© The Infinity Foundation, 2001 All Rights Reserved
"Be like a garland-maker, O
king, not like a charcoal burner." – Mahabharata, XII.72.20
(In a garland, flowers of many colors and forms are strung for the most pleasing
effect, whereas in the hands of
the charcoal burner all kinds of wood become [reduced to] just charcoal.)1
"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up
and live out the true meaning of its creed:
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
(King’s equality was amongst distinct and different people like
a garland of flowers,
rather than the mono-culturalism or sameness of a reductionist charcoal
burner.)
This inquiry was provoked by recent comparisons between Islamic societies and the west, in which a major problem seen with Islam is its lack of Reformation and Enlightenment that made scientific progress possible in Christian Europe. While the merits behind such comparisons are outside the scope of this essay, a specific premise implicit or explicit in such conclusions is what I wish to explore: This premise is that somehow Christianity and Greek based European civilization were uniquely endowed with the internal resources to develop democracy and the separation of church and state. These being the prerequisites for scientific and social progress, the implication of such a premise is that societies such as India's are stuck as civilization 'cul-de-sacs' unless this gift of westernization is imported.
Did the West invent democracy? If so, was it the result of unique features in Greek thought that other civilizations lacked? Is the separation of 'Church and State' unique to the modern West, or was a comparable decoupling also practiced elsewhere, even though there might not have been similar levels of institutionalized religion? Are pluralism and religious tolerance found in ancient Indian civilizations? In other words, are the ingredients deemed as necessary prerequisites to social and scientific progress also available within non-Western civilizations, or must they be imported? The purpose of this essay is to examine the available evidence to address these questions, based on a survey of existing literature.
I examine the evidence that seems to suggest that ancient Indian civilizations had widespread religious pluralism, that rulers respected the autonomy of religious practice, and that there existed ancient Indian republics that were as sophisticated as those in Greece and far more widespread and larger in size than their Greek counterparts. The significance of such a hypothesis is that, if true, then India has many of the internal resources within its own civilization to bring about its own indigenous progress. A theoretical framework is explored for differentiating traditional Indian from western and contemporary Indian notions of pluralism and democracy, using the ideas of A. K. Ramanuja. I conclude with ideas for logical follow up research.
It seems one-sided that western portrayals of Indian social history, while being immersed in the study of caste as a 'rigid' wall of separation, fail to acknowledge the flip side of this separation, namely, the religious autonomy and separation from the State that this system provided. The varnas (later ossified into 'castes') were separations of job descriptions, each job having its own kind of dharma (righteousness). Matters of spirituality were the domains of the Brahmin, whereas matters of statecraft (including governance, military, law enforcement, politics) were the domains of the Kshatriya. Hence, a Brahmin's and a Kshatriya's duties were separate from each other, and neither was allowed to assume those of the other. Usually, kings were Kshatriyas and not Brahmins, although Brahmins advised rulers on matters of dharma. Brahmins did occasionally become kings, but upon doing so they gave up their Brahmin duties, just as transferring into a new job requires one to give up the previous one. Kings did not assume Brahmin roles. Scharfe summarizes it thus:
"It was a prime duty of Indian kings to uphold righteousness (dharma), ……. Righteousness was compartmentalized by caste and profession, and thus kings let their subjects follow their respective righteousness. The preservation of a pluralistic society was regarded as the essence of statecraft."2
Dr. P. V. Kane emphasizes the absence of state sponsored religious exclusivism:
"It can be said without any fear of contradiction that at least from the 4th century A.D. onwards, the policy of the State in India was to protect all religions, but to interfere in none."3
Even prior to the 4th century A.D., religious pluralism and tolerance was the norm. Kane explains:
"Compared to Western Christian countries, very great religious tolerance prevailed in ancient India… Ashoka in his Pillar Edict VII says that he looked after sanghas, brahmanas, Ajivakas and all other sects (pasanda). The Manasollasa enjoins that one should give up condemnation of or hatred towards other gods, and that one should show reverence on seeing an image or a temple and should not pass over it (in contempt)."4
In the Bhagavadagita (IX. 23-25), Krishna proclaims that the devotees who worship other deities are in fact worshipping Krishna himself although in an irregular way; those who offer worship to various other deities or natural powers reach the goals they desire. This is a very pluralistic position adopted in mainstream Hinduism in India a long time ago.
