Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
.
The earliest traces of civilization in the Indian subcontinent are to be found in places
along, or close, to the Indus river. Excavations first conducted in 1921-22, in the ancient cities of
Harappa and Mohenjodaro, both now in Pakistan, pointed to a highly complex civilization that
first developed some 4,500-5,000 years ago, and subsequent archaeological and historical
research has now furnished us with a more detailed picture of the Indus Valley Civilization and
its inhabitants. The Indus Valley people were most likely Dravidians, who may have been
pushed down into south India when the Aryans, with their more advanced military technology,
commenced their migrations to India around 2,000 BCE. Though the Indus Valley script remains
undeciphered down to the present day, the numerous seals discovered during the excavations, as
well as statuary and pottery, not to mention the ruins of numerous Indus Valley cities, have
enabled scholars to construct a reasonably plausible account of the Indus Valley Civilization.
Some kind of centralized state, and certainly fairly extensive town planning, is suggested
by the layout of the great cities of Harappa and Mohenjodaro. The same kind of burnt brick
appears to have been used in the construction of buildings in cities that were as much as several
hundred miles apart. The weights and measures show a very considerable regularity. The Indus
Valley people domesticated animals, and harvested various crops, such as cotton, sesame, peas,
barley, and cotton. They may also have been a sea-faring people, and it is rather interesting that
Indus Valley seals have been dug up in such places as Sumer. In most respects, the Indus Valley
Civilization appears to have been urban, defying both the predominant idea of India as an
eternally and essentially agricultural civilization, as well as the notion that the change from
µrural¶ to µurban¶ represents something of a logical progression. The Indus Valley people had a
merchant class that, evidence suggests, engaged in extensive trading.
Neither Harappa nor Mohenjodaro show any evidence of fire altars, and consequently
one can reasonably conjecture that the various rituals around the fire which are so critical in
Hinduism were introduced later by the Aryans. The Indus Valley people do not appear to have
been in possession of the horse: there is no osteological evidence of horse remains in the Indian
sub-continent before 2,000 BCE, when the Aryans first came to India, and on Harappan seals and
terracotta figures, horses do not appear. Other than the archaeological ruins of Harappa and
Mohenjodaro, these seals provide the most detailed clues about the character of the Indus Valley
people. Bulls and elephants do appear on these seals, but the horned bull, most scholars are
agreed, should not be taken to be congruent with Nandi, or Shiva¶s bull. The horned bull appears
in numerous Central Asian figures as well; it is also important to note that Shiva is not one of the
gods invoked in the . The revered cow of the Hindus also does not appear on the seals.
The women portrayed on the seals are shown with elaborate coiffures, sporting heavy jewelry,
suggesting that the Indus Valley people were an urbane people with cultivated tastes and a
refined aesthetic sensibility. A few thousand seals have been discovered in Indus Valley cities,
showing some 400 pictographs: too few in number for the language to have been ideographic,
and too many for the language to have been phonetic.
c
The Indus Valley civilization raises a great many, largely unresolved, questions. Why did
this civilization, considering its sophistication, not spread beyond the Indus Valley? In general,
the area where the Indus valley cities developed is arid, and one can surmise that urban
development took place along a river that flew through a virtual desert. The Indus Valley people
did not develop agriculture on any large scale, and consequently did not have to clear away a
heavy growth of forest. Nor did they have the technology for that, since they were confined to
using bronze or stone implements. They did not practice canal irrigation and did not have the
heavy plough. Most significantly, under what circumstances did the Indus Valley cities undergo
a decline? The first attacks on outlying villages by Aryans appear to have taken place around
2,000 BCE near Baluchistan, and of the major cities, at least Harappa was quite likely over-run
by the Aryans. In the there is mention of a Vedic war god, Indra, destroying some forts
and citadels, which could have included Harappa and some other Indus Valley cities. The
conventional historical narrative speaks of a cataclysmic blow that struck the Indus Valley
Civilization around 1,600 BCE, but that would not explain why settlements at a distance of
several hundred miles from each other were all eradicated. The most compelling historical
narrative still suggests that the demise and eventual disappearance of the Indus Valley
Civilization, which owed something to internal decline, nonetheless was facilitated by the arrival
in India of the Aryans.
mhe book, written in Sanskrit, discusses theories and principles of governing a state. It is
not an account of Mauryan administration. The title, ? , which means "the Science of
Material Gain" or "Science of Polity", does not leave any doubts about its ends. According to
Kautilya, the ruler should use any means to attain his goal and his actions required no moral
sanction. The only problems discussed are of the most practical kind. Though the kings were
allowed a free rein, the citizens were subject to a rigid set of rules. This double standard has been
cited as an excuse for the obsolescence of the ? , though the real cause of its ultimate
neglect, as the Indian historian Romila Thapar suggests, was the formation of a totally different
society to which these methods no longer applied.
? remains unique in all of Indian literature because of its total absence of
specious reasoning, or its unabashed advocacy of realpolitik, and scholars continued to study it
for its clear cut arguments and formal prose till the twelfth century. Espionage and the liberal use
of provocative agents is recommended on a large scale. Murder and false accusations were to be
used by a king's secret agents without any thoughts to morals or ethics. There are chapters for
kings to help them keep in check the premature ambitions of their sons, and likewise chapters
intended to help princes to thwart their fathers' domineering authority. However, Kautilya
ruefully admits that it is just as difficult to detect an official's dishonesty as it is to discover how
much water is drunk by the swimming fish.
Îautilya helped the young Chandragupta Maurya, who was a Vaishya, to ascend to the
Nanda throne in 321 BC. Kautilya's counsel is particularly remarkable because the young
Maurya's supporters were not as well armed as the Nandas. Kautilya continued to help
Chandragupta Maurya in his campaigns and his influence was crucial in consolidating the great
Mauryan empire. He has often been likened to Machiavelli by political theorists, and the name of
Chanakya is still reminiscent of a vastly scheming and clever political adviser. In very recent
years, Indian state television, or c as it is known, commissioned and screened a
television serial on the life and intrigues of Chanakya.
¦
c
?
[" ," Curzon Press, 1886, 1985, p. 433]:
, , meant the "division of the world" ( ) of the Bhâratas --
the heroes of the great epic. An independent India in 1947 decided to officially
become (the short final "a" not being pronounced in Hindi), with the earlier word
emerging as in Hindi. Probably India did not have a clear local name earlier
because, like China, it seemed to be the principal portion of the entire world, and so simply the
world itself.
In Chinese, we get various ways of referring to India. The modern form, , renders
the name phonetically with characters of no particular semantic significance ("print, stamp, or
seal" and "a rule, law, measure, degree"). This rendering, of course, is based on a name from
Greek or Arabic that would have been unknown in China until modern times. The older practice,
however, was dedicated characters that might have a larger meaning. Thus, we get or
, in which can be a kind of bamboo but otherwise is just used for India.
