A theory that has been taken for granted is the view that the Rajputs are descendants of Huns etc, and the "agnikunda" of Abu, represented a rite by which the Brahmins elevated them to Kshatriyas, needs critical examination.
The view was presented by Tod in his "Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan" written in 1832, and through repeated uncritical acceptance by generations of historians, it is now taken for granted.
Since the work of Tod, a great deal of archaeological evidence has become available, which clearly show that Rajputs did not originate through the "Agnikunda" ceremony, and that some of the major Rajputs clans actually originated from the Karnataka region. However the established view is part of the text-books, and earlier historians are often cited to support the theory.
Let us see how the historians have themselves added to a myth which has gradually evolved.
As an example let us consider Basham. In "The wonder that was India", 1954, he writes:
"Hunas destroyed or dispersed the older marital tribes of Rajasthan and their place was taken by newcomers, probably acclimatized invaders, from whom most of the rajput clans of the middle ages were descended. ... and the Rajputs, in later times, the kshatriays par excellence, were no doubt largeley descended from such invaders."
I noticed that in "Early India - From The Origins to AD 1300" Romilla Thapar does not question the view even though it came out in 2002.
Let me identify the phases of this myth in reverse chronological order.
1. In the current phase, the view is that the Rajputs are descendants of the Huns etc, and agnikunda of Abu represented a purification ceremony.
2. The view represented by Bhavishya Purana is that FOUR rajput clans were created from the agni-kunda of Abu: Pramar (Paramar), Chapuhani (Chahaman or Chauhan), Shukla (Chalukya or Solanki) and Parihar. It says that they were created to annihilate the Buddhists during the time of Ashoka. It is not really possible to date Bhavisha Purana with any degree of certainly, but some part of it are of very late origin.
3. The view in Prathviraj Raso that Vasishtha created THREE rajput clans from the agni-kunda, Pratihar, Chalukya and Panwar (Parwar). The date of Prathviraj Raso as it is available to day, is very controversial, the language is too modern to be the composition of Chandabaradai during Pratviraj's period.
4. Going back further, we come to the Udaipur prashasti and some of the later records. The Udaipur prashasti (from Udaipur, Vidisha) which gives the geneology of the Parmars of Malava, mentions the legend that is frequently mentioned later in Parmara records. Accroding to this, Vishwamitra had taken the cow belonging to Vasishtha. Vasishtha created a warrior from the agnikund at Abu, who was named "Paramar" because he was to kill the others, to get the cow back. This undated prashasti is from the period of Parmar Udayaditya who ruled during 1070-1093. The same legend is given in Vasantgarh inscription of 1042 AD. Thus the original version of the legend applied ONLY to Parmars. It should be noted that Vasistha was the gotra of the Parmars.
5. We then come to the very origin of the Abu agnikunda legend. Padmagupta, who wrote Navasahasanka-charita in about 1005, in praise of his patron, Parmar Sindhuraj (about 995-1055), the predecessor of the famous Bhojadeva (about 1000-1055). There is no mention of the legend before Padmagupta. In fact, Parmar records prior to Sindhuraj point to another view of the origin of Parmars. I will mention about this view soon.
The Parmar copperplates and inscriptions are available in "Inscriptions of the Paramaras, Chandellas, Kachchhapaghatas and two minor Dynasties", which is part 2 of the 3-part Vol III of Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, edited in 1974 by H.V. Trivedi (published in1991).
Yashwant
I have read a view that many of the Kuli Maratha clans in Maharashtra are descendants of Rajputs.
Based on what I have seen, it appears that to a considerable extent, reverse is true. Some of the Rajput clans originated from Maharashtra/Karnataka region with absolute certainty. Some of the others are, to the best of my knowledge, branches of clans that originated from Maharashtra/Karnataka.
Thus it appears that some of the Kuli Marathas are not Rajputs who settled in Maharashtra, rather they are relatives of their branches who settled in Rajasthan/Gujarat.
Rathore are same as Rashtrakuta. Solanki are same as Chalukya. I am quite certain that the Paramaras are a brach of Rathores, based on early Paramara copper-plates.
Consider this:
Rathor=Rashtrakuta: of Jodhpur, Bikaner etc. 24 branches.
Gahadaval: of Kannauj. Regarded to be a branch of Rathors.
Bundelas: of Orchha, Datia etc. Regarded to be a branch of Gahadvals
Chandellas: of Khajuraho/Mahoba. Some obscure connection with Gahadval.
Paramara: Of Dhar/Abu. 24 branches.
Solanki=Chalukya: of Anahilavad. 16 branches.
Baghela: of Rewa. A branch of Solanki.
Silar: Shilahar of Kolhapur.
Some Rajputs do not appear to have originated from
Maharashta/Karnataka: Gahlot, Tomar, Kachhvaha, Chauhan, Parihar,
Bhati. However they appear to have formed the modern Rajput community after the arrivals of the Karnatakas.
<b>We should note that emergence of Rajputs coincides with expansion of Rashtrakutas and Chalukyas into western/northern India.</b>
It is also interesting to note that around the same time lineages of Jain Bharratakas (Sarasvati-Gachchha-Balatkara-Gana as well as Pustaka-gachchha-Desiya-Gana) appeared in North India. Also, the Senas appeared in Bengal after having moved from Karnataka. Rajatarangini of Kalhana mentions about adaptation of Karnataka customs in Kashmir!
Yashwant
http://www.sulekha.com/news/nhc.aspx?cid=416133
Things were back to normal under Shah Jahan (1593-1666), the fifth Mogul Emperor and a grandson of Akbar the Great. Most Westerners remember him as the builder of the Taj Mahal and have no idea that he was a cruel warmonger who initiated forty-eight military campaigns against non-Moslems in less than thirty years. Taking his cue from his Ottoman co-religionists, on coming to the throne in 1628 he killed all his male relations except one who escaped to Persia. Shah Jahan had 5,000 concubines in his harem, but nevertheless indulged in incestuous sex with his daughters Chamani and Jahanara. During his reign in Benares alone 76 Hindu temples were destroyed, as well as Christian churches at Agra and Lahore. At the end of the siege of Hugh, a Portuguese enclave near Calcutta, that lasted three months, he had ten thousand inhabitants "blown up with powder, drowned in water or burnt by fire." Four thousand were taken captive to Agra where they were offered Islam or death. Most refused and were killed, except for the younger women, who went into harems.
These massacres perpetrated by Moslems in India are unparalleled in history. In sheer numbers, they are bigger than the Jewish Holocaust, the Soviet Terror, the Japanese massacres of the Chinese during WWII, Maoâs devastations of the Chinese peasantry, the massacres of the Armenians by the Turks, or any of the other famous crimes against humanity of the 20th Century. But sadly, they are almost unknown outside India.
There are several reasons for this. In the days when they ruled India, the British, pursuing a policy of divide-and-rule, whitewashed the record of the Moslems so that they could set them up as a counterbalance to the more numerous Hindus. During the struggle for independence, Gandhi and Nehru downplayed historic Moslem atrocities so that they could pretend a facade of Hindu-Moslem unity against the British. (Naturally, this façade dissolved immediately after independence and several million people were killed in the religious violence attendant on splitting British India into India and Pakistan.) After independence, Marxist Indian writers, blinkered by ideology, suppressed the truth about the Moslem record because it did not fit into the Marxist theory of history. Nowadays, the Indian equivalent of political correctness downplays Moslem misdeeds because Moslems are an "oppressed minority" in majority-Hindu India. And Indian leftist intellectuals always blame India first and hate their own Hindu civilization, just their equivalents at Berkeley blame America and the West.
Unlike Germany, which has apologized to its Jewish and Eastern European victims, and Japan, which has at least behaved itself since WWII, and even America, which has gone into paroxysms of guilt over what it did to the infinitely smaller numbers of Red Indians, the Moslem aggressors against India and their successors have not even stopped trying to finish the job they started. To this day, militant Islam sees India as "unfinished business" and it remains high on the agenda of oil-rich Moslem countries such as Saudi Arabia, which are spending millions every year trying to convert Hindus to Islam.
The folk mythology of coastal West India holds that the land was reclaimed from the sea by the great bhArgava by means of his axe. Accordingly rama jAmadagnya is widely worshipped in this region. After a brahmin from the Konkans, Balaji Vishvanath became the Peshva of the Maharatta king Shahu he endowed a local ascetic of the name Swami Brahmendra for the maintenance of religious affairs. Bhaskararaya Makhindra the great tantric had also worked on his great treatise on the Vamakeshvara tantra when he accompanied the Maharattas in this region.
The Siddis were Ethiopian Moslems who had been invited to India by the Bahmanid courts to serve as henchmen for the Sultan. During the terminal days of the Nizamshahi kingdom, a famous black warrior was Maliq Amber who held control of many parts of Maharashtra. As the Nizamshah disintegrated, Amber and his clansmen captured the island of Janjira, opposite to the temple of the dattAtreya hill, from the Kohlis and built an impregnable fort on it. The Siddis also conquered the Underi island on the entrance to the Mumbai harbor and strategically placed themselves to dominate the West coast of India. This gave complete freedom to raid and harrass the Maharatta territory as Shivaji rose to power. The Siddis were appointed by Awrangzeb to protect Moslems making the Haj to the Arab lands. The Siddis also routinely formed alliances with the British and the Portuguese to harrass the Hindus on the coast. Shivaji and his admiral Khanoji Angre contained the Siddi to his strong hold at Janjira by outflanking him but failed to overcome him.