Manu (7.41) codifies the contextual importance of dharma: "[A king] who knows the sacred law, must imagine into it the laws of jati (community), of districts, of guilds, and of families, and thus settle the peculiar law of each". The acceptance of many ways of dharmic living was built into the Indian king's duties to uphold religious diversity, as explained by Kane:
"It was on account of the general attitude of religious tolerance that the Smritis and digests prescribe that even the usage of heretical sects should be enforced by the king. Yaj.II.192 prescribes that the king should guard against the breach of the distinctive usages and conventions of guilds (of artisans), of traders, of heretical sects, and bands (of soldiers). Narada (samayasyanapakarma 1-3) states that the king should uphold the conventions of heretical sects of traders, guilds and other groups and that whatever traditional usages, activities, mode of attendance and means of maintenance were peculiar to them should be permitted to them by the king without introducing any change. Among the matters of which the king was to take cognizance and included under prakirnaka by Narada (verse 2) was the transgression of usages of heretics, traders, guilds and ganas. Brhaspati provides that in disputes among husbandmen, artisans, wrestlers, money-lenders, guilds, dancers, heretics, thieves, a decision is to be given in accordance with their conventions."5
To illustrate the context-sensitive nature of dharma, Baudhayana lists practices contrary to the precepts of sruti or smrti by the Brahmins of the north and the south, explaining that learned men of the traditions follow the customs of their district. In the north, the southern ways would be wrong, and vice versa. Furthermore, the ethical views of the asramadharma (the dharma for one's stage of life), svadharma (the dharma for one's station, jati or class, svabhava (the dharma for one's given nature), and apaddharma (conduct that is necessary in times of distress or emergency) each take the applicable dharma away from any universal law. There is not much left of an absolute (sadharama) dharma which the texts characterize as a last and not as a first resort – a fallback if no context can be found applicable.
This particularized dharma, with distinct and separate dharma for the ruler, kept rulers' powers in check in Hinduism, especially since the king was not empowered to alter the dharma applicable to him:
"Generally speaking, the king had no legislative power; nevertheless there are instances where kings created new rules, usually by recognizing existing customs. He also had residual powers to create positive law, viz. in areas that were not covered by the dharma-sastras."6
Buddhism tolerated and respected other religions, but rejected this separation between dharma of king and dharma of the public, because it rejected the arthasastras (of Kautilya, c. 300 B.C.) that was the basis for the king's dharma being defined separately from the rest of dharma. In doing so, Buddhist kings assumed many of the powers previously held by Brahmins under Hindu rule, combining statecraft and religion: Scharfe explains:
"Buddhism rejected arthasastras altogether and recognized only one universal dharma which determines the conduct of the righteous ruler who in turn molds society to live in righteousness. …. The Buddhist king was an activist in a way the Hindu king had never been: traditionally kings had sponsored philosophical debates since Vedic times and had enforced the rules of dharma on the advice from their purohita and from assemblies of learned Brahmins, but Buddhist kings involved themselves in monastic and dogmatic matters – not as philosophers themselves but as executives……"7
The Buddhist ruler's power over religion was a factor in many Asian kings adopting Buddhism as State religion, whereas Hinduism did not lend itself to being a State religion:
"[I]n the history of China and Japan [] the T'ang rulers and the Japanese emperor in the seventh century A.D. turned to Buddhism and the political leverage it afforded the king, in their effort to strengthen the newly gained unity of the country. Aside from the intrinsic appeal of Buddhism, the role assigned to the king in Buddhist thought gave the cakravartin almost cosmic proportions, putting him close in dignity to the Buddha himself. …. Buddhist dynasties in Ceylon, Burma, Thailand bear this out."8
At the same time, it would be a serious error to regard Buddhist kingship as theocracy, for respect for other religions was very high.
However, with the Muslim invasions starting in 7th. Century C.E., Buddhism was at a relative disadvantage compared to Hinduism. The separation of ruler's dharma from public dharma was responsible for Hinduism's resilience under Muslim rule as contrasted with Buddhism’s vulnerability. Because Hindu dharma for the masses was independent of the ruler's dharma, the ruler mattered less to the continuity of Hindu life:
"The king's righteousness is 'national', the subjects' 'individual', and the deterioration of political ethics (e.g., under Muslim rulers) had no impact on private ethics of the people."9
The same was not true for Buddhists, since there was a unified dharma with the king in the center. Hence, Muslim rule meant less ability for Buddhism to survive without pluralistic governance.
