How do the medieval sources come to represent Indian and Foreign identities? In this context is it correct to call the Turkish advent as the Islamic Conquest?
Texts and inscriptions found in Central South Asia, dating back to the 9th and 10th Centuries AD, vividly describe the Turks and Afghans and their “conquest to loot”. A number references as well as whole descriptions are available to us, many of which have been argued upon for legitimacy. To get a clearer view, we’ll start by discussing the initialy Turkish conquests and identity.
Early 1000 to 1200 AD witnessed tremendous political change in Central and West Asia. After a series of events, including the fall of the Abbasid Caliphate; a number of new small states found by Turkish slaves (Who had emerged as military commanders and administrators under the government of the Caliphate) came up. The earliest of these Turkish states was founded by one Sabuktigin, in the region of Ghazni. Under Sabuktigin’s son Sultan Mahmud, Ghazni became a major player in Central Asian politics. With the rise of Ghazni in the 10th century, there was a movement towards establishing Turko-Persian hegemony all across Central Asia and Mahmud launched a series of ambitious campaigns to extend his control over the region. Naturally, these campaigns could only be carried out at considerable financial expense and it was at this time that the pressure of the Turks on the north-western frontier of India came to be felt. Under Mahmud, the Turks launched several raids into India which reached as far as Kanauj, Gwalior and Baran. However a Turkish empire was not established in India under Mahmud. This was the work of another Turkish invader—Muizzuddin Muhammad bin Sam of the Turko-Persian state of Ghur. Muizzuddin Ghuri as he is better known succeeded in establishing himself in Lahore and then proceeded to engage the Rajput rulers who controlled North India in battle.
The advent of the Turks in the 11th and 12th centuries AD is often seen as an ‘Islamic Intrusion’ into Indian history. The arrival of the Turks, it is contended, inaugurates the ‘Muslim Era’ of Indian history and the beginning of the confrontation between Hinduism and Islam—two monolithic religions. To equate the Turkish invasions with an Islamic intrusion therefore is historically inaccurate. This tendency in traditional historiography arises from the colonialist historiographical construct of the periodization of Indian history into 3 periods—Hindu, Muslim and British. This construct, advanced by scholars carries with it the implicit assumption that there existed in Indian society two distinctive and segregated civilizations—the Hindu and the Muslim which were in conflict with each other. The early medieval period was presented as a time when a Muslim civilization became dominant after a period of intense conflict, ushering in an era when the ‘Hindu culture’ of India was suppressed, with temple desecrations, forcible conversions, prohibitions against processions, worship, ablutions, etc. The motive in this representation of Indian history was the legitimization of English rule and its ‘civilizing effect’.
The characterization of the Turkish invasions as an ‘Islamic intrusion’ therefore rides upon two assumptions. The first of these assumptions is that the Turkish invaders were identified on the basis of their religion and that their actions in establishing their control over the subcontinent were dominated by religious considerations. The second is that there existed, and indeed, has existed from the beginning of time, a distinct and clearly identifiable all-inclusive ‘Hindu’ identity.
The very use of the term ‘Hindu’ in the period of our study demands inquiry. The use of this term in the court chronicles of the Sultans to designate the indigenous population has been used to justify the existence of a Hindu identity and a cohesive Hindu community in the 12th and 13th centuries. The term ‘Hindu’ was initially used to refer to the inhabitants of the area around the river Indus or ‘Sindhu’ and was later extended to the entire subcontinent. The term ‘Hindu’ in the sense that it was used, some might argue upto even the 15th century and certainly in the court chronicles of the Sultans was as ‘inhabitants of India’. It does not imply the existence of a unified religious consciousness. Among Muslims, it was used to refer to the inhabitants of India rather than those who held non-Islamic religious beliefs. ‘Hindu’ came to be used as a religious designation much later. As Cynthia Talbot argues, the very fact that the Turkish invaders who are perceived as ‘the Other’ are never identified as Muslim indicates, as negative evidence, that ‘Hindu’ was not a religious category.
The idea of the existence of two monolithic religious communities from medieval times has been challenged by Romila Thapar in her articles, “Imagined religious communities” and “Tyranny of Labels”. She problematize the idea that there has always existed a well defined and historically evolved religion called Hinduism and a clearly defined “Hindu” community. In her case Thapar provides distinction between the multiple sects of “Hinduism” that existed at the time of the Turkish campaigns and describes the assimilation of these multiple sects under the general banner of Hinduism as a modern process. This modern ideal of Hinduism has had a heavy Brahmanical orientation. In fact the picture that emerges out of evidence from the early medieval period suggests the presence of two prevalent religious communities- Brahmans and Sramans. The presence of both these communities is verified by the edicts of the Mauryan king Asoka as well as by the travel accounts of travelers such as Megasthenes and Alberuni. The primary differences between the two groups lay in the acceptance or repudiation of rituals, the rigidity of the caste hierarchy, as well as the presence or absence of the idea of conversion. Another prominent sect of the time as elucidated by Thapar is that of the Saktas. This sect was opposed to the Brahmans. The essentials of Saktism are sometimes traced back to Harappan times.
