The Penguin History of Early India

by Romila Thapar

  The campaigns of Samudra Gupta to the east and the south, and the repeated tours of Harsha, would have required efficient communication and the movement of goods. On the roads, ox-drawn carts were common, and where travel was over rougher terrain pack animals were used, or even elephants in heavily forested areas. The lower reaches of large rivers such as the Ganges, Narmada, Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri were the main waterways. The ports of the eastern coast, such as Tamralipti and Ghantashala, handled the northern Indian trade with the eastern coast and south-east Asia, and those of the west coast traded with the eastern Mediterranean and western Asia. The ports and production centres of peninsular India that were involved with maritime trade appear not to have declined at this time, but these were outside Gupta control.

  The export of spices, pepper, sandalwood, pearls, precious stones, perfumes, indigo and herbs continued, but the commodities that were imported differed from those of earlier times. There appears to have been an appreciable rise in the import of horses, coming overland from Iran and Bactria to centres in north-west India, or from Arabia by sea to the western coast. India never bred sufficient horses of quality, perhaps because of adverse climatic conditions and inappropriate pasturage, so the best livestock was always imported. This may have had consequences for the cavalry of Indian armies, eventually making it less effective in comparison with central Asian horsemen.

  Indian ships were now regularly traversing the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean, and venturing into the China Seas. The ‘Island of the Black Yavanas’ is mentioned, which may have been a reference to Madagascar or Zanzibar. Indian contacts with the east African coast are thought to date to the first millennium BC, and by now this contact had developed through trade. Despite this activity, the codifiers of custom and social laws were prohibiting an upper-caste person to travel by sea, to cross the black waters. The objection to travelling to distant lands was due to the risk of contamination by the mlechchhas (those outside the boundaries of caste and therefore ritually impure); it was also difficult to observe rituals and caste rules. The ban had the additional and indirect advantage for the brahman that, if insisted upon, it could theoretically curb the economic power of the trading community. But this did not curtail the entrepreneuring spirit of Indians who wished to trade, irrespective of whether they were brahman or nonbrahman. Many were Buddhists and would not have paid much attention to brahmanical rules. The Jainas, however, did not venture out in large numbers, perhaps because their rigorous religious observances discouraged travel to distant places.

  The plan of most cities had not changed radically from that of earlier cities, being laid out in broad areas following the intersection of the two arterial roads. Streets containing markets and shops were separated according to the commodity produced and sold. Houses often had a balcony giving a view over the street. Buildings were of brick in the richer sections of the city. Wood and wattled bamboo remained the usual building material in the less prosperous sections. Houses were orientated to cardinal points, and there were adequate drains and wells. Yet it was a culture showing a wide variation in living. The comfortably installed town-dweller would have had little to do with the areas outside the town limits, where the outcastes dwelt, in probably much the same way as the modern shantytown. However, villages probably showed less disparity in their standard of living.

  The daily life of a comfortably well-off citizen as described in the Kamasutra – the book on the art of love – was a gentle existence devoted to the refinements of life for those who had both the leisure and the wherewithal for these. Comfortable if not luxurious surroundings were provided to harmonize with moods conducive to poetry, painting and recitals of music, in all of which the young city dilettante was expected to excel. The writing of a text on erotica is not altogether unexpected in a situation where urban living was held up as the model of civilized life. The young man had also to be trained in the art of love. The Kamasutra discusses this with lucidity and sometimes startling imagination, a parallel to modern writing on erotica. The courtesan was a normal feature of urban life, neither romanticized nor treated with contempt. Judging by the training given to a courtesan, it was among the more demanding professions, for, unlike the prostitute, she was a cultured and sociable companion similar to the geisha of Japan or the hetaera of Greece.

  Social Mores

  However pleasant life may have been for the well-to-do urbanite as depicted in the Kamasutra, life for most people was less so. Famines and poverty were explained away by resort to astrology and by the frequently made statement that one cannot expect better times in the Kaliyuga since it is the age of decline. A telling incident comes from Kalidasa’s play on the story of Shakuntala. The fisherman who caught the fish that had swallowed the king’s signet ring is brought before the officers and is roughed up, taunted about his low status and made ready for execution as a thief. But when the king sends him a purse of money as a reward, he shares it with his erstwhile tormentors to keep them happy (as he states in an aside), and the officer suggests a visit to the wine shop, which is gladly agreed to by the fisherman. An official drinking with a low-caste fisherman needs some reconciling with the rules of the Dharmashastras. Or does this provide evidence of a social flexibility generally denied in the normative texts? Bana’s Harshacharita refers to the poor people of villages garnering the grain left in the camp of the king after the soldiers have moved away; he also describes the king’s elephants trampling on the hovels of the poor who are thereby left homeless, and all they can do is to pelt the soldiers with clods of earth.

