Journal of Indian History and Culture JOURNAL of INDIAN HISTORY and CULTURE
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Journal of Indian History and Culture JOURNAL OF INDIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE December 2015 Twenty First Issue C.P. RAMASWAMI AIYAR INSTITUTE OF INDOLOGICAL RESEARCH (affiliated to the University of Madras) The C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation 1 Eldams Road, Chennai 600 018, INDIA December 2015, Twenty First Issue 1 Journal of Indian History and Culture Editor : Dr.G.J. Sudhakar Board of Editors Dr. K.V.Raman Dr. Nanditha Krishna Referees Dr. A. Chandrsekharan Dr. V. Balambal Dr. S. Vasanthi Dr. Chitra Madhavan Dr. G. Chandhrika Published by Dr. Nanditha Krishna C.P.Ramaswami Aiyar Institute of Indological Research The C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation 1 Eldams Road Chennai 600 018 Tel : 2434 1778 / 2435 9366 Fax : 91-44-24351022 E-Mail: [email protected] / [email protected] Website: www.cprfoundation.org Sub editing by : Mr. Rudra Krishna & Mr. Narayan Onkar Layout Design : Mrs.T. PichuLakshmi Subscription Rs. 150/- (for 1 issue) Rs. 290/- (for 2 issues) 2 December 2015, Twenty First Issue Journal of Indian History and Culture CONTENTS 1 The Conflict Between Vedic Aryans And Iranians 09 by Dr. Koenraad Elst 2 Some Kushana Images of Karttikeya from Mathura 39 by Dr. V. Sandhiyalakshmi 3 Para Vasudeva Narayana 43 by Dr. G. Balaji 4 Pallava-Kadamba Interlude in Kerala: An Epigraphical Study 50 by Dhiraj, M.S. 5 Temple Managerial Groups in Early Keralam 69 by Anna Varghese 6 Irrigation and Water Supply During the Kakatiya Period 86 by Dr. D. Mercy Ratna Rani 7 Traditional Health Care in Ancient India with Reference to Karnataka 101 by Dr. K.G Vasantha Madhava 8 From Egypt To India And China –The Karimimerchants in The Indian Ocean Trade of Medieval World 112 by Dr. M. Vijayalekshmy December 2015, Twenty First Issue 3 Journal of Indian History and Culture 9 Rituals and Festivals in Sriranganathar Temple During the Period of Vijayanagar 123 by Dr. P.Chandrasekaran 10 The Portuguese-Vijayanagara War of 1558: A Study in Military History 141 by Krishna Kumar Panjaje 11 The Doctor Raja in Pre-Independent India: Sagram Sinh Bhagvat Sinh of Gondal, Saurashtra 167 by Ramya Raman and Dr. Anantanarayanan Raman 12 Origins of Telugu Journalism: A Historical Perspective 183 by Prof. D. Ananda Naidu 13 British Commercial Interests in Assam and the “Otherness” of Nagas: A Study of Colonial Ideas and Motives 194 by Louis Mushary 14 Politicisation of Caste Relations in Modern Travancore: Situating The Role of E. Madhavan and his plea for Independent Community 225 by Dr. A. Shaji 15 Movement in the Garjats of Odisha: A Study of the Nayagarh District 232 by Dr.Benudhar Patra 16 Quit India Movement in Chittoor District: A Case Study of Nagari Ordinance Case 249 by Gaddam Venkataramana 4 December 2015, Twenty First Issue Journal of Indian History and Culture 17 Chevalier Sellane Naicker (1884-1965): The Forgotten Freedom Fighter of French India 259 by Dr. S. Babu 18 Pondicherry Municipal Administration during the Post Colonial Period 278 by Dr. R. Velmurugan 19 R.C. Majumdar: The Consolidation of Nationalist Historiography 298 by Dr. S. Yasodhamani 20 Dastangoi – An Art… Lost And Unknown 313 by Dr. Shan Eugene 21 Book Review 327 December 2015, Twenty First Issue 5 Journal of Indian History and Culture 6 December 2015, Twenty First Issue Journal of Indian History and Culture EDITOR’S NOTE The Journal of Indian History and Culture is doing well. We not only get good contributions but also more than sufficient in number. At the outset, I would like to thank Prof. V. Balambal, Prof. A. Chandrsekharan, Prof. G. Chandhrika, Dr. S. Vasanthi and Dr. Chithra Madhavan for sparing their valuable time to referee our papers. Our Journal has attracted scholars from leading Universities like Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Pondicherry Central University, Puducherry, to contribute papers for this issue. As usual, we have not only papers from senior scholars but also from youngsters too. We have contributions from all over India and in particular from South India. This time Puducherry tops the list. Further, this time , we have international contributions too. The Ramans from Australia and Dr. Koenraad Elst from Belgium have chipped in with excellent work. This time, unusually, we have few papers on Medieval India. We need more in the future. We request our contributors to send abstracts and key words for their papers and take care in presenting their references and footnotes. I would like to thank Dr. Nanditha Krishna, Mr. Rudra Krishna, Mrs. Malathy Narasimhan, Mr. Narayan Onkar, Dr. G. Balaji and Mrs. Pichu Lakshmi and other staff members of the Foundation for their support in publishing this Journal. Dr. G.J. Sudhakar December 2015, Twenty First Issue 7 Journal of Indian History and Culture 8 December 2015, Twenty First Issue Journal of Indian