Political Economy of the Ancient India
Political Economy of the Ancient IndiaPolitical Economy of the Ancient India
Md. Imtiazur Rahman
Content :
1. India from the Paleolithic Period to the decline of the Indus Civilization
2. The early Muslim period(North India under Muslim hegemony, c. 1200-1526)
3.Early Muslim India (c. 1200-c. 1500).
The Delhi sultanate
4. The Mughal Empire, 1526-1761 :
The significance of Mughal rule
The establishment of the Mughal Empire
Babur
Humayun
Akbar
Jahangir
Shah Jahan
Aurangzeb
5. British imperial power, 1858-1947
Climax of the raj, 1858-85
Social policy
6. European activity in India, 1498-c. 1760 , The Portuguese
7. The Republic of India
The Nehru era, 1947-64
Regional states, c. 1700-1850
The Marathas: early history
Additional facts of India:
8. Indian architecture
9. Indian literature
10. Indian music
11. Indian philosophy
Jaina philosophy
Mughal philosophy
Sruti and the nature of authority
12. Development of the notion of transmigration
Nagarjuna and Sunyavada
Contributions of Vasubandhu and Asanga
13. Indian sculpture
India from the Paleolithic Period to the decline of the
Indus Civilization
The earliest periods of Indian history are known only through reconstructions from
archaeological evidence. In the late 20th century, much new data emerged, allowing a far
fuller reconstruction than was formerly possible. This section will discuss five major
periods:
(1) the early prehistoric period (before the 8th millennium BC),
(2) the period of the prehistoric agriculturalists and pastoralists (approximately the 8th to
the mid-4th millennium BC),
(3) the Early Indus or Early Harappan Period (so called after the excavated city of
Harappa), witnessing the emergence of the first cities in the Indus River system (c. 3500�
2600 BC),
(4) the Indus, or Harappan, Civilization (c. 2600�2000 BC, or perhaps ending as late as
1750 BC), and
(5) the Post-Urban Period, which follows the Indus Civilization and precedes the rise of
cities in northern India during the second quarter of the 1st millennium BC (c. 1750�750
BC).
The materials available for a reconstruction of the history of India prior to the 3rd century
BC are almost entirely the products of archaeological research. Traditional and textual
sources, transmitted orally for many centuries, are available from the closing centuries of
the 2nd millennium BC, but their use depends largely upon the extent to which any
passage can be dated or associated with archaeological evidence. For the rise of civilization
in the Indus Valley and for contemporary events in other parts of the subcontinent, the
evidence of archaeology is still the principal source of information. Even when it becomes
possible to read the short inscriptions of the Harappan seals, it is unlikely that they will
provide much information to supplement other sources. In these circumstances it is
necessary to approach the early history of India largely through the eyes of the
archaeologists, and it will be wise to retain a balance between an objective assessment of
archaeological data and its synthetic interpretation.
The early Muslim period
North India under Muslim hegemony, c. 1200�1526
The first Muslim raids in the subcontinent were made by Arabs on the western coast and
in Sindh during the 7th and 8th centuries, and there had been Muslim trading
communities in India at least since that time. The significant and permanent military
movement of Muslims into North India, however, dates from the late 12th century and was
carried out by a Turkish dynasty that arose indirectly from the ruins of the \'Abbasid
caliphate. The road to conquest was prepared by Sultan Ma hmud of Ghazna (modern
Ghazni in Afghanistan), who conducted more than 20 raids into North India between 1001
and 1027 and established in the Punjab the easternmost province of his large but shortlived
empire. Ma hmud\'s raids, though militarily successful, primarily had as their object the
taking of plunder rather than conquest.
Early Muslim India (c. 1200�c. 1500).
The Delhi sultanate
The decline of the Ghaznavids after 1100 was accentuated by the sack of Ghazna by the
rival Shansabanis of Ghur in 1150�51. The Gh urids, who inhabited the region between
Ghazna and Herat, rose rapidly in power during the last half of the 12th century, partly
because of the changing balance of power that resulted from the westward movement of
the non-Muslim Karakitai Turks into the area dominated by the Seljuq Turks, who had
been the principal power in Iran and parts of Afghanistan during the previous 50 years.
The Seljuq defeat in 1141 led to a struggle for power among the Karakitai, the Khwarezm-
Shahs, and the Ghurids for control of parts of Central Asia and Iran. By 1152 Ghazna had
been captured again by the Ghurid ruler, \'Ala\'-ud-Din. After his death the Ghurid territory
was partitioned principally between his two nephews, Ghiy as-ud-Din Muhammad and
Mu\'izz-ud-Din Muhammad ibn Sam, commonly called Muhammad of Ghur. Ghiyas-ud-Din
ruled over Ghur from Firuz-Kuh and looked toward Khorasan, while Muhammad of Ghur
was established in Ghazna and began to try his luck in India for expansion. The Ghurid
invasions of North India were thus part of a Central Asian struggle.
Almost all of North India was, however, already in contact with Ghur through an extensive
trade, particularly in horses. The Ghurids were well known as horse breeders. Ghur also
had a reputation for supplying Indian and Turkish slaves to the markets of Central Asia.
Muslim merchants and saints had settled much beyond Sindh and the Punjab in a number
of towns in what is now Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The Ghurids also were familiar with the
fabulous wealth of western and central India. They therefore followed first the southern
route into India through the Gumal Pass, with an eye set eventually on Gujarat. It was
only after suffering a severe defeat at the hands of the Caulukya army of Gujarat that they
turned to the northern route through the Khyber Pass.
The development of Indian civilization from c. 1500 BC to c. AD
1200
Principal sites of the Indus Civilization .
The European scholars who reconstructed early Indian history in the 19th century regarded
it as essentially static and Indian society as concerned only with things spiritual.
Indologists, such as the German Max M�ller, relied heavily on the Sanskritic tradition and
saw Indian society as an idyllic village culture emphasizing qualities of passivity,
meditation, and otherworldliness. In sharp contrast was the approach of the British
historian James Mill and the utilitarians, who condemned Indian culture as irrational and
inimical to human progress. Mill first formulated a periodization of Indian history into
Hindu, Muslim, and British periods, a scheme that, while still commonly used, is now
controversial. During the 19th century, direct contact with Indian institutions through
administration, together with the utilization of new evidence from recently deciphered
inscriptions, numismatics, and local archives, provided fresh insights. Nationalist Indian
historians of the early 20th century tended to exaggerate the glory of the past but
nevertheless introduced controversy into historical interpretation, which in turn resulted in
more precise studies of Indian institutions. In recent decades, historians have
reconstructed in greater detail the social, economic, and cultural history of the
subcontinent.
A major change in the interpretation of Indian history has been a questioning of an older
notion of Oriental despotism as the determining force. Arising out of a traditional European
perspective on Asia, this image of despotism grew to vast proportions in the 19th century
and provided an intellectual justification for colonialism and imperialism. Its deterministic
assumptions clouded the understanding of early interrelationships among Indian political
forms, economic patterns, and social structures.
A considerable change is noticeable during this period in the role of institutions. Clan -
based societies had assemblies, whose political role changed with the transformation of
tribe into state and with oligarchic and monarchical governments. Centralized imperialism,
which was attempted in the Mauryan Period (c. 325�185 BC), gave way gradually to
decentralized administration and to what has been called feudalistic pattern in the Post-
Gupta Period�i.e., from the 7th century AD. Although the village as an administrative and
social unit remained constant, its relationship with the mainstream of history varied. The
concept of divine kingship was known but rarely taken seriously, the claim to the status of
the caste of royalty becoming more important. Because conformity to the social order had
precedence over allegiance to the state, the idea of representation found expression not so
much in political institutions as in caste and village assemblies. The pendulum of politics
swung from large to small kingdoms, with the former attempting to establish empires�the
sole successful attempt being that of the Mauryan. Thus, true centralization was rare,
because local forces often determined historical events. Although imperial or near -imperial
periods were marked by attempts at the evolution of uniform cultures, the periods of
smaller kingdoms (often referred to as the Dark Ages by earlier historians) were more
creative at the local level and witnessed significant changes in society and religion. It was
also these small kingdoms that often boasted the most elaborate and impressive
monuments.
The major economic patterns were those relating to land and to commerce. The transition
from tribal to peasant society was a continuing process, with the gradual clearing of
wasteland and the expansion of the village economy based on plow agriculture.
Recognition of the importance of land revenue coincided with the emergence of the
imperial system in the 4th century BC; and from this period onward, although the imperial
structure did not last long, land revenue became central to the administration and income
of the state. Frequent mentions of individual ownership, references to crown lands,
numerous land grants to religious and secular grantees in the Post-Gupta Period, and
detailed discussion in legal sources of the rights of purchase, bequest, and sale of land all
clearly indicate that private ownership of land existed. Much emphasis has been laid on the
state control of the irrigation system; yet a systematic study of irrigation in India reveals
that it was generally privately controlled and that it serviced small areas of land. When the
state built canals, they were mainly in the areas of the winter and summer monsoons and
where village assemblies played a dominant part in revenue and general administration,
as, for example, in the Cola (Chola) kingdom of South India.
The urban economy was crucial to the rise of civilization in the Indus Valley (c. 2600 �2000
BC). Later, the 1st millennium BC saw an urban civilization in the Ganges Valley and still
later in coastal South India. The emergence of towns was based on administrative needs,
the requirements of trade, and pilgrimage centres. In the 1st millennium AD, when
commerce expanded to include trade with western Asia, the eastern Mediterranean, and
Central and Southeast Asia, revenue from trade contributed substantially to the economies
of the participating kingdoms, as indeed Indian religion and culture played a significant
part in the cultural evolution of Central and Southeast Asia. Gold coins were issued for the
first time by the Ku sanas and in large quantity by the Guptas; both kingdoms were active
in foreign trade. Gold was imported from Central Asia and Rome and later perhaps from
eastern Africa because, in spite of India\'s recurring association with gold, its sources were
limited. Expanding trade encouraged the openin g up of new routes, and this, coupled with
the expanding village economy, led to a marked increase of knowledge about the
subcontinent during the Post-Mauryan Period. With increasing trade, guilds became more
powerful in the towns. Members of the guilds participated in the administration, were
associated with politics, and controlled the development of trade through merchant
embassies sent to places as far afield as Rome and China. Not least, guilds and merchant
associations held envied and respectable positions as donors of religious institutions.
The structure of Indian society was characterized by caste. The distinguishing features of a
caste society were endogamous kinship groups (jati) arranged in a hierarchy of ritual
ranking, based on notions of pollution and purity, with an intermeshing of service
relationships and an adherence to geographic location. There was some coincidence
between caste and access to economic resources. Although ritual hierarchy was
unchanging, there appears to have been mobility within the framework. Migrations of
peoples both within the subcontinent and from outside encouraged social mobility and
change. The nucleus of the social structure was the family, with the pattern of kinship
relations varying from region to region. In the more complex urban structure, occupational
guilds occasionally took on jati functions, and there was a continual emergence of new
social and professional groups.
Religion in early Indian history did not constitute a monolithic force. Even when the royalty
attempted to encourage certain religions, the idea of a state religion was absent. In the
main, there were three levels of religious expression. The most widespread was the
worship of local cult deities vaguely associated with major deities, as seen in fertility cults,
in the worship of mother goddesses, in the Sakta -Sakti cult, and in Tantrism. Less
widespread but popular, particularly in the urban areas, were the more puritanical sects of
Buddhism and Jainism and the bhakti tradition of Hinduism. A third level included classical
Hinduism and more abstract levels of Buddhism and Jainism, with an emphasis on the
major deities in the case of the first and on the teachings of the founders in the case of the
latter two. It was this level, endorsed by affluent patronage, that provided the base for the
initial institutionalization of religion. But the three levels were not isolated; the shadow of
the third fell over the first two, the more homely rituals and beliefs of which often crept
into the third. This was the case particularly with Hinduism, the very flexibility of which
was largely responsible for its survival. Forms of Buddhism, ranging from an emphasis on
the constant refinement of doctrine, on the one hand, to an incorporation of magical
fertility cults in its beliefs, on the other, faded out toward the end of this period.
Sanskrit literature and the building of Hindu and Buddhist temples and sculpture both
reached apogees in this period. Although literary works in Sanskrit continued to be written
and te mples were built in later periods, the achievement was never again as inspiring.
C. 1500�c. 500 BC
By about 1500 BC an important change began to occur in the northern half of the Indian
subcontinent. The Indus Civilization had declined by about 2000 BC (or perhaps as late as
1750 BC), and the stage was being set for a second and more lasting urbanization in the
Ganges Valley. The new areas of occupation were contiguous with, but seldom identical to,
the core of the Harappan area. There was continuity of occupation in the Punjab and
Gujarat, and a new thrust toward urbanization came from the migration of peoples from
the Punjab into the Ganges Valley.
The Mughal Empire, 1526�1761
The significance of Mughal rule
The Mughal Empire at its zenith commanded resources unprecedented in Indian history
and covered almost the entire subcontinent. From 1556 to 1707, during the heyday of
its fabulous wealth and glory, the Mughal Empire was a fairly efficient and centralized
organization, with a vast complex of personnel, money, and information dedicated to the
service of the emperor and his nobility.
.Much of the empire\'s expansion during this period was attributable to India\'s growing
commercial and cultural contact with the outside world. The 16th and 17th centuries
brought the establishment and expansion of European and non-European trading
organizations in the subcontinent, principally for the procurement of Indian goods in
demand abroad. Indian regions drew close to each other by means of a dense overland
and coastal trading network, significantly augmenting the internal surplus of precious
metals. With expanded connections to the wider world came also new ideologies and
technologies to challenge and enrich the imperial edifice.
The empire itself, however, was a purely Indian historical experience. Mughal culture
blended Perso-Isl amic and regional Indian elements into a distinctive but variegated whole.
Although by the early 18th century the regions had begun to reassert their independent
positions, the Mughal idiom outlasted imperial central authority. The imperial centre, in
fact, came to be controlled by the regions. The trajectory of the Mughal Empire over its
first 200 years (1526�1748) thus provides a fascinating illustration of premodern state
building in the Indian subcontinent.
The individual abilities and achievements of the early Mughals�Babur, Humayun, and later
Akbar�largely charted this course. B abur and Humayun struggled against heavy odds to
create the Mughal domain, while Akbar, besides consolidating and expanding its frontiers,
provided the theoretical framework for a truly Indian state. Picking up the thread of
experimentation from the intervening Sur dynasty (1540 �56), Akbar attacked narrowmindedness
and bigotry, absorbed Hindus in the high ranks of the nobility, and
encouraged the tradition of ruling through the local Hindu landed elites. This tradition
continued until the very end of the Mughal Empire, despite the fact that some of Akbar\'s
successors, notably Aurangzeb (1658�1707), had to concede to contrary forces.
The establishment of the Mughal Empire
Babur
The foundation of the empire was laid in 1526 by Zahir-ud-Din Muhammad Babur, a
Chagatai Turk (so called because his ancestral homeland, the country north of the Amu
Darya [Oxus River] in Central Asia, was the heritage of Chagatai Khan, the son of Genghis
Khan). Babur was a fifth-generation descendant of Timur on the side of his father and a
14th-generation descendant of Genghis Khan. His idea of conquering India was inspired, to
begin with, by the story of the exploits of Timur, who had invaded the subcontinent in
1398.
Babur inherited his father\'s principality in Fergana at a young age in 1494. Soon he was
literally a fugitive, in the midst of both an internecine fight among the Timurids and a
struggle between them and the rising Uzbeks over the erstwhile Timurid e mpire in the
region. In 1504 he conquered Kabul and Ghazni. In 1511 he recaptured Samarkand, only
to realize that, with the Safavids in Iran and the Uzbeks in Central Asia, he should rather
turn to the southeast toward India to have an empire of his own. As a Timurid, Babur had
an eye on the Punjab, part of which had been Timur\'s possession. He made several
excursions in the tribal habitats there. Between 1519 and 1524, when he invaded Bhera,
Sialkot, and Lahore, he showed his definite intention to conquer Hindustan, where the
political scene favoured his adventure.
Humayun
also called Nasin-ud-din Muhammad born March 6, 1508, Kabul, India
died January 1556, Delhi
second Mughal ruler of India, who was more an adventurer than a consolidator of his
empire. The son and successor of Babur, who had founded the Mughal dynasty, Hum ayun
ruled from 1530 to 1540 and again from 1555 to 1556.
Humayun inherited the hope rather than the fact of empire, because the Afghans and
Rajputs were merely restrained but not reconciled to Mughal supremacy by the Mughal
victories at Panipat (1526), Khanua (1527), and the Ghaghara (1529). Bahadur Sh ah of
Gujarat, encouraged by Afghan and Mughal �migr�s, challenged the Mughals in Rajasthan;
and, although Humayun occupied Gujarat in 1535, the danger there ended only with
Bahadur\'s death in 1537. Meanwhile, a Sur Afghan soldier of fortune, Sher Shah, had
consolidated his power in Bihar and Bengal and defeated Humayun at Chausa in 1539 and
at Kannauj in 1540, expelling him from India.
Humayun became a homeless wanderer, seeking support first in Sind, then in Marwar, and
then in Sind again; his famous son, Akbar, was born in 1542. Reaching Iran in 1544,
Humayun was granted military aid by Sh ah Tahmasp and went on to conquer Qandahar
(1545) and to seize Kabul three times from his own disloyal brother, Kamran, the final
time being in 1550. Taking advantage of civil wars among the descendants of Sher Shah,
Humayun captured Lahore in February 1555, and, after defeating Sikandar Sur, the rebel
Afghan governor of the Punjab, at Sirhind, he recovered Delhi and Agra that July.
Humayun was fatally injured by falling down the staircase of his library.
Akbar
born Oct. 15, 1542, Umarkot, Sind, India
died 1605, Agra
in full Abu-ul-fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar
greatest of the Mughal emperors of India (reigning 1556 �1605), who extended Mughal
power over most of the Indian subcontinent. In order to preserve the unity of his empire,
Akbar adopted programs that won the loyalty of the non-Muslim populations of his realm.
He reformed and strengthened his central administration and also centralized his financial
system and reorganized tax collection processes. Although he never renounced Isl am, he
took an active interest in other religions, persuading Hindus, Parsis, and Christians, as well
as Muslims, to engage in religious discussion before him. Illiterate himself, he encouraged
scholars, poets, painters, and musicians, making his court a centre of culture.
Jahangir
born Aug. 31, 1569, Fatehpur S ikri, India
died Oct 28, 1627, en route to Lahore
also spelled Jehangir
Mughal emperor of India from 1605 to 1627.
Born Prince Salim, Jahangir was early marked for the succession by his father, Akbar.
Impatient for power, however, he revolted in 1599 while Akbar was engaged in the
Deccan. Akbar on his deathbed confirmed Jahangir as his successor.
Jahangir continued his father\'s traditions. A war with the Rajput principality of Mewar was
ended in 1614 on generous terms. Campaigns against Ahmadnagar, initiated under
Akbar\'s rule, were continued fitfully, with Mughal arms and diplomacy often thwarted by
the able Habshi, Malik \'Amb ar. In 1617 and 1621, however, Prince Khurram (later Shah
Jahan; q.v.) concluded apparently victorious peaces. Jahangir, like his father, was not a
strict Sunnite Muslim; he allowed, for example, the Jesuits to dispute publicly with Muslim
ulama (theologians) and to make converts.
After 1611 Jahangir accepted the influence of his Persian wife, Mehr on-Nesa\' (Nur Jahan);
her father, I\'timad-ud-Dawlah; and her brother Asaf Khan. Together with Prince Khurram,
this clique dominated politics until 1622. Thereafter, Jahangir\'s declining years were
darkened by a breach between Nur Jahan and Prince Khurram, who rebelled openly
between 1622 and 1625. In 1626 Jahangir was temporarily placed under duress by
Mahabat Khan, another rival of Nur Jahan\'s group. Jahangir died while traveling from
Kashmir to Lahore.
A heavy drinker and opium eater (until excess taught him comparative moderation),
Jahangir encouraged Persian culture in Mughal India. He possessed a sensitivity to nature,
acute perception of human character, and artistic sensibility, which expressed itself in an
unmatched patronage of painting.
Shah Jahan
born Jan. 5, 1592, Lahore, India
died Jan. 22, 1666, Agra
also spelled Shahjahan, also called (until 1628) Prince Khurram
Mughal emperor of India (1628�58) and builder of the Taj Mahal.
He was the third son of the Mughal emperor Jahangir and the R ajput princess Manmati.
Marrying in 1612 Arjumand Banu Baygam, niece of Jahangir\'s wife Nur Jahan, he became,
as Prince Khurram, one of the influential Nur Jahan clique of the middle period of
Jahangir\'s reign. In 1622 Shah Jahan, ambitious to win the succession, rebelled,
ineffectually roaming the empire until reconciled to Jahangir in 1625. After Jahangir\'s
death in 1627, the support of Asaf Khan, Nur Jahan\'s brother, enabled Shah Jahan to
proclaim himself emperor at Agra (February 1628).
Shah Jahan\'s reign was notable for successes against the Deccan states. By 1636
Ahmadnagar had been annexed and Golconda and Bijapur forced to become tributaries.
Mughal power was also temporarily extended in the northwest. In 1638 the Persian
governor of Qandahar, \'Al i Mardan Khan, surrendered that fortress to the Mughals. In 1646
Mughal forces occupied Badakhshan and Balkh, but in 1647 Balkh was relinquished, and
attempts to reconquer it in 1649, 1652, and 1653 failed. The Persians reconquered
Qandahar in 1649. Shah Jahan transferred his capital from Agra to Delhi in 1648, creating
the new city of Shahjahanabad there.
In September 1657 Shah Jahan fell ill, precipitating a struggle for succession among his
four sons, Dara Shikoh, Murad Bakhsh, Shah Shuja\', and Aurangzeb. The victor,
Aurangzeb, declared himself emperor in 1658 and strictly confined Sh ah Jahan in the fort
at Agra until his death.
Shah Jahan had an almost insatiable passion for building. At his first capital, Agra, he
undertook the building of two great mosques, the Moti Masjid and J ami\' Masjid (Great
Mosque), as well as the superb mausoleum known as the Taj Mahal (q.v.). The Taj Mahal
is the masterpiece of his reign and was erected in memory of the favourite of his three
queens, Mumtaz Mahal (the mother of Aurangzeb). At Delhi, Sh ah Jahan built a huge
fortress-palace complex called the Red Fort as well as the Jami\' Masjid, which is among the
finest mosques in India. Shah Jahan\'s reign was also a period of great literary activity,
while the arts of painting and calligraphy were not neglected. His court was one of great
pomp and splendour, and his collection of jewels was probably the most splendid in the
world.
Indian writers have generally characterized Shah Jahan as the very ideal of a Muslim
monarch. But though the splendour of the Mughal court reached its zenith under him, he
also set in motion influences that finally led to the decline of the empire. His expeditions
against Balkh and Badakhshan and his attempts to recover Qandahar brought the empire
to the verge of bankruptcy. In religion, Shah Jahan was a more orthodox Muslim than
Jahangir or Akbar but a less orthodox one than Aurangzeb. He proved a relatively tolerant
ruler toward his Hindu subjects.
Aurangzeb
born Nov. 3, 1618, Dhod, Malwa, India
died March 3, 1707
also spelled Aurangzib, Arabic Awrangzib, kingly title \'alamgir, original name Muhi-ud-
Din Muhammad
last of the great Mughal em perors of India (reigned 1658�1707). Under him the Mughal
Empire reached its greatest extent, although his policies helped lead to its dissolution.
British imperial power, 1858�1947
Climax of the raj, 1858�85
The quarter century following the bitter Indian revolt of 1857�59, though spanning a peak
of British imperial power in India, ended with the birth of nationalist agitation against it.
For both Indians and British, the period was haunted with dark memories of the mutiny,
and numerous measures were taken by the British raj to avoid another conflict. In 1885,
however, the founding of the Indian National Congress marked the beginnings of effective,
organized protest for �national� self-determination.
On Aug. 2, 1858, less than a month after Canning proclaimed the victory of British arms,
Parliament passed the Government of India Act, transferring British power over India from
the East India Company, whose ineptitude was primarily blamed for the mutiny, to the
crown. The merchant company\'s residual powers were vested in the secretary of state for
India, a minister of Great Britain\'s Cabinet, who would preside over the India Office in
London and be assisted and advised, especially in financial matters, by a Council of India,
which consisted initially of 15 Britons, 7 of whom were elected from among the old
company\'s court of directors and 8 of whom were appointed by the crown. Though some of
Britain\'s most powerful political leaders became secretaries of state for India in the latter
half of the 19th century, actual control over the government of India remained in the
hands of British viceroys (who divided their time between Calcutta and Shimla) and their
�steel -frame� of approximately 1,500 Indian Civil Service (ICS) officials posted �on the
spot� throughout British India.
Social policy
On Nov. 1, 1858, Lord Canning announced Queen Victoria\'s proclamation to �The Princes,
Chiefs and Peoples of India,� which unveiled a new British policy of perpetual support for
�native princes� and nonintervention in matters of religious belief or worship within British
India. The announcement reversed Lord Dalhousie\'s prewar policy of political unification
through princely state annexation, and princes were left free to adopt any heirs they
desired so long as they all swore undying allegiance to the British crown. In 1876, at Prime
Minister Benjamin Disraeli\'s prompting, Queen Victoria added the title Empress of India to
her regality. British fears of another mutiny and consequent determination to bolster
Indian states as �natural breakwaters� against any future tidal wave of revolt thus left
more than 560 enclaves of autocratic princely rule to survive, interspersed throughout
British India, for the entire nine decades of crown rule. The new policy of religious
noninterventi on was born equally out of fear of recurring mutiny, which many Britons
believed had been triggered by orthodox Hindu and Islamic reaction against the
secularizing inroads of utilitarian positivism and the proselytizing of Christian missionaries.
British liberal socioreligious reform therefore came to a halt for more than three decades�
essentially from the East India Company\'s Hindu Widow\'s Remarriage Act of 1856 to the
crown\'s timid Age of Consent Act of 1891, which merely raised the age of statutory rape
for �consenting� Indian brides from 10 years to 12.
The typical attitude of British officials who went to India during this period was, as the
English writer Rudyard Kipling put it, to �take up the White man\'s burden.� By and large,
throughout the interlude of their Indian service to the crown, Britons lived as superbureaucrats,
�Pukka Sahibs,� remaining as aloof as possible from �native contamination� in
their private clubs and well-guarded military cantonments (called camps), which were
constructed beyond the walls of the old, crowded �native� cities in this era. These new
British military towns were initially erected as secure bases for the reorganized British
regiments and were designed with straight roads wide enough for cavalry to gallop through
whenever needed. The old company\'s three armies (located in Bengal, Bombay, and
Madras), which in 1857 had only 45,000 British to 240,000 native troops were reorganized
to a much �safer mix� of 65,000 British to 140,000 Indian soldiers. Selective new British
recruitment policies screened out all �nonmartial� (meaning previously disloyal) Indian
castes and races from armed service and �promiscuously� mixed the soldiers in every
regiment, thus permitting no single caste or linguistic or religious group to again dominate
a British Indian garrison. Indian soldiers were also restricted from handling certain
sophisticated weaponry.
After 1869, with the completion of the Suez Canal and the simultaneous introduction of
steam transport, reducing the sea passage to India from about three months to only three
weeks, British women came to the East with ever greater alacrity, and the British officials
they married found it more appealing to return home with their British wives during
furloughs than to tour India, as their predecessors had done. Fewer British men now dared
to consort openly with Indian women, although some still ventured briefly into the
prostitute quarters of old Indian cities. While the intellectual calibre of British recruits to
the ICS in this era was, on the average, probably higher than that of servants recruited
under the company\'s earlier patronage system, British contacts with Indian society
diminished in every respect, and British sympathy for and understanding of Indian life and
culture were, for the most part, replaced by suspicion, indifference, and fear.
Queen Victoria\'s 1858 promise of racial equality of opportunity in the selection of civil
servants for the government of India had theoretically thrown the ICS open to qualified
Indians, but examinations for the services were given only in Britain and only to male
applicants between the ages of 17 and 22 (in 1878 the maximum age was further reduced
to 19) who could stay in the saddle over a rigorous series of hurdles. It is hardly
surprising, therefor e, that by 1869 only one Indian candidate had managed to clear these
obstacles to win a coveted admission to the ICS. British royal promises of equality were
thus subverted in actual implementation by jealous, fearful bureaucrats posted �on the
spot.�
India and European expansion, c. 1500�1858
European activity in India, 1498�c. 1760
When the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama landed at Calicut in 1498, he was restoring
a link between Europe and the East that had existed many centuries previously. The first
known connection between the two regions had been Alexander the Great\'s invasion of the
Punjab, 327�325 BC. In the 2nd century BC, Greek adventurers from Bactria had founded
kingdoms in the Punjab and the bordering Afghan hills; these survived into the late 1st
century. This territorial contact in the north was succeeded by a lengthy commercial
intercourse in the south, which continued until the decline of the Roman Empire in the 4th
century AD. Trade with the East then passed into Arab hands, and it was mainly concerned
with the Middle Eastern Islamic and Greek worlds until the end of the Middle Ages. The
only physical contact came from occasional travelers, such as the Italians Marco Polo and
Niccol� dei Conti and the Russian Afanasy Nikitin in the 15th century, and these were few
because of commotions within the tolerant Arab -Islamic world created by successive
incursions of Turks and Mongols. For Europe in 1498, therefore, India was a land of spices
and of marvels handed down from imaginative Greek authors. For Muslims, Europe was
the land of Rum, or the Greek empire of Constantinople (Turkish after 1453); and, for
Hindus, it was the abode of the foreigners called Yavanas, a corruption of the Greek word
Ionian.
The Portuguese
The Portuguese were the first agents of this renewed contact, because they were among
the few European nations to possess both the navigational know -how and the necessary
motivation for the long sea voyage. During the 15th century, the land routes for the Indian
trade�via the Red Sea and Egypt or across Persia, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey�had become
increasingly blocked, mainly by Ottoman action. The surviving Egyptian route was subject
to increasing exploitation by a line of middlemen, ending with the Venetian monopoly of
the European trade, and in 1517 it likewise passed under Ottoman suzerainty. The motive
for finding a new route was therefore strong; this task fell to the Portuguese, partly
because the stronger Spaniards were absorbed in discovering the New World (a by-product
of the same search for an Eastern route). The Portuguese further inherited crusading zeal
from wars against the Moors in Portugal and North Africa. Finally, they had learned
navigational techniques from the Genoese, who were disgruntled at their exclusion from
the Mediterranean carrying trade.
When Vasco da Gama arrived in Calicut, he hoped to find Christians cut off by Muslim
action, to deal a blow at Muslim power from their maritime rear, as it were, and to corner
the European spice trade. He found his Christians in the Syrian Christians of Cochin and
Travancore, he found the spices, and he found Muslim Arab merchants entrenched at
Calicut. It was his successors, Francisco de Almeida and Afonso de Albuquerque, who
established the Portuguese empire in the East. Almeida set up a number of fortified posts;
but it was Albuquerque (governor 1509�15) who gave the empire its characteristic form.
He took Goa in western India in 1510, Malacca in the East Indies in 1511, and Hormuz
(Ormuz) in the Persian Gulf in 1515, and he set up posts in the East Indian Spice Islands.
The object of these moves was to establish for Portugal a strategic command of the Indian
Ocean, so as to control the maritime spice trade and to ruin the Ottoman-controlled Middle
Eastern Muslim world by cutting off its trade. Hormuz dominated the Persian Gulf; an
attack on Aden was intended to do the same for the Red Sea. While Malacca was the nerve
centre for the spice -producing islands of Indonesia and the exchange mart for the trade
with the Far East (East Asia), Goa, not Malacca, was the capital because of Portuguese
concern with the Ottomans of the Middle East.
The Portuguese method was to rely on sea power based on fortified posts and backed by
settlements. Portuguese ships, sturdy enough to survive Atlantic gales and mounted with
cannon, could easily dispose of Arab and Malay shipping. The bases enabled the
Portuguese to dominate the main sea-lanes; but Portugal, with fewer than one million
people and involved in Africa and South America as well, was desperately short of
manpower. Albuquerque turned his fortresses into settlements to provide a resident
population for defense. Intermarriage was encouraged. At the same time, Christianity was
encouraged through the church. Goa became an archbishopric. St. Francis Xavier started
from Goa on his mission to the South Indian fishermen. The Inquisition was established in
1560. The new mixed population thus became firmly Roman Catholic and provided a
stubborn resistance to attacks.
A lack of resources precluded any attempt to establish a land empire. Portugal\'s control of
the Indian Ocean�its period of empire�lasted through the 16th century. During this time
it attained great prosperity. Goa acquired the title of Golden, and it became one of the
world\'s wonder cities. Trade with Europe was a royal monopoly, and, in addition, a system
of licenses for all inter-Asian trade enriched the royal exchequer. Inter-Asian trade was
free to individual Portuguese; and it was the profits of this, combined with trimmings from
the royal monopoly, that gave them their affluence.
The three marks of the Portuguese empire continued to be trade, anti-Islamism, and
religion. The Portuguese early considered that no faith need be kept with an infidel, and to
this policy of perfidy they added a tendency to cruelty beyond the normal limits of a very
rough age; the result was to deprive them of Indian sympathy. In religion the Portuguese
were distinguished by missionary fervour and intolerance. Examples of the former are the
Madura mission of Roberto de Nobili (1577�1656), nicknamed the White Brahman, and the
Jesuit missions to the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar (ruled 1556 �1605). Of the latter,
there was the Inquisition at Goa and the forcible subjection of the Syrian church to Rome
at the Synod of Diamper in 1599.
The Portuguese thus had few friends in the East to help them in a crisis, and in 1580 the
Portuguese kingdom was annexed to Spain; thenceforth until 1640, Portuguese interests
were sacrificed to those of Spain. Because of the Spanish failure to quell a Dutch rising in
the Netherlands, and after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, the route to the East
was opened to both English and Dutch. The Dutch arrived first; under their blows in
Indonesia and those of the English in India the Portuguese ascendancy crumbled, though
they retained Goa until 1961.
This first modern impact on India has left distinct though not extensive traces. The first is
the mixed population of Luso-Indians, or Goanese, along the western coast of India and in
Sri Lanka and with them, a lingua franca in the ports and markets. Then came Roman
Catholicism, which today has some 12 million followers and an array of churches,
convents, and colleges all over India. More tangible traces include imported articles such
as tobacco, potatoes, pineapples, tomatoes, papayas, cashew nuts, and two varieties of
chilies.
The Republic of India
The Nehru era, 1947�64
India\'s first years of freedom were plagued by the tragic legacy of partition. Refugee
resettlement, economic disruption and inadequate resources for virtually every need,
continuing communal conflicts (as more than 10 percent of India\'s population remained
Muslim), and, within a few months of independence, the outbreak of undeclared war with
Pakistan over Kashmir were but a few of the major difficulties confronting the newborn
dominion. Mountbatten remained in New Delhi to serve as India\'s first new governorgeneral,
mostly a ceremonial job, while Nehru took charge of free India\'s responsible
government as its first prime minister, heading a Congress Cabinet, whose second most
powerful figure was Patel.
Gandhi, who accepted no office, chose to walk barefoot through the riot-torn areas of
Bengal and Bihar, where he tried through his presence and influence to stop the communal
killing. He then returned to Delhi, and there he preached nonviolence daily until he was
assassinated by an orthodox Hindu Brahman fanatic on Jan. 30, 1948. �The light has gone
out of our lives,� Prime Minister Nehru said, �and there is darkness everywhere,� yet Nehru
carried on at India\'s helm, and, owing in part to his secular, enlightened leadership, not
only did India\'s flood of religious hatred and violence recede but also some progress was
made toward communal reconciliation and economi c development. Nehru spoke out
fearlessly against India\'s �caste-ridden� and �priest-ridden� society, which, as a Hindu
Brahman pandit, he could do without fear of too much upper-caste criticism. His
charismatic brilliance, moreover, continued to make him a major vote -winner in each
election campaign that he led (1951�52, 1957, 1962) throughout his 17 arduous years in
office, as the Congress�opposed only by minor parties and independent candidates�
dominated political life. Nehru\'s modernist mentality and cosmopolitan popularity helped to
hide the traditional continuity of India\'s internal problems, few of which disappeared under
his leadership
Regional states, c. 1700�1850
The states that arose in India during the phase of Mughal decline and the following century
(roughly 1700 to 1850) varied greatly in terms of resources, longevity, and essential
character. Some of them�such as Avadh (Ayodhya) in the north or Hyderabad in the
south�were located in areas that had harboured regional states in the immediate pre-
Mughal period and thus could hark back to an older local or regional tradition of state
formation. Others were states that had a more original character and derived from very
specific processes that had taken place in the course of the late 16th and 17th centuries.
In particular, many of the post-Mughal states were based on ethnic or sectarian
groupings�the Marathas, the Jats, and the Sikhs, for instance�which had no real
precedent in medieval Indian history
The Marathas
Early history
There is no doubt that the single most important power that emerged in the long twilight
of the Mughal dynasty was the Mar athas. Initially deriving from the western Deccan, the
Marathas were a peasant warrior group that rose to prominence during the rule in that
region of the sultans of Bijapur and Ahmadnagar. The most important Maratha warrior
clan, the Bhonsles, had held extensive jagirs (land-tax entitlements) under the \'Adil Shahi
rulers, and these were consolidated in the course of the 1630s and \'40s, as Bijapur
expanded to the south and southwest. Sahji Bhonsle, the first prominent member of the
clan, drew substantial revenues from the Karnataka region, in territories that had once
been controlled by the rulers of Mysore and other chiefs who derived from the collapsing
Vijayanagar kingdom. One of his children, Sivaj i Bhonsle, emerged as the most powerful
figure in the clan to the west, while Sivaj i\'s half-brother Vyamkoji was able to gain control
over the Kaveri delta and the kingdom of Thanjavur in the 1670s.
Sivaji\'s early successes were built on a complex relationship of mixed negotiation and
conflict with the \'Adil Shahis on the one hand and the Mughals on the other. His raids
brought him considerable returns and were directed not merely at agrarian resources but
also at trade. In 1664, he mounted a celebrated raid on the Gujarat port city of Surat, at
that time the most important of the ports under Mughal control. The next year, he signed a
treaty with the Mughals, but this soon broke down after a disastrous visit by the Maratha
leader to Aurangzeb\'s court in Agra. Between 1670 and the end of his life (1680), Sivaj i
devoted his time to a wide-ranging set of expeditions, extending from Thanjavur in the
southeast to Khandesh and Berar in the northwest. This was a portent of things to come,
for the mobility of the Marathas was to become legendary in the 18th century.
Indian architecture
the past and present building traditions of the Indian subcontinent.
Indian architecture dates back to at least the 2nd millennium BC and has been primarily
religious in function, serving Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Jainism. The earliest Indian
buildings were Buddhist and Hindu temples made of wood and then of brick; other temples
were carved out of solid rock and are called cave temples. By the 4th century BC, stone
had become the accepted material for buildings, and successive Indian cultures acquired
great skill in the carving and construction of stone buildings. Large stupas, or domeshaped
Buddhist shrines, and rectilinear temples and monasteries were built during the the
Maurya period (4th�2nd century BC), along with cave temples. The Gupta period (4th�6th
century AD) marked the beginning of the zenith of Indian architecture and the emergence
of its most characteristic structure, a temple with a square base and a pyramidal tower
that has either a straight or curving outline and is heavily decorated with architectural and
figural ornament. This temple form was brought to its stylistic height during the 7th to
11th centuries AD, and the Hindu temple complexes themselves became larger and more
elaborate in plan, layout, and building type. A rich variety of regional building styles
developed at this time, all concentrating on the temple complex.
The extension of Islam into India in the 11th and 12th centuries introduced typical Muslim
architectural forms such as the dome, the pointed arch, and Islamic decoration into
mosques, tombs, and other structures. This period is viewed by some scholars as a decline
relative to the splendour of the previous indigenous architecture, but such marvels as the
Taj Mahal resulted from the rule of the Muslim Mughal dynasty in the 16th�18th century.
The period of European colonization and then of British rule in India resulted in the
introduction and imitation of European building styles in India, and, by the time of Indian
independence in the mid-20th century, Indian architecture was almost entirely modern in
its form, style, and materials.
Indian literature
writings of the Indian subcontinent, produced there in a variety of languages, including
Sanskrit, Prakrit, Pali, Bengali, Bihari, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam,
Oriya, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, and Sindhi.
The earliest Indian literature took the form of the canonical Hindu sacred writings, known
as the Veda, which were written in Sanskrit. To the Veda were added prose commentaries
such as the Brahmanas and the Upanishads. The production of Sanskrit literature extended
from about 1400 BC to AD 1200 and reached its height of development in the 1st to 7th
centuries AD. In addition to sacred and philosophical writings, such genres as erotic and
devotional lyrics, court poetry, plays, and narrative folktales emerged.
Because Sanskrit was identified with the Brahminical religion of the Vedas, reform
movements such as Buddhism and Jainism adopted other literary languages, e.g., Pali and
Ardhamagadhi, respectively. Out of these and other derivative languages there evolved the
modern languages of northern India. The literature of those languages depended largely
on the ancient Indian background, which includes the Sanskrit epics, the Mahabharata and
Ramayana, the Krishna story as told in the Bhagavata-Purana, the other Puranic legends,
and the fable anthologies. In addition, the Sanskrit philosophies were the source of
philosophical writing in the later literatures, and the Sanskrit schools of rhetoric were of
great importance for the development of court poetry in many of the modern literatures.
The South Indian language of Tamil is an exception to this pattern of Sanskrit influence
because it had a classical tradition of its own. Urdu and Sindhi are other exceptions, having
arisen out of an Islamic background.
Beginning in the 19th century, British and Western literary models in general had a great
impact on Indian literature, the most striking result being the introduction of the use of
vernacular prose on a major scale. Such previously unknown forms as the novel and short
story began to be adopted by Indian writers, as did realism and a new interest in social
questions and psychological description. See also specific Indian literatures.
Indian music
the musical traditions, form s, and styles of the peoples of the Indian subcontinent.
Indian music comprises a wide variety of instrumental and vocal traditions, among which
are classical, religious, popular, theatrical, and modern ones. The best-known of these
internationally is classical music, however; that of North India (and Pakistan) is called
Hindustani music, and that of South India is called Karnatic music.
Indian classical music is based on the raga, which is a melodic framework for improvisation
based on a given set of notes; and on tala, which is a concept that can be equated with
time measure or metre. The music is generally performed by small ensembles of not more
than five or six musicians. Improvisation plays a major part in the performance, the most
characteristic feature of which is the gradual acceleration of tempo leading to a final
climax. The melodic improvisation can be produced by a variety of plucked string
instruments such as the sitar or vina; violins; oboelike instruments; or flutes. A droning
lutelike instrument called the tamboura meanwhile establishes and maintains the tonic, or
ground note, of the composition, while tablas or other small finger-played drums provide a
rhythmic accompaniment. Classical music also encompasses a variety of vocal forms, and
these too make use of improvisation.
Indian philosophy
the systems of thought and reflection that were developed by the civilizations of the Indian
subcontinent.
Three basic concepts form the cornerstone of Indian philosophical thought: the self, or soul
(atman), the moral efficacy of human actions (karma), and salvation (moksha) as the
highest ideal. Indian philosophy is composed of six orthodox schools, or systems of
thought; Mimamsa, Vedanta, Nyaya, Vaisesika, Samkhya, and Yoga. There are also
unorthodox schools, such as those of Buddhism and Jainism. The sacred texts of Hindu
culture, principally the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Mahabharata, have long influenced
Indian philosophical thinking, even after the creation of the six orthodox schools. Each of
these schools of thought was systematized by sets of sutras, which reduced the doctrines
of a particular system of thought into a number of brief but m emorable aphorisms,
formulas, or rules.
Of the six orthodox schools, Mimamsa, or P urva -mimamsa, is the system that gives rules
for the interpretation of the Vedas and provides a philosophical justification for the
observance of Vedic ritual. (The Vedas are the earliest sacred writings of India.) Vedanta
forms the basis of most modern schools of Hinduism; it is concerned with the philosophical
interpretation of the Vedas, rather than with their ritualistic aspects as is Mimamsa.
Vedanta is concerned with brahman, or the ultimate reality, and the relation between it
and the finite individual. Its major texts are the Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita. Nyaya
worked out in profound detail the method of reasoning known as inference; this school is
important for its analysis of logic and epistemology. Vaisesika is important for its attempts
to identify, inventory, and classify the entities of reality that present themselves to human
perception. Samkhya adopts a consistent dualism between the orders of matter and that of
the self, or soul. In the Samkhya school, right knowledge consists of the ability of self to
distinguish itself from matter. Yoga has greatly influenced several of the other schools
through its prescription of practical disciplines for intuitively realizing the metaphysical
knowledge put forth by the Samkhya system, to which Yoga is closely related.
Historical development of Indian philosophy
Jaina philosophy
Jainism, founded in about the 6th century BC by Vardhamana Mahavira, the 24th in a
succession of religious leaders known as Jinas (Conquerors), rejects the idea of God as the
creator of the world but teaches the perfectibility of man, to be accomplished through the
strictly moral and ascetic life. Central to the moral code of Jainism is the doctrine of
ahimsa, or noninjury to all living beings, an idea that may have arisen in reaction to Vedic
sacrifice ritual. There is also a great emphasis on vows (vratas) of various orders.
Although earlier scriptures, such as the Bhagavati-sutra , contained assorted ideas on logic
and epistemology, Kundakunda of the 2nd century AD was the first to develop Jaina logic.
The Tattvarthadhigama -sutra of Umasvatis, however, is the first systematic work, and
Siddhasena (7th century AD) the first great logician. Other important figures are Akalanka
(8th century), Manikyanandi, Vadideva, Hemchandra (12th century), Prabh achandra (11th
century), and Yasovijaya (17th century).
The principal ingredients of Jaina metaphysics are: an ultimate distinction between �living
substance� or �soul� ( jiva) and �nonliving substance� (ajiva); the doctrine of
anekantavaha, or nonabsolutism (the thesis that things have infinite aspects that no
determination can exhaust); the doctrine of naya (the thesis that there are many partial
perspectives from which reality can be determined, none of which is, taken by itself, wholly
true, but each of which is partially so); and the doctrine of karma, in Jainism a substance,
rather than a process, that links all phenomena in a chain of cause and effect.
As a consequence of their metaphysical liberalism, the Jaina logicians developed a unique
theory of seven-valued logic, according to which the three primary truth values are �true,�
�false,� and �indefinite,� and the other four values are �true and false,� �true and
indefinite,� �false and indefinite,� and �true, false, and indefinite.� Every statement is
regarded as having these seven values, considered from different standpoints.
Knowledge is defined as that which reveals both itself and another (svaparabhasi). It is
eternal, as an essential quality of the self; it is noneternal, as the perishable empirical
knowledge. Whereas most Hindu epistemologists regarded pramana as the cause of
knowledge, the Jainas identified pramana with valid knowledge. Knowledge is either
perceptual or nonperceptual. Perception is either empirical or nonempirical. Empirical
perception is either sensuous or nonsensuous. The latter arises directly in the self, not
through the sense organs, but only when the covering ignorance is removed. With the
complete extinction of all karmas, a person attains omniscience (kevala-j�ana). (See also
Jainism.)
Mughal philosophy
Reference has been made earlier to the Sufi (Islamic mystics), who found a resemblance
between the ontological monism of Ibn al-\'Arabi and that of Vedanta. The Shattari order
among the Indian Sufis practiced Yogic austerities and even physical postures. Various
minor syncretistic religious sects attempted to harmonize Hindu and Muslim religious
traditions at different levels and with varying degrees of success. Of these, the most
famous are Ramananda, Kabir, and Guru Nanak. Kab ir harmonized the two religions in
such a manner that, to an enquiry about whether he was a Hindu or a Muslim, the answer
given by a contemporary was �It is a secret difficult to comprehend. One should try to
understand.� Guru Nanak rejected the authority of both Hindu and Muslim scriptures alike
and founded his religion (Sikhism) on a rigorously moralistic, monotheistic basis.
Among the great Mughals, Akbar attempted, in 1581, to promulgate a new religion, Din-e
Ilahi, which was to be based on reason and ethical teachings common to all religions and
which was to be free from priestcraft. This effort, however, was short-lived, and a reaction
of Muslim orthodoxy was led by Shaykh Ahmed Sirhindi, who rejected ontological monism
in favour of orthodox unitarianism and sought to channel mystical enthusiasm along
Qur\'anic (Islamic scriptural) lines. By the middle of the 17th century, the tragic figure of
Dara Shikoh, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan\'s son and disciple of the Qadir i sufis,
translated Hindu scriptures, such as the Bhagavadg ita and the Upani sads, into Persian and
in his translation of the latter closely followed Sankara\'s commentaries. In his Majma\' albahrayn
he worked out correlations between Sufi and Upanisadic cosmologies, beliefs, and
practices. During this time, the Muslim elite of India virtually identified Vedanta with
Sufism. Later, Shah Wali Allah\'s son, Shah \'Abd -ul-\'Aziz, regarded Krishna among the
awliya\' (saints).
Sruti and the nature of authority
All �orthodox� philosophies can trace their basic principles back to some statement or other
in the Vedas. The Vedanta schools, especially, had an affiliation with the authority of sruti,
and the school of Mimamsa concerned itself chiefly with the questions of interpreting the
sacred texts. The Hindu tradition regards the Vedas as being apauruseya�i.e., as not
composed by any person. Sayana, a famous Vedic commentator, said that this means an
absence of a human author. For Sayana, the eternality of the Vedas is like that of space
and time; man does not experience their beginning or end. But they are, in fact, created
by Brahma, the supreme creator. For the Advaita Vedanta, because no author of the Vedas
is mentioned, an unbroken chain of Vedic teachers is quite conceivable, so that the
scriptures bear testimony to their own eternality. The authoritative character of sruti may
then be deduced from the fact that it is free from any fault (dosa), or limitation, which
characterizes human words. Furthermore, the Vedas give knowledge about things�
whether dharma (what ought to be done) or Brahman (the absolute reality)�which cannot
be known by any other empirical means of knowledge. The authority of the Vedas cannot,
therefore, be contradicted by any empirical evidence. Later logicians of the �orthodox�
schools sought to give these arguments precision and logical rigour.
The Vedic hymns (mantras) seem to be addressed to gods and goddesses (deva, one who
gives knowledge or light), who are personifications of natural forces and phenomena (Agni,
the fire god; Indra, the rain god; Vayu, the wind god). But there are gods not identifiable
with such phenomena (e.g., Aditi, the infinite mother of all gods; Mitra, the friend; Varuna,
the guardian of truth and righteousness; Visvakarman, the all-maker; sraddha, faith).
Also, the hymns show an awareness of the unity of these deities, of the fact that it is one
God who is called by different names. The famed conception of rta�meaning at once
natural law, cosmic order, moral law, and the law of truth�made the transition to a
monistic view of the universe as being but a manifestation of one reality about which the
later hymns continue to raise fundamental questions in a poignant manner, without,
however, suggesting any dogmatic answer.
Development of the notion of transmigration
The hymns may, in general, be said to express a positive attitude toward human
life and to show interest in the full enjoyment of life here and hereafter rather
than an anxiety to escape from it. The idea of transmigration and the conception
of the different paths and worlds traversed by good men and those who are not
good�i.e., the world of Vishnu and the realm of Yama�are found in the Vedas.
The chain of rebirth as a product of ignorance and the conception of release from
this chain as the greatest good of the spiritual life are markedly absent in the
hymns.
Naga rjuna and Sunyavada
Though the beginnings of Mahayana are to be found in the Mah asangikas and many of
their early sects, Nagarjuna gave it a philosophical basis. Not only is the individual person
empty and lacking an eternal self, according to Nagarjuna, but the dharmas also are
empty. He extended the concept of sunyata to cover all concepts and all entities.
�Emptiness� thus means subjection to the law of causality or �dependent origination� and
lack of an immutable essence and an invariant mark (nihsvabhavata). It also entails a
repudiation of dualities between the conditioned and the unconditioned, between subject
and object, relative and absolute, and between samsara and Nirvana. Thus, Nagarjuna
arrived at an ontological monism; but he carried through an epistemological dualism (i.e.,
a theory of knowledge based on two sets of criteria) between two orders of truth: the
conventional (samvrtti ) and the transcendental ( paramartha). The one reality is ineffable.
Nagarjuna undertook a critical examination of all the major categories with which
philosophers had sought to understand reality and showed them all to involve selfcontradictions.
The world is viewed as a network of relations, but relations are
unintelligible. If two terms, A and B, are related by the relation R, then either A and B are
different or they are identical. If they are identical, they cannot be related; if they are
altogether different then they cannot also be related, for they would have no common
ground. The notion of �partial identity and partial difference� is also rejected as
unintelligible. The notion of causality is rejected on the basis of similar reasonings. The
concepts of change, substance, self, knowledge, and universals do not fare any better.
Nagarjuna also directed criticism against the concept of pramana, or the means of valid
knowledge.
Nagarjuna\'s philosophy is also called Madhyamika, because it claims to tread the middle
path, which consists not in synthesizing opposed views such as �The real is permanent�
and �The real is changing� but in showing the hollowness of both the claims. To say that
reality is both permanent and changing is to make another metaphysical assertion,
another viewpoint, whose opposite is �Reality is neither permanent nor changing.� In
relation to the former, the latter is a higher truth, but the latter is still a point of view, a
drsti, expressed in a metaphysical statement, though Nagarjuna condemned all
metaphysical statements as false.
Nagarjuna used reason to condemn reason. Those of his disciples who continued to limit
the use of logic to this negative and indirect method, known as prasanga, are called the
prasangikas : of these, Aryadeva, Buddhapalita, and Candrakirti are the most important.
Bhavaviveka, however, followed the method of direct reasoning and thus founded what is
called the svatantra (independent) school of Mahhyamika philosophy. With him Buddhist
logic comes to its own, and during his time the Yog acaras split away from the
Sunyavadins.
Contributions of Vasubandhu and Asanga
Converted by his brother Asanga to the Yogacara, Vasubandhu wrote the Vij�apti -matratasiddhi
(�Establishment of the Thesis of Cognitions�Only�), in which he defended the thesis
that the supposedly external objects are merely mental conceptions. Yogacara idealism is
a logical development of Sautrantika representationism: the conception of a merely
inferred external world is not satisfying. If consciousness is self-intimating (svaprakasa)
and if consciousness can assume forms (sakaIavii�ana), it seems more logical to hold that
the forms ascribed to alleged external objects are really forms of consciousness. One only
needs another conception: a beginningless power that would account for this tendency of
consciousness to take up forms and to externalize them. This is the power of kalpana, or
imagination. Yog acara added two other modes of consciousness to the traditional six: ego
consciousness ( manovij�ana) and storehouse consciousness (alaya-vij�ana). The alayavij�ana
contains stored traces of past experiences, both pure and defiled seeds. Early
anticipations of the notions of the subconscious or the unconscious, they are theoretical
constructs to account for the order of individual experience. It still remained, however, to
account for a common world�which in fact remains the main difficulty of Yogacara. The
state of Nirvana becomes a state in which the alaya with its stored �seeds� would wither
away (alayaparavr tti). Though the individual ideas are in the last resort mere imaginations,
in its essential nature consciousness is without distinctions of subject and object. This
ineffable consciousness is the �suchness� (tathata) underlying all things. Neither the alaya
nor the tathata, however, is to be construed as being substantial.
Vasubandhu and Asanga are also responsible for the growth of Buddhist logic. Vasubandhu
defined �perception� as the knowledge that is caused by the object, but this was rejected
by Dignaga, a 5th-century logician, as a definition belonging to his earlier realistic phase.
Vasubandhu defined �inference� as a knowledge of an object through its mark, but
Dharmottara, an 8th-century commentator pointed out that this is not a definition of the
essence of inference but only of its origin.
Indian sculpture
the sculptural traditions, forms, and styles of the civilizations of the Indian subcontinent.
Sculpture was the favoured medium of artistic expression on the Indian subcontinent.
Indian buildings were profusely adorned with it and indeed are often inseparable from it.
The subject matter of Indian sculpture was almost invariably abstracted human forms that
were used to instruct people in the truths of the Hindu, Buddhist, or Jain religions. The
nude was used both to represent the body as a symbol of spirit and to reveal the imagined
shapes of the gods. There is an almost complete suppression of individuality in Indian
sculpture; this is because the figures are conceived of as shapes that are more perfect and
final than anything to be found in the merely transitory appearance of human models. The
multiple heads and arms of sculptured Hindu divinities were thought necessary to display
the manifold attributes of these gods\' power.
The tradition of Indian sculpture extends from the Indus Valley civilization of 2500 to 1800
BC, during which time small terra cotta figurines were produced. The great circular stone
pillars and carved lions of the Maurya period (3rd century BC) gave way to mature Indian
figurative sculpture in the 2nd a nd 1st centuries BC, in which Hindu and Buddhist themes
were already well-established. A wide range of styles and traditions subsequently
flourished in different parts of India over the succeeding centuries, but by the 9th�10th
centuries AD, Indian sculpture had reached a form that has lasted with little change up to
the present day. This sculpture is distinguished not by a sense of plastic volume and
fullness but rather by its linear character; the figure is conceived from the standpoint of its
outline, and the figure itself is graceful, slender, and has supple limbs. From the 10th
century this sculpture was used mainly as a part of architectural decoration, with vast
numbers of relatively small figures of mediocre quality being produced for this purpose.