This is an expanded version of an article that appeared in the Sri Lanka Society of Queensland Newsletter, April 2001
This tour of Northern India provided an interesting insight into two widely separate periods of Indian history viz. the Buddhist and the Mughal periods. There is today no Buddhist or Mughal presence in India, so the tour was essentially a tour into India's past.
The Buddhist period extends intermittently from the fifth century BCE to about 1200 CE (the corresponding period in Sri Lankan history being from the arrival of Vijaya to the reign of Parakrama Bahu the Great). The Mughal period extends from the 1550 to 1850 CE (corresponding to the Portuguese (1), Dutch and early British periods in Sri Lankan history). To place these periods in the wider historical context it might be useful to start with a brief sketch of Indian history.
If we exclude the Indus Valley civilization, about which little authentic is known, Indian history begins with the migration of the Aryans into India about 1500 BCE. Their sacrificial religion (Brâhmanism) was codified into the Vedas about 900 BCE.
The first historical persons to emerge into the light of history in India are Gotama the Buddha and his contemporaries (teachers like Mahâvira, kings like Bimbisâra). The first writing found in India is the inscription around an urn containing the Buddha's ashes. (2)
Of the 16 autonomous janapadas in Northern India Magadha soon asserted its supremacy under Bimbisâra's successor Ajâtasattu (491-461 BCE). When the capital was moved to Pâtaliputra (modern Patna (3)) the Mauryan empire had become established. Its best known emperor is Asoka (373-272 BCE) whose empire was unequalled in extent until British times. Asoka was a great patron of Buddhism and his handiwork is visible in all the Buddhist sites we visited.
Asoka's empire disintegrated 50 years after his death into a number of warring states. The Western region saw invasions by Greeks, Parthians, Shakas and Kushans. But like the Aryans they were tolerant and did not wreak the havoc of later barbarian invaders. (4) For a time the Guptas (320-520 CE) revived something of the glory of the Mauryan empire. They too were patrons of Buddhism though not exclusively. Many of the monuments coming from Asokan times were repaired and enlarged by them.
After the Guptas another period of disintegration followed until Harshawardana (606 - 647 CE) started another successful empire moving his capital to Kanauj. (5) Some Kanauj kings were patrons of Buddhism, e.g. in 1130King Govindachandra gave six villages to the upkeep of the Buddhist monks of Sâvatthi.
When Harsha's empire disintegrated three groups contended for power. They were the Rashtracutas in the Deccan, the Pratiharas in Rajasthan, and the Pâlas in Bengal. All three established small empires of their own and in turn occupied Kanauj. The Pâlas were the last royal patrons of Buddhism in India. Their benefactions can be seen in places like Nâlandâ and Buddha Gayâ. The Rashtracutas favoured Jainism and the Pratiharas Hinduism. The Pratiharas were the most successful of these three groups. But their empire too disintegrated into a number of contending "Rajputana" states. The most important of the Rajputs were the Gahrwals of Kanauj, the Paramaras of Malwa and the Chauhans of Ajmer. They ruled North-Western India and it was their rivalries that enabled the Muslims to get a foothold in India, and change the course of its history.
The Muslim conquest of India had begun in 711 when parts of North-West India were occupied by Arab-Iraqi invaders controlled by the Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad. However their influence was limited and they coexisted with the Hindu kingdoms. This changed dramatically around 1000 CE when Islamic Turks under Mahmud of Ghazni raided India. He was followed by Muhammad Ghuri who carried to Islamic sword to Lahore (1182) and Delhi (1196). By the time he was assassinated in 1206 the Muslim control extended to the whole of the Ganges right up to Bihar and Bengal. These new invaders were impervious to assimilation into the Aryan culture and religions as was the case with the earlier Kushans (6) and Hunas.
Ghuri had left as heir his former slave Qutd-ud-din Aibak who founded the "Slave dynasty" in charge of the Delhi Sultanate which had become the real power in North India. Aibak's successors (Iltutmish, Raziya) further consolidated his empire, but internally a conflict arose between the Sultan and the Turkish chiefs of his court. This culminated with a chief Balban seizing the throne in 1265. The rule of Balban's dynasty was short lived and in 1290 Jalaludin Khilji seized power at Delhi.
