Indian History Carnival: 54 – Saraswati, Ghaggar-Hakra, Kamma, Scotland, Chennai Port

The decline of the Indus-Saraswati civilization (terminology used by ASI) is the major news this month and what triggered it is a paper by Liviu Giosan, a geologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. NYTimes blog writes

Wild, untamed rivers once slashed through the heart of the Indus plains. They were so unpredictable and dangerous that no city could take root on their banks. As the centuries passed, however, the monsoons became less frequent and the floods less intense, creating stable conditions for agriculture and settlement.
Sprawling across what is now Pakistan, northwestern India and eastern Afghanistan, the Indus civilization encompassed more than 625,000 square miles, rivaling ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in its accomplishments. In its bustling hubs, there was indoor plumbing, gridded streets and a rich intellectual life.
Unlike the Egyptians and Mesopotamians, who used irrigation systems to support crops, the Harappans relied on a gentle, dependable cycle of monsoons that fed local rivers and keyed seasonal floods.
As time passed, the monsoons continued to weaken until the rivers no longer flooded, and the crops failed. The surplus agriculture was longer there to support traders, artists, craftsmen and scholars . The Harappans’ distinct writing system, which still has not been deciphered, fell into disuse.

On the same topic, Suvrat Kher has a post in which he writes

Paleobotanical and sedimentological criteria had always indicated that increasing aridification and reduction in monsoon strength better explained the drying of the Ghaggar around 3900 B.P. Despite all this, the Sutlej or the Yamuna changing course at around 3900 B.P became the favored explanation for the drying of the Ghaggar. This scenario of a once large Ghaggar neatly fitted the description in the Rig Veda of a mighty Saraswati, a holy river that just like the Ganges was thought to have its source in the high glacial Himalayas. I suspect that the glacial river theory had more emotional appeal and gained acceptance among some geologists.
The strong assertions by geologists that the diversion of glacial rivers from the Ghaggar coincided with the decline of the Harappan civilization was used by archaeologists like Prof. B.B. Lal to place the composers of the Rig Veda on the plains of the Punjab before the Ghaggar dried up, apparently bolstering the theory that the Harappan people and the Vedic people were one and the same. A geological narrative constructed without rigorous evidence has been promoted to support a theory of cultural evolution in northwest India.
Unfortunately, this glacial past of the Saraswati timed to the demise of the Harappan civilization is now enshrined in textbooks written by senior geologists like K.S. Valdiya. They should now be revised or at the very least these geologists need to admit that their theory has been seriously challenged. If geologists working on this problem still want to stick to the theory of a glacial Saraswati, they will need to come up with a more convincing data driven rebuttal to the work of Clift et.al. and Giosan et. al.

How did the Buddhist idea of Kamma change over time? Jayarava illustrates it with several examples

There is no single unified Theory of Karma in Buddhism, either synchronically (in our time) or diachronically (across time). Instead there are multiple theories, and very many exegetes explaining the “Truth” of karma. Some of these ‘truths’ are mutually exclusive. Sectarians tend not to be conversant with the details of the different theories, since sectarian teachers present their version of karma as the Truth. Those who are conversant with a range of karma theories find them difficult to reconcile. ‘Actions have consequences’ is what it boils down to, but its hard to see this as a great revelation from the Buddha since everyone knows this platitude already. The how and when of actions having consequences are Buddhism’s specific contribution to moral theory, but unfortunately Buddhists themselves disagree on precisely these points.

In 1705 Scotland joined the British union to create Great Britain and there was someone from Malabar who was in the thick of the events that led to it. Maddy has that fascinating tale

The witnesses Francisco and Ferdinando when produced before the court were termed Negros or blacks, not considered real Christians and their names as stated were not considered real. They were for these reasons not considered equivalent to ten pound Scots. Nevertheless, their depositions were the basis for later judgment, Ferdinando’s being the clinching eyewitness testimony augmented by supporting evidence by the others. It appears that he provided his testimony either in Malayalam. Imagine the irony, the destiny of Scotland was decided by a few words in Malayalam!! The translations in court were provided by George Yeaman.

