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There is a curious pillar at Vidisha, almost at the center of India,
which throws an interesting light
on how history is perceived
at different times by different people.
It illustrates the process of how later generations
take over the heritage left by their predecessors
into their own lives
- the incorporation as it were,
of the past, by the present.
There are many instances in Indian history
of incorporation of elements of the little tradition into the great tradition
and vice-versa.
This pillar represents one such incorporation.
This was erected here just outside Vidisha in Basenagar, by Heliodorus,
who was the greek ambassador from Taxila to Vidisha.
Heliodorus writes on this pillar
that he was a worshiper of Vasudev, an incarnation of Vishnu.
Vishnu had already been mentioned in the Vedas as one of the Gods
but certainly he was not as important as Indra or Varuna.
Heliodorus writes that he worships Vishnu
and he worshiped Vasudev as an incarnation of Vishnu.
Now this is a very interesting thing because
this is the first historical mention we have of Vasudev
who is also referred to as Krishna.
Subsequently, after Heliodorus,
this pillar was worshiped as "Khamb-Baba"
by the local fishermen community.
The whole memory of Krishna or Vasudev
in this region disappeared
and the local deity khamb-baba was created.
Years afterwards, centuries in fact, afterwards,
when the archaeological survey of India
took up this as one of the symbols of the Indian state,
the bheemar community was disposessed of it
and it became a historical monument.
In fact, both history and culture have many meanings
and their complexities deserve to be explored in detail.
History cannot be a mere chronological account of events and personalities.
Indeed, history lives on in the present,
in the lives of ordinary people.
In this series, we try to understand
how India is continuously being invented by its people
and its past is reconstructed through its present.
We set out both as historians and documentary film makers
to explore these complexities which constitute Indian history.
Our exploration of the culture and civilization of India in historical outline,
is inspired by DD Kosambi.
DD Kosambi's findings have been contested several decades after his death.
But the fact is that Kosambi has made
signal contribution not only to the study of history,
but to the evolution of its very methodology.
Kosambi did not believe that history dealt with the dead past.
He believed that history lives on in the present.
And therefore, in studying history,
Kosambi looked at how people live today -
what are the tools they use,
what are the rituals they practice,
what is the food that they eat, what are the songs that they sing.
And from that, he established a continuum
between the past and the present.
That was Kosambi's interpretation of history and his methodology.
And it was that methodology
which inspired us to carry out this
exploration of the culture and civilization of India in historical outline.
Some people regard culture
as purely a matter of intellectual and spiritual values
in the sense of religion, art and music and so on.
However, there are difficulties in taking
this type of culture as the main spring of history.
Since religion is a major constituent of culture,
it is noteworthy that a significant part of the Christian prayer
asks the Lord to give us this day our daily bread.
Man does not live by bread alone
but we have not yet developed a human breed
that can live without bread or at least some form of food.
The basis of any formal culture
must lie in the availability of food supply beyond that needed to support the actual food producer.
A surplus provides the resources, but equally important,
the time to engage in art, trade and other activities.
These in turn help in the production of further resources.
Surplus production depends upon
the technique and instruments used.
Primitive food gatherers obviously produce very little surplus
and what they do produce is often divided
and shared out by the women of the gathering group.
This pattern still prevails among some people
who are called tribals.
With further development,
the apportioning job is taken over by the patriarch,
the tribal chief, the head of the clan.
Women get subordinated as patriarchy develops.
When the surplus is large and concentrated,
a great temple may often decide
upon its gathering and distribution
through priestly guilds or the nobility.
This has been the pattern in South India in particular.
In exploring the contours of Indian history and culture, however,
we cannot draw only mechanical, simple or deterministic conclusions.
In India especially, culture often obscures economic realities.
Take the case of the Bada-Imaambaara at Lucknow.
Its origin had much to do with food.
It was built as a famine-relief measure
to provide employment to starving people.
But it became a symbol of the feudal nobility of Avadh.
In exploring India's past,
we must take account of the hidden layers of the historical process
which underlie every current social form.
For instance, at the Buddhist cave monastery, at Karle in Western India,
we are reminded that popular religion has overtaken high philosophy.
In fact, in terms of expression, language itself was formed
out of the process of exchange -
new goods, fresh ideas and corresponding new words-
all going together.
With the easy edifice-complex which afflicts documentary film makers,
we began our exploration with archaeology
and sought history through monuments.
Despite the monumental scale of past achievements,
we soon discovered that conventional and scientific archaeology
is unable to solve some really important questions
or even ask some of them.
While history is something which exists in everybody's life,
some people find it mystifying.
They find archaeology even more intimidating.
Archaeology after all is a science
which has its parameters and has its methods.
But then you don't really have to be a specialized scientist
in order to be an archaeologist.
Kosambi said all that you need is a sturdy pair of legs
and a walking stick with a ferrule.
You don't have to dig deep.
Sometimes, things appear on the surface itself.