Pluralism depends to a fair extent upon the separation of state and religion, which in turn is enhanced by democracy. Steven Muhlberger has been studying ancient India's political systems from numerous sources, and explains the significance of some relatively recent perspectives now gaining currency amongst many scholars10:
"Historians who are interested in democracy often insist it must be understood in context of a unique western tradition of political development beginning with the Greeks. The spread of democratic ideals and practice to other cultures, or their failure to spread, have many times been explained on the assumption that democracy or personal liberty are ideals foreign to the non-Western world …… In fact, the supposed differences between "Western" and "non-Western" cultures are in this case, as in so many others, more a matter of ideological faith [of scholars] than of cool, impartial judgment. If we are talking about the history of humanity as a whole, democracy is equally new or equally old everywhere."
"The "prehistory" of democracy, however, is scarcely restricted to Europe and Europeanized America and Australasia. A search of world history finds much worth studying. There are no perfect democracies waiting to be discovered, but there is something else: a long history of "government by discussion," in which groups of people having common interests make decisions that affect their lives through debate, consultation, and voting. The vast majority of such groups, it may be objected, are more properly called oligarchies than democracies. But every democracy has been created by widening what was originally a very narrow franchise. The history of government by discussion, which may be called republicanism for brevity's sake, has a claim to the interest of anyone who takes democracy seriously."
"The experience of Ancient India with republicanism, if better known, would by itself make democracy seem less of a freakish development, and help dispel the common idea that the very concept of democracy is specifically 'Western.'"
A century ago, during the British Raj, scholars had started to 'discover' ancient India as "a country in which there were many clans, dominating extensive and populous territories, who made their public decisions in assemblies, moots, or parliaments."11 For instance, T.W. Rhys Davids, the leading Pali scholar, pointed this out based on the Buddhist Canon and the Jatakas.12 His work became relevant to British scholars and bureaucrats who studied India's local governance as part of a continuous debate on the strategies of colonial rule and the potential of self-rule in India.13 Nationalistic Indian scholars of the 1910s appropriated his research of India's republican past to refute the claim that colonialism was indispensable to civilize the natives, for they lacked any such resources within their own traditions.14
Self-rule by a guild, a village, an extended kin-group, or any group of equals with a common set of interests competed against monarchy in ancient India. This kind of self-governance often produced republicanism and neo-democracy comparable to classical Greek democracy. While there is some evidence for non-monarchical governance in the Vedas, the Buddhist period, 600 B.C.-A.D. 200 is when republicanism became predominant.15
Muhlberger's analysis of Buddhist and Vedic literature in Pali and Sanskrit reveals that:16
"[N]on-monarchical forms of government were omnipresent. There was a complex vocabulary to describe the different types of groups that ran their own affairs.17 Some of these were obviously warrior bands; others more peaceful groups with economic goals; some religious brotherhoods. Such an organization, of whatever type, could be designated, almost indifferently, as a gana or a sangha; and similar though less important bodies were labeled with the terms sreni, puga, or vrata. Gana and sangha, the most important of these terms, originally meant "multitude." By the sixth century B.C., these words meant both a self-governing multitude, in which decisions were made by the members working in common, and the style of government characteristic of such groups. In the case of the strongest of such groups, which acted as sovereign governments, the words are best translated as "republic."
"The numerous members of a sovereign gana or sangha interacted with each other as members of an assembly."
Panini (5th. century B.C.), describes the process of corporate decision-making, the rules for voting, the kinds of decisions reached by voting, and the requirements of a quorum. His work indicates that the division of assemblies into political parties was well known. Panini and later commentators of his works show that a smaller group within a sangha sometimes had special functions as an executive, or as a sub-committee for specific purposes.18
While consistent with Panini, the Pali (Buddhist) Canon gives a more complete description of democratic institutions in ancient India. The Pali Canon gives us our earliest, and perhaps our best, detailed look at the detailed operations and philosophy of Indian Buddhist republicanism. These republics survived till about 4th century C.E., a period of over 800 years. Additional information comes from inscriptions, numerous coins, writings of Greek travelers, the Jatakas, and other Indian literature. The earliest and most revered parts of the Canon preserve the Buddha's codified instructions for governance of the monastic sangha after his death. They contain details on voting procedures in a corporate body in 5th century B.C., and on the development of the principles of democracy.19
These rules for conducting the Buddhist sangha were similar to those commonly found in India’s political sanghas or ganas at that time. However, in a Buddhist sangha, all the monks participated in the ritual and disciplinary decision making. To preserve this discipline for the future, detailed rules about voting in monastic assemblies, their membership, and their quorums, were canonized. Only a full assembly with a vote of all the members could make decisions.20 Muhlberger illustrates the rigor of Buddhist self governance21:
"If, for example, a candidate wanted the upasampada ordination, the question (ñatti) was put to the sangha by a learned and competent member, and the other members asked three times to indicate dissent. If there was none, the sangha was taken to be in agreement with the ñatti. The decision was finalized by the proclamation of the decision of the sangha."
