Somanatha__The Many Voices
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ROMILA THAPAR Soma natha The Many Voices of a History PENGUIN BOOKS Contents About the Author Critical Acclaim for the Book Dedication Preface 1. The Context 2. The Setting 3. The Turko-Persian Narratives 4. Sanskrit Inscriptions from Somanatha and its Vicinity 5. Biographies, Chronicles and Epics 6. The Perceptions of Yet Others 7. Colonial Interpretations and Nationalist Reactions 8. Constructing Memory, Writing Histories Footnotes 1. The Context 2. The Setting 3. The Turko-Persian Narratives 4. Sanskrit Inscriptions from Somanatha and its Vicinity 5. Biographies, Chronicles and Epics 6. The Perceptions of Yet Others 7. Colonial Interpretations and Nationalist Reactions 8. Constructing Memory, Writing Histories Maps Approximate Dates Bibliography Acknowledgements Copyright PENGUIN BOOKS SOMANATHA Romila Thapar was born in India in 1931 and comes from a Punjabi family, spending her early years in various parts of India. She took her first degree from Punjab University and her doctorate from London University. She was appointed to a Readership at Delhi University and subsequently to the Chair in Ancient Indian History at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where she is now Emeritus Professor in History. Romila Thapar is also an Honorary Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and has been Visiting Professor at Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania as well as the Collége de France in Paris. In 1983 she was elected General President of the Indian History Congress and in 1999 a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. Among her publications are Ashoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations, From Lineage to State, History and Beyond, Sakuntala: Texts, Readings, Histories and Cultural Pasts: Essays on Indian History as well the children’s book Indian Tales. CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR THE BOOK ‘An excellent study in historiography...this erudite work is [able] to demolish comprehensively a whole set of myths fostered by Muslim, Hindu and British writers on this issue...takes the reader on a fascinating journey through each of the sources...a definitive work on the subject written in a lucid style [and] with incontestable documentation’— Frontline ‘Thapar has succeeded in laying to rest the false history about the Somanatha temple...[this book] should be read by everyone who is interested in history and not in the fabrication of history’ —Business Standard ‘. On each occasion one should honour the sect of the other, for by doing so one increases the influence of one’s own sect and benefits that of the other; while by doing otherwise one diminishes the influence of one’s own sect and harms the other. Again whosoever honours his own sect or disparages that of another, wholly out of devotion to his own, with a view to showing it in a favourable light, harms his own sect even more seriously. Therefore, concord is to be commended, so that men may hear one another’s principles and obey them . .’ —From the Twelfth Major Rock Edict of the Mauryan emperor, Ashoka, inscribed in the third century BC Preface T his study of the aftermath of the raid of Mahmud of Ghazni on the Somanatha temple initially grew out of my interest in historiography and began as a paper given at a seminar some nine years ago. On this occasion I had stopped at the fifteenth century, juxtaposing Persian and Jaina sources with Sanskrit inscriptions. Reactions to this presentation underlined the relevance of continuing the narrative up to the present. This then took the form of a lecture and was published in Narratives and the Making of History . This was further expanded and was initially intended to be published in the ‘Tracts for the Times’ series, but like Alice, it grew and grew, in the process changing its form from a tract into a monograph. Given the nature of the subject, it also required detailed referencing. My interest in the subject began with trying to understand why there were contradictions in the Turko-Persian chronicles and then, further, why these narratives focused on concerns that were virtually absent in the Sanskrit inscriptions and the Jaina texts although the latter in part focused on Somanatha. The narratives were significantly diverse and conformed to a differentiated historiography. Following up on how the raid or the subsequent events were represented in a variety of sources, I was both puzzled and fascinated by the fact that each revealed a different story from the other, and from that with which we have all been familiar as the received version of what happened. As an exercise in historiography, this has dimensions that need to be explored further. An initial presentation of the paper led to the comment by a colleague that it was a kind of Rashomon syndrome! I decided, therefore, to write it at some length and present it with whatever conclusions I could reach but also include in the presentation the questions that remain unanswered. In pointing to the many voices of a history, it is not my intention to suggest that they all have equal authority, or that they can be heard in such different ways as to make a history impossible. It is rather an attempt to hear these voices so that an understanding of this history can be made more insightful. I would particularly like to thank Neeladri Bhattacharya not only for his detailed comments on the chapters, but also for his helpful discussion about them. Conversations with the late Sarvepalli Gopal guided me through the sources pertaining to colonial and nationalist concerns. K.N. Panikkar read the text and his comments helped me clarify my arguments in the later chapters. Muzaffar Alam’s explanations of questions relating to the Persian sources were very useful, particularly as I was reading translations of the originals. In transliterating Persian and Arabic words, I have tried to adopt the conventional usage. I have not used diacritical marks in transliterating terms from non-English languages, as each language uses a different system and this would be unnecessarily confusing to a reader unfamiliar with these systems. Meenakshi Khanna and Agnihota have helped me with locating publications and rechecking a few references. Munish Joshi’s interest in the oral tradition opened up another perspective. Robert Skelton, Sushil Srivastava and Ajay Dandekar obtained copies of publications otherwise difficult to get. Idrak Bhatti read and discussed with me a short exposition in Urdu. Malcolm Yapp kindly sent me a bibliography on the question of the gates of the Somanatha temple at Ghazni. I would also like to thank David Nelson and his staff, who look after the South Asia section of the Van Pelt Library at the University of Pennsylvania, for all their help. As always, it was a pleasure working with Uma Bhattacharya on the maps. The first draft of this book was completed at the Villa Serbelloni at Bellagio, an idyllic place for thinking and writing. New Delhi 2003 Romila Thapar 1 The Context I n 1026, Mahmud of Ghazni raided the temple of Somanatha, plundered its wealth and broke the idol. The received opinion is that this event marked a crystallizing of attitudes, both of the plundered and the plunderers, and these remained antagonistic to each other from that moment on. I decided to explore the aftermath of this event to track what crystallized if it did, how the event was recorded, and whether the perception of the event changed. Of interest to me also was the historiography of these narratives through the representation of this and other events, as well as the later construction of what were thought to be the memories of the event. The intention of this study is to explore the interrelationship between an event and the historiography that grows around it by placing the narratives in a historical context. An event occurs, and it slowly becomes encrusted with narratives about what happened. Sometimes the claim is made that such narratives have been constructed on the basis of initial memories, or that they encapsulate what once was a memory, or that the historiography reflects what are believed to be facets of memory. The historian cannot restrict the historical analyses only to the event and the way in which it is being viewed in the present. The intervening stages of the creation of narratives around the event or an aftermath that ignores the event, have also to be investigated. The study becomes one of observing the processes by which the intervening stages are established and how these influence the eventual perception of the event. There are many concerns that weave their way through this analysis of an event: the subsequent history, the historiography and the reconstructed memory. The three are interconnected and the interconnection may illumine our understanding of the event. The first two aspects focus on what happened and how it has been interpreted, and the third concentrates on the point in time and space when memory is introduced into the interpretation. Each narrative is connected to the history of the place, but each narrative is also connected to what it perceives as the politics of power. The narratives, therefore, are at times ambiguous and more frequently conflicting. This also requires some explanation. In trying to examine these questions, I shall also attempt to explore, even to a limited extent, the historical context of the sources. These have not generally been juxtaposed. The juxtaposition assists in observing the variant perspectives on the event, or else, why the event was ignored in the kinds of texts where one would expect to find some reference to it. Each of these sources had a particular take on their association with Somanatha. Their reliability has to be assessed, especially where there are contradictions; and their historical context and purpose require explanation.