Svami Brahmendra had built a large temple of the bhArgava on hill near Chiplun, which was lavishly endowed by the Hindus of the Maharatta country. In 1727, the Siddi admiral, Siddi Sat, launched a naval raid on the adjacent territory of Govalkot and Anjanvel, annexed them and fortified them for an offensive on the Hindus. The African imitator of his Arab role-models was seized with an itch to become a Ghazi and be recognized as a pre-eminent Moslem. So on Shivaratri day, Feb 8th 1727, he launched a Jihad to attack the Rama temple on the Chiplun hill. Having desecrated the idols he rounded up several hundred brAhmaNas and tortured them and killed many of them. This attack enraged the Hindus who called upon Shahu to take the strongest action. Seeing huge Maharatta force being assembled for an assault and communication with his Christian allies being cut off the principal Siddi at Janjira panicked. He apologized to the Hindus and returned what every property had been looted.
However, the Maharattas realized that the Siddi threat needed to be completely neutralized or destroyed, especially to prevent the disasterous consequences of a triple alliance of the two Christians and the Moslem. Further, Raigad, the old capital of Shivaji remained in the hands of the Siddi after Awrangzeb had annexed it in 1689 and remained a thorn in the Maharatta side. So Shahu wanted a major offensive in the Konkan. But Bajirao not being proficient in the naval attack and more interested in dismantling the Mogol military force in the North neglected this front for a while. But finally on Shahu's insistence he met with Sekhoji Angre the Maharatta admiral and hatched a plan to launch a combined naval and land operation. The battle of Kolaba, where the Bajirao had hammered the Britons, gave him space to keep at least one of the Christian enemies out contention in a land struggle. Finally in May of 1733 only the Maharattas swung into action with 3 generals hardly in the best of relationships with each other: Bajirao Peshva, Shripati rao Pratinidhi and Sekhoji Angre. Bajirao decided to stick to his forte and attacked the land outposts opposite to Janjira and captured them. He also destroyed the landing site of the Siddis on the Rajpuri creek and took control of the surroundings of the creek to launch fire on the ships entering the creek. This allowed Sekhoji Angre to trap a Siddi fleet in the creek and destroy it. At this point Pratinidhi arrived suddenly on the scene and entered into negotiations with the Raigad garrison, as they were taken offguard he suddenly captured the fort. Flushed with pride the Pratinidhi stopped coordinating with the Peshva and the Angre. In the mean time the Angre sent his commodore Bakaji to attack Siddi Sat. Bakaji made an amphibious assault from Suvarndurg to besiege Anjanvel and Govalkot. But the Pratinidhi thought he could use the same trick as Raigad and began negotiations with Siddi Sat to try a bribe. The cunning Siddi seemed to agree and Bakaji was asked to raise the siege and stormy seas of the monsoon. The stormy monsoon of four months gave the Siddis an immediate respite and they holed up in the impregnable Janjira which was getting supplies from Anjanvel and Underi. Bajirao wrote to Shahu to get more troops to first capture Anjanvel and Underi or at least send the Pratinidhi to cooperate with him. But Shahu did not act on them.
In the mean time the Africans sent secret envoysa to the Moslem and Christian allies the Mogol at Dilli, the Nizam, other Siddis in Gujarat, the British and Portuguese and vastly strengthened their position. Instead of acting fast Shahu merely scolded Angre and Bajirao for not acting on the Siddis. To add to the problems the Pratinidhi returned to Satara without doing anything further, taking the credit for the recapture of Raigad. Further blows hit the Maharattas in the form of the death of their young and able admiral Sekhoji Angre. His valiant brothers instead of consolidating the Maharatta position broke out into a conflict with each other. Finally in December of 1733 with no reinforcements in place and the navy in utter disarray, Bajirao retreated ignomiously from the Konkan as no further operations could be conducted.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Unlike Germany, which has apologized to its Jewish and Eastern European victims, and Japan, which has at least behaved itself since WWII, and even America, which has gone into paroxysms of guilt over what it did to the infinitely smaller numbers of Red Indians, the Moslem aggressors against India and their successors have not even stopped trying to finish the job they started. To this day, militant Islam sees India as "unfinished business" and it remains high on the agenda of oil-rich Moslem countries such as Saudi Arabia, which are spending millions every year trying to convert Hindus to Islam. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not only is there no apology forthcoming, but such statements are dismissed as being outlandish and absurd and the secularist press in India condemns such assessments as not being secular and therefore as communal. Nowehere is the question asked is the statment true and if so is an apology appropriate ( i obviously think it is ). Meanwhile the neighborhood muezzin where i live in India wakes me up by distrubing the peace at 5:30 am in the morning in a loudspeaker that can be heard for several blocks and nobody has tghe guts to remonstrate that this is a medieval practice whicih is rude , discourteous and positively unsecular in its lack of respect for other religions.
Mathematics and Eurocentrism
For some their Eurocentrism (or Graeco-centrism) is so deeply entrenched that they cannot bring themselves to face the idea of independent developments in early Indian mathematics, even as a remote possibility.
A good illustration of this blinkered vision is provided by a widely respected historian of mathematics at the turn of this century, Paul Tannery. Confronted with the evidence from Arab sources that the Indians were the first touse the sine function as we know it today, Tannery devoted himself to seeking ways in which the Indians could have acquired the concept from the Greeks. For Tannery, the very fact that the Indians knew and used sines in their astronomical calculations was sufficient evidence that they must have had it from the Greeks. But why this tunnel vision? The following quotation from G.R. Kaye (1915) is illuminating:
The achievements of the Greeks in mathematics and art form the most wonderful chapters in the history of civilization, and these achievements are the admiration of western scholars. It is therefore natural that western investigators in the history of knowledge should seek for traces of Greek influence in later manifestations of art, and mathematics in particular.
It is particularly unfortunate that Kaye is still quoted as an authority on Indian mathematics. Not only did he devote much attention to showing the derivative nature of Indian mathematics, (Attempts to show the derivative nature of Indian sciences, and especially its supposed Greek roots, continue even today. For example, Pingree has prepared a chronology of Indian astronomy which is notable for the absence of any Indian presence!) usually on dubious linguistic grounds (his knowledge of Sanskrit was such that he depended largely on indigenous `pandits' for translations of primary sources), but he was prepared to neglect the weight of contemporary evidence and scholarship to promote his own viewpoint. So while everyone else claimed that the Bakhshali Manuscript was written or copied from an earlier text dating to the first few centuries of the Common era, Kaye insisted that it was no older than the 12th century A.D. Again, while the Arab sources unanimously attributed the origin of our present-day numerals to the Indians, Kaye was of a different opinion. And the distortions that resulted from Kaye's work have to be taken seriously because of his influence on Western historians of mathematics, many of whom remained immune to findings which refuted Kaye's inferences and which established the strength of the alternative position much more effectively than is generally recognized.
This tunnel vision is not confined to mathematics alone. Surprised at the accuracy of information on the preparation of alkalis contained in an early Indian textbook on medicine (Susruta Samhita) dating to few centuries BCE, the eminent chemist and historian of the subject, M. Berthelot (1827-1909) suggested that this was a later insertion, after the Indians had come into contact with European chemistry!
This Eurocentric tendency has done more harm, because it rode upon the political domination imposed by the West, which imprinted its own version of knowledge on the rest of the world.
(source: The Crest of the Peacock - By George Gheverghese Joseph p. 215 - 216
kAlAmukhas-II
Modern historians have seen the vIrashaivas as an organic evolute of the kAlAmukhas. While their attachment to li~Nga worship, shiva devotion and monastic organization are indeed comparable, there are many differences. The vIrashaiva cult, while found by a brahmin basava, had a rather anti-brahminical streak. Firstly, it was vociferously critical of the varNAshrama dharma and secondly sought to replace brahminical rites with imitations. For example, they used the rudra gAyatrI in place of the savitA gAyatrI for the saMdhya rite. The virashaiva cult, as characterized by the vachanas of basava, was low on philosophy and high on rhetoric, and associated, as per its own admission, with murder of the ruling king, religious persecution and raising of private militias.
The inscriptions of the kAlAmukhas collected by Lorenzen clearly show that the majority of their priests were highly erudite brahmins with orthodox leanings. For example lAkulIshvara, a kAlAmukha priest in the first half of the 1000s has made an inscription that states:
"The god mahAdeva's feet are worthy of worship by all the world. The rules laid down in the veda for the varNas and Ashramas is dharma. Who derides these two statements, on his head will I place my foot in the king's court."
The philosophical leanings of the kAlAmukhas are again made very clear in some of the inscriptions:
"lAkulIshvara is the able supporter of nyAyA and vaisheShika, he is a vADava fire to bauddha ocean, a thunderbolt of indra to the mImAmsaka mountain, a saw for cutting down the lokAyata banyan tree, a great eagle to the sAmkhya serpent, an axe for propounders of the advaita doctrine, a noose of yama to hostile proud paNDitas, and a meteor to the naked jains. "
Another inscription regarding a shiva temple of the kAlAmukhas made by the chAlukyan chieftain rAchamalla states:
"For the deva svyambhU's personal gratification, theatrical entertainment of the population, offerings of food, restoration of worn out idols and temples, the chaitra and pavitra rites, vedic recitation, lectures on vaisheShika philosophy, class readings from the shiva-dharma purANa and feeding of the needy <is this endowment> ".