Additional evidence of free-spirited and decentralized Indian political life comes from Greek sources. Flavius Arrian's 'Anabasis of Alexander' describes Alexander's campaigns in great detail, based on eyewitness accounts of Alexander's companions, including his meetings with "free and independent" Indian communities in every place he went.22 For example, in the city of Nysa, in modern day Afghanistan, a president ruled with the help of a council of 300, and made the following appeal for the continuation of freedom upon surrendering to Alexander23: "[A]llow [the residents] to remain free and independent; ….. we inhabit Nysa, a free city, and we ourselves are independent, conducting our government with constitutional order." Alexander's historians describe numerous republics, including some mentioned by name, but very few monarchs.24
The prevalence of republicanism and its democratic form is explicitly stated by Diodorus Siculus25: "[M]ost of the cities adopted the democratic form of government, though some retained the kingly until the invasion of the country by Alexander."
Around 300 B.C., Megasthenes served as ambassador of the Greek king Seleucus Nicator to the Indian emperor Chandragupta Maurya, and traveled extensively in India from his base in Patna.26 His statements corroborate the widespread and thriving republics throughout the northern portion of the Indian subcontinent, which included present day Afghanistan and Pakistan. He did not write about the south.
Muhlberger concludes: "Indian republics of the late fourth century could be much larger than the contemporaneous Greek polis . And it seems that in the northwestern part of India, republicanism was the norm."27
Muhlberger summarizes his views on scholarly prejudice as follows28:
"One feels that modern scholars have still not come to grips with the existence of widespread republicanism in a region so long thought to be the home par excellence of "Oriental Despotism."29 Republicanism now has a place in every worthwhile book about ancient India, but it tends to be brushed aside so that one can get back to the main story, which is the development of the surviving Hindu tradition."30
Except for a few historians such as Romila Thapar, historiographies usually refer to India's republics as 'tribes' or 'clans'. Jayaswal complained about such biased language:
"The evidence does not warrant our calling [republics] 'clans.' Indian republics of the seventh [sic] and sixth centuries B.C...had long passed the tribal stage of society. They were states, Ganas and Samghas, though many of them likely had a national or tribal basis, as every state, ancient or modern, must necessarily have."31
"Every state in ancient Rome and Greece was 'tribal' in the last analysis, but no constitutional historian would think of calling the republics of Rome and Greece mere tribal organizations."32
Labeling institutions or culture as 'tribal' is therefore a pejorative and a convenient way to dismiss them from serious consideration. This practice further biases the lens of Eurocentrism through which much of the humanities are researched and taught to this day.
This section attempts to interpret the distinctiveness of traditional Indian social theory from western and postcolonial Indian theories. The key metaphor is the famous statement from the Mahabharata at the beginning on this paper: It emphasizes the importance of the king's duty to preserve and protect diversity, yet in a coherent way. By contrast, the charcoal burner is reductionist and destroys by turning wood of great diversity into dead homogeneous charcoal. The garland maker celebrates diversity.