Sriram has details on how Chennai got its port

The Port scheme gained a major source of support with the establishment of the Madras Chamber of Commerce in 1836. The merchants of the city were convinced that if it was to transform from being Kipiling’s “tired withered beldame”, Madras needed a proper harbour and therefore began championing the cause. The Chamber, which had most of its members on First Line Beach, roped in the Madras Trades Association, which comprised the retail giants of Mount Road. In 1857, a Committee in which the Chamber was represented submitted to the East India Company a report that stated “that an iron screw pile pier was not only feasible but simple of construction and was the most suitable structure for spanning the Madras surf”. The Government that replaced the Company post Mutiny accepted this proposal which was estimated to cost Rs 95,000. A year later this was revised to Rs 103,000 and on 17th September 1859, the first pile was screwed down by Sir Charles Trevelyan, the then Governor, assisted by the Commander-in-Chief and Henry Nelson, Chairman of the Chamber.

That’s it for June. The next carnival will be up on July 15th. Please send nominations to @varnam_blog or varnam dot blog at gmail.

Earlier date for Malayalam

By around 800 CE, the language used in Kerala was a local variation of Tamil. The language known as Malayalam did not exist. Ilango Adigal (who wrote Silappatikaram) and Kulasekhara Alwar (responsible for devotional literature) were Malayalis, but wrote in Tamil. By around the 9th century CE, Malayalam evolved into a separate language under the heavy influence of Saṃskṛtam. As it became a new language — the youngest among the Dravidian languages — it discarded the earlier script and started using the script used for writing Saṃskṛtam.
But some data from Edakkal caves is changing our understanding of the evolution of Malayalam language. It seems the language started evolving much earlier than the “brahminical period”.

Eminent epigraphist Iravatham Mahadevan contends that Edakal-5 provides important evidence that the common people of Kerala were already expressing themselves in Malayalam at about the end of the 4th century c.e.
The inscription (Edakal-5) is engraved just below and to the left of a tall, imposing anthropomorphic figure, which is part of the much earlier prehistoric engravings covering the rock walls of the cave (Picture 1). It appears that Edakal-5 is a label inscription engraved by a casual visitor to the cave recording his impression of the anthropomorphic figure he saw there.
The language of Edakal-5 is Malayalam. This becomes clear from the first word i (this), which is a pronoun in Malayalam standing for someone or something nearer the speaker. In Tamil, i has the same meaning, but does not occur as an independent word unlike in Malayalam. That the language of the inscription is indeed Malayalam is made clear by the second word pazhama which corresponds to pazhamai in Tamil, meaning “that which is ancient or old”. The text in Malayalam and its nearest rendering in Tamil are juxtaposed below to bring out the distinction.
i pazhama (Malayalam)
idu pazhamai (Tamil)
‘this (is) ancient’ (translation)
The most important result from the revised reading is that Edakal-5 is by far the earliest inscription in Malayalam and the only one in Brahmi. It may be assigned to late 4th or early 5th century c.e. on palaeographic evidence discussed below. The next earliest inscriptions in Malayalam occur much later from about the beginning of the 9th century c.e. and are in the Vatteluttu script.
Edakal-5 provides important evidence that the common people of Kerala were already expressing themselves in Malayalam at about the end of the 4th century c.e. However, Tamil was also retained by the elite as the literary idiom in which great works like Silappadikaram were composed. Eventually, of course, the people’s language prevailed in the region and Malayalam became the medium of communication for all purposes from about the beginning of the Kollam Era (early 9th century c.e.).[The earliest inscription in Malayalam (via Nikhil Narayanan)]

But then this is just one data point and one cannot generalize anything about what was happening in Kerala just from this.

HNS Book Updates: Bring Up the Bodies, The First Crusade

The Historical Novel Society monthly mail collects book reviews from various newspapers making it easy for people like me to decide what to read and what to avoid. The past few months, I did not find anything interesting. But this month there are two books which I want to read.
The first one is Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up The Bodies which is a sequel to her Booker prize winning Wolf Hall. I am not a big fan of English royalty and the palace politics, but the only reason the book looks interesting is the period — 16th century — when Europeans where on a looting spree around the world. NPR had an interview with her and most of the reviews are positive.

