Indigenous traditions of History writing.

Abstract:
It was in late 18th and early 19th century that History as a discipline evolved. Scholars like
Ranke wanted to establish History at a par with Science and Arts as a form of knowledge.
Indologists of 19th claimed that Indians lacked sense of history and History writing. Indians
did not know how to record events, past. One of the reasons for this belief was the constant
comparision Indian History writing faced with the one going on in Europe. Al-Biruni in his
work Tahqiq-i-Hind, said that “Hindus do not pay much attention to historical records of
things. They are careless in in locating chronological succession of kings. When pressed for
information, they are lost, not knowing things and start tale telling”. But the point here is that
he calls his work simple record of facts but he calls his sources ahistoric. But scholars like
Romila Thapar have tried to show that Indians did have historical consciousness.

My paper focuses on various historical traditions like Sanskrit, Vernacular, Persian historical
tradition that flourished in India from about 7th to 18th century.

By focussing on different historical traditions and genres of history writing, I have come to a
conclusion that Indians never lacked sense of history and history writing. From the works of
Romila Thapar, R.C. Majumdar, C. Zutshi and many others, it can be said Sanskrit
historical tradition flourished from 7th century onwards which in a way created a base for
other historical traditions. It was not just Sanskrit historical tradition that flourished on the
Indian land but there were Persian historical tradition, Vernacular historical tradition,
Hindustani, Urdu and other historical traditions that flourished in India. It was wrong on the
part of Europeans and other scholars who believed that Indians lacked sense of historical
consciousness. Sanjay Subramanyam, David Shulman and Velcheru Rao in ‘Textures of
time’ have challenged the notion that Indians lacked sense of history writing. They not only
have challenged but also they have proposed a way to locate the sense of history in the pre-
colonial narrratives of the past.1 They have talked about karanam, a literati group who were
primarily accountants or court scribes in South India, who produced historical narratives in
16th century in the South Indian languages, Persian language and Sanskrit.

Introduction:
In recent times the viewpoint saying that Indians lacked sense of history in pre-modern times
with the exception of Kalhana’s RajtaranginI. Scholars have now tried to show that Indians
had sense of history which was in contrast to the one existing in the west. Just because the
historical writing was different from west does not prove that it was totally absent.

7th-8th centuries saw blooming in historical traditions. Court poets wrote biographies for their
patrons, highlighting their lives and achievements.
1. Velcheru N. Rao, David Shulman and Sanjay Subramanyam, Textures of Time:Writing History inSouth India
1600-1800, Delhi: Permanent Black,2011.
Many poets wrote Prasashtis. Kings patronised the biographers and encouraged them by
giving gifts and grants. We also find chronicles being written during this period in Sindh,
Kashmir, Gujarat, Orissa and Nepal. One of the chroniclers of Sindh said.” It would be wrong
to say that ancient Indians did not know how to write history. Also, it would be wrong to say
that before Kalhan there was no historian. There were historians of different schools like
Gujrat, Rajasthan etc.

Itihas-Purana tradition is one of the finest examples to show that Indians had sense of
History. Banabhatt’s Harshcharita. Kalhana’s Rajtaringini, Barani’s Tarikh- Firuzshahi
and Fatawa-i- Jahandari etc. Not just these ancient and medieval text,s there are some of the
great works in vernacular languages in different parts of India like Niti in Telugu, Tai in
Assam literature etc.

Allison Busch talks about Keshavdas, a renowned poet in the princely state of Orcha. Busch
has used Keshavdas’s poems to show the form of expression in pre modern India. Poetry has
a very special place in the regional courtsin India. His poems have helped us to understand
Mughal history as well. Some of his works include Ratnabavani, Virsimhdevcarit and
Jahangirname. These works are quite different from one another.

Going back to the debate started by Al-Biruni and carried forward by Indologists like James
Trotter, W.H. Hutton and others, Romila Thapar in response has talked about two types of
historical traditions2:

