Paper 7 INDIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY
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DDCE/SLM/M.A. Hist-Paper-VII Paper-VII INDIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY By Dr. Binod Bihari Satpathy 0 CONTENT INDIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY Unit.No. Chapter Name Page No Unit-I. Ancient Indian Historiography 1. Historical Sense in Ancient India, Idea of Bharatvarsha in Indian Tradition 2. Itihasa-Purana Tradition in Ancient India; Traditional History from the Vedas, Epics and Puranas 3. Jain Historiography and Buddhist Historiography Unit-II Medieval Indian Historiography 1. Historical Biography of Banabhatta and the Kashmir Chronicle of Kalhana 2. Arrival of Islam and its influence on Historical Tradition of India; Historiography of the Sultanate period – Alberuni’s –Kitab-ul-Hind and Amir Khusrau 3. Historiography of the Mughal Period – Baburnama, Abul Fazl and Badauni Unit-III. Orientalist, Imperial and colonial ideology and historian 1. William Jones and Orientalist writings on India 2. Colonial/ Imperialist Approach to Indian History and Historiography: James Mill, Elphinstone, and Vincent Smith 3. Nationalist Approach and writings to Indian History: R.G.Bhandarkar, H.C Raychoudhiri, and J.N.Sarkar Unit-IV. Marxist and Subaltern Approach to Indian History 1. Marxist approach to Indian History: D.D.Kosambi, R.S.Sharma, Romilla Thaper and Irfan Habib 2. Marxist writings on Modern India: Major assumptions 3. Subaltern Approach to Indian History- Ranjit Guha 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT It is pleasure to be able to complete this compilation work. containing various aspects of Indian historical writing tradition through ages. This material is prepared with an objective to familiarize the students of M.A History, DDCE Utkal University on the various aspcets of Indian historiography. This work would not have been possible without the support of the Directorate of Distance and Continuing Education, Utkal University. I would especially like to thank Prof. Susmita Prasad Pani, the Director, DDCE, Utkal University. As my teacher and mentor, he has taught me more than I could ever give him credit for here. He has shown me, by his example, what a good teacher (and person) should be. The compiler owes many thanks to all the reputed scholars on Indian histriography whose work is being used here for the sake of making the students understand the subject. I have copied, collected, and made use of the scholarly works of great scholars whose work has been mentioned in the further reading section of each chapter. The compiler of the present material claims no authority and originality on any topic of the materials cum textbook. As already been mentioned above the work is a compilation of already existing works of great scholars among whom name of a few have been mentioned at the end of each chapter. Besides the SLM of IGNOU and other Distance Education Institutions have been also consulted and used for preparation of this material for that I duly acknowledge those textbooks. Would be grateful by receiving suggestions and comments to improve this material cum textbook, from the students, teachers and also the practicing professionals Binod Bihari Satpathy 2 UNIT-I Chapter-I HISTORICAL SENSE IN ANCIENT INDIA IDEA OF BHARATVARSHA IN INDIAN TRADITION Structure 1.1.0. Objectives 1.1.1. Introduction 1.1.2. Historical Sense in Ancient India 1.1.2.1. Opinion against historical Sense in Ancient India 1.1.2.2. Historical Sense in Ancient India and Classical World- A Comparison 1.1.2.3. Opinions in favour of historical Sense in Ancient India 1.1.3. Ancient Indian Historical Sense- Assumptions 1.1.4. Conclusion 1.1.5. Idea of Bharatavarsha 1.1.5.1. Scriptural View on the concept of Bharatvarsa 1.1.5.2. Idea of Bharatavarsa-Assumptions 1.1.6. Summary 1.1.7. Key Terms 1.1.8. Exercise 1.1.9. Suggested Readings 3 1.1.0. Objectives 1.1.1. Introduction Foreign scholars have often complained about India's lack of an indigenous tradition of historiography. India possesses an enormous heritage of literature accumulated over the Centuries, much of it relating to past events, yet there has never' been a historian to compare with those of ancient Greece and Rome, or later European scholars who contributed to the development of history as a discipline. Indifference to the western conception of history, to the idea that man can be its subject and agent, actively working to change the human condition, is cited as a distinguishing trait of Indian civilization. Explanations offered for this deficiency are that Indians have no sense of history, are not interested in factual or 'objective' history, or have in any case had such a static society that there has been little in the way of historical development to encourage its scientific study. Indian religions, besides acting as 'a tremendous force for social inertia' in that they usually adopt a reactionary attitude towards social change, are also blamed for inculcating a world view that has never been conducive to any interest in what westerners know as history. How far these assumptions are justified, and what has been achieved in the field of Indian historiography relating to the pre-modern period, are the concern of this chapter. 