To explore this distinction deeper, I shall turn to A. K. Ramanujan's theory of the "Indian way of thinking", in which he contrasts context-sensitive ways of thought and context-free ways. Cultures, like rules of grammar, have overall tendencies to think in either the context-free or the context-sensitive rules. Ramanujan views Indian thought as being context-sensitive compared to the west.33 In this model, Indic traditions may be considered as a context-dependent grammar of living that has evolved over eons. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to essentialize Indian thought. He explains this context-sensitive quality by examining literature and culture:
"[N]o Indian text comes without a context, a frame, till the 19th century. Works are framed by phalasruti verses - these verses tell the reader, reciter or listener all the good that will result from his act of reading, reciting or listening. They relate the text, of whatever antiquity, to the present reader – that is, they contextualize it."34
"The tale within [Indian stories] is context-sensitive – getting its meaning from the tale without, and giving it further meanings.....Taking the Indian word for text, grantha (derived from the knot that holds the palm leaves together), literally, scholars often posit only an accidental and physical unity. We need to attend to the context-sensitive designs that embed a seeming variety of modes (tale, discourse, poem, etc.) and materials. This manner of constructing the text is in consonance with other designs in the culture. Not unity (in the Aristotelian sense) but coherence, seems to be the end."35
"[S]ystems of meaning are elicited by contexts, by the nature (and substance) of the listener. In Brhadaranyaka 5.1., Lord Prajapati speaks in thunder three times: 'DA DA DA'. When the gods, given to pleasure hear it, they hear it as the first syllable of damyata, 'control'. The antigods, given as they are to cruelty, hear it as dayadhvam, 'be compassionate'. When the humans, given to greed, hear it they hear it as datta, 'give to others'."36
"As hour, month, season, year, and aeon have their own properties as contexts, the arts that depend on time have to obey time's changing moods and properties. For instance, the ragas of both north and south Indian classical music have their prescribed appropriate times. Like the Tamil poems, the genres and moods are associated with, placed in, hours of the day and times of the season."37
The notion of rtusatmya or appropriateness is a vocabulary that applies to poetry, music, ritual, as well as medicine, man interpreting and re-inventing himself in his contexts.38
Wittgenstein would be happy to learn that a foundational notion in Indic theories of language is that content cannot be separated from context or given an independent meaning as absolutes or universals out there. Furthermore, the context is not a thing-in-itself either and is not separable from the experiencer. Foucault and Derrida echo Indic thought (whereas many modern scholars of Hinduism and Indian anthropology are dismayed) that this intertwining is pervasive with no ultimate reduction possible:
"[Indian Poetry] depends on a taxonomy of landscapes, flora and fauna, and of emotions – an ecosystem of which a man's activities and feelings are a part. To describe the exterior landscape is also to inscribe the interior landscape. ....In Burke's (1946) terms, Scene and Agent are one; they are metonyms for one another..."39
"There is another alternative to a culture vs. nature view: in the Tamil poems, culture is enclosed in nature, nature is reworked in culture, so that we cannot tell the difference.... Such container-contained relations are seen in many kinds of concepts and images: not only in culture-nature, but god-world, king-kingdom, devotee-god, mother-child."40
"[W]hat is contained mirrors the container; the microcosm is both within and like the macrocosm, and paradoxically also contains it. Indian conceptions tend to be such concentric nests."41
"Even the Kamasutra is literally a grammar of love which declines and conjugates men and women as one would nouns and verbs in different genders, voices, moods and aspects. Genders are genres. Different body-types and character-types obey different rules, respond to different scents and beckonings."42
The relationship between one's karma and the personal contexts one brings (as a constraint) is outside the scope of this paper, although of fundamental importance in Indian thought. Ultimate freedom or moksha means freedom from all contexts, and dharmic living in a contextual framework is merely provisional and phenomenological:
"In 'traditional' cultures like India, where context-sensitivity rules and binds, the dream is to be free of context. So rasa in aesthetics, moksa in the 'aims of life', sannyasa in the life-stages, sphota in semantics, and bhaki in religion define themselves against a background of inexorable contextuality."43
This state of liberation from contexts includes the contexts as a subset but no longer as a constraint. The transcendence is not achieved within a realm of context-free universals, as that would be the reductionist way of the charcoal burner. The core of dharma consists of processes and techniques for achieving this transcendence, but that would be a topic for an entirely different paper.
Fritz Staal has said that linguistics is to Indic thought what geometry is to Greek thought. Context-sensitive grammar is therefore a natural way to access Indic thought, avoiding both extremes – a fixed set of absolute productions on one pole, and randomness and arbitrariness of productions on the other. A computer programming language gives rise to an infinity of programs rather than "One True Program", and yet avoids the opposite extreme of randomness and chaos. Indian theories of art, erotica, spiritual expression, and virtually every dimension of life are interpretable via their respective grammars. Ramanujan explains:
"Such a pervasive emphasis on context is, I think, related to the Hindu concern with jati - the logic of classes, of genera and species, of which human jati's are only an instance. Various taxonomies of season, landscape, times, gunas or qualities (and their material bases), tastes, characters, emotions, essences (rasa), etc., are basic to the thought-work of Hindu medicine and poetry, cooking and religion, erotica and magic. Each jati or class defines a context, a structure of relevance, a rule of permissible combinations, a frame of reference, a meta-communication of what is and can be done."44
In other words, there is no finality or closure to dharma. It is more like an open architecture forever unfolding and assimilating.
Indic thought may be seen as a coherence (garland) of distinct particulars (flowers), avoiding both poles - incoherence and chaotic scattering of flowers at one extreme, and reductionist homogenized universals at the other.