The Khiljis were Muslims of Afghan descent and they succeeded in extending Muslim power further to the South. Their dynasty was brought to an end in 1320 by a group of officers under Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq. This dynasty became increasingly weak and in 1398 the Mongols under Timur sacked Delhi. The Delhi Sultanate, now greatly reduced with the Punjab going to a nominee of Timur (who returned to Central Asia). The Tughlaq dynasty was displaced by Khizr Kahn, a viceroy of Timur, who founded what came to be knows as the the Sayyid dynasty (1414 - 1451). This dynasty simply ran out of steam and the throne of Delhi passed to Bahlol an Afghan on the Lodi tribe who had governed the Punjab for the Sayyids. The kings in this dynasty has been known as the Lodi sultans (1451-1526). Their greatest ruler was Sikandar Shah (1489-1517) but after him the Delhi Sultanate shrank but many of the new states that emerged were also Muslim.
The Lodis were overthrown in 1526 by Barbar the Muslim king of Afghanistan who established the Mughal dynasty. We shall consider the Mughals later on. For the present we may note that they were able to create the greatest Indian empire since Asoka's time. Subsequently this too went into decline and the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was imprisoned by the British in 1857. With this independent India ceased to exist.
Our historical tour was largely a study of the legacies of Asoka and Akbar, generally considered to be the two greatest rulers of pre-colonial India.
The tour covered twelve ancient Buddhist and four Mughal cities. The touring party travelled in a specially chartered coach )except for a single return train journey between Agra and Bhopal). Over 4000 kms were travelled in the tour which took about three weeks.
The Buddhist cities visited were Sanchi in the modern Madya Pradesh; Vesali, Nalanda, Rajagaha and Buddha Gaya in Bihar; Sankassa, Savatthi, Kapilavattu, Kusinara and Sarnath in the Uttar Pradesh; and Lumbini in Nepal.
The Moghul cities visited are Old Delhi, Jaipur, (7) Fatepur Sikhri and Agra. These are the places where the best monuments of the Mughal period can be seen and which are the most widely travelled places in India by foreign tourists. In fact they constitute the "Golden Triangle" of Indian tourism. (8) All these cities were capitals of the Mughals or their allies at one time or another.
The tour of ancient Buddhist India was essentially retracing the steps of the Buddha. All the Buddhist cities we have mentioned (except Sanchi) had been visited by the Buddha.
While the early history of any ancient personality would necessarily be enveloped in myth his later career must be capable of being placed within definite geographical limits. In the Buddha's case it was at the age of 35 (after his Enlightenment) that his public career began, a career which lasted 45 years. (9) The Buddhist texts document the places of his discourses and the main events of his life. As a result of the work of historians and archeologists these can now be given a specific geographical locale.
The early credit in locating these places go to British archeologists of the nineteenth century, particularly to General William Cunningham and Sir John Marshall. They were helped by the Asokan pillar edicts, and the meticulous records maintained by Chinese pilgrims from the fifth to the ninth centuries. (10) The Indian Government is now following in their footsteps to find more about their own past.
An Asokan pillar proclaims Lumbini in Nepal as the place of the Buddha's birth. Around this a large number of monuments and stupas had accumulated now seen only in ruins. The Nepal government has launched an ambitious redevelopment which will greatly enhance this precinct. Next in importance is Buddha Gaya the place of enlightenment. While the Bodhi tree is now a fifth generation one the Mahabodhi Temple is the old one built in its present pyramidal form in the Gupta period over earlier constructions. Sarnath near Benares, the scene of the turning of the wheel of the law, had seen greater depredations, with its monasteries finally destroyed and the monks killed by the Muslim militarist Qutbuddin Ailak in 1194. The Chaukhandi Stupa there has been desecrated by the Mughals by building a tower atop it to commemorate a visit by Akbar to Varanasi in 1588. (11) Kusinara is the place of the death and cremation of the Buddha. These sites have been reconstructed by the Indian government and are well preserved. These four sites are the classic places of the ancient pilgrimage.