1.1.2. Historical Sense in Ancient India Scholars, including the historians, Indologists and orientalists, are divided in their opinion about the historical sense of the ancient Indians, particularly the Hindus. It has been said that the ancient Indian had no sense of history and chronology. Alberuni was the first to remark that “The Hindus do not pay much attention to the historical order of things, they are very careless in relating the chronological succession of their kings, and when they are pressed for information and are at a loss, not knowing what to say, they invariably take to tale-tellings”. This remarks was made buy him in AD 1030 in his work Tehkik-i-Hind. It is striking to note that the genealogies of kings of different dynasties in the Puranic records, which were the principal sources of information for him for writing his book as admitted by himself, are in proper historical and chronological order, of course, with a few exceptions. It is paradoxical that he calls his own works “a simple historic record of facts”, but the sources on which it is based are spoken of as unhistorical. He presents the picture of Indian civilization as painted by the Hindus himselves. He has himself tried to fix the chronology of some istorical events with the help of the chronological data furnished by the Hindus in different works, as it appears from his book. S.R.Sharma in an attempt to justify the statement of Alberuni writes that his “ version of the lack of historical sense of Indians justified by the paucity of historical works properly so called in our country down from ancient times. Materials from which history can be constructed is undoubtedly available in abundance but very little of it shares the character of regular history”. But on the other hand, A.K.Majumdar asserts that “…. We can’t admit that the Hindus had 4 incapacity for writing history and our ancestors have not bequeathered to us any reliable historical work for early period. They know the simple art of writing history. L.J.Trotter and W.H. Hutton have remarked that “…the old Hindus produced, not one historian of even the smallest mark” . Any sensible historian will accept such kind of absurd remark. Some scholars have leveled the charges against the ancient Hindus that they wrote no formal history at any period”. They did not have capacity to write history. Though genuine materials once abounded in India yet we find no national history of the Hindus. H. Beveridge opines that “ With the exception of a work on Kashmir, the literature of India has failed to furnish a single production to which the name of history can in any proper sense of the term be applied. These biased remarks made within conceptual framework have increasingly given rise to misgivings in the minds of many. However, the subjective elements should not be allowed to influence and overshadow our objective judgment. A.S Macdonell is of opinion that “History is the one weak spot in Indian Literature. It is, in fact, non-existent. The total lack of historical sense is so characteristic that the whole course of Sanskrit literature is darkened by the shadow of this defect, suffering as it does from an entire absence of exact chronology. In the first place early India wrote no history because it never made any…. Secondly, the Brahmans whose task it would naturally have been to record the great deeds… have felt but little inclination to chronicle historical events”. This is nothing but a totl rejection of truth. 1.1.2.1.Opinion against historical Sense in Ancient India Nothing can be more farther from truth than the statements that ancient India was without history and historians. The ancient Indians had distaste for history. The details of past events did not interest them and, therefore, they did not record them. J.W.McCrindle (a popular authority on Ancient India by the classical writers) holds that “ The Indians themselves did not write history. They produced no doubt, a literature both voluminous and varied… but within its vast range history is conspicuous by its absence. Their learned men were Brahmanas whose modes and habits of thought almost necessarily incapacitated them for the task of historical composition…they allowed events, even those of the greatest public moments, to pass unrecorded, and so to perish from memory and Sanskrit literature if deficient in history and chronology. But his views cannot be accepted as they run contrary to the truth. R.G.Bhandarkar’s observation, that “India has no real history….the historical curiosity of the peoples was satisfied by legends what we find of a historical nature in the literature of the country before the arrival of the Mahommedans, can also be disposed of.