This collection of essays by Uma Chakravarti is about everyday lives, histories of women, dasas, karmakaras, gahapatis etc belonging to ancient India. It is not about ideal kings, brahmanas. This valuable book is a must read for every history reader. The author feels that pali and prakrit sources are important because , by using them only we can get out of brahmnical bias of both Indian and western indologists,sociologists and many historians. One struggle therefore to de-privilege the brahmnical texts, ideas etc.
Orientalists like William Jones and H.T. Colebrook have reconstructed the Indian past and reintroduced the Hindu elite to the mystery of its ancient past glory. But they thought that Indian have high culture which is on the decline at present. On the other hand colonial historians, educationists like James Mill, Grant, Bentinck, Duff etc have started exposing the Hindu civilization as crude, barbaric, which has plunged into the lowest depths of immorality and crime(page 9). They justify the British rule on the ground s of moral superiority: 1) The complete degeneration of Hindu civilization 2) Degraded and abject position of Hindu women 3) Effeminacy of Hindu men who were unfit to rule themselves. They thought the natives (i.e. us) were frail, cowardly, and soft bodied little people. Some Orientalists like Max Muller romanticized the past. Bankim’s regenerated Hindu National Identity, excluded not only Muslims, but also lower castes, as they were non-Aryan and impure extraction. But Dayananda Saraswati’s Arya Samaj has a reinterpreted version of Vedic religion, and based on monotheism and golden age of Vedic truth was declined due to Mahabharata war and selfishness of the priestly class. Dayanand’s concern for a healthy and pure stock of Aryans made him to support Niyoga (Levirate) method and widow remarriage etc. he has also said that mothers should not breast feed their babies, but employ wet nurses(P 35).
The author wrote that while there are no sudras in Buddhist literature there are innumerable references to dasas dasis, and karmakaras. Though the term dasa is synonymous with slave, this term was then used for a wide range of characteristics .Arhashastra says dasa is one who can hold and inherit property and there are nine types of dasas. Manu (200 B.C-300 A.D) also mentioned different types of dasas. Manu’s work actually represents Kali age, which was marked by pronounced social conflicts, and , by a lack of congruence between the brahminical theory of caste and the empirical reality of existing social and economic order. Forced labor (visti) and debt bondage were widely prevalent during this period. Unlike in India freeman and slave system existed in Greek and Roman societies. The author narrated the role of gahapatis who were the domains of power and employed dasas. Aitaraya Brahmana, Chandyogya Upanishad, Rig Veda hymns speak about woman slaves ( dasis) who were gifted along with cattle, horses, gold lands etc to priests . When my friend Mr. Bagwat Prasad told me that many yatis were killed by Indra and were actually hunted down with the help of hounds and that it was mentioned in Rig Veda and Mahabharata, I looked at him unbelievingly. But the same thing was narrated by Uma Chakravarty in this book. She wrote that the Atharvaveda (11.5.3) refers to Indra killing yatis (ascetics). Sayana explained that the term yati as representative of people who opposed to sacrifice and endowed with rules contrary to Vedas (P 186). The author again distinguished the role of shramanas and Brahamnas. The former were against Vedic tradition and upholders of renunciation. The latter were upholders of Vedic tradition and the house holder status.
Several heterodox philosophers emerged during sixth century BC. Some of them were former or runaway slaves. These heterodox philosophers offered relief from existing miseries in a future existence. Ajivika doctrine preached that human effort is ineffectual. A sketchy reference to Makkhali Gosala is made in the Mahabharata. Makkhali Gosala spent some time with Mahavira as an associate but parted ways with him. Purana Kassapa is another contemporary of Buddha is described as a runaway slave like Gosala. Kassapa’s teachings make no distinction between good and evil, or between murderers, plunderers and torturers, and others who give alms and perform noble actions. The views of both these philosophers are characterized by a deep sense of futility, moral collapse and the powerlessness of human effort. On the other hand Buddhism strongly believed in the power of the human action. According to Chattopadhyaya, the Buddha transformed the concrete aspects of material suffering into a metaphysical principle of eternal suffering (dukha) and through this transformation, gave a completely subjective turn to the most oppressive problems of his age. The sangha was rooted firmly in the paribbajaka tradition of the post Vedic age. Renunciation was popular in the sixth century BC.
The author says there are three main sources of Ramayana: Dasharatha Jataka, Rama story in the santi parva of Mahabharata and Valmiki Ramayana. She describes Aryans as those who did agriculture to produce food, whereas Rakshasas and Vanaras belong to pre-agricultural stage. There were no signs of cultivation in Lanka.Aryans in Ramayana tried to spread agriculture and the destruction of forest culture. So it was a conflict between agricultural and pre-agricultural societies. Lanka appears to be in transition from matrilineal to patrilineal society. Ravava’s father is Pulastya, but he is called rakshasa because his mother Kaikesi is a rakshasi. In the Jain version of Ramayana Sita renounces Rama and family and becomes a bhikshuni. The composition of Ramayana is dated 400 BC to 200 Ad. Thus it began to be compiled later than Mahabharata but was completed earlier. But the kernel of Mahabharata text goes back to 800 BC; is expanded through accretions over a long period, stretching from 400 BC when it began to be compiled, to the later stages of composition which extends to the fourth-fifth centuries. The author critically analyzed the roles of women like Sita and Draupadi and through the feminist angle.
By B.Narayana Rao
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