  Categories of slaves were drawn more commonly from the lower castes and untouchables. There is a fuller treatment of slaves in the Dharmashastras of this time than in the earlier ones, which suggests a greater use of slave labour although it still did not reach anywhere near the proportions of slave labour in some other parts of the ancient world. But there is a continuing mention of hired labour that seems to have been used on a larger scale than before. The sources of slaves were the usual – prisoners-of-war, debt bondsmen and slaves born to slave women – but also include the curious category of those who have revoked their vows of renunciation. The largest number of slaves seems to have been employed in domestic work. For labour in agriculture there were other categories such as bonded labour, hired labour and those required to perform stipulated jobs as a form of vishti, forced labour or labour tax. Caste regulations prevented the untouchables from being employed in domestic work. Forced to work in a caste society, untouchables constituted a permanent reservoir of landless labour, their permanence ensured by the disabilities of their birth.

  Fa Hsien/Fah Hian, a Chinese Buddhist monk who was on pilgrimage to India in the years AD 405 to 411, collecting Buddhist manuscripts and studying at Buddhist monasteries, describes people as generally happy. Yet he also writes that the untouchables had to sound a clapper in the streets of the town so that people were warned of their presence; and that if an untouchable came into close range, the upper-caste person would have to perform a ritual ablution. All this may have become normal practice by now. Hsüan Tsang states that butchers, fishermen, theatrical performers, executioners and scavengers were forced to live outside the city and their houses were marked so that they could be avoided. Yet accounts by Buddhist monks from China tend on the whole to be complimentary, perhaps because for them India was the ‘western heaven’, the holy land of the Buddha, or perhaps because they were making subconscious comparisons with other places.

  Another reflection of the structures in a society can be gauged from the social construction of gender relations. Women were idealized in literature and art and some of the images thus created are attractive to the reader or the viewer. But they conform to male ideals of the perfect woman and such ideals placed women in a subordinate position. Education of a limited kind was permitted to upper-caste women as a marginal qualification, but was certainly not intended to encourage their participation in discussion or provide professional expertise.

  Wom
en’s access to property or inheritance was limited and varied according to caste, custom and region. Social practices were not uniform, however much the codes attempted to make them so. Matrilineal systems organized inheritance differently from the patriarchal. The prevalence of cross-cousin marriage among some social groups also had implications for the inheritance of property. There are hints of what might earlier have been cross-cousin marriage in elite circles in northern India, but since the normative texts supported patriarchy those wanting upward social mobility would have adopted the same pattern.

  Characteristic of the status of upper-caste women in later centuries was that early marriages were advocated, often even pre-puberty marriages. A widow was expected to live in austerity, but if of the kshatriya caste should preferably immolate herself on the funeral pyre of her husband especially if he had died a hero’s death. This would make her a sati. The earliest historical evidence for this practice dates from AD 510, when it was commemorated in an inscription at Eran. Subsequently, incidents of sati increased. This coincided with the current debate on whether or not a woman, particularly a widow, could remarry. Some argued that it should be permitted if her husband disappeared, died, became impotent, renounced society or was ostracized. Others were opposed to the idea. Encouraging a woman to become a sati could have been one solution. This also coincided with the forging of the culture of the new kshatriya and, as with many upstart groups, some rules were likely to have been taken rather literally. If the origin of the family lay in a society where widow remarriage was common, there the custom would have to be curbed.

  A small number of women with some measure of freedom chose to opt out of the ‘normal’ householding activities required of a woman, and became nuns, or trained to be courtesans or joined troupes of performers. The world of the artisan, merchant and small-scale landowner was different from that of the court circles and the landed aristocracy. The difference is reflected in the former being more frequently the laity of the Shramanic religions, whereas the latter tended to support the Dharmashastra norms – at least in theory. Conflict with these norms may have arisen where newly created castes continued with their pre-caste practices, and some would have supported a more open participation of women in society. The rulers of Uchchakalpa in central India were meticulous about naming the mother of each of the rulers in the genealogical section of the inscription. The concession to custom over norms as advised in the Naradastnriti, a contemporary Dharmashastra, was a more significant statement than is often realized.

  It is evident from the inscriptions of this period that some degree of mobility among jatis was accepted. The most interesting example is probably that of the guild of silk-weavers in western India. When they could no longer maintain themselves through the production of silk, the guild members moved from Lata in western India to Mandasor (Madhya Pradesh), some of them adopting professions of a higher-caste status than their original one, such as those of archers, soldiers, bards and scholars. Despite the change of profession, loyalty to the original guild seems to have remained, for at least one generation. Being sun-worshippers they financed the building of a temple to Surya, and gave the history of the guild in a lengthy inscription in the temple, dated to AD 436. The language of the inscription echoes the language of Kalidasa.

  A number of Dharmashastras were written and they were not uniform in all the views they propagated. While none supported a liberal position in relation to caste and gender, nevertheless the degrees of orthodoxy differed. The best known were those of Yajnavalkya, Brihaspati, Narada and Katyayana. The latter two describe the theoretical norms of the judicial process. The king appointed the judges. If necessary he could be present as the highest court of appeal, assisted by the judges, ministers, chief priest, brahmans and assessors, depending on the needs of the individual cases. Representatives of professions, especially merchants, could also advise the king. Judgement was based on the Dharmashastras, social usage or the edict of the king, with usage often having priority. Evidence was based on any or all of three sources – documents, witnesses or the possession of incriminating objects. Ordeal as a means of proof was not only permitted but prescribed. Katyayana accepted the theory of punishments according to caste, with the highest receiving the lightest punishment. In some conditions, however, this could be reversed.