And it is easy to make out different levels of living
by just looking at houses or artifacts which exist on the surface.
For instance, I am sitting on a rump of a house.
It was made of mud.
It has, over the period of time, gone.
And now, on its place, stands another house.
This exists in three levels.
The lowest level has stone.
Then we have brick.
And then finally we have mud.
This is perhaps the work of one generation.
But then it shows different levels of living
which people in this area have had.
India, however, has one tremendous advantage
that was not utilized till recently by historians.
It includes within it, the survival of many social forms
that allow the reconstruction of totally diverse earlier stages.
To find these strata, one has to move from cloistered libraries
to the field where ordinary people live and work.
The special feature of Indian history
is that time does not have linearity.
It is not as if people change
their methods of living as they go along.
At any given point of time,
you can have people living
as their forefathers would have done 2000 years before Christ
and of-course existing 2000 years after Christ.
Take the case of the Gaddis of the Kangra and Chamba valleys
of Himachal Pradesh.
Some of them live as pastoralists,
taking their cattle across the passes over the hills.
Others live as agriculturists, and,
in the modern service and government sectors.
The important thing is that these two groups are not discrete.
They live on a social and temporal continuum
and they are part of the same scheduled tribe
which receives positive discrimination under the Constitution.
Of course, in order to see the past from the vantage point of the present,
we have to discount the influence of transport and communications,
education, recent political developments, the cinema, radio, television,
and trade which is dominated by production in the cities.
The fact is that India still remains a country of peasants.
Agrarian development is extensive
though still largely with primitive technique.
It is precisely this backward, inefficient and local nature of production
that has allowed so many older tribal groups to survive
even if they are on the verge of extinction.
The influence of ecology on history and culture
is obvious from the fact that the whole rural economy
is still dominated by the seasonal rain, the monsoon.
This causes between 20 inches to 200 inches of yearly rainfall
in various parts of India.
Anything less means a famine area, or requires irrigation.
In the flat coastal areas
which are now getting denuded of the forests,
three crops a year are possible.
But the dense population is unable to subsist
merely by consuming the local production.
The economy therefore
cashes in on crops like the coconut.
The economic as well as the ritual importance of coconut
demonstrates how easily new crops have been absorbed
by the so-called unchanging Indian peasant.
Mineral resources are only now being developed
in the forests of central india and some wild areas of the peninsula
to something like their full potential.
Differences in geography and in natural resources
led to different regions developing in different ways:
some taking the high road
and some taking the low dirt track.
The main feature of Indian society
seen at its strongest in the rural part is caste.
This means the division of society into many groups
which live side by side
but often do not seem to live together.
Members of different castes cannot inter-marry by religion
though the law now permits complete freedom in this respect.
The relative status of the castes like the Julahas (weavers) for instance,
always depends on the caste's economic position in the market.
The same caste may have different positions
in the hierarchy in different regions.
At the lowest end of the economic scale,
we still have purely tribal groups
many of whom are in a food gathering stage.
This stratification of Indian society reflects
and explains a great deal of Indian history.
The lowest castes often preserve tribal rites, usages and myths.
Originally in India, the people can be described in English as tribes.
They were related by kinship.
They were related by internal bonds of solidarity
which were small, closed, village-oriented, even mohalla oriented
and they did not move out of marriage relationships.
Such small locality-based kin groups
tended to dominate for many centuries.
And over time, they clarified
or ossified after clarification into castes.
A little higher up the social scale,
we see these religious observances and legends in transition
often by assimilation into other parallel traditions.
Another step above, these practices have been re-written
by Brahmins to suit themselves.
This is what is called Hindu culture,
the literate traditions that often go back to much older times
and other religious high traditions.
Meanwhile, the multi-religious nature of India
also needs to be noticed.
Barely years after the crucifixion of Jesus,
St.Thomas, the Apostle, doubting Thomas,
brought the gospel to India.
And while the Prophet Muhammed was still alive,
Islam came to Kerala.
And then there were also the philosophical developments
like Buddhism and Jainism which were formulated
by the great religious leaders of Indian history.
This philosophizing was a considerable advance for Indian society
when the doctrines were first propounded.
The same doctrines ironically,
later contributed heavily
to Indian society being kept back by dogma.
Thinkers like Kabir fought this orthodoxy
virtually from within enemy camp in Varanasi.
Kabir, living in this city,
grappling with all kinds of religious orthodoxy
had to use religious terminology
in order to put his point of view across.
He talked about both the ritualism of hindus
and the orthodoxy of muslims.
About the Hindus he said,
पत्थर पूजे हरी मिले
तो में पूजूं पहाड
ताते ये चक्की भली
पीस खाए संसार
If God can be achieved by worshiping stone,
then it's much better to worship the grinding mill,
at least it gives food to the whole world.