Historical fiction has many pitfalls, multiple characters and plausible underwear being only two of them. How should people talk? Sixteenth-century diction would be intolerable, but so would modern slang; Mantel opts for standard English, with the occasional dirty joke, and for present-tense narration much of the time, which keeps us right there with Cromwell as his plots and Mantel’s unfold. How much detail – clothes, furnishings, appliances – to supply without clogging up the page and slowing down the story? Enough to allow the reader to picture the scene, with lush fabrics and textures highlighted, as they were at the time. Mantel generally answers the same kinds of question that interest readers in court reports of murder trials or coverage of royal weddings. What was the dress like? How did she look? Who really went to bed with whom? Mantel sometimes overshares, but literary invention does not fail her: she’s as deft and verbally adroit as ever. [Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel – review]

The second book is non-fiction about the First Crusade. Washington Post has the review of Peter Frankopan’s The First Crusade: The Call From the East

But the West possessed fighting men and modern technology — chiefly the knight mounted on an armored war horse — and there might lie salvation, of a sort. By eliding the interests of Constantinople with the promise of liberating Jerusalem, Alexios presented himself as a champion of Christendom. He wrote to Urban, who, faced with a rival pope and widespread clerical discord, quickly grasped that a noble cause in a distant land would bolster his wobbly perch on the throne of St. Peter. To increase the Crusade’s attractiveness, the savvy pontiff emphasized not only the spiritual rewards of participation, but also the virtual guarantee of a place in heaven for those who lost their lives. The leaders of the Crusade soon included Robert, Duke of Normandy (one of William the Conqueror’s sons); Count Raymond of Toulouse; Godfrey of Bouillon; and the soon-to-be-famous Bohemond, whose family controlled the Norman kingdom of Sicily. They and their carefully recruited armies, consisting of reliable fighting men, would meet at Constantinople in 1096 and 1097.In the meantime, the unexpected occurred. From 1095 to ’96, a charismatic preacher, Peter the Hermit, gathered a following of his own and, without papal authorization, unleashed what is now known as the People’s Crusade. Whipped to a frenzy, this ragtag and chaotic mob moved across Europe, preaching anti-Semitism, murdering Jewish populations and devastating the countryside in its hunger for food and supplies. Somehow, a remnant of these marauding zealots made their way to Asia Minor, where they brutally overran a small castle near Nicaea — and were in their turn crushed by vengeful Turkish forces. Ironically, many of these fanatical Christians quickly converted to Islam to save their miserable lives.[‘The First Crusade: The Call From the East,’ by Peter Frankopan]

Indian History Carnival – 53: RISA, Kurgan Theory, Indian Coins, Bhajana, Edward Lear, Indian Soldiers, Corruption

Last year there was a big brouhaha over the so called censoring of A K Ramanujan’s text on Ramayana. Deepak Sharma, the moderator of RISA, wrote an article in the Huffington Post titled Censoring Ramanujan’s Essay On Ramayana: Intolerant Hindus And Confusing Texts. As the politics behind history is as interesting as history itself, here is an article by Koenraad Elst on the issue

“Where Ramanujan got it wrong, driven by his ideological agendas, is to to place all the diverse renderings of Ramayana at par with the Valmiki Ramayana. Let us get one thing VERY CLEAR – All these different versions of Ramayana (Dasharatha Jataka included) have the Ramayana of Valmiki as their basis and draw their storyline to it. It is another matter that they adapt it to their own purposes. Even Ashvaghosha, the author of Buddhacharita, salutes Valmiki as the Adikavi. The Shakya lineage was derided for having descended from a brother sister union. The Buddhists therefore created the Jataka in which Rama and Sita married, and linked the Shakyas with the Ikshavakus. So, their agenda was obvious. To claim, despite this obvious explanation, that in the ‘most ancient version of the Ramayana, Rama and Sita are siblings’ is to distort stuff with the deliberate intent of deriding Hindu beliefs.

A popular theory which explains the spread of Indo-European language around the world is called the Kurgan hypothesis.
Jesus Sanchis, based on new work by Francisco Villar, suggests something radical.