The popular view is that Hindu and Muslim identities have become the basis of the formation of religious communities, but this is not to say that a sense of religious self-identity did not exist. The confrontation with the Turks seems to have intensified and sharpened self-identities, on both sides. The process of cultural interaction and mutual exchange between the two groups therefore needs to be seen in a background setting where perceptions of the oneself and of the other influenced the formation of ethnic and religious identities. It is significant that unlike earlier groups to migrate into the Indian subcontinent, the Turks retained their distinctive religious cultural and linguistic practices, derived from the high culture of a Persianised Islamic civilization. The presence of the Turks therefore played a major role in heightening Indian society’s sense of self. This was to lead to the use of religious rhetoric on both sides. On the part of the Turkish invaders, the language was Islamic while the epics and the symbolism of the struggle against the subversion of the social order and the defence of dharma provided the rhetoric of the Indian rulers.
Inscriptions in the eighth century refer to the Arabs as Tajikas which suggests a link to their being maritime traders. The Rastrakuta kings had appointed a Tajik as governor of the Sanjan area of the Thane district on the west coast, whose name s rendered Madhumati, thought to be the Sanskrit version of Muhammad since it is sometimes also rendered as Madhumada. He conquered the chiefs of the neighbouring harbors for the Rastrakutas and placed his officers in charge. Also the term Yavana was initially used for the Greeks and then for anyone coming in from west Asia and finally for anyone coming in from the west. The Sanskrit term Yavana is derived from the west Asian term Yauna referring to the Ionian Greeks. The term as is evident was used in an ethnic and a geographic sense. For most people the Yavanas were simply another people but the Brahmanas initially bore animosity as the beliefs of the Yavanas posed a challenge to Brahmanical social framework and hierarchy. Perhaps this antagonism was emphasized by Alexander’s brutal attack on the Malloi and the resultant resentment against the Indo-Greek rulers. Despite this however the Yavanas were accepted as rulers though they were given the status of Vratya Kshatiryas, or kshatiryas of a degenerate order. Another term used,and the most contentious of all the terms was the word mleccha. It has a history that goes back to around 800 BC.It is used in Vedic texts for those who could not speak Sanskrit properly. The use of the Sanskrit language was largely confined to the Upper classes. Mleccha gradually has the connotation of referring to those outside of the Varna fold.
However, it is important to study this demonization in the context of a background setting. Cynthia Talbot adduces inscriptional evidence to prove that the anti-Muslim rhetoric is typically a product of military conflict. She studies the Vilasa Grant of Prolaya Nayaka, the ruler who rises to prominence in Andhra after the Turks extinguish the rule of the Kakatiya dynasty. Here the Turks are portrayed as demons who destroy temples, confiscate tax-exempt villages, force brahmanas to abandon their sacrifices and drink wine, eat beef and kill brahmanas. The focus is on the glorification of the last Kakatiya king, Prataparudra as an upholder of the social order and on the legitimization of Prolaya Nayaka as his true successor. Talbot contrasts this anti-Turk polemic with references to Muslim kings and polities from the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries where they figure only as mighty warriors and typical foes rather than as enemies of the social order. Thus, Talbot proves that an attitude of intolerance and hostility was not natural to the cultural encounter between the Turks and the indigenous people, but simply a product of military confrontation and the attempt of Indian rulers to project themselves as defenders of the social order, emulating Rama.
Rhetoric of sorts on the Turkish side is found in the glorification of Mahmud of Ghazni and his portrayal as the archetypal Islamic ruler. In the writings of Barani and Isami, Mahmud is depicted as the exemplar of the Islamic warrior ethic. The establishment of Islam in an alien land and the ending of polytheism and idolatry is stressed. Mahmud is glorified by ‘Isami for the destruction of ‘idol houses’ and subjugating the infidels. The elevation of Mahmud to such a status, Richard Davis argues, was related to his attack on the Somanatha temple in Gujarat in 1026. Davis asserts that Somanatha was believed by the Turkish invaders to be both the preeminent religious image in India, but also its political centre. All sorts of supernatural powers were attributed to the image and the temple was believed to be the world-centre of idolatry and polytheism, a counter-Mecca of sorts. While the conventional explanation of Mahmud’s attack on Somanatha is its economic prosperity, the religious rhetoric that accompanied the attack transformed what was simply an act of plunder into a religious duty.