About the Muslims, he said,
कंकर पत्थर जोरि के
मस्जिद लयी बनाय।
ता चढ़ि मुल्ला बांग दे
क्या बहरा हुआ खुदाय।।
You picked up pebbles and stones
and built a mosque,
And the mullah climbs up on that and crows like a rooster,
Has God gone deaf?
Religions themselves do not constitute history.
But their rise and change of function
is excellent for our exploration.
Indian society seems to develop
more by successive religious transformation
than by violence.
However, while at times religions liberated mundane life,
at others, they also bogged it down through ritualism.
The apparent lack of historical sense in India
is rather simple and is bound up
with rural production and the idiocy of village life.
The bullock cart of the Harappans would cause no comment
if it suddenly appeared in some modern indian village.
Despite changes in the modes of production,
the modern indian village still
often gives an impression of poverty and helplessness;
few public buildings apart perhaps from a small temple
which may be an outdoor shrine
open to the elements.
The uniform appearance of rural poverty
hides a considerable differentiation.
The bulk of the producers are peasants with small holdings.
A few are self sufficient.
Some however, may rise to be powerful
in the sense of a rich peasant or kulak class.
The systems of Rural India changed
most dramatically with the coming of cash crops.
Otherwise, they had remained virtually unchanged
during India's long medieval period
including the Sultanate and the Mughal empire.
However, with the cash crops, the British also brought about changes
in the system of administration of economic resources.
Some methods were quite bizarre.
In those days, when the British people came,
the tribals could be won over by giving some presents
- tobacco, cigarettes and such things.
But to clear off the bamboo growth, they found that it is better
to get some 10 rupee-coin or 20 rupee-coin thrown into the midst of the bush
and let the locals fight each other over that coin
thereby achieving the objective of
economically clearing the land with cheap labour.
In fact, no village today can be self-contained.
Even the most secluded must sell something.
Not only to buy cloth and household goods required,
but to pay some taxes or rent.
In this respect, India has been
more than twice blessed by Nature.
Greek chroniclers at the time of Alexander
described it as a wondrous land
where wool grew on trees.
They were referring to cotton.
In most of India, clothing is not a physical necessity,
though it has become a social need.
Salt, however, has always been indispensable.
And metals in some quantity had to be available
before regular agriculture could be practiced.
These two necessities (salt and metals)
are NOT produced in most villages
but have to be acquired from the outside.
In spite of its timeless appearance, the village too
is tied to commodity production.
Some production requires specialized technical knowledge.
The villager needs pots, usually of earthenware.
This means that a potter must be available.
For centuries, the potter's craft has remained unchanged.
And only recently has the market inspired innovations.
The same applies to other craftsmen.
Today, transport is easier so that tin and metal pots
have reduced the number of potters,
who work mostly to sell their products against cash.
However, the potter still carries out certain ritual tasks
which may date from pre-historic urn-burial.
With time, some of these tasks have virtually made him
the priest to certain lower castes.
The differentiation within the village is by caste.
Even beyond that between artisan, peasant or priest.
Some people are barely out of the food gathering stage.
As a rule,
they have also the right of gleaning after the harvest,
whether they have helped in the work or not.
Their primitive tribal Gods have something
in common with the lower village Gods.
Often, they worship the Gods of a village
and the village recognizes their deities too.
The peasant however, also worships other higher Gods
which look primitive enough
but go a step above the local Gods.
There may be a guardian of the fields, or
of the village, suitably modernized.
The elders are commemorated by a slab.
Still higher come the Brahmin Gods
- Shiva, Vishnu, and the incarnations of Vishnu such as Ram and Krishna.
Meanwhile, in terms of secular life too,
Indian history evolved through fits and starts
with succeeding generations
building on the legacies of their predecessors.
History has a habit of growing on itself.
Modern buildings come up on sites which are old.
The establishment of a Buddhist Stupa
on the ruins of Mohenjodaro is just one instance.
Many cities have come up on megalithic burial sites.
And this Nalaghar Kothi on top of the Harappan ruins at Rupnagar (or Ropar)
is yet another instance
of the appropriation of history by later generations.
In daily life, this is best illustrated through religion.
Even if the culture of India evolved,
the older Gods were not smashed but adopted or adjusted.
Religion thus gave some unity
to what would otherwise have been social fragments without a common bond.
The process was of crucial importance in the history of India.
First, in developing the country from tribe to society,
and then holding it back
bogged down in the filthy swamp of superstition.
The continuation of the primitive into the modern
is illustrated by the spring festival Holi which is celebrated with zest.
This is in spite of the fact that
it has become a rather depraved Saturnalia.
In pre-history, when diet was poor, life was
hard and procreation was generally difficult,
such license might well have been a necessary stimulus.
Nevertheless, Holi continues to reflect the traditional in the modern
and the ritualistic in the secular in Indian society.
At the same time, modern secular rituals have also developed
and they symbolize the urge for rationality and republicanism.
Urges that the people follow in Inventing India.
These variety of Institutions, practices and urges
are what we are exploring in the culture and civilization of India in historical outline.