) and then for compounds involving India or Buddhism. Thus we get expressions
Japan, India was sometimes called the g , , the "Moon Tribe." This appealed
because of the contrast with Japan, the , "Sun Source." The Japanese knew from
Chinese histories that the g were in the West, and since they were a bit vague about what
c
was in the West, but they knew that India was also, the connection got made. They might not
have known that the g actually did enter India as the Kushans
When a unified state has occurred in Indian history, it has had varying religious, political,
and even linguistic bases: e.g. Hindu, Buddhist, Islâmic, and foreign. The rule of the Sult.âns of
Delhi and the Moghul Emperors was at once Islâmic foreign, since most of them were
Turkish or Afghani, and the Moghul dynasty was founded directly by incursion from
Afghanistan. The
foreign unification of India, of course, was from the British, under
whom India achieved its greatest unity, although that was lost upon independence to the religious
division between India and Pakistan. The Moghuls and British, of course, called India by its
name in their own languages (i.e. "Hindustân," or , and "India").
With a unified state in India a rare phenomenon, often under foreign influence, and with
only a derivative indigenous name for the country as a whole, one might wonder if the term
"Emperor," with its implications of unique and universal monarchy, is aptly applied to Indian
rulers. However, from an early date there was a notion of such monarchy, which depended only
on a conception of the world, whether India itself was clearly conceived or not, but with some
actual examples, beginning with the Mauryas. The universal monarch was
the
, , "Who Turns the Wheel of Dominion." He
could also be called the "One Umbrella Sovereign," after the parasol carried
to mark the location of royalty. Thus, the prophecy was that Siddhartha
Gautama might have become the Buddha or a , a world ruler.
The word was ambiguous, since the term can mean simply a sovereign, but
its use is paralleled by the Latin word , which simply means
"Commander" and grew, by usage, into a term for a unique and universal monarch. As it
happened, many of the monarchs who began to claim ruler over all of India did usually use titles
that were translations or importations of foreign words. Thus, the Kushans used titles like
, "King of Kings," and , "Great King," which appear to be translations from
older Middle Eastern titles. While the original "Great King" long retained its uniqueness, thanks
to the durability of the Persian monarchy, the title in India experienced a kind of grade inflation,
so that eventually there were many, many . With Islâm came a whole raft of new
titles. One was
, which originally was an Arabic title of universal rule itself but had
already experienced its own grade inflation. Persian titles, like
, centuries after the
Achaemenids, were now borrowed rather than translated. With the Moghuls, however, the names
of the Emperors, more than their titles, reflected their pretensions: like Persian o , "Seize
( ) the world ()." The most remarkable title borrowed from the West is probably ,
but the Latin title itself arrived with Queen Victoria, 0, , in 1876. The
last was King George VI, until 1947.
In addition to these complications, Indian history is also less well known and dated than
that of China or Japan. Classical Indian literature displays little interest in history proper, which
must be reconstructed from coins, monumental inscriptions, and foreign references. As Jan
Nattier has said recently [?
?
, University of Hawai'i Press, 2003]:
c
...the writing of history in the strict sense does not begin in India until the 12th century, with the
composition of Kalhan.a's . [p.68]
Because of this, even the dating of the Mauryas and the Guptas, the best known pre-
Islâmic periods, displays small uncertainties. The rulers and dates for them here are from Stanley
Wolpert's ?! [Oxford University Press, 1989], the " c
by John E. Morby [Oxford University Press, 1989, 2002], and Bruce R. Gordon's Regnal
Chronologies. Gordon had the only full lists I'd ever seen for the Mauryas, Kushans, and Guptas
until I found the " c , which has the Mauryas and Guptas but nothing else until the
Sultanate of Delhi. Besides Wolpert, another concise recent history of India is ?
by Peter Robb [Palgrave, 2002]. It is becoming annoying to me that scholarly histories like these
are almost always but poorly supplemented with maps and lists of rulers, let alone genealogies
(where these are known). Both Wolpert and Robb devote much more space to modern India than
to the ancient or mediaeval country, and this preference seems to go beyond the paucity of
sources for the earlier periods.
More satisfying than Wolpert and Robb is another recent history, ? by
John Keay [Harper Perennial, 2000, 2004]. Keay has an apt comment for the phenomenon just
noted in the other histories:
In contriving maximum resolution for the present, there is also a danger of losing focus
on the past. A history which reserves half its narrative for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
may seem more relevant, but it can scarcely do justice to India's extraordinary antiquity. [p.xxi]
Keay thus does a better job of dealing with the eras (and their obscure events) that fall
between the Mauryas, Guptas, and the Islamic states with their new, foreign traditions of
historiography. One drawback of Keay's book is its total innocence of diacritics. Indeed, it is
even innocent of any acknowledgement of this, which would leave the reader wondering why a
word is given as "Vidisha" in one citation and "Vidisa" in another [cf. p.90]. Keay also exhibits
the occasional ignorance of Indianists for the Persian and Arabic backgrounds of some words,
where here I explain the difference between Ghazna and Ghaznî and between Moghul and
Mughal. We also find Keay carelessly referring the capital of the Caliph al-Walîd as Baghdad, a
city that was not yet founded [p.185].
The "Saka Era," as the Indian historical era, significantly starts rather late (79 AD) in
relation to the antiquity of Indian civilization. Indeed, like Greece (c.1200-800 BC) and Britain
(c.400-800 AD), India experienced a "Dark Ages" period, c.1500-800 BC, in which literacy was
lost and the civilization vanished from history altogether. Such twilight periods may enhance the
vividness of quasi-historical mythology like the
, the Arthurian legends, and the
. The earliest history of India is covered separately at "The Earliest Civilizations"
and "The Spread of Indo-European and Turkish Peoples off the Steppe." The affinities of Indian
languages are also covered at "Greek, Sanskrit, and Closely Related Languages." Readers should
treat with caution some scholarship and a great deal of the material on the internet about the
Indus Valley Civilization and its relationship to Classical Indian civilization, or all of
civilization. The claims have progressed to the point now where not only are all of Indian
civilization and all of its languages regarded as autochthonous (with Indo-European languages
c
said to originate in India, and derived from Dravidian languages, rather than arriving from
elsewhere and unrelated to Dravidian), but the civilization itself is said to extend back to the
Pleistocene Epoch (before 10,000 BC), with any ruins or artifacts conveniently covered by rising
sea levels. The urge towards inflated nationalistic claims is familiar. Particular claims about
India are treated here in several places but especially in "Strange Claims about the Greeks, and
about India."
m¦0?? ÿ
Chandragupta
c.322-301
(Gk. )
Bindusâra 301-269
? 269-232
Kunala ? 232-225
Dasharatha 232-225
c
Ashoka can be rather well dated because he sent letters to the contemporary Hellenistic
monarchs, Antigonus II Gonatas (? ) of Macedonia , Antiochus II Theos (? ) of the
Seleucid Kingdom, Ptolemy II Philadelphus ( ) of Egypt, Alexander II (?
) of
Eprius, and Magas () of Cyrene, urging them to convert to Buddhism themselves. Greek
history contains no record of these requests. There is also an attested eclipse in 249 dated with a
regal year date. Ashoka's reign is used to date the life of the Buddha, since tradition in Sri Lanka
(Ceylon) is that the Buddha died 218 years before Ashoka came to the throne. That would put his
death in 487 BC, which is close to the generally used date. The Ceylonese chronology is now
often questioned, with alternative reckonings placing the Buddha's eath about a century later.