The other sites are of greater historical importance. Rajagaha and Savatthi were the capitals of the ancient kingdoms of Magadha and Kosala and it is from here that the whole Indian imperial adventure began. A visit to these places is thus a necessity in a historical tour. They are not mythological like the places in the Mahabharata, but places located in time and space. Sankassa and Vesali are important as places Buddhist monasticism. Kosambi and Kapilavattu are important only for the Buddha story.
Sanchi is important as an example of Greco-Indian art which started at Gandhara. It has intricately carved gateways for the principal stupas. There is also a Greek temple similar to the one on the Acropolis in Athens. Nalanda is important as one of the earliest Universities not only in Asia but also in the world. Taxila was perhaps the earliest University in the world. It dated from pre-Buddhist times but it soon became a Buddhist centre of learning. It was destroyed in the Huna invasion. Nalanda from its inception was a Buddhist university and attracted teachers and students from all over Asia. It had one of the greatest libraries of the Ancient world. Nalanda too was destroyed by the Muslims, Baktiar Kilji killing all the monks then resident there in 1205 (12). The burning of its library took several months. This is an act of vandalism comparable to the burning of the ancient library of Alexandria under the orders of a bishop in the third century CE.
This brief account leaves out other places, notably Patna, the Pataliputra of old, and Varanasi which were also covered in the Tour.
We now turn to the second great empire in India, that of the Muhals which was the second focus of our historical tour. The Mughals built on the work of 500 years of Muslim conquest of parts of India. But the progressive degeneration of Muslim rule led to the reassertion of power of Hindu kingdoms on a strictly local basis. It was this that was reversed by the Mughals.
Barbar, the founder of the dynasty, has an ancestry going back to Timur. He had been invited to the aid of the Governor of Lahore who wanted to revolt against his master Ibrahim Lodi the Sultan of Delhi. Barbar not only ousted the Lodi but made himself the Sultan! He was followed in succession by the Emperors Humayun, Akbar, Salim, Shah Jehan and Aurangzeb. It would be a tedious task to catalogue the succession of military victories and the cupidity and treachery of the Hindu rulers which led to them. With Akbar the Empire reached its climax, after that there was a decline but also a reassertion of the old Semitic values. Aurangzeb was the most autocratic and fanatical of the Mughals. Today only imposing Tombs and Mosques stand to the memory of the Mughals which are now tolerated by the modern Hindu raj to whom the British had bequeathed power. They use them as tourist drawcards despite the national humiliation they represent.
The much vaunted military and administrative genius of the Mughals has vanished and it is only their architectural legacy that is left behind. This legacy may be compared to that of that of the Buddhists, the Hindus and the Jains. (13) The best examples of the Mughal constructions are in the four Mughal cities we visited although there were similar constructions in other parts of their empire.
Compared to the Asokan and the Guptan constructions there were big technological advances by the time of the Moghuls. The use of marble had been perfected and most Mughal buildings used it extensively, the marble all coming mostly from Rajasthan. Besides Moghul constructions remained intact as there was no one to pull them down. This contrasts with the Buddhist structures which were pulled down by the Muslims and there was no one to reconstruct them as Buddhism was gradually absorbed by Hinduism. Finally the Mughals used Persian architects and craftsmen whereas the monuments of the other groups were largely Indian. These factors explain the grandeur and the delicacy of Mughal structures.
The buildings of the Mughals fall into several groups:
(1) The Forts and other military structures. Since the empire was built on military conquest and kept together by military force the Forts were very essential, and the first priority was given for their construction.
(2) The Palaces of the King and the nobles. Very often for reasons of security these were located in the Forts. Naturally the harem figures large in these private residences.
(3) The Mosques (or Masjids as they were called in India). While the mosques for the common people were very often simple structures that in the capitals were on a grandiose scale usually modelled on the Mosque at Medina.
(4) Funerary structures in particular tombs for dead emperors and nobles. Ordinary Muslims were interred without much ceremony.
(5) Public Constructions like City Walls, Gateways, Bazaars and other public places..
During the tour examples of all these different kinds of constructions were encountered and studied. They are too numerous to be dealt with individually even in the cities visited, not to mention those elsewhere. So only comments on typical structures can be made.