This suggests that the kAlAmukhas were primarily nyAya-vaisheShika proponents, and this formed the scaffold of their philosophical constructs. The sudden decline of nyAya-vaisheShika both in the south and Kashmir appears to have coincided with the destruction of the kAlAmukhas who appear to have been its last great expositors.
But at the same time the kAlAmukha paNDitas may be described as being electic and using the various doctrines in their argumentation as seen the inscription describing kAlabhairava tatpuruSha munipati, a kAlAmukha priest who migrated to Karnataka from Kashmir:
"Through his intelligence that tat-puruSha munipati assumes the status of a bhairava to his opponents in debate. His terrifying trident is the mImAmsa. He agitates the hearts of his proud opponents with the sound of his drum which the bauddha doctrine. He has the terrifying three eyes of the atomic doctrine (vaisheShika), and the upraise skull brand of the sAmkhya thought. He causes the interiors of the atmosphere and the sky to be defeaned by the sound of this huge bell which is the nyAya doctrine. "
But even here the main thrust is towards their favored doctrines with no mention of advaita or others.
vIrashaivas appear to have merely adapted some of the prevalent superficial aspects of the kAlAmukhas while actually revolting against them in their declining years. The vIrashaiva attraction to the superficial and rhetorical aspects of the older layer appears to have acted as an impediment to any philosophical transmission from that layer. However, they preserved the high level of organization of the kAlAmukhas and as result were able to gain considerable political mileage for their movement.
The lesson from the kAlAmukhas leads me to a conjuncture: Strongly organized systems are best in propagating socially and politically oriented doctrines. They generally fail to preserve intellectual traditions over long periods, under volatile conditions, though they may be excellent in over the sh0rt to medium range.
(where shall I put this?). Okay here, but please move it as necessary.
Here is an interesting article about the intellectutal links between China and India.
<b>The New York Review of Books: Passage to China</b>
Volume 51, Number 19 · December 2, 2004
<b>Passage to China
By Amartya Sen</b>
1.
The intellectual links between China and India, stretching over two
thousand years, have had far-reaching effects on the history of both
countries, yet they are hardly remembered today. What little notice
they get tends to come from writers interested in religious history,
particularly the history of Buddhism, which began its spread from
India to China in the first century. In China Buddhism became a
powerful force until it was largely displaced by Confucianism and
Taoism approximately a thousand years later. But religion is only
one part of the much bigger story of Sino-Indian connections during
the first millennium. A broader understanding of these relations is
greatly needed, not only for us to appreciate more fully the history
of a third of the world's population, but also because the
connections between the two countries are important for political
and social issues today.
Certainly religion has been a major source of contact between China
and India, and Buddhism was central to the movement of people and
ideas between the two countries. But the wider influence of Buddhism
was not confined to religion. Its secular impact stretched into
science, mathematics, literature, linguistics, architecture,
medicine, and music. We know from the elaborate accounts left by a
number of Chinese visitors to India, such as Faxian in the fifth
century and Xuanzang and Yi Jing in the seventh,[1] that their
interest was by no means restricted to religious theory and
practices. Similarly, the Indian scholars who went to China,
especially in the seventh and eighth centuries, included not only
religious experts but also other professionals such as astronomers
and mathematicians. In the eighth century an Indian astronomer named
Gautama Siddhartha became the president of the Board of Astronomy in
China.
The richness and variety of early intellectual relations between
China and India have long been obscured. This neglect is now
reinforced by the contemporary tendency to classify the world's
population into distinct "civilizations" defined largely by religion
(for example Samuel Huntington's partitioning of the world into such
categories as "Western civilization," "Islamic civilization,"
and "Hindu civilization"). There is, as a result, a widespread
inclination to understand people mainly through their religious
beliefs, even if this misses much that is important about them. The
limitations of this perspective have already done significant harm
to our understanding of other aspects of the global history of
ideas. Many are now predisposed to see the history of Muslims as
quintessentially Islamic history, ignoring the flowering of science,
mathematics, and literature that was made possible by Muslim
intellectuals, particularly between the eighth and the thirteenth
centuries. One result of such a narrow emphasis on religion is that
a disaffected Arab activist today is encouraged to take pride only
in the purity of Islam, rather than in the diversity and richness of
Arab history. In India too, there are frequent attempts to portray
the broad civilization of India as "Hindu civilization"-to use the
phrase favored both by theorists like Samuel Huntington and by Hindu
political activists.
Second, there is an odd and distracting contrast between the ways in
which Western and non-Western ideas and scholarship are currently
understood. In interpreting non-Western works, many commentators
tend to ascribe a much greater importance to religion than is
merited, neglecting the works' secular interests. Few assume that,
say, Isaac Newton's scientific work must be understood as primarily
Christian (even though he did have Christian beliefs); nor do most
of us take it for granted that his contributions to scientific
knowledge must somehow be interpreted in the light of his deep
interest in mysticism (important as mystical speculations were to
him, perhaps even motivating some of his scientific work). In
contrast, when it comes to non-Western cultures, religious
reductionism tends to be a powerful influence. Scholars often
presume that none of the broadly conceived intellectual work of
Buddhist scholars, or of followers of Tantric practices, could
be "properly understood" except in the special light of their
religious beliefs and customs.
2.
As it happens, relations between China and India almost certainly
began with trade, not with Buddhism. Some two thousand years ago the
consumption habits of Indians, particularly of rich Indians, were
radically influenced by innovations from China. A treatise on
economics and politics by the great Sanskrit scholar Kautilya, first
written in the fourth century BCE, though revised a few centuries
later, gives a special place to "silk and silk-cloth from the land
of China" among "precious articles" and "objects of value." <b>In the
ancient epic Mahabharata there are references to Chinese fabric or
silk (cinamsuka) being given as presents,</b> and there are similar
references in the ancient Laws of Manu.
The exotic nature of Chinese products was captured in many Sanskrit
literary works in the early part of the first millennium, as in the
fifth-century play Sakuntala by Kalidasa (perhaps the greatest poet
and dramatist in classical Sanskrit literature). When King Dusyanta
sees, in the middle of a hunting expedition, the stunning hermit-
girl Sakuntala and is overwhelmed by her beauty, he explains his
passion by comparing himself to the way a banner made of Chinese
silk flutters in the wind: "My body goes forward,/But my reluctant
mind runs back/Like Chinese silk on a banner/Trembling against the
wind." In the play Harsacarita by Bana, written in the seventh
century, the beautiful Rajyasri is portrayed at her wedding as
gorgeously dressed in elegant Chinese silk. During the same period
there are also plentiful references in the Sanskrit literature to
other Chinese products that made their way into India, among them
camphor (cinaka), vermilion (cinapista), and high-quality leather
(cinasi), as well as delicious pears (cinarajaputra) and peaches
(cinani).
While China was enriching the material world of India two thousand
years ago, India was exporting Buddhism to China at least since the
first century AD, when two Indian monks, Dharmaraksa and Kasyapa
Matanga, arrived in China at the invitation of Emperor Mingdi of the
Han dynasty. From then on until the eleventh century, more and more
Indian scholars and monks came to China. Hundreds of scholars and
translators produced Chinese versions of thousands of Sanskrit
documents, most of them Buddhist works. Translations were going on
with astonishing rapidity. Although the flow of translated work came
to an end in the eleventh century, more than two hundred further
Sanskrit volumes were translated between 982 and 1011 AD.
The first Chinese scholar to write an elaborate account of his visit
to India was Faxian, a Buddhist scholar from western China who went
in search of Sanskrit texts, intending to make them available in
Chinese. After an arduous journey through the northern route to
India via Khotan (which had a strong Buddhist presence), he reached
India in 401 CE. Ten years later, Faxian returned by sea, sailing
from the mouth of the Ganges (not far from present-day Calcutta),
and going on to visit Buddhist Sri Lanka and to see Hindu Java.
Faxian spent his time in India traveling widely and collecting
documents (which he would later translate into Chinese). His Record
of Buddhist Kingdoms is a highly illuminating account of India and
Sri Lanka. Faxian's years in Pataliputra (or Patna) were devoted to
studying Sanskrit language and literature in addition to religious
texts, but, as will be seen, he was also greatly interested in
contemporary Indian arrangements for health care.
The most famous visitor to India from China was Xuanzang, who
traveled there in the seventh century. A formidable scholar, he
collected Sanskrit texts (translating many of them after his return
to China), and traveled throughout India for sixteen years,
including the years he spent in Nalanda, a famous institution of
higher education not far from Patna. At Nalanda, in addition to
Buddhism, Xuanzang studied medicine, philosophy, logic, mathematics,
astronomy, and grammar. On his return to China he was greeted by the
emperor with much pomp.[2] Yi Jing, who came to India shortly after
Xuanzang's visit, also studied in Nalanda, combining his work on
Buddhism with studies of medicine and public health care.
3.
Yi Jing's translation of Buddhist works included texts by
practitioners of Tantrism, whose esoteric traditions placed a strong
emphasis on meditation. Tantrism became a major force in China in
the seventh and eighth centuries, and since many Tantric scholars
had a strong interest in mathematics (perhaps connected, at least
initially, with the Tantric fascination with numbers), Tantric
mathematicians influenced Chinese mathematics as well.