John Keay's history inclines in this direction [cf. p.62].
only eternity is significant and all other time is cyclical and repetitive, the Epics thus represent
everything that can possibly happen in history. There is even a saying, "Everything is in the
." Our lack of knowledge of individual Indian philosophers from this early period,
even though we possess much of an undoubted early date in the , may also be due to
the idea that such texts, as parts of the , were actually part of eternal revelation and were
not originated by their authors.
Indian Philosophy
Buddhist Philosophy
m¦ ?Î?
ÿ
Maues 97-58 BC
Vonones
Spalyris
Spalagademes
Spalirises
Azes I c.30 BC
Azilises
Azes II
m¦?m ?¦
Pakores
Orthagnes
c
There are no historical documents or preserved narratives from this period, and the rulers are
mostly known from coins, which may have dates,
Simultaneously with the descent of Sakas into India, Parthians (Pahlavas) or Suren appear from
the west, and some of them become established in India independent (or not) of the Parthian
King. The Parthians spoke a "North-Western" Iranian language, though its origin was far south
of the Scythians. The sources are sometimes confused about which Indian rulers are Sakas and
which are Parthians, since they are never attested as which. Gudnaphar (Greek ),
who traditionally is supposed to have welcomed the Apostle Thomas to India, seems to have
been Parthian. The legend of the mission of Thomas to India is now of renewed interest because
of the discovery of the text of the Gospel of Thomas, one of the Gnostic Gospels, in Egypt in
1945.
c
Although the dates are still very uncertain, historical information in India is rather better than for
the preceding period. Of special importance is King Î, under whom the Fourth Great
Buddhist Council is supposed to have been held, as the Third was under Ashoka. Kanishka is
said to have been converted to Buddhism by the playwright Ashvaghosha. The earliest actual
images of Buddhas and Boddhisattvas date from his reign. Also of interest are the Kushan royal
titles, c . , "King of Kings," is very familiar
from Middle Eastern history, since monarchs from the Assyrians to the Parthians had used it.
, "Great King," is very familiar from later India but at this early date betrays its Middle
Eastern inspiration, since it was originally used by the Persian Kings. c , "Son of God,"
sounds like the Kushans
claiming some sort of Christ-
like status, which is always
possible, but it may actually
just be an Sanskrit version of a
title of the Chinese Emperor,
"Son of Heaven."
arrived in Lo-Yang from a ruler of , "Great Ch'in," named Andun, which looks like a
rendering of ? . The year 166 was in the early days of Marcus Aurelius (Antoninus).
Since we know, besides the presence of Romans in India, that there were well traveled sea routes
to China (see the voyage of Fa-Hsien below), this Roman Embassy easily passes the test of
credibility. It is a shame that such a project, like the letters written by Ashoka to Hellenistic
monarchs, escaped the notice of Greek and Roman historians.
While the imperial maps here until 1701 are based on Stanley Wolpert's ?!
[Oxford University Press, 1989], the map for the Kushans is based on the ? ?
, Volume I [1974, Hermann Kinder, Werner Hilgemann, Ernest A. Menze, and
Harald and Ruth Bukor, p.42], which now has been reissued in identical form as
?
, Volume I [Penguin Books, 1978, 2003].
c
m¦ "m?
?
Gupta 275-300
Ghat.otkacha 300-320
Budha Gupta 477-496 While the name of Chandragupta, the founder of the Mauryas, is
usually given as one word, the "Gupta," ("guarded,
Chandra Gupta III ? 496-500 protected"), element in names of the Gupta dynasty is usually,
but not always, written as a separate word. The "
Vainya Gupta 500-515
c writes them together. Classical Sanskrit, of course,
Narasimha Gupta 510-530 like Greek and Latin, ordinarily did not separate words at all.
Kumâra Gupta III 530-540 One of the unique monuments of the Gupta dynasty is the
, seen at right. This is a solid piece of wrought
Vishn.u Gupta 540-551 iron more than 22 feet tall. Delhi may not have been its original
location, but exactly where that would have been and when or
why the pillar was brought to Delhi is a matter of conjecture. The pillar is dedicated to Vishnu,
but any other Hindu structures around it were demolished by the Sultâns of Delhi, who built the
nearby Qutub Minar tower and the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque. Dating the pillar is also a matter of
some uncertainty, since its inscription merely mentions a King named "Chandra." This is
generally taken to mean Chandra Gupta II, reinforced by the evidence of the style and language
of the pillar, in comparison to known art of the Guptas, like the coins of Chandra Gupta II. It is
also sometimes said that the pillar was erected to Chandra Gupta by his successor
Kumâra Gupta I. The Pillar, however, is such an extraordinary artifact that some people reject
the mundane historical explanations and prefer that the object is much, much older, or even the
work of extra-terrestrials. The Pillar does testify, however, to the sophistication of Indian iron
work, of which there is much other evidence. The steel of the famous Damascus steel swords of
the Middle Ages was actually manufactured and exported from India, with techniques that had
been used for centuries. The Pillar, although not itself steel, does exhibit the technique that
leaves it appearing to be a single piece of iron -- forge welding, where hot iron is hammered and
fused together. This is the technique that produced the bars of steel that were exported.
Towards the end of the period, the Guptas began to experience inroads from the Huns (Huna),
the next steppe people, whose appearance in Europe (it is supposed that these are the same
c
people), of course, pressured German tribes to move into the Roman Empire. By 500, Huns
controlled the Punjab and in short order extended their rule down the Ganges. They don't seem to
have founded any sort of durable state and eventually suffered defeats. The Huns were the last
non-Islamic steppe people to invade India.
*0
c.543-
Pulakeshin I
566
c.567-
Kîrtivarman I
597
c.597-
Mangalesha
609
c.609-
642
654/5-
Vikramâditya I
681
c
? ($%%
c.680-
696
c.696-
Vijayâditya
733/4
c.733-
744/5
744/5-
Kirtivarman II
753
-
¦ *0
c.735-
744
c.755-
Î
772
c.780-
793
c.793-
"
814
c.814-
Amoghavarsha
880
c.878-
Krishna II
914
c.914-
Indra III
928
c
c.928-
Amoghavarsha II
929
c.930-
Govinda IV
935
c.936-
Amoghavarsha III
939
c.939-
Krishna III
967
c.967-
Khot.t.iga
972
Karkka II c.972-
(Amoghhavarsha IV) 973
Î .