In Delhi the most important Mughal structure is the famous Red Fort. It was constructed by Shah Jehan in 1639-48. It is a rectangular structure with a canal, the Nahr-i-Bhisit ("River of Paradise") flowing through it. The royal apartments are strung along this. Two grand gateways on the Western and southern sides give access to it. Other structures in Delhi are the large number of Mosques and the tombs of the deceased emperors. Many bazaars were built but they have gradually become modernised and little of their historical character remains.
Jaipur, the "Pink City", provides more examples of Moghul architecture. The best known is the Amber Fort of Man Singh (who though formally a Hindu Rajput (14) was a faithful servant of the Mughals). It is a military Fort cum Royal Palace built in an imposing setting amidst the mountains. Next in importance (as far as tourist interest is concerned) comes the Hawa Mahal (Wind Palace). This building is a five story structure which served as the King's harem. The whole facade is composed of superimposed oriel elements in the form of chhattris (small domed kiosks). These were the windows from which the royal ladies, who were subject to purdah, could watch spectacles taking place in the street below, through curtains, without being seen. (15)
Fatehpur Sikhri shot into prominence for a brief period as Akbar's capital. The buildings of this heavily fortified complex consist mainly of the royal apartments (including extensive quarters for the women of the harem) and a grandiose Mosque. It had to be abandoned because its planners forget to consider where it could get a supply of water. (16)
Finally in Agra we come to the crowning glory of the Mughals. Here we have the Agra Fort in which the Mughal emperors held court, and above all the Taj Mahal, which is today the premier tourist attraction in all India (with an equally exorbitant entrance fee for foreign tourists).
The Taj Mahal symbolises more than anything else the waste of public money for what is essentially a personal indulgence of the Emperor Shah Jehan, viz as a burial place and monument for his wife Mumtaz. It also became his own burial ground when he died a prisoner in the Agra Fort at the hands of his own son Aurangzeb. Some Hindus claim that the Taj Mahal was actually a converted Saivite Temple, with only superficial changes made by Shah Jehan, notably the inclusion of marble slabs on which Koranic texts had been engraved. (17)
It has been claimed that Mughal architecture is a combination of Arabic Mosque and Indian temple architecture. However the modifications introduced in this "Indo-Islamic" architecture are slight. The dome and the arch, both central innovations of the Muslims were only marginally altered. The "scallops" added to arches, the narrowing of the columns, the pilasters and the corbel brackets give a superficial impression of native Indian style. But the typical motifs of Jain and Hindu architecture were not taken over. There could not be a true synthesis for the representation of the human figure which had been central to Indian art since the advent of the Greek influence in Gandharan times is unacceptable for the Muslims who abjured any representation of the human form.
Asoka's first pan-Indian Empire was an Aryan and a Buddhist one. By the time of the second pan-Indian empire of the Mughals the ruling culture had become a Semitic one.
There are many dimensions to culture but the one that is most relevant in the periods we are concerned with is religion. By Aryan religions we mean Brahmanism, Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism. The Semitic religions are the three religions which originated in the Middle East which despite superficial differences share a common outlook. It is true Islamicisation was the main vehicle for the introduction of the Semitic culture, but Islam recognises the prophets of the other two Middle Eastern religions. How did this transition take place?
The techniques used by Muslims to convert people to their faith were not too different from that of the other Semitic religions. In Christianity for instance after the conversion of Constantine all other religions were barred, and the Jews who were the only group to remain were cruelly persecuted. The Inquisition was established to torture and burn those considered "heretics".
Such methods were not entirely unknown to the Muslims. In Kashmir Sikander (1390 - 1413) decreed that non-Muslims be either converted or killed. Similar persecutions took place in other parts of India. In Bengal we have the notorious forced conversion en masse by Ibrahim Lodi.
But in general the Muslim rulers adopted economic means to force non-Muslims to abandon their religions. A tax (the Jizya) was imposed on non-Muslims as prescribed by the Prophet. (18) Captives taken in battle were forcefully converted. The shrines of the Aryan religions were pillaged and mosques constructed over them. Positions in the Imperial Service was only reserved for Muslims. These effects had their desired effect is securing many "rice conversions", a tactic used by later evangelists also. The Muslims population swelled and Arabic customs were adopted. Even the language was changed with the script changing from Nagari to Arabic thus creating the Urdu language (Hindustani).
