Understanding Itihasa

UNDERSTANDING ITIHSA
UNDERSTANDING ITIHSA
Sibesh Bhattacharya
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDY

RASHTRAPATI NIVAS, SHIMLA
First published 2010

Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced
or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978-81-7986-084-7
Published by
The Secretary
Indian Institute of Advanced Study
Rashtrapati Nivas, Shimla-171005
Typeset at Sai Graphic Design, New Delhi

and printed at Pearl Offset Pvt. Ltd., Kirti Nagar, New Delhi
In memory of my elder son

Saugata (1965-1992),
an ardent lover of books,
A National Talent Scholar
Contents
Preface
ix
Part One The Path that Great Men Walked
Part Two In the Shadow of the Absolute
83
Epilogue
155
Bibliography
169
Index
177
Preface
The following pages represent a modest endeavor to examine
the contention that traditional India had no conception of history.
However, instead of approaching the problem from this negative
focus, we have tried to approach it from a positive perspective.
We have rather centered our attention, firstly, on understanding
how the past was viewed and constructed in the traditional
Indian worldview. And secondly, we have tried to consider to
what extent this understanding is compatible with the modern
concept of history. We have thus pursued a twofold objective:
(i) to understand and amplify the traditional Indian point of
view on past, and, (ii) to highlight the similarities and
dissimilarities of the Indian point of view with the current view
of history.
The present monograph has developed out of a project on
History in Early India: Theory and Practice for which a
fellowship was kindly granted by Indian Institute of Advanced
Study, Shimla. As we pursued the theme of the project it seemed
appropriate to us to somewhat enlarge its scope to include how
the traditional understanding has been interpreted and elaborated
by modern Indian scholars. The monograph thus has two main
parts; Part One on early Indian understanding of past and Part
Two on the modern understanding of the tradition. We are of
the view that for the sake of placing the theme in proper
perspective this enlargement was necessary. One more point
perhaps calls for clarification. We have in our formulation often
used the expression Indian to underline the geographical and
cultural contexts of our theme. However, the traditional Indian
perspective did not normally think in the restricted terms of
History in Early India: Theory and Practice
cultural or geographical identities; it preferred to think in

universal and human terms. And it is in these universal human
terms that the view of itihsa was perceived.
In the preparation of this monograph I have received help
and encouragement from numerous quarters and persons. I am
particularly beholden to the authorities of the Indian institute
of Advanced Study, Shimla for kindly granting me a fellowship
to prepare the monograph. The excellent support system and
the facilities that the Institute provides along with the academic
environment of a truly high order make working in the Institute
a memorable experience. To my teacher, Professor G.C. Pande,
who fortunately also happens to be the President cum Chairman
of the Institute at present, I owe a debt too heavy and too subtle
to express in words. But for his kindness and constant
encouragement it would not have been possible to undertake
and complete the work. I would rather remain eternally indebted
to him than belittle his kindness by a wordy expression of
gratitude. Professor Bhuvan Chandel, the Director of the
Institute, has always been unfailingly kind to me. I do not know
how to express my thanks to her for her innumerable acts of
kindness and encouragement.
I shall be failing in my duty if do not mention the cooperation
that I always received from Shri D. K. Mukherjee, the Librarian
and other Library Staff of the Institute. A special word of thanks
is due to Smt. Alekha Jabbar, the Asst. Librarian, who
cheerfully bore my numerous demands on her expertise and
knowledge. Dr. S. A. Jabbar, Dr. Debarshi Sen, Shri T. K.
Majumdar, Shri A. K. Sharma, Shri Kundan Lal and other
sectional heads and their staff at the Institute made my stay at
the Institute comfortable and pleasant. The mess and canteen
staff deserves a special word of thanks. I have also received
suggestions and encouragement from a number of fellows and
scholars at the Institute. Professor D. P. Chattopadhyaya was
very kind to spare time from his very busy schedule of work to
Preface
xi
go through the draft of Part One of the monograph and gave a

number of suggestions. I do not know how to thank him
adequately for this kindness. I have also often held stimulating
discussions with a number of Fellows at the Institute. Professor
Suresh Chandra Pande, Professor G. C. Nayak, Professor
Kishor Chakravarti, Dr. Navjyoti Singh, Professor Om
Prakash, Professor S. N. Dube, Professor R. N. Misra deserve
special mention. The monograph has benefited from these
discussions. I am grateful to all of them
Sibesh Bhattacharya
PART ONE
The Path that Great Men Walked

Early Indian Attitude to History
Prologue
The superstition that history has to be similar in all countries must
be abandoned. The person who has become hard-boiled after
going through the biography of Rothschilde, while dealing with
the life of Christ is likely to call for his account books and office
diary. And if he fails to find them then he will form a very poor
opinion of Christ and would say: A fellow who was not worth
even a nickel, how come he can have a biography? Similarly,
those who give up all hope of Indian history because they fail to
find the royal genealogies and accounts of the conquests and
defeats in the Indian official record room and say, How can
there be any history when there is no politics? are like people
who look for aubergine in paddy fields. And when they do not
find it there, in their frustration they refuse to count paddy as a
variety of grains at all. All fields do not yield the same crop. One
who knows this and thus looks for the proper crop in the proper
field is a truly wise person.
Rabindra Nath Tagore
Bharatavarsher Itihas,
Bhadra 1309 Bengal Era, August 1903;
Translated from original Bengali by
Sumita Bhattacharya and Sibesh Bhattacharya
Human history must in effect aspire after being a spiritual
autobiography of man, a discovery of lost times which is
simultaneously a creative transformation of present, a discovery
of what is hidden in the past experiences of the soul.
G.C.Pande, The Meaning and Process of Culture,
Allahabad 1989, Preface
Without Writing, without a literature, the past constantly ate
itself up.
V. S. Naipaul, Beyond Belief, New Delhi, 1998, p.71
For Kramer, the right view of history is his own, i.e., that of a
twentieth century American professor who specializes in
academic expertise in ancient civilizations. He can not bring
himself to admit that the ancient Sumerians might have had
another view. Or if they did, he can not admit that it was a valid
view of history. For to admit that would undermine his own
beliefs about the nature of his discipline.
Roy Harris, History, Science and the Limits of Language,
p. 26, Shimla 2003.
I
The question that we intend to investigate in part one basically
involves two issues. Firstly, was history as a discipline known
and practiced in early India? And, secondly, if it was, then
what was its nature?
History is perhaps not the most appropriate expression in
the context of our investigation. History as a discipline, it is
well known, is a product of Western experience and endeavour.
Moreover, since the eighteenth century the discipline of history
has so evolved as to possess certain distinguishable
characteristics. It is regarded as a discipline based on rigorous
study of facts. Among its claimed features, the two factors,
factuality and empiricism, in spite of some recent challenges
from the resurgence of the narrative in history and the assault
of the Post Modernists, continue to be the two principal ones.
Over the greater part of the twentieth century, covering the
first three-quarters, history has been veering more and more
towards social science and moving away from humanities.1
Among the practicing historians, particularly in India, this still
continues to be the dominant trend. With this growing trend it
is empiricism that has been increasingly becoming the most
important instrument in the tool-bag of historians. Like other
social sciences, in the historical methodology as well, a constant
effort has been afoot to approximate to scientific methodology.
Despite being splendidly unreachable, the Rankean ideal of
exactly as it had happened remains the beacon light of a great
many historians. If we intend to pursue our investigation from
this perspective, it ought to be admitted right at the outset that
it is more or less a nonstarter. A mode of knowledge based on
a meticulous and painstaking collection of all facts, where
factuality does not demand anything more than a mere
happening, did not develop in early India.
The prospect, however, considerably brightens up if we
deviate a little from the above perspective. The room for this
adjustment in standpoint is available even within the bounds
of the current conception of history. Varieties of history is an
accepted notion within the discipline. The expression varieties
does not only signify different divisions of history, like political,
diplomatic, social, economic, etc., but various perspectives from
which events can be viewed. It is now readily accepted that
history can be viewed and pursued from different standpoints
and that these different standpoints do not necessarily contradict
and cancel out each other. They may often be complimentary
and help illuminate different aspects of the past human life.
There can be history of smaller range (approximating the notion
of particular); there can be history of larger range (moving
towards the notion of universal). Moreover, the demands of
factuality will vary according to the chosen range. We will deal
with these issues in some more details later. For the present it
will suffice to take note of the fact that the notion of perspectival
history allows space for viewing the past from different
viewpoints.
In view of the above, we may rephrase the basic issues of
our investigation. We will try to understand the following
questions. What was the Early Indian attitude towards past?
What were the modes of its articulation? What were the
implications of this attitude?
II
The received wisdom and the burden of Western Indological
scholarship are that the sense of history was lacking in early
India. Indian mind reveled in myths and legends, often
displaying a keen sensitivity to the essence of human life, a
refined moral vision, and a touching quest for fulfillment in the
life beyond. But the Indian mind failed to come to terms with
facts and to produce what can really be termed as history.
Various explanations of this deficiency were also offered;
the most persistent being the one that Indian outlook in its
philosophical and psychological makeup was anti-historical.

This anti-historicity has been seen both as a virtue as well as a
glaring defect. The following remark of Amaury de Riencourt
is a good example of the former. If the history of the Indians
is as shadowy as has already been pointed out on more than
one occasion, it is largely because, of all the peoples on this
earth, they were the least interested in history. The picture of
Indias historical development is as blurred as the development
of Indian soul is clear and sharply defined. The key to an
understanding of Indian culture lies precisely in this total
indifference toward history, toward the very process of time.
Aryan India had no memory because she focused her attention
on eternity and not on time.2 Reactions of Hegel and James
Mill to the anti-historical character of the Indian attitude
represent the latter.3
The point has been stretched in different directions with added
nuances. Macdonell, Winternitz and Keith may be cited as
examples. Macdonell observed that history was an area of
conspicuous weakness in Indian literature. As a matter of fact,
it was more than a weakness; it was actually non-existent. A
total lack of historical sense and a complete lack of precise
chronology characterized the whole course of Sanskrit literature.
These defects have gravely vitiated the history of Sanskrit
literature. Even the date and time of the greatest Indian poet,
Kalidasa, can not be ascertained. The controversy regarding
his time is so great that dates as distant as thousand years from
each other have been suggested. Mostly, precise dates of authors
were not recorded; only approximate dates have to be surmised
on the basis of indirect evidence. Two causes seem to have
combined to bring about this remarkable result. In the first place,
early India wrote no history because it never made any. The
ancient Indians never went through a struggle for life like the
Greeks in the Persian and the Romans in the Punic wars, such
as it would have welded their tribes into a nation and developed
political greatness. Secondly, the Brahmanas, whose task it
would naturally have been to record great deeds, had early
embraced the doctrine that all actions and existence are a

positive evil, and could therefore have felt but little inclination
to chronicle historical events.4
According to Winternitz, it was not that the Indians did not
have a taste for history, what the Indians lacked was a taste for
critical inquiry into historical truths. And, he attributed this
uncritical attitude to the kinds of people who made it their
business to write history in early India. These authors belonged
to two classes: either they were court-poets or they were
religious-minded persons. The court-poets were mainly
interested in composing eulogies of their patron princes and
their ancestors. In the process they glorified not only the
achievements of their patrons and their ancestors, but also
invented stories. The saints on their parts were keen to protect
and augment the interests of their own sects. So they praised their
sects and promoted their points of view and gave preaching and
sermons to the members of their sects. The Indian historian will
not penetrate deep into the connected topics, set down the historical
data critically and explain them psychologically; on the contrary
he will entertain and instruct as a poet (kavi), above all teach morals,
when he will explain with examples the influences of moral
behaviour on the destiny of man.5 In his work on Sanskrit
literature Keith observed in the whole of the great Sanskrit
literature there is not one writer who can be seriously regarded as
a critical historian. According to him the probable causes of this
phenomenon were the lack of any sentiment of nationalism,
the belief in the doctrine of Karman, the absence of the scientific
attitude of mind which seeks to find natural causes for the events
of nature and the tendency of the Indian mind to prefer the
general to the particular.6
The status of current opinion on the issue has been
summarized in the latest publication on the subject:
The view that Hinduism as a religion, or the Hindus as a
people, lack a sense of history has been expressed so often as
to have become a clich. Even when scholars have tried to
take a more sophisticated as opposed to a cliched view, the
effect has been to reinforce it. Professor A.L. Basham, for

instance, would concede to the Hindus a sense of the past, but
still not history. Elsewhere he allows for a sense of antiquity as
well, if only to suggest that Hinduism possessed an exaggerated
sense of it, while some have argued that Hinduism possessed a
sense of historical pessimism but, again, no history.
Even when scholars take a more nuanced view and distinguish
between: (1) lack of chronology, (2) lack of history, (3) a lack
of a sense of history, (4) a lack of historiography, and (5) the
lack of theory of history, the net effect is the same. The alleged
lack of historiography and a theory of history in India only
buttress the previous claim of a lack of a sense of history, while
its abundant history makes the lack of sense of history only
stand out more starkly.7
Many scholars no longer accept the Orientalist formulation
that ancient Indians lacked a sense of history.8 For instance,
writing in the late 1950s A.K. Warder reacted sharply against
the two major postulates of the formulation. He dismissed both
the propositions that ancient India produced little or no
historical literature and that the ancient Indians did not possess
a sense of history because they were too engrossed in religious
affairs to pay any attention to history. We need not trouble
ourselves overmuch with the analysis of such superficial
misconceptions.9 The impatience of Warder is not wholly
unjustified. To say that a people did not have a sense of history
amounts to saying that they had no view of the past or an
awareness of time. Such an obviously untenable proposition
could have been hardly seriously made about early India. Early
Indian philosophical systems reflect an acute consciousness of
time.10 Thus the central contention of scholars like Macdonell,
Winternitz and Keith seems to have been that the way the
discipline of history developed in the West is found practically
absent in early Indian literary tradition. Ghoshal and Warder
have succeeded in demonstrating that even this contention is
not fully maintainable.11
But the proposition may also be approached and evaluated
10
from another perspective. We may try to understand the kind

of past events that occupied or engaged the interest of ancient
Indians and how they viewed those events and in what manner
they related themselves to those events.12 In other words, we
may try also to understand the conceptual and analytical
universe within which past events were viewed in early India.
However, before we take up these issues for consideration it
may be profitable to turn our attention to some of the features
of history as a discipline.
III
In the context of our study, the most significant development
in the contemporary philosophy of history has been a vigorous
assertion that history is essentially a narrative mode of knowing,
understanding, explaining and reconstructing the past.13 This
assertion has generated a fresh series of excited debates on the
nature of history as a discipline. In some ways history, its nature
and relevance, has long been a subject of debate among thinkers.
Louis Mink, a leading protagonist of the narrativist school,
begins one of his influential essays by underlining the low
esteem in which the Western philosophers had been traditionally
holding history. Philosophers have always betrayed a certain
scorn for both history and romance. I knew that the delicacy
of fiction enlivens the mind, says Descartes, explaining how
he had liberated himself from the errors of the schools, and
that famous deeds of history ennoble it. But in the end, he
concluded, that these are negligible merits, because fiction
makes us imagine a number of events as possible which are
really impossible, and even the most faithful histories, if they
do not alter or embroider things to make them more worth
reading, almost always omit the meanest and least illustrious
circumstances, so that the remainder is distorted. This was
Descartes first and final word on all the tales and stories of
human life, and until very recently it could have served to sum
11
up the consensus of Western philosophy.14 However, in spite

of Descartes, many Western philosophers, especially the
Idealists, found the historical process a fascinating subject of
philosophical reflection.15 The debates in philosophy of history
currently revolve around the analysis of issues related to
historical knowledge, or history as a discipline. The study of
historical process has gone out of fashion; it is greeted with
some suspicion and scorn. But, nonetheless, it remains a fact
that philosophy of history, including its present analytical
concerns, developed out of the interest in the historical process
and the debates that this interest had generated.
Generally speaking, it was the thinkers and theorists who
carried on these debates. Practicing historians usually kept away
from them. They preferred to stay focussed on their chosen
area of concrete evidence and the study based on them without
being affected by the currents and the crosscurrents of
philosophical debates.16 At least, that was what the historians
claimed, and that was the impression they succeeded in giving.17
Since the 1960s the scene, however, began changing markedly.
Professional historians began taking much more active interest
in the problems of historical understanding being discussed in
philosophy of history. Metahistory, which till then occupied
only a marginal territory in the concerns of philosophy, and
commanded practically no space in the concerns of history,
since 1960s and 1970s began exercising a considerably wider
measure of influence among historians. Moreover, the traffic
of influence was no longer one way; historians were no longer
just listening to the debates, they began participating in them.
For the discipline of history a more significant aspect of this
development was the entry in the philosophy of history of what
has been called the linguistic turn. This entry was not a sudden
event. It was effected gradually and in stages. In the 1960s and
1970s when the practicing historians were excitedly pursuing
various forms of the New History under the predominant
influence of social sciences, something of a paradigm shift was
taking place in the field of philosophy of history. The focus of
12
philosophical interest in historical knowledge began moving

away from the traditional debates about the epistemological
problems of historical knowledge. The earlier debates centered
on such questions as how past can be known? What do historical
explanation and causation mean? What are their implications?
Is objective knowledge possible in history?18 These issues were
displaced by a new set of questions engendered by the
acceptance that the narrative embodies the essential or the
typical mode of historical knowledge. With this linguistic turn,
the topics of narration and representation replaced law and
explanation as burning issues of the theory and philosophy of
history. And because what might be called the poetics of history
now came to the fore, the question how is history like and
unlike fiction? replaced how is history like and unlike
science? as the guiding question of metahistorical reflection.19
There was a certain irony about this growing philosophical
interest in narrative history since it came at a time when there
was what Paul Ricoeur subsequently called the eclipse of
narrative in the discipline itself.20 The practicing historians
were still profusely using concepts and methods borrowed from
different social sciences in their works. Within the discipline of
history, it was the diverse forms of New History that was the
dominant trend. The influence of the French Annales School,
the Marxists of various persuasions, quantitative history and
new social history in various parts of the world that conditioned
the major part of historical research and study. This widespread
influence produced such an impact on the practice of history
that it appeared that the old fashioned narrative history has
been shown the door for good. Perhaps the affect of the impact
was exaggerated; the narrative had never been completely
subjugated or banished from history. Lawrence Stone who
himself had fallen under the spell of New History 21 later
exultantly declared: Historians have always told stories. From
Thucydides and Tacitus to Gibbon and Macaulay the
composition of narrative in lively and elegant prose was always
accounted their highest ambition. History was regarded as a
13
branch of rhetoric. For the last fifty years, however, this storytelling function has fallen into ill repute among those who
regarded themselves as in the vanguard of the profession . . . .
Now, however, I detect evidence of an undercurrent which is
sucking many prominent new historians back into some form
of narrative.22
The entry of the linguistic turn in history was itself a part of
a larger shift that was taking shape right across the humanities.23
This shift began in the fifties. It questioned some of the basic
premises of positivist framework that dominated the thinking
in social sciences as well as humanities. thinkers increasingly
criticized a number of the concepts and distinctions central to
positivism: the analytic vs. the synthetic; fact vs. theory;
description vs. explanation; fact vs. value; the verifiable vs.
the non-verifiable; science vs. metaphysics. In so doing they
began to emphasize the perspectival character of all
knowledge.24 In contrast to the scientific attitude nurtured by
the positivist framework, a different attitude towards language
and its relation to reality began to assert itself. While the
positivist view looked at language as something transparent
through which reality is seen, the linguistic turn viewed
language as something opaque and that it creates or structures
what is called Real.25 Reality thus can not be represented; it is
interpreted or constructed. There can be no objective
representation of fact, but only a reflexive construction. All
statements are thus rhetoric. In contradistinction to the positivist
scientific attitude, this is called rhetorical attitude. Since 1970s
the rhetorical attitude has been playing a very significant role
in shaping the contemporary outlook on the nature of history.
In the first phase of its influence the rhetorical attitude restored
the narrative back to history as its characteristic mode. The
issue that dominated the debates during this phase centered on
the narrative as the device of explanation of the past. How
narratives perform the job of explanation of past events? How
narrative explanations are different or similar to causal
explanations? What is the relation between the narrator and the
14
narrative? These were some of the important questions in the

debate. It is in answers to these questions that thinkers like
Louis O Mink, Hayden White and F. R. Ankersmit gave the
rhetorical attitude its most radical departure from the positivist
positions.26
They asserted that history is not something given, it is
constructed; it is not discovered, it is produced. The construction
takes the form of a narrative; it is essentially a story. The
narrative structure does not naturally emerge from the evidences
but rather results from a specific discursive ordering of the
evidence.27 The narrative is a form in which the outcome of
the historians conclusion is embedded in the narrative itself;
it is directly reported. It is the narrative history itself which
claims to be a contribution to knowledge, not something else
which the narrative history merely popularizes or organizes.
The claim of a narrative history is that its structure is a
contribution to knowledge, not just a literary artifice for the
presentation of a series of factual descriptions.28 Historical
narratives are imaginative construction based on the ordering
of evidences. And they draw their meanings not just from the
so-called facts they describe but also from the form of narrative
in which facts are packed.29 Historical narratives are thus stories
in which fictional devices like emplotment, story-types,
figurative language, and so on are employed. These stories do
not replicate actual life, they are made by the historian. But to
say that the qualities of narrative are transferred to art from life
seems a hysteron proteron. Stories are not lived but told. Life
has no beginnings, middles or ends; there are meetings, but the
start of an affair belongs to the story we tell ourselves later, and
there are partings, but final partings are only in the story. There
are hopes, plans, battles and ideas, but only in retrospective
stories are hopes unfulfilled, plans miscarried, battles decisive,
and ideas seminal.30
Selectivity characterizes every stage of the construction of
the narrative. From the choice of the theme to the selection of
the narrative form, it is the historian who makes the decision
15
but he is guided by the demands of the story he has chosen to

relate. Michlet and Tocqueville wrote different kinds of histories
of the French Revolution. Neither can be said to have had
more knowledge of the facts contained in the record; they
simply had different notions of the kind of story that best fitted
the facts they knew. Nor should it be thought that they told
different stories of the Revolution because they had discovered
different kinds of facts, political on the one hand, social on the
other. They sought out different kinds of facts because they
had different kinds of stories to tell.31
It is the cultural heritage, particularly the inherited literary
tradition and attitude, that presents the menu for the choice of
the form or the emplotment the historian recourses to. It is the
shared cultural milieu that on the one hand enables the historian
to weave the intended meaning in his emplotment, and on the
other, it enables the reader to grasp that meaning. The reader is
able to identify the particular form the historian has chosen
and get the meaning embedded in the form. He can thus follow
the story and understand it. It is in this manner that the narrative
performs the task of explicating. And this is the real nature of
historical explanation. How a given historical situation is to
be configured depends on the historians subtlety in matching
up a specific plot structure with the set of historical events that
he wishes to endow with a meaning of a particular kind. This is
essentially a literary, that is to say fiction-making operation.
And to call it that in no way detracts from the status of historical
narratives as providing a kind of knowledge. For not only are
the pregeneric plot structures by which sets of events can be
constituted as stories of a particular kind limited in number, as
Frye and other archetypal critics suggest; but the encodation of
events in terms of such plot structures is one of the ways that a
culture has of making sense of both personal and public pasts.
The issue of meaning in history in the narrativist formulation is
linked to the culture complex where the encodation and the
decodation of the narrative take place. The significance and
relevance of itihsa-pura or carita as historical artifacts
16
resided within the culture complex where they were produced

and they can not be fully and fairly assessed in terms of a
different set of culture-norms.
IV
Contemporary philosophical interest in history is restricted
almost exclusively to the questions that pertain to what is called
critical philosophy of history. These questions do not show
much concern with the historical process33. Although interest
in universal history or the grand narrative in the academic
circle is fast becoming a synonym for charlatanism, the
relevance of history as events, as distinct from history as
account, can not be shaken off.34 The issue of historical
understanding, its nature and its value, can not be completely
detached from the issue of understanding the historical process.
Even the most radical narrativist formulation will not be able to
defend a complete disregard for history as events. It is the past
events that provide the basic impetus for the generation of the
narrative even if the narrative does not represent the events.35
The solicitation of meaning in history through the narrative,
through the device of emplotment, metonymy and
synecdoche,36 can not be completely divorced from the desire
to locate the meaning of events.
And once we grant legitimacy to the seeking of meaning of
events, or if one prefers, the seeking of the meaning of history
through the events, then it is difficult see how the grand narrative
can be avoided. The notion of meaning in this context can not
be detached from the notions of significance and value. And
significance presupposes relationship. Once embarked, this
trajectory finally takes us on to the fundamental question of
value and significance of human life. It is from this point of
view that all the grand narratives were constructed. And there
has been a long line of grand narrativists, from St. Augustine
to Toynbee and Sorokin.37
17
V
An important function that history performs is that it keeps
alive an awareness of ones debt to the past, gives one a sense
of belonging to what might be called a tradition and heritage
and generates a sense of continuity.38 This sense of belonging
and continuity is not necessarily the same as conservatism or a
backward looking attitude. This sense of belonging and
continuity gives a temporal depth to ones existence, a depth
that is absolutely necessary and without which life runs the
risk of becoming rootless. The cultural and the intellectual
orientation of early India bears diverse marks of sensitivity
towards past. Conscious steps were taken to maintain and
promote the sense of belonging to a tradition coming down
from the past. Ancestors were called departed fathers (pitar)
and they were remembered with reverence and gratitude. It
was ones sacred duty to repay the debt of the fathers (pit
a). No ritual, no ceremony, could begin without offering food
and water to the departed fathers. It was also a sacred duty to
remember the debt one owed to the sages of yore (i a) and
preserve and increase the cultural and intellectual heritage they
had bequeathed. The importance given to kula, dea, etc., the
laws and customs (dharma, cra) of kula, jti, grma, dea,
etc., the system of gotra- pravara were all designed to reinforce
the awareness of continuity from the past, a sense of belonging,
an awareness of history. All these were also reminders of ones
responsibility to what has been bestowed by the past. It is
extremely significant that the two primary divisions of the
knowledge system of early India should bear the names of ruti
(that what has been heard) and smti (the remembered wisdom
of past). Practically the entire intellectual output of early India
was but an elaboration of these two. And both of these hark
back to past for their source and inspiration.
Awareness of past is found embedded in the Veda itself.
The Vedic poets refer to kings and dynasties of past. This
awareness was more than just a disparate relic of past stuck in
18
the memory. The Vedic poets were keenly conscious of the

passage of time from the past into the future and the
responsibility of the present generation for preserving the
heritage for future yuga. 39 Witzel has noted that Indian
languages have all preserved, in their own way, some aspects
of the evolution of their history. They all have quite involved
systems of expressing various stages in the past, and thus a
whole array of forms relating to several past tenses. The
beginnings of this attitude can be seen already in the authors of
the Vedic texts.40 He remarked that Indians often provided a
social framework for these changes. Thus the Maitryan
Sahit states that while the form rtrm was alright for men,
the devatas used the purer form of rtrm for night. What is
actually meant is that the form with drgha was an earlier
form.41 There are also references to older times and learned
persons of yore in the Rgveda itself.42
The way the Veda was preserved without distortion for
thousands of years is truly a unique feat of conservation of
history; no parallel to this can be instanced from anywhere else
in the world. It is noteworthy that while the ruti persevered to
preserve the patrimony of past without change, the smti
preserved a socially constructed tradition that was ever
responsive to the demands of changing time and situation. The
dynamics of kladharma and deadharma were readily
recognized and appreciated in smti. It was not a frozen,
solidified past that smti represented but a moving dynamic
continuity. It may be noted that itihsa-Pura was a part of
smti.43 The chosen instrument for keeping abreast of time in
the pura was upavmhana. Viewed from the perspective that
every culture strives to preserve from its past heritage what it
regards valuable, early India in no way can be called less historyconscious than Greece or Rome or China. Only that this
consciousness articulated itself differently.
The high premium that early India had put on preserving
this awareness of continuity, ironically, instead of creating the
impression that India was keenly history-conscious, resulted
19
in producing the opposite effect. It gave birth to the stereotype