Satyasraya 997-
Irivabedanga 1008
1008-
Vikramaditya I
1014
1014-
Ayyana
1015
1015-
Jayasimha
1042
1042-
Somesvara I
1068
1068-
Somesvara II
1076
1076-
Vikramaditya II
1127
1127-
Somesvara III
1138
c
1138-
Jagadekamalla
1151
1151-
Tailapa
1156
Î
1156-
Bijjala
1168
1168-
Somesvara
1177
1177-
Sankama
1180
1180-
Ahavamalla
1183
1183-
Singhana
1184
1184-
Somesvara IV
1200
1200-
Singhana
1247
1247-
Krishna
1261
1261-
Mahadeva
1271
Amana 1271
1271-
Ramachandra
1311
1311-
Sankaradeva
1313
1313-
Harapaladeva
1317
c
My source for the list of the rulers from the fall of the Guptas (551) to the dominance of the
Sultanate of Delhi (1211), beginning with the line of the Châlukyas, was originally from Bruce
R. Gordon's Regnal Chronologies. I took details of the period from Stanley Wolpert's ? !
[Oxford, 2000, pp.95-103]. There was clearly uncertainty about the dates, since
Wolpert has Î -, patron of the remarkable Kailasanatha temple to Shiva,
reigning 756-775, while Gordon has 768-783. This is, of course, not too surprising, given the
problems with Indian historiography. Later, however, I found a much more thorough treatment
of the period in Ronald M. Davidson's ¦ ?
[Columbia University Press, 2002], which has an extensive summary of the whole
period [pp.25-62], with maps and lists of many of the rulers. Here we find Krishna I with the
dates c.755-772, in much closer agreement with Wolpert, but still, of course, residual
uncertainties. John Keay's ? [Harper Perennial, 2000, 2004] covers the period
with similar thoroughness.
Î
Î
Târâpîd.a c.720-725
c.725-756
0.
( c.725-760
? (%
Devarâja c.750-?
Vatsarâja ?-c.790
( c.790-833
Râmabhadra c.833-836
0 ÿ) c.836-885
Mahendrapâla I c.890-910
Mahîpâla c.910-?
Bhoja II ?-914
Vinâyakapâla I c.930-945
Mahendrapâla II c.945-950
c
As the Châlukyas moved, they could also take a geographical name with them. The British
rendering of "Karnataka" was as the "Carnatic" (much like the word in Hindi, where a short final
"a" would not be pronounced). The name "Carnatic" migrated south and south-east, with the
movements of the Châlukya dynasts. On the Bay of Bengal, the Eastern Châlukyas became
established, and we also find the name "Carnatic" applied there. That eastern "Carnatic" then
also came to be associated with the large Vijayanagara realm, which straddled the modern states
of Karnataka, Tamil Nâdu (the language is Tamil), and Andhra Pradesh. Thus, on old maps of
India, the name "Carnatic" can sometimes be found adjacent to the west coast, and on others
along the south-eastern coast. The name disappeared altogether for a while between Maharashtra
to the north and the later state of Mysore to the south. The modern Indian state of Karantaka was
originally itself called "Mysore," but this was changed in 1973 to "Karnâtaka" to reflect its
linguistic character.
Pulakeshin II declared himself "Lord of the Eastern and Western Waters." Although the
Châlukyas never united the north or dominated the country like the Guptas or Harsha, they
would appear there, and I have focused on them and their successors as the best sequence to span
the period down to the Sult.âns of Delhi. There were many other states of similar size and power
during this era, several often called "Empires." Now I include lists for Kashmir and for the
Gurjara-Pratîhâras, whose realm centered on Ujjain in the western part of the modern Madhya
Pradesh. All of these states contended at one time or another for the Ganges Valley and thus
were candidates for achieving a North Indian hegemony. Their successes proved only temporary,
often because of rebellions in their rear.
The Châlukya dynasty suffered a severe reverse when Pulakeshin II was killed in battle by
Narasimha Varman I of Pallava, and Vâtâpi occupied. After reestablishing themselves, they most
importantly planted cadet lines in the East and in Gujarat, which would eventually provide for
the restoration of the dynasty.
c
Î
c. 846-c.
Vijayalaya
871
c. 871-
Asitya I
907
Parantaka 907-947
Rajaditya I 947-949
Gandaraditya 949-956
Arinjaya 956
Parantaka II 956
Aditya II 956-969
/
&&
1012-
)
1044
1044-
Rajadhiraja I
1052
1052-
Rajendra II Deva
1060
1060-
Ramamahendra
1063
1063-
Virarajendra
1067
1067-
Adhirajendra
1070
1070-
Rajendra III
1122
1179-
Kulottunga III One of the "Empires" of the period was the Kingdom of
1218
. As it happens, this is a realm in origin and history
1218- with a decidedly linguistic basis, in the Tamil language of
Rajaraja III modern Tamil Nâdu. The Chola Kings cultivated Tamil
1246
literature and are remembered as heroic patrons of Tamil
1246- power, learning, and religion. Chola is in the competition
Rajendra IV
1279 as an "Empire" because of it spread north, briefly all the
way to the mouths of the Ganges, and, most strikingly, by
! '( %& its projection beyond the sea, initiated by King ) )
, whose name has the decidedly Imperial ring of
"King of Kings, god." With grave portent for future history, the first such projection of Chola
power was into Ceylon. Tamils had settled in Ceylon and briefly ruled there already, and even
the Chola occupation was relatively short lived, but it all contributed to a durable Tamil ethnic
presence that, in the modern day, exploded into a vicious and protracted civil war, whose
appalling course and sobering lessons are examined elsewhere.
Of dramatic course and great portent in its own way is the other projection of Chola power,
which was across the sea of the Bay of Bengal, through isolated land such as the Andaman
Islands, all the way to Sumatra, Malaya, and the trade route of the Straits between those
Indonesian islands. It is hard to know how much of the area was actually occupied and ruled.
Some maps (optimisticly or nationalisticly) show a Chola domain over entire islands like
Sumatra and over the entire peninsula of Malaya. Other maps (more realistically) show a Chola
presence along the coastlines. In whichever form, this is the first example we know of an
incursion that will be significantly mirrored in later history. Four hundred years after the Chola
presence, the Chinese would arrive in the Straits from the opposite direction and initiate what
was probably much the same kind of process, finally arriving themselves at Ceylon and the coast
of Tamil Nâdu. As we will see below, this did not last long. Not long after the Chinese left,
however, the Portuguese arrived from across the Indian Ocean, themselves occupied Ceylon and
areas on the mainland of India, and then followed in the wake of the Chola voyagers into
Indonesia. This produces occupations of considerable extent and duration, though mostly
consumated by the Dutch and the British who replaced the Portuguese. The Chola "Empire" thus
pioneers the colonial history of Indonesia -- though the hiatus between the Chola presence and
the arrival of the Chinese will see a heavy Islamicization, by influence of trade alone, of the area.
c
Chola was finally broken up by the Sultanate of Delhi, which, however, was unable to retain a
dominant position in the south. Thus, the small kingdom of Madura became the successor state at
the southern tip of India, while the larger kingdom of Vijayanagar came to dominate much of the
South, including the old metropolis Chola, Gangaikondacolapuram.
A curious linguistic issue arises when we deal with Mah.mud. The name of the city of Ghazna,
, is written in the Arabic alphabet with the letter "y" at the end. Ordinarily, this would
indicate the long vowel "î"; but sometimes in Arabic, and originally in this case, the "y" is
pronounced as the vowel "a." This is called
and occurs in some very common
words in Arabic.