Bringing polytheism and idolatry under scanner, a contentious issue was that of temple desecration. The term desecration means ‘to derpive one of something’. Citing Richard M Eaton, Hindu nationalists have described extensive temple destruction by muslims in this period. One of the earliest instances of temple desecration was two centuries before 1192. Turks systematically raided and looted major urban centres in North India. The pattern commenced in 986 when the Ghaznavid sultan Sabukitijin attacked and defeated the Hindu King who controlled the region between Kabul and north west Punjab. His son Mahmud of Ghazni undertook subsequent invasions for purely material reasons, like financing larger political objectives to the west in Kurasan. From mid 11th century, Mahmud’s successors cut off from their military man power in Central Asia, first by the seljuqs and then by the Ghurids became progressively more provincial. Ghaznavids continues predatory raids of the Indian interior, for booty, although these appeared to be less destructive.
Probably the best example of Turks looting temples and treasuries, was Mahmud’s successful raid of Somnatha temple in Gujarat in 1026 AD where he destroyed the famous siva linga. Archaeological excavation led by B K Thapar in 1950 AD found evidence of deliberate breakage on the entrance steps, the pavilion floor and the numerous Siva Linga images within. Even R W Davis describes it as the paradigmatic moment in Indo-Muslim literature as far as the epic of conquest was concerned. He does not want to make an attempt at reconstructing the history of this incident but intends to observe the ways in which later literature viewed the Somnatha conquest as an archetypal encounter. Moreover they act, according to Davis as theological and political rhetoric constituting and affirming an orthodox Sunni community of response towards “Hindu” images by dramatizing and subverting the miraculous claims made on them by worshippers.
Muslim narrative tends to dramatize Somnatha (located in Saurashtra in modern day Gujarat) as being the centre of Hinduism. It is mentioned as Prabhasa in the Mahabharata and is mentioned as the place where the moon god soma recovers from a curse by bathing; later this is converted into a Siva shrine and is the soma legend transforms the temple into the centre for the moon the pay homage to Siva in order to recover his brilliance. In 950 A.D a Solanki ruler took over the region of Saurashtra and constructed the Somnatha temple as a symbol of his unflinching devotion to Siva and particularly to establish his dominance over the region.
There is however little mention of the temple as a centre of “Hindu” pilgrimage. It is not accorded the exclusivity, in “Hindu” scriptures of an important pilgrimage centre. Muslim accounts however, searching for an Indian equivalent of Mecca chose Somnatha and converted Mahmud’s conquest of the Somnatha temple into a synecdoche for the conquest of India.
But after the initial raids or “conquests” and formation of Indo-Muslim states, the temples lying within these areas be left untouched. A Sanskrit inscription shows that sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq appointed Muslim officials to repair a Siva temple in Kalyana. About a century later, Muslim jurists advised the future Sikander Lodi of Delhi that it was not lawful to lay waste the ancient idol temples. Sources further show that from Akbars time, Mughal rulers treated temples lying within their sovereign domain as state property and they undertook to protect both the physical structures and their Brahman functionaries. Aurangazeb had a theory about how temples should not be torn down nor should new ones be established.
The medieval sources become more of a vehicle to justify the subjugation of one community or to display the brave recalcitrance of another in this instance. And like most other evidences available during this period cannot be taken at face value.
It is important for us to understand the political and economic motives that underlie most of what is enacted during this period. The history of the Turkish campaigns thus cannot be seen as one of a holy war of a monolithic religion trying to decimate another but rather a history of two separate cultures fighting each other. The understanding of religious difference and its emphasis grows along regions of military strife, along frontiers, and in sources like the Epic literature of the period looking to glorify its respective community and looking to religion as a convenient path. In understanding this history thus as put precisely by Eaton it is important to distinguish between rhetoric and practice.
Bibliography:
1) Romila Thapar: Imagined Religious Communities
2) Romila Thapar: The Tyranny of Labels
3) Cynthia Talbot: Inscribing the Other, Inscribing the Self: Hindu-Muslim Identities in Pre-Colonial India
4) Richard H. Davis: Lives of Indian Images
5) Richard M. Eaton: Temple Desecration and Indo-Muslim States
6) Aziz Ahmed: Epic and Counter Epic in Medieval India
7) K.A. Nizami: Aspects of Religion and Politics in India in the 13th Century