Mother's Chronicles - Book Six

14

The Deccan

From time immemorial geographical India was culturally one. Because "The Vedic Rishis and their successors made it their chief work to found a spiritual basis of Indian life and to effect the spiritual and cultural unity of the many races and peoples of the peninsula." So, to be sure, one met with a multiplicity of regional tongues and a profuse variety of dialects. But one language, Sanskrit, was understood all over the great subcontinent. It is therefore not surprising that several thousand years after the Vedic Age, a saint-poet from the deep South, Tiruvalluvar, would echo all those concepts in his Kural. Full of worldly wisdom, Tirukkural is a comp re hensive manual of ethics, polity and love, expressed in pithy couplets. In it he gives a broad outline of statecraft and covers its essential elements. The author was a strong advocate of meritocracy. He had no hesitation in recommending the sacking of a corrupt officer or the compulsory retirement of the inefficient. Because the interest of the public was of paramount importance.

The Tamil author Tiruvalluvar was regarded as a saint. But very little authentic information about his life and times has come down to us, although it is often affirmed that he was

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a weaver and belonged to a Sangam,¹ a college of Tamil poets.

Majumdar defines the Sangam Age in Tamil literature as a period of great literary glory. "It saw the production of a colossal volume of Tamil poetry in its pristine purity. Works were produced in every department of knowledge—though, alas, most of them are now lost to the world. The age was, besides, a period of national awakening, when the arts and the sciences flourished alike, when the people obtained all social amenities, and when far-flung trade and commerce secured to the Tamils prosperity and power."

In many countries of the world, we find that cultural efflorescence always took place in a prosperous society. That is how it should be. For how can culture flourish in an impoverished soil with the life half-killed and the intellect discouraged and intimidated? "It is when," says Sri Aurobindo, "the race has lived most richly and thought most profoundly that spirituality finds its heights and its depths and its constant and many-sided fruition."

Geologically speaking, the Deccan plateau is one of the oldest lands in the world. Its rocks are hundreds of millions of years old. "The Deccan," wrote Nilakanta Sastri in A History of

' There are supposed to have been three or four Sangams. The Sangam at the time of Tiruvalluvar was supposedly the last one. The creation of the Rural is put at AD 450-550 by Nilakanta Sastri. R. C. Majumdar limits the Sangam age between 500 BC to AD 500. P.S. Sundaram, who has translated the Rural into English couplets, says that Tiruvalluvar probably lived and wrote between the second century BC and the eighth century AD. The reader is free to choose his or her own date. A French dictionary, however, says that Tiruvalluvar lived most probably in the second century AD and the Rural was composed in the ... sixth century AD!

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South India, "is one of the oldest inhabited regions of the world and its pre-historic archaeology and contacts with neighbouring lands, so far as they are traceable, constitute an important chapter in the history of the world's civilizations."

Cultural India was one, as we just said. Geographic India was well defined. But political India was in a constant flux. In the Deccan, dynasty rose and dynasty fell. Boundaries of a kingdom were drawn time and again. Kings reigned, waged wars, conquered or lost territories. From the south of the Vindhya ranges to the tip of the land where three seas mingle, dynasty after dynasty held sway over this vast territory. But whenever they could, the great kings—South India can boast of many— built temples, founded schools and colleges. For education was a basic need of life as worship was a basic need of heart. Even in the fourteenth century, when Ibn Batuta, the Moorish traveller-explorer who spent many years in India, records his experiences of South Indian society, he is wonderstruck. "I saw in Hanaur [Cannanore?] thirteen schools for the instruction of girls, and twenty-three for boys, a thing I have not seen anywhere else." The literature and monuments those rulers left us are centuries-old yet do they stand as mute testimonies to the greatness of our ancestors.

The eminent historians R. C. Majumdar and Nilakanta Sastri provide us with a detailed picture of our past. "A succession of able rulers in Northern India," wrote Majumdar, "and of powerful dynasties in the Deccan and South India ensured for the three great geographical zones of India, the blessings of a sound administration." These rulers were upholders of society and protectors of the people. Besides, there was no

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room for weak or incompetent monarchs on the throne—they were soon "displaced by the ablest among their lieutenants."

The kings were splendid promoters of culture and arts. The Chola king, Rajaraja I (985-1014 AD) constructed the great Brihadeshwara temple of Thanjavur. His son, Rajendra I (1014-44), created its replica in the wilds of Trichinopoly district and founded a new city around it, Gangaikondacholapuram. The Chola sculptors have incarnated beauty that takes our breath away.

Fifty kilometres south of Madras (now Chennai), in the ancient sea port town of Mamallapuram (or Mahabalipuram), at the mouth of the Palar river, are found rock-hewn sculptures by the talented artists of the Pallava times. "There can be little doubt," writes N. Sastri, "that Mamallapuram was one of the chief entrepots of South India and that from it streamed forth strong cultural influences which shaped the art of Hindu colonies in Indonesia and Indo-China." Angkor-Wat is an example of that. Mamallapuram's exquisite rock-carvings are approximately
dated to the seventh century AD.

Hiuen-Tsang, the famous Chinese traveller, came to India before Mahomedan invasion, in the first half of the seventh century. He left copious records of his extensive wanderings in the country. R. C. Majumdar¹ quotes quite a lot from those

1The History and Culture of the Indian Peofjle, vol. Ill, the Classical Age (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan).

I have often wondered why we always quote Chinese or Arab travellers for the records of Indian history. Then I remembered that the Muslim invaders had laid waste the renowned Nalanda and Taxila universities and others. Their well-stocked libraries were burnt to ashes. Much of whatever escaped was later destroyed by Christian missionaries. Remember that for seven centuries following the demolition no university was ever established.

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records. It's now our turn to quote a bit. Hiuen-Tsang "mentions various sanitary rules observed by the people for their personal cleanliness as also the general use of unguents and flowers." Here are some eating and drinking habits of the Indians. "Eating onions and garlic was visited with loss of caste." "Different kinds of beverages and wines were drunk by the respective castes—syrup of grapes and of sugar-cane being drunk by Brahmanas and Buddhist monks; wines from vine and sugarcane by Kshatriyas; strong distilled spirit by Vaisyas, and unspecified kinds of drinks by the low mixed castes." And what was his opinion about its people? "They are of hasty and irresolute temperaments, but of pure moral principles. They will not take anything wrongfully and they yield more than fairness requires. They do not practise deceit and keep their sworn obligation." A far cry from Lord Curzon, isn't it?

In the latter part of the seventh century, another Chinese, I-tsing, on a long visit to India, gives quite a detailed account of the sanitary practices and personal comforts of the people. We summarize a few points.

a)Floor of Indian houses purified with cow dung¹ and strewn with season flowers.

b)Indians wash before every meal, throw away or polish utensils after use, chew tooth sticks after meals, smear bodies with scented unguents like sandal and saffron.

c)Clean water for drinking to be kept in earthenware or porcelain jar, while water for cleaning purposes to be kept in jar of copper or iron.

1 A practice continued even in our days.

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d)Use of tooth sticks every morning.

e)Daily personal purification.

f)Bathing at proper times.¹

g)Pillowcases made of silk or linen; pillows stuffed with wool, hemp, cotton, etc., and made high or low according to season.

It seems obvious that India was studded with a large number of towns which really had attained a high level of wealth and prosperity.

Later history is fairly well known. The Chola power was at its meridian in the eleventh century under Rajaraja I and his son, Rajendra I. "These two great monarchs," says Nilakanta Sastri, "gave political unity to the whole of Southern India for the first time and established it as a respected sea-power controlling the highways of the Indian Ocean."

The maritime side of the story goes back many centuries. Already, at the beginning of the Christian era or before, the Satabahanas dynasty, which ruled a goodly part of the Deccan for over three hundred centuries, "were described as 'lords of the three oceans' and promoted overseas colonization and trade," to quote Sastri.

But wait! References in Chinese historical sources make it clear that as far back as the seventh century BC maritime trade was briskly practised between India and China. Discoveries in the Philippines, the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Java, of Iron-Age

¹ Recall the 'great bath' at Mohenjodaro, in all likelihood used for ritual purposes, and houses with bathrooms equipped with sanitary drains. From the earliest days of their civilization Indians seem to have had some regard for personal hygiene!

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finds similar to South Indian objects of the same period, confirm the long-standing trade contacts with these countries.

Hang on a moment, please. There is a western side to India's maritime history. "A beam of Indian cedar found in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar (King of Babylon 605-562 BC), the teak logs found in the temple of the Moon-god at Ur ... confirm the existence of active maritime intercourse between South India and its western neighbours," says Sastri. Furthermore "the Assyrian and Babylonian empires traded with India by sea from their ports on the Persian Gulf and continued to receive gold, spices and fragrant woods from India." Remember the Queen of Sheba? She had already brought such gifts to King Solomon at Jerusalem in the ninth century BC.

At any rate, what comes out clearly from all this is a picture of a prosperous society that laid stress on duties and obligations rather than rights and demands which we have learned from the West.

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