)0
c
1100-
Ballala I
1110
1110-
Vishnuvardhana
1152
1152-
Narasimha I
1173
1173-
Ballala II
1220
1220-
Narasimha II
1238
1233-
Somesvara
1267
1254-
Narasimha III
1292
1291-
Ballala III
1342
1342-
Virupaksha Ballala IV
1346
$&&
1399-
Yadu Raya
1423
1459-
Timmaraja I
1478
1478-
Hiriya Chamaraja II
1513
1553-
Timmaraja II
1572
c
1572-
Bola Chamaraja IV
1576
1576-
Bettada Devaraja
1578
1578-
Raja Wadiyar
1617
1617-
Chamaraja V
1637
1637-
Immadi Raja
1638
$%
1659-
Kempa Devaraja
1673
1673-
Chikkadevaraja
1704
1714-
Krishnaraja I
1732
1732-
Chamaraja VI
1734
1734-
Krishnaraja II
1766
# ?0 p
%$$%$&+ ?
0 p % %
c
Sult.âna,
Rad.iyya Begum
1236-1240
viceroy
Balban Ulugh since 1246
Khân
1266-1287
c
Kayûmarth 1290
Î).
Fîrûz Shâh II
1290-1296
Khaljî
Ibrâhîm Shâh I
1296
Qadïr Khân
Muh.ammad Shâh
I 1296-1316
'Alî Garshâsp
Khusraw Khân
1320
Barwârî
m/
Muh.ammad Shâh
1325-1351
II
Muh.ammad Shâh
1389-1394
III
1394-1395,
Mah.mûd Shâh II
1401-1412
m &
Dawlat Khân
1412-1414
Lôdî
c
Muh.ammad V
1554 0 (Mahisur, Maysûr, Mahishûru, Mysuru) began as a
Mubâriz Khân
dependancy of the rulers of the Deccan to the North. In 1100,
Ibrâhîm III Khân 1554-1555 in the days of the Châlukyas of Kalyân.î, Mysore became
independent under the dynasty that had been in place since
Ah.mad Khân the 6th or 7th century. However, after the passage of the
1555
Sikandar Shâh III Sultâns of Delhi, Mysore then became a dependency of the
Vijayanagara kingdom that was established in 1336. The
Wodeyar Dynasty was a cadet line of Vijayanagara. The subordination of Mysore was broken up
after Vijayanagara was defeated by the Moghuls in 1565. Moghul rule, such as it was, seems to
have ebbed and flowed in presence and affectiveness. The domination by Aurangzeb was
certainly a brief one, after which Mysore was independent.
Mysore lost its traditional Hindu rule and became a center of conflict when its own general,
H.aydar Alî, who had defeated the Marathans, seized power in his own right. The Râjâs were
retained as figureheads until deposed in 1796 by H.aydar's son, the celebrated m.-. The rule of
these Muslim warriors quickly led to repeated conflict with the British. H.aydar Alî became an
active ally of the French in the War of American Independence, 1778-1783 (the Second Anglo-
Mysore War, 1780-1784), but his invasion of Madras, with some French troops, was defeated.
However, after his death (1782), m.- crushed a British force of 2000, killing 500 and taking the
rest prisoner. This made him the "Tiger of Mysore." Tîpû amused himself with a six-foot long
c
mechanical figure of a tiger gnawing at the throat of an Englishman and snarling at the turn of a
crank.
Continuing with the enemies of his enemy, Tîpû entered into relations with Revolutionary
France, whose rationalists, deists, and atheists curiously found a kindred spirit in a fanatical and
tyrannical Muslim -- a dynamic we may see today in the affinity of the Left for Islamic Fascism.
When Napoleon landed in Egypt in 1798, it looked like help might be on the way; but there
really wasn't much that the French Republic could do for "Citizen Tipu." The British whittled
away at Tîpû's realm until he was killed in 1799. The Wodeyar Râjâs were restored, doubtless
with some relief to Hindus who had undergone forced conversion and circumcision by Tîpû.
broken up by Delhi, which, then unable to remain dominant in the area, was driven out.
We also see the routes travelled by È, the Chinese admiral who led seven great voyages
of exploration, trade, and military intervention during the early days of the Ming Dynasty, from
1405 to 1433. The military intervention became less a factor the further West we get. It was
intense in Indonesia, where considerable battles were fought and kings were made -- or sent back
to China for execution. A Chinese base was established and fortified at Malacca. In Ceylon, we
still get some intervention, with King Vira Alakeshvara of Raigama (1397-1411) captured and
sent back to China. But the Emperor apologized for this, and returned the King to Ceylon
(though not, apparently, to his throne). Further West, trade and embassies seem to have been the
rule. All this stopped abruptly in 1433, as China withdrew from foreign contact. When the
Portuguese arrived in 1498, the Chinese were long gone.
)
?"?0?
Harihara I 1336-1356
Bukka I 1356-1377
Harihara II 1377-1404
Virupaksha I 1404-1405
Bukka II 1405-1406
Devaraya I 1406-1422
Rama- 1422-1430
c
chandra
Vira Vijaya I
1422-1424
Bukka Raya
Devaraya II 1424-1446
Vijaya II 1446-1447
Mallikarjuna 1446-1465
Virupaksha II 1465-1485
? ?
Narasimha-
1485-1490
devaraya
m ?
Krishna-
1509-1529/30
devaraya
Achyota-
1529/30-1542
devaraya
Venkata 1542
Sadashi-
1542-1565
varaya
( 0$
??
Rama-
The kingdom of Vijayanagar, devaraya 1617-1632
based in the area of Kannada
speakers again (stretching East Venkatapati Raya 1632-1642
in Telugu speaking country),
originates in revolt against the Sriranga III Raya 1642-1646
Sult.ânate of Delhi, which only
Venkatapati II Raya 1646-c.1660
briefly dominated the South,
but nevertheless broke up the older powers in the area. Vijayanagar reestablishes local
independence. It will continue dominant until the arrival of the Moghuls. We do not, however,
see a simple conquest any cleaner than what Delhi had managed to accomplish in the same area.
In 1565, Akbar defeated and disrupted the power of the state, but the result was not Moghul
occupation. Instead, a cadet line of Vijayanagar at Mysore begins to overshadow its parent state,
as recounted above and shown on the maps below. By the time Aurangzeb returned to briefly
conquer the area, Vijayanagar had faded away. In 1646 the capital itself was seized by the
Sult.âns of Bijapur and Golkonda. The last king, Venkatapati II, was thus himself an exile in
some small fragment of the former kingdom.
Sikhism, from Pâli (Sanskrit ), "follower," was a new religion, founded in the days
of the Sult.ânate of Delhi, that attempted to reconcile and replace Hinduism and Islâm. Although
there are some 18 million Sikhs today, this never made much of a dent in the numbers of Hindus
or Moslems, and long earned the Sikhs little but hostility from both. After the Fifth Gurû
("Teacher") was executed by the Moghuls, the Sixth rejected Moghul authority and was forced to
flee to the mountains. When the Ninth Gurû was later again executed by the Moghuls, the Tenth,
Gobind Râi, took things a step further by transforming the community into an army, the Khâlsâ,
"Pure."