Joseph Needham notes that "the most important Tantrist" was Yi Xing
(672 to 717), "the greatest Chinese astronomer and mathematician of
his time."[3] Yi Xing, who was fluent in Sanskrit and was familiar
with the Indian literature on mathematics, was also a Buddhist monk,
but it would be a mistake to assume that his mathematical work was
somehow specifically religious. As a mathematician who happened to
be also a Tantrist, Yi Xing dealt with a variety of analytical and
computational problems, many of which had no particular connection
with Tantrism at all. He tackled such classic problems
as "calculating the total number of possible situations in chess."
He was particularly concerned with calendrical calculations, and
even constructed, on the emperor's orders, a new calendar for China.
Indian astronomers who were living in China in the eighth century
were particularly occupied with calendrical studies, and made use of
developments in trigonometry that had already emerged in India (and
that went far beyond the original Greek roots of Indian
trigonometry). This was also around the time when Indian astronomy
and mathematics, including trig-onometry, were influencing the
mathematics and the sciences of the Arab world, through the
translation into Arabic of Aryabhata, Varahamihira, and Brahmagupta,
among others.[4]
Chinese records show that several Indian astronomers and
mathematicians held high positions in the Astronomical Bureau at the
Chinese capital during this period. Not only did one of them,
Gautama, became president of the Board of Astronomy in China, he
also produced the great Chinese compendium of astronomy, Kaiyvan
Zhanjing, an eighth-century scientific classic. He adapted a number
of Indian astronomical works for publication in Chinese, among them
the Jiuzhi li, which draws on a particular planetary calendar in
India and is clearly based on a classical Sanskrit text, produced
around 550 CE by the mathematician Varahamihira. This work is mainly
an algorithmic guide to computation, estimating, for example, the
duration of eclipses based on the diameter of the moon and other
relevant parameters. The techniques involved drew on methods
established by Aryabhata in the late fifth century, and then further
developed by his followers in India, including Varahamihira and
Brahmagupta.
Yang Jingfeng, an eighth-century Chinese astronomer, described the
mixed background of official Chinese astronomy:
Those who wish to know the positions of the five planets adopt
Indian calendrical methods.... So we have the three clans of Indian
calendar experts, Chiayeh [Kasyapa], Chh?[Gautama], and Ch?Kuma
ra], all of whom hold office at the Bureau of Astronomy. But
now most use is made of the calendrical methods of Master Chh?
together with his "Great Art," in the work which is carried out for
the government.[5]
The Indian astronomers, such as Gautama or Kasyapa or Kumara, would
not have gone to China except for the connections that were made
possible by Buddhism, but their work can hardly be seen primarily as
contributions to Buddhism.
4.
The literature of cultures and civilizations includes much
discussion of China's alleged insularity and its suspicion of ideas
that have come from elsewhere. This view has also been invoked in
recent years to try to explain Chinese resistance to democratic
politics. Such simple interpretations, however, cannot explain why
China so readily embraced the market economy at home and abroad
following the economic reforms of 1979, while its leaders firmly
resisted political democracy. But it is also true that China has
not, in fact, been as intellectually insular as is frequently
assumed.
Here China's relations with India are of particular importance. As
it happens, India is the only country in the outside world to which
scholars from ancient China went for their education and training;
we have records of more than two hundred distinguished Chinese
scholars who spent extensive periods of time in India in the second
half of the first millennium. The Chinese primarily sought a
knowledge of Sanskrit and of Buddhist literature, but they were
interested in much else as well. Some Indian influences are evident,
as with the use of key terms and concepts from Sanskrit such as
ch'an or zen derived from dhyana, or meditation, as well as the
themes of Chinese operas that drew on Sanskrit stories (such as The
Heavenly Girl Scattering Flowers).[6] As the American scholar John
Kieschnick has shown, the Chinese construction of temples and
bridges was much influenced by ideas that came from India through
Buddhism.[7]
The movement of knowledge between China and India went, of course,
in both directions. Joseph Needham attempted to provide a list of
mathematical ideas that "radiated from China," particularly to
India, and he has argued that many more ideas went from China to
India than moved in the opposite direction: "India was the more
receptive of the two cultures."[8] In the absence of direct evidence
of the movement of a particular idea in either direction between
India and China, Needham assumed that an idea moved from the country
where the first record of its use had been found. This procedure has
been strongly criticized by other historians of science and
mathematics, such as Jean-Claude Martzloff.[9] It seems clear that
an earlier record of use would have been much more likely to have
been lost in India than in China.[10] What is really important is
that plenty of ideas in mathematics and science, as well as in other
nonreligious subjects, moved in both directions.
5.
The transfer of ideas and skills in mathematics and science remains
central to the contemporary commercial world whether for the
development of information technology or of modern industrial
methods. What may perhaps be less clear is how nations learn from
one another both in enlarging the scope of public communication and
in improving public health care. As it happens, both were important
in the intellectual relations between China and India in the first
millennium and remain central even today.
As a religion, Buddhism began with at least two specific
characteristics that were quite unusual, its agnosticism and its
commitment to broad discussion of public issues. Some of the
earliest open public meetings on record, aimed specifically at
settling disputes over religious beliefs as well as other matters,
took place in India in elaborately organized Buddhist "councils," in
which adherents of different points of view argued their
differences. The first of these large councils was held in Rajagriha
shortly after Gautama Buddha's death 2,500 years ago. The largest of
the councils, the third, was held in the capital city of Patna,
under the patronage of Emperor Ashoka in the third century BCE.
Ashoka also tried to codify and circulate what must have been among
the earliest formulations of rules for public discussion-a kind of
ancient version of Robert's Rules of Order. He demanded, for
example, "restraint in regard to speech, so that there should be no
extolling of one's own sect or disparaging of other sects on
inappropriate occasions, and it should be moderate even in
appropriate occasions." Even when engaged in arguing, "other sects
should be duly honored in every way on all occasions."
Insofar as reasoned public discussion is central to democracy (as
John Stuart Mill, John Rawls, and J?Habermas, among many
others, have argued), the origins of democracy can indeed be traced
in part to the tradition of public discussion that received much
encouragement from the emphasis on dialogue in Buddhism in both
India and China (and also in Japan, Korea, and elsewhere). It is
also significant that nearly every attempt at early printing in
China, Korea, and Japan was undertaken by Buddhists.[11] The first
printed book in the world (or rather, the first printed book that is
actually dated) was the Chinese translation of an Indian Sanskrit
treatise, the so-called Diamond Sutra, which was printed in China in
868 AD. While the Diamond Sutra is almost entirely a religious
document, the boldly inscribed dedication of this ninth-century
book, "for universal free distribution," announces a commitment to
public education.
John Kieschnick has noted that "one of the reasons for the important
place of books in the Chinese Buddhist tradition is the belief that
one can gain merit by copying or printing Buddhist scriptures," and
he has argued that "the origins of this belief can be traced to
India."[12] There is some ground for that view; there is also surely
a connection here with the emphasis on communication with a broad
public by such Buddhist leaders as Ashoka, who erected throughout
India large stone tablets bearing inscriptions describing the
qualities of good public behavior (including the rules on how to
conduct an argument).
The development of printing, of course, had a powerful effect on the
development of democracy, but even in the short run, it opened new
possibilities for public communication and had enormous consequences
for social and political life in China. Among other things, it also
influenced neo-Confucian education, and as Theodore de Bary has
noted, "women's education achieved a new level of importance with
the rise of...learning [during the Song dynasty] and its neo-
Confucian extensions in the Ming, marked by the great spread of
printing, literacy, and schooling."[13]
<b>-Continued</b>
<b>Continuation</b>
The New York Review of Books: Passage to China
Volume 51, Number 19 · December 2, 2004
<b>Passage to China
By Amartya Sen</b>
6.
The connections between India and China in public health care are
both significant and little-known. After Fax-ian arrived in India in
401 AD, he took considerable interest in contemporary health
arrangements. He was particularly impressed by the civic facilities
for medical care in fifth-century Patna:
All the poor and destitute in the country...and all who are
diseased, go to these houses, and are provided with every kind of
help, and doctors examine their diseases. They get the food and
medicines which their cases require, and are made to feel at ease;
and when they are better, they go away of themselves.[14]
Whether or not this description was too flattering of the clinics in
fifth-century Patna (which seems very likely), what is striking is
Faxian's desire to learn from the provisions for public health in
the country he visited for a decade.
Two and half centuries later, Yi Jing also became interested in
health care, and he devoted to it three chapters of his book on
India. He was more impressed with Indian health practice than with
Indian medical knowledge. While giving India credit for some medical
treatments, mainly aimed at lessening pain and discomfort
(e.g., "ghee, oil, honey, or syrups give one relief from cold"), he
concluded, "In the healing arts of acupuncture and cautery and the
skill of feeling the pulse, China has never been surpassed [by
India]; the medicine for prolonging life is only found in China." On
the other hand, he wrote, there was much to learn from India about
health care: "The Indians use fine white cloth for straining water
and in China fine silk should be used," and "in China, people of the
present time eat fish and vegetables mostly uncooked; no Indians do
this." While Yi Jing returned to China pleased with his country of
origin (he even asked rhetorically: "Is there anyone, in the five
parts of India, who does not admire China?"), he still made a point
of evaluating what China could learn from India.