Of course, some may think: “Ok, there were IE language in Europe at that early age, but then there was another wave of IE dispersal at the bronze age which brought the IE languages as we know them today and historically”. The authors admit this possibility, but also say that it is quite unlikely. As they say, and as I have insisted in this blog many times, there is no evidence of any sort of relevant population movement in the Bronze Age that could even remotely support this theory, usually known as the Kurgan theory.

How did ancient Indians trade? Did they simply barter or did they have any sort of currency? An excellent blog called Indian Coins looks at this

What gave an impetus to the development of a long lasting metal-based monetary system was the eventual arrival of gold, followed by silver and other metals. Gold was abundant in several south Indian rivers and people were able to glean gold nuggets from them. They were also able to extract coarse gold dust from sand with a reasonable effort. These gold nuggets and gold dust became an important medium of currency within India by 1000. Gold dust was placed in impervious bags and these bags were used for transaction. There are numerous references in ancient Indian literature to these bags of gold. This in turn attracted Indians to gold and silver which foreign merchants offered to purchase Indian products.

Sriram writes about the trinity of bhajana sampradaya in Tanjore region

The Tanjore region became the bhajana tradition’s stronghold with the arrival of the bhajana sampradAya trinity, namely Sadguru Swamin, Bhodendral and Sridhara Venkatesa Ayyaval. The trio existed between 1684 and 1817 AD. Ayyaval who was the senior most is considered the father of the Bhajan tradition in South India. Born in Tiruvisanallur, Tanjore District, Ayyaval was a contemporary of King Shahaji I (ruled 1684-1712). He firmly believed in nAma siddhAnta, the principle of chanting God’s name and composed several simple songs for congregational singing.

In 1873, Edward Lear arrived in India and spent time painting and sketching. Fëanor writes

Lear’s Nonsense verses were immensely popular in India. Of course, this is not to say the local population knew any of them. Rather, the colonial kids – living in their bubbles – knew them and even studied them at school. His interaction with Indians appears to have been somewhat limited. He learned a few Hindi and Tamil words. He could ask the way (‘Rusta ke hai?’) and he was happy to eat ‘Bhat’ and curry, and in Madras, could say ‘Please endewennum?’ He expressed regret that he hadn’t bothered to learn the ‘Lingo’ before arriving in India.
During WW1, a large number of Indian soldiers fought in Mesopotamia. Seyahatname visited the Haydarpaşa English cemetery in Turkey and found some memorial stones.

Mesopotamia saw the largest influx of Indian soldiers. Over the course of the many campaigns, close to 675,000 Indian fighting troops as well as hundreds of thousands of auxiliary troops were involved in Mesopotamia. When General Townshend’s troops surrendered in April 1916, the POWs were marched all the way from Mesopotamia to POW camps in Turkey. Most of those who survived probably ended up at the POW camps in Afyonkarahissar (the name ‘black poppy castle’ always makes me chuckle). Apparently, there are still some memorial stones in that region of Anatolia, but most of the Indian POWs are remembered here in Istanbul.

Samanth Subramanian at NYTimes Blog has a post on independent India’s first corruption scandal involving the party that has been bringing us bigger and better corruption scandals for the past six decades.

After Mr. Chagla filed his report, Mr. Krishnamachari resigned on Feb. 18, 1958. When Mr. Nehru received the letter of resignation, he wrote back a note that was curiously dismissive of Mr. Chagla and that betrayed his deep fondness for Mr. Krishnamachari: “Despite the clear finding of the Commission so far as you are concerned, I am most convinced that your part in this matter was the smallest and that you did not even know what was done.” Mr. Mundhra, arrested at a suite at the Claridges Hotel in New Delhi, went to prison for 22 years.

That’s it for May. The next carnival will be up on June 15th or the weekend following it. If you have any links, please e-mail me at varnam.blog @gmail. (Thanks Sandeep, Feanor, as usual)

Where was the horse domesticated?

Where was the horse domesticated? This is a very important question in history and lot of politics is connected to it. The place where the horse was domesticated has an effect on the Indo-European homeland. A while back Saudi Arabian officials claimed that horse was domesticated there around 9000 years back and as proof of this, they displayed a sculpture of a horse with a birdle. Now this added new questions to the Aryan theory which I covered in a blog post. Now there is a new paper which claims that horse was domesticated not in Saudi Arabia, but in the the western part of the Eurasian Steppe.