" -
1 Nânak 1469-1539
2 An.gad 1539-1552
6 Hargobind 1606-1644
8 Hari Krishen 1661-1664 Every Sikh became a , "Lion." The succession of
Gurûs was then ended.
9 Tegh Bahâdur 1664-1675
At first this transformation did not seem to improve things
10 Gobind Râi Singh 1675-1708 much. Gobind Singh and his temporal successor, Bandâ
Singh Bahâdur, both died violent deaths, and the
Î$&& community fragmented. But with the decline of Moghul
power, opportunity knocked. The Khâlsâ was soon again
Bandâ Singh Bahâdur 1708-1716
unified and installed in Lahore, under Ranjît Singh, who
Î))(%$ became Mahârâjâ of the Punjab. Henceforth the Sikhs,
although never more than a minority, were the greatest
Ranjît Singh 1780-1839 military power in northern India. The death of Ranjît,
however, led to a chaotic succession and conflict among
Kharak Singh 1839-1840 his heirs. Two sharp wars with the British led to the
annexation of the Punjab, after which Sikh warlike
Nao Nehal Singh 1840
ambitions could be directed through membership in the
British Indian Army, where the Sikhs stood out with their
Chand Kaur 1840-1841 characteristic turbans and beards.
Sher Singh 1841-1843 In modern India a movement began for Sikh independence
from India, with the Indian Punjab becoming
.
1843-1849,
Duleep Singh Led by Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindrânwale, this led to a
d. 1893
catastrophic showdown in 1984 when the Golden Temple
# p $+ in Armitsar, the fortified center of the Sikh Faith, was
p &+ stormed by the Indian Army, and Bhindrânwale killed.
,( ÿ & When Prime Minister Indria Gandhi was assassinated later
the same year by Sikh bodyguards, few doubted that this
was an act of revenge. Sikh nationalism continues to trouble India.
0!" ¦0¦!
" 0
1498-1500,
1500-1501
ÿ( in Transoxania
1526-1530
1530-1540,
-
1555-1556
?( 1556-1605
o. 1605-1627
c
Farrukh-siyar 1713-1719
Shams adDîn
1719
Râfi' adDarajât
Shâh Jahân II
1719
Râfi' adDawla
Nîkû-siyar
1719
Muh.ammad
Muh.ammad Shâh
1719-1748
Nâs.ir adDîn
1759-1788,
Shâh 'Âlam II
1788-1806
Bîdâr-bakht 1788
Pretensions to universal rule, which figure in Indian mythology, in Persian imperial tradition, and
in the titles of earlier Indian rulers, are reflected in many of the actual names of Moghul
emperors. "Akbar" in Arabic is "Greatest." "Jahângir" in Persian means to "seize" ( ) the
"world" (). "Shâh Jahân" is also Persian for "World King." "'Âlamgir" and "Shah 'Âlam"
both simply substitute the Arabic word for "world," $
, for the Persian word. As the Moghul
state decays in the 18th century, of course, these names and pretentions become increasingly
farcical.
Almost from the first, Moghul policy was to tolerate and win the cooperation of Hindus,
especially the warriors of Rajasthan. With ?( this approached a policy of positive toleration
and religious syncretism, which earned Akbar the disfavor of Moslem clerics but, like Ashoka,
the esteem of modern liberal opinion. Akbar even toyed with the idea of a universal syncretistic
religion, to be called the c ?
, the "Religion of God." This was rather like what the Sikhs
has originally been trying to do. But while Hinduism was always open to various kinds of
syncretism, Islâm certainly was not.
Even the most basic elements of Moghul policy, however, were reversed by the fanatical
?'
.( (or ?
(), who briefly brought the Empire to its greatest extent but whose
measures against Hindus and Sikhs (the execution of the ninth Sikh Gurû) fatally weakened the
state. Non-Moslems no longer had any reason to support the Moghuls, and in short order the
Empire was only a shell of its former strength and vigor, with the Persians sacking Delhi itself
(1739), under the Emperor, Muh.ammad Shâh, who had done somewhat well at maintaining
things.
Henceforth, the shell of Moghul authority would stand just until a new conquering power would
appear. After a surge of French influence under their brilliant governor Joseph Dupleix (d.1763),
that turned out to be the British, who, however, only gradually conceived the notion of actually
replacing nominal Moghul authority with an explicit British Dominion in India. Although the last
Moghul was deposed in 1858, the full process was not complete until Queen Victoria was
proclaimed Empress of Indian in 1876. The British Râj would then last exactly 71 more years --
testimony to the rapidity of modern events after the 332 years of the Moghuls. How durable the
British heritage will be is a good question. The form of government in India, which has in
general remained democratic, is far more British than that of other former British possessions.
c
And English, with its own distinctive Indian accent and vocabulary, remains the only official
language of the country that does not provoke communal conflict.
Until this point the maps of Imperial domains in India are based on Stanley Wolpert's ? !
[Oxford University Press, 1989]. Now, however, they are largely based on the
? ?
, Volume I [1974, Hermann Kinder, Werner Hilgemann,
Ernest A. Menze, and Harald and Ruth Bukor] and Volume II [1978], and the
?
[Barnes & Noble, 1972].
looks like the Dutch have the strongest hold, but as the 18th century progressed, and the Moghul
domain crumbled, France and Britain would become the principal rivals for hegemony.
c
for the rest of his life. One might say that Aurangzeb ruled with such force that the Empire
shattered in his hands. For a good while, as the realm broke up, the Throne was passed between
brothers and cousins. Some stability was achieved when it no longer made much difference. The
last, aging Moghul, Bahâdur Shâh II, threw his lot with the Mutineers and was deposed by the
British.
Î '0 the release from captivity of
Shahu I, Marathan power
Balaji Vishvanath 1713-1720 recovered quickly and a large
Shahu I 1708-1749 Baji Rao I 1720-1740 part of central India was lost to
the Moghuls forever. Although
Balaji Baji Rao 1740-1761 the Marathan domain is often
called an "Empire," we also
Madhava Rao Ballal 1761-1772 see it called merely a
"Confederacy." This may
( ? indicate some difficulties in
( %$ holding the domain together,
%% which ultimately rendered it
Ramaraja II 1749-1777
Narayan Rao 1772-1773 less powerful than its extent
might indicate. We also get the
Raghunath Rao 1773-1774 curious circumstance that
Shahu I began to leave the
Madhava Rao Narayan 1774-1796 responsibilities of government
to his minister, Balaji
Chimnaji Appa 1796 Vishvanath. The line of
Shahu II 1777-1808
ministers, the Peshwas, come
Baji Rao II 1796-1818 to exercise the rule of the
Pratap Singh 1808-1839 Marathan domain, which is
sometimes then said to simply
Shahji Raja 1839-1848 be the realm "of the Peshwas."
In three wars between 1776
c
and 1818, the British defeated the Marathans and annexed a good part of their territory.