7.
Public health is a subject about which one country can learn from
another, and it should be clear that India today has much to learn
from China. Indeed, life expectancy has been longer in China than in
India for many decades. However, the history of progress in
extending life expectancy in the two countries tells a more
interesting story. Shortly after the revolution, Maoist China made
an early start in providing widespread health care, and there was
nothing comparable in India at the time. By 1979, when Deng
Xiaoping's economic reforms were first introduced, Chinese on
average lived fourteen years longer than Indians.
Then, after the economic reforms of 1979, the Chinese economy surged
ahead, growing much faster than India's. Despite China's much faster
economic growth, however, the average rate of increase in life
expectancy in India has, since 1979, been about three times as fast
as that in China. China's life expectancy is now about seventy-one
years, while India's is sixty-four years; the life-expectancy gap in
favor of China, which was fourteen years in 1979 (at the time of the
Chinese reforms), has now been halved to seven years.
Indeed, China's life expectancy of seventy-one years is now lower
than that in some parts of India, notably in the state of Kerala,
which, with its 30 million people, is larger than many countries;
Kerala has been particularly successful in combining Indian-style
multiparty democracy (including public debates and widespread
participation of citizens in public life) with improvements in
health through state initiatives of the type that China undertook
after the Revolution.[15] The advantage of that combination shows
itself not only in achievements in high life expectancy but also in
many other fields. For example, while the ratio of women to men in
the total population in China is only 0.94 and the Indian overall
average is 0.93, Kerala's ratio is 1.06, exactly the same as in
North America and Western Europe. This high ratio reflects the
survival advantages of women when they are not subjected to unequal
treatment.[16] The fall in the fertility rate of Kerala has also
been substantially faster than in China, despite China's coercive
birth-control policies.[17]
At the time of the Chinese reforms in 1979, life expectancy in
Kerala was sightly lower than in China. However between 1995 and
2000 (the last period for which firm figures for life expectancy in
India are available), Kerala's life expectancy of seventy-four years
was already significantly higher than China's last firm figure of
seventy-one years in 2000.[18]
Moreover, since the 1979 economic reforms, the infant mortality rate
in China has declined extremely slowly, whereas it has continued to
fall very rapidly in Kerala. At the time of the Chinese reforms in
1979 Kerala had roughly the same infant mortality rate as China-
thirty-seven per thousand. Its present rate is ten per thousand, a
third of China's thirty per thousand (which has not changed much
over the last decade).
Two factors, both of which bear on the issue of democracy, help to
explain the slackening of Chinese progress in prolonging life,
notwithstanding the positive effects of China's extremely rapid
economic growth. First, the reforms of 1979 largely eliminated free
public health insurance, and most citizens had to buy private health
insurance (except when it was provided by the employer, which
happens only in a small number of cases). This withdrawal of a
highly valued public service met with little political resistance -
as it undoubtedly would have in any multiparty democracy.
Second, democracy and political freedom are not only valuable in
themselves; they also make a direct contribution to public policy
(including health care) by bringing failures of social policy under
public scrutiny.[19] India offers high-quality medical facilities to
the relatively rich, including foreigners who come to India for
treatment, but the basic health services in India are poor, as we
know from the strong criticisms of them in the Indian press. But
intense criticism also provides opportunities to make amends. In
fact, the persistent reports on the deficiencies of Indian health
services, and the resulting efforts to improve them, have been a
source of India's strength, reflected in the sharp reduction in the
gap between China and India in life expectancy. This strength is
reflected as well in what Kerala has achieved by combining
democratic participation with radical social commitments. The link
between public communication and health care can also be seen in the
terrible effects of the secrecy surrounding the SARS epidemic in
China, which started in November 2002 but was kept secret until the
following spring.[20]
So while India has much to learn from China about economic policy
and also about health care, India's experience with public
communication and democracy could still be instructive for China. It
is worth recalling that the tradition of irreverence and defiance of
authority that came with Buddhism from India to China was singled
out for particularly strong criticism by the Chinese in the early
denunciations of Buddhism.
Fu-yi, a powerful Confucian leader, submitted in the seventh century
the following complaint about Buddhists to the Tang emperor. It has,
in fact, some similarity with the recent attacks on the Falun Gong:
Buddhism infiltrated into China from Central Asia, [in] a strange
and barbarous form, and as such, it was then less dangerous. But
since the Han period the Indian texts began to be translated into
Chinese. Their publicity began to adversely affect the faith of the
Princes and filial piety began to degenerate. The people began to
shave their heads and refused to bow their heads to the Princes and
their ancestors.[21]
Fu-yi proposed not only a ban on Buddhist preaching but a new way of
dealing with the "tens of thousands" of activists rampaging in
China. "I request you to get them married," Fu-yi advised the Tang
emperor, and "then bring up [their] children to fill the ranks of
your army." The emperor, we learn, refused to use this approach to
eliminating Buddhist defiance.
With stunning success, China has become a leader of the world
economy, and from this India-like many other countries-has been
learning a great deal, particularly in recent years. But the
achievements of democratic participation in India, including Kerala,
suggest that China, for its part, may also have something to learn
from India. Indeed, the history of China's attempts to overcome its
insularity-especially during the second half of the first millennium-
has continuing interest and practical usefulness for the world today.
[22]
Notes
[1] In spelling Chinese names in English, I am using the "pinyin"
system, which is now standard, even though the literature cited also
uses many other spellings. Faxian has also been referred to as Fa-
Hsien and Fa-hien; Xuanzang as Hiuan-tsang and Yuang Chwang; and Yi
Jing as I-tsing and I-Ching, among other variations.
[2] Two insightful recent books draw on Xuanzang's travels and their
continuing significance today: Richard Bernstein, Ultimate Journey:
Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in
Search of Enlightenment (Knopf, 2001), and Sun Shuyun, Ten Thousand
Miles Without a Cloud (HarperCollins, 2003).
[3] Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 2
(Cambridge University Press, 1956), p. 427.
[4] An interesting example of the transmission of mathematical ideas
and terms can be seen in the origin of the trigonometric
term "sine." In his Sanskrit mathematical treatise completed in 499
AD, Aryabhata used jya-ardha (Sanskrit for "chord half"), shortened
later into jya, for what we now call "sine." Arab mathematicians in
the eighth century transliterated the Sanskrit word jya into the
proximate sound of jiba and then later changed it to jaib (with the
same consonants as jiba), which is a good Arabic word, meaning a bay
or a cove, and it was this word that was later translated by
Gherardo of Cremona (circa 1150) into its equivalent Latin word for
a bay or a cove, viz., sinus, from which the modern term "sine" is
derived. See Howard Eves, An Introduction to the History of
Mathematics (Saunders, sixth edition, 1990), p. 237. Aryabhata's jya
was translated into Chinese as ming and was used in such tables as
yue jianliang ming, literally "sine of lunar intervals." See Jean-
Claude Martzloff, A History of Chinese Mathematics (Springer, 1997),
p. 100.
[5] See Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 3, p. 202;
see also pp. 12 and 37. A general account of Indian calendrical
systems is presented in my "India Through Its Calendars," The Little
Magazine, No. 1 (Delhi, 2000).
<b>[6] The term "Mandarin," from the Sanskrit word mantri, or special
adviser (the Indian prime minister is still called pradhan mantri,
or principal adviser), came much later, via Malaya.</b>
[7] John Kieschnick, The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material
Culture (Princeton University Press, 2003).
[8] Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 3, pp. 146-148.
[9] Martzloff, A History of Chinese Mathematics, p. 90.
[10] Apart from other reasons, John Kieschnick points to "the
ephemerality of palm leaves and birch bark" on which "most writings
in ancient India were inscribed"; see The Impact of Buddhism on
Chinese Material Culture, p. 166.
[11] It appears that there were early attempts at printing by Indian
Buddhists as well. Indeed, Yi Jing, the Chinese scholar who visited
India in the seventh century, apparently encountered prints of
Buddhist images on silk and paper in India, but these were probably
rather primitive image blocks. A little earlier, Xuanzang is said to
have printed pictures of an Indian scholar (Bhadra) as he returned
to China from India. On this early history, see Needham, Science and
Civilization in China, Vol. 5, Part 1, pp. 148-149.
[12] Kieschnik, The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture,
p. 164.
[13] Wm. Theodore de Bary, "Neo-Confucian Education," in Sources of
Chinese Tradition, compiled by Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom
(Columbia University Press, second edition, 1999), Vol. 1, p. 820.
[14] From the translation of James Legge, The Travels of Fa-Hien or
Record of Buddhist Kingdoms (Patna: Eastern Book House, 1993), p. 79.
[15] Kerala has, however, been less successful in achieving a high
growth rate of gross domestic product through an expansive economy.
Its GDP growth is similar to the overall average of India and lower
than that of a number of more growth-oriented states in India. Even
though the World Bank's estimates have tended to show that Kerala,
in addition to its achievements in education and health care, has
had one of the fastest rates of reduction of income poverty in
India, it still has a lot to learn from China about ways to increase
economic growth. On these comparisons and the causal factors
underlying them, see my joint book with Jean Dreze, India:
Development and Participation (Oxford University Press, 2002),
Section 3.8, pp. 97-101.