1. Embedded history
2. Externalised history

We might have records embedded in myths, genealogies, epics or we might find records in
more externalised form like biographies of kings, chronicles of places etc.for example
Rajtarangini. This work needs no introduction. It is called one of the finest works of history.
It is from Kalhana that we find distinction from earlier books3. Kalhan in his work has talked
about how a historian should be. He/she should not be biased and should be free from all the
prejudices. He says it is the responsibility of the historian to depict the clear picture of what
had happened in past before the eyes of the audience. Chitralekha Zutshi says that
Kashmir’s Persian tarikhs have been considered poor copies of the chronicles like
Rajtarangini. She believes that Sanskrit and Persian narratives should not be studied
independently rather it should be studied in the ways they interact. She said that Rajtarangini
was not just an example to show the historical consciousness of the Indians but also it acted
as a source to construct past.
2. Romila Thapar, Social and Historical Consciousness: The Itihas-Purana Tradition in Interpreting Early India,
Oxford University Press, 2011, pp.137-173.
3. Kalhana’s Rajtarangini or Chronicle of the Kings of Kashmir, vol, 1, ed. M.A. Stein (Sanskrit text with Critical
notes) [1892], Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1960.
4. Chitralekha Zutshi, ‘The Rajtarangini narratives in Kashmir’s Persian Historical Tradition’, Indian Economic and
Social history Review, 50,2 (2013): 201-219.
 She talks about how Persian texts shaped the historical culture when Sanskrit stopped being
the primary literary language she has aslo talked about three tarikhs from different periods,
two from Mughal period and one from Dogra period ( in the princely state of Jammu&
Kashmir). She mentions the engagement of these Persian texts with the Sanskrit texts which
in turn provided new meanings to the texts produced in context of Kashmir. R.C. Majumdar
has tried to show that even in ancient times people felt need to have a political history. This
can be proved by the presence of Sutas in Puranas. Sutas maintained genealogies of
kings,gods,rishis etc. we have Vamsavalis of different places like that of Nepal, Kashmir etc.
The tradition of keeping genealogies kept for quite long in the northern India. He mentioned
Kumarapala, Vastupala;s history in order to show the presence of history writing.he says that
Indians did not lack historical consciousness or the material, it was just that there was no one
like Kalhana. It was absence of writers like Kalhana that there was little interest seen among
the scholars. Raziuddin Aquil in his work ‘Good Governance will win over Kashmir’ said
that if historians actually want to unravel the truth and want to know about the past then they
must follow Rajtarangini. It tells how a historian should be and also it teaches the method and
practice of a historian of early medieval India. Despite being the work of medieval times, it is
completely modern except the fact that it is written in Sanskrit and in poetic form. This work
is not given the due respect because of the fact that it remains un politicised and is non-
religious work5. Shonaleeka Kaul, in her “Seeing” the Past: Text and Questions of History
in the Rajtarangini’, argues that Kalhana has narrativized Kashmir’s past and by doing so he
has historicised the work by talking about various places, people, events etc. he has given the
work a shape by these things.

It was during the time of Delhi Sultanate that we find appearance of the Persian works. Poets
and scholars started settling in the north western region during the time Ghaznavids. It was
with the settling of these scholars and poet that Persian language tradition emerged in the
subcontinent. There are 4 genres of Islamic tradition6:

1. Tarikhs
2. Manaqibs
3. Adab
4. Malfuzat

During the Timurid- Mughal period, we find Indo Persian historiography gaining importance.
This tradition included autobiographies, royal treatises, letters prose etc. There were not just
produced at the Mughal court but also at the courts of Bengal, Gujarat and at other places
which had Persian speaking rulers. This tradition continued till 18th century. It was later with
the decline of ‘Muslim power’ that Urdu replaced Persian in verses and proses by 19th
century. Ziauddin Barani is considered to be one of the most important scholars of Delhi
Sulatanate.

5. Raziuddin Aquil, ‘Good Governance will win over Kashmir’ in Sunday Guardian, September 6, 2014.
6. Sunil Kumar, The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate, Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2007: pp. 362-378.
7. Peter Hardy, Historians of Medieval Iindia, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Pub., 1997 (2011), pp. 20-39.
His works Tarikh-i-Firuzshahi and Fatawa-i- Jahandari. These works are two of the important
sources of the period. He wrote both works to educate Muslim sultans about their duty
towards Islam. He had three motives according to Peter Hardy7:

1.Pragmatic

2.Aristocratic

3 Didactic

K.A. Nizami says Barani’s self-knowledge was so vast that it acted as his source for his
works. Chronological problem, as Harbans Mukhiya says, was not because of his loss of
memory but because of the didactic nature of history he wrote. Raziuddin Aquil criticised
Mohammad Habib’s depiction Barani in his work. ‘Life and Thought of Ziyauddin Barani’.
Prof. Aquil says Barani has been dismissed as a bigoted theologian. Prof. Aquil has used
various sources to show that he was not the way he has been projected. He was a disciple of
Nizamuddin Auliyah and friends with poet Amir Khusrau. Prof. Aquil says Barani had
nothing to do with theology. Barani, as said by Prof. Aqui, wanted historians to rise above all
the fears.he did not want historians to just write the merits and achievements of the rulers.
Historians should always write truth no matter what.

Abu Fazl’s Ain-i-Akbari was instrumental in its role as it legitimised Kashmir’s Sanskrit text
as a source of studying Kashmir’s past.

Bata or the tale is a special form of prose narrative and often has been used in the form of
kahani and lok katha. It has evolved into its own branch which is quite different from the rest.