Akbar, the greatest of the Mughal emperors, relaxed some of the oppressive features of Islamic rule (e.g. he abolished the Jizya), but his efforts were undone by his successors.
When we compare the two great Indian Empires of the Mauryans and the Moghuls, widely separated in time, if not in space, we see that there is an equally wide gulf in their general conceptions.
This is perhaps most clearly seen when we consider the nature of the monuments they left behind. Asoka is best known for the pillar edicts that he erected and for the monasteries and other religious edifices he created. But the most imposing edifices that a Moghul ruler left were the military forts and the palaces (particularly the harems for his polygamous wives and concubines), and after his death his Tomb. It is true that Mosques were built in abundance, but these were only for the Muslims and their proselytes. On the other hand Mauryans endowed religious places for all religions, Buddhist, Jain and Brahman. The same is also true of the Guptas. Such tolerance come to an end with the spread of the Semitic religion. On the contrary the religious structures of the non-muslims were invariably destroyed (as we have seen).
Asoka's pillar edicts were largely used to exhort his people to do righteous things, it was an expression of "dharma". They preached a doctrine of non-violence. The Mughal constructions were monuments to violence and carnality. This is the central difference and the this difference derives largely from the nature of the Aryan and the Semitic religions which inspired the two imperial regimes.
The central question in Indian history is why did the Muslims succeed so easily in subjugating an Aryan civilization and converting many of its people to Islam (for most Indian Muslims are not Arabs, Turks or Mongols). Writers have advanced many hypotheses, and perhaps there is no single answer.
Several aspects of Hindu religion contributed to its ultimate subjection. Perhaps the most important is the caste system which left a large part of the population out of the pale of civilised society. Many retrograde practices such as that of sati or wife immolation also contributed. (19) The other is the growing theism in the Hindu religion. Buddhism and Jainism had given an alternative to theism. Buddhism also condemned the soul theory and the Hindu doctrine of reincarnation. These changes were opposed by the Brahmins as it challenged their hegemony. Shankar and other Hindu theologians while taking aboard some Buddhist principles opposed its more distinctive doctrines. With the decline of Buddhism so did its socially liberating message leaving it vulnerable to the attacks of the Islamists and other Semetic evanglists.
Perhaps the greatest error was the elevation of the God principle and the new doctrine of religious syncretism (i.e. that all religions lead to the same end). Both left Hinduism ideologically weak in its confrontation with Islam. The theism of the original Brahmanism was more a kind of the deification of the forces of nature. The Upanishads introduced a philosophical conception of the godhead. The Bhagavatgita while recognising the three paths made bhaktiyoga to a personal God the supreme goal.
The result was that when Islam came in with the banner of the Semitic God Hinduism was not really in a position to oppose it. It could not deny the God fallacy, as the Jains and the Buddhists could have done. It was easy for Muslims to convince Hindus conditioned to faith in a God that their God was better than the "idols" worshipped in the Hindu temples. Akbar's charade of introducing a "tolerant Islam" (Dn-i-Ilhi) was taken in at face value by the Hindus. Even Khrishna's exhortation to war finally failed the Hindus. The result was that all sorts of Islamic invaders (Arabic, Turkish, Afghan, Mongol) had no difficulty in subduing the Indians. This has ramification for the modern age as even the creation of Pakistan has not solved the problem.
A historical tour is not merely gazing at artefacts and ruins from a bygone age. It provides an opportunity to consider what lies behind these historical ruins and to ponder over the broader questions of historical change.
In the tour of Buddhist and Mughal India the central question is why an Aryan civilization which did so much to uplift its subjects to a higher moral plane sank into the abyss of foreign servitude Arabian, Turkish, Mongol and British. We have attempted a tentative answer but whether this the correct one has to be the subject of a wider debate.
NOTES
1. For the Portuguese period in Sri Lankan history see the present writer's article "The Portuguese Period" in this Newsletter, Dec 2000. Because of limitations of space it is was greatly abridged. An extended version can now be seen on the Net at www.uq.net.au/~zzvgunas/portuguese.htm. This gives more information on some personalities of the age about whom many myths are still being propagated.
2. The language was Prakrit and the script Brahmi which was deciphered by James Princep in 1835. These were the foundation of all later Indian languages including Sanskrit and Pali.
3. We visited Patna but there are almost no ancient ruins.
4. An exception to this were the Hunas, a Central Asian tribe and a branch of the Huns, who invaded India in the late fifth century. They dissipated the energy of the Guptas who tried to fend them off. The Hunas were responsible for the destruction of the Buddhist University of Taxila (now in Pakistan). The Hunas did not have a strong religious affiliation. Some remained in India and adopted Brahman-ism. Others were converted to Islam in Iraq or Afghanistan.
5. Kanouj was visited on the tour but very little of its historic past remains.
6. The greatest of the Kushan kings was Kanishka who like Asoka was a great patron of Buddhism. He is best known as the convenor of the Fourth Buddhist Council. The Kushan period was noted for great works of art.
7. Technically Jaipur was a Rajput state, but it had close links with the Mughals. Jehangir's mother was a Jaipur pincess, as also were some of Akbar's generals.
8. The two other destinations which tourists to India most visit are Varanasi and Katmandu. We visited the former and not the latter.
9. Personalities whose public career lasted only a couple of years or so with contradictory accounts of the events in those years may have problems in establishing their historicity. The long public career of the Buddha, the multiplicity of corroborating accounts and epigraphic evidence etc. rule this out in his case.
10. It is a curious fact that much of the history of India has to be derived from the observations of foreigners as India, unlike Sri Lanka, did not have a historical tradition. Thus Greek writers testify to what went on in Mauryan times, Chinese writers to what went on in Gupta and later times, and Muslim writers to what on after end of the first millennium.
11. This is comparable to the desecration of the birthplace of Rama at Ayodya by building a mosque over it. Ayodya is also the site of some discourses delivered by the Buddha.
12. The most recent example of Muslim vandalism is the destruc-tion of the Buddha statues at Bamian in Afghanistan. The Koran does not specifically require the destruction of statues but it is based on two things: (1) The Mosaic command against "graven images"; Muslims consider Moses a genuine prophet. (2) Muhammad smashed the 200-odd statues at the Kaaba after he captured Mecca (but kept the "black stone"!). The term "idolatry" is used in Semitic religions to vilify other cultural practices. Yet some of them put "idols" on their altars and even string them around their necks!
13. We have not referred to Hindu or Jain monuments as it does not fall within the scope of the article. There is great paucity of ancient Hindu monuments, and this was not entirely due to Muslim destruction. Hindu architectures appeared after the Buddhist but before the Mughal ones. The great era of Hindu temple building was from the 8th to the 10th centuries when temples like those at Kajuraho, Kanchipuram, Thanjavur, Bhubaneshwar, Puri and Konark were built. The Jain temples are as old as the Buddhist, and often their sacred sites were also the same, but the scale of construction was much less. However unlike Buddhism Jainism never died out in India.
14. The Rajputs were more a royal caste and were not seriouslsy committed to any religious ideology, Hindu or Islamic. Thus Rajputs helped Barbar to defeat the Lodi sultans.
15. The more usual way of securing this object is to make walls which are a mosaic of intricate geometrical patterns with small empty spaces of whole within them. These are common features in many most Mughal buildings. They are the architectural equivalent of the Hijab or veil which Muslim women are mandated to wear.
16. Fatepur Sikri was chosen because it was the seat of the Sufi saint Salim Chisti who had prophesied a son for Shahjehan!
17. It is claimed that the Taj Mahal does not figure in Shah Jehan's court records, that the words themselves are Hindu terms not Islamic ones, that Mumtaz was not the Shah's favourite wife, etc.
18. Strictly speaking Muhammad's tax only applied to the "dhimmis" not "Kaffirs". The former were those who had a scripture (Ahlul-Kitab) like the Jews and Christians. The Hindus were technically Kaffirs. But the more "liberal" theologians took Hindus as dhimmies taking scriptures like the Bhagavatgita as a "book". However others did not and often the Hindus did not get the "protection" that the payment of Jizya was supposed to give them, a protection which was extremely limited even in the best of circumstances.
19. This practice was was first banned by Aurangzeb and later by the British. It is ironical that a religion noted for its subjection of women should have come to the rescue of Hindu women.