History and Culture 1 THE CONFLICT BETWEEN VEDIC ARYANS AND IRANIANS Dr. Koenraad Elst [email protected] Abstract The discipline of Iranian studies is proceeding in ignorance about the age and place of the founding character of the civilization it studies, Zarathushtra Spitama. However, Vedic literature may have decisive information about it. In a maximalist interpretation, it might even locate Zarathushtra in the direct vicinity of a precise historical event.At any rate, it offers surprising information about the precise relation between him and the religious reforms with which he is associated. It is Shrikant Talageri (building on S.K. Hodiwala) who developed the link between Zarathushtra and Vedic history, and we will be able to add a few insights confirming his hypothesis and exploring its implications. Vedic prehistory The Vedas were not conceived as a proto-historical narrative. They are a collection of ten books (Mandala, “circle”) of hymns (Sukta<Su-vakta “well said”) to the gods, made up of metricverses (Mantra, “mental instrument”). They only provide glimpses of real history collaterally. Contrary to a common Hindu belief that the Rig Veda was God- given and outside history, it situates itself inside history. It uses a language situated on a specific place in the genealogical tree of the evolving Indo-European language family; it refers to a December 2015, Twenty First Issue 9 Journal of Indian History and Culture specific region with its typical fauna and flora, rivers and mountains, tribes, wars, marriages, individuals with ancestors, and descendants. “In fact most Indologists regard Sudas, the hero of the battle of the ten kings celebrated in the Rig Veda, as a historical figure.” (Bhargava 1998:i) The tendency among some Hindus to take scriptural data literally is ridiculed by scholars, but the attitude of ignoring these data or dismissing them as just fantasy is equally untenable. The historical data of the Vedic period itself allows for a relative chronology within the Rig Veda, as discovered by India’s path- breaking historian Shrikant Talageri. The internal logic of the Vedic books, principally the genealogical data – sometimes details of the linguistic development, sometimes glimpses of the underlying Sitz im Leben– reveal a sequence (Talageri 2000:35-93, building on Oldenberg 1894). The oldest period consists of Book 6, then Book 3, then (though partly overlapping) Book 7. This is followed by Book 4, then Book 2, the middle period. The late period starts with Book 5, the youngest of the “Family Books,” each one written by a family of seers. Book 8, with a broader and more westerly horizon, provisionally completes the series. A collection of separate hymns covering the period of Books 4- 2-5-8 is Book 1. (Here, I am tempted to break ranks with Talageri, as there are indications that Book 1 reaches even farther back; notably, that Dirghatamas, seer of RV 1:140-164, belongs to the very first generation of Vedic poets, contemporaneous with Bharadvaja, main seer of Book 6; but also counter-indications; while Agastya, seer of RV 1:165-191, is contemporaneous with Vasistha, seer of Book 7.) These 8 formed a first corpus of hymns. A collection of hymns related to the psychedelic brew Soma forms Book 9, and a distinctly younger collection of hymns constitutes Book 10. This latter is part of a younger culture 10 December 2015, Twenty First Issue Journal of Indian History and Culture shared with the Yajur- and Atharva-Veda (the Sama-Veda mostly consists of hymns of the Rig Veda put to music). The Yajur- Veda reaches down to the age of the dynasty’s fraternal war related in the Mahabharata, (“great [epic] of the Bharata clan”), and the youngest layer of the Rig Veda likewise, mentioning King Shantanu, the great-grandfather of the war’s protagonists, in hymn 10:98. It was their grandfather (or Shantanu’s stepson) Krishna Dvaipayana, a.k.a. Veda-Vyasa, who closed the Vedic corpus by giving it its definitive structure. The last king mentioned in the Vedic corpus is Vyasa’s biological son Dhrtarashtra, father of the Kaurava participants in the battle. The Rig Veda contains a few references to a pre-Vedic period. People do not know the future, so even the Vedic seers have little to say about later centuries, but they do discuss the past. Contrary to a revealed scripture existing from all eternity, the Rig Veda refers to its own prehistory. It mentions the patriarch Manu some forty times: as an ancestor, as the Father of Mankind, and, implicitly, as a law-giver – once even explicitly (RV 1:128:1-2: “by Manu’s law”). The extant text of his Manavadharmashastra hardly predates the Christian age, but the idea of a normative system established anciently by Manu, though its details must have evolved, was already present in the Veda. It also frequently mentions the matriarch Ila, ancestress of a string of related tribes including the tribe whose poets composed the Vedic hymns as well as the tribe that was to compose the Iranian scripture Avesta.