of unchanging India, India that had turned its back on history.
Fortunately, this stereotypical reading of Indian culture as a
stationary one unable to respond to the calls of change is no
longer taken seriously.44
It was not just at the collective level but at the individual
level as well that we find instances of a keen sensitivity to the
past history. Writers belonging to all branches of literature kept
on referring to earlier works and authors. It was a common
practice. Grammar, linguistics, art, in all the various disciplines,
we find the later authors show close familiarity with earlier
authors and acknowledge their indebtedness to them. In a large
number of instances the names and works of earlier authors
survive only in the references made to them by later writers.
Even the colossal figures like Pini, Yaska, Bharata, Caraka,
etc., those who were the defining authorities of their respective
disciplines, freely spoke of their intellectual ancestors.45
In the Raghuvasa, Klidsa expresses his debt to the
predecessors (purvasur) in his inimitable style. He says that
the predecessors had already done all the hard works, only the
easier task remained for him. The predecessors had collected
the diamonds and left them cut and ready, all that he had now
to do was to just pass the thread through them. 46 In the
Meghaduta he refers to village elders who were experts in
ancient lore (kathkovid grmavddha).47 While describing the
city of Ujjayi he mentions certain historical spots in the city
that were hallowed by the memory of Pradyota, Udayana, etc.48
Memory of old events and episodes thus continued to survive
in diverse forms and manners and they were continually
evoked.
The notion that the early Indian lacked a sense of history
seems to have been set in motion by Alberuni. In his account
of India Alberuni observed, Unfortunately the Indians do not
pay much attention to the historical order of things, they are
very careless in relating the chronological succession of their
kings, and when they are pressed for information they are at a
20
loss, not knowing what to say, they invariably take to taletelling. But for this we should communicate to the reader the
traditions, which we have received from some people among
them.49 This statement has assumed a kind of a sovereign status
among modern practitioners of Indian history. 50 It is not
necessary at this stage to go in detail into the question why
Alberuni formed this impression. For the present it may suffice
to note that in early India the study of historical events in precise
chronological order did not enjoy the same degree of attention
and popularity in the intellectual world as some other disciplines.
The light in which past was viewed in early India was also
quite different from the one that Alberuni was familiar with.
We will try to deal with these aspects in some subsequent
sections. It is, however, pertinent to point out that neither the
Greco-Roman nor the Chinese travelers seem to have exactly
shared this perception.51
It is not that records were not kept or that care was not taken
to maintain them properly. Evidences rather tell a different story.
Kauilya tells us that the state used to have a very elaborate
record keeping system.52 The main record office was known
as akapaala. It was situated in the capital and housed in a
spacious building containing many halls and rooms for keeping
records. The records pertained to (1) the activity of each state
department, (2) the working of state factories and conditions
governing production in them, (3) prices, samples and standards
of measuring instruments for various kinds of goods, (4) laws,
transactions, customs and regulations in force in different
regions, villages, castes, families and corporations, (5) salaries
and other perquisites of state servants, (6) what is made over to
the king and other members of the royal family, and (7)
payments made to and amounts received from foreign princes,
whether allies or foes.53 One will heartily endorse the remark
of Kangle, A more comprehensive record-house can hardly
be thought of. 54 Besides the central record office, the
akapaala, functionaries in charge of administrative and
financial affairs, for example, an officer like samhart as also
21
his subordinates sthnika, gopa,etc., had to maintain their own

records pertaining to the areas of their charge and function.55
In the Rjataragi there is a reference to an officer with special
expertise in the preparation of documents. This officer was
called paopdhyya. And he belonged to the establishment
of akapaala and had the responsibility of preparing
appropriate documents in execution of royal grants. 56
Epigraphic evidence also refer to other categories of record
keepers apart from akapaalika (in charge of akapaala) like
pustapla, pustakapla, peapla, peapla, peapla, etc.57
To transmit the royal decrees a crops of secretaries and clerks
was maintained, and remarkable precautions were taken to
prevent error. Under the Colas, for instance, orders were first
written by scribes at the Kings dictation, and the accuracy of
the drafts was attested by competent witnesses. Before being
sent to their recipients they were carefully transcribed, and a
number of witnesses, sometimes amounting to as many as
thirteen, again attested them. In the case of grant of land and
privileges an important court official was generally deputed to
ensure that the royal decrees were put into effect. Thus records
were kept with great care, and nothing was left to chance; the
royal scribes themselves were often important personages.58
There are numerous evidences to the effect that states used
to take great pains to prepare and maintain records. In an
extensive note Arvind Sharma has given a neat summary of
the dharmastra material pertaining to the significance,
preparation, preservation and classification of documents.
Documents were numerous as well as varied. There were official
documents bearing official seals and stamps. There were several
varieties of official documents. And then, there were peoples
documents (laukika, jnpada); there were private documents.
Elaborate procedures were developed to verify their validity.60
Arvind Sharma gives an interesting account of the way the
dharmastra writers projected the importance of
documentation. It is the Creator himself who created
documents. 59 This divine initiative was necessary because
22
without documents the world would have come to grief, there

would have been no indubitable means of apprehending the
time, the place, the object, the material, the extent and the
duration of a transaction. Since people begin to entertain doubts
about a transaction even in a matter of six months, the Creator
created in the hoary past letters to be put on record on writing
material (patra). 61 The viewpoint articulated by the
dharmastr in the above formulation is significant. It shows
that the view that the early Indians were so completely swamped
by their concept of the cosmic time flowing incessantly without
beginning and end that they lost all perspective of historical
time is apt to be very one sided. The outlook of Nrada or
Bhaspati was firmly and unambiguously historical.
It is also clear that all records did not pertain to administrative,
legal and financial matter. Documents more directly historical
in nature were also prepared and preserved. Yuan Chuwang
referred to the official practice of maintaining records of events
both at the royal court in the capital as well as in the provinces.
There were special officers who were entrusted with the task. It
is interesting that these records were called blue deposit. These
records mentioned good and evil events, with calamities and
fortunate occurrences.62 Alberuni had noticed genealogical lists
of the Sahi rulers of Afghanistan written on silk. These lists
were kept for preservation at the fortress of Nagarkot. From
the manner of Alberunis statement it appears that this was a
dynastic chronicle of the h kings spanning a period of more
than one thousand years from the foundation of Kua power
to the fall of the Brhmaa hs in the 11th century. 63
According to D. C. Sircar official charters of many ruling
families of post-Gupta period contain historical accounts
covering many generations spread over, sometimes, several
centuries. Such accounts would have been difficult to prepare
without the assistance of written records already existing.64
It is well known that Kalhaa in the preparation of his book
had before him twelve earlier works on the history of Kashmir.65
Besides written works, he had also consulted other evidences
23
like grants, consecration-inscriptions, praastis, etc.66 There is

also no reason to believe that the methodology of scrutiny,
verification, collation, etc., that Kalhaa followed was not
known earlier. The tradition of composing chronicles was not
limited to Kashmir alone. There are definite evidence of their
existence in Assam ( in the form of Burajs) and in Nepal (in
the form of Vavals). On the basis of what we have observed
above regarding the custom of keeping records of events, it
can be safely surmised that the keeping of chronicles was a
common custom all over the country.67 To this may be added
the chronicles maintained by the various religious organizations.
The Buddhist Mahvasa and Dpavasa are well-known
examples of this class.68
There are a number of inscriptions that mention past events
with dates. We find the narration of events belonging to the
reign of a single monarch in chronological order. There are
inscriptions that describe events that happened at different dates
and belonged to the reigns of different rulers and were under
the charge of different officers and took place at different places,
but the chronological order of enumeration was strictly
maintained.69
This is a suitable point to take note of another small problem.
Sometimes the assertion that early India lacked a sense of history
is formulated in the shape of another assertion that early India
did not possess a sense of chronology. It is not clear what
actually is meant by the lack of a sense of chronology. Does it
mean an apprehension of the affairs of the world as though
they exist in a dateless expanse of time, where the passage of
time in its sequential order is not properly comprehended and
where no method of calibration of the passage is used? In such
a case it will be a kind of cognition where all generations
become as it were contemporaries.70 Such a formulation about
early India is totally untenable. Indias familiarity with the
computation of time sequence goes back to very early period.
Jyotia was one of the Vedgas and the very inspiration behind
the study of jyotia was the precise determination of appropriate
24
time for the performance of ritual. Even in the Rgveda there

are suggestions that passage of time was computed through
succession of years.71
Another way the lack of a sense of chronology has been
formulated is that there was an absence of a long term dating
system as well as the consciousness that such a system was
necessary. Early India by no means can be accused of suffering
from an absence of a long term perspective of time. The puric
concept of the cyclic succession of huge eons, par, kalpa,
yuga encompasses a time dimension that is mind-boggling in
its vastness; and its very immensity makes it appear
meaningless.72 The thesis that there was a lack of a sense of
chronology among early Indians thus has also been presented
in the following form: as early India subscribed to the cyclic
concept of time, it inhibited the growth of the concept of linearity
of time. Therefore, early India did not develop any system of
reckoning of time like an era till such dating system was
introduced by invading ruling dynasties.73
We will take up the question of the interrelationship between
the concepts of circular and linear time and the parts they played
in forming the notion of history in early India in a later section.
As regards the question of the prevalence of dating and era,
the practice of a dating system and the practice of reckoning
based on an era are not exactly the same. And, the idea of
chronology does not have to be necessarily identified with either
of them. The consciousness of chronology simply means a
consciousness of sequence of events. A dating method takes
form when in addition to the consciousness of sequence, the
sequenced events are also placed in some kind of reckoning,
irrespective of the length of scale. Moreover, it can not be
definitely ascertained whether or not there were some old and
indigenous eras current in the country. There are some
indications that eras dating from important events like the onset
of Kaliyuga or the demise of Mahvra or Buddha were current
in early India.74 The practice of dating according to the year of
reign of the ruling monarch does not necessarily prove that
25
reckoning in eras was unknown. A large number of powerful

rulers continued to use regnal years in their inscriptions long
after the use of eras had become widely known.75
VI
A large number of terms denoting past events were in
continuous vogue in ancient India right from the Vedic age. It
is true that the exact connotations of these terms are debatable
and that it is not possible to ascertain how far these terms referred
to actual historical past and to what extent to mythical time.
But all the same they do represent the prevalent attitude towards
past. And they are significant from that point of view.
Despite the fact that religion is the basic theme of Vedic
literature, it contains references to certain forms of compositions
that may be termed as historical. Songs and verses were
composed in praise of worthy deeds. The Rgveda states that
kings were very fond of eulogies as a form of literary
composition.76 It appears that there was a class of versifiers
and singers similar to the latter-day bards: gthin, vgthin,
vagaagin, etc., who specialized in the composition and
narration of this kind of eulogies.77 Besides the eulogies, mainly
of royal power and glory, the beginnings of a different tradition
of history writing are found in the succession lists of Vedic
sages. Relatively earlier lists are found in some brhmaas
and in Skhyyana rayaka and Bhadrayaka Upaniad
and somewhat later lists in some ghya and rauta sutras.
These lists are called vaa and gotra-pravara lists.78 These
lists differed from the gth, nras in the sense that they
show a conception of continuity, an idea of a relatively longer
time span and connectivity between events, and that they were
not purely episodic.
Various terms connoting historical compositions like gth,
nras, itihsa, pura, khyna, etc., are found referred
to in Vedic literature. These compositions, it appears, became
a part of the ritualistic tradition that dominated the Vedic
26
literature. The recounting of glorious and heroic stories of past

was a part of the great Vedic sacrifices like avamedha.79 These
were also narrated in the course of some domestic rituals.80
Similarly, the vaa and gotra-pravara lists harked back to
divine ancestors and mythical sages.81 The dominance of
religion and ethics over history in varying degrees remained a
permanent feature of Indian view of history and the two were
never fully de-linked.
However, there are certain indications that these historical
compositions originated independently of the ritual tradition in
a milieu that was mainly secular and later got incorporated into
the ritual system. The term nras signified verse
celebrating men.82 The Aitareya Brhmaa distinguished gth
from k by stating that while the former is merely human, the
latter is divine.83 Although gth and nras had often
been distinguished, they had as often been represented as
kindred terms.84 A passage in the Atharvaveda enumerated the
following kinds of works: k, saman, yajus, brhmaa, itihsa,
pura, gth, nras.85 The passage seems to refer to two
different classes of compositions, the one may be termed as
religious or adrthaka (k, sman, yajus, and brhmaa)
and the other secular or historical or drthaka (itihsa,
pura, gth, nras). The Khaka Sahit describes
both gth and nras as false (anta).86 There is a
statement in the atapatha Brhmaa, which appears
interesting in this context: Twofold, verily, is this, there is no
third, viz. truth and untruth.87 And verily, the gods are the truth
and man is the untruth. Anrta here seems to connote apar or
earthly. It appears that gth and nras did not belong to
the domain of religious-spiritual, but to the human and secular.88
It may perhaps be surmised that right from the early Vedic age
there was a floating tradition of historical compositions,
originally non-Vedic and non-ritualistic, which celebrated the
heroic and noble deeds of men. These were mainly eulogistic
songs and their main patrons were kings who were fond of
such compositions.89 In consequence of the growth of big Vedic
27
sacrifices historical narratives acquired a place in the ritual

system because the kings who were the clients of these elaborate
Vedic scarifies were also the patrons of historical narratives.
This paved the way for the inclusion of secular heroic narratives
as parts of religious sacrificial lore. Nrasa, from which
nras was derived, was associated with rites devoted to
deceased fathers.90 The recounting of glories of departed
ancestors or past generations thus formed an important
component of what was regarded as historical narratives. The
recitation of lore of past became an important element in the
performance of rjasuya, avamedha, etc.91 There were experts,
khynavid, puravid, etc., in the narration of historical lore,
whose services were utilized in the rituals.92 According to Yska
the school of aitihsikas specialized in interpreting Vedic hymns
through itihsa, in contrast to the nairuktas who relied on
etymology for Vedic interpretation.93
Gth, nras, khyna, etc. seem to have been
predominantly legends celebrating heroic and noble deeds. In
them the line separating the human and superhuman was not
important. Thus there were indragths and yajagths, and
the khyna of the union of a divine nymph with a mortal hero
and its inevitable tragic consequences.94 These narratives in
the Vedic literature were considered as having a mystical aspect
about them which facilitated their way into the ritual system.
Among the various history-denoting terms current in early
India, the central space was occupied by the twin terms: itihsa
and pura, often joined together in a compound. It is not
easy to define these terms precisely and to bring out the precise
relationship between the two. Both the terms apparently were
very old; itihsa clearly and unambiguously had made its
appearance already in the Atharvaveda. 95 Then in the
Brhmaas and Upaniads, it is a frequently occurring term
and usually in association with pura.96 And already in the
Vedic period itihsa and pura, jointly or separately, had
acquired the status of a Veda.97 It is clear that itihsa and pura
had a very intimate relationship; their subject matter must have
28
covered a great deal of common ground and must have often

overlapped. The continuation of both the terms over a very
long period suggests that they were not regarded as synonymous
to begin with. With the passage of time the points of distinction
between the two got blurred and confused. This confusion is
strikingly illustrated by the contradictory positions taken by
such famous authorities as Medhtithi and akarcrya on
the one hand and by yaacrya on the other. Whereas
akarcrya and Medhtithi describe the creation account
(siiprakriy) as constituting pura and Urva-Pururav
legend as itihsa, Syaa regards creation account as itihsa
and Urva-Pururav legend as pura.98 In the arthavda (i.e.,
explanatory) portions of the Brhmaas, however, the khynas
of Urva-Pururav and that of unahepah have been given as
examples of itihsa and creation account as that of pura.99
There is a very interesting and revealing passage in the
Arthastra of Kautilya. The passage gives us a fairly accurate
and broad idea about the perspective in which itihsa was viewed
at that time. The Arthastra perspective is also additionally
significant because it is the product of an age in which Puric
literature was receiving its standardized form.100 It may indicate
that Kauilyan view might have had linkages with that of the
pura.
The Arthastra passage occurs in the chapter on the training
of the prince. The training programme had a clearly structured
character. The training started at a very early age immediately
after the tonsure ceremony (caula) was performed. At this
primary stage the prince was first introduced to alphabet and
numbers as a foundation for the more rigorous intellectual
training to follow. After the sacred thread ceremony
(upanayana) began the training on the three Vedas and the
philosophical systems and the management of economic and
political affairs. After gaining a thorough grounding in these
and after the prince attained manhood he was asked to cultivate
constantly the association of wise and knowledgeable people
for the sake of improving his training.101 It is in this context
29
that Kautilya prescribed that the prince should spend the second
half of everyday in listening to itihsa.102 And then comes
the passage describing the scope and constituents of itihsa.
The puras, itivtta, khyyik, udharaa, dharmastra
and arthastrathese constitute itihsa.103
Despite sharing certain common elements the purana,
dharmastra and arthastra represented distinct classes of
literature. And each has a distinctive personality. It may be
surmised that the other three, i.e., itivitta, khyyik and
udharaa, too must have had their separate existences and
distinctive characters. Again, pura, itivrtta, akhyyik and
udaharana appear to have shared a common family trait; all of
them seem to have been narratives of old events. They differed
from one another not so much in character as in scope and
range.
Udharaa, as the term suggests, probably signified a
collection of separate events exemplifying success and failures.
Kauilya apparently gives us a few samples of udharaa in
the chapter entitled Casting out the Group of Six Enemies
dealing with the necessity of controlling the evil impulses and
passions by the prince.104 The udharaa narratives were strung
together because of their illustrative value. The narratives did
not seem to have any temporal order or sequential unity. The
incidents in an khyyik, on the other hand, had internal
relatedness and unity. khyyik was a variant of, or derivation
form, khyna. This form of narratives appears to have been
popular since the Vedic period for their dramatic quality and
for their morals and was given a place in the ritual system.105
Generally khyna dealt with a particular story. Sometimes,
however, a number of khynas were strung together as in the
priplavai cycle.106 Even the whole of the Mahbhrata was
sometimes called an khyna although it contained within itself
numerous independent khynas.107 khyyik later appeared
to have acquired a standardized narrative form pertaining to
the lives and activities of rulers.108 Anyway, this seems clear
that khyna-khyyik had for its theme a single thread: an
30
event or a string of events constituting a story with a

beginning, middle and end. Itivrtta and its synonym puravrtta
perhaps signified events covering a longer period and range
than khyyik; the suffix vtta suggests a sequential order.
Itivtta also seems to hint at a circular or cyclical concept of
history. Itivtta or the variant purvtta perhaps meant a cycle
of events.
It is not possible to trace the evolution of the term pura
with precision. That it referred to accounts of olden past is
obvious; the very expression pura is a sufficient indication.
Whether Puric traditions antedated the Vedas, whether they
were anti-Vedic and anti-Brahmanic are questions that will have
to wait for precise answers.109 This, however, seems clear that
by the time the Arthastra was composed and the Puric
literature was getting formalized, the scope of the theme of
puras had acquired a truly vast sweep. It included the entire
process of creation and evolution and accommodated within
this frame a number of secondary beginnings and disintegration
of the world and the succession of the yugas and the accounts
of all significant beings and events. It is not only the
sumptuousness of the marvelous elements in these accounts,
but also the vastness of the scope that disagrees so strikingly
with our contemporary sensibilities. The point that we are trying
to make here is that udharaa, khyyik, itivrtta and pura
represented a series of graded perspectives in history; the scope
of khyyik was wider than udharaa, itivtta was wider
than khyyik, and pura was wider than itivtta. According
to Kauilya, itihsa included all of the above and even more; it
also included dharmastra and arthastra. The inclusion of
dharmastra and arthastra appears particularly interesting
as it seems to underline the social perspective of history.110
The underlying suggestion seems to say that events ought to
be situated against the dharma and artha perspectives. To act
as an aid to the realization of the pururthas was the central
raison detre of ithsa.111
31
Itihsa in the light of the Arthastra passage appears to

have been considered as a wholesome study of the affairs of
this world preparing man to comprehensively meet his social
obligations. Its study seemed to have an especial value for a
ruler. It ranked in importance next to the three Vedas and
vkk. The Vedas and vkk were geared predominantly
to the realization of moka, and vtt and daanti to
economics and politics. 112 Itihsa, in contrast, put equal
emphasis on all of the caturvargas.113
The Arthastra passage would also afford us an idea about
the way that an event in history was conceived. Any narrative
was not necessarily historical; to acquire the status of history a
narrative had to be instructive.114 It is the ability to teach and
instruct that invests an event with significance. The notion of
significance from this point of view is essentially ethical because
only that has the ability to instruct which can contribute to wellbeing and happiness and because the attainment of well-being
hinges on the ability to make the distinction between right and
wrong. It is noteworthy that although Kautilyas Arthastra
was a text that predominantly dealt with such secular matter as
the success of royal policies; the way history (itihsa) was
perceived by Kauilya had a strong ethical underpinning.115
This is clear from the narration of events of excesses committed
by the rulers of yore that led them to their doom. Kauilya
narrated those events as part of instructions to the prince as
illustrations of conduct to be abjured.116
Normally an event was also regarded as one with a fulsome
story. It usually contained one or more of khyna/khyyik
characterized by different parts that succeeded in sequential
order. Prof. V.S. Pathak has described and illustrated these parts
in his work.117 These parts were: beginning (prrambha), the
efforts (prayatna), the hope of achieving the objective
(prpty), the certainly of achievement (niyatpti) and the
achievement (phalgama). A book of itihsa could consist of
a single khyna/khyyik like Haracarita.118 It could also
include many khynas sewn around a central theme as in the
32
Mahbhrata that was also called Bhratkhyna though it

contained a large number of other independent khynas.119
The Arthastra passage also sheds some light on the
relationship between itihsa and pura. In Kauilyas view,
we have noted above, pura was a part of itihsa, and the
two were thus intimately related. The scope of itihsa was
perhaps wider than pura, for pura was only one of the
various elements or forms of itihsa. Generally, the Arthastra
passage has been interpreted as indicating that pura was only
one among the several elements which together constituted
itihsa. However, the passage is also liable to interpretation to
the effect that iitihsa had many forms or variants as specified
by Kautilya and that these variants separately or together merited
the name of itihsa. We have also noted above that the relation
between itihsa and pura and the scope and content of them
were a matter on which famous authorities disagreed and took
opposite positions. Thus it is not possible to decide whether
the passage in the Arthastra represented merely Kautilyas
personal view of itihsa or it reflected the commonly perceived
perception of his time. That Kauilya included dharamastra
and arthastra in itihsa may help us to understand why the
Epics and puras included didactic material and dharmastra
and arthastra matters in such abundance.
It is worth trying to understand why the expression pura
stood both for ancient lore as well as for a specific class of
literature. Winternitz has surmised that a mass of ancient lore
and traditions existed as a floating body which served as a
common storehouse from which various forms of literary
expressions like gth, nras, vaa, khyna, etc., drew
their material.120 The Puric form seems to have developed
by absorbing many of these forms within it. The Viupura,
for example, tells us that there were three constituent elements
of the puras: gth, khyna and supplementary khyna.121
They were collated within the framework of vaas to produce
the vanucarita to provide the puras with some of its socalled distinctive marksthe pacalakaas. 122 The
33
development of puras through adaptation, absorption and

integration of earlier mass of historical traditions and
compositions represented a process of growth of historical
narratives. It represented growth even in physical terms in the
sense that pura came to constitute a collection of an enormous
corpus much larger in scope and volume than the earlier forms
of historical narratives. However, the growth of pura reflected
more than mere physical expansion; it also marked the
broadening of the scope and subject matter of history as new
elements and aspects were added by purakras. puras
thus also represented a widening of the perspective in the
conceptual framework of history. Since puras became the
repository of diverse aspects of past, the expression pura
came to signify both the old lore as well as the class of literature
preserving the old lore.
From another perspective also, puras may be considered
as marking a continuous and dynamic growth of the historical
narrative. Through the process of upabimhaa new material
covering immediate past was continuously added to the existing
corpus updating the narrative and keeping it attuned to
contemporary requirements and tastes. 123 This saved the
narrative from getting stale investing it with a certain amount
of evergreen quality. This, moreover, also underlined the
relevance of past to the present by relating the past to the
contemporary.
It is clear that the custom of documenting the past in India
had a very long and old history. There were bards and minstrels
whose business was to compose, narrate and preserve glorious
and heroic deeds. It seems that a class of specialists arose who
developed expertise in preserving the records of past; these
experts constituted the school of historians for the society.
We have noted above that originally they did not seem to have
been an integral part of the Vedic ritualistic tradition. The matter
that was of primary concern to the preservers of heroic lore,
the school of the aitihsika-purika, was mainly secular in
character. These were heroic and noble deeds of great men.
34
And it appears that the orthodoxy did not always view the
composition of these accounts kindly. Even if one does not
wholeheartedly agree with Pargiters view124 that pura-itihsa
tradition represented Katriya tradition in contrast to the Vedic
Brhmaicalthe two might not have been as antithetical as
Pargiter contendsthere is no denying the fact that they
originally belonged to two distinct traditions.
A large number of terms for these specialists are found. Some
of the more frequently used terms in Pauric literature were
puvid, puravid, puraja, puika, vaavid,
vaacintaka, vaa-puraja, anuvaapuraja, etc. It
is not possible to locate and demarcate specific areas of
specialization associated with these terms. They were often used
loosely without adhering to a fixed meaning.125 From the
puras it appears that these specialists were also known by a
common and broader term, the suta. The duties and functions
of suta can be sketched with certain amount of definiteness.
The sutas special duty as perceived by goodmen of old was
to preserve the genealogies of gods, ihis and most glorious
kings, and the traditions of great men, which are displayed by
those who declare sacred lore in the itihsa and puras.126 It
was thus sutas function to preserve the memories of glorious
kings, the traditions of great men, the eulogies of famous
people and the genealogies. The suta was a paurika, a
specialist in ancient lore, a vaakuala, an expert in
genealogies.127
The paurika sutas were different from the varna sakara
sutas mentioned in the smti literature. Kauilya makes a clear
distinction between the two.128 The paurika sutas appear to
have been learned people and apparently they belonged to the
cultivated class. V.S. Pathak has drawn the attention of scholars
to the fact that the Bhigvgirasa families had shown special
aptitude and interest in the preservation and propagation of
historical lore. 129 The close relation between the
Bhigvgirasas and itihsa-pura has been recorded
especially in the Candogya Upaniad. At one place it states
35
that the Atharvaveda bears the same relation to itihsa-pura

as the Rgveda to ik, Smaveda to sman, Yajurveda to yajus.
At another place we find a clearer statement: Atharvgirasas
are the bees, the itihsapura is the flower. At yet another
place it states that the hymns of the Atharvgirasas brooded
over the itihsapura.130 It is possible that the paurika sutas
belonged to the Bhigvgirasa extraction and the antiquity of
the itihsapurna was not very much shorter than that of the
Vedas.131
An account of the compilation of pura is found in the
Vyu, Brahma and Viu pura. There the compilation is
attributed to Veda Vysa. After accomplishing the stupendous
task of systematization and division of Vedas into four, the Rk,
Sman, Yajus and Atharva and entrusting them to four of his
disciples Paila, Vaiampyana, Jaimii and Sumantu
respectively, Mahari Kia Dvaipyana complied a pura
sahit and entrusted it together with itihsa to his fifth disciple
suta Lomaharaa or Romaharaa. After that he composed
the Bhratkhynam.132
This account of the systematization of the Vedas, the
compilation of the pura and the composition of the
Mahbhrata is highly interesting. Even though generally
scholars have treated this account with skepticism, no really
valid argument can be advanced for completely dismissing off
its authenticity. If Vedic literature is silent about this tradition
of Vysas dividing the Veda into four; there is nothing
surprising about this omission. Vysa had merely organized
the Vedas; there is no reason why the texts should contain any
reference to him, he only arranged the Vedic texts without,
presumably, any kind of interference with the texts themselves
which were already in existence before his own time and which
were traditionally regarded as of non-human (apaurueya)
origin. It is also natural that the language, culture and the
universe reflected in the Vedas on the one hand and the pura
and the Mahbhrata on the other should be quite distinct
because the methods followed by Vysa in regard to the Vedas
36
and pura-Mahbhrata were quite different. In the case of