With this theoretical background, I see both the postcolonial secular democracy and the countermovement of Hindutva as homogenizing and reductionist charcoal burning. First, I shall examine secular democracy. Ramanujan writes:
"Egalitarian democratic ideals, Protestant Christianity, espouse both the universal and the unique, insist that any member is equal to and like any other in the group. Whatever his context-birth, class, gender, age, place, rank, etc.- a man is a man for all that. Technology with its modules and interchangeable parts, and the post-Renaissance sciences with their quest for universal laws (and 'facts') across contexts intensify the bias towards the context-free."45
Western inspired movements often seek to homogenize and reduce everyone to the same, and this inherently empowers some privileged ones over others. If one must be melted into the global cultural melting pot, one loses distinctiveness and particularity in order to become a legitimate member of society – a culture nowadays crafted by Madison Avenue advertising, but previously defined by conquests. Christianity and Islam seek to homogenize using immutable Absolute Theology. Marxism and its inspired movements seek to homogenize by eradicating all traditions as obstacles and scourges. Racism would culminate in a homogenous DNA. On the other hand, Martin Luther King was inspired by Gandhi. His famous call for equality should not be seen as reductionist but as garland-making, with a deep respect for diversity contextualized as a coherent garland.
Inspired by the west, India's postcolonial secularism has downplayed the uniqueness of local traditions and their contexts, and tried to imitate western notions of development. Sanskrit and local vernaculars have become subverted and in some cases virtually extinct, as English and colonial literature has become the route to progress. Westernized ethos and values have become the yardstick for the Indian yuppies, as they have become the top elite tier of society replacing whites with browns as the new rulers. Progress has become defined in contradistinction against tradition, and to advocate tradition is often deemed as a sign of being a sort of fanatic or fundamentalist. It now takes western experts to do a reverse know how transfer and to re-legitimize yoga, meditation, Ayurveda, traditional water-harvesting, and vegetarianism. Krishna Das, an American practicing Hindu bhakti, has CDs with traditional Hindi/Sanskrit kirtan chants, and it is these that are bringing back such traditions into many of India's dislocated elite, even though Krishna Das himself explains that he learnt all this at the feet of his Indian guru and from small town kirtan wallahs. Luckily, this damage of reductionism did not directly reach below the upper crust, although their power over the controlled economy and law has charcoal burned society in the name of progress.
Turning to Hindutva, it is a theory that I have yet to examine adequately to
be able to formulate in-depth commentary. However, my hunch at this stage is
that its rise is a reaction to postcolonial reductionism and disrespect for
dharma mentioned above. Being political in nature, it seeks to mobilize the
maximum number of votes. On the one hand, given the enormous diversity of India,
it must be elastic in its beliefs, forcing it to stay away from too much essentialism.
But on the other hand, it must assert top down power on a grand scale, and this
can sometimes be attempted by a unifying call to action, such as the destruction
of a mosque. (I do not wish to debate the merits of the specific mosque case
here, because the point right now is about reductionism and not the justification.)
Control of power usually demands canonization, standardization, advancement
of those leaders who tow the line rather than those who criticize, and unity
to withstand external enemies. This runs the risk of being charcoal burning
in the long run, more so than garland-making. I have not evaluated whether this
reductionist quality is inherent in the doctrine of Hindutva, or whether it
is merely a reflection on the present leadership.
Western civilization is the product of a process of appropriation of Greek thought by Europe starting 500 years ago, as a way out of Europe's cul-de-sac in the Dark Ages. It must be emphasized that Greek religion was demonized by Christianity, dubbed 'pagan' in a pejorative sense, during the early days of Christianity, in a massive campaign that made possible the rise of Christianity in the first place. Hence, this Greek appropriation fifteen centuries later by Christian Europe was a surgical transplant and not an organic one. The dualistic opposition between orthodoxy versus progress, Church infallibility versus democracy, and hence dogma versus free inquiry, was stitched amidst great violence and opposition in Europe. (If one wishes to pursue the hypothesis that Islam is in the early stages of a similar process, then one must also acknowledge that this process consumed Europe with a few centuries of turmoil, and that therefore liberal Islamic thinkers should not underestimate the power of orthodoxy; however, this is outside the scope of this paper.) The scars of this Pagan Greek organ transplant into Christian Europe's body are inherent in today's western hermeneutics, in which Greek based Modernity is seen in opposition to Christian based Tradition rather than as a continuity.
Successors in western history have sought the annihilation of their predecessors – be it the burning of old books in the name of truth, or the genocide of those who would be living witness of one's plunder, or a Soviet regime's banishment of the previous head to Siberia. This is charcoal burning. In other words, there has not been a happy coexistence of different layers of civilization's development, in which the combined resources of all of them could have been available to be utilized constructively. Therefore, the past has often required excavation from the collective mental basement, through various exploratory methods such as myth interpretation.
