The Hindus of Hindustan

After having read J Sai Deepak’s book “India that is Bharat”, I chose to examine an alternate history of India; a history that sheds its colonial interpretation. Digging deeper, I learned about Jain’s work that was authored to address the idea of India as a civilisational state. The preface of the book sets the stage for the discourse, “During British rule, Colonial administrator/ scholars, confronted with the vastness and diversity of the country, declared “there is not, and never was an India or even any country of India possessing, according to European ideas, any sort of unity, physical, political, social, or religious; no Indian nation, no ‘people of India,’ of which we hear so much” (Strachey, 1911;5).

It is a dense book that is not written in a strictly chronological fashion. The book begins from antiquity and culminates with the Mughal Era. The book is divided into two sections; ‘The Making of Early India’ and ‘ The Advent of Islam’. She begins by drawing on ancient texts to examine the civilisational understanding of the geographical landmass of India.1 She affirms that the geographical idea of India has been consistent through time, although the political integration of India in the Westphalian sense of the modern world has waxed and waned. She argues that people were aware of the entirety and extent of the landmass of India by 500 BCE.

She studies the idea of the veneration of the land in Prithvi Sukta and Nadi Sukta and studies the notion of Bharata. The complexity of Dharma as an “umbrella concept” that included all customs, practices, rules, conventions, rights, obligations, contracts, laws, and rituals has also been treated with balance and depth.

The chapters which are of great significance are the ones devoted to examining civilisational continuities. She argues that there was a fundamental unity of existence

1 Rigveda, Panini, Katyayana, Patanjali, Baudhayana, Buddhist sources, Jain sources, epics and Puranas have bene examined across India and supporting this assertion she enunciates ideas, material and social constructs, and religious rituals that have been embedded in the Indian consciousness. For instance, she highlights that historians such as Romila Thapar have vehemently denied religion being linked to Harappan culture however, the elements which later became important in Hinduism can be evidentially traced to the Harappan civilisation. She presents significant evidence of the Vedic character of the Harappan cities.

Jain chronicles the continuity of cultural practices such as, ‘the worship of the pillar’, edicts on pillars, worship of female deities, tree worship, fire altars, the use of earthen ladles for yagnas, construction of ritual tanks adjacent to Hindu temples, and certain yogic postures. She argues that well before the commencement of the Common Era, there was awareness and expression of diversity in its various manifestations. This diversity was accompanied by cultural congruence and intertwining of belief systems. Borrowing from Arthashastra, she outlines the concept of political unity with the central idea of Chakravartin. Jain outlines the openmindedness of rulers of ancient India highlighting how they patronised all faiths. She presents evidence to support the assertion that the Brahmi script which appeared in 3 BCE was a pan-Indian script and the source of all modern Indic scripts. She presents irrefutable evidence of the pan-Indian prevalence of sacred literature as a common wellspring.

In the chapter titled, “ They Came and Were Conquered” she describes how foreigners which included Greeks (Yavanas), ancient Iranians, Kushans, Sakas (Scythians and Parthians), and the Huns embraced the Indian faiths and their cultural and spiritual practices.2 Simultaneously, their cultural practices seeped into the Indian way of life.3 She also discusses the ready acceptance of foreigners into Indian society in the chapter titled, “ The Maligned Lawgivers”. She informs that there was no distinction due to faith or place of origin or an attempt to impose any belief system on the populace.

The last section of the book highlights the fierce fights that ensued as Arab armies invaded India. It was only in 712 CE, after almost seventy-five years of effort that the Arabs could claim victory in Sindh. The Arab and the Turkish onslaught ruined fortunes and forced migration to safer regions. However, it was the invasions of the 8th century that distinctly altered the idea of India. She draws on the evidence from Kitab ul-Hind by Alberuni and chronicles the death, destruction, and desecration of temples and the brutal imposition of an alien faith. She closes her book with the chapter titled, “ Living Together Separately- The New Normal” as she summarises the new normal with the ascendancy of the Mughals and the Indians were ruled by foreign

2 Venera>on of Hindu dei>es by the Hunas was illustrated by a nicolo (onyx) seal depic>ng a Huna Chief worshipping the Sun, Vishnu and Shiva. 33 The Persians introduced some customs in Taxila, par>cularly the disposal of the dead.

elements in the nobility. This hold was consolidated under Aurangzeb along with societal measures such as the imposition of Jizya and Persian becoming the sole language of administration. Even the physical landscape of the imperial and regional capitals bore the stamp of the changed political and cultural equations

Jain’s work is timely and stands in sharp contrast to the prevalent literature on Indian history. The evidence presented from antiquity to the Mughal era is comprehensive, incisive, and scholarly. The chapters stand out as segments that can be read independently. However, herein also lies the problem for readers used to a chronological narration of history. The foundational question of cultural and civilisational continuity has been sufficiently established however; the idea of political continuity does not appear as convincing. The other challenge in reading the book is the dense usage of treatises and sacred texts which is not easy to assimilate. The book is also visually rich with a large number of historical illustrations that support the discussion. Overall, it is a book that deserves to be read by all those who need to broaden their understanding of Indian history with a uniquely different civilisational examination.