the Vedas, Vysas work was limited merely to arrangement
and organization, in the case of the purana and the
Mahbhrata he was not just an organizer but also a composer
author. It is interesting further to note that whereas for the Vedas
he divided a single text into four divisions, for the puras he
collected a large number of existing traditions and accounts
into a single whole. As for the Mahbhrata Vysa is credited
with composing it.
That the later history of the development of Vedic Literature
and pura itihsa should take on different lines was also
natural; the reason for this lay inherent in the very nature of the
texts. Vedic texts were finished products, they dealt with things
become, the pura on the other hand dealt with things
becoming, there was scope for continuous addition of new
material to it as new historical facts kept piling up. When looked
at from this point of view, Vysas work in regard to the
arrangement of the Vedas proved much more enduring than
his compilation of the pura-sahit; the Veda-sahits as
arranged by Vysa have remained intact, the pura-sahit
compiled by Vysa has got buried under later growth.
The traditional number of the puras is considered eighteen,
although the extant numbers of puras greatly exceed this
traditional number. These different puras appear to have
branched out of the original purasahit compiled by Vysa.
This original pura could hardly have condensed all the
existing past traditions, there must have been other existing
ancient traditions leading to its augmentation and later
proliferation into a number of puras. The puras by their
very nature easily lent themselves to augmentation and
adaptation. According to Pargiter the later Brahmana editors of
the purasthe custody of the pura passed from the hands
of professional sutas into those of sectarian Brahmana priestly
classtook full advantage of the situation to introduce a great
deal of extraneous matters, particularly religious and didactic,
besides the fresh historical material that were accumulating over
37
the time and stamp the puras with their sectarian views and
attitude. Thus the handiwork of Vysa got lost. 133 The
Brahmanical embellishments led to a change in the nature of
the puras by giving the original secular Puranic accounts a
religious character and thus narrowing the gulf that divided the
theological Vedic traditions and the non-religious Puric
heritage.134
The traditional account of the compilation of the original
pura-sahit by Vysa tells us that he had collected khyna,
upkhyna, gth and kalpa-jokti for the same. 135 In this
connection it may also be noted that traditionally pura was
regarded as a class of literature that contained the following
five characteristics (pacalakaa): original creation (sarga),
dissolution and re-creation (pratisarga), genealogy (vaa),
transition of Manus (manvantara) and accounts of persons
mentioned in the genealogies (vaanucarita).136 These give
us a fair idea about the kinds of materials originally used for
the composition of the Puric literature. Same kinds of material
must have also constituted the basic raw material of the itihsa.
The subject matter of the original pura thus seems to have
consisted mainly of traditions about gods, about ancient is
and kings, about ancient genealogies and biographies.
No great distinction seems to have been made between
itihsa-pura and akhyna; they were often treated as
synonymous. As collective terms itihsa and pura are often
mentioned as distinct, and yet are sometimes treated as much
the same; thus the Vyu calls itself both a pura and an itihsa,
and so also the Brahma. The Brahma calls itself a pura
and an khyna; the Mahbhrata calls itself by all these
terms.137 An khyna, however, does not seem to have been
just any kind of old tales. It seems to have been a tale of special
nature, a tale to illustrate a moral or a lesson. It was generally
didactic. It is important to remember that the concept of history
in ancient India generally had always been strongly didactic in
nature. However, according to Pargiter, the didactic dharma
matter which loom very large in the extant puras were added
38
later by the Brahmanas into whose hands the task of the

preservation of the puras had passed from their original
custodians, the sutas.138 It is significant that dharma does not
directly figure at all among the five characteristic features of
the puras (the pacalakaa). Neither does it figure in the
list of the materials used by Vysa for his compilation of the
original purasahit. Upkhyna obviously belonged to the
same genre as khyna, the difference being perhaps in size
and dimension.139 Gth meant a song in praise of noble and
heroic deeds.140 Besides the kalpajoktis, the heroic traditions,
lore and tales of past embodied in khyna, upkhyna, gth,
etc., constituted the main Puric material.
Of the original five characteristics of the pura, the
pacalakaa, (original creation, dissolution and recreation,
the manvantaras, ancient genealogies and accounts of persons
mentioned in the genealogies) Pargiter writes The first three
subjects that puras should treat of, are based on imagination,
are wholly fanciful, and do not admit of any practical
examination, hence it would be a vain pursuit to investigate
them.... The fourth and fifth subjects are, however, genealogies
and tales of ancient kings, profess to be historical tradition and
do admit of chronological scrutiny, hence they are well worth
considering.141
Not questioning the validity of Pargiters observation it may
be pointed out that although it is true that the first three subjects
are not valuable for empirical history, nevertheless they provide
a grand sweep to the concept of history. Such sweeps form one
of the chief characteristics of some of the most influential schools
of historical interpretations. An obvious example is the Christian
idea of history, which encompasses all empirical events within
a single all comprehensive framework of divine plan. 142
Similarly, the Puric framework of creation and dissolution,
within which the vaa and vanucarita have their existence,
give all empirical events a meaningful perspective and from
that point of view these three subjects sarga, pratisarga,
manvantara are highly valuable. They provide a synthesist
39
framework and try to look at empirical events from the point of

view of totality and not piecemeal.
We have noted above that this grand cosmological scheme
provides a comprehensive framework for situating the historical
events. The Puric view of progressive decline is found in
several works but the most elaborate accounts are found notably
in the Vyupura.143 The ntiparvan in the Mahbhrata
gives practically the same account.144 The ntiparvan explains
how in the kta age there was at first no state, but eventually
passion and greed developed among men, consequently
Brahma invented the state and government. The Puric
tradition places the beginning of corruption and division of
society not in the kta but after its end in the early tret.
According to the Vyu-pura account after the development
of agriculture during the treta which led to the appropriation of
property, Brahma created state and gave Katriyas the right to
rule.
A.K. Warder finds in this account an echo of the transition
from the food gathering to food producing economy. Warder
further feels that the original version of the theory placed the
beginning of agriculture and state during the tret. This was
later modified by Brahmanical editors in order to place the
beginning of kingship in the most perfect age, the kta itself
and accommodate a number of kings in that age. On account
of their bias against kingless republican societies, the royalist
authors, according to Warder, were unable to bear the idea that
the most perfect age in human evolution should have been the
age when there was no king and no state.145
Three levels of time can be distinguished in the grand
cosmological scheme of the puras. Furthermore, it is
noteworthy that history in the puras is divided into two parts:
the history of the past and the history of future. The kaliyuga
was the dividing line between the two parts.146 The coupling of
the past and future is not a feature typical of the Puric
perception alone. It is also found, for example, in the jtakas
where stories are divided into those pertaining to atitavatthu
40
and to paccupaavatthu.147 The analogy may be extended

further. In the early Christian concept, history is divided into
two halves. There the birth of Christ constitutes the dividing
line. The two halves were christened as the history of Old
Dispensation and the history of New Dispensation. The first
was regarded as the preparation for the coming of Christ and
the second as the embodiment of the consequences of the birth
of Christ.148
By the time the Puric literature developed and proliferated,
the old Vedic suspicion of and hostility towards historical
concerns seem to have gone down substantially. In fact, the
prestige and authority of the puras came to rank next only
to the Vedas. The puras came to be regarded as
complementary and aid to the proper understanding of the
Vedas. The dvija who may know the four Vedas with the agas
and upaniads, should not really be (regarded) as having
attained proficiency, if he should not thoroughly know the
pura. He should reinforce the Veda with the itihsa and
pura. The Veda is afraid of the little learned man thinking
he will injure me.149 The heavy theistic embellishments in
the Puric literature might have also contributed to the melting
away of the old hostility towards historical compositions.
Judged by modern canons of historical study, the puranas
are found wanting in cogency and reliability as historical works.
However, it should be noted that even such a skeptical scholar
as V. Smith150 has accepted the value of puras as historical
document for certain ruling houses.151 Pargiter and Morton
Smith made praise-worthy endeavour to vindicate Puranic
dynastic accounts as genuine history. puras may be judged
to be poor history by modern measure, but they embody a
philosophy of history, which may serve as an interesting foil to
the modern notion of history. After all philosophy of history in
the deepest sense is nothing but a philosophy of life, a vision,
a search for the essence of the universe and mans place and
destiny in that universe. This quest naturally has to go beyond
mere empiricism. puras were avowedly not history in the
41
modern sense where history is regarded as a product of

empiricism, a record of empirical facts. puras represent a
worldview manifesting itself through the narration of past events,
events that are worth remembering and recording, events where
men attained heroic proportions and achieved practically the
stature of the divine and thus sublimated the remorseless wheel
of time from kta to kali.
In early India historical facts were also often stated through
the medium of art. These statements often took symbolical form.
The Lion Slayer Type of coins of Candra Gupta II have long
been recognized as visual representation of Candra Guptas
victory over the akas. Recently H. Von Stietencron has shown
that the Pallava ivagagdhara images in fact contain a
political narrative; they are artistic statements recording the
Pallavas victory against the Western Gags. Similarly, the
famous Varaha images of the Gupta period, the most celebrated
example being the Udaygiri image, are visual narratives of
Candra Gupta Vikramdityas important victory over the
akas.152
VII
It may be mentioned in passing that itihsa was not purported
to be an imaginary didactic tale, although it is easy to confuse
it with the latter. There are indications that itihsa referred to
events of past and not to just any imaginary edifying tale. The
word itihsa formed from iti ha sa so in truth it was.153 Itihsa
thus was clearly believed to be based on facts or on what was
considered to be the true view of past. In numerous passages
in the Mahbhrata that refer to itihsa, the narration begins
with the stereotyped statement here they cite this ancient
itihsa (atrpyudharatimm itihsam purtana).154 It is
worth noting that the narration of historical accounts during
the performance of death-rites was a widely prevalent custom.
valyaa Ghya Sutra mentions that when a person died his
friends and relatives would sit together and recount histories of
42
famous men. It is also mentioned that distinguished itihsas

and puras were recited on that occasion.155 Here too the
symbolic significance of the custom is only too obvious; it again
signified the aspiration of the friends and relatives of the
deceased person that the deceased might also be counted as a
part of the great historical past. Since the death which
occasioned the invocation of the past was a concrete event, the
past with which its merger was sought would not have perhaps
been entirely mythical. The nrasa, for example, was
associated with the rite of the departed fathers (pitar).156 This
strongly suggests that the concern of nrasa was with the
actual than the mythical past. The past that Itihsa was
concerned with was perceived as constituting actual human
past. At least that seemed to have been the theoretical premise;
it was not conceived as something imaginary or invented or
unreal.
It seems that a fiction and a narrative based on actual
happening were distinguished from each other. It is noteworthy
that Ba calls Kdambar a kath and Haracarita an
khyyik. Bhmaha in his Kvylaakra elucidates the
difference between kath and khyyik. Kath he says is an
imaginary tale, where as an khyyik is based on actual event
(svaceitavtta).157 Similarly, commentator Sridhara quotes an
old verse that describes khyyik as drthakathana.158 It is
well known that Kalhaa unambiguously describes the purpose
behind the composition of the celebrated work Rjataragi
as narration of past events (bhutrthakathana).159
It is not our intention to argue that these were factual
narratives in the current sense of the term. The issue of factuality
in historical narratives is highly complex and the perception
and constitution of fact in history are generally influenced by
the prevailing climate of thought and belief within which fact
is perceived. Narration of any episode always involves
abstraction to a certain extent. In the wake of the onset of
narrativist and postmodernist theories, the clarity of positivist
distinction between fact and imagination in the context of history
43
has been considerably blurred.160 But it is not our plea that an

khyyik belonged to the same class of historical narrative as
a modern historical work. We are only trying to say that itihsa
ought to be distinguished from a professedly imaginary tale in
the sense that itihsa is based on abstraction of past episodes
and that an khyyik was not the same as a kath. And, to that
extent it bears factuality and from that perspective itihsa was
distinguished from purely fictional material. Itihsa therefore
generally referred to events of past as viewed by the narrators
and not just to any arbitrary tale. It was supposed to have its
basis on factuality. The substratum of factuality on which the
itihsa account was built often was embellished with edifying
elements to heighten the effect. Moreover, itihsa or itihsapura appears to have been a floating mass of past traditions
mostly preserved through oral transmission over generations.
These often led to the accretion of mythical material over them.
Nevertheless, there was a core of factuality; of course this
factuality resided within the boundaries the notion of factuality
was viewed and constituted in the context of itihsa.
VIII
Let us attempt a sketch of the outlines of early Indian outlook
on past. The belief in the principle of karma gave the Indian
perception of past and the significance of the past for the present
a special dimension. But the karmik past and the historical past
are distinct and they can not be combined. The past karma can
influence individuals as historical agents, but the role of karma
in the creation of historical legacy (which is another name of
historical past) can not be worked out. Therefore karma as a
factor should be left out while considering history or itihsa.
Since our objective is to understand the attitude to history we
would not consider the theory of karma while dealing with the
outlook on past. Our subject matter is this life led by men in
past and not the series of former births that every individual
has to go through according to the theory of karma. Our interest
44
thus does not extend to the past lives as viewed in the theory
of karma. Although in the formation of the total outlook on
past the karma theory played a significant role in early India,
in the context of our present theme we will not enter the area of
former births.161 An example may clarify what we are driving
at. In our purview, the life of Siddrtha Gautam, the prince of
Kapilavastu, would figure but not the lives of numerous past
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas except as part of Mahyna Buddhist
belief system. So by early Indian outlook on past we mean the
attitude to past human episodes that were the part of the
drthaka visible world. The lives of, say, three successive
generations of past men a, b, c, in our view form part of historical
past, but not the previous births of a, b, and c. We are interested
in understanding what was the attitude that early India showed
towards past; a past that was viewed within the confines of
one life for one individual seen through ordinary mortal sight.
Thus the theory of Karma and its impact on the mental attitude
will not form a part of our sketch of the early Indian outlook on
past.
Early Indian outlook on past was unabashedly didactic. Past
events had no relevance unless they were significant in a
positive way to the present. An event in such a formulation
does not acquire an automatic value because of its antiquity.
Early Indian outlook on past was entirely different from the
antiquarian.162 Only that sort of past or past events which have
the quality to vivify the present society in a positive way are
the ones that are truly memorable and worth preserving and
recounting. This is how the relevance of past accounts was
visualized in early India. Early Indians were very clear about
the role of history; history has to teach and instruct. History
teaches by example: history is philosophy by example, history
is politics by example. It is in this way that the role and function
of history were perceived in early India. History was not
conceived as an account of the entire body of human past; it
was an account of only those parts of past or aspects of past
that held a valuable lesson for men. And all lessons were
45
basically instructions on dos and donts and the means of

achieving the goals of life (vidhi, niedha, upya, pururtha,
reyasdhana, nihreyasa, etc.). Itihsa was viewed as an
event of olden time, conjoined with a tale and provided with a
demonstration of dharma, artha, kma and moka.163 It is
from this angle that the Rmyaa and the Mahbhrata were
regarded as itihsa. It was not just any narrative of olden time;
it was a narrative of special kind, a narrative testifying merit.
The Mahbhrata is described as an itihsa mahpuyah (an
itihsa of great merit; e.g., in Mahabh I. Lxii.16 [2298]), and
reference is frequently made to its puyah kathh (meritorious
tales).164 Similarly, the Rmyaa calls itself as the history of
Rama (rma carita), which is sacred, sin-destroying, meritbestowing like the Veda itself (pavitra ppaghna puya
vedaica sammita).165 Itihsa thus is selective in its scope; it
is not an indiscriminate, impartial and disinterested
accumulation of all possible facts pertaining to past. The past
that deserves to be included within the fold of itihsa is the one
that is capable of imparting instructions. Itihsa is a repository
of knowledge (vidy); it is in fact one of the Vedas.166
Kalhaas Rjatarngi has usually been hailed by modern
scholars as the lone work that in its fidelity to the factual base
of the narrative sets it apart from the normal run of excessively
eulogistic carita kvyas of early India. It has been pointed out
that the scope and the canvas that Kalhaa charts for himself
at once distinguish him from the panegyrists of carita kvyas.
He attempts a comprehensive and connected account of the
entire history of Kashmir from the earliest times to his own
days. And he also maintains a chronological sequence in his
narrative. These virtues make him a kindred spirit of modern
historians.167 In adherence to his objective to place the past
times before the eyes of men he consciously cut some of the
poetic frills that other poets of early India found so irresistible
and he purposely adopted a relatively simpler and
straightforward style to save digressions.168 Yet, when it came
to identify the deeper motive behind the composition of this
46
River of Kings, Kalhaa without any hint of apology or

hesitation, in clear firm tone, reiterates the old Epic attitude.
This narrative [of mine] which is properly arranged and which
resembles a medicine, is useful where the [accounts regarding
the] place and time of kings are fluctuating. Or if [another aspect
be considered], what intelligent mans heart would not be
pleased by such a composition which treats of numberless
events of ancient times? When [the hearer] has pondered over
the sudden appearances of living beings that lasts for a moment
only, then let him judge of the sentiment of tranquillity (nta
rasa) which is to rule supreme in this work.169 Here the very
kernel of the underlying didactic motive reveals itself. The tumult
of temporal events ultimately reveals only their ephemeral
nature leaving behind a sentiment of quiet contemplation. Stein
in his introduction to the translation of Rjatarangi beautifully
captures the spirit of the work. The transitory nature of all
mundane glory, the uncertainty of all royal possessions, and
the retribution which inevitably follows offences against the
moral laws, these are lessons which Kalhaa never tires to
impress upon his readers. The chapters of Kashmir history
which lay nearest to his own time, and which he knew best,
furnish Kalhaa with ample illustrations for these texts.170
According to Tagore in some of Klidasas works, especially
his Raghuvasa, the central theme is a portrayal of the violation
of dharma and its unfortunate consequences. This theme
expresses itself in the Raghuvasa in the contrast intentionally
built between the way the founding of the line of Raghu and its
end are depicted. The line of the Raghu begins in self-control
(sayama) and rigorous spiritual practice (tapasy), it ends in
the excess of dissipation and lust.171
In the context of Kalhaas work the comments of Stein on
the worldview of the early Indian chroniclers is worth quoting.
Neither the general drift of Hindu thought nor the specific
character of Kalhaas chronicle would justify us in looking to
the latter for conscious appreciation of what we understand as
the philosophy of history.... Yet this fact must not lead us to
47
assume that the Hindu chronicler could contemplate the records

of the past without being influenced by certain general ideas.
Individual events present themselves to his mind not as
phenomena to be traced to their causes. He looks upon them
merely as illustrations of those maxims, religious, moral or legal,
which make up what the Hindu designates so comprehensively
as Dharma.172 The statement, if we ignore the condescending
Western superior tone of the day in which it is couched,
underlines an important aspect of the world view that conditioned
the early Indian outlook on past.
Right from the very beginning, i.e., the time of the
composition of the Rgveda, the time since which we begin
getting evidence of historical compositions,173 the didactic
profile of historical narratives seems to have been prominent.
These were generally tuned to the celebration of positive aspects
of human lives and endeavours. Both gth and nras,
the earliest class of historical narratives that we encounter, were
praises celebrating men; the celebration of the heroic and noble
dimensions of men was their clear purpose.174 The emphasis
was unambiguously on praiseworthy deeds. The Nirukta defines
nras as compositions that sing the praise of men.175 The
few examples of the actual Vedic gths found quoted in the
Brhmaas also exemplify noble and heroic deeds and spacious
times.176 During the horse sacrifice on the day the horse was let
loose the lute players had to sing freshly composed gths
praising the liberality and military exploits of the sacrificer.177
When this is viewed along with the fact that a cycle of narration
called priplava consisting of khynas celebrating heroic
and noble deeds of yore was recounted over a whole year when
the horse roamed about freely,178 it affords us a glimpse of the
perspective in which past was held. Here we find that the noble
and heroic deeds of the performer of sacrifice are juxtaposed
with the similar memorable deeds of the past. It symbolized,
firstly, the model or the standard that was set before the
sacrificing king. The past was put forward as an exemplar.
Secondly, it also symbolized the aspiration of the present to be
48
a part of the traditions of greatness of past. Here the present is

depicted as seeking affiliation with the past. Moreover, it also
shows that the present is conscious of its responsibility for the
continuation of the past heritage of nobility and righteousness.
The Taittirya rayaka which contains the earliest reference
to khyyik179 used the expression to illustrate a moral precept
to the effect that the teacher and the student should not quarrel.180
This is how abara also interprets the significance of the term.181
The Nirukta refers to a school that believed in interpreting the
Vedic hymns as representing itihsa or historical memory.182
Similarly, the thinkers of the Mmms and the Nyya schools
of philosophy considered ancient events as arthavda or
illustrations of religious, moral and social precepts embodying
age-old wisdom.183
A didactic role of a different order and level was also assigned
to historical accounts. This was didacticism of a more practical
and down to earth variety. An example of this kind of practical
relevance of past history is found in the passage in Kauilyas
Arthastra we have referred to above. Lessons in itihsa were
specially useful for a ruler. Itihsa was regarded as a practical
guide to right policy decisions. The general guidance in the
running of the state, in politics, in statecraft, in economics, could
be had from daanti and vrtt. The general guidance in
right and wrong could be had from the Vedas (tray) and
philosophy (nvkik). These contained general guidance that
could be applied to broad policy choices. But when it came to
specific situations, the ruler looked to itihsa for light. Sieg has
drawn attention to such passages in the Mahbhrata that have
a formula like look: This doubt, O sage, is, like a dagger,
implanted in my heart; tear it out by the recital of itihsas
that is my supreme desire.184 It is in the context of facing
difficult situations demanding appropriate course of action that
the Mahbhrata usually quotes the numerous itihsas with
the formula atrpyudharantim itihsa purtana.185
For a ruler itihsa was a kind of a ready corpus of practical
case histories of the application of dharma. The primary duty
49
of the king was to protect and govern people and to punish the
wrongdoers. But he could properly do so only when he
harmonized the act of governance with the fundamental
principle of order that sustains the universe (ta, dharma). The
king was called the upholder of dharma, the dharmapati, the
dhtavrata.186 But dharma was not a set of dogma; every time
place and occasion would have its own rationale to determine
what was proper and good. Thus ntiparva wrote, In response
to time and place what is proper may become improper and
what is improper may become proper. 187 The king was
therefore often in fix to decide what was dharma and what was
adharma. The predicament is colurfully given voice by
pastabmba: Dharma and adharma do not go about saying
here we are, nor do gods, gandharva or (departed) fathers
say this is dharma, this is adharma.188 In the Vanaparva we
find an echo of the same: Reason is fickle, the scriptures
(ruti) are discordant; no one sages opinion is authoritative.
The truth about the dharma is buried in the cave. So the path to
follow is the one that has been walked by the great men.189
Itihsa is significant because it sheds light on the path of the
great.
Obviously, the concept of caturvarga pururtha was an
important conditioning factor in determining the attitude
towards past. The relevance of a historical account had an
intimate relation with its ability to demonstrate the application
of appropriate pururthas to individual conduct as well as to
social transactions. Itihsa in its broadest sense comprised
lessons in all the four pururthas by illustrating how all four
of them ought to be pursued in a balanced and harmonious
way without transgressing the law of dharma. As Sieg had
pointed out, the Sautis question in the beginning of the
Mahbhrata reflects this relation between itihsa and
pururthas. 190 What, ye twice-born shall I tell? The
meritorious tales collected in the Puras filled with precepts
of duty and profit, (or) the acts of (itivtta) of princes of men
and great-souled seers?191 The Mahbhrata speaks of itself
50
also as arthastra, dharmastra and kamastra.192 We have

noted above that Kauilyas view of itihsa also reflects the
same attitude.
Itihsa in its widest sense thus covered within its scope all
the worthwhile aspects of human life, worthwhile aspects, as
they were understood in early India. And the more
comprehensive varieties of itihsa writings like the Rmyaa,
Mahbhrata, Puras, Vaas, etc., paid a balanced attention
to all the four pururthas where all the four ends of life were
harmoniously blended with the central focus being on dharma.
However, the same kind of balanced attitude was not necessarily
maintained in all classes of works dealing with past. By the
time the tradition of historical writing began producing the
relatively later carita kvyas under courtly patronage, the texture
of blend began changing. 193 There was a marked shift in
emphasis and focus. Instead of the play and operation of
dharma, the theme of these carita kvyas centered on royal
glory. Commenting on the nature of the historical caritas Prof.
Pathak remarked, Because of the romantic spirit of the age,
the ornate style of the epic, and the tradition of the Rmyaa
and the Bihatkath, the poet historians represented the abstract
idea of royal glory in the form of a beautiful princess symbolisig
the goddess of fortune (rjya-r), whose love the king wins
after overcoming insurmountable difficulties.194 In this new
genre of historical writing dharma and moka are overshadowed
by the dazzle of artha and kma.
In the works which had a lager frame than individual
biographies of ruling monarchs, the works, for example,
belonging to the vaa tradition, continued the earlier
standpoint. Vaa literature seems to have originated amidst a
religious and spiritual environment. The earliest specimens of
vaa literature are found in the Brhmaas and Upaiads.195
They contained genealogical lists of ancient sages. That they
do not make reference to ruling kings can not be without
significance. This may in fact suggest that in the horizons of
significance of the authors of these texts political actors did not
51
occupy too important a space. Then the Buddhists adopted the

form and reinforced its religious association.196 Perhaps because
of this strong relation with the sacred domain in its early days,
the vaa literature despite its later association with royalty
could not give up its character. Its moorings remained anchored
on the dharma. The Rjatargi may be cited as an example.197
Since the khyna, khyyik forms had associations with love
and romance quite early in the course of their development
their association with romantic figures like Pururava, Yayti,
etc. goes back to the Vedic periodthere were no such
constraints for them to beget the carita kvyas with marked
predilections towards artha and kma. 198 The concept of
pururthas not only influenced the formation of the general
attitude towards past in early India, but the relative importance
given to different pururthas also acted as markers for
distinguishing different shades within that outlook.
The theory of four yugas provided the grand background
spectrum against which history was situated. This grand scheme,
expressed in the theory of yugntara and manvantara
(kalpajokti seems to have denoted the same thing), depicts the
passage of vast cosmic-time cycles. 199 The theory also
incorporates a version of cosmology. Yugntara denotes a cycle
of four great successive ages (yugas): kta, tret, dvpara, kali,
charting a course of progressive decline, moral as well as
biological. Seventy-one of such four-age periods (kta to kali)
made up a manvantara.200 This scheme of progressive decline
from the pristine golden age of kta through tret and dvpara
to the kali is a Puric theory. However, it bears more than a
general similarity to the Buddhist theory of the origin of civil
society.201 It appears that both the Buddhist as well as the
Puric theories developed from a common original source.202
There are great many common elements in them. The general
pattern is the same: it is a story of descent and the descent
follows the genesis of avarice and selfishness. And they bring
in their train conflict and violence. The decline is not only a
moral degeneration but also physical; even the physical stature
52
of men dwindles.
Time in this scheme was conceived primarily at two levels:
cosmic and historical. But the first point that should be taken
note of is the astoundingly generous amplitude of time. In
contrast to other civilizations which have been content to see
mans history in terms of thousands of years, Indians
Buddhist, Jains as well as Hindusspoke of billions of years.
But even these figures, which are nearly meaningless in their
magnitude, are dwarfed by the concept of cycles of aeons,
endlessly renewing themselves, without beginning or end. Time
and historical process are parts of a vast cyclical movement,
but not, as in some cyclical versions of history, a simple cycle
of birth, growth, death and then rebirth with a repetition of the
past. Hindu model is of concentric circles, moving within each
other in a complex series of retrogressive movements. The
vastest cycle was a year of Brahma which by some reckoning
was 311,040,000 million years long, with Brahmas life lasting
for one hundred of these cycles. This was followed by the
dissolution of all the worldsthose of men and godsand
then creation once more took place.203
Within this mind-boggling time span covering the life of
Brahma, there is a smaller cycle, a kalpa or a day of Brahma
which lasts for 4,320 billion years long. A kalpa consists of the
cycle of succeeding four yugas. The duration of each of the
yugas progressively decreases. The kali within which the
present history is taking place is of the shortest duration, which
is 432,000 years.
The concept of time was posited at different levels. The
cosmic time comprising the cycle of primary creation and
dissolution and re-creation (sarga and pratisarga) forms the
first level. Time works havoc with the world making it old,
defiled and polluted. It can be regenerated only by calling into
existence the beginning of time, the re-creation of the world
anew after the dissolution of the old.204 The cycle of sarga and
pratisarga keeps on occurring in repetitious rhythm weaving
the fundamental pattern of cosmic process, the succession of a
53
series of remorseless decline from kita to kali to pralaya.