This must be compared with ancient India's own experiments with freedom carried
out without importation from another civilization, and with simultaneous coexistence
of multiple layers. One has to examine evidence that would suggest that India's
religious and social-political structures were not ad hoc stitched together
to escape from a period of darkness, but indigenous to the Indic traditions
themselves and therefore organic in quality.
By no means do I wish to over interpret this brief survey of the available sources on the hypothesis that Greek thought was not unique in gifting humanity with pluralism or being the inspiration for democracy. Any such conclusion must be subject to a great deal of research and discussion. A wide-ranging study – which really needs to be done – would have to go into epigraphy as well as Sanskrit, Pali, Tamil and Greek materials, and then would have to defend the interpretation. This is an unexplored field in which this paper merely intends to provoke further inquiry. Furthermore, to what extent has it been ignorance and to what extent deliberate underestimation of Indic institutions, that such areas of investigation have not received due recognition?
Such an inquiry would not, even under the most optimistic scenario from the Indic standpoint, reduce the importance of Greek thought or of European developments over the past five centuries. Rather, it would serve to bring the various civilizations into dialog as peers, giving each its due without being at the expense of European contributions. In this era of globalization, this would merely be a globalization of the lens of historiography.
European Modernity was the result of more complex forces in addition to the separation of church and state, and hence the hypothesis here does not in any way seek to address the causes of European Modernity - which is yet another fascinating and under explored field of inquiry.
I wish to clarify that an appreciation of the past does not amount to a return to the past. The roots of a civilization with built-in mechanism to grow, adapt, and assimilate must be nurtured with the expectation that the fruits will be quite different from the roots. Hence, the motivation should not be a return to a lost past.
Further work is also needed to compare pluralism and democracy in ancient India with secularism in Europe's Modernity, especially after the impact of Marxism upon European thought: The former respected all religions within the context of open inquiry and hence progress, whereas the latter equalizes them by marginalizing them as pre-modern and hence subservient to the notion of progress in an either/or dialectic. This is why the field known as 'science and religion' is enormously popularly and still necessary in the west to try and integrate tradition and modernity. Now that 20th century natural science has refuted reductionist scientism, and similar challenges have come from postmodernism to the western humanities, one must also compare postmodernism with Indic traditions.
I wish to thank Alok Kumar, Arvind Sharma, T. S. Rukmani, Edwin Bryant, Ram-Prasad Chakravarti, amongst others, for providing useful inputs and criticisms to this inquiry. I relied heavily upon the prior work by Muhlberger, not only his main thesis but also his references some of which are included below. The writings of A. K. Ramanujan helped explain Indic traditions as distinct from the west. Hopefully, these diverse flowers of wisdom are coming together here with some coherence of a garland.
1. Hartmut Scharfe, "The State in Indian Tradition", E. J. Brill, 1989. p. 221. This famous statement from the Mahabharata emphasizes the importance of the king's duty to preserve and protect this diversity. The charcoal burner is reductionist and destroys diversity, whereas the garland maker celebrates it.
2. Scharfe. p.220. However, note that the overriding guiding principle of governance of a Hindu king was the maintenance of his dharma as ruler i.e. rajadharma, which was to look after the welfare of his subjects. In this task, he was ably assisted by the samiti/sabha (sometimes spoken of as one and sometimes as two committees), which the Dharmasastras refer to as parishad. This body included the purohita/rajaguru (a Brahmin) and the commander (a Kshatriya) as important members. The body did not push a parochial agenda, but tried to help the king reach the right decisions pertaining to his rajadharma. All literary works such as Bana's Harsacarita (7th C.E), Kalidasa's Sakuntalam (5th C.E.), Mudrarakshasa, Mrcchakatika, and Bhasa's plays (1st. century B.C.) invariably depict the kings as extremely well versed in the raja dharma and in general as very well educated individuals. In fact, in the Upanishads, we come across occasions when the Ksatriya kings are the ones who are instructing the Brahmins even in matters of philosophy. So decision making was a joint exercise with the king having final say.
3. Dr. P. V. Kane, "History of Dharmasastra". Volume III, second edition, 1973, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona. p.883.