  Contrary to Fa Hsien’s statement that vegetarianism was customary in India, other sources indicate that meat was commonly eaten especially among the elite. The flesh of the ox was medically prescribed to enhance vigour. Wine, both the locally produced variety and that imported from the west, was popular as was the chewing of pan, betel leaf. Theatrical entertainment had a wide audience, some drawn from court circles and some from townspeople. Folk dance performances and recitals of music are mentioned, particularly on special occasions. Gambling continued to hold the attention of men, as did animal fights, particularly of the ram, the cock, and the quail, which were more common in rural areas.

  Systems of Knowledge

  Formal education was available in brahman ashramas, hermitages, and in Buddhist and Jaina monasteries. In the former it would have been restricted to the upper castes. Theoretically, the period of studentship at the former lasted over many years, but it is unlikely that most would spend long periods as students. Learning was a personalized experience involving teacher and pupil. The emphasis was on memorizing texts such as parts of the Vedas, and gaining familiarity with the contents of the Dharmashastras and subjects such as grammar, rhetoric, prose and verse composition, logic and metaphysics. But much else was included in Sanskrit learning, such as astronomy, mathematics, medicine and astrology.

  Tangential to medicine were works on veterinary science, relating mainly to horses and elephants, both important to the army. In some subjects Sanskrit texts reflected the theoretical view, as well as the practical application. Generally, however, the practice of a profession was maintained as a distinctive form of education, handled by the actual professionals. The writing of a manual in Sanskrit on a particular subject was an indicator of its importance. Varahamihira discussed aspects of agricultural practice that included the cultivation of new crops such as indigo, the effects of rainfall and methods of water-divining. These discussions were continued in works such as the Manasara and the Krishiparashara.

  Buddhist monasteries took students for a shorter time of about ten years, but those wishing to be ordained as monks had to remain longer. Learning for novices began through an oral method but changed to literacy. Libraries in monasteries contained important manuscripts that were copied when they became frayed. Nalanda in south Bihar became the foremost Buddhist monastic and educational centre in the north, attracting students from places as distant as China and south-east Asia. This was possible because it had an income from a large number of villages granted to it for its upkeep. Excavations at Nalanda have revealed an extensive area of well-constructed monastic residences and halls of worship.

  The early expositions of Indian astronomy, used in part to organize the large sacrifices, were recorded in the Jyotishavedanga. Contact with the Hellenistic world had introduced a variety of new systems, some of which were incorporated into Indian astronomy. There was also a shift from astronomy based on the lunar mansions and constellations, as discussed in early sources, to astronomy that placed greater emphasis on the planets. In part, this followed from the dialogue between Hellenistic and Indian astronomers. The new astronomy marked a departure that gave direction to the new theories influencing astronomy and mathematics in the Eurasian world. Some of this information was included in larger texts of the later period, but some was discussed in texts specific to astronomy. Ujjain, which was on the Indian prime meridian, became a centre for studies in astronomy.

  Aryabhata, in AD 499, was the first astronomer to tackle the more fundamental problems of the new studies. He calculated pi to 3.1416 and the length of the solar year to 365.3586805 days, both remarkably close to recent estimates. He believed that the earth was a sphere and rotated on
its axis, and that the shadow of the earth falling on the moon caused eclipses. The explanation for the cause of eclipses was quite contentious as the orthodox theory described it as a demon swallowing the planet, a theory strongly refuted even in later times by the astronomer Lalla. Aryabhata and those who followed his line of thought are regarded as more scientific than other Indian astronomers of the time. Aryabhata’s contribution to knowledge relating to astronomy was quite remarkable and was a departure from earlier theories of Vedic astronomy. The later objection to some of these ideas, for instance, by Brahmagupta, appear to have been motivated by a wish not to displease the orthodox.

  In the work of a close contemporary, Varahamihira, the growing interest in horoscopy and astrology was included in the study of astronomy and mathematics. This was an addition that Aryabhata might have questioned, since Varahamihira’s emphasis was on astrology rather than astronomy, and, although a sharp dichotomy between the two may not have been common, the emphasis did make a difference. Astrology denied the validity of Aryabhata’s theories. Varahamihira’s Panchasiddhantika (Five Schools), discussed the five currently known schools of astronomy, of which two reflected a close knowledge of Hellenistic astronomy. The exploration of all these systems had not been carried out in isolation: an increasing dialogue existed between Indian and Arab astronomers and mathematicians, similar to the earlier one between Hellenistic and Indian astronomers. Indian works on mathematics, astronomy and medicine in particular were much prized in the scholarly centres that arose under the Caliphate at Baghdad and where Indian scholars were resident. The interchange of ideas was a characteristic of these systems of knowledge, even though some of the breakthroughs came from Indian thinkers.