Running through these cycles of sarga and pratisarga exists
the second level, the historical time spanning the vaas and
vaynucaritas, the genealogies of gods and sages and the
accounts of royal dynasties. It is the vaas and
vaynucaritas, which provide focal points and centres to
the drifting sands of time lending the process its meaning and
significance for man as a social being. In the overarching theme
of drift and decline, the vaa, manvantara and vanucarita
provide the footholds for history, however, precarious and
transitory they may be, in the total scheme of creation process.
There was also a third level. This third, however, can be
described as a part of the second level or subsidiary to it, because
it resides within that. This was the level of periodisation.
Manvantaras (cycles of manus) and vanucarita (dynastic
accounts) represented this level. The framework here allows
room for the entry of political history.
Yugntara theory contained within it a fusion of both circular
and linear notions of time expressing it as events. The creation
and dissolution, the sarga and pratisarga, and the endless cycles
of these successions represented circularity. But the succession
of the yugas, from kita to kali, is one steep descent that is
somewhat linear. It is noteworthy that vaa and
vaynucarita, the staple historical elements in this scheme,
fall within the linear range. Thus while from the cosmological
point of view the yugntara theory represents circular
dimension, from the perspective of history it also bears a linear
aspect.
Set against this vast magnitude, dates and chronology are
reduced to invisible specs of dust. But then what is the value of
human life and itihsa in this cosmic march without beginning
and end? It is only by taking hold of the plank of dharma that
one attains meaning and significance in this endless drift, and
in this way one can save oneself.205 Past thus was considered
relevant so far as it could guide men to lead life in consonance
with the pururthas, especially in consonance with dharma.
54
It taught man precepts of duty.206 History shows the right path

to follow in a world that is primarily ephemeral.207 It held before
him shining examples of how the difficult path of duty can
actually be trodden despite trials and tribulations.208 The early
Indian perception of history would endorse the statement of
Collingwood that history demonstrates what man is capable
of. One does not know ones capacity unless one has tried
doing a thing. History shows what man has done in the past
and thus shows what man can do.209
However, the convergence of the early Indian attitude to
past with that of the modern in regard to its value and relevance
does not go along the same route. Early Indian perception
strongly believes that history holds important lesson for man,
but it does not engage in a Positivist project to discover that
lesson through an exhausting empirical method of doubtful
validity. It does not believe that itihsa is capable of yielding
the knowledge of universal laws that govern the society. The
value of itihsa does not lie in that direction; it does not lead to
discovery; it exemplifies. It is the tray and anvkik that yield
the knowledge of the laws that govern the society, and not
itihsa.210 Even a pragmatic writer like Kautilya gives itihsa a
lower position than tray and nvkik.211 The laws of the ta
or dharma that govern the universe, including the functioning
of human society, can not be discovered from ithsa. Itihsa
only demonstrates that human life is subject to the inexorable
laws of dharma. Similarly, early Indian perception does not
believe that the study of itihsa can lead to the discovery of the
inexorable law of the succession of the yugas. An understanding
of the operation of the laws of yuga on the other hand enhances
the understanding of the nature of itihsa.
There was a certain amount of ambivalence in the attitude to
itihsa as a source of knowledge. Initially gth and nras,
because of their secular overtone, were viewed with some
suspicion, and, even, disapproval. They were sometimes even
regarded as false.212 Yet, the Brhdrayaka Upaniad put
itihsa almost on equal footing with the Veda.213 Cndogya
55
Upaniad granted itihsa-pura the status of the fifth Veda.214

Itihsa-pura continued to enjoyed that status in the
subsequent periods as well. The mediation of the Atharvan and
girasa priests might have smoothened the passage of the
Itihsa-pura to the Vedic fold as it appears from another
very interesting reference to the Itihsa-puraa in the third
adhyya of Candogya Upaniad. The relevant passages occur
in the context of the exposition of the doctrine of honey.215
The import of the adhyaya is of course spiritual and mystic,
and its vocabulary and idiom are preponderantly symbolical.216
But the important information that the passages yield for us is
that Itihsa-pura constituted the very core of Atharvaveda;
it was the flower that supplied honey to the Atharvaveda in
the same manner as the rk supplied honey to the Rgveda, the
yajus to the Yajurveda and the sman to the Smaveda. Itihsapura was the very heart of Atharvaveda.
Itihsa also came to take its place among the vidysthnas
or the sources of dharma. But too much perhaps should not be
read in this. Sheldon Pollock has mentioned that there was a
growig tendency to inflate the list of the vidysthnas; with the
passage of time more and more disciplines and sciences were
accommodated.217 Kumrila accommodated gandharvaveda,
yurveda, arthastra, etc. in the list.218 And more and more
disciplines began claiming either descent from the Veda or
revelatory status in the sense that originally a god had
propounded the discipline.219 But the moot point is what was
the status of itihsa as a source of dharma? Pollock has pointed
out that Kumrila was careful to distinguish the adrthaka
or the transcendent disciplines that were independently
authoritative from the drthaka which were not so.220 Itihsa
belonged to the drthaka category.
It is noteworthy that itihsa does not figure among the
sources of dharma in the dharmastra tradition or in the
arthastra tradition. 221 Referring to the sources of law
(dharmamula), the Dharmasutras name just three: the Veda,
the smrti, the good custom (sadcra, icra).222 Manu and
56
Yjvalkya list one more source to these three: the inner

satisfaction (svasya priya tmanah, tmatui).223 Lingat has
shown that the appeal to the inner voice as a source of dharma
from purely legal point of view could be problematic.224 This
opened the way for the entry of reason and logic as the ground
of dharma. Gautama, Yjvalkya, Nrada, Bhaspati more
openly, and Manu a little less unambiguously, allowed some
scope for reason and logic.225 In other words, this would give
some space to nvkik as a source of dharma.226 It is also true
that some smtis do give as much importance to the study of
itihsa and pura as to that of the Vedas.227 But in spite of all
these, it remains clear that it did not acquire any direct and
active role as a source of knowledge; its role was illustrative
and not constitutive. Its value lay in demonstrating the workings
of dharma. As a source of dharma, it did not get the status like
ruti or smti. Nilakanha in his commentary states that the
Mahbhrata is actually an illustration of the essential meaning
of all the fourteen vidysthnas.228 As far as the theoretical
position is concerned, one did not look to Itihsa for the
exposition of dharma, except as part of an old narrative; one
looked to it for instances of exemplification of dharma.229
Although itihsa was regarded at some level as affirming
the operation of a sovereign law, say, of dharma, it will be
incorrect to think that itihsa was assigned the role of validation.
Early Indian perception did not think that dharma required
validation by history. The nature of aitihsika lesson was only
considered as illustrative. This is how the Nirukta looked upon
the school of aitihsika.230
IX
Let us now attempt a recapitulation of the foregoing discussion
mainly in the light of the questions we identified in the first
section. In its philosophical and intellectual outlook early India
was definitely not ahistorical. Right from the days of Rigveda,
a lively consciousness of past permeated the whole body of
57
her intellectual output. There is hardly any branch of discipline

she was interested in that does not exhibit this consciousness.
This consciousness did not represent a faded memory of a distant
past devoid of relevance to the present. On the other hand this
consciousness of past represented a precious heritage handed
down by the wise ancients, the fathers, the predecessors ( purve
rotriyah, pitar,231 purvasur). This heritage embodied the
tradition (mnay) of knowledge and wisdom (jna) regarding
the fundamental truth or law (rita, dharma) and its operation in
the world of men (cra, vyavahra).
Early India was intensely alive to the dynamics of time and
events and their interrelationship. In the context of history this
interrelationship between time and events were conceptualized
within the universal paradigm of a process of creation and
dissolution. This dyad of creation and dissolution have to pass
through an endless cycles of eons and still larger eons in a
series of concentric circles. The succession of these cycles
weaves the fundamental pattern of universal history. The path
charting the movement from the creation to dissolution is one
of steady regression. Within this universal paradigm the history
of temporal world is primarily circular. It looks pessimistic;
and coupled with its deterministic character, it looks even more
irretrievably pessimistic. However, dharma opens ajar the door
of escape from temporality. When human history is grounded
on dharma it lights up the avenue the great men have walked.
History is an exemplar; it should exemplify the working of
dharma in human affairs. But it should do so by recounting
what had happened in this temporal (dirthaka) world and
not by imaginary tale (kath). This is the basic theme of itihsa
(history), and this is its grand archetypal image.
Within this grand cyclical theory of history comprising
endless successions of yugntaras, there exists room for linear
segments that can become the vehicles of histories of more
limited dimensions. These limited histories too have dharma
as their central theme and their narrative pattern often tries to
follow the archetypal model.232 But they also bear a greater
58
degree of likeness to the modern look of history. Itihsa,

pura, gth, nras, khyna, khyyik, vaa,carita,
etc. all signified history, but in their conception and scope they
were not the same. The puras, more comprehensively, and
the Rmyaa and Mahbhrata, more restrictively, represented
the universal paradigm of history, the itihsa-pura proper.
The gth, nras, khyna, khyyik, vaa, carita, etc.
represented history of linear segments. These linear histories
again represent segments of different length. While gth and
nras were essentially episodic, the vaa spanned the
history of a lineage.233 khyna, khyyik were also generally
episodic, but could cover more than one episode. Carita was
essentially biographical history. While dealing with historical
narratives of early India, at least three levels should be
distinguished: (a) the universal history of itihsa-pura, (b)
history of linear segments and (c) contemporary records that
were maintained by state and other organizations. Contemporary
records maintained by professional experts234 provided the basic
material for larger works.
Early Indian concept of itihsa differed from the modern
idea of history on many counts. Some of the major differences
may be noted.235 In the early Indian perception there existed
no sharp distinction between myths, heroic legends, and
hagiography. Itihsa often mixed elements from all the three.
In the contemporary perception, history is regarded basically
as a humanistic discipline. Humanism projects man in his
ordinary day-to-day life that reveals both his noble as well as
his less agreeable aspects. In other words, the concern of history
now is with the man in his ordinary and normal self. Itihsa on
the other hand is not interested in describing man in his ordinary
self, it rather seeks to unfold the ideal man or the ideal in man.
In history there is no place for the supernatural, the miraculous,
or the transcendental. Itihsa on the other hand gave the
transcendental and the miraculous an important place in its
concerns. 236
There are some other interesting differences between history
59
and itihsa in the way they view the train of events relating to
the life and actions of men. Both view them as a process or
processes. But the notions of this process in history and itihsa
differ fundamentally from each other. Historical process, in
the modern concept of history, is regarded as subject to the law
of cause-effect as it obtains in the world of nature. This has led
history to embrace more and more the methodology of science.
The historical process is regarded as linear and progressive. It
believes in the inevitability of progress. Moreover, the
orientation of history now has become predominantly social. It
is the society that is now regarded as the proper subject matter
of history.237 So the progress in history means the progress of
the society. And, the business of history is to elucidate the
course of this progress of society. The itihsa view of the process
is wholly different. The process is not linear; it is cyclical. The
course of this process is regressive, from kta to kali. There is a
strong underlying notion of inevitability in it. Since the conflict
of the sat and asat constitutes the fundamental theme of itihsa,
an individual can circumvent to a certain extent this inevitability
by mounting the vehicle, as it were, of the sat. Some great men
appear from time to time to show the way to the realization of
the sat. The orientation of itihsa is individualistic. It is the
extraordinary individuals who show the way, and it is the
individuals who have to strive to follow the right path.238 Itihsa
is not an objective account of a causally determined course of
events, but an account of the striving for the realization of
pururthas embedded in the social and moral laws. Itihsa
thus stimulates right action; it illustrates a seeking of values
within the world of action.239
History puts the highest premium on factuality. A progressive
disposition to eliminate the role of intuition in historical
interpretation has become the hallmark of historical study today.
The notion of factuality in itihsa belonged to a different level.
We have noted above that contrary to widespread belief,
primary records, especially those pertaining to administration
were compiled in early India with care and diligence. But when
60
these facts were presented as parts of larger statements to the

public, whether in the epigraphic form of praastis or in the
literary form of caritas, they were set into a conventional
pattern.240 We have seen above that according to some narrativist
theorists it is the availability and utilization of the culturally
evolved literary forms and conventions that make the
construction and communication of meanings of a narrative
effective.241 Literary conventions seem to have inspired the
growth of formalized patterns of presentation that the caritas
and praastis followed. Epigraphic praastis usually followed
the literary kvya style and form; the constraints of space, of
course, did not allow the freedom of elaboration to the same
degree as in literary kvyas. Prof. Pathak has underlined how
the caritas deployed a structured emplotment in their narrative.
They followed a fixed line in the development or the unfolding
of the story through a uniform succession of stages from
prrambha to phalgama.242
The tendency of the caritas and the praastis to highlight
only the brighter side of their protagonists may have been also
due to the influence of another literary convention that there
should be happy endings to the stories generating a sense of
fulfillment. Moreover, the presentation of the brighter side also
served the immediate political objective of publicity and
legitimization of power. It also accorded with the requirements
of itihsa with its emphasis on the memorable. In the longer
vaa variety of works like Raghuvaa or Rjataragi the
narrative is not limited to the highs alone but also includes the
low.243 The desire to conform to a pattern, the desire for literary
felicity, the desire for political prestige and legitimacy, etc.,
sometimes resulted in the overworking of the original material.
Moreover, even at the primary stage of recording, in great many
instances it was done orally. Many of the professional class
who were entrusted with the task of keeping these records, like
the genealogists, the bards, committed the primary material to
memory. It was only natural that distortions took place. But
there is no ground to disbelieve that these historical narratives
61
contain some substructure of factuality. Interpreted with

patience, skill and imagination they can yield interesting
trustworthy information.244 While dealing with the pastm, the
present has a natural inclination to assume a sense of superiority
and to look at it with suspicion and condescension. Unless one
succumbs to such temptations, these works may be sifted for
reaching to that substructure of truth.
Itihsa-pura literature played a very significant role in
the formation of early Indian culture and it played an even
more crucial role in the dissemination of that culture among
the masses. It acted as a living repository of the past, its glories,
its wisdom, its ideal of righteous conduct. Itihsa-pura
achieved a relatively more intimate contact with the mass than
perhaps any other strand of early Indian tradition. But as a
source of knowledge its role remained secondary. Itihsapura scarcely had any primary role in the generation or
construction of knowledge; its role was illustrative. The notion
of historical knowledge does not resonate well with the character
of itihsa. Even though it had been included among the
vidysthnas, it was thought that itihsa did not provide any
special kind of knowledge that are not available from other
sources. Its value was illustrative rather than generative.
Whatever value it had in the direction of knowledge formation,
it was derived from the fact that itihsa came to be regarded as a
part of smti. As a source of the knowledge of dharma, it enjoyed
a peripheral position. But it enjoyed great importance as a
storehouse and propagator of the idea of dharma; and it
exemplified dharma in operation. In this context it is noteworthy
that even in ancient Greece, which is regarded as the land of birth
of the discipline of history, history did not enjoy any central role
in the Greek universe of knowledge. Recent work on Greek and
Latin historiography shows, for example, that, contrary to accepted
belief, the idea of history did not constitute in itself an important
philosophical, religious or cultural question in antiquity, and that
history was largely marginalized in both philosophical and popular
thought.245 MacIntyre has noted the absence of any sense of
62
specifically historical in our sense in Aristotle, as in any other

Greek thinkers. He has in fact noted the absence of any sense of
historicity in general in ancient Greece.246
Why no regular historiographical literature has been found
from early India? We may briefly touch on this question. We
have noted above the opinions of Macdonell, Winternitz, Kieth,
Riencourt, etc. The relation between consciousness of history
and a heightened sense of nationalism, to put it mildly, is rather
problematic. If Persian war created a sense of nationality among
the Greeks, the success against the Persian invasion and the
role of Athens in it led to the aggravation of the already existing
political cleavages between the Greek states.247 Winternitzs
claim that Indians did not have a taste for critical analysis is not
fully admissible. In the context of Winternitzs contention, a
school of philosophy like the Navya Nyya, for instance,
demonstrate the pitfall of attributing any blanket character to
the complex civilization of early India.
Recently some more opinions on the issue have been
expressed. Sheldon Pollock has referred to the suggestion of
Herman Kulke that the functional disjunction created by the
vara system had inhibited the development of historiography
as a discipline in early India. 248 Since the record keepers
belonged to the caste of Kayasthas and the potential writers of
history belonged to the Brahmana vara, this disjunction took
place. Kulkes formulation magnifies the impact of vara and
jti differences on the functioning of the society. Despite
occupational divisions, various occupational and jti groups
often cooperated in common endeavours. The ratnins belonging
to different occupational groups participated in the coronation
rituals.249 Even in the temple rituals different jti groups had
their assigned roles. Damodarpur inscriptions bear testimony
to the cooperation of various groups in the running of the local
administration. These are only a few of the very well known
instances of cooperation of different jti and occupational
groups.This alleged disjunction did not seem to have created
any problem for the Brahmana Kalhaa in consulting the old
63
records to which he seemed to have enjoyed smooth access.

In an interesting elaboration of the theory that the nature of
the intellectual environment in early India was anti-historical,
Sheldon Pollck has tried to identify the factors behind the
development of this environment and give an explanation of
the anti-historical mentality.250 I would like to explore this
context by examining a set of notions developed by
Mmsthe pedagogically and thus culturally normative
discipline of Brahmanical learningwhich may not only have
contributed to discouraging the kind of referentiality we are
concerned with, but more may be said to have sought to deny
the category of history altogether as irrelevant, or even
antithetical, to real knowledge.251 Briefly, Pollocks argument
runs like this. Mms theory comprises the following parts:
(I) dharma, that which constitutes the good (artha) in human
existence alone forms the subject matter of knowledge proper,
(2) dharma is a transcendent entity, (3) dharma is unknowable
by any form of knowledge not itself transcendent. This
formulation, Pollock argues, leaves no space for history because
transcendent is eternal and is without a beginning. Thus Veda
alone embodies knowledge, for, the Veda does not have any
beginning; it is timeless. The aitihsika school of interpretation
failed to cut any ice because it attempted to fix the Veda in a
timeframe. Consequent upon the dominant influence of
Mimamsa, there was a complete Vdicization of discourse. And
under the dispensation of this dominant discourse even itihsa
(what has actually taken place) became merely another
texualization of eternity, an always-already given discourse.252
Pollock is right in his formulation that since dharma constituted
the proper subject matter of itihsa, it did not encourage the
development of a historiography anchored on chronology. But
he could have skipped the elaborate Mms argument. It
has not really added much substance to his main thesis.
Moreover, the alleged Mms dominance over the discourse
will not be able to account for why the Buddhist and Jain
showed the same manner of predilection towards dharma in
64
their vision of history as the vaidika vision.253 History, however,

can not acquire any meaning and significance unless it posits
some invariant entity. Can history accommodate the postulation
of a transcendent invariant? This issue we will take up later in
part two and in the epilogue of our work.
Navjyoti Singh has advanced the interesting thesis that there
can not be any history of justice.254 Justice as events and events
of justice do not lend themselves to linearity. History is actually
a history of injustice while itihsa aimed to become a narrative
of justice.255 Thus history and itihsa can not be put in the
same category.
Since the historical records, and also perhaps dynastic
histories, were kept in the archives of states or in the custody
of the ruling families, their preservation was likely to be affected
by political vicissitudes. As these were kept in politically
sensitive places, they were particularly vulnerable to political
disturbances. And many of the royal biographies or the praises
of the rulers did not presumably achieve great literary quality.
Those that did had a much higher chance of being carefully
preserved. In times of disturbance people try to preserve what
they value most. People did not set much store by historical
records or ordinary historical compositions. Their chance of
survival in disturbance-prone areas was never very bright. It is
interesting that historical chronicles and genealogies have been
found more in the borderland areas of the country, compared
to the heartland: in Kashmir, in Nepal, in Assam, etc. Perhaps
because these areas did not suffer the same degree of
disturbances as the heartland.256
REFERENCES
1.
P. Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, vol. I. University of Chicago

Press, 1985, pp.95ff. The hold of scientific model is somewhat
slackening now with narrative making a comeback in history;
See below Section III. But already there are signs of reaction
against narrative, Reconstructing History, ed. Elizabeth Fox-
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
65
Genovese &Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, Routledge, New York,

London, 1999; cf. Allex Callinicos, Theories and Narratives,
Polity Press, Cambridge 1995; Brian Fay, Introduction in
History and Theory: Contemporary Readings, edited by Brian
Fay, Philip Pomper, Richard T. Vann, Blackwell, 1998.
Amaury de Riencourt, The Soul of India, Sterling, New Delhi,
1986, p. 15.
Wilhelm Halbfass, India and Europe: An Essay in
Understanding, Sunny Press, Albany, 1988, pp. 87ff gives a
gist of Hegels and Mills evaluations; cf. Romila Thapar, Early
India, Penguin Books, London, 2002, pp. 5ff
A. A. Macdonell, A History of Sanskrit Literature, William
Heinemann, London, 1900, pp. 10-11; cited by Arvind Sharma,
Hinduism and Its Sense of History, Oxford University Press,
New Delhi, 2003, p.28, note 60 points out that while making
his evaluation Macdonell did not have the advantage of fully
considering Kalhaas Rjataragi which had just appeared.
M. Winternitz, A History of Indian Literature, vol. III, pt. I,
tr. Subhadra Jha, Delhi 1977, p. 3.
A. B. keith, A History of Sanskrit Literature, Delhi 1973, pp.14447; K. M. Panikkar thinks that the inhibition of the emergence
of a conception of Hindu nationhood was in a way both a cause
and effect of lack of interest in developing historiography, The
Foundations of New India, George Allen & Unwin, London,
1963, p. 67
Arvind Sharma, Hinduism and Its Sense of History, Oxford
University Press, New Delhi 2003, p.1. Sharma has given,
particularly in the first three chapters, a wide variety of examples
of such opinions covering different shades and nuances.
Sheldon Pollock, Mimamsa and the Problem of History in
Traditional India, Journal of the American Oriental Society,
109.4, 1989, pp. 603- 610; Michael Witzel, On Indian Historical
Writing : The Role of the Vamsavalis, Journal of the Japanese
Association for South Asian Studies, 2, 1990, pp. 1-57, Arvind
Sharma, op.cit., are some of the examples.
A. K Warder, The Pali Canon and its Commentaries as an
Historical Record in Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon,
ed. C. H. Philips, London 1961, p. 44.
66
10.
Nyya-Vaieika systems may be cited as obvious examples; cf.

Anindita Niyogi Balslev, A Study of Time in Indian Philosophy,
Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 1983, Chapters VII & VIII are
especially pertinent from our point of view.
See U. N. Ghoshal, Studies in Indian History and Culture, pt.
One, Calcutta 1965; A. K. Warder, An Introduction to Indian
Historiography, Bombay 1973.
A noteworthy endeavour in this direction is the work of V.S.
Pathak, Ancient Historians of India, Bombay 1966 and
Gorakhpur 1984.
Geoffrey Roberts, Introduction in The History and Narrative
Reader, ed. Geoffrey Roberts, Routledge, London and New
York, 2001 p. 1.
Louis Mink, History and Fiction as Modes of Comprehension
in History and Theory: Contemporary Readings, edited by Brian
Fay, Philip Pomper, Richard T. Vann, Blackwell, 1998, p. 121,
cf. B. Croce, For Aristotle history was less philosophical and
less serious than poetry, for Sextus Empiricus, it was
unmethodical material., Historical Determinism and the
Philosophy of History in Theories of History, ed. Patrick
Gardiner, The Free Press, New York, 1959, p. 238.
Patrick Gardiner, Theories of History, part I.
G.R. Elton, Practice of History, (Second Edition) Blackwell,
Oxford, 2002.
Historians, however, were not so impervious to the debates on
issues like the question of objectivity in history, Peter Novick,
That Noble Dream: The Objectivity Question and the
American Historical Profession, Cambridge University Press,
1988.
W. H. Walsh, An Introduction to Philosophy of History, London
1951; P. Gardiner, The Nature of HistoricalExplanation, OUP,
Oxford, 1952, P. Gardiner, ed. Theories of History; W. H. Dray,
Philosophy of History, Prencie Hall, 1964; Gardiner, ed. The
Philosophy of History, OUP, 1974; R. F. Atkinson, Knowledge
and Explanation in History, Macmillan, London 1978, give a
fair sample of the traditional interests of philosophy of history.
Brian Fay, Introduction in History and Theory: Contemporary
Readings, ed. Brian Fay, et al, p. 2.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.

20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
67
Geoffrey Roberts, Introduction, Roberts, ed. The History and

Narrative Reader, p.2 ; cf. P. Ricoeur, Time and the Narrative,
vol. I, University of Chicago Press, 1985, pp. 95ff.
G. Roberts, op.cit., pp.2-3, 18, note 5.
Lawrence Stone, The Revival of Narrative in Roberts, ed.
The History and Narrative Reader, p. 281.
Richard Lanham, Literacy and the Survival of Humanism, New
Haven 1983.
Brian Fay, op.cit. p.2; cf. Structure, Consciousness and History,
ed. Richard H. Brown and Stanford M. Lyman, Cambridge
University Press, 1978.
Brian Fay, op.cit. p. 3.
Louis O Mink, Historical Understanding, Cornell University
Press, Ithaca NY,1987; H. White, Metahistory: The Historical
Imagination in Nineteenth Century Europe, The Johns Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore 1973; H. White, The Content of
the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation,
The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1987; F. R.
Ankersmit, Narrative Logic: A Semantic Analysis of Historians
Language, The Hague 1983; F. R. Ankersmit, History and
Tropology, University of California Press, Berkeley 1994.
Mink, Historical Understanding, p. 12.
Mink, Historical Understanding, p. 168, Italics authors own
Brian Fay, op.cit. p. 5.
Mink, History and Fiction as Modes of Comprehension in
History and Theory: Contemporary Readings, ed. Brian Fay, et
al., p. 135.
H. White, The Historical Text as Literary Artifact in The
history and Narrative Reader, ed. Geoffrey Roberts, p.224
H. White, The Historical Text as Literary Artifact in The
History and Narrative Reader, ed. Geoffrey Roberts, pp. 224225, Italics authors.
The consideration of historical processes has not completely
disappeared from the radar screen of critical philosophy of
history, Frederick A. Olafson, The Dialectic of Action: A
Philosophical Interpretation of History and the Humanities,
University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1979.
By grand narrative I do not mean only the Marxist interpretation
68
of history, but any overarching narrative that takes the universal

historical process as its theme. Cf. Peter Burke, History of
Events and the Revival of Narrative in Geoffrey Roberts,op.cit.,
p. 305.
35. See above the views of Mink and White.
36. White, The Historical Text as Literary Artifact in The History
and Narrative Reader, ed. Geoffrey Roberts, pp. 231, 233.
37. W. H. Dray, Philosophy of History, Chapters 5-8. Alex
Callinicos, Theories and Narratives, Polity Press, Cambridge
1995, argues that theories of history covering entire course of
history are necessary for an understanding of past. One can
perhaps detect faint sounds of footstep of the return of the grand
narrative in Huntingons civilizational framework,Samuel
Muntington The Clash of Civilizations and the Remking of World
Order, Simon Schuster, New York, 1996.
38. Huizinga defined history as The intellectual form in which a
civilization renders account to itself of its past and contended
that the history produced in a civilization should reflect its
characteristic value system, J. Huizinga, A Definition of the
Concept of History in Philosophy and History, ed. Raymond
Klibansky and H. J. Paton, New York, 1936, pp. 8-9.
39. Rgveda, VII.87.4; Michael Witzel, On Indian Historical
Writing: The Role of the Vamsavalis, Journal of the Association
for South Asian Studies, 2, 1990, p. 6.
40. Witzel, op.cit., p. 6.
41. Witzel, ibid.
42. Witzel, op.cit., p. 7.
43. Anirvana, Veda Mms (Bengali), vol. I, Calcutta Sanskrit
College, 1991 (reprint). P. 235, cf. pp. 222ff.
44. Strong streaks of continuity and change are found embedded in
Indian culture; D.G. Mandelabaum, Society in India, vols. I
&II, Berkeley, California, 1970; Milton Singer, When a Great
Tradition Modernizes, Praeger, New York, 1972; Rudolph, S.H
and Rudolph, L.I., The Modernity of Tradition, Free Press, New
york 1964; Y. Singh, Modernization of Indian Tradition, Delhi
1973.
45. Pini mentions more than sixty previous authors, Caraka
mentions over fifty. Bharata lists hundred experts in dramaturgy.
Yska records the existence of several exegetical schools that
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
69
approached the Vedas from different points of views, Arvind

Sharma, op.cit. pp. 106-107. Kauilya mentions the names of
various arthasastra schools besides the names of some individual
authorities,K.P. Kangle, Kauilya Arthastra, part III,
University of Bombay 1965, pp. 42ff.
Raghuvasa I. 4.
Meghaduta, Purvamegha, 31.
Meghaduta, Purvamegha, 34.
Ainslie T. Embree, ed. Alberunis India Translated by Edward
C Sachau, New York, W. W. Norton & Company,1971, Part
II, pp. 10-11.
See Arvind Sharmas comment, op. cit. pp. 27-28, note 46
From their observations we can draw the following conclusions
that seem to be relevant to the issues under discussion: (a) Indians
were not keen on military conquests of foreign countries, (b)
they were not unfamiliar with the practice of keeping written
records or averse to it, (c) they were inclined to keep durable
written records of matters of legal implications, and, (d) their
intellectual and academic transactions were still heavily oral in
orientation, Arvind Sharma, op.cit., pp. 2-9. The Greco-Romans
and Chinese were as history conscious as the Arabs.
Arthastra, 2.7.1-2.
Kangle, Kauliya Arthastra, Part III, p. 201.
ibid.
Arthastra, 2.35.1-7; Kangle, op.cit., Part III, pp. 197-98
Rajatarangini, V.397 -398. There are also references to the
store-house of plates (phalaka vra) maintained by states and
other record offices, besides akapaala in inscriptions, D.C.
Sircar, Indian Epigraphy, Delhi 1965, p. 99.
D.C. Sircar, Indian Epigraphy, p. 99.
A.L. Bashma, The Wonder that was India, Fontana Books, in
association with Rupa & Co, 1974, Second Impression, p.101,
quoted by Arvind Sharma, op.cit., p.124, note 136.
Arvind Sharma, op.cit., pp.122-23, note 132.
ibid.
ibid.
Samuel Beal, Buddhist Records of the Western World Translated
from the Chinese of Hiuen Tsiang; cited by Arvind Sharma,
70
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
71.
72.
73.
74.
75.
76.
77.
78.

op.cit.,p. 124, note 135. These records were not just eulogistic,
they also included events of negative dimension.
D. C. Sircar, Indian Epigraphy, p.14. Afghanistan and India
generally shared the same cultural and intellectual milieu.
D. C. Sircar, Indian Epigraphy, pp.14-15.
Rjatargi, I.14.
Rjatargi, I.15.
A. K. Warder, An Introduction to Indian Historiography, has
given a short account of the historiography current in different
regions of the country.
Material preserved in the Mahas, Bhrs, etc., have not yet
been utilized properly; only some beginnings have been made.
Material pertaining to the life of ankarcrya in Sringeri and
Kanchi mahas have been utilized by Prof. G. C. Pande, in his
works on ankarcrya. Nepalese Vaaval had been used
earlier by Levy, Bendall, and now by Witzel, Witzel. Op.cit.,
pp. 38-39.
Junagarh Inscription of Rudradman, Mandasor Inscription,
Hatigumpha Inscription, Siaydoni Inscription, etc. D.C. Sircar,
Indian Epigraphy, pp. 19, 21-22.
These colourful words were used by Tocqueville in the context
of mediaeval Europe, cited by Andre Beteille, The Idea of
Natural Inequality and Other Essay, Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1983, p. 40.
Rgveda, II.12.11, reference is made to Indras tenacious search
of ambara for forty autums after which he succeeded in
slaying him.
See below, Section VIII.
D.C. Sircar, Indian Epigraphy, p. 241.
D.C. Sircar, Indian Epigraphy, pp. 237ff.
Colas, Pandyas, Palas and some other dynasties continued to
use year of reign for dating, D.C. Sircar, Indian Epigraphy, pp.
241-42.
Rgveda, IX.10.3.
Macdonell and Keith, Vedic Index, Delhi 1967, vol. I, p. 225,
vol. II, p. 316.
U.N. Ghoshal, Studies in Indian History and Culture, Calcutta
1965, pp. 2-6.