Both the Nawwâb Anwar ud-Din of the Carnatic and the Nâs.ir Jang of Hyderabad
were killed in battle with the French allied to pretenders to their positions. French forces were
sent with Muz.affar Jang to support his government in Hyderabad. However, in 1752 their
candidate for the Carnatic, Chanda Sahib, was defeated in battle, surrendered, and then was
executed by the British candidate, Muhammad 'Ali, who would then rule under British protection
for many years.
By 1756, Dupleix had been recalled (in 1754), and his policies repudiated. His job, after all, was
to make money, not to make war on the English or take over Indian states. He had done this with
some justification during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) but his aggressive
actions had continued after the Peace. This was a problem, and, indeed, the adventure in
Hyderabad never did make any money for the French.
In retrospect, Dupleix's recall looks ill considered, as the Seven Years War (1756-1763) was
about to begin; the local French forces
need to make war on the English; and France
would need as strong a position as possible to do that. She wasn't going to have it, and the British
would be just as victorious in the war in India as in the Americas. But that is in hindsight. Back
in France in 1754, it would not have been appreciated that Dupleix had created a whole new
dynamic in Indian history. Formerly, Moghul authority continued to external appearances and
Europeans approached local officials deferentially with nothing but trade privileges in mind.
Now, with some exceptions and setbacks, the European traders could make and unmake local
authorities at will. This was at first discovered and exploited by the French, but the British would
prove far better and more successful at the game.
''(ÿ%%$
Sarfarâz Khân 'Alâ' adDawla 1739-1740 Originally the Moghul governors of Bengal, the
decline of Moghul power resulted in effective
'Alîwirdî Khân Hâshim independence for the Nawwâbs. The clash with
1740-1756 British power, however, spelled the end of
adDawla
independence and the beginning of British India.
Mîrzâ Mah.mûd Sirâj Clive became the effective founder of the British
1756-1757
adDawla Empire in India, and the Battle of Plassey, 1757,
where Clive defeated and dethroned the Nawwâb
* ( (
of Bengal, Sirâj adDawla, was one of the supreme
ÿ %% moments of British Imperial history.
Mîr Ja'far Muh.ammad Khân 1757-1760
In 1765, Clive obtained from the Moghul Emperor
Hâshim adDawla 1763-1765
Shâh 'Âlam II, who was a fugitive in British care, a
Mîr Qâsim 'Alî 1760-1763 grant of the c , or revenue responsiblity for
the province of Bengal. This made the British East
Najm ud-Dawlah 1765-1766 India Company, as the Diwan of Bengal, part of
the consitutional order of the Moghul Empire, and
Saif ud-Dawlah 1766-1770 it is often considered the beginning of British Rule,
ÿ ¦
the "Râj," , in India. However, Clive had no
%$
+ intention of replacing the Nawwâbs, and the
''( Company intended to leave local officials in place
to collect the actual revenues of Bengal. This was
Governor,
consistent with Clive's previous policy of
1755-
Robert Clive supporting local rule, when he installed Mîr Qâsim
1760,
as Nawwâb in 1760. Mîr Qâsim was a competent
1764-1767
ruler, but, after Clive left, he was essentially
Henry Vansittart 1760-1764 doubled-crossed by the enemies of both himself
and Clive, manueuvered into a war, and then
# ?0 p %$$%$& driven from Bengal. The incompetent Mîr Ja'far
was restored, evidently with the intention of
Henry Verelst 1767-1769 employing him only as a puppet. Clive, on his
return, could not undo this , but he did try to
John Cartier 1769-1772 retain the Nawwâb as a real factor in the
governance of Bengal, with the East India
Company as c .
The Nawwâb at least remained so until 1880, when Mansur Ali Khan, the last Nawwâb
of Bengal, was deposed. His son, however, Hassan Ali Mirza Khan Bahadur, succeeded with the
title Nawwâb of Murshidabad. The titular line of Nawwâbs actually continued until 1969, when
the main line died out and the succession was left in dispute.
Bengal became one of the three "Presidencies" through which direct British rule in India was
effected (with different arrangements for the Princely States, which remained nominally under
local rule). The others were Bombay and Madras. However, Bengal was also the seat of general
British authority; and when the Governor of Bengal became the actual Governor-General of
c
India, his seat continued to be in Calcutta. The capital of India was not moved to Delhi until
rather late in British rule, in 1912. New Delhi became the capital in 1931.
The British conquest of India was the first that progressed rather than the Ganges.
Previous invasions had all come from Central Asia over the Hindu Kush and the Khyber Pass.
This had happened so often, beginning with the Arya in the 2nd millennium BC, that is rather
difficult to say just how many such invasions were there. The British, however, like all the
European powers, had come by sea. Where the Persians or the Afghans, most recently, would
head straight for Delhi, the British were coming up all the way from Calcutta. They wouldn't get
to Delhi until 1803.
Governor-General
Warren Hastings
1772-1785
1786-1793
Lord Cornwallis
& 1805
Lord Moira
1813-1823
(Lord Hastings)
assumed by the
Company until 1793.
Hastings thus inaugurates direct Birtish rule over India, even if it is still really only the
East India Company, and even if the fiction of Moghul sovereignty is retained for a while.
British rule is often called ")," from the Sanskrit and Hindi-Urdu word for "King." This is
written in Urdu and in Hindi. There is no reason not to call the regime of the Moghuls
or Guptas "the Raj" also, but the term seems to be restricted to the British dominion.
The very odd thing about this period is the ambiguity about just who owned British possessions
in India and who the real sovereign authority was. The British constitutional authority in Bengal
under Hastings was still based on authorizations from the Moghul Emperors. Some fiction of
Moghul sovereignty was maintained at least until 1827 -- although the Moghul Emperor himself
had been living under British rule since 1803. In 1813, when the charter of the East India
Company was renewed, the British Parliament did formally assert the sovereignty of the British
Crown over the Company's territories in India. This unilateral declaration, although recognized
after 1815 by other European powers, was less obviously asserted in India itself. Lord Hastings
did not meet with the Emperor Akbar II in 1814 because the Emperor expected to receive the
Governor-General as a vassal rather than an equal. It would then be in Akbar's reign that most of
the remaining signs of Moghul sovereignty would be stripped away. The Moghul court language,
Persian, was replaced by English in 1828. Originally British Indian coins simply said "East India
Company." In 1835, the face of the King of England (William IV) began appearing on East India
Company coins. The ambiguities were not all settled until 1858, when the Last Moghul, Bahâdur
Shâh II, was deposed (he had sided with the Mutineers), the East India Company was abolished,
and the Governor-General became the Viceroy, the sovereign agent for Queen Victoria.
Nevertheless, another ambiguity continued, which is what of entity India was, simply a
"Crown Colony" or something else? This was cleared up in 1876, when Victoria was proclaimed
Empress of India, meaning that India itself was an Empire, as it was presumed to be under the
Moghuls. Thus, the slow process was completed by which the British Sovereign replaced the
Moghul.
