The Language of History

Title: The Language of History – Sanskrit Narratives of Muslims Pasts

Author: Audrey Truschke

Publisher: Penguin Random House, 2021 (First)

ISBN: 9780670093229

Pages: 354

 

Audrey Truschke became known in Indian academic circles with her book on Aurangzeb, glorifying the last effective Mughal emperor notorious for his bigotry and fanatic zeal. He is still the ideal ruler for jihadists, but the cultured lot is more attracted to refined monarchs like Akbar. Naturally, the book was subjected to searing criticism which the author couldn’t refute effectively. This led her to dig deeper into Indian history in search of ideas that would corroborate her preconceived notions. The Muslim conquest of India lasted for more than five centuries in which Indian culture and customs suffered terribly. However, there have been consistent attempts from left-oriented historians to sweep everything under the carpet. It is only by discussing the totally one-sided atrocities of the past that a roadmap to a future of reconciliation can be evolved. In this book, Truschke examines Sanskrit histories of Muslim rule in the period 1190 – 1721 CE. This ought to be acknowledged as crucial to the study of what the author calls ‘Indo-Persian’ history. Audrey Truschke is an American historian of South Asia and an associate professor at Rutgers University.

 

India was unified into a democratic republic using the concepts of nationalism emerged out of western Europe, but the existence of numerous groups distinct on religion, language and race makes it a unique example. In any other place, these groups would have been identified as nationalities and would be split geographically. Take the case of cold-war Yugoslavia. It had just 8 per cent of India’s land area and a meagre 2 per cent of India’s population. Still, it was divided into five successor states when the yoke of communism was removed because the contending nationalities could not conceive of a platform that could hold them all. So, in order to remain as a single entity, the population has to be brought together using powerful cultural motives on the national scale. Scholars like Truschke attempt to punch holes in the unifying narrative because it does not conform to the theories they have learnt in college. She terms the nationalistic vision of India’s past as a ‘bastardized vision’ (p. xxi) only because she does not subscribe to it! Her choice of source material is also not widely recognized as authentic. Most of the texts are treated as stories, legends and non-histories by modern scholars. She counters this with the argument that modern western ways of defining history need reevaluation!

 

Truschke attempts to pull out the poison fangs of conquerors and portrays them as doves that got stuck in an alien land. The author pictures them as ‘participants in Persianate culture’ which was grounded in a prestige language and model of political power rather than religion. This may rightly sound like nonsensical to any thinking person, but you have to swallow your commonsense if you want to complete this book and to follow the author’s logic. Each page of the book is drenched with the single-point agenda of making paradise out of an unbearable hell that India was in those ages. To buttress the argument, the author claims that early Sanskrit inscriptions treated Muslims variably as military foes, allies and subsidiary rulers but generally portrayed them as no different from other Indian political actors. They handled them as a new part of the medieval Indian landscape that merited inclusion but no special comment.

 

Sanskrit language used some built in words to denote Muslims such as yavana (Greek), mleccha (impure), turushka (Turk) or tajika. Around the sultanate era, two new terms indicating kingship was borrowed from Persian – hammira (amir) and suratrana (sultan). Contrary to the author’s wish to establish a harmonious relationship between medieval Muslim invaders and their Indian defenders, even the first book analysed by the author, – Jayanaka’s Prithvirajavijaya written around mid-1190s – the Sanskrit historian develops a striking contrast between the Ghurids as destructive marauders and Prithviraj as Vishnu incarnate. He refers to Ghurids as demons, vile and barbarian. To save face, Truschke accuses the medieval Indian authors of opposing the Muslim conquest because it interfered with ritual caste purity. This is a naked attempt to co-opt modern caste equations to explain away an event that took place eight centuries before. Biased scholars like this author weave fantastic theories with hardly any fact to support them. Gahadvala inscriptions talk about a turushkadanda (Muslim tax). It is not at all clear whether this tax was to be paid by Muslims or one instituted to fight the Muslim invasions. But this has not restrained some scholars from proclaiming that they have found the ‘Indian equivalent of jizya’.