79.
80.
81.
82.
83.
84.
85.
86.
87.
88.
89.
90.
91.
92.
93.
94.
95.
96.
97.
98.
99.
100.
101.
102.
103.
104.
71
atapatha Brhmaa, XIII, 4.2.8-11, 4.3.15; Ktyyana rauta

Sutra XX.2.7-8.
valayana Ghyasutra, 1.14.6-7.
Satapatha Brhmaa, X.6.5.9; Bhadrayaka Upaniad, VI.3.
14.
Vedic Index, vol. I, p. 445.
Aitareya Brhmaa, VII. 18.
Vedic Index, vol. I, p. 224 s.v. gth notes 3, 4.
Atharvaveda, XV. 6.3.4.
Khaka Sahit, XIV.5.
atapatha Brhmaa,1.1.1.4.
V.S. Pathak, Ancient Historians of India, p. 2.
Rgveda, IX.10.3.
Pathak, op.cit., pp. 4-5.
Aitareya Brhmaa, VII.18; atapatha Brhmaa, XIII.4.3.2.15.
Aitareya Brhmaa, III.25.1.
Vedic Index, vol. I, p. 122.
Ghoshal, op.cit., p. 8; Rgveda, X.95; for Urva-Pururava legend
Winternitz, op.cit. vol. I, tr. S. Kelkar, Delhi 1972, p. 100ff.
Atharvaveda, XB. 6.4 et.seq.
Vedic Index, vol. I. pp. 76-78.
Candogya Upaniad, VII.1.2 combines itihsa and pura to
constitute the fifth Veda. Gopatha Brhmaa,1.10 speaks both
of itihsaveda and puraveda. cf., Snkhyyaa Srauta Sutra,
XVI,, 2.21.27; atapatha Brhmaa XIII. 4.3.12.13.
S.N. Roy, Historical and Cultural Studies in the Puras,
Allahabad 1978, pp. 9-10.
Ghoshal, op.cit. p. 17. The general opinion of early authorities
thus identify creation accounts with pura.
Winternitz, op.cit., vol. I, p. 519. Date of Kautilyas Arthastra
continues to be debated. Many scholars accept the tradition that
Kautilya was the chancellor of Candragupta Maurya.
The training programme is detailed in Arthastra chapters 1.57. For the text and translation of Arthastra we have used R.P.
Kangle, Kauilya Arthastra parts I & II, Bombay 1969, 1972
Arthastra, 1.4.13.
Arthastra, 1.4.14.
Arthastra, 1.6.
72
105. For khyna and khyyik see V.S. Pathak, op.cit., pp. 6-9
and Vedic Index, vol. I, pp. 52,77. Bas Haracarita is called
khyyik, see Pathak, op.cit., pp. 14, 26-29.
106. atapatha Brhmaa, XIII. 4.3.15.
107. Pathak, op.cit., p. 8.
108. Pathak, op.cit., pp. 26ff, 36-37, 84-85.
109. F. E. Pargiter,Ancient Indian Historical Tradition, Delhi 1972,
chapters I, XXV, XXVI.
110. The concept of history in the Arthasastra thus was surprisingly
liberal and modern.
111. See below, sections VIII & IX.
112. Arthastra, 1.5.7-14.
113. See below, section VIII.
114. Learning for the prince was not just an academic or intellectual
luxury; it was of practical value for the disciplining of conduct
and the building of character and. From (continuous) study
ensues a (trained) intellect, from intellect (comes) practical
application, (and) from practical application (results) selfpossession; such is the efficacy of sciences., Arthastra, 1.5.16,
Kangle, part II, p. 11.
115. Kauilya, despite his open advocacy of single-minded pursuit
of power by the prince, kept on repeating that it is the temperate
conduct and character of the ruler that provides a sold foundation
for durable power. Acquisition of learning is, however, not
enough for the ruler. He must be able to exercise control over
his senses (indriyajaya), and keep such passions as lust, anger,
avarice, pride and so on in check. It is also considered essential
that he should avoid addiction to vices.; Kangle, op.cit., Part
III, p.130. Lessons in itihsa help the ruler to cultivate
indriyajaya; it demonstrates the disastrous consequences of
intemperate conduct, see note 116.
116. Arthastra,1.6.4-12.
117. Pathak, op.cit. pp. 27-29.
118. Haracarita, Introduction, verse 10; Pathak, op.cit. p. 36.
119. See above note 65; Winternitz, op.cit., vol. I, P. 317 note 1 and
pp. 375ff.
120. Winternitz, op.cit., vol. I, pp. 311-316.
121. Viu Pura, III.6.15. See also Pargiter, op.cit., p. 21,
especially note 13.
73
122. Pathak, op.cit., p. 17.

123 Upavmhaa was the process through which fresh material was
added.
124. See below note 133.
125. Pargiter, op.cit., pp. 25-28.
126. Vyu Pura, 1.31-32. C.f., Padma Pura, V.1. 27-28.
127. Garga Sahit, Golakakhaa referred to by Pargiter, op.cit.,
p. 17, note 2; S.N. Roy, Historical and Cultural Studies in the
Puras, p. 20.
128. Arthastra, 3.7.29; see also Kangles comment that the sutra
might not have been a part of the original text, R. P. Kangle,
Kauilya Arthastra, pt. III, Bombay 1965, pp. 27-28.
129. Pathak, op.cit., pp.9-17, 21-26.
130. Cndogya Upaniad, III.3.4; III.4.1-2.
131. Pathak, op.cit., pp. 14-17.
133. Pargiter, op.cit., pp. 24, 36-37. The line of argument of Pargiter
that originally the puras were the works of professional sutas
untouched by Brahmanical influence is not acceptable to many
scholars. We have noted above Pathaks opinion that paurika
s u tas were originally Brahmanas. Moreover, the original
compiler of the Purasahit, Ka Dvaipyana was a
Brahmana. This would also go against Pargiters theory.
134. Winternitz thinks that religious and didactic matters formed
parts of original Puras and that old traditions about creation,
the deeds of gods, heroes, saints. Etc., added to the original
dharma works to produce Puric literature. Winternitz, op.cit.,
vol. I., pp. 518-521.
135. Brahma Pura, II.34.21, Vyu Pura, 6021, Viu
Pura, III.6.16.
136. Winternitz, op.cit., vol. I, p. 622, n.1.
137. Pargiter, op.cit., p. 35.
138. see above notes 133,134.
139. See above notes 105-108.
140. Vedic Index, vol. I, pp. 224-225.
141. Pargiter, op.cit.,p. 39.
142. For an account of the Christian, and its precursor, the Hebrew,
views of history, see T.R. Tholfsen, Historical Thinking, London
1967, pp. 39-71.
74
143. Vyu Pura, Adhyaya VIII.

144. nti Parvan, LIX.
145. A. K. Warder, An Introduction to Indian Historiography, pp.
10-14.
146. Winternitz, op.cit., vol. I, pp. 523-24.
147. Winternitz, op.cit., vol. II, trs. Mrs. S. Kelkar and Miss. H.
Kohn, Delhi 1977, pp. 105-115.
148. R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, Oxford 1946, p.50
149. Vyu Pura, 1. 200-201, the verse was quoted by Rmnuja
who was of the view that although the knowledge of itihsa
pura led to the cleansing of the sin, the attainment of highest
knowledge of Brahman could be had only from the Vedas,
Winternitz, op.cit., vol. I. pp. 527-28, Pargiter, op.cit., p. 1.
150. V. Smith, Early History of India, pp. 11ff.
151. F.E. Pargiter, Pura Texts of the Dynasties of Kali Age,
London 1913; Ancient Indian Hisatorical Traditions; R. Morton
Smith, Dates and Dynaties in Eastern India, Delhi 1973.
152. Heinrich Von Stietencron, Political Aspect of Indian Religious
Art, Visible Religion, IV/V, 1985/86 cited by Arvind Sharma,
op.cit. pp. 109-12; cf. Pollock, op.cit., p. 606. The political
significance of the varha images was noticed by Prof.
Raychaudhuri before Stietencron, Arvind Sharma, op.cit. p. 111.
153. E. Sieg, op.cit., p. 461.
154. E. Sieg, op.cit., p. 461; similar formula was adopted while
citing gths, Roy S.N., The Origin and Growth of Pura
Literature A Review of Some Aspects in History of Science,
Philosophy and Culture, vol. I Part 2 ed. G. C. Pande, New
Delhi 2003.
155. valyana Ghya Sutra, IV.6.6.
156. V. S. Pathak, op.cit., pp. 4-5.
157. Kvylakra, I.25-29; cf. Pathaka, op.cit., p. 36, n. 41.
158. S.N. Roy, Orign and Growth of Purnaic Literature: A Review
of Some Aspects in History of Science, Philosophy and Culture,
vol. I Part 2 Ed. G. C. Pande, New Delhi 2003, p. 75; Upadhyaya,
Pura Vimara, pp. 66-67.
159. Rjatragi, I.7.
160. See above section III, specially the views of Mink and White.
Hayden White is known for his very radical stand on this point.
161.
162.
163.
164.
165.
166.
167.
75
Obviously I regard this view of the relation between historical

story-telling and historical reality as mistaken or at best
misconceived. Stories, like factual statements, are linguistic
entities and belong to the order of discourse., White, Historical
Emplotment and the Problem of Truth in The History and
Narrative Reader, ed. Geoffrey Roberts, p. 374.
Kalhaa in his evaluation of the achievements and character of
the kings of Kashmir does refer to the role of karma, U.N.
Ghoshal, The Chronicle of the Kings of Kashmir in Studies in
Indian History and Culture, pp. 163-165; A. L. Basham, The
Kashmir Chronicle in Historians of india, Pakistan and Ceylon,
ed. Philips, pp. 64-65. The collection of articles, Karma and
Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions, ed. Wendy D.
OFlaherty, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1983, have not dealt
with question of the influence of Karma on history.
Age without wisdom could not automatically command respect
or deference. A teacher younger in age but vastly superior in
learning used to address his students older than him as my
sons Manusmti, II.151-56.
V. S. Apte, Practical Sanskrit English Dictionary, Poona, s.v.
Itihsa; the stock definition of itihsa is given in the verse that
reads thus:
Dharmrthakmamokanm-upadea-samanvita
Purvavtta kathyukta-itihsam-pracakate
Cited by Pathak, op.cit., p. 27, note 218.
E. Sieg, Itihsa in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics,
vol. VII, p.461. It is surely more than a mere coincidence that
that Tagore should use a kindred expression Bharatavarsher
Punymantrer Punthi (Indias book of sacred benediction) in the
context of the indigenous historical traditions of our country,
Bharatavarsher Itihas, Rabindra Nath Thakhur, Itihsa,
Lokasiksha Granthamala, compiled by Prabodhchandra Sen and
Pulinbihari Sen, Visvabharati, Bhadra 1395, Bengal Era, p. 7.
Rmyaa, 1.1.98; English rendering M.N. Dutts
Cndogya Upaniad, VII.1.2 For references to the description
of itihsa, alone or with pura, as a Veda, usually as the fifth
Veda, see Macdonell and Keith, Vedic Index, vol. I, p. 76.
The interest of Kalhaas Rjataragi for Indian history
generally lies in the fact that it represents a class of Sanskrit
76
168.
169.
170.
171.
172.
173.
174.
175.
176.
177.
178.
179.
180.
181.
182.
183.
184.
185.
186.
187.
188.

compositions which comes nearest in character to the chronicles
of Mediaeval Europe and of the Muhammadan East. Together
with late Kashmir chronicles which continue Kalhaas narrative,
it is practically the sole extant specimen of this class, M.A.
Stein, Kalhaas Rjataragi,vol. I, Delhi 1961, Reprint, p.
4. cf., R. C. Majumdar, Ideas of History in Sanskrit Literarture
in Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon, ed. Philips, p. 13.
Rjataragi, I.3-10.
Rjataragi, I. 21-23.
M.A. Stein, Kalhaas Rjataragi, vol.I, p. 23.
Rabindra Nath Thakhur, Tapovana in Sdhan reprinted in
Vichitra, ed. Kanai Samanta, Visva Bharati Granthlaya, Kalikata,
1368 Bengali Era, p. 230. The quoted line has been translated
by the present author. For a fuller account of Tagores point of
view the whole essay should be read as also his essay
Kumarasambhava O Sakuntala, in Prachin Sahitya.
M.A. Stein, op.cit. vol. I, p. 35.
Pathak, op. cit, Chapter I.
Pathak, op. cit., pp. 4-6.
Yena narah praasyante sa nramso mantrah, Nirukta IX.9
cf. Rgveda, IX.10.3 which speaks of the fondness of kings in
listening to eulogies (praasti). Clearly praiseworthiness was
regarded as an important quality for passage to historical account.
Ait. Br., VIII.21; at. Br., XIII. 5.4.2-8; cf. Ghoshal, Studies
in Indian History and Culture, pp. 7-9.
at. Br. XIII.4.2.8-11; Ktyyana rauta Sutra, XX.2.7-8
at. Br.XIII.4.3.2-15.
Taittirya ranayaka, I.6.3.
V.S. Pathak, op.cit. pp. 9, 36-37.
Pathak, op.cit. pp. 36-37, notes 45-47.
Vedic Index,vol. ,p. 122.
Pathak, op.cit., p. 27, note 27.
E. Sieg, op.cit. p. 461.
Sieg, ibid.
U. N. Ghoshal,A History of Indian Political Ideas, New Delhi,
1966, pp. 20-27.
ntiparva, 79.31.
pastamba Dharmasutra, 1.7.20.6.
77
189. Mahbhrata, Vanaparva, 313, 117; quoted by P.V. Kane,

History of Dharmastra, vol. III, p. 860.
190. Mahbhrata, 1.1.16, cited by Sieg, op.cit., p. 461. The verse,
however, does not appear in the Critical Edition.
191. E. Sieg, op.cit. p. 461.
192. Mahbhrata, 1.2.383 referred to by Sieg, op.cit., p. 461.
Although, the verse has not been included in the Critical Edition,
it has been noticed in the notes, p.61, Volume One, Critical
Edition, Mahbhrata.
193. The nature, implications and the background of this change
have been brought out by V.S. Pathak, op.cit., pp. 21ff, 41ff,
80ff, etc. Chapter VI of his book is particularly important.
194. V.S. Pathak, op.cit. p. 27.
195. V.S. Pathak, op.cit., p. 17, notes 155-158.
196. V. S. Pathak, op.cit., p. 17.
197. See above notes 1699, 170.
198. Reference to Pururava and Yayti in Vedic khyna, Pathak,
op.cit. pp. 6,9.
200. Pargiter, op.cit., 17-5-79.
201. Aggaasuttanta, Digha Nikaya.
202 A. K. Warder, An Introduction to Indian Historiography, chapter
II.
203. Ainslie T Embree, The Hindu Tradition, Random house, New
York, pp. 220-21; the life span of Brahma is called para.
204. M Eliade, Myth of the Eternal Return, London 155 gives an
interesting account of the Eastern Civilizations attitude to history
and advanced the theory that these civilizations developed the
notion of the renewal of the corrupted defiled world back to its
original pure nature.
205. Ainslie T Embree, op.cit. p. 221. In fact, it has been said that
achieving salvation in the kali age has become easier than the
more austere earlier yugas.
206. See above the definition of itihsa and the question of Sauti in
the beginning of the Mahbhrata, cited by Sieg, op.cit.p. 461,
see notes 190, 191 above.
207. Rjataragi, I.21-24.
208. Rmyaa, See above note 165.
78
209. Collingwood, Idea of History, p.10, Paperback Edition.

210. If the positivist formulation of the doctrine of general laws in
historical explanation, Carl. G. Hempel, The Function of
General Laws in History, in Theories of hstory, ed. P. Gardiner,
pp. 344- 356 and Reasons and Covering Laws in Historical
Explanation in The Philosophy of History, ed. P. Gardiner, pp.
9-105, is no longer accepted, the stand of the White and his
followers that no law whatever exists in history has not met
with acceptance either, Perez Zagorin, Historiography and
Postmodernism: Reconsiderations in History and Theory:
Contemporary Readings, ed. Brian Fay, et. al., pp. 193-204.
211. Early Indian attitude vis--vis the relation between history and
philosophy thus is quite different from that of many of the
modern historians. Their attitude was different from, say, that
of Elton, G.R. Elton, The Practice of History Chapters 1 & 2.
212. See above notes 86,87,88.
213. The Great Being breathed forth itihsa and pura as also many
other disciplines and sciences as He had breathed forth the Vedas,
Bhadrayaka Upniad, 2.4.10. However, the intention of the
passage does not seem to be to proclaim equality of status of the
various disciplines enumerated. The intention seems to be to
underline, in the same spirit as the Vibhuti Yoga adhyya of
the Bhgvadgt did later, the underlying monistic unity behind
the apparent diversity.
214. Cndogya Upaniad, 7.1.2.
215. Ch. Up. 3.4.1-2; the significance of the passages was noted by
Pathak, op.cit. pp. 12-13.
216. Anirvana, Veda Mimamsa, vol. I, pp. 125-35.
217. Pollock, JAOS,109, 4, 1989, p.609,n. 32
218. Tantravrttika, 1.122. This tendency seems to have been quite
old, much older than the time of Kumrila. In a significant
reference made in connection with brahmayaja, Sat. Br. 11.5.6
refers to some branches of study that a brahmavdin was expected
to read everyday for his svadhyya. The list includes, besides
the four Vedas, anusana (science of sacrifice: Brhmaas
and Vedga), Vkovkya (disputation: Mms and Nyya),
itihsa, pura,gth, nrnams. At another place in the at.
Br. 13.4.3 the list of disciplines includes even the knowledge of
219.
220.
221.
222.
223.
224.
225.
226.
227.
228.
229.
230.
231.
232.
233.
79
the snakes (sarpavidy); cf. Ch. Up.,7.1.2-4, 7.7.1; Anirvana,

Veda Mms, vol. I., p. 45.
Pollock, JAOS, 109.4., 1989, pp. 609-10.
Pollock, JAOS, 109.4., 1989, pp. 609, n. 32.
Itihsa is not counted as a source of dharma unless it is
constituted as part of smti because it belonged to the smti
prasthna, Anirvana, Veda Mms vol. I., pp. 45, 222, 235.
Gautama, I. 1-2; Vaiha, I.4-6.
Manusmti, II.12; Yjvalkya Smti, I.7.
Robert Lingat, The Classical Law of India, Thomson Press
(India) Limited, new Delhi, 1973, pp. 6-7.
Lingat, ibid.
However, When Mms method came to be applied to the
texts of smrti it left very little room for atmatusti, Lingat, op.cit.,
p. 7.
Yjvalkya Smti, I. 39-45.
Nlakanha on Mahbhrata, 1.1.1; similar interpretation of the
Rmyaa was offered by Srivaisnava commentators; cited by
Pollock, Mms and the Problem of History in Traditional
India, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 109.4, 1989, p.
610, n. 34.
ntiparva contains a great deal of material that is reflective in
nature. Similar instances in smaller scale are found in other
parvas of the Mahbhrata as well. In spite of the inclusion of
religious, philosophic, legal, political, etc., material, the itihsapura did not gain the status of gama, nvkik, dharmastra,
etc. History of philosophy, for example, does not become the
same as philosophy.
Macdonell and Keith, Vedic Index, vol. I, p. 122.
Witzel, op.cit., p. 7.
An evident example is Sandhyakara Nandins Rmacarita which
recounted the life story of Ramapla of Bengal. It has been
composed in such a way that one can read it either as the story
of the Rmyaa or as the biography of Ramapla. We noted
above that like the Mahbhrata, Kalhana in Rjataragi
attempts to reach finally the ntarasa.
Vaa could be a line of rulers (Raghuvaa, Harivaa), a
line of teachers-students (as in the Vaa Brhmaa,
80
234.
235.
236.
237.
238.
239.
240.
241.
242.
243.

Bhadarnyaka Upaniad), the history of a church (Mahvaa,
Dpavaa), etc.
Gthina, vaavid, suta, carana, pusapla, etc. There were
always such experts, from the Vedic time down to the later
periods.
Here we have closely followed Professor G.C. Pandes
formulation, see Govind Chandra Pande, ankarcrya: Vicr
aur Sandarbh, National Publishing House, Daryaganj, New
Delhi, 1972, pp. 3-4, 21-23.
. . .while accurate information may have been historys defining
characteristic in Greco-Roman antiquity, the gods and their acts
remained a permissible and important part of its subject matter,
Pollock, op.cit., p. 605.
Opinions of course do differ on the question whether society
can be understood in terms of individuals, or individuals can be
understood in terms of the society, but there does not seem to
be any real disagreement on the view that history should concern
itself with the study of society, Maurice Mandelbaum, Societal
Facts, Ernest Gellner, Holism versus Individualism in History
and Society, in Theories of history, ed. Gardiner, pp. 476-503.
Itihsa does not think in terms of some causally determined
general laws as governing the course of events. It believes that
in place of such laws there exists a body of statements embodying
the collection of actions of great men which grows into a tradition
(agama).It is the job of itihsa is to exemplify this gama,
G.C. Pande, ankarcrya: Vicar aur Sandarbh, pp. 3-4.
Abhinavagupta, Evaprakarah pratyaka paridisyamna
agamikrthah karmaphalasambandhasvabhva yatrste sa
itihsah, quoted by Prof. Pande, ankaracrya: Vicr aur
Sandarbh. p. 3.
Kvya style of composition was adopted in both caritas and
praastis, Ratna Datta, The Development of Historical and
Literary Style in Sanskrit Inscriptions, Calcutta University Ph.D.
thesis, 1988 cited by Witzel, op.cit., pp. 11-12; D.C. Sircar,
op.cit. pp. 25-28; V.S. Pathaka, op.cit. passim.
Hayden White, Historical Text as a Literary Artifact in Roberts,
ed. The History and Narative Reader, p. 225.
See above note 118.
In the Raghuvaa narrative the negative aspect of the rule of
244.
245.
246.
247.
248.
249.
250.
251.
252.
253.
254.
255.
81
the dynasty in its later days has been depicted in a very subtle
way. It can be perceived only by contrasting the dharma leavened
ambience of the time of earlier rulers with ambience of bhoga
fired rule of the later kings, See Rabindra nath Tagore, Tapovana
in Sdhan reprinted in Vichitra, ed. Kanai Samanta, Visva
Bharati Granthlaya, Kalikata, 1368 Bengali Era.
Some examples, Pargiter, Morton Smith, Dates and Dynasties
of the Puranas, Motilaldas, H.C. Raychaudhuri, Political history
of Ancient India, Calcutta University,etc. for utilization of
Purnaic material, V.S. Pathak, op.cit., for the carita.
Cited by Pollock, op.cit., p.605, see especially Pollocks notes
11-13.
See Macdonells view above, as also that of Keith.
Referred to by Pollock, op.cit., p. 607.
Ratna havimsi, Ghoshal Vedic Ceremonies of Royal and
Imperial Consecretion in Studies in Indian history and Culture,
pp. 212-216.
Pollock, op.cit.
Pollock,op.cit., pp. 607-609.
The Jaina Puras share practically the same characteristics as
the Brahmanical puras. Majumdar quotes Jinasenas definiton
of itihsa from the Jaina Adipura, I, 24-25: Itihsa is a very
desirable subject. According to Tradition it relates what actually
happened. It is also described as itivtta, aitihya and mnya
(Authentic tradition). It is also called ra for it was composed
by the rsis (sages), sukta, for it instructs through good and pleasant
discourses, and Dharmastra, for it prescribes dharma (religion
or moral principles.; R. C. Majumdar, Ideas of History in
Sanskrit Literarture in Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon,
ed. Philips, p.15. Itihsa, according to Jinasenas definition
represents both mnya as well as dharmastra; it deals with
spiritual and religious tradition (mnya) on the one hand and
dharma on the other.
Not the history of jurisprudence or judicature.
Navjyoti Singh, Nature of Historical thinking and Aitihya:
Problem of Significance in Studies in Humanities and Social
82
Sciences, vol.,X. No.2 Winter 2003, Indian Institute of

Advanced Study, Shimla, pp. 1-28.
256. D.C. Sircar, op.cit.p.13ff; recently Witzel has revived the theory
of the responsibility of invasions for the loss of historical works
and documents, Witzel, op.cit., pp. 54-55.
PART TWO
In the Shadow of the Absolute

