes for men to withstand temptation. On this topic Mahatma Gandhi wrote to Amrit Kaur in 1947

My meaning of brahmacharya is this:One who never has any lustful intention, who by constant attendance upon God has become proof against conscious or unconscious emissions, who is capable of lying naked with naked women, however beautiful they may be, without being in any manner whatsoever sexually excited. Such a person should be incapable of lying, incapable of intending or doing harm to a single man or woman in the whole world, is free from anger and malice and detached in the sense of the Bhagavadgita. Such a person is a full brahmachari. Brahmachari literally means a person who is making daily and steady progress towards God and whose every act is done in pursuance of that end and no other. [Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi Online

In the same letter, Gandhiji mentioned that he has lain naked with women. He thought of brahmacharya as a strong purifying force and to convince himself that he had the strength to withstand temptation he did these experiments while going around India trying to calm pre-partition riots of early 1947[2].
Marco Polo who visited India in the 14th century writes about meeting yogis who distinguished themselves by their abstinence. They went naked, ate nothing green since they believed that plants also had souls and lived a harsh life.  When a member of the sect died, the successor had to pass a test. Various maidens touched the yogi, “here and there.” If the yogi remained unaffected, he was considered pure and allowed to the serve the idols. But if he failed, he was driven away for the monks did not want to do anything with a man of self-indulgence[3].
References:

  1. Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi
  2. Gandhi’s Experiments with Truth by Richard L. Johnson, Gandhi
  3. Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu by Laurence Bergreen

Women’s Right at Mt. Athos

Three years back, the Kannada actress Jaimala triggered a major controversy when she said that she had entered the sanctum santorum of Sabarimala. This triggered a debate on if women should be allowed to enter Sabarimala, discrimination of women in Hindu society and what not. In 1930s, Aliki Diplarakou, who had won the Miss Europe title, dressed up as a man and sneaked into Mt. Athos in Greece generating a similar controversy for only men are allowed there.
Mt. Athos is an autonomous monastic state on a peninsula in northern Greece. Though Greece protects the peninsula, it is self governed by the monks of the 20 monasteries of the Eastern Orthodoxy. Special permission is needed to visit Mt. Athos and only a few visitors are allowed each month. Mt. Athos does not permit women to enter and this ban has been in place since 1045 CE, since the time of the Byzantine emperor Constantine Monomachos. Mt. Athos does not even permit female animals (female cats are allowed since they catch rats).

Entry to the mountain is usually by ferry boat either from the port of Ouranoupoli (for west coast monasteries) or from Ierrisos for those on the east coast. Before embarking on the boat all visitors must have been issued a diamoneterion, a form of Byzantine visa that is written in Greek, dated using the Julian calendar, and signed by four of the secretaries of leading monasteries. [Mt. Athos]

Amin Maalouf’s novel, The Gardens of Light, based on the life of the Persian mystic Mani (216-274 CE), mentions traditions of an all male Jewish sect which had similar feelings about women. In the palm grove where the sect lived, anything female was prohibited; the only women mentioned were Eve, Bathsheba and Salome. The other women in the scripture were never mentioned and sect members were prevented from mentioning their mother or wife.
While discriminating against women was not unusual in those times in the Middle East and Europe, you would think that would not be the case after the age of enlightenment. But when Greece joined the European Union – which does not support discrimination against women – a special clause was added for Mt. Athos.

Recognising that the special status granted to Mount Athos, as guaranteed by Article 105 of the Hellenic Constitution, is justified exclusively on grounds of a spiritual and religious nature, the Community will ensure that this status is taken into account in the application and subsequent preparation of provisions of Community law, in particular in relation to customs franchise privileges, tax exemptions and the right of establishment.[30 Jan 2001 : Column WA43]

When the Schengen visa came into effect, the monks saw it as Devil’s work. In 2003, the European Parliament criticized the ban on women on Mt. Athos and asked Greece to abolish the law which gives jail sentences to women caught entering this place. And guess what the answer was from the country which gave the West, rational thought:

“The Holy Mountain is subject to… a special status regarding which an insistence on the implementation of very important principles — such as equal rights of access, unrestricted movement, free trade or competition — would be in direct confrontation with fundamental, 1,000-year-old traditions, our faith and the monastic spirit of the Mountain,” Deputy Foreign Minister Tassos Yiannitsis said.[Athens defends Mt Athos ban]

Game Theory and the Middle East

Some books of the Hebrew Bible call on the followers to destroy people who did not worship Yahweh, but certain other books call for Israelites to peacefully co-exist with others. You can find similar passages in the Koran too. So why are certain passages conciliatory and others belligerent. What were the circumstances in which those passages were written and is there something we can learn from it to bring peace in the Middle East so that we can finally move that ladder?
The secret is game theory – the swing between zero-sum and non-zero-sum – and this, Robert Wright, says may give us hope for religious harmony.

Sometimes this may mean engineering the non-zero-sumness — for example, strengthening commerce between Israel and the Palestinian territories. Other times it will mean highlighting a non-zero-sum dynamic that already exists — emphasizing, for example, that continued strife between Israelis and Palestinians will be lose-lose (as would escalated tensions between the “Muslim world” and the “West” more broadly). Enduring peace would be win-win.
This peace would also have been foretold. Isaiah (first Isaiah, not the Isaiah of the exile) envisioned a day when God “shall arbitrate for many peoples” and “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” And in a Koranic verse dated by scholars to the final years of Muhammad’s life, God tells humankind that he has “made you into nations and tribes, so that you might come to know one another.”
This happy ending is hardly assured. It can take time for people, having seen that they are playing a non-zero-sum game, to adjust their attitudes accordingly. And this adaptation may never happen if barriers of mistrust persist.[Decoding God’s Changing Moods — Printout — TIME]

Converting Kublai Khan

According to the Joshua Project, the 10/40 window is home to people where the gospel has to be preached. The goal of this project is to share information to “encourage pioneer church-planting movements among every ethnic group and to facilitate effective coordination of mission agency efforts.” Or in simple words, facilitate conversion in Islamic countries, India, China and other minor countries in the neighborhood.
Ever since Roman Emperor Constantine legitimized the Jesus movement and converted to Christianity in his death bed, the religion expanded in a major way to change the West forever. There was a similar opportunity for Christians in the 13th century to convert Kublai Khan. If the Khan had converted, during the time of Mongol dominance (see map), the religious map of China and Mongolia would have made a Joshua Project volunteer smile.
The Khan did not hate Christians; in fact he had great respect for them. He was always curious about Christian kings and princes and wanted to know more about the Pope and how how Christians worshiped. When Niccolò and Maffeo (Marco Polo’s father and uncle) were returning back to Venice after their first visit, the Khan sent a letter to the Pope with them. It was a challenge. He wanted the Pope to send a hundred missionaries prepared to proselytize. These missionaries had to reason out that their faith was superior than others. If the Khan could be convinced he was ready to become a man of the Church without renouncing the Mongolian religion. He also wanted the Polos to get him the oil from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, believed to have great healing powers.
The Polos gave Khan’s letter to the newly elected  Pope Gregory X who could only spare two Dominican monks instead of the hundred. With the oil, the two Polo brothers, along with a 17 year Marco Polo and the monks, started their journey to the Khan’s court. The monks dropped out in the middle of the journey due to fear, but the Polos reached the Khan’s court near Beijing and the Khan treated the oil with respect (the same way he would treat relics from Sri Pada)
Kublai Khan was once challenged by Nayan Khan, his uncle, who was a Nestorian Christian. In this power struggle, Nayan fought under a standard which displayed the “Cross of Christ”, but he did get any visions like Constantine during the battle of the Milvian bridge. Nayan lost and was killed as per Mongol custom – by wrapping in a carpet and dragged around violently – so that blood is not spilled. Following this when various people made fun of Nayan’s Christian faith and Holy Cross, Kublai Khan differentiated between Nayan’s treachery and his faith and ensured the Christians that they will not be persecuted for their religion; he did not behave like the 15th century Spaniards and 17th century French.
Actually Kublai Khan’s mother, Sorghaghtani Beki, was a Nestorian Christian. So you would think that she would influence him to convert. Even though she was a single parent, she made him appreciate Buddhism, Taoism and Islam besides Christianity. It was probably a wise thing to do to preserve harmony in the empire, but Sorghaghtani Beki did it out of conviction.
Seeing the Khan’s sympathy towards Christians the Polos asked why he did not convert? He said Christianity was just another religion and nothing else. Much before Marco Polo, William of Rubruck – a Franciscan missionary – made his way to Karakorum, debating Buddhist priests and nearly dying of starvation. He finally met Mongke Khan, Kublai Khan’s brother who explained to the Friar that the God has passed various religious beliefs to people and Mongols were a tolerant folk.
Kublai Khan told Marco Polo that he found idolaters had more power – they could make wine cups float to the khan or make storms go away. Basically he was more impressed with shaman magic than the promise of an after life. He said if he converted to Christianity and if his barons asked for an explanation, he had none. He thought that embracing Christianity would weaken him and the best way to maintain peace in the empire was to be in good terms with barons.
Right now 50% of Mongolians are Buddhists and 40% don’t belong to any religion. Christians and Shamanists form 6%; Muslims, 4%.
References:

  1. Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu by Laurence Bergreen
  2. Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World by John Larner

Saving History from Terrorists

Baitullah Mehsud’s Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan has only hatred and disdain for the golden relics of Harappa and Mohenjodaro, the first of the urban civilizations built on syncretic ideas which are anathema to the Kalashnikov-wielding Taliban. Imagine the damage caused in any attack on sites which have only in recent years started yielding pointers to the journey our modern society has traversed. Visualize the Taliban plundering the ancient site of Taxila, a few hours north of Islamabad, not far from where the Pakistan army is now fighting them. The worries aren’t mine alone. Many young men, who make a living by acting as guides to tourists told me during a visit to Taxila two years ago that they are already being frowned upon for talking about Buddhism and Buddhist history. [We need to save history from terrorists too!]

Ranjan Roy writes about terrorism against history in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Jon Voight's Biblical World

A concern for the anonymous author of The Gospel of Matthew was false prophets.

That gospel was written between 80-85 CE. It was not just Matthew, but others like the author of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles also warned against false prophets.  A decade or so after the Gospel of Matthew was written, the second epistle of Peter also warned against false prophets and false teachers. According to Prof. Bart Ehrman, the author of Peter was writing at a time when early Christians were expecting the end of the world and were ridiculed for it.
Looks like Jon Voight arrived from that period.

In a speech at the Republican Senate-House fundraising dinner last night, actor Jon Voight criticized President Obama at length, calling him a “false prophet” who causing “oppression” in America.[Think Progress» McConnell ‘really enjoyed’ Voight’s speech that claimed Obama might allow ‘a new Holocaust.’]

Indian History Carnival – 18

The Indian History Carnival, published on the 15th of every month, is a collection of posts related to Indian history and archaeology.

  1. The June 2009 issue of Pragati is a history special with two editorial perspectives, five short feature essays (including one piece of historical fiction), one book review, and passages from five books written over a spread of two thousand years.
  2. Mekhala visited the rock shelters of Bhimbetka and has a report with some wonderful photographs.
  3. During 1000 – 1500 CE period, when the maritime networks in the Indian ocean were active, a Sephardic Rabbi named Benjamin set out to travel around the world in 1160s. Except for the Orient and Spice Islands, he visited most lands traveled by Ibn Battuta. Feanor says, “There is a suspicion that this otherwise very dependable author has possibly not travelled beyond Arabia..”
  4. Did the 1857 mutiny happen in Chittagong, Dhaka, Jalpaiguri and Tripura also and were those reports supressed? Raj investigates.
  5. In August 1863 Maharani Jind Kaur died in England.”It was a peculiar and remarkably quiet end for a woman once the scourge of the British Raj in India. Only 15 years earlier, Jind Kaur, the Maharani of the Punjab, had encouraged the Sikh Empire to wage two disastrous wars against the British which led to the annexation of the Punjab and Jind being torn from her son when he was just
    nine-years-old”, writes Raza Rumi.
  6. “Around the time William Logan was writing Malabar Manual (1887), an American scholar, diplomat and lawyer was describing Calicut and its inhabitants to his young readers almost as if he were describing some little known tribe deep in the jungles of the ‘dark continent.” Calicut Heritage analyzes Towle’s  Adventures of Vasco da Gama (1878).
  7. “I would not go so far as some who would insist that a Hindu is not the person to ask about Hinduism” wrote Prof. Wendy Doniger. This prompted kupamanduka to examine the biases in Hindu studies.
  8. In his post Linguistic Nationalism, Vishal looks at the consequences of imposing a national language in India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

f you find any posts related to Indian history published in the past one month, please send it to jk AT varnam DOT org or use this form. Please send me links which are similar to the ones posted, in terms of content.The next carnival will be up on July 15th.
See Also: Previous Carnivals