Shards of pottery with traces of mare’s milk, mass gravesites for horses, and drawings of horses with plows and chariots: These are some of the signs left by ancient people hinting at the importance of horses to their lives. But putting a place and date on the domestication of horses has been a challenge for archaeologists. Now, a team of geneticists studying modern breeds of the animal has assembled an evolutionary picture of its storied past. Horses, the scientists conclude, were first domesticated 6000 years ago in the western part of the Eurasian Steppe, modern-day Ukraine and West Kazakhstan. And as the animals were domesticated, they were regularly interbred with wild horses, the researchers say. [Whence the Domestic Horse?]

If you are interested in the history of horses in India, this would be a good starting point.

Katasraj Update

In 2005, Pakistan said that they would spend $25 million on the restoration of the Katasraj temple. 7 years later, looking at a picture of the temple, it does not look like much has been done.

At a time when the Hindu community in the country is crying over ‘conversion and forced-marriages’, they have been inflicted by another misery: the sacred pond at Katas Raj here is drying up because its water is being supplied to the nearby towns, Dawn has learnt. A cement factory near Katas Temples has installed tubewells in the area which have reduced the water level in the pond. The water from the pond is being supplied to Choa Syedan Shah and Waula village as the Punjab government could not provide any alternative facility to the residents of the area. [Holy pond at Katas Raj drying up]

Salman Rashid who visited the region recently writes

Last Sunday I was at Katas Raj, the ancient religious site (Buddhist and Hindu) in the Salt Range. It is useless to lament the destruction of the pristine site with marble flooring and steel pipe banisters to the stairways where none had ever existed in history. Culprit: the department of archaeology.[What is the matter with us?]

Elephant in Syria's Bronze Age

Elephant bones have been found in Syria dating to the late Bronze age and it is possible that they were imported from India.

During the excavations season 2008 of Tell Mishrifé, bones of elephant have been found in a Late Bronze Age context. Discovery of elephant bones is not usual in Syria. They belong to infrequently occurring mammal species and their bones seems to appear in contexts dated up to the Middle Bronze Age. The questions arising are about the species identification and the occurrence of the elephant in Ancient Syria. One proposition is the import from India. The cultural and technical development of three great oriental state-levels societies during the 3rd and the beginning 2nd Millennium BC, the Harrapian Civilisation in the Indus valley, the Mesopotamian Civilisation and the Egyptian Civilisation led to the emergence of an intensive, evidenced as maritime, trade in the Gulf, the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea with some sites on the Arabian peninsular region playing an important role as primary trading places. The trade centred on a variety of luxuries but also on raw materials. The appearance in Mesopotamia and Levant during the 2nd Millennium BC of exotic species originated from India, plants such as sesame and animals, such as domesticated fowl and zebu, are also a hint for relation between Mesopotamia and India-Middle Asia though by what route remains unclear. The elephant presence in Syria could be related to the same trade.[The elephant in Syria via Carlos Aramayo]

The following posts talk about the trading network that existed between the Harappans and the people of Ancient Near East: Trading Hubs of the Old World – Part 1, Part 2, The Indus Colony in Mesopotamia – Part 1, Part 2

Restitution of looted cultural objects

One of the many crimes that Europeans did in India was stealing our artifacts for exhibition in their museums. Now there is movement to get the artifacts back to the country of origin. Among the countries that participated in the Conference on International Cooperation for the Protection and Repatriation of Cultural Heritage, last year in Cairo, few like Egypt, China, Nigeria, Peru, Mexico, Guatemala and Libya are doing something about this. India has not even sent a Surface to Surface dossier in this regard.

The Cairo Conference is an important historic event in so far as it constitutes a first clear attempt in recent years by States with restitution demands to organize themselves and fight collectively for the return of their cultural artefacts. The Conference is thus a direct challenge and answer to the notorious Declaration on the Value and Importance of Universal Museum. (14) Whereas the signatories of the Declaration proclaimed that artefacts kept over a long period in those museums become part of the culture of the States where they are located, the Cairo Conference boldly demanded that these objects be returned to the countries of origin. The artefacts requested are mostly icons that have been over decades in the “universal museums”- Rosetta Stone (since 1802 in the British Museum), bust of Nefertiti (in Germany since 1913 and after various locations now in Neues Museum, Berlin), Parthenon/Elgin Marbles (in Britain since 1801 and in the British Museum since 1816), the Benin bronzes (since 1897 in the British Museum and other Western museums). In other words, this is a serious direct challenge to positions many in the West have considered for long to be unassailable. The success or failure of the Cairo requests will have consequences on future demands for restitution of cultural objects.[REFLECTIONS ON THE CAIRO CONFERENCE ON RESTITUTION: ENCOURAGING BEGINNING (via IndiaArchaeology)]

Indus script designed with care

In his book, The Lost River, Michel Danino wrote the following about the Harappan civilization.

Altogether, the area covered by this civilization was about 800,000 km²: roughly one-fourth of today’s India, or if we can make comparisons with contemporary civilizations, ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia put together. This vast expanse must have offered unique opportunities as well as posed peculiar challenges — opportunities in terms of a wider choice of sources for raw materials and a richer store of human skill and experience; challenges arising from a greater diversity of regional cultures which had to be integrated , or at least coordinated, and the sheer extent of communication networks required to keep it all together.

It turns out that the Harappans indeed took the challenge seriously and made sure that the script was uniform across this vast region.

“Writing is an important window to the intellectual creativity of a civilisation. Our analysis reveals that people who designed the Indus script were intellectually creative and considerable time and effort went into designing it. The manner in which the signs were modified shows that it was acceptable across all the sites of the civilisation and was not intended for a small group of people,” said Nisha Yadav from TIFR, the principal author of the study.
The Indus script is found on objects such as seals, copper tablets, ivory sticks, bronze implements and pottery from almost all sites of the civilisation. “The Indus civilisation was spread over an area of about a million square kilometres and yet, the sign list over the entire civilisation seems to be the same indicating that the signs, their meaning and their usage were agreed upon by people with large physical separation. A lot of thought, planning and utility issues must have been taken into consideration while designing these signs,” says the TIFR paper, published in the Korean journal, Scripta.
The paper also indicates that the script may have a connection with scripts from India or even China. The authors say that the signs of the Indus script seem to incorporate techniques in their design that were used in several ancient writing systems to make optimum use of a limited number of signs.[Indus script designed with care, say TIFR researchers (via IndiaArchaeology)]

Briefly Noted: Immortals of Meluha

The Immortals of Meluha deals with an interesting premise: What if Shiva was a person who lived around 1900 BCE in Tibet and migrated to the Saraswati-Sindhu region? In Amish’s novel, Shiva is a blue throated warrior from Tibet who is fed up with frequent battles in his region and decides to move his tribe to the land of seven rivers.
This region, called Meluhha, was created by Lord Ram and follows the dharmic way of life. The Suryavanshis who live there are immortal due to the consumption of somaras — a magic potion created by mixing few things with the water of Saraswati. But there are few problems: Saraswati is dying putting the somaras production at risk; there are also frequent bold attacks from the Chandravanshis who have allied with the Nagas.
The books follows the Hero’s journey template: The Suryavanshis are waiting for the neelkanth, but the cannibis smoking hero is not so sure if he is Neo. He spends time wooing Sati and rectifying few faults he sees in the Ram Rajya. But soon he realizes that he has to become Mahadev and save the world.
The book generated ripples of mirth for one reason. Even though there is material evidence of yoga, fire altars, the worship of the peepal tree, worship of the serpent, worship of the linga etc in the Harappan region, there is no scholarly consensus on their religion. The moment you utter the word, Hinduism, scholarly and not so scholarly arrows start flying all around. But Amish does not succub to political correctness and that makes the book refreshing to read. His Meluhha is a proper dharmic society.
Now, writing historical fiction is hard because you have to worry not just about the story, but about recreating the atmosphere. So when you find the units depicted in kilometers and when the characters utter “Son of a bitch” in their conversation, it feels like modern India rather than 1900 BCE. I had just finished reading Amitav Ghosh’s River of Smoke and Sea of Poppies where the amount of research he has done is mindboggling and the the atmosphere he creates is immersive. Amish has to read few such books to recreate the Harappan period.