Contemporary Indian Responses to History
I saw Eternity the other night,

Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright;
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years;
Driven by the spheres
Like a vast shadow moved; in which the world
And all her train were hurled.
Vaughan
Quoted by T.M. P. Mahadevan
Time and Timeless
Contemporary IndianPhilosophers of History
I
Till now we have been engaged in discerning the early
traditional understanding of past in India especially in the context
of itihsa. Let us now consider some of the modern formulations
based on or colored by the traditional notions. Some of these
formulations can be described as explicatory. Their character
is to some extent exegetical: they clarify, elucidate and amplify
the itihsa standpoint. In this endeavor they attempt to situate
the itihsa view in the world of modern historicism. And in
their enterprise they make use of contemporary notions and
vocabulary. However, it will not be correct to construe their
aim as just the validation of the traditional point of view. It
should rather be looked as more of an attempt to sympathetically
understand the itihsa point of view than pleading for its
validation. It will also not be correct to consider these as mere
restatements of the traditional attitude. They often bring to bear
upon the traditional point of view fresh insights and enrich and
enlarge and deepen our understanding of the traditional Indian
understanding of past. Moreover, the purpose of these
formulations is also different from the old ones. Unlike the
itihsa-pura of the Rmyaa- Mahbhrata-Mahpura
variety or the khyna-carita of the old, these formulations do
not aim to regale and teach the people. These formulations aim
to situate itihsa within the framework of contemporary
historical mode of knowledge. But in spite of the use of
modern frameworks of reference, modern vocabulary and
idiom, and the fact that they target the modern academic and
intellectual audience, these formulations remain mainly
explicatory. Their character remains anchored to elucidation
and elaboration of traditional viewpoint. Nevertheless, there
are some that not only provide fresh insight into the way
86
traditional material ought to be read, but also reveal the

underlying theoretical structure that these ancient writing
contained. The work of V.S. Pathak may be cited as a premier
example of this class.1
There is another class of formulations which are more
constructivist than elucidatory. They are constructivist in the
sense that by using the traditional Indian world view and
philosophy and other traditional resources, they try to construct
an Indian philosophy of history. These attempts are more than
elucidation of an already existing philosophy of history; they
are in some sense forging a fresh one. If the explicatory
formulations can be called renovation and enlargement of an
existing structure (jirnoddhara), the constructivist formulations
can be called as building a fresh edifice using old material and
joining old plans in a new symmetry. Since the plan and the
material have been taken from the old traditional universe, the
edifice, it seems to be the underlying assertion, represents the
traditional ambience. Such formulations may also be described
as extrapolative; they represent new extrapolations from
traditional premises. In other words, the premises are traditional
and old, but the constructions in the form of extrapolations are
modern. The issues and the concerns that these modern
extrapolations address are also new. These issues and concerns
have been thrown by contemporary Western concepts of
history. Since different sets of material and plans, all, of course,
taken from the same old traditional universe of thought and
beliefs, have been used by different authors, we find an
interesting variety of such formulations. Some of these
formulations try to build holistic theories of Indian historical
point of view by integrating various aspects of traditional
thought and beliefs. On the other hand some formulations take
up only a single aspect or a limited issue from the traditional
philosophy or doctrine and build their arguments on that basis.
Thus, for example, Kalidas Bhattacharya attempts to locate
87
the concept of revolution within the early Indian universe of

philosophy and belief and to work out its implication2 and
Dhirendra Mohan Datta and Bimal Krishna Matilal take up
the doctrine of karma and consider its implication in the context
of the issue of moral values in history.3
Then there is a third group. These are full-fledged theories
of history by some Indian thinkers charting the course of
historical developments. These theories usually do not make
any overtly claim that they are based on, or that they are an
elaboration, of the traditional Indian point of view. However,
in their spirit they belong to the Indian world of thought.
Moreover, these theories usually do not represent autonomous
domains in the thought-world of the thinker concerned, but
are parts of their general philosophy. And it is clear that the
general philosophies of these thinkers are deeply imbued with
traditional Indian philosophy and metaphysics. It is from this
point of view that they derive their context and validity to be
treated as a part of Indian attitude to history.4 The views of
G.C. Pande can be cited as a representative example of this
group.5
The divisions that we have made should not be taken as
watertight compartments and the demarcating lines in many
instances become highly nebulous. And there are formulations
that do not exactly conform to any of the given divisions. Some
formulations also bear the features of more than one division.
II
A collection of articles edited by T. M. P. Mahadevan and
Grace E Cairns offers a variety of interesting viewpoints on
Indian attitude to history.6 As examples of holistic reconstruction
of traditional view of history based on Indian philosophy and
metaphysics, we may refer to the articles by Swami
Adiswarananda, T. M. P. Mahadevan, and V. V. Deshpande
in this collection.7
88
Adiswarananda follows the traditional Indian methodology

and begins his article by delineating the purvapaka. He first
considers three other important views of history: (a) the
Providential view of Judaism and Christianity; (b) the Idealistic
view of history as the expression of pure reason; and (c) the
linear view of naturalistic and humanistic thinkers. He takes
up Marxism as the representative example of linear view of
history. It is against these views that he places the cyclical view
of Hindu thinkers. According to Adiswarananda the JudeoChristian Providential view is based on some dogmatic
assumptions like miracles, chosen people, exclusive
mediatorship, unique revelations, salvation only through grace
and damnation at death for the unrighteous. Moreover, it is
actually a deeply pessimistic philosophy for it reduces all human
efforts as fruitless; there is nothing one can do but to wait
helplessly for grace. The view allows no space to reason and
is exclusively contingent on faith.8 Kant and Hegel are the
representative figures of the Idealistic view, according to
Adiswarananda. The rational method that Hegel detects amidst
the chaos of history in the supposed self-development of spirit
or the march of reason, according to Adiswarananda, are not
philosophically satisfying and factually tenable. He recognizes
that Idealism does posit an Absolute in the form of reason in its
perfect manifestation. He, however, finds it theoretically
unsatisfying that the Absolute should exhaust itself in the
process of historical evolution. Moreover, the scheme is not
factually borne out. Despite the supposed progress of reason,
man has not learnt to behave more reasonably than before;
animal nature in man remains as untamed as ever. And history
does not conform to a preconceived plan. Similarly, the Marxist
linear view is logically untenable and factually impossible.9
Happiness is not an object but the condition of a peaceful
mind, which no system of economic production, however
perfect, can ensure. The linear view of history replaces the
idea of being by having and reduces man to the needs of
89
the society.10 Gaining the world at the cost of losing ones

soul is a foolish bargain.
Against the perspective of these theories, the Hindu cyclical
view is considered. Although the Greeks and the Romans also
believed in cyclical view of history, the Hindu view differed
from them; the Hindu view goes deeper into the metaphysics
of cyclical pattern. The historical process in the Hindu view is
integral with the beginningless and eternal cycle of creation,
preservation and destruction. The process of creation and
destruction belongs to the phenomenal reality, the noumenal
from which the phenomenal arises is the eternal, unchanging
Pure Being. The entire cosmos is an integral manifestation of
the Pure Being. Man is also a manifestation of the eternal.
According to Hindu philosophers, man is essentially subject
and not object. He is more than an individual, more than the
sum of his appearances. The truth about the real nature of man
lies hidden in the depth of his inner foundation. He is a soul
who uses his body and mind as instruments to gain experience.
His real personality is a cosmic personality, the personality of
God.11 It is the egocentric consciousness that man develops
separates him from the Pure Being. This is a self-created prison
into which man hurls himself and the gets driven by pain,
pleasure, birth and death, virtue and vice and so on, the
opposites that texture the phenomenal reality. These opposites
create their own laws, the laws of polarities, the cause and
effect. These laws, however, do not operate or have any impact
on the noumenal reality, the Pure Being.
The creation, actually is without beginning and without end;
it is the manifestation and non-manifestation of the Pure Being
that keeps on recurring in an endless series of eons. This cycle
with its divisions and duration of each have been described in
the Puras. In each cycle the same material phenomena recur
and will continue to do so till eternity. No force can die; no
energy can be annihilated.12 Thus the universe, when looked
at from the point of view of the Absolute has no history or
90
development. The idea of history applies to the phenomenal

universe.13 The phenomenal universe, subject to the conditions
of time, space and causation produces history. But as the
phenomenal reality remains integral to the noumenal reality,
such history is always integral and universal.14
The cyclical concept does not conjure an idea of illusory
progress; there is no progress in reality, there is only change.
The phenomenal world being a texture of the opposites, the
total quantity of happiness and unhappiness always remains
the same. There can be only change of form and locus. What
may appear as development in one area is always balanced by
negative-development elsewhere. Thus there is no genuine
progress. Similarly, there is no such thing as an ideal society or
an ideal historical situation. The interactions of the three guas
keep the total amount of happiness and unhappiness in a society
same irrespective of the type of social arrangement obtaining
at a given point of time. So there is not much to choose between
one kind of social arrangement and another. It is not that the
form of society remains stationary. Leadership of the society,
for example, has been changing over time. Four successive
phases of this change are clearly perceptible. First it was the
priests, then the warriors, then the commercial class who had
dominated past societies. Now it will be the turn of the workers
in whose hands the leadership will pass. This has been the
general pattern all over the world. Thus the four varas, the
Brhmaas, the Katriyas, the Viayas and the udras, in turn
hold the reins of leadership. As the leaders tend to monopolize
power and do not want to share it with the society at large,
these changes do not ensure any genuine progress. This has
been happening again and again in a cyclical pattern. So the
prospect does not look too bright for the future either unless
everybody giving up his worldly vanity and faith in
organizations like government comes to the refuge of the Lord.15
Hindu cyclical concept does not posit a theory of mechanical
91
evolution; history is a manifestation of the divinity of man. It

denies man-nature dichotomy. Human history is not an account
of mans triumph over nature or mans progressive mastery
over organizational problems. History does not record a linear
movement towards a goal for men to be collectively achieved,
it rather represents a texture of diversity and opposites including
an interminable cycles of creation and dissolution. Within this
scheme of things the meaningful human unit is individual. The
individual has to operate under the law of karma that makes
him/her indubitably and completely accountable for his or her
actions. The law of karma, in fact, is a law of justice. One
cannot escape the good and evil consequences of ones good
and evil deeds. It would be a rule of injustice if it were so.16 It
is up to the individual who can achieve for himself the merger
with the Absolute and the Universal and thus attain true
fulfillment through dharma and true knowledge. In his efforts
the knowledge of the law of karma can only act as an additional
motivation and source of strength.
Swami Adiswaranandas reconstruction of the Hindu view
of the philosophy of history embodies the entire Hindu view
of life, its philosophy and metaphysics from the Advaita point
of view. It also powerfully posits the question whether the
notion of progress, an important adjunct of contemporary
historicism, can seriously be maintained? Has material
advancement delivered a truly happier world? Has it opened
the path to a genuine sense of fulfillment for man? These are
important questions and from this viewpoint, Swamijis article
is very interesting. However, one critical question is likely to
crop up in this context. Swamiji in his treatment reduces history
to metaphysics. He leaves practically no room at all for history
in the conventional sense. By history he means the entire gamut
of human life as part of phenomenal reality; it is not specifically
limited to the account or memory of past. In his formulation
history as an account of past is almost completely absent. The
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fundamental problems and issues of life of course holds an

important place in history, but the understanding and resolution
of these problems within the scope of history and philosophy
of history have to be approached from historical point of view.
The same problems may be approached with profit from other
perspectives, like metaphysical perspective, for instance, as well.
But the moot question is: can such approaches be legitimately
considered valid in the context of history when history as a
mode of knowledge or thinking is absent from the focus of
such approaches? Such approaches will lead to the question as
to what is the role of history if metaphysics alone is capable of
explaining human life and conditions? Or, is history then totally
redundant?
Mahadevan also puts forward an Advaita perspective of
history.17 He pinpoints his attention on one of the premier
axioms of modern notion of history accepted more or less
universally. It is the notion that the locus of history, either as
events or memory of events, is in time and therefore history
has nothing to do with the Absolute or the Timeless.
Mahadevan disputes this notion. And in so doing he also
disputes the contention that Indians had no sense of history
because they fixed their gaze on the Absolute. His main
contention is that history and the Absolute are not mutually
exclusive and that Indian philosophical attitude was not anti
historical. He grounds his argument on the analysis of the nature
of time and the relation of time with the Timeless.
Mahadevan asserts that the widespread belief among
Western thinkers that Indian philosophy and metaphysics in
their outlook were pessimistic and without serious concern
for human history and human progress in history is a
misconception. Although the intensity of this misconception is
now gradually ebbing and there is a greater readiness and
sympathy in the West to understand the Orient, the vestiges of
the nineteenth century notion still continue. This misconception
93
developed, firstly, on account of the misapprehension of the

nature of the theories of karma and sasra and secondly,
because of the dominating influence of Darwin and the faith in
the notion of progress. The doctrines of karma and sasra
have a positive rather than a negative content and force. They
in fact motivate people to cast off their little egos and strive for
the larger good which is the same as moka. Moka is not the
prerogative of any individual or a select few; it is the common
goal of all beings. Moka is not freedom for the individual; it
is freedom from individuality.18 Moka thus can not be an
aspiration for private salvation, for, individuality being dissolved
the notion of private can not continue. Indian philosophy and
metaphysics in fact sensitize one to ones responsibility not
only to ones fellow human beings, but to all beings. So one
need not go away from Indian thought to discover that human
history has a purpose.19
The nineteenth century notion of progress, particularly under
the impact of the doctrine of biological evolution and the
technological advancements, came to mean getting richer and
richer and having a better and better time. And the
evolutionary philosophy of Spencer seemed to prove that such
a process must of necessity go on, and go on indefinitely.20
But that faith to a large extent has been shaken by the subsequent
developments, the two shattering World Wars, the nuclear arms
race, the widening cleavages and mutual hostility between
different power blocs, the environmental degradation, etc. It
has become evident that progress is not to be measured so much
by outer change, but by inner transformation.21
Mahadevan endorses Collingwood that historical knowledge
is knowledge of thought and the function of history is human
self-knowledge. This thought is not things thought about, but
the act of thinking itself.22 The only way the historian can
discern the thoughts he is trying to discover is by rethinking
those thoughts. Thought has the ability to transcend the before
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after categories; it has a Timeless quality. Mahadevans initial

agreement with Collingwood, however, ends because he can
not reconcile Collingwoods juxtaposition of the two opposites:
thought and self-knowledge on the one hand and the transient
and concrete in history on the other. Mahadevan contends that
thought and self-knowledge are the proper object of history
and therefore history has to reach what is beyond time.
A substantial part of Mahadevans paper is devoted to the
discussion of the nature of time. He generally agrees with the
assessment of Bradley that Time is so far from enduring from
the test of criticism that at a touch it falls apart and proclaims
itself illusory.23 But he is unable to agree with the other part
of Bradleys assessment that time somehow belongs to the
Absolute. If time is illusory, it is an appearance. And, how
can appearance be a constituent of the Absolute? From the
standpoint of the Absolute time can not be. At the same time it
is not possible to dispense with time altogether. Time,
Mahadevan reasons, is a puzzle; like my it is indeterminable,
indescribable. It is anirvacaniya.24 The purpose of time is to
serve as the gateway to reality. Meditation on time is
recommended in the Upaniads as a method of getting beyond
time to the timeless reality which is Brahman.25 If it is not a
constituent of the Absolute, it is akin to it. Of all things with
attributes, time is the nearest to the Attributeless. The
contemplation of time leads to the eternity. This is how the
Maitri Upaniad puts it: There are two froms of Brahman:
Time and the Timeless. That which is prior to the sun is the
Timeless (akla) without parts (akla). But that which begins
with the sun is the Time, which has parts.26 Time is said to
cook everything because it ripens everything, makes everything
mature and finally it leads the way to the re-absorption of
everything in the Brahman. Time is not the true nature of the
Absolute. Time is with parts, whereas the Timeless is without
parts. Brahman is the Timeless.27
95
Purposeless creativity as in the philosophy of Bergson, for

example, is unsatisfactory and unacceptable. Life then becomes
only a synonym for chaos with no regulatory principle.
Similarly, some evolutionary philosophers like Alexander and
Lewis Mumford place God at the end of evolutionary process,
that is, at the end of time. The God is yet to be.28 It is not
possible to make sense of the proposition. How can God be
the product of something else? And then the question remains
who sets the process of evolution in motion? Or, is the
proposition only the second half of the circle of creation and
re-absorption of the phenomenal world? Is it the same as the
inbreathing of the Brahman?
In Indian view, whether the theistic deity or the monistic
Absolute, it was conceived as existing beyond time. The limited
and the unlimited, the manifest and the unmanifest, the arra
(body) and the arrin (soul), the aa (part) and the asin
(whole), the prakra (type, mode) and the prakrin (the basic
reality), they and He, in the theistic conception, exist in a relation
of apthakasiddhi (inseparability). They are the attributes
(vieaa) and He is the substance (vieya).29 However,
according to Mahadevan, the theistic conception, textured, as
it is, on relation can not reach the Timeless; all relations,
howsoever exalted they may be, remain bound in time. Thus
the more satisfying is the monistic position. Reality, in the
view of Advaita, is truly timelesstimeless not in the sense of
endless duration, but in the sense of eternity and completeness,
requiring neither a before or an after.30 All affirmations
about Brahman like satyasya satya, vijnam nanda
brahma, satya jna ananta, etc. are mere symbolic
statements and not true affirmations. Moksa is the supreme goal,
the true goal of human life. It is this goal that gives meaning to
life. But moka is not attaining something new; it is regaining
what is always there, the eternal (nitya). It is, as ankara puts
it, not something that is achievable (asdhya).
96
Mahadevan makes a number of highly significant points.

Time can not exist as an autonomous self-existing category. It
derives its being and meaning only in its link to the Absolute.
To locate history in time is only partially tenable. It may even
be conceded that the visible part of history resides in time and
therefore in the phenomenal world, but it is an act of grievously
dwarfing history to keep it tied down to the limits of time and
phenomenal world alone. Without reference to the Absolute,
history will lack goal and direction. It amounts to reducing it to
chaos.
The second point that he makes is that it is a myopic
misapprehension to call Indian attitude as otherworldly and
life negating. This misapprehension arises from a
misunderstanding of the goal of moka. Moka is not so much
the individual liberation (mukti) as the goal of universal release
(sarva mukti). Appaya Diksita, for example, maintains that when
an individual is released, he attains identity with Ivara, and not
with Brahman. It is only when all jvas are released that the final
identity with Brahman is realized.31 Our good lies in the good
of all. It is the need for helping every being along the road to the
final goal that ankara stresses when he says that sages like
Apantaratamas, Bhgu, and Nrada work for the welfare of the
world, even after death. Lokasamgraha or service to the world
is a well-known ideal as also the motto of vasudhaiva
kutumbaka. The purpose of history is the cosmic realization
of the eternal perfection. The object of avatras is precisely
this, and by their adevent the world process as a whole is
accelerated in the advance towards the goal... With each avatra
or divine descent, the world is helped to move a stage further
in the ascent to God.33 The Indian philosophy of history in
Mahadevans formulation does not have individual orientation.
It is life affirming. It is universal in its outlook, universal in
the very broadest sense.
V. V. Deshpandes article is similar in tone and tenor.34 Here
97
also history is situated amidst the broad canvas of philosophy

of life as advocated in early India. However, the framework of
disquisition is etched more specifically; the pururthas are
selected as the specific field or locus for itihsa and pura,
the two representative modes of history in early India.
Nevertheless, pururthas naturally bring in their train,
especially in the context of dharma and moka, the entire
philosophy of life and a good deal of metaphysics. Although
itihsa-pura has been strongly grounded on philosophy and
metaphysics by Deshpande, he has not allowed them to
completely submerge the boundaries of history. The specific
functional role of itihsa and pura has been depicted in clear
terms. He has also underlined the didactic nature of both of
them. He begins his article by recounting the story of the origin
of the itihsa-pura literature.35 Veda Vysa noticed the sorry
spectacle that the common mass of people had no reliable guide
to the proper conduct conforming to the Vedic teachings and
the Vedic way of life. He then took upon himself the stupendous
task of composing the Mahbhrata and the Puras in order
to provide the common people the requisite instruction on
Vedic pururtha vidys. By choosing the very expression
pururthas vidys instead of simple pururthas, Deshpande
has underlined the didactic functional role that was assigned to
historical narratives in early India. And by recounting the story
of the origin of this genre of literature he has emphasized another
important aspect of the itihsa-pura. Itihsa-pura
represented and embodied a philosophy of life enshrined in
Vedic teachings; itihsa-pura were lessons in pururthas.
The recollections of heroic events of ancient times
exemplifying Vedic pururtha vidys constitute the subject
matter of itihsa-pura. The protagonists of these heroic
events are shown as upholding the ideals of pururtha vidys
against all odds and they carry them till their final triumph.36
Deshpande also describes the method through which these
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heroic stories received their composed form. The writing

developed in two stages. In the first stage the memory of these
events in collected form is carried on as unbroken traditions
from one generation to another, either orally or as a part of
daily theological instructions, or authentic records. In the
second stage they are systematically marshalled and presented
in the form of the highest type of epic poetry both picturesque
and passionate.37
Itihsa-pura then were narratives of past, but they were
not factual narratives in the modern sense; they were
exemplification of pururtha vidys. And pururtha vidys
stood for a comprehensive plan of human life. This way, in
Desphandes formulation, itihsa-pura transcends the
limitations of factual narrative and transforms itself into
philosophy, especially metaphysics. Deshpande over the major
part of his article delineates the fundamentals of Indian
philosophy and beliefs about the meaning and goal of human
life. In the phenomenal world there are only three permanent
entities: jva, ivara, brahman (or parbrahman). Brahman
represents the ultimate reality and the achieving of merger with
the brahman is the ultimate goal of human life, which is moksa.
This can be achieved in only two ways. Firstly, by
comprehending the illusory nature of all sensually perceptible
phenomenal existence. This comprehension, of course, is what
the Indian concept of jna signifies; it is realization by ones
entire being and not the modern intellectual apprehension. The
second way through which this merger can be achieved is to
wait for the end of the epochal dissolution (pralaya) when the
entire phenomenal world is re-absorbed into the ultimate reality.
The second option, obviously, is not really an option. Every
individual therefore has to strive to achieve moka accepting
total responsibility under the inexorable law of karma for each
of his/her action. And one has to fully meet ones obligations,
moral, spiritual, social and communal (the pururthas) and
99
discharge all his debts (as). One should not, either individually
or collectively, plunder the earth for man has obligation to all
jvas. Only one-sixteenth part of earths resources are meant
for men, the rest is for other species. The notion of progress
obviously has no relevance in this conception of history.
Like Adiswarananda, Deshpande also takes a dim view of
the modern way of life and thinking. He specially underlines
the abdication of value from knowledge as one of the premier
causes of the ills of the modern wold. Because of this deficiency
the modern science and science-based disciplines that are
growing at the expense of humanistic education are unlikely
to lead to a happier world. On the contrary, they are leading to
an increasing disintegration of society and brutalization of man.
Finally, Deshpande also puts forward a defence of itihsapura and the Vedic ideals.38 His arguments are structured at
two levels. Firstly, he says that modern science despite its claim
for certainty has not been able to provide a stable basis for
social organization; there are far too many opinions and
divergences in both precepts and practice. Compared to this,
the Vedic idea of society had been able to provide a relatively
more durable basis of social setup which had endured for a
very long time and has not disappeared completely till now.
Thus this has served better than the modern knowledge system
can claim for itself. Secondly, considering the fact that history,
even in its recent-most incarnation has not been able to escape
the snare of relativity and achieve full objectivity, there is no
valid ground to reject itihsa-pura by calling it mythical,
concocted or as ideological propaganda. On none of these
counts the present-day histories can be considered better off.
As far as history as propaganda is concerned, it is rather on an
ascending curve than on decline.39
Deshpandes article is both exegetical as well as
constructivistic. It is explicatory in the parts in which he tries
to elucidate the nature, purpose and method that characterized
100
the composition of itihsa-pura literature and its kin. Even

the constructivist parts comprising the elaboration of the
philosophy of prururtha vidys, as it has been pointed out
above, do not lose their history-moorings because they remain
tied to the itihsa-pura.
III
Dhirendra Mohan Datta and Bimal Krishna Matilal have
situated the doctrine of karma in the domain of history and
endeavored to figure its implication. In their approach they do
differ substantially, but they converge on the point that karma
provides an important and strong ground of morality. It needs
no reiteration that a valid theory of history can hardly be
conceived that does not have as a major concern for morality
in some form or measure. But the most significant statement
that Datta and Matilal seem to be making remains unstated.
The belief in the doctrine of karma has very often been singled
out as one of the primary reasons for the alleged anti-historical
outlook of Indian mind. Both Datta and Matilal seem to be
contesting this assumption. And both have done it without
making any reference to the assumption. Their reticence in
this regard enhances the force of their statement.
Datta begins by noting the consequences of recent scientific
advancements, especially that of the theory of evolution, in
vastly expanding the Western notions about the dimensions of
space and time.40 In both these areas the traditional Indian
notions, compared to the traditional Western, are more
compatible with the modern scientific ideas. The evolutionary
viewpoint has now influenced all branches of knowledge. Thus
mans kinship and relation to other beings have to be borne in
mind while dealing with human history. In this respect also
the traditional Indian ideas are not inhospitable. The philosophy
of karma contains the belief that human birth is a rare blessing
which one achieves after repeated births as other creatures in
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consequence of the good actions in previous births. Datta asserts

that the theory of biological evolution is not inconsistent with
the theory of karma even though it is preponderantly moral in
its configuration and import.
Karma, however, is basically a moral theory. It has been
generally misinterpreted in the West as pessimistic and fatalistic.
It is true that according to this theory the accumulated merits
and demerits of previous lives are held responsible for the
conditions and situations of the present life, but they do not
shutoff freedom of will and action. Personal initiative and effort,
i.e., puruakra can offset the daiva or the force of past actions.
Through discipline and enlightened actions one can free oneself
from the snares of ignorance which arises from the wrong
actions of past. Except the materialists, this is the quintessence
of the messages of all the schools of Indian philosophy. The
theory of karma offers a logical explanation of the problems
of evils and the inequalities of birth.41
The crux of Dattas formulation is that it is the force of moral
actions that provide the basic impetus to progress in history. It
is not reason, but moral virtue, dharma, that distinguishes man
from other animals. In fact it is the moral quality that supplies
the sinews for the survival and forward movement in the
evolutionary path. It is not physical power that comprises the
fitness for survival. Had it been so then the giants like dinosaurs
or mastodons would not have become extinct. Mere material
prosperity, and by implication the possession of scientific
knowledge and technological skill, will not suffice for the
progress of men. Datta asserts that the known history of man
supports the belief that moral values constitute survival values
as well.42 These values have evolved over millions of years of
human experience. Without the possession of such virtues as
ahis, maitr,karu,satya, asteya,aparigraha,sayama,etc.
collective and common life can not endure and flourish. These
are the very basic values on which rest the principle of society.
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It is these virtues that lie at the root of unity and co-operation.

And finally, Datta endeavors to capture the main strain of
human development over the history of mankind. Up to the
sub-human level of evolution, the tendency was towards
increasing divergence. But competent biologists, such as Julian
Huxley and P. Teilhard, point out that after the diversification
of human race this tendency has been reversed by
hominization, toward a gradual convergence.43 History is
gradually moving towards the realization of the unity of
mankind. Datta says that a historian like Toynbee has traced
this strain of growing unity through the course of human history.
And, the Indian epics, celebrate the vehicle that carries forward
this unity in the famous remark in the Mahbhrata, the victory
is there where there is dharma.
It can hardly be gainsaid that moral ideas and values play a
crucial role in any worthwhile human affair. And, all
philosophies of history recognize their importance, even though
the ways the moral ideas and values are constituted often differ
substantially from one another. However, one feels a little
uncertain whether Dattas basic endeavor to reconcile the theory
of karma with the evolutionary interpretation of history, and,
especially the idea of progress, can really be maintained. Even
methodologically the question arises whether an Indian
philosophy of history be reconstructed only on the basis of
karma theory? Such a methodology suffers from piece-meal
approach. In the face of the idea of four yugas, to argue for
idea of progress as an Indian concept seems a little too radical.
To construe the cyclical theory of yugas as representing spirals44
seems a bit of special pleading.45 In extenuation of Datta,
however, it needs to be added that he calls his essay his personal
philosophy of history and not a statement of Indian point of
view. His defence of the doctrine of karma and Adviata position
as not necessarily anti-historical is sound. The doctrine of
Karma is not life negating. Similarly, akaras Advaita does
103
not deny the reality of this world. Datta writes: We believe

with akara [e.g., his commentary on the Brahmasutra 2.1.16],
that the world, considered as rooted in its ground or cause, is
always real.46 It is this positive spirit of Advaita, says Datta,
that led akara to lokasamgraha or organization of society.
Matilal in his article mainly concentrates on two aspects.47
Firstly, he attempts to sketch the background of beliefs, ideas
and motives that led to the growth of the doctrine of karma
and its twin concept of sasra. And, secondly, he underscores
the fact that in its genuine orientation the theory of karma is
not pessimistic. On the contrary, it breathes a spirit of healthy
confidence in mans own ability to chart his own future. It
eliminates the role of chance and fate and lessens the necessity
of conceiving a regulator of the world as an omnipotent God
who nevertheless remains somewhat whimsical and arbitrary.
He also notes that despite different philosophical standpoints,
practically all schools of thought and belief in early India
subscribed to the idea of karma and the weight of opinion
regarding its character was heavily loaded against deterministic
fatalism (niyativda) or capriciousness (yadcchvada). It is
the growth of the other theory, the idea of sasra or
transmigration, which got mingled with the theory of karma
that gave the latter its veneer of pessimism and fatalism. Karma
theory on its own does not preclude freedom of choice. Not
everything has been totally determined or fixed by our previous
karma, or to use a more neutral terminology, by our
background. Alternative courses of action are possible and open
to mankind. Otherwise, the Buddhas teaching about the way
to Nirva or akaras prescription about the way to moka
would have been pointless. The whole moka-stra would
be an uncalled for endeavour.48 Matilals thesis is that there is
no getting away from the moral responsibilities of ones actions.
And this responsibility has to be recognized in philosophy of
history. If karma can be extricated from the theory of sasra,
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he feels that it may become acceptable to modern sensibility

too. He suggests that karma theory may be extended to include
collectivities like nations or societies and that it is not necessary
to keep it limited to individuals alone. Individual moral
responsibility should be extended to make room for collective
moral responsibility. Such a concept may have some influence
on philosophy of history.
While Matilal has cogently argued that the thrust of karma
theory is not pessimistic and that it does not arrest the freedom
of action, his project of modernizing the concept by divesting
it of the silly transmigration theory50 may not find many takers.
One may find that his approach in this paper looks rather
apologetic; this has no doubt arisen from his perception that
the karma outlook appears antiquated. Moreover, he gives the
impression that philosophy of history is a blueprint or a
manifesto of proposed action plans rather than an attempt to
understand the nature of history. Even if a philosophy of history
does become in effect a political programme, as it has in the
case of Marxism, the philosophy is worked out on the analysis
of history, either looked at as a process or a mode of knowledge.
In Matilals essay we do not find any such attempt. Even as an
attempt at reconciling karma with history, Dattas article seems
to have been relatively more successful.
IV
In a short and lucid paper J. N. Mohanty turned his attention to
locate the reason(s) as to why a philosophical concern for history
did not develop in early India.51 He records the fact that itihsa
or aitihya did not attain the status of an independent prama;
it was subsumed under either anumna or abda. But, as
Mohanty pertinently remarks, that just this did not constitute a
sufficient ground why no philosophical interest should have
developed in history. Even within the bounds of their view of
history as a prama, it was still possible to develop, for
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instance, logic of historical inference or semantics of historical