<b>[16] I have discussed the casual factors underlying the phenomenon
of "missing women" in "More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing,"</b> The <b>(For Rajesh)</b>
New York Review, December 20, 1990; "Missing Women," British Medical
Journal, Vol. 304 (March 7, 1992); and "Missing Women Revisited,"
British Medical Journal, Vol. 327 (December 6, 2003). They also
discuss the economic, political, and social lessons from Kerala's
experience, including the reach of radical but democratic politics
and the role of education and the agency of women.
[17] On this see my "Population: Delusion and Reality," The New York
Review, September 22, 1994, and "Fertility and Coercion," University
of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 63 (Summer 1996).
[18] See National Bureau of Statistics of China, China Statistical
Yearbook 2003 (Beijing: China Statistics Press, 2003), Table 4-17,
p. 118. The Chinese big cities, in particular Shanghai and Beijing,
outmatch the state of Kerala, but most Chinese provinces have life
expectancy figures far lower than Kerala's.
[19] This connection is similar to the more prominent observation
that major famines do not occur in democracies, even when they are
very poor. On this, see my "How Is India Doing?" The New York
Review, December 16, 1982, and jointly with Jean Dr?, Hunger and
Public Action (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). Large famines, which
continued to occur in British India right up to the end (the Bengal
famine of 1943 was just four years before India's independence),
disappeared abruptly with the establishment of a multiparty
democracy in India. In contrast, China had the largest famine in
recorded history during 1958-1961, when nearly 30 million people, it
is estimated, died.
[20] It is possible that the sharp increase of economic inequality
in recent years in China may have also contributed to the slowing
down of the progress in life expectancy. There has, in fact, been
some increase in economic inequality in India as well, though
nothing as large as in China; but it is interesting that the
increase in Indian inequality seems to have had a major part in the
defeat of the ruling government in New Delhi in the elections held
in May. Among the other factors contributing to the defeat was the
violation of the rights of the Muslim minority in the sectarian
riots in Gujarat. (It is of course to the credit of a deliberative
democratic system that majority voting can respond to the plight of
minorities.)
[21] Translation from Prabodh C. Bagchi, India and China: A Thousand
Years of Cultural Relations (Calcutta: Saraswat Library, revised
edition, 1981), p. 134.
[22] A longer essay on these themes will be included in a collection
of essays, The Argumentative Indian, to be published by Penguin
Books in London in early 2005. For helpful suggestions, I am most
grateful to Patricia Mirr-lees, J.K. Banthia, Homi Bhabha, Sugata
Bose, Nathan Glazer, Geoffrey Lloyd, Roderick MacFarquhar, Emma
Rothschild, Roel Sterckx, Sun Shuyun, and Rosie Vaughan.
Now we need an "Economist" and a Red to teach us History? <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:lol:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='laugh.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Now we need an "Economist" and a Red to teach us History?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Especially, from a person with agenda.
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritche...ce_500back.html
RIGVEDA-SAMHITA
ms2097
MS in Sanskrit on paper, India, early 19th c., 4 vols., 795 ff. (complete), 10x20 cm, single column, (7x17 cm), 10 lines in Devanagari script with deletions in yellow, Vedic accents, corrections etc in red.
Binding: India, 19th c., blind-stamped brown leather, gilt spine, sewn on 5 cords, marbled endleaves
Context: See also MS 2162-2164, grammar, commentary and performance manual on the RigVeda.
Provenance: 1. Eames Collection, Chicago, no. 1956; 2. Newberry Library, Chicago, ORMS 960 (acq.no. 152851-152854) (ca. 1920-1994); 3. Sam Fogg cat. 17(1996):42.
Commentary: The Rigveda-Samhita is the only surviving recension of the oldest ritual hymns of India. It consists of 1028 hymns, largely organised by subject/matter. It is an anthology collected from the larger number of hymns in use in the many priestly families of ancient India. The language in which hymns were composed is the form of Aryan which was spoken around 1000 BC. Modern scholars think that the corpus of texts was organised in its present textual and linguistic form around 600 BC, but was further orally transmitted from master to pupil until ca. 300-200 BC, when it was finally committed to writing. The archaic linguistic forms are the most valuable source for the investigation of the oldest stages of the Indo-European languages, as Homeric Greek and Hittite.
The text preserves a stage of Indian religion quite different from modern Hinduism, the rituals being centred on animal sacrifice and the consumption of Soma, an intoxicating drink, and the pantheon being that of Indo-European steppe-dwellers.
http://www.nb.no/baser/schoyen/5/5.20/#2097
http://www.nb.no/baser/schoyen/5/5.20/index.html
Extinct and living religions
Click on the pictures to view them in full screen format
The Schøyen Collection has extensive materials in Judaism and Christianity (Collections 1., 5., 6 and 12.), and Buddhism (Collection 22). Other religions are also represented. 21 examples are listed here. The first 7 are representing extinct religions of the ancients.
Extinct religions
23.1. Sumerian religion
* MS 3029 Sumer, 26th c. BC
* MS 2272 Sumer, 2400-2200 BC
* MS 3281 Babylonia, 1900-1700 BC
23.2. Babylonian religion
* MS 2401 Babylonia, 2000-1800 BC
* See also MS 2367/1, Babylonia, 20th - 17th BC
23.3. Assyrian religion
* See MS 2180, Assyria, ca. 646 BC
23.4. Egyptian religion
* See also MS 1638, Egypt, 15th c. BC
* See also MS 125, Egypt, 1292-1185 BC
* MS 126 Egypt, 1197-1085 BC
23.5. Greek religion and mythology
* MS 2628 Egypt, 1st c. BC - 1st c. AD
* See MS 593, Crete, 2nd half 15th c.
23.6. Maya religion
* MS 1280 Honduras, ca. 600-850
23.7. Veda
* MS 2097 India, early 19th c.
http://www.nb.no/baser/schoyen/5/5.19/index.html
bout 1500 Buddhist MSS from most Asian countries spanning nearly 2000 years. The collection starts with the foundation MSS of Mahayana Buddhism. 14 MSS are listed. Large parts of Collections 20 China, and 21 Pre-Gutenberg printing, are also Buddhist literature.
The Buddhist collection comprises most Asian countries. Foremost is a collection of the earliest Buddhist scriptures known, spanning 2nd - 7th c., written on palm leaf in India, birch bark in Afghanistan, and vellum and copper.
The about 5000 leaves and fragments with ca. 7000 micro-fragments from a library of originally up to 1000 manuscripts, together with 60 in British Library, have been called the "Dead Sea Scrolls of Buddhism". The manuscripts were found in caves in Bamiyan in Afghanistan 1993-95. They mostly avoided destruction during the civil war among several warlords and Taliban by being taken out of the war zones. The significant parts that remained in Afghanistan when Taliban took power in most of the country in 1996, were specifically targeted for destruction together with other Buddhist objects and monuments, but were saved under partly dramatic circumstances. The first few fragments were acquired by The Schøyen Collection in the summer 1996, while the bulk of the material was acquired in London 1997-2000. At that time they were increasingly being spread on a great number of hands in several countries. Many of the micro-fragments were either discarded or used for amulets. The greatest challenge of the rescue operation turned out to be getting these materials together again. For the greater part this turned out successfully. As the last part of the rescue operation they will now be made available to everyone, by being published by the world's leading scholars, see publication project no. 5.
These Buddhist MSS are the only section in the collection that is not coming from old collections, but were acquired to prevent destruction, after requests from Buddhists and scholars. The question can be raised whether these MSS should be returned to Afghanistan after they have been published, and if peace, order, religious tolerance, and safe conditions can be established in that country.
When the MSS were written, this was the Kushan Indo-Scythian Empire, later conquered by the Huns; modern Afghanistan did not exist. The area has since changed religion from Buddhism to Islam, changed language from Sanskrit and Gandhari to Arabic, Dari and Pashtu, and most of the descendants of the original Buddhists are living outside present Afghanistan. More than half of the MSS were actually written in present Pakistan and India. The Buddhist monasteries and their MSS were mostly destroyed in the 8th c. by Muslims, and the remaining to a greater part destroyed by Taliban recently, including the 2 giant statues of Buddha that were blown up in 2001. The last 2000 years the area has been regularly conquered, torn and shaken between its strong neighbours to the East, North, and West, and internally torn apart by civil wars. There is sadly enough a considerable probability that history will repeat itself in the far future as well. One has to draw the conclusion that Afghanistan is not the right and safe home for these MSS in the future, even if UNESCO's conventions directs such MSS to be returned to the National state. However, as mentioned in the introduction part 2, consideration and clarification about a possible future return of these manuscripts is an ongoing process.
The Schøyen Collection has a responsibility for the safekeeping of MSS that have survived up to 5000 years, and wishes these MSS at least an equally long life in the future, with full access for scholars and the public, irrespectively of nationality, race or religion. National states, that come and go over the centuries, is not the only criterion for where MSS should be kept. Religion, cultural context, long-term safety and public access should be equally important.
http://exoticindia.com/book/details/IDE491/
<img src='http://images.exoticindia.com/books/ide491.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
History, as it has generally been conceived and written in modern times, has limited itself to the outer narration and interpretation of events and ignored the psychological forces and factors that affected human life. This predominance of external events has been so great that most modern historians and political thinkers have concluded that objective necessities are by law of Nature, the only really determining forces; all else is result or superficial accidents of these forces. Scientific history has been conceived as if it must be a record and appreciation of the environmental motives of political action of the play of economic forces and developments and the course of institutional evolution.
Indian history in particular loses all its true significance when looked from this purely external viewpoint. For the Indian mind and temperament is naturally inward looking. This book is an attempt to look at Indian history from the psychological and inner angle. It is an attempt to place in proper perspective, the deeper psychological and spiritual elements even in the outer life of the Indian nation. It starts from the pulsating spiritual beginnings of the Vedic and Upanishadic times and traces the evolution of India to the building of empires; it is followed by a description of the invasions both Muslim and English and the psychological impact that they had on the people of India. Next there is a detailed description of the Freedom Movement with special emphasis on the psychological forces that were in play till the attainment of Independence in 1947. Finally it concludes with a vision for the future of India.
We hope that this book will give a greater insight and lead to a true understanding of Indian culture and civilization. This book is particularly aimed at the young, not only to those who are young in body but also in the heart.
About the Author:
Shri Kittu Reddy was born in the Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh in 1936. His father was one of the first MLCs whenhe was elected as a member of the Swarajya Party in 1924. He is the nephew of Late Sanjiva Reddy, the former President of India.
At the young age of five he was taken to Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry by his parents. He has lived there ever since. He has all his education at Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education from where he graduated. He has been teaching at the same Centre since 1958.
Since 1987, he has been giving talks to the Indian Army on Indian culture, the Mission of India and Motivation and Leadership.
In 1994, at the request of General BC Joshi, who was then Chief of Army Staff, he move over to Delhi for two years to help him in his work. He was appointed Adviser to the Army Welfare Education Society. After the passing away of General Joshi, he worked closely with General Shankar Roy Chowdhury, when he was the Chief of the Indian Army. Since then he has been in close touch with the Indian Army and has conducted workshops for the Indian Army, Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force. The workshops deal with Motivation, Leadership and the Indian Nation. They have been held both in Pondicherry at Sri Aurobindo Ashram and at training centers of the Armed Forces. He has also written a book for the Army entitled "Bravest of the Brave" and a monograph entitled "Kargil, the manifestation of a deeper problem."
CONTENTS
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The first few fragments were acquired by The Schøyen Collection in the summer 1996, while the bulk of the material was acquired in London 1997-2000.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It make sense. Now I can understand what was going on in London in 2000.
They were selling these artifacts in underground "open" market in London. In 2000 after a long time prices of coins and some manuscript value came down, According to unofficial "museums looters" lot of material became available after Soviet occupation so values are low. Even well printed brochures were available for collectors. I can recall some artifacts were before Ashoka period.
Mastermind behind these loot were as usual Western countries agents.
From Statesman
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Of gems and jewels
Arup K Datta
P Lal, an erudite scholar and teacher of English, poet and publisher of Writers Workshop books sensing my interest in the mysteries of history, sent me a copy of <b>The Moghul Peacock Throne by KRN Swamy and Meera Ravi</b>. The book, the outcome of a painstaking research, is the only one on the famous Peacock Throne. Though chiefly a chair meant for the emperor, it symbolises the joys and sorrows, triumphs and tribulations of the Mughal rulers and its end, and much like the death of Cleopatra, will always remain a mystery. I write on this magnificent creation of Shah Jajan primarily based on the book, The Moghul Peacock Throne.
<b>The Taj Mahal that took 16 years to complete and cost 50 lakh,</b> remains among the most wondrous creations. But it was not Taj, but the Peacock Throne, that Shah Jahan wanted as the first thing for himself. And he ordered for it the very first day of his reign. <b>It took a talented band of architects and craftsmen seven years and cost one crore!</b>
<b>Very few people have much idea about this great creation of the extravagant emperor and have come to accept that it should be somewhere in Iran after Nadir Shah made off with it along with his other loots in 1739.</b> But it isnât there. <b>In fact, it is to be found nowhere, for the throne was broken to pieces, which were shared by the Kurds of Khorasan immediately upon the death of Nadir Shah. </b>
The sad end of the throne, however, is disputed. It is unlikely that Nadir Shah would have carried the enormous throne to a military camp where he had spent a few days before he died. It was also unlikely to have been destroyed immediately and there are evidences to suggest that it was there at the time of Shahrokh Shah, a descendent of Nadir. There is also an account of how Behbud Khan, also known as Sayed Mohammad, âgleefully ascended the Peacock Throne while kettle drums sounded out enchanting omenâ.
There is no definite information about the throne and it is believed that because of its immense size, huge weight and the consequent problems to carry it, it was dismantled and the pieces were utilised to compensate the huge war expenses. A sad end indeed to the finest chair ever built in the history of humankind.
<b>What was the Peacock Throne like?</b> It is difficult to describe it with any measure of authenticity as chroniclers of the time that included Taverniere and Berniere, the French travellers, and three courtiers of the time, have described it differently. The accounts are conflicting enough to confuse the inquisitive mind. There are, however, visual evidences of the throne in the form of paintings done by the miniature painters of the time.
<b>In all probability, the throne had 12 supporting pillars and stood on four massive legs. Both the legs and the bars, wrote Tavernier, who was a jeweller himself, were covered with gold inlaid and embellished with numerous diamonds, rubies and emeralds. He counted the large rubies, the least of which weighed 100 carats and some were over 200 carats. He also noticed 116 emeralds, most with good colours. And the largest could be about 60 carats, the smallest 30 carats. The underpart of the canopy is all embroidered with pearls and diamonds . While according to Taverniere, there was only one peacock, Berniere says the throne was devised upon two peacocks. </b>
On his Majestyâs coronation, Shah Jahan had commanded that 86 lakh worth of gems and precious stones, one lakh tolas of gold worth another 14 lakh would be used in decorating the throne. The gems collected by Akbar, Jehangir and Shah Jahan must have been displayed, wondered a court chronicler.
The Peacock Throne, literally symbolising the seat of power, was a mute spectator to a variety of events, high and low, before it was carried away by Nadir Shah. It was placed in Diwan-i-Khas, the magnificent private chamber of Shah Jahan, who ruled India for about 30 years till 1658. Shah Jahan was 66 years old at the time when he was scarred by a series of battles and down with emotional turmoil that rocked his own clan. Following the Mughal tradition, he wanted Dara Shikoh, his eldest son, to ascend the throne, but how Aurangzeb outwitted his father and siblings to usurp power is common knowledge.
Shah Jahan was taken a prisoner and could not move beyond the rooms in the harem portion of the Agra Fort. The emperor was hurt and enraged but helpless. He initially refused to part with his jewels and the Peacock Throne but a year later was forced yield for the coronation of Aurangzeb.
When Aurangzeb wished to make a few additions to the throne and wanted some of his fatherâs gems, Shah Jahan was so enraged that he decided to hammer them to powder.
Shah Jahan lived another seven years but it is unlikely that he would have a glimpse of the throne again, let alone sit on it. The emperor died on a cold day of January, fully conscious, repeating the Muslim confession of faith while gazing at the Taj Mahal and was buried there the following day.
<b>Of the 104 years of its existence in India, only Dara Shikoh was known to have officially taken his seat on the Peacock Throne. </b>In his long reign of about 50 years, Aurangzeb might not have managed time to sit on it, for during most part of his rule, he engaged himself in fighting enemies across the empire.
He died in 1707 in Aurangabad in south India. And soon after his death, hell broke loose. Hussain Ali Khan and Abdullah Khan, popularly known as the Sayyid brothers, were the de facto rulers till Muhammad Shah, a great grandson of Aurangzeb, ascended the throne.
Born in 1702, Mahammad Shah was an easy-going man, untutored in the intricacies of running a vast empire. He spent much time with women in the harem or in the company of acolytes. He had little time for those state crafts.
<b>When Nadir Shah attacked India with a desire to plunder the wealth of the Mughals, Muhammad was completely unprepared. In 1739 at Karnal, the two armies fought. But the war didnât last long. The Mughal army was defeated hands down and a triumphant Nadir Shah marched into Delhi.</b> After a brief bonhomie when Nadir Shah handed back the reign to âBrother Muhammad Shahâ, and the latter pledged, â...all that I possess as the Id day gift to Nadirâ, <b>misunderstanding between the two armies prompted Nadirâs men to go on a murderous spree that left 20,000 people dead in just five hours. Nadir himself supervised the killings from what is known as Khuni Darwaza, located close to the Feroze Shah Kotla Stadium, now a popular venue of top-level cricket.</b>
Nadir Shah left for Persia with an unspecified wealth that included the Peacock Throne. âTreasures accumulated in 200 years of Mughal rule in Delhi changed hands in a day,â wrote a Mughal historian.
Nadir Shah was later murdered and largely forgotten. The riches he amassed were mostly squandered but a large part of them remained Persia.
<b>Small wonder, a grateful Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlevi, the deposed king of Iran, built a marble mausoleum in Nadir Shahâs memory and inaugurated it in 1959. </b>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
While looking for pranami cult I found this..
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.p...&pid=76&page=35
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> A Page from History
Bundel Kesari Maharaj Chhatrasaal
By Surya Narain Saxena
BUNDEL Kesari Maharaj Chhatrasaal (1649-1731 a.d.) with Shivaji and Guru Gobind Singh forms a trinity of rebels which rose against Aurangzebâs bigotry and tyranny in the 17th century. Neglect at the hands of history is probably the reason why so few in India know so little about this great warrior, statesman, ruler, patron of art and literature, and poet of distinction. Only five of his works have come to light so far. His contributions to the liberation struggle against Mughal imperialism was in no way less glorious than that of any of his contemporaries.
Chhatrasaal was a born rebel-the son of rebel Champat Rai and the brave Lad Kunwari. He was born in a cave on May 4, 1649, when his parents were surrounded by Mughal soldiers but managed to make a miraculous escape.
In Mughal Camp
With the object of studying Mughal warfare, strategy and armoury, Chhatrasaal enlisted in the Mughal expedition proceeding to south to suppress Shivaji under the command of Raja Jaisingh of Jaipur. But a disillusioned and estranged Chhatrasaal deserted the Mughal forces soon and met Shivaji at Raigad after a hazardous escapade from the Mughal army. Shivaji, being what he was, soon recognised the potential rebel in Chhatrasaal and instead of employing him in his army, initiated him into the cult of revolt against Mughal rule. After long and purposeful conclaves, Shivaji sent away the small band of Bundelas and blessed them by applying tilak on the forehead of the brave Chhatrasaal and tying the sword Bhawani to his waist.
The Army
Chhatrasaal raised the banner of revolt in Bundelkhand at the age of 22 with an army of only five horsemen and 25 swordsmen and with the blessings of Swami Narharidevji on the day of the second fortnight of Jyeshta in the year 1728 of the Vikram era, i.e. 1671 a.d.
In the first 10 years of his fight for emancipation, i.e. between 1671 and 1680, Chhatrasaal met with enviable success. Chhatrasaalâs relatives, including his brothers Angad and Ratanshah, and other Bundelas who were sitting on the fence in the beginning, also joined him. Thus he gathered enough force to hit, plunder and fight the Mughal faujdars who dared stop him. In the first decade he annexed vast tracts of land from Chitrakut and Patna (in Bundelkhand) in the east to Gwalior in the west and from Kalpi on Jamuna in the north to Sagar, Garha Kota and Damoh in the south. In this region his men had come to occupy some important forts like Kalinjar and Garha Kota.
In the year 1675, he wrested Panna from a Gond ruler and made it his capital, but his forces remained stationed at Mhow-Maheba. During this period, he himself humbled several reputed Mughal faujdars. (To name a few, Khaliq, Rohilla Khan Sheikh Anwar, Sadruddin, Syed Latif, Abdus Samad, Bahlol Khan and others besides their Hindu supporters like Keshav Rai Dangi, whom he killed in a bloody duel).
In the second phase of his struggle (between 1681 and 1707) Chhatrasaal suffered a few reverses, but undaunted by them and taking full advantage of Aurangzebâs preoccupation with the Marathas in the Deccan, he and his sons continued their raids on Mughal territory and occupied as much of it as they could. He was such a terror to the Mughal faujdars of his area that on their own they started sending the chauth to him to escape his dharaiti (plundering raids). Emperor Aurangzeb did not like this submission of his senior officials but could do nothing. He had to become reconciled to it. Until his death, Aurangzeb could not contain Chhatrasaal. Later the Mughals, however, established cordial relations with him.
After 1710, Chhatrasaal ceased to handle arms as his sons Hriday Shah and Jagat Rai were mature and strong enough to lead the campaigns and look after the affairs of the state. He had divided his kingdom between these two senior princes, Panna was given to Hriday Shah and Jaitpur to Jagat Rai. Hriday Shah annexed Baghelkhand and extended Chhatrasaalâs rule close to Allahabad, Benaras and Mirzapur. On the other hand Jagat Rai also extended his raids upto Patna in Bihar. In fact, conquests of Chhatrasaal around 1710 and later are the exploits of his sons, mainly Hriday Shah, Jagat Rai, Bharati Chand and Padam Singh.
Chhatrasaal and his sons continued their raids on Mughal territory and occupied as much of it as they could. He was such a terror to the Mughal faujdars of his area that on their own they started sending the chauth to him.
Territory Held
However, a couplet of Lal Kavi aptly describes the boundaries of the territory under the hold of Chhatrasaal which translated into English, says, âJamuna in the north and Narmada in the south, Chambal in the west and Tons in the east, none had the grit to fight Chhatrasaal.â In spite of the life-long struggle and some 50 battles to his credit, the final scores with the Mughals were settled when Mohammad Bangash Khan, a Pathan and subedar of Allahabad, invaded the Chhatrasaali kingdom. In the final phase of the 10-year war (1721-1729) between Chhatrassalâs sons and Mohammad Bangash, the siege of Jaitpur, Jagat Raiâs capital, created an unprecedently dangerous situation for the Bundelas and the hard-pressed Jagat Rai badly needed military help. But where could it come from except from the Marathas? And Chhatrasaal rightly looked to them as his saviours.
Peshwas' Help
The situation called for immediate action and Chhatrasaal sent a pathetic SOS in beautiful verse to the Peshwa, which was responded to at once. The Peshwa himself led his army to the rescue of Chhatrasaal and his clan. Now the tables were turned on Bangash and it was he and his forces who starved inside the besieged Jaitpur fort. Through master diplomatic manoeuvres of Chhatrasaal at the Delhi court, the promised aid of Rs 2 lakh a month was also stopped and the entreaties and appeals of Bangash felt on deaf ears. Most of Bangashâs army perished for want of food and supplies and he had to sue for peace. The actual surrender took place after the Peswha had left the battle due to the outbreak of an epidemic in his forces in May a.d. 1729. This was the final break of Chhatrasaal with the later Mughals at Delhi and the beginning of a new era of alliance with the Marathas.
Chhatrasaal asked Peshwa Baji Rao-I for help and it was given to him unconditionally. To express his deep gratitude Chhatrasaal promised and later willed one-third of his kingdom to the Peswha and treated him as his third son. Peshwa Baji Rao also behaved like a devoted son all his life. After Chhatrasaalâs death he even started building a magnificent memorial (samadhi) to Chhatrasaal like the one taken up by his sons in Dhubela in Madhya Pradesh.
Swami Pran Nath
It appears that Swami Pran Nath (1618-1694), founder of the Pranami sect, the synthesiser of the Puranas and the Quran and a widely travelled saint, exercised a great influence on Chhatrasaal who accepted him as his guru. The Pranami annals attribute many miracles to the swami. But it is certain that Swami Pran Nathâs advent brought good luck and lent respectability and sanctity to the struggle of Chhatrasaal against the Mughals. The Swami provided the spiritual component to Chhatrasaalâs political movement-a phenomenon characteristic of similar movements in India. Swami Pran Nath applied the rajyabhishek on the forehead of Chhatrasaal at their very first meeting in 1683 and later in 1687 at the formal coronation, but which met with the disapproval of other Bundela rulers of his time.
Without going deep into the administration and government of Chhatrasaal, it will suffice to say that his ideal of good government was:
âRaaji sab raiyat rahe
taji rahe sipahi
Chhatrasaal ba raj ko
bar na banko jahi.â
(âWhere the people are happy, the soliders are fresh. Not a hair of such a raj can be touched, says Chhatrasaal.â)
Chhatrasaalâs legendary carrier, so packed with struggle, romance and dedication came to end on December 20, 1731, when he had reached the age of 82.
Baji Rao and Mastani
Along with one-third of his kingdom Chhatrasaal had also presented young Peshwa Baji Rao-I a young and unsurpassed beauty called Mastani, whose marriage and romance with the Peswha is a well-known episode in Maratha history. Mastani gave the Peshwa two sons, on whom their father bestowed the jagir of Banda. True to their blood the two brothers fought on the side of the Marathas in the third battle of Panipat in a.d. 1761 between Ahmed Shah Abdali and the Marathas and one of them is said to have been killed in the battle.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The days of rule bound warfare is over
Although the AS puts a great deal of emphasis on devious warfare (kutayuddha), it prescribes that if a king has a clearly superior force and other factors are favorable, he should engage in open and rule-bound warfare (prakashayudha). Obviously in Kautilyaâs mind, a certain amount of odium continued to be associated with devious warfare. For it involved among other things attacking the enemy when he was vulnerable, feigning retreat to draw out the enemy into a trap, using elephants to break up closed ranks, attacking one flank and then the other, tiring out the enemy with oneâs inferior troops first and then attacking with superior ones, laying ambushes, attacking at night to deprive enemy soldiers of their sleep and then attacking them during the day with fresh troops, attacking the enemy troops when they were facing the sun and so forth. All such tactics are routine now but they were regarded as exceptional in Kaulilyaâs time.
The AS, therefore, goes into great detail about the âconventionalâ warfare of its time. It prescribes standard battle-arrays (vyuha) which have a centre, two flanks and two wings. Each component of the vyuha is conceived as being of equal strength containing between 9 and 21 units; each unit in turn, should be based on an elephant or a chariot with five horsemen and 15 infantrymen in front and rear. There are four basic types of battle-arrays: the staff (in-line) array, the serpent (wavy) array, the circular array and the loose army. The choice is determined by the terrain and the enemyâs troop disposition.
Great emphasis is placed on reserves behind every battle-ariay; this is where the king stations himself. The AS shows preference for mountains or forts to station the reserves. With the reserve force, there should be physicians and medicaments to treat the wounded, and field kitchens run by women. The women are also trusted with the task of âencouragingâ the troops.
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