4. Kane. p. 881.
5. Kane. p. 882.
6. Scharfe. Pp.221-222.
7. Scharfe. Pp.225-226.
8. Scharfe. Pp.225-226.
9. Scharfe. p.221.
10. "Democracy in Ancient India", by Steve Muhlberger, Nipissing University. Posted at: http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/h_es/h_es_muhlb_democra_frameset.htm. For more on this, see Steven Muhlberger and Phil Paine, "Democracy's Place in World History," Journal of World History 4 (1993): 23-45 and the World History of Democracy site, especially Chapter Two – Democracy at the Basic Level: Government by consent in small communities.
11. "Democracy in Ancient India", by Steve Muhlberger, Nipissing University. Posted at: http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/h_es/h_es_muhlb_democra_frameset.htm. Furthermore, references [12] through [28] are as mentioned therein.
12. T.W. Rhys Davids, 'Buddhist India'. London, 1903.
13. Sir Henry Sumner Maine, Village Communities in the East and West (1889; reprinted. New York, 1974).
14. K.P. Jayaswal, Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times 2nd and enl. ed. (Bangalore, 1943), published first in article form in 1911-13; D.R. Bhandarkar, Lectures on the Ancient History of India on the Period form 650 to 325 B.C., The Carmichael Lectures, 1918 (Calcutta, 1919); R.C. Majumdar. Corporate Life in Ancient India, (orig. written in 1918; cited here from the 3rd ed., Calcutta, 1969, as Corporate Life).
15. J.P. Sharma, Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.-500 B.C. (Leiden, 1968) [hereafter Republics] pp. 15-62, 237.
16. See [11].
17. V.S. Agrawala, India as Known to Panini: A study of the cultural material in the Ashatadhyayi, 2nd ed. rev. and enl. (Varanasi, 1963), pp. 426-444 [hereafter, Panini]; Sharma, Republics, pp. 8-14. A.K. Majumdar, Concise History of Ancient History, vol. 2: Political Theory, Administration, and Economic Life (New Delhi, 1980), p. 131 [hereafter, Concise History].
18. Agrawala, Panini, pp. 433-435.
19. The Maha-parinibbana-suttanta: Buddhist Suttas vol. 1, tr. T.W. Rhys Davids, SBE 11 (1881): 1-136. Mahavagga, Kullavagga, and Pattimokkha: Vinaya Texts, tr. T.W. Rhys Davids and H. Oldenberg, SBE vol. 13, 17, 20 (1881, 1882, 1885).
20. Mahavagga 1.28, SBE 13: 169-170.
21. See [11].
22. See "Arrianus, Flavius" Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1970), pp. 122-123.
23. Arrian 5.1-2; translated in R.C. Majumdar's, The Classical Accounts of India (Calcutta, 1960) [hereafter Classical Accounts], p. 20. Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian : being a translation of the fragments of the Indika of Megastheês collected by Dr. Schwanbeck, and of the first part of the Indika of Arrian / Edition: Rev., 2nd ed. by R.C. Majumdar. Published: Calcutta : Chuckervertty, Chatterjee, 1960. Description: xv, 235 p., [1] folded leaf of plates: map; 22 cm.
24. Altekar, State and Government, p. 111.
25. Diodorus Siculus 2.39, Classical Accounts, p. 236; cf. Arrian's Indika 9, Classical Accounts, p. 223
26. Otto Stein, "Megasthenes (2)," Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumwissenschaft, ed. A. von Pauly, G. Wissowa, et. al. (Stuttgart, 1893-) vol. 15, pt. 1, col. 232-3.
27. See [11].
28. See[11].
29. Romila Thapar, A History of India, vol. 1 (Harmondsworth, 1966), p. 19; Bhandarkar, Lectures on the Ancient History of India, p. ix (written in 1918).
30. A.L. Basham, The Wonder That was India (London, 1954), pp. 96-98.
31. Jayaswal, Hindu Polity, p. 46.
32. Jayaswal, Hindu Polity, p. 116.
33. A. K. Ramanujan, "Is there an Indian Way of Thinking?", in "India Through Hindu Categories", ed. by McKim Marriott. Sage Publications, Delhi. 1990. p. 47.
34. Ramanujan. p. 48.
35. Ramanujan. p. 49.
36. Ramanujan. P. 53.
37. Ramanujan. P. 52.
38. Zimmermann, Francis B. 1980. Rtu-satmya: the seasonal cycle and the principle of appropriateness. Social Science and Medicine. 14B: 99-106.
39. Ramanujan. p. 50.
40. Ramanujan. p. 50.
41. Ramanujan. p. 51.
42. Ramanujan. p. 53.
43. Ramanujan. p. 54.
44. Ramanujan. p. 53.
45. Ramanujan. p. 54.
© The Infinity Foundation, 2001 All Rights Reserved