knowledge. Before embarking on an investigation of the
causes, he notes that this lack of concern was not just for history,
but also for mathematics. Furthermore, he says that this lack of
philosophical concern was present in ancient Greece as well.
It was with the advent of Christianity that a proper philosophical
interest in history developed.
Mohanty clarifies that a keen and sophisticated philosophical
interest in time had developed in early India. Practically all the
Western views of time, from the Newtonian, Leibnezian and
Kantian to the Bradleyan, are found presaged in the various
schools of Indian philosophy. Nyya-Vaieika viewed time
as a partless and infinite objective reality; the Vaieika regarded
time as the basis of all temporal relations. For the Buddhist
time had an infinitesimally momentary character. The akara
considered time as a form of prakti as one of its evolutes and,
in the Advaita time represented the relation between Brahman
and my. Thus the lack of concern for history can not be
attributed to a lack of interest in the concept of time. Despite
this lively and sophisticated interest in time it was not perceived
as something that could lead to the achievement of anything
new. This is why interest in time did not produce a
corresponding interest in history. Two overarching concepts
robbed the possibility of achieving anything new over the time
process. Firstly, there was the concept of caturvarga in which
the final goal of life was identified as moka; and moka
represented something that was regained rather than something
newly achieved. Secondly, there was the concept of four yugas
repeating themselves in endless cycles of creation and
dissolution.
Likewise, truth and value were regarded as ageless and thus
were beyond and above history. Truth was not a human
product. Various Great men could only teach it at various times;
there was no first discoverer of truth. Great men like Sri
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Krishna and Buddha claim only to be teaching truths which

others without number had seen before.52 A philosophy that
is concerned with ultimate ageless values and eternal truths
does not need to be concerned with history of events. Although
the law of karma does offer scope for freedom of will and
action, but because it is individualistic in orientation and
because its notions of rebirth and transmigration are
transhistorical, it has not helped the growth of interest in history.
A doctrine of spiritual evolution of the soul through successive
births is as little historical in nature as is a doctrine of cosmic
change. Both these doctrines were developed in Indian
philosophywith no consequential advantage in favour of
philosophical interest in history.53
History, Mohanty asserts, is the history of man; it is not a
mere process of change. The awareness that nothing lasts is
not the same as the awareness of history. History of man is the
history of human consciousness. History thus is the account of
changing human consciousness. Recognition of the historicity
of consciousness is the necessary and sufficient condition of a
philosophical concern for history.54 In the philosophical view
that was predominant in India, human consciousness was above
change.
According to Mohanty the following constitutes the
necessary and sufficient conditions for the growth of
meaningful philosophy of history. These are: (a) belief in the
ontological reality of time, (b) rejection of the view that man is
essentially a manifestation of either nature or the Absolute, (c)
rejection of both the notions of total determinism and absolute
freedom, and (d) replacement of the essentialist notion of self
by the notion that consciousness is essentially temporal.
Mohanty seems to be taking something of a Hegelian position.
History is the history of man and it is also the evolution of
consciousness. It is basically the development of human
consciousness over time. This consciousness is not something
107
that is eternal like atman, but a historical entity that evolves

over historical time. The course of its development is neither
totally predetermined nor totally free. Consciousness is neither
totally transparent nor totally opaque. And finally Mohanty
concludes that consciousness has two dimensions: one that is
historical and the other supra historical. In its supra historical
aspect the traditional Indian views can act as corrective to the
Western notion of history.
Kalidas Bhattacharya moves towards locating the Indian
philosophical position vis-a-vis history from a localized query.55
His initial project appears as an attempt to situate the notion of
social revolution in the context of traditional Indian
philosophical parameters.56 From our point of view the more
interesting part of the essay comes towards its end where he
formulates the Indian philosophical angle to history. He sums
up the Indian view of history as metaphysics translated into
the language of time.57 All metaphysics, he stresses, bears the
point of view of eternity. History, however, belongs to the
temporal. Progress in history is the actualization of the potential
or the process through which the potential becomes the actual.
It is in fact a twofold processthe potential becomes the actual
and the actual finds itself in the bosom of that in which its
potentiality was.58 It is through dharma that the mediation
between the non-temporal (or eternal) and the historical takes
place. Dharma represents the eternal divine order of harmony.
Whenever a disharmony issues in place of satya and dharma,
mithy and adharma occur. A disjunction is thus created, the
order is disturbed and it cries for restoration. This restoration
takes place by the intervention of God or by the four yuga
process of decline and dissolution when again the age of truth
is established when undiminished dharma again rules supreme.
History is a process where more and more diversity emerges
over time, yet in the same process the more they emerge, the
more they move towards a profound unity. History in other
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words is a continuous story of recovering the unity in the

midst of, and through, the actual differences that emerge in
time
Bhattacharya concludes that India had its own notion about
history and how it proceeds and he also tries to give an answer
to the question why no historical literature was produced in
early India. His answer is that Indians were aware that the
study of history as an accurate record of actual happenings
would lead to social discord and mutual antagonism among
different groups of people. They valued peace and stability
over other things. And for the sake of maintaining peace and
stability they discouraged the writing of history in the manner
that is now the common mode. The underlying statement of
Bhattacharyas observation may be put in the form of the
following question: has the study of factual history served the
cause of peace? Bhattacharya here seems to share some of the
misgivings of Descartes regarding the efficacy of history as a
wholesome subject of study.60 Finally, Bhattacharya also
questions the merit of completely disregarding the speculative
philosophy of history. He, however, warns that the speculative
philosophies of history should be taken as indicators of broad
trends and not as constitutive laws.
Both Mohanty and Bhattacharyas papers propose to address
some specific questions but gradually broaden the scope of the
discussion to cover some of the central issues relating to the
nature of Indian understanding of past. While Mohanty
concludes that Indian view can act as a supplement to the
modern Western view of history, Bhattacharya projects the
Indian understanding as an alternative mode of historical
knowledge which from the perspective of peace and social
harmony has served India well. In his conclusion Bhattacharya
seems to be veering to the same view as Deshpande.61
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V
How early Indian historical narratives should be read? What
was the structure that was employed in the narratives? What
was the mode of emplottment of the story and what were the
stages through which the story developed and culminated? For
a penetrating analysis of these questions there could hardly
have been a better guide than the work of V. S. Pathak. For a
masterly exposition of the underlying structure, for the implied
hint of the strength of the theoretical framework of early Indian
historical carita kvyas, the slim volume of Prof. Pathak remains
unequalled.
It is interesting that before the linguistic turn in historical
interpretation had acquired the currency among historians that
it now enjoys62 Pathak should have put forward the narrativist
concept of historical interpretation so forcefully.63 Pathak
writes: ...history is a conceptual integration of past events in
the framework of time and space ... through the idealising
process which happens in the mind of the historian. It is, in
essence, an abstraction of actuality for the sake of its integration
with human culture in terms of sequential time.... Therefore,
the study of the actuality from a historical record is a complicated
process. It requires an appreciation of the nature and form of
the idealising agentsa penetration of the mental recess of the
historian, his spiritual makeup and ideal mould.64 Pathaks
project is the exposition of the idealizing process that the
historical narratives in early India, especially the carita
literature, recourse to. His is an enterprise to understand and
analyze the narrative form employed in the kingly biographies
or carita kvya and reveal its significance. It is as much an
attempt to read the encoded statement as also the study of the
structure of encoding as well as the significance of the
employed structure. It should be borne in mind that what Pathak
undertakes is not so much a journey of discovery of the spiritual
110
makeup and ideal mould of the individual authors he studies.

It is rather a voyage to discover the cultural terrain that gives
the authors their narrative form and its accompanying texture
of meaning and significance. In other words Pathak is asserting
that the culture and its conventions of which the narrative is a
part, determines the narrative mode that the historian chooses.
The narrative draws its form and the orientation of its meaning
and significance from the literary universe of the culture
concerned.
Pathak in his work repeatedly emphasizes the idealized nature
of these narratives. These carita kvyas have for their theme
the glory and the heroic achievements of prominent mediaeval
rulers. However, these narratives stitch the actual on to an
archetypal ideal. Although these were purported to be episodic
history, they were presented in a symbolical garb. ...the broad
meaning of itihsa that it comprised ancient events arranged
in the form of a story to illustrate the truths of moral, aesthetic,
worldly and spiritual spheres, was narrowed down to an account
of events culminating in the achievement of royal glory by the
king. Because of the romantic spirit of the age, the ornate style
of the epic, and the tradition of the Rmyaa and the
Bhatkath, the poet-historians represented the abstract idea
of royal glory in the form of a beautiful princess symbolizing
the goddess of Royal Fortune (rjya-r), whose love the king
wins after overcoming insurmountable difficulties. This motif,
according to Pathak, is implicit in the Rmyaa where Rma
is anointed as the king of Koala after he liberates St. From
fourth century onwards this motif becomes really popular and
is found in numerous historical works including the
Raghuvaa, Ratnval, Blabhrata, etc. Even the
inscriptions of the Guptas, the Palas, the Pratiharas, the
Rashtrkutas, etc. also make frequent use of the motif.66
And in keeping with the idealized nature of the narrative the
story develops organically adhering to a given form of five-
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stage sequence. The course of the organic development stretches

from seed to fruition, from prrambha to phalgama. The
intermediate three successive stages are the exertion or
prayatna, the hope of achieving the goal or prpty, the
certainty of achievement or niyatpti.67 In this sequential order
of development of the event a calendar-based chronology
did not have to figure. Time, conceived in ancient India as the
puppeteer (string-puller sutradhra) of this great show of the
world, gives an ordered form to the happenings of the world
by the employment of its powers of sustaining (abhyanuja)
and obstruction (pratibandha). But for the intervention of time,
everything would have been simultaneous the seed, the
sprout, the stem, the stalk would all emerge and exist
concurrently. Reality (satya) operates at two levels, the
absolute reality that is beyond change and the relative reality
that is subject to constant flux. The latter is the level of nmarupa. History exists at the nma-rupa level and is subject to
the law of cause and effect. Thus an event has to be understood
in its causal matrix, by its anterior and subsequent states. This
matrix is its real temporal statement, its true chronology. Dates
and years in this context are superfluous.68
Pathak observes that the reading of the historical works of
ancient times demands an understanding of the concerned
historians idea of history, which has to be situated against the
then ontological perspective. It is this perspective that supplies
the historian his conceptual universe of relevance and
signification. The imposition of modern historical ideas and
tools on them would be a futile exercise and would be
counterproductive. A wholesale rejection of these works can
often be like throwing the baby out with the bath water. A
patient, careful and sympathetic reading of the texts within their
own ontological universe may be much more rewarding.
Moreover, it has to be borne in mind that these texts are
deliberately artistic and organically designed. It is thus
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imperative to understand the organic linkages in the employed

form and the statement that is being made through it.69
The narrative structure from seed to fruition should be seen
within the ontological universe in which it is grounded. A story
is not complete unless it reaches the stage of fulfillment; it
amounts to the smothering of the seed. It is necessary to
remember that the five stages from prrambha to phalgama
should not be viewed as an ordinary development of any or
every theme; they represent a progressive achievement of a
goal that is truly fulfilling. The story through the five successive
stages of conflict and tribulations must gradually move towards
the resolution of all conflicts, to harmony, which is the natural
order of things. This is the real disposition of the universe, the
only course. Every seed that comes into being must ultimately
reach the fruition whatever may be its lot of intermediate course
of journey. Just as every drop of water that falls from heaven
ultimately must merge with the ocean (ksd patita toya
yath sgara pratigacchati), every seed must reach the shore
of phalgama. This is the one single story that exists, there is
no other. This is the only story that man wants to hear, because
this is the only story that makes sense. This therefore is the real
itihsa, this is the only narrative that is worth remembering
and recounting. In such a narrative dates and chronology in
the ordinary sense have no place.70 It may be recalled in this
context that literary theorists of early India did not view tragedy
as a form of literature with much favor. It would amount to
doing violence to the real disposition of the universe and amount
to the assassination of the seed. Thus every Sanskrit play ended
in the Bharatavkya, the sanctification of the harmony and
peace at the end of all conflicts when all earthly passions are
exhausted and an all pervasive sovereign tranquillity descends.71
The above paragraph can be considered a simplified
summary of the conclusion that Navjyoti Singh draws in his
complex elaboration of the viewpoint of Pathak regarding the
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narrative form of historical kvyas. Navjyoti, however, covers

a number of other issues apart from the structure of the narrative.
It is not easy to make a brief synopsis of the complex web of
his dense arguments. His main project is to elucidate the
differences between the paradigmatically opposite enterprises
of itihsa and history and indicate the way they can be related.
Although both are based on the recollection of past, yet, they
remain basically asymmetrical. While itihsa, he suggests, is
based on the recollection of justice, history is based on
recollection of injustices. The theories of history are classically
founded on the premise of hopping from tragic to tragic. In
contrast theories of itihsa are founded on a search trajectory
of contentment where the tragic only occasions the
commencement of the trajectory....72 This divergence between
history and itihsa is found ingrained in the grossly inadequate
interpretations of Indias attitude towards past and the
ambivalence that the modern enterprise of history harbours.
The cleavage has run so deep that the foremost examples of
itihsa, the Rmyaa and the Mahbhrata for instance,
traditionally honoured as authentic in India are not recognized
as history at all by modern historians.
It is thus necessary to get to the root of this cleavage. And
this requires an understanding of the nature of history as a
discipline. Historical thinking has to move on two legs
empirical content and trans-historic content. The empirical
content consists of what is called historical facts that are timeand-space-specific objects. They are datable and locatable.
Apart from the historical facts, historical thinking also inevitably
involves a time-space free dimension. This consists of the issues
of significance, historical interpretation, constitution of historical
knowledge. Without some kind of constancy or invariance
across history, these would not have been possible. All
historical interpretations are actually a quest for capturing this
invariance which gives historical process its goal and
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momentum.73 This leads to a paradox. All historical thinking

is impregnated by an idea of ahistoricity. Modern historical
thinking rests on the conceptualization of two sets of objects :
historical facts and historical inevitability. While facts pertain
to objects that can be dated and indexed, historical inevitability
is perceived as some kind of a force which reveals the fated
outcome. In fact, the function of the historical facts is viewed
as providing the evidential base for the articulation of the
historical fate. Among the historical facts, there are some objects
that can be called vital objects, like nation, class, race, etc.,
which have a longer duration over time than the rest of the
historical facts. It is these vital objects that are supposed to be
the vehicle of the historical force.74
In contrast to history, itihsa, making use of the narrative
structure of seed to fruition (referred to above), consists of
temporally discriminated stitching of events and episodes collected
or construed to demonstrate the fruition of the re-cognized seed.
The seed may, or rather, it usually does, contain conflict and discord.
However, the fruition represents the resolution of discords to a
morally desirable state. The resolution of discord does not result
from just the internal dynamics of the form (that is, seed-to fruition
structure), it does implicate the rest of the world in its resolution.
This necessity is important and is an intrinsic reason for the
temporal deferment or temporal passage in the fruition of the
seed.75 The form also enshrines the belief that all discords are
inherently resolvable. The recognition of the seed is at once
old and contemporaneous. The memory of similar seed-tofruition events of old continues to inform the event at hand.
Thus the narrative acquires its trans-temporal foundation. The
resolvability of morally impregnated seeds is of trans-historical
interest of man.76
History, according to Navjyoti, is temporally discriminated
significant account of the past human activity.77 Temporal
discrimination of material objects does not pose many problems.
115
There can be firm temporal discrimination of material objects,

while there can be only relative temporal discrimination of
mental entities. In the context of history vital objects are mental
entities which are also related to the question of significance.
Historical significance presupposes a constancy that survives
the change wrought by time. Without this constancy the notion
of significant would have been totally time bound and historical
enterprise an exercise in futility. Singh observes that there can
not be a history of the mental capacities of men, form the angle
of mental capacities man has remained the same. The attempts
to write the history of mental capacities of men in the context
of prehistory are only conjectural. Of course, there can be
purely descriptive history of objects that can be temporally
indexed with accuracy with their temporal loci frozen in time.
But the moment the notion of significance is brought to bear
on historical account, the issue of temporal invariance is bound
to arise. In itihsa significant account simply overlooks
indexicality.78
Navjyoti discusses the issue of significance in past human
activity from the point of view of the cognizance and articulation
of significance. He offers a theory of significance.79 It is the
way human activities are summed up in wholes that gives the
key to the cognizance and articulation of significance. And he
analyzes the concerned issues from the Vaieika and Mms
perspectives. First level of summation pertains to physical
actions like walking, speaking, writing, etc. An expression like
walking sums up in a cognizable whole the functions and
reactions of millions of molecules. The second level consists
of human activities that may be described as purposive actions
that are done with an intent and purpose. Actions at this level
become deed or karma. Human activities are read, evaluated
and reinterpreted in the units of deeds. A reading of each others
deeds is a pet and compulsive engagement of men.80 A deed
has an inbuilt structure of intention-action-fruition. The deeds
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are also at the same time open ended in the sense that they can
clash with each other and can create discord. It is these discords
that produce the ground for the third level of summation. The
third level consists of those special deeds that lead to the
resolution of the discords. These deeds may be called judicious
deeds or feats. These judicious deeds contain an injunctive
content and are classically called vidhi. This is the highest level
of summation, no higher level of evaluation is needed.
Construction of significance automatically comes to a halt here.
Feat is an embodiment of closure. And there are good reasons
to believe, in accordance with the Mms tradition, that such
feats are plural.81 It is at the level of the feats (vidhi) that the
significance for history and itihsa gets constituted. Historical
significance does not inhere at the levels of actions and deeds.
Accounting for discordant deeds amounts to recollecting
and reading injustice. Success in the operation and recognition
of the third reduction (sil. Judicious deeds or feats) leads to
accounting for feats. Accounting for feats amounts to
recollecting and reading justice. Usually, history, if not limited
to pure description, is a narrative of recollecting injustice. From
deeds to feat is an injunctive continuum and in their recollection
and operation is situated the enterprise of history and itihsa.82
However, in the peaks of feats even the residue of temporality
that characterizes the continuum also disappears. Feats are
radically contemporary, they attain the status, as Mms
tradition observes, of beyond the human (apaurueya) and
the uncreated (andi). Justice thus defies temporal
discrimination, whereas injustice born in the domain of created
deeds are temporally locatable. The disjunction between history
and itihsa can be bridged. If history does not remain
imprisoned in the snares of injustice and becomes ready to
take the final step towards the resolution of discords it can
merge in itihsa. And, from the perspective of itihsa, temporal
discrimination does not have to be ignored for its native structure
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absorbs within itself segments that admit of temporal

discrimination from bja to niyatpti.
VI
There have not been many Indian authors who have made a
comprehensive study of the nature of historical knowledge.
Prof. D. P. Chattopadhyaya is an exception. In 2001 he
published a book under the title The Ways of Understanding
the Human Past.83 In this book he makes a detailed analysis of
the historical modes of understanding. What is of particular
interest and relevance to us is that he devotes a substantial part
of his book to the study of itihsa as a mode of knowledge of
the past and that he distinguishes this mode of knowledge from
the current mode of historical thinking.
Running through the rich texture of multifold arguments of
the book, there is a gentle yet resolute assertion that history or
the understanding of past is essentially dialogical in nature.84
This constant dialogue between the present, i.e., the abode of
the historian, and the past, i.e., the object of his study, leads to
the continuous urge to update the historical accounts. The urge
to updating may, it in fact often does, lead to an urge to discard
the earlier historical versions as untrustworthy or even useless.
This lack of sympathy for the earlier times and their
formulations gives rise to a paradoxical situation. Such an
attitude is basically anti-historical, because it denies the value
of past. The enterprise of history can not even subsist without
reposing some faith in the value of past. The past that cries out
for understanding has to be approached with sensitivity to its
own terms; there can not be a unilateral imposition of the
standpoint of the present on to the past. The present often
arrogates to itself (the delusion of) omniscience and looks at
past with ridicule and sneer. This attitude is both anti-historical
and unproductive. Thus when we look at itihsa as a mode of
knowledge of past, it is necessary to disabuse the mind of the
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arrogance of present.85 Furthermore, Prof. Chattopadhyaya

repeatedly emphasizes that there is no single monolith that can
be called the present; that it does not present itself in one fixed
uniform shape to everybodys consciousness. The present has
its own variegated manifestations which in their turn form the
perspectives for the interpretations of past. History therefore
can not be packed in a straightjacket either form-wise or
content-wise.
Before taking up the itihsa mode of understanding the past,
Prof. Chattopadhyaya explores the nature of historical
knowledge. He makes so many interrelated points that it is not
easy to summarize them. History, he remarks, is clearly a timerelated entity and discipline, yet at the same time it refuses to
stay limited to the bounds of time. There is a dimension in
history, which, in some way and to a certain extent, is free
from the bounds of time.86 It is this invariant dimension that
provides the links of the past with the present, without this link
the past would not have been accessible to the historian at all.
Moreover, history is not unidirectional; it is not just a passage
from the present to the past. History has a twofold direction; it
is as much a voyage from the present to the past as a movement
from the past to the present. In its onward movement from the
past it does not stop at the present, it tends to thrust forward
towards the future. If the present, especially in the context of
human life, is coloured, conditioned and governed to some
extent by the past, the present also acts as a factor in the shaping
of the future. Since our past, present and future can not be
sharply demarcated, certainly not existentially, the future is in
a way always available in our present.87 History thus has also
future a dimension, though it may remain invisible from the
view, tucked in a fold, as it were, and waiting to be unfolded.
Compared to the past, the future is more open-ended. I may
hate to remember some bad or tragic things that happened to
me. But I can not, strictly speaking, erase out the past events or
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deeds of my life. In relation to the future this question does not

arise at all. I may choose one particular course of action or
another, I may decide to follow a particular course of thought
or another, but in neither case the question of erasure does
arise.88
Although the presence of here and now can not be eliminated
from the account of past, history has to be essentially grounded
on the past. It has to be basically an account of the past; it is the
past that is the real subject matter of history. Since the historian
cannot completely tear himself from the present, some intrusion
of the present in history can not be helped. His apparatus of
interpretation, his methodology and his ideas, will tend to be
contemporary, as will also be his audience. But on that score
he cannot impose the present on the past. He cannot telescope
the present into the past. Interestingly enough, as said before,
nor can he separate the past from the present; it is on the basis
of present evidences and currently available ways of
interpreting those evidences that the historian can possibly infer
or reconstruct the past.... The most important defining trait of
history, then, turns out to be the historians interest in the past
as past, not as dominated by some or other practical
consideration of the present.89
Thus the inseparability of the past, present and future
produces certain problems in the enterprise of history. But all
the problems of the discipline of history do not issue out from
the encroachment of the present and future on it. There is another
aspect that is equally invasive; it is the cultural mediation.
History is embedded in culture.90 The universe of meaning
and significance within which the actors of history as well as
the historian operate is to a very large extent culturally
constituted. Bereft of the cultural context the meaning and
significance of the historical events are not only lost to a very
large extent, but also become susceptible to distortions and
misapprehension. One of the demanding burdens that the
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historian has to bear is that he has to be faithful to the universe

to which the historical event he is studying belongs. Every
age, every culture, every people deserve to be understood in
their own terms. Understanding, not judgement, is the key
concept in all humanistic studies.91 Identification with the
subject matter thus is a principal responsibility of the historian;
the historian is required to make a conscious and determined
effort to cross the barriers of time and culture.
At the same time the historian can not afford not to be
selective. Memory is selective by nature, interest, traits and
orientation influence the selection process. Although one can
play with ones memories up to a point; one can prefer to
remember certain things while forget others, but one can not
totally obliterate ones memory. Nonetheless, the nature of
memory normally is selective. Moreover, when past memory
is committed to writing the question of relevance and
significance become very important conditioning factors. This
inevitably entails selection. And then there is the element of
imagination. Selective memories arrayed according to the
demands of relevance and significance, which are themselves
governed by choice, and illumined by imagination are the
constituents of historical narrative. Imagination opens the door
for creativity to enter historical compositions. While memory
is primarily compulsive, ...imagination may prove interpretative,
creative, and also distortive and manipulative.... But, on
reflection and careful scrutiny it is found that both memory
and imagination, in spite of their diverse capacities, are
unitive.92 This unity flows from the unity of the personality or
the identity of the author. History thus is only a mode of
experience and not the totality of experience.93
Multiple choices being available to the historian means that
history can be written in diverse forms and manners. This
multiplicity does not only include a multiplicity of themes and
problems, but also accommodates multiple points of views on
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the same theme and problem. Obviously, therefore historical

construction is different from scientific construction. Historical
narratives do not bear the same kind or degree of abstraction
as scientific theories or laws. Because of their generality, laws
and theories, the crux of scientific knowledge, are abstract,
more or less and space-time invariant. In brief, science is abstract
and, therefore, in a way paradoxically, its gaze and reach,
compared to historys, go much deeper and farther at the macro
level and are finer at the micro level.94 Historians world, from
that angle, is relatively more particularized. While the
scientists theory is relatively abstract, the historians narrative
is relatively concrete.95 History does not deal with such clear,
stable, well-defined and impersonal objects that lend themselves
to the derivation of higher order laws and theories. If history is
to claim scientific status then it should be able to formulate
such higher order laws and theories that will be able to account
for all sorts of historical events from the point-instant ones to
those that are long enduring, from the micro to the macro.96
But these are neither the aim of history, nor its capabilities.
Similarly, history need not aim for causal explanations of
scientific kind. Unless history is defined or legislated as a
science, I find no compelling reason why it should be required
to offer causal explanation of the events of past. Cause of history
lies within history. It is internal to its own coherent structure.97
Chattopadhyaya here makes an important point; it has pivotal
significance in his formulation. He further adds: To allow
causal incursion into history distorts it beyond recognition.
History can not be, and it does not have to be, reduced to a
natural science. History does involve some ordinary
generalizations using general laws and methods. And, these
generalizations and laws distinguish history from the works of
art or art experiences which are totally individualistic and
particular.99 But these laws and generalizations, as it has been
clarified above, do not bear the character of laws of natural
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sciences. History occupies an area that lies midway between

pure science and pure art.
It can not fairly be called that the nature of history is
scientific; in very many ways it is akin to literature.100 In
content, form and language history is primarily literary in
character. Artistic expositions have as their basic categories
matter or thing, form or structure and content or subject.101
Matter may be generic or specific. Naturally, the generic matter
may be articulated in very many ways, whereas specific matter
lends itself to fewer possible ways of organization.102 History
thus can be organized as a quasi-causal narrative, fictionalized
story and an epic poem. As a form of literature, history tries
to express its theme in words. Words are organized in a
meaningful relation. Meaningfully related words are the main
subject of history. Meanings are both cognitive and evocative
(if appropriately organized). The language of history turns out
to be imagistic and conative. The historian being wedded as
he is to the literary form of expression, takes the liberty of
using the words without defining them. Like the artists, his
language is ordinary.103 This is so because the historians basic
interest is humanistic and thematic. He wants to capture in his
narrative the peculiar traits of the human beings involved in or
who have authored a particular event.104 And, because his
concern is lives of human beings and themes related to human
lives in their particular manifestations and not in any general
abstract law, he uses the tools of ordinary language and
communication. He does not need to resort to either symbolic
expressions or to the precision of mathematical expressions.
While the scientist is mainly concerned with the study and
articulation of the spatio-temporal world of natural process,
the historians world is multi-dimensional and consists of an
interesting blend of facts and fiction.105 In form, style and
presentation history generally shares the characteristics of
fiction. The form and style of presentation often render the
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facts presented assume normative and evocative qualities. The

style and language usually follow the current literary norms
and conventions. And in their intent and flavour the historical
works are often, overtly or covertly, philosophical, reflective,
normative, didactic, etc. The Indian traditional historical works
like the Epics and the puras exemplify these qualities in
abundance: they are history, poetic compositions, fiction,
philosophy, ethics all rolled in one. History also shares another
feature of literature. Both history and literature have for their
audience the general public and they do not demand the kind
of professional expertise on the part of their readers as sciences.
Moreover, while constituting their stuff both literature and
history make use of imagination. Thus both literature and
history are creative constructions; creativity is a feature of
history as well like it is of literature. However, historical
imagination has to take into account the requirements of
historical objectivity or truth-claims of history. History is reconstructive, but this reconstruction presupposes the objectivity
of the elements out of which history is reconstructed.106
The dialogue between the present and the past, which
produces history, does not follow any set type or style. There
are various ways through which this dialogue can take place
and a host of factors ranging from the personal preferences to
cultural modes condition the way the past is looked at and
articulated. It is against this perspective that itihsa mode of
looking at and articulating the past should be viewed.
Prof. Chattopadhyaya has taken the two epics, the Rmyaa
and Mahbhrata, as the representative examples of the itihsa
mode.107 He notes some of the striking features of the two works
that allow us a view of their distinctive character, especially in
the context of modern historical works.108
The feature that immediately attracts attention is the
authorship of the two works. These were not in the conventional
sense works of individual authors. The very names, Vlmik
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and Vysa appear as rather type names than personal names.

