N. Anandam
Rationalist writer
All along, Indians have neglected the writing of history and now they have abhorred the study of history. For most of the gullible Indians, epics like Ramayana and Mahabaratha are historical works. The epics are mixed with legends. They are outcome of fertile imagination of some talented writers and poets. On the contrary, history deals with events and individuals rationally, scientifically and objectively, based on the corroborative evidence.
Almost all the civilized societies of the world are keen on writing their history and leaving it for the posterity to know their past. In many European countries, every town has a museum with archives, preserving the town’s history and its cultural heritage. Indians don’t have this practice. Indians don’t write and maintain history to their own towns they live in. So, they are ignorant of the past. They believe whatever said about the past. In India, the district collectorates keep the district records and most of them remain untouched by anyone for years.
In India until 12th century C.E., our educated, being preoccupied with vedic brahminic religion, was interested in compiling puranic stories with myths and legends. Then came the Arabic and Islamic scholars who were at best chroniclers. History came to be written professionally only with the advent of Europeans. First Christian missionaries, and later the British administrators, with their curiosity to explore the country they had conquered, wrote about India and published district manuals and gazetteers. The British, as good record keepers, left behind documents, which are now lying in National and State Archives for the use of Indian writers and scholars to write and rewrite history.
Now, every Indian is proud of the Indus Valley legacy and happy that their ancestors had advanced urban civilization some three thousand years ago, while people in many parts of the world at that time lived as nomads or in caves as hunters and food gatherers. Indians are indebted to the British archaeologists and historians because of their contribution to the study of history and promotion of historical research.
It is interesting to know how the British discovered Indus – Valley civilization accidently during the early 20th century. At that time, the British companies were laying railway track in that region. The railway construction companies required bricks to construct culverts. They purchased bricks for construction of culverts from the local persons. Bricks supplied by them were dull in colour compared to the colour of normal bricks. On enquiry, British engineers were informed that the bricks supplied by the local people were not manufactured by them. The bricks were dug out from the land of nearby area. Out of curiosity, the British engineers visited the site. They were surprised by seeing large area with brick structures. Most of them were in buried condition. Out of curiosity, they took a few bricks and sent to England to assess the age of bricks. Carbon – dating technique revealed that the bricks are three thousand years old. The British surprised by the archaeological finds in the area and pursued the matter further out of curiosity. In this way they embarked on excavation of Mohanjodaro and Harappa.
At Mohanjodaro they commenced excavation in 1920 CE. In 1922, R.D. Banerjee, the then archaeological superintendent of western circle stumbled on a Buddhist stupa at Mohanjodaro. At the same time, Rai Bahadur Daya Ram discovered certain pre-historic remains at Harappa. Further excavations were encouraged by Sir John Marshal, the then Director General of Archaeology. As this work proceeded, it was discovered that about 3000 years ago there existed a grand urban civilization round the River Indus. Historians concluded that Indus Valley civilization must be 5,000 years old. They opined that the civilization should have lasted from 2,800 to 2,200 BCE.
Both the cities were well planned and the streets very wide and intersect each other at right angles. There was elaborate drainage system. When the British declared that the excavated site at Mohanjodaro and Harappa were the oldest well-planned cities in the world, the entire world felt awe-struck. According to Historians there were four ancient civilizations. They were Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Indus Valley and Chinese. Every Indian is feeling proud by this historical fact . But it should be noted that without the earnestness of the British archaeologists, and administrators, the ancient civilization would have not been discovered.
Likewise, till the nineteenth century, Indians did not know anything about Buddha and Buddhist ideologies. They considered Buddhism as a religion. In the beginning, Brahmins tried to persecute the Buddhists but later they accommodated Buddha as the incarnation or ninth avatar of ‘Hindu God, Maha Vishnu’. This has been the cunning practice of Brahmin priestly class. When they could not check the spread of Buddhism in India, to hoodwink the Indians, they installed the statues of Buddha inside the Hindu temples and made Buddha as one of the Hindu Gods. By such cunning designs, they prevented the spread of Buddhist ideologies in the Indian society. This is the real history.
In the nineteenth century, the western scholars were interested in knowing the ideologies of eastern religions. In India, Buddhist texts were in Pali language. So, they studied the Pali language and translated Buddha’s preachings and Dhammapada and published in European languages. Till then, Asian Buddhists did not publish Buddhist doctrines in an accessible form to the West. In Sri Lanka, Buddhist doctrines appeared first in Ceylon Almanac of 1835. Only then, Indians came to know Buddhist ideologies.
In India, members of East India Company were piercing together the origins of Buddhism through archaeological exploration. By 1836, it was established beyond doubt that Buddha was an Indian. In the years following, the identity of King Asoka was established. Thus, by the sincere effort of the European scholars, the world came to know the real doctrines and history of Buddha. Indians realized the greatness of Buddha and Asoka, for the first time, after about one thousand years.
Indian history then came to be written based on the numerous rock and pillar inscriptions, as most of the kings have recorded their achievements in temples, viharas, and stupas. Palm leaf records also served as a source material for the writing of Indian history.
Writing Indian history was a difficult job since the stone, pillar inscriptions and palm leaf records followed the Hindu sixty years cyclic year system. Every year has a separate name. For every sixty years, the same name gets repeated. This irrational cycle year system had made the periodization difficult. The Christians, Muslims, Chinese and others followed continuous numbering system. So, their chronology remains without any confusion. So, we are bound to discard the sixty year cyclic (circular) year system altogether.
The first attempt to write Indian history was made by a Scottish philosopher, historian and journalist James Mill (1773-1836). After working twelve years, he published the book on Indian history in 1817 CE. Later, many western and Indian authors published books on Indian history. However, the history books written by Indian authors like as Romila Thapar, R.S. Sharma, Irfan Habib and Bipan Chandra are notable. The school text books written and published by NCERT are of high standard and quality. These history books are worth reading by everyone who is interested in acquiring knowledge on Indian history.
The world of the past was different from the world of to-day. The knowledge of history is bound to make one wiser and progressive. It teaches us as to how human beings came to be cultured and civilized. Most Indians don’t read history but find pleasure in reading the religious epics and puranas repeatedly. This makes them mentally stunted. They don’t study the present problems of the society scientifically. As a result, they are superstitious and fatalistic. They lack the spirit to make any change in the thought system of Indians. In short, Indians don’t live a productive and creative life.
Knowledge of history acts as a source of inspiration to human beings to reflect and act. Reading history makes a person rational and socially conscious. So, we need to motivate our people to study world history and Indian history. We need to provide standard books on world history and Indian history available at a cheap price. Spread of knowledge of history will enlighten our people, where we stand. It will inform the defects of our inequality-based (caste-based) social system and culture.
Such realization will motivate our people to think and act. Our people will discard our inequality based social system and culture. They will make them as equality based. They will eradicate the caste system from our society. That cultural revolution is what we need.