Norman P. Ziegler talks about how these batam was under the domain of specialists of the
caste of Maru Caranas. Learned people in Rajput families would recite genealogies and
stories. Batam was the traditional way of imaparting knowlwdge to young Rajputs. Other
forms of traditions include Vamsavalis, Pidhiavali. Unlike batam these were written form of
tradition. The oral counterparts are still preserved in villages of Rajasthan. In 16th and 17th
century we find emergence of khyata and vigata alongside pidhiavali and vamsavali as
literary forms. Peter Hardy says that history of medieval India is the study of the continuity of
the native historiographical tradition that had been developed by Hindu and Muslim scholars.

Partha Chatterjee talks about the presence of distinct type of history writing in Eastern India
i.e. the Buranji. It is used in the chronicles of the regions of Tripura, Manipur etc. in pre-
colonial times, it can be seen being used in Assam as well.

With English taking central position we find Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit becoming more of
vernacular languages.English influenced the Indian languages

In recent times scholars have given more attention to the indigenous sources like Romila
Thapar discussing Itihas-Puranic materials.literati groups like that of karanam wrote in
absence of royal supervision in 16th century South India in Sanskrit, Persian and south Indian
languages.
In north India we have ‘men of pens’ or Munshis produced form of history in Persian that
was more of a vernacular than classical in style and sensibility. We have a different
community in Maratha region known as ‘bakhar’. These people recorded history of lineage or
of a family of propert or political distinction.

Conclusion:
We can thus conclude that Indians did not lack any historical consciousness and
Rajatarangini was not just the only historical text in Indian history. We have a wide range of
oral and written historical traditions in the pre-modern times. These traditions which have
been disregarded as mere myths should be re looked to find the embedded truths in it. Every
historical tradition is different from one another, so comparing one tradition with another and
saying Indians lacked sense of history writing or they had static history just because their
tradition is different from European tradition is totally unfair. Everything cannot be judged
with the same lens. The indigenous traditions help us in reconstructing past.

Various traditions practiced by poets, scholars in different part of the subcontinent are
sufficient to prove that Indians did not lack historical consciousness and sense of history
writing. From the works of Scholars like Romila Thapar , R.C. Majumdar, Raziuddin Aquil
etc. we can totally say that Sanskrit historical tradition flourished as early as 7th century AD
which further created base for other traditions like Persian.

These traditions acted as a precursor to the vernacular historical traditions as well. We find
emergence of vernacular traditions in various parts of the subcontinent like Bengal, Gujarat,
South India etc. in 16th 17th and 18th century.

Thus, I conclude that the popular belief of the western scholars that Indians lacked sense of
history is completely wrong. This is proven by the presence of various historical traditions in
the subcontinent.

ANUPAM TRIPATHI

M.A. HISTORY

HANSRAJ COLLEGE

Bibliography:
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Press, 2013.

2.Romila Thapar, Society and Historical Consciousness: The Itihasa-purana Tradition in Interpreting
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3.Romila Thapar, “Kalhaṇa,” in Historians of Medieval India, ed. Mohibbul Hasan New Delhi:
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4.R. C. Majumdar, ‘Ideas of History in Sanskrit Literature, in Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon,
ed. C. H. Philips, London: Oxford University Press, 1961: 13-28.
5.Chitralekha Zutshi, ‘Translating the Past: Rethinking Rajatarangini Narratives in Colonial India’ in
The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 70, No. 1 (February) 2011: 5-27.

6.Chitralekha Zutshi, ‘The Rajatarangini narratives in Kashmir’s Persian historical tradition’ in Indian
Economic and Social History Review, 50, 2 (2013): 201–219.

7.Shonaleeka Kaul, ‘“Seeing” the Past: Text and Questions of History in the Rajatarangini’, in History
and Theory 53 (May 2014): 194-211.

8.Raziuddin Aquil and Partha Chatterjee (eds.), History in the Vernacular, Ranikhet: Permanent Black,
2008.

9.Raziuddin Aquil, The Muslim Question, New Delhi: Penguin, 2017.

10.Raziuddin Aquil, ‘Good Governance will win over Kashmir’ in Sunday Guardian, September 6,
2014.

11.Raziuddin Aquil, ‘History is Written by the Conquerors’ in Sunday Guardian, October 3, 2015.

12.Harbans Mukhia, Historians During the Reign of Akbar, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1976.

13.Peter Hardy, Historians of Medieval India, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Pub., 1960 (1997).

14.E.Shreedharan, A Textbook of Historiography, 500 B.C. to A.D. 2000, New Delhi: Orient
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15.Sunil Kumar, The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate, Ranikhet

16. Allison Busch – Literary Responses to the Mughal Imperium: The Historical Poems of Kesavdas

17. Norman P. Ziegler – The Seventeenth Century Chronicles of Marvara: A study in the Evolution
and Use of Oral Traditions in Western India

18.Velcheru Narayana Rao, David Shulman, Sanjay Subrahmanyam – Textures of Time: Writing
History in South India 1600-1800