Veda Vysa, for example, literally means one who arranged
the Vedas. These two epics seem to have grown over time as
compilations. The putative authors were responsible for creative
compilation and arrangement of an old and a growing tradition.
These books were not products of particular dates; they do not
represent the mind and the outlook of a particular author or
period or even a particular society. Not only temporally but
also spatially, these works embraced a wide expanse. It was
truly Pan Indian in its spread. Moreover, both the vertical and
horizontal reach of the epics was also characterized by a
dynamic quality that seems to have never got frozen. It went
on growing. It was especially true of the Mahbhrata. It was
no exaggerated claim or a mere rhetoric that the Mahbhrata
came to be regarded as the embodiment of Bhratavara itself.
It represented not an individual author, a particular kingdom
or a region, a single theme or an episode, a particular age; it
represented a whole dynamic culture.
Especially with reference to the Mahbhrata, some critics
have noted the lack of thematic unity in the work.109 This
apparent lack of order and symmetry, the juxtaposing of odd
and opposite things, however, seems to carry the subtle flavor
of a higher order or symmetry, the natural and raw symmetry
of an eclectic work.110 It does not matter if this symmetry does
not correspond to the chiseled symmetry of a consciously
produced work of art.111 The Indian epics do not narrate the
development of a single tale. They are in fact a kaleidoscope
of a multihued society reflecting it in and through its changing
times and social mores and customs.112 They encapsulate all
aspects of human life in all its variety and incongruity in both
its universal and individual articulations.113
In the context of this character of the works, the question of
date of composition does not seem too relevant.114 What seems
more relevant is the fact that these works carrying within them
125
generations of varied experiences, accommodating additions

and accretions of different periods and various areas and
peoples should have been able to ingrain themselves in the
heart and mind of the people of this vast country across various
areas and regions and languages and customs.115 These works
embody a delightful fusion of history and literature. A
remarkable union of history consciousness (ithsa cetan) with
literary sense (shitya rasa) gave these works a pervasive
appeal. This lay at the root of the extensive popularity of these
epics.116 The long span of time over which these were
composed, revised or decomposed, adding new themes and
ideas (stories, parables, fables, emerging events, didactic,
religious and philosophical instructions, etc.) to, and shedding
parts from the old compositions, lend them an implicit, but
unmistakable, aitihsika (pro-historical) ambience. After all
whatever pertains to humans represents, directly or indirectly,
their ideas and actions, memories, dreams and dispositions,
social backgrounds and hoped-for utopias.117 Moreover, these
works for a very long period retained a kind of openness about
them and were not closed and finished like the works of
individual writers. Thus they did not shut themselves off from
the continuous reinterpretations according to the demands of
changing times. Different recensions and translations and
adaptations in different regional languages further extended
this commodiousness. And constant communications and
interactions between different social groups created an
atmosphere of common cultural ambience.118 The cumulative
effect of all these created the conditions for the extensive appeal
of these works and their continued hold over popular
imagination.
Idealization, at times on a massive scale, is writ large on the
epics. It is well known that imagination plays an important
role in literary works. In history imagination plays
comparatively a more subdued role, but it remains important
126
nonetheless. As long as imagination does not run riot and creates

chaos, imagination and idealization are not necessarily
impediments to understanding. In fact, imagination creatively
utilized can sharpen and vivify understanding instead of
blocking it. Of course, itihsa, i.e., the epic and the puras,
can not be considered as substitutes for history, in the currently
received sense of the term history.119 Itihsa and history belong
to two different types of works. But such questions as whether
history is more reliable than itihsa are misplaced. For an
understanding of the ideas, institutions and the actions of the
ancient times, the itihsa is a valuable means. The interpretative
apparatus and assumptions in the two are different, but both of
them, itihsa and history are constructions all the same. In the
understanding of past both reality and imagination have their
roles. If it is right to affirm there is no escape from
imagination, it is equally right to affirm there is no escape
from reality.... If this line of argument is admitted, we can not
deny the reality of myths or even shadows.120 Myths too have
their reality and rationality. Our mind does not act in void, it
has certain predisposition acquired through the views and values
we hold. These views and values are composite by nature.
Our mind is simultaneously tradition-bound, rooted in the
present and forward-looking. But because of the inherent
freedom and creativity minds orientation and projection are
neither uniform in character nor identical in content.121
However, Chattopadhyaya believes that our contemporary
notion of history is a product of the milieu that we are living in.
And this milieu is largely conditioned by the modern and
contemporary ideas. And from this point of view the itihsa
notion of past does not feel fully satisfying as they do not answer
our desire for the specifics that we seek in the account of past.
But he is not in favour of subsuming the distinctive mode of
past-consciousness that itihsa represents by the contemporary
model of scientific knowledge. For, that will lead to the blotting
127
out of the difference between the sane role of science and its
scientistic or its reductionist pretension.122 The earlier notions
of history were basically non-cognitive. And they attached a
great deal of value to the role of imagination, entertainment,
propagation and interpretation in the narratives of past.123 It
will not be an unmixed gain to give up the earlier notions of
history altogether in the name of scientific and objective history.
Despite all the tall claims the ideal objectivity will continue to
elude us, for, man can not emulate Gods-eye-view of history
which alone can resolve all temporality, all relativity.124 History
has not been able to attain the status of science and has not
been able to produce the level of abstraction that is necessary
for the formulation of laws in the manner of science. Historian
can only make some generalizations, and this is what they will
continue to do. Unlike scientific explanation, historical
explanation relies on the well understood and implicitly
apprehended general truths.125
VII
If Prof. Chattopadhyaya has dealt in details with the nature of
the discipline of history, particularly in the context of itihsa
mode of knowledge, Prof. Pande has dealt with the nature of
historical process. Prof. Pande in his treatment does not make
any direct reference to traditional Indian understanding of past
or makes any explicit reference to the itihsa mode of
knowledge. Bu the fabric of his formulation is unmistakably
traditional Indian. The primacy that he gives to the intuitive
realization of truth and the role he assigns to it in the generation
of culture and society make it abundantly clear that his point of
view represents Indian ethos. Prof. Pandes treatment of culture
seeks to reinforce and extend and thus restore the relevance of
the ancient and traditional perspective. This exercise of
rehabilitation has not been attempted by taking recourse to
crude archaism. It has been done with sober and reasoned
128
evaluation of the grounds of modernity and scientism. These

qualities lend a unique distinction to Prof. Pandes views. The
views of Prof. Pande deserve to be considered in some details.
Culture is the social expression of value seeking and history is its
process
Human history must in effect aspire after being a spiritual
autobiography of man, a discovery of lost times which is
simultaneously a creative transformation of present, a discovery
of what is hidden in the past experiences of the soul
These two remarks from the Preface of Prof. Pandes The

Meaning and Process of Culture may serve as convenient entry
points to his views on history. The Meaning and Process of
Culture, based on a series of lectures given by him in the
Department of Philosophy, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, in
the late sixties of the last century, contains the most elaborate
statement of his views on culture and history.126 Aspects of gist
of his views have subsequently been given expression to in a
number of other lectures, articles and monographs.127 His
Bharatiya Samaj: Tattvik Aur Aitihasik Vivechan128 comprising
the annual Govind Ballabh Pant Memorial Lectures delivered
in 1991 at Govind Ballabh Pant Social Science Institute,
Allahabad, represents a penetrating analysis of the nature of
society in the context of traditional Indian idea of social
arrangement. Bharatiya Samaj is another of his seminal work,
and should be treated as a companion volume of The Meaning
and Process of Culture. In our treatment of Prof. Pandes views
we have relied mainly on these works.The nature and
significance of history has been a theme with which Prof. Pande
has remained constantly engaged. Aspects of gist of his views
have subsequently been given expression to in a number of
other lectures, articles and monographs. It may also be added
that his views on culture and history may be taken to represent
the very core of Prof. Pandes intellectual thinking and it is
these concerns which are central to his intellectual and academic
129
endeavours. Thus these concerns can be found as colouring

and permeating the amazingly diverse fields of his scholarship
and output.
In the two remarks quoted above two distinct but entwined
formulations about the nature of history may be observed. In
the first formulation where history is called a process, it refers
to history as event. The process signifies a series of
happenings in space and time and weaving, as it were, an order
and a configuration. In this way, history is an observable
phenomenon. In the second remark history is viewed as a
study, an account of what happened in past, an account intent
on understanding and making sense of what had happened.
Thus in the second formulation history is viewed as a discipline.
These two remarks draw our attention to the two usage in which
the expression history is used. History, in the words of Atkinson,
. . . . may stand either for what happened or was done in past
(call this history1) or for the study of it (call this history2) In
the former sense history is the historians subject matter, in the
latter it is the study of it. This division, however, has further
implications than just distinguishing two different ways of
looking at history. In fact, it embodies something of a fissure
in the emerging field of philosophy of history parceling it into
two packages of speculative and analytical philosophy of
history with separate groups of votaries for each. It is important
to note that in Prof. Pandes formulation these two parts have
been woven together into one single matrix.
The second quotation also underlines Prof. Pandes view
on the concern and the role of history as a discipline and also
hints at its methodology. The study of history should be centrally
concerned with mans spiritual enterprise, its role being the
fashioning of the present on the spiritual foundation of the past.
The role of history and the historian is not just undertaking a
journey to the past. It is not a one-way traffic; entering the past
is important but equally important is the return journey. The
130
function of the historian is not just that of an antiquarian, he

ought to play a role in vivifying the present with the knowledge
of history. Since the historian should endeavour to make explicit
the past experiences of the soul, the methodology that underlies
this formulation seems to bear kinship with hermeneutics and
narratives.
Understanding history has to begin with understanding
culture, for history is the articulation of the processual career
of culture. History also articulates the process through which
the transition from culture to cultures takes place. Prof.
Pandes formulation of culture is different from that of the
modern behavioral sciences and social history.129 Behavioral
scientists and modern historians of society take culture as a
form of behaviour characterizing a group of people located in
a certain geographical area or age. Sometimes culture is also
taken to signify the symbolic expressive aspects of the
behaviour of a defined group of people. Such formalist positivist
approaches to culture, according to Prof. Pande, suffers from
an inherent infirmity emanating from the unresolved tension
between the notions of universalism and pluralism that underlie
them. The universalism arises from the belief that implicit in
human nature there is a bed of universality based on rationality
and humanism which make man amenable to science and
technology and to such values as freedom, equality, justice,
welfare, peace, etc. The plurality of cultures is regarded as an
empirically substantiated fact; it is all there for any one to see.
The opposite pulls of universality and plurality have been sought
to be reconciled through the ideas of evolution, development
and progress. The plurality of cultures is thus regarded as
various rungs on a uniform upward ladder. Thus prehistoric
cultures were primitive; the modern Western cultures are more
evolved and progressive than the less dynamic Oriental ones.
Such labels as primitive, evolved, progressive, etc.,
according to Prof. Pande, are expressions more of the article
131
of faith embellishing the notions of modernity itself than

verifiable scientific truths.130 Moreover, it is well known that
the shadow of doubt over the limitless capacity of scientism
appears to be now lengthening ever more and more.
The accepted theoretical domain within which the current
social science disciplines operate constitutes the background
against which Prof. Pande develops his own thesis. Put
differently, it may be said that the prevailing theoretical
universe of social sciences represents the purvapaka of Prof.
Pandes thesis. For the last two centuries, science has established
a hegemonic discourse that has overflowed into practically all
disciplines. And around this discourse and its methodology a class
of disciplines, usually grouped under the label of social or
behavioral sciences, have come into being and have come to
occupy an unchallenged position in our contemporary
understanding and study of society. This development has totally
displaced, in fact, outlawed, the traditional understandings of culture
and society and the grounds of those understandings. The
traditional views of culture and society in the contemporary
academic dispensation have relevance only as historical evidence,
a part of the belief systems of bygone peoples and ages. They are
regarded as totally bereft of any contemporary relevance as an
alternative basis of social organization or even as alternative
tools of analysis for understanding of culture and social reality.
Prof. Pandes work is a plea for the intellectual and academic
reconsideration of the traditional understandings.131
The nature of society is regarded as factual, i.e., a society
is regarded as a product of certain constituent facts. To
understand a society one has just to grasp these facts and their
interrelationships and the basis of the interrelationships. And,
the basis of these interrelationships is again viewed as factual
in characterinterests being their central ingredient. There
are of course a number of views as to how the multiplicity of
interests, often conflicting in character, gets articulated in social
132
setup. But there is hardly any difference of opinion on the point

that a society essentially is a matrix of interests. It is thus natural
that the prevalent social science views the societal facts as valueneutral. In other words, as material for study, social facts are
considered as value-neutral and as amenable to empirical
observation in the same way as the objects of study in the natural
sciences.
The suitability of social science mode for an understanding
of society raises several issues and there are grounds for
misgivings about the validity and utility of the effort to attribute
the character of scientific knowledge to that of society. These
misgivings spring from the fact that man constitutes the object
which is studied in social science. Moreover, human behavior
is not only enormously more complex than the behavior of a
falling stone, but man is also essentially different from a
material body. Here, i.e., in the differing perception of the
essential nature of man, lies the dividing line between the
contemporary social science views and those of Prof. Pande.
In contrast to the current scientific or social scientific view
of man, the traditional view may be counterpoised.132 It may
be remarked here that in delineating the traditional perception,
Prof. Pande relies mainly on the Indian. However, it also needs
to be noted that all old traditions, including the Indian, are
practically unanimous in differing from the materialistic concept
that regards matter as the fundamental entity in the world. Man,
in the traditional view, is not primarily a manifestation of
materiality. It therefore follows that the pursuit of material ends
alone does not reflect the whole of human aspirations and mans
quest for fulfillment. Want and interest represent the physical
and biological needs of men; these by themselves are incapable
of expressing the deeper human urges that spring from the core
of their being. The social organizations or social formations
are not analyzable in terms of conflict, tension and convergence
of interests alone.
133
It is not that the material needs are of no consequence. Artha

and kma are important pursuits (pururtha) in life, but they
are not ends in themselves.133 Not by bread alone has been a
common refrain in all religious traditions. The futility of chasing
fulfillment and perfection in the ever widening and elusive
horizons of economic development, not withstanding the
theoretical possibility of equitable distribution of power and
pelf, is writ large in the very foundational principle of
economicswants are unlimited. The simple truth is that there
is an innate sense of inadequacy, a pervasive feeling of
insecurity, which characterizes the very fact of human existence.
Although a substantial part of the efforts that constitute
modernity is directed towards making man forget this very
fact, the project can not be said to have succeeded. This
pervasive sense comes from an instinctive awareness that life
rests in the shadow of death. There is an enduring sense of
suffering (duhkhabodha) that afflicts human being. The spring
from which this sense of inadequacy wells up in human heart
is not a feeling of deprivation in ordinary sense; it springs up
from a deeper awareness of the limitedness and impermanence
of human existence. This is the real import of the famous
Buddhist assertion sarva duhkha duhkha. The
awareness of the limitation of the earthly existence infuses an
omnipresent pallor of sadness to human life from which man
seeks release.134 To transcend this limitation, to achieve
immortality and limitlessness, have been the deepest yearnings
of man. The attainment of this state has been given various
names like ivaraprpti, amritattva, mukti, moka, nirva,
etc.
It is on these premise that Prof. Pande has grounded his
theory of culture.
The very expression culture contains the notion of
improvement or refinement. And implicit in such notions of
improvement and refinement, particularly in the domain of
culture, there underlies the recognition of human agency and
134
intervention in facilitating the improvement. The world of

culture thus is the world wrought by human beings. The world
of culture thus is distinct from the world of nature. It should,
however, be underlined that Prof. Pande affiliates his idea of
the element of refinement or re-formation of human nature
residing in culture with the Indian notions of saskra, bhvan
and sdhan.
Regarding the fountainhead of culture as a phenomenon and
the ramifications of its course, we may quote a passage from
Prof. Pandes article Culture and Cultures. He writes: Culture
would then be essentially nothing but the tradition of
philosophia perennis, santanadharma or ryamrga, a
universal and perennial but occult tradition of wisdom
(manya, vidy) which has been diversely interpreted and
expressed in different symbolic traditions (gama) of valueseeking (pururtha sdhana, ryaprayea) embodied in
historically given societies or civilizations.135 This passage,
as in a sutra, contains the central elements of his concept of
culture that are relevant to us here.
Philosophia perennis is the fountainhead from which culture
flows. This philosophy of life is actually a vision of life without
afflictions of limitations. This vision, asserts Prof. Pande, is
occult in nature. The transmission of this vision, which is
essentially occult and transcendental, to the temporal world is
effected through the mediation of extraordinary human beings.
These extraordinary men are called prophets, seers, etc. It is an
act of bringing on to the earth and the temporal world what is
divine and timeless. The transmission of this vision and the
process of its dissemination play key roles in the making of a
society because they provide the foundational stuff for its
genesis and development. Moreover, it is this vision, and not
the external form, which continues to be the vital part of a
society. It is the philosophy of life, the Philosophia Perennis,
which creates and nurtures the tradition or the gama that
135
sustains a society.136 The gama or the tradition provides the

nourishment for sustaining the life of a society as well as the
bond that keeps it together. The tradition also gives the society
its personality and its identity. It is not only the vision that is
occult by nature, but also the praxis that is prescribed for
attaining it.137
Philosophia perennis is truly universal in nature, for it is a
philosophy for the entire mankind and is not inhibited by the
time- space differentials of human affairs. It is therefore,
santana. It is also universal in the sense that it gets articulated
in every society. And as it is santana, it is also transcendental.
Now, since culture is located within human affairs and since it
is at the same time transcendental in nature, the starting point
of culture and its course has to be charted from the
transcendental to the human. This transmission of a thing that
is essentially trans-human to begin with from the transcendental
plane to the plane of culture is comparable to the descent of the
Ganga to the earth. The transmission is effected through the
mediation of extra-ordinary human agents like Bhagiratha.
Philosophia perennis has to be naturally occult and spiritual
in character. It is akin to revelatory knowledge. We are
intentionally using the qualifying phrase akin in order to
underline that perennial philosophy or vision does not partake
of the narrow dogma that normally seems to grow around
revelatory creeds. The santanadharma is based on the
spiritual-mystical apprehension of the Absolute by some
specially endowed individuals; it is the articulation of the
envisioned truth in human vocabulary and idiom. This
articulation of the truth automatically, almost inevitably, gets
conditioned by space and time factors. Thus in its expressive
mode and in its communication profile, the articulation of
envisioned truth acquires a local and social countenance. The
seeds of the sprouting of diverse cultures lie here.138
While the articulation of the truth envisioned takes on a
136
symbolical form, it lays a great deal of emphasis on praxis

which lends itself to exposition in clearer terms than the
experience of the envisioning of the truth itself. This leads to
the growth of the tradition (the vidy, the mnya, the
agama).139 The tradition grows both in its corpus of exposition
as well as in its acquisition of a body of followers. All these
threethe envisioning of the truth by the finely tuned seeker,
the exposition of the truth and its praxis, and the acquisition of
a body of followersresult from the perennial yearning of the
soul for transcendence providing them the common ground
for coalescence. And these three in their cumulative effect give
a society its distinctive personality, its weltanschauung, a matrix
of values. This Weltanschauung derives or constitutes itself
from a vision of cosmology that endows life with meaning and
goal in the most fundamental way. Thus it becomes both the
repository and the standard of value. The formation of the
weltanschauung, however, does not take place in logical formal
manner and is therefore not reducible to logical formal
categories. But on that score alone it does not deserve to be
either set aside as something opaque or dismissed as fevered
imagination. The value of the visitation of grand vision beyond
the idiom of logic and analysis suffusing the perception with
an extraordinary and ineffable light has not only been attested
to by spiritual seekers and mystics but also by creative artists
and even scientists.
There can not be a society without a sense of a society. It is
this consciousness, which may be called social consciousness
(smjik bodh) that brings a society into being. The social
consciousness crystallizes around a philosophy of life that is
wider than the mere struggle of existence at the physical and
material level for livelihood and gratification of senses (artha
and kma). The awareness or knowledge of the self
(tmabodha) is the fountainhead from which the social
consciousness flows. The consciousness of the self has several
137
layers. At least two of them, the physical and psychological,

are recognized in modern science too.140 Indian philosophical
systems have consistently been asserting that there is a deeper
layer called tman and that it is the same as the universal self.141
The self-awareness (tmabodha) is thus to be understood in
the sense of the famous saying know thyself (tmna
viddhi). The transcendental vision of the meaning of human
life centers on this notion and the social consciousness arises
from a collective acceptance of this notion. Thus it is not the
convergence of material interests that constitutes the kernel of
a society but a philosophy about the meaning of life. The social
consciousness thus is an embodiment of the traditions of value
that a society builds and inherits. It may be said that the
characteristic feature of the social consciousness is that it knits
the individuals sense of belonging, his sense of the past and
continuity, his idea of duties and obligations, his beliefs and
aspirations into a relatively more durable, yet somewhat
invisible, system of regulations. It may be described as the
omniscient and ever-present conscience (ntarym atm) of
the society that keeps on guiding the individuals about their
ideals, their rights and duties and defines the area of fulfillment
in a life of activity and work.142 It is the inherited traditions that
demarcate one society from another. And the traditions form
around the gama.
gama in its original form is not articulated as a system; its
earliest expression takes place in poetic or mythological
utterances. In its original form it gives complex utterance to
the mystical apprehension of truth in iridescent symbolical
idioms.143 In fact, gama in its original form, that is mnya,
is sanatana (timeless, ahistorical) and is avyakta (unmanifest).
And since the utterances of the seers and prophets are symbolic
expressions of supra-sensual truths, they do not remain
untouched by interpretative endeavors. These utterances should
not be confused with full-scale or systematic expositions
138
they are utterances quivering with suggestive symbols. They

thus remain objects of contemplation and interpretation.144 This
process of interpretation gives rise to a body of statements and
assertions that grow into a tradition. Culture is but another name
of this tradition and society is the physical frame of culture. A
society gets its individuality from the culture it carries. A human
society is distinguishable from, say, a herd of cattle by the fact
that the former is characterized by dharma. The animals too
are sometimes seen forming groups, but that does not entitle
them to be given the name of a society. Even biological kinship
(samaja, i.e., of equal birth) and herd-behavior do not constitute
a society; humanness is its essential attribute. And the distinctive
mark of humanness is dharma. It is the possession of dharma
that distinguishes humans from animals. hara (eating), nidr
(sleep), bhaya (fear), maithuna (sex) men share with animals;
it is dharma which is the special bit of extra that men have.
Bereft of Dharma men are but animals.145 Dharma at the
personal level signifies the ultimate truth, the goal of life, the
knowledge of the self (tmabodha), the dictate of conscience
(viveka-buddhi), etc. But its social countenance takes the form
of a set of regulations (cra, vyavahra) enshrining a set of
values that a society generates from its gama. A society thus
also is a configuration of values.
A society is also a texture of relationships. Unlike the natural
world, the relationships in the social domain do not remain
constant. These relationships pertain to two areas: (1) artha,
which relates to material life and includes economic and political
aspects, (2) dharma, which relates to the ideal life and includes
ethical and spiritual. Although the original source of a truly
fundamental philosophy of life lies in the sphere of vision and
has something of an ethereal quality about it in the beginning,
it starts acquiring a body first in symbolical forms in the
domains of feeling and aesthetics and then it works its way
into more tangible areas of thought and philosophy and finally
139
into the social and political norms and practices and

organizations. Thus culture in Prof. Pandes formulation holds
within its fold a subset which is also sometimes called
civilization. Civilization is the formal and organized social
expression of culture. It is the unity of goal, the goal being the
foundational value sought after, that binds the symbolical and
the formal aspects of society. These formal aspects that
constitutes the civilization, in fact, represent institutionalized
values. One of the implications of Prof. Pandes formulation
is: society or social organization can not be analyzed fully and
properly in functional, behavioral, mechanistic and systemic
terms. Social organization, which is a part of civilization, can
be better understood as embodying values a society strives to
achieve. And from this point of view, civilization and its
component, the social organization are among the most
important fields of study for the historian. Like Hobsbaum ,
history of society is a central concern of Prof. Pande. Only he
does not agree that society should be viewed merely as an
instrument for the satisfaction of mans material needs. It would
also be wrong to construe that Prof. Pande discounts the
importance of economic and material pursuits. He is only
unwilling to concede these pursuits, and the tensions and
conflicts arising from these pursuits, and the physicality of these
tensions and pursuits, the centrality that Hobsbaum gives. Prof.
Pande would rather like to reach out to the vision of the ideal
good around which the structure of society and civilization
develops. According to him three elements are woven in a
seamless texture: (I) institutional structure of a society or
civilization, (ii) system of values as basis of civilization and
(iii) values as preferred ends and means resting on faith and
knowledge. Although conceptually these three can be
distinguished and separated, in their actual existence they are
bound together as in a compound.
There are both civilizational and cultural elements in a
140
society. Science and technology, art and literature, language

and law, are elements of civilization. Culture is the spiritual
and the ethical values that characterize these elements of
civilization and which functions as the internal thread knitting
them. Thus culture is the philosophy of life of a society that
regulates, or aspires to regulate, the relations of interests. The
culture emanates from the societys view of dharma rooted in
its gama. The elements of civilization are relatively cultureneutral and thus can extend to various societies.146 Culture
remains bound to a particular society in the sense that same
culture can not produce different and distinct societies. In fact
culture and society are coterminous. The extension of a culture
would automatically lead to the extension of the concerned
society. It is culture that gives the society its distinctive
personality and identity.147
Culture, civilization and state are distinct entities embodying
successively narrower concepts. Culture reflects the original
universal consciousness (maulika diti) which assumes distinct
forms (rupa bheda) from distinct forms of interpretations
(vykya bheda). All cultures reflect, or endeavour to reflect,
essentially the same vision, the vision of an ideal life. All
cultures thus have the same fundamental urge from which they
originate. Differences arise because of different perceptions
about the ideal life or about what constitutes the ideal life. It is
these differing perceptions that lends each culture its
distinctiveness. In contradistinction to culture, civilization
embodies the organizational setup of a society for meeting
practical ends. A civilization acquires its distinctiveness of
character from situational and technological differences. Like
a sheath, however, it protects and nourishes the culture it
contains. Just as in legal systems the interests of state and the
ends of justice gets intermeshed, in the social systems too the
elements of culture and civilization get intermeshed. It is well
known that state is the political organization of a society.148
141
If culture is regarded as the configuration of a system of

values, then the area in which a particular value system operates
should determine the geographical dimension of the
corresponding culture. In the spread of culture language and
art play key roles. In ancient times, e.g., Sanskrit and Indian
art had spread to Central Asia and South East Asia. These
areas were parts of Indian culture and hence of Indian society.
However, in matters of customs and practices and in
organizational aspects these areas differed from the Indian
mainland. But the customs and practices along with the
organizational aspects, as we have seen, are elements of
civilization and not of culture. Thus a society as a cultural unit
may contain within its bounds more than one civilization or
civilizational components. Similarly, there may be more than
one state functioning within a culture. Thus culture or society
is the basic matrix growing around a philosophy of life. Within
the bounds of a culture there may be more than one civilization
and state. Boundaries of culture, civilization and state are thus
not necessarily coterminous.
A culture is characterized by self-awareness. It has its
distinctive idioms and vocabulary that imbue its signs and
symbols with meaning and purpose. Apprehension of cultural
world is possible only by taking into account the matrix of
awareness from which it proceeds, a matrix which is fashioned
by history and subsists by way of symbolic tradition. A
historian has to gain passage into this symbolic tradition and
follow this tradition down its historical course to have an inside
view of the tradition and the historical course of the tradition.
A coordinated and twofold endeavour comprises the principal
constituents of the historians methodology: (a) researching into
the tradition and interpreting its meaning hermeneutically for
viewing it from inside and (b) viewing and locating it in the
larger context of universal history. A historian thus should be
endowed with both scholarship and empathy; his tools being
142
the hermeneutical skill and judgement of a critical scholar and

the empathy of a literary artist. And it is through these that the
historian can very largely disabuse himself of the subjective
and cultural baggage he is naturally burdened with. The
reconstruction of past world of consciousness through historical
empathy, Prof. Pande notes, is not really in conflict with the
sophisticated methods of empirical research that have been
developed in social sciences. These two methodologies are
not exclusive; they are, in fact, complimentary. Although each
culture has a distinctive idiom of signs and symbols with unique
sensibilities, it is possible for the historian to enter a cultural
world even if he is not a native of the concerned culture through
scholarship and empathy. Just as it is possible to learn a foreign
language and achieve a degree of rapport with the cultural
universe of a foreign language, it is possible for a historian to
study and understand an alien culture. Thus cultures in Prof.
Pandes formulation are not totally closed and impenetrably
self-contained system completely defying inter-cultural
communication, as in Spenglers.
Prof. Pandes views on history at various points may remind
one of some other thinkers. His emphasis on culture as a unit
of historical study, for example, may seem close to Spengler,
Toynbee, Sorokin, etc. But if there are resemblance in certain
aspects, there are also vital differences. We have already noted
that Prof. Pande does not consider culture as so completely
insular as to preclude the possibility of inter-cultural
communication and understanding. A more significant
difference is that Spenglers understanding of culture is
biological, Prof. Pandes is spiritual. Unlