The ruins of Hampi, what was once the great
cities of its time (1565 CE) and the capital of the fabulous Vijayanagar Empire.
The empire was established by the brothers Harihara and Bukka Raya under
the tutelage of the great Vedantic rishis of that age Vidyaranya and Sayana,
photograph by
Michel Polizzi
|
Vijayanagar, the capital of one of the largest Hindu empires in history,
was founded by Sangama dynasty princes Harihara and Bukka in 1336. Its
power peaked under Krishnadevaraya (1509-29), when it controlled nearly
the whole of the peninsula south of the Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers.
Comparable to Delhi in the 14th century, the city, with an estimated
population of half a million, covered 33 sq km and was surrounded by
several concentric lines of fortification. Its wealth derived from the
control of spice trade and the cotton industry. Its busy bazaars,
described by European travelers such as Portuguese Nunez and Paes, were
centers of international commerce. The empire collapsed after the battle
of Talikota in 1565 when the city was ransacked by the confederacy of
Deccan sultans (Bidar, Bijapur, Golconda, Ahmednagar and Berar), thus
opening up southern India for Muslim conquest.
The ruins are set in a strange and beautiful
boulder strewn landscape with an almost magical quality. The undisputed
highlight of the ruins, the 16th century Vittala Temple, is a World
Heritage Monument. Started in the reign of Krishnadevaraya, it was never
finished or consecrated, and its incredible sculptural work is the
pinnacle of Vijayanagar art. The outer pillars are known as musical
pillars as they reverberate when tapped. There's an ornate stone chariot
in the temple courtyard containing an image of Garuda. [-- Adapted
from the Lonely Planet, India, 1999] |
History of the Indic Civilization
A Prolegomena, March 17,2006
It is clear that much of what we
learned in our school history books is suspect if not downright erroneous,
starting from the chronology of ancient India to the postulation of an Aryan
Invasion, the location of the ancient home of the Zoroastrian people, the dating
of Chandra Gupta Maurya's reign, the dating of the Buddha himself, the
embellishment of the Caste system by the Colonial overlord, the dating of the
impregnation of Indic culture in countries of South East Asia to name a
few. More importantly, the Eurocentric approach to the narration of the
fascinating story of Indian History taken by English authors is substantially at
variance with the facts and the history as we knew it prior to the arrival of
the Europeans in the Indian subcontinent. We will do our best to peel the
layers of the onion, but it is too large a task to be undertaken by a handful of
individuals, especially as the narration of this history is firmly
in the grip of the Marxists who are deeply ensconced in New Delhi and whose
viewpoint is substantially in conformance with the story as told by the British.
Why do Indian Marxists espouse a blatantly colonialist point of view ? There is
more than one overriding reason, but we will illustrate one
Karl Marx set the tone for the study of
Indian history by writing series of articles on India during the Great
Rebellion of 1857. He was in fact a correspondent for the New York Daily
Tribune. Of course Karl Marx had never stepped foot in India. But it was a
temper of the times. A white man was always preferred for such intellectual
tasks over an Indian , even though the subject was India. Unfortunately when it
comes to the subject of Ancient Indian history this attitude is pervasive even
today. His articles are indicative of a person highly prejudiced against
India. here is a sample
"How came it
that English supremacy was established in India? The paramount power of the
Great Mogul was broken by the Mogul Viceroys. The power of the Viceroys was
broken by the Mahrattas. The power of the Mahrattas was broken by the Afghans,
and while all were struggling against all, the Briton rushed in and was enabled
to subdue them all. A country not only
divided between Mahommedan and Hindoo, but between tribe and tribe, between
caste and caste; a society whose framework was based on a sort of equilibrium,
resulting from a. general repulsion and constitutional exclusiveness between all
its members. Such a country and such a society, were they not the predestined
prey of conquest? If we knew nothing of the past history of Hindostan,
would there not be the one great and incontestable fact, that even at this
moment India is held in English thralldom by an Indian army maintained at the
cost of India? India, then, could not
escape the fate of being conquered, and the whole of her past history, if it be
anything, is the history of the successive conquests she has undergone. Indian
society has no history at all, at least no known history. What we call its
history, is but the history of the successive intruders who founded their
empires on the passive basis of that unresisting and unchanging society.
The question, therefore, is not whether
the English had a right to conquer India, but whether we are to prefer India
conquered by the Turk, by the Persian, by the Russian, to India conquered by the
Briton.
England has to fulfill a double mission in India: one
destructive, the other regenerating the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and
the laying the material foundations of Western society in Asia.
Arabs, Turks, Tartars, Moguls, who had successively overrun
India, soon became Hindooized, the barbarian conquerors being, by an eternal law
of history, conquered themselves by the superior civilization of their subjects.
The British were the first conquerors
superior, and therefore, inaccessible to Hindoo civilization. They
destroyed it by breaking up the native communities, by uprooting the native
industry, and by leveling all that was great and elevated in the native society.
The historic pages of their rule in India report hardly anything beyond that
destruction. The work of regeneration hardly transpires through a heap of ruins.
Nevertheless it has begun.
The political unity of India, more consolidated, and
extending farther than it ever did under the Great Moguls, was the first
condition of its regeneration. That unity, imposed by the British sword, will
now be strengthened and perpetuated by the electric telegraph. The native army,
organized and trained by the British drill-sergeant, was the sine qua non of
Indian self-emancipation, and of India ceasing to be the prey of the first
foreign intruder. The free press, introduced for the first time into Asiatic
society, and managed principally by the common offspring of Hindoos and
Europeans, is a new and powerful agent of reconstruction."
(if that does not work try
this )
Well one
might argue, that was not so bad. He is just reiterating the basic idea that
everything good in India came from somewhere else. Perhaps so, coming from a
European, after all it was the temper of the times when Europe believed it was
its manifest destiny to rule the world, as they belonged to a superior race as
Karl Marx put it without mincing any words. But his viewpoint is held by many of
the Marxist Historians in India today. Unfortunately not much can be said
about their integrity either. One of their many shenanigans is promising to
write 19 volumes on the Indian national freedom movement (what a choice)
and delivering only 3,all at the expense of the national exchequer to the tune
of over a million $,definitely a large sum of money in those days ( the
70's).For the whole sordid story, see
Arun Shourie on Eminent Historians. The bottom line is one cannot rely on
the present breed of Indian Marxists, who remain firmly in control over the
national agenda, to redress the falsehoods and Eurocentrisms that have dominated
the narration of Indian History during the last 150 years.
We invite like minded people to join with
us in this noble endeavor in conducting research and writing accurate
accounts of Indian historical events on these topics or to fund graduate studies
in these areas to promising youngsters. In the pages to follow we will layout a
plan for projects to be studied. In the meantime here are some interesting
papers and books to whet your appetite.
HEC2007
Digitized Text
Books on Indian History
Selective Links
Misdating Important Events in
Indic Chronology
The Chronology
Index
The Andhra Satavahanas
Misdating by
Bharateeya Historiography
Bibliography
References on Indic History
Indic Mercantilism
Indian Armed Forces
((from antiquity to the Present)
Medieval India (1200 CE to 1745 CE)
Slavery and the Indian Slave
trade during the middle ages by Scot Levi
2002, November: 'Hindus Beyond the Hindu Kush: Indians in
the Central Asian Slave Trade,' Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3d
ser. (12, 3), pp. 277-88
Hindus beyond the Hindu Kush, Indians in the Central Asian
slave trade by Scott Levi
British Colonial India and the Freedom Movement
Caste and
Ethnographic Mapping
Drain of Wealth by the British during Colonial era
The
invention of Pakistan
Goa
a modern perspective
The Ghost of Macaulay Haunts
171 Years Later
British Raj ,
random notes
Post Independence (1947 CE)
Chronology
of Indo-Pak Conflict
Ancient India (up to 1 CE)
Chronology of Ancient India
New Light on Ancient India
The West Discovers Arthasastra
Democracy in Ancient India
Vedic dating
of the Buddha
Andhra Kingdoms
Book reviews