 

A curious fact is that the inhabitants of India had still not become aware of their identity as a distinct religion called Hinduism at the beginning of the sultanate era. The word Hindu appears as a religious marker only in the fourteenth century. At the same time, the invaders were driven by their clear religious duty to conquer and convert the subject peoples. An example cited in the book illustrates this point. The 1264 CE Veraval Inscription (near Somanath temple) depicts Sanskrit and Arabic texts regarding a religious donation. The Sanskrit part praises Allah as Viswanatha (lord of the universe), omnipresent, omniscient, formless and both visible and invisible. It also incorporates a number of Islamic cultural and religious ideas. However, the Arabic inscription wishes for Somanatha to become an Islamic city! Also, Nur ud-din Firuz, the patron, is acclaimed as the ‘protector of Islam and Muslims’ only. This exemplifies bigotry of the highest order on the part of the invaders rather than a spirit of assimilation.

 

Truschke’s book brings to light the wide acceptance of Sanskrit literature in all parts of India in the premodern period. Intellectuals everywhere aspired to handle the language effortlessly. Representative examples from the south, centre and north of the country are selected in this book. Jain authors of Gujarat invoked a degenerative theory of time (kaliyug) to explain violent aspects of Muslim rule as if to take solace in a harsh environment. In the case of fourteenth-century rajataranginis of Kashmir, there is confusion among scholars whether they are history or poetry. Kalhana, Jonaraja and Shrivara of Kashmir contributed to this genre. All these presented their works as kavya (poetry), but narrated past details. King Zain al-Abidin is likened to be an avatar of Vishnu and his Shah Miri dynasty allocated the lineage of Pandavas. Gangadevi’s Madhuravijaya is the only work penned by a woman. Here, Truschke claims that Madurai’s religious differences are less important than Gangadevi’s north Indian origin (p. 61). A twentieth century xenophobic movement of Tamil Nadu is projected here to the fourteenth century and she tries to accentuate the north-south divide.

 

Most works handled here are hagiographies extolling the virtue of patrons, which sometimes spill over to their chief courtiers also. Siddhichandra, a Jain monk, praises Abul Fazl – in the court of Akbar – as embodying the entirety of Sanskrit learning. A few years earlier, Devavimala, another Jain monk, had depicted Fazl as voicing Islamic theology and nothing else. These poets usually pulled out all stops to elevate their protectors to the hilt. They even compare the rule of Akbar and Jehangir with ramarajya (p.133). But, Jehangir was not always magnanimous to return the favour. Once he asked Siddhichandra to marry in spite of his ascetic vows and he refused. He was expelled from the court but was lucky to escape with his life. Sikh Guru Arjan Dev was killed on Jehangir’s orders because he declined to convert to Islam as the emperor insisted.

 

Audrey Truschke is a sworn opponent of what most Indians feel proud of, both in Indian history and the national tradition. She wonders if ‘Indian civilization’ (with the quotes) existed in the premodern times as if whatever India has at present was bestowed on her by the colonial British masters. The author has miserably failed to find the connecting thread that joins the narratives in its essence. Instead, she is more concerned with projecting twenty-first century intellectual values on to twelfth century scholars and acts surprised and pained by their lack of conformity. As is plainly evident in her ‘Aurangzeb’ book, the author seeks mitigating factors to explain away the brutal and fanatic outrages committed on the Indian people. The usual trope is to raise the plunder fallacy, seen in the claim that ‘Muslims raided Hindu, Jain and Buddhist temples aiming to extract wealth’ (p.1). Temple destruction is euphemized as ‘the Ghurids ‘reused’ temple materials in some of their mosque building projects’ (p.25).

 

This book, however, busts two popular myths. One is that there is no history in Sanskrit and the other is that there is nothing on Islam in India’s classical language. It also exhibits Sanskrit’s universal appeal in premodern India as the medium of literature and the lingua franca of the learned elite. We see comprehensive geographical coverage of Sanskrit, as in the case of narratives from Tamil Nadu in the south to Kashmir in the north. Jain and Buddhist scholars share equal interest in handling the language. Even women scholars take part in the initiative. In this way, the author inadvertently attests to the cultural unity of India. At the same time, the work is extremely uninspiring and plain boring on occasions. She cries foul of male dominance in current Indology without any specifics. Probably this may be due to some institution denying her a much coveted research grant? This prompts her to claim that Islamophobia is a pernicious problem in her academy (p.199).

 

This lifeless book is not recommended for general readers.

 

Rating: 2 Star