The slow progress of claims to sovereignty may indicate the ambivalent nature of the British
presence in India. They really were there just to make some money; and the very idea that the
British would in India like Ashoka or Akbar was something that was both foreign and
repugnant to a great deal of British public opinion. The Whigs and their successors, the Liberals,
c
were never happy about British "imperialism." In this era an interesting example of the
controversy was the impeachment (1787) and prosecution (1788-1795) of Warren Hastings, the
first formal
Governor-
General of
India, after
his return
home. This
was led by
Edmund
Burke and
other Whig
leaders,
charging that
Hastings had
been a corrupt
tyrant
exploiting and
victimizing
the people of
India. While
many would
now think of
the whole
British sojourn in India as of that nature, and there is no doubt that in the 1770's and '80's there
was a bit of a Wild West feel to many who wanted to make their fortune in the country, Hastings
himself actually seems to have been relatively conscientious and benevolent. The fury of Burke's
attacks and the extraordinary length of the trial may have helped generate positive sympathy for
Hastings -- the cartoon shows him literally attacked by, from left to right, Burke, Lord North, and
another Whig leader, Charles James Fox. He was acquited. The whole business, however,
exposes such uncertainties as can never have troubled the likes of Mahmud of Ghazna or Bâbur
the Great Moghul.
Two remarkable undertakings in this period were the suppression of Suttee and of Thugee.
Suttee was the burning of widows on the pyres of their husbands. This was supposed to be
voluntary, as an act of devotion, as Sita did for her husband Rama in the Epic (though
a correspondent has denied this), but it mainly became an act of murder, by which the husband's
family could rid themselves of an unwanted daughter-in-law (now I hear the claim that it was
only done to protect widows from rape by British soldiers -- though the murder of daughters-in-
law and widows is not unheard of in recent India). The Thugs were devotees of the goddess Kali,
who murdered and then robbed in her name (the practice of Thugee). Since the Thugs were a
secret society, exposing and arresting them was a more difficult and protracted process. That
these practices were worthy of suppression provides an interesting subject for arguments about
cultural relativism. At the time they did raise fears that the British intended to replace native
religion with Christianity, which helped provoke the Great Mutiny.
c
Raj even now tend to revolve around features of the regime inherited from the Moghuls. The
very idea of foreign conquest and rule being wrong, for instance, by which the whole British
presence in India can be condemned, is itself a supremely Liberal judgment, unrelated to any
value from traditional India. Nothing would have been so traditional as for Queen Victoria to
have proclaimed herself, not the Empress, but the -- certainly apt for a ruler who
possessed a realm upon which the Sun Never Set. Thus, it is shocking to think of Mutineers
being "blown from the guns," but who are we to ethnocentrically criticize traditional Indian
practices? %
but it is if all one has done is read Leninist economics [see Thomas Sowell,
?
, "Andhra Pradesh," pp.65-69, William Morrow & Co., 1990].
Hyderabad is an important case to demonstrate that economic development can vary with history
even where race, language, culture, and religion are otherwise identical.
ÿ m
* "
¦0¦!
"
!# ?
When India became independent in
1947, it legally became a British
&
, which means that the
'&
King of England was still the
Lord Chelmsford 1916-1921 formal Head of State.
George (V) 1910-1936 0(, the last Viceroy,
m ?p && was asked by o' ,
the new Prime Minister, to stay on
Lord Reading 1921-1926 as Governor-General of the
Dominion. There was then only
Lord Irwin
1926-1931 one Indian Governor-General
(Lord Halifax) before the country was declared a
Lord Willingdon 1931-1936 Republic in 1950. The first
Governor-General of Pakistan,
which similarly became a Dominion, was the Moslem nationalist leader, 0 ?
o. Jinnah died of cancer in 1948, and there were several Pakistani Governors-General
before the country became a Republic in 1956.
What the British heritage in India tends to stand for is something democratic, unifying, fair, and
evenhanded -- a plus for India and a tribute to the British. One accusation against British
evenhandedness was what seemed their preference for Muslims, which may have led to
unnecessary haste in deciding to partition the country. However, it has always been the policy of
every imperial power to use the services of minorities who dislike or fear the prospect of
c
In India, Islam with the imperial power of Ghazna, the Ghurids, and the Moghuls, and
Muslims had lived under a Hindu majority government. For reasons both rational and
irrational, the movement arose to avoid this. Whether or not the British, who certainly included
Islamophiles like Sir Richard Burton, favored Muslims (though others, like Colonel James Tod,
admired the warlike Hindu Rajputs, cf. ?
? , 1829, 1832), we are
now familiar enough with the cultural dynamic of Islâm to see that very little favor indeed, if
any, was necessary to produce the nationalism of Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Even if the British had
granted independence to India in 1919 or 1930, before Jinnah's movement began, it is not
difficult to see a certainty of the emergence of something much like it, whose consequence
would have been civil war rather than quick Partition -- however terrible things often were
during the Partition, with many indicidents of mutual massacre, though sometimes these were
stopped by the remarkable influence of Gandhi. The partition that Muslims favored in India as
the minority, of course, they rejected as the solution for Palestine, where they were the majority.
arriving in the mountains to the north. The most famous casualty of this war is the fictional John
H. Watson, M.D., whose wound and small income led to him to find a roommate in the person of
one Sherlock Holmes. The rest is, after a fashion, history. The practical end of the Great Game
may have come in 1905, when the Wakhan salient was attached to Afghanistan to separate India
from Russia. It still gives Afghanistan a small border with China. The Third Afghan War (1919),
led to full formal Afghan independence in 1921. The Russians eventually arrived after all in
1979 but in the end probably wished that they had not bothered, with the Soviet Union itself
collapsing shortly after the Russian occupation ended in 1989. Now, however, after Afghanistan
began harboring Islamist terrorists, an American and NATO military presence (2001) has mainly
succeeded in chasing the radicals and their allies into the mountains within the Pakistani border.
This region, shown as annexed by the British in 1890 and 1893, is a primitive tribal area that was
never very much under British control. The Pakistanis have not done markedly better with the
place, which is still protected by the fearsome terrain, the resolute anarchy of the inhabitants, and
now by the political problem of Islamist and pro-terrorist sentiment within Pakistan itself, which
makes a sustained crackdown unpopular. V
&
ÿ m
¦0¦! *" "
*Î "
Edward
1936
(VIII) Lord Linlithgow 1936-1943
Emperor,
Lord Wavell 1943-1947
1936-1947
1947
Governor- Governor-
Lord General General
Mountbatten Mohammad Ali
of India, of
Jinnah
1947- Pakistan,
George (VI) King; 1948 1947-1948
India
1947- Governor-
1950, General Governor-
Chakravarti,
Pakistan of India, General
Rajagopalachari Khwaja
1947-1952 1948- of
1950 Nazimuddin
Pakistan,
( 1948-1951
(&
1952-1956 of
Pakistan,
1951-1955
Governor-
General
Iskander Mirza of
Pakistan,
1955-1956
British Coins before the Florin, Compared to French Coins of the ? '
Sangoku Index
Philosophy of History
Home Page
1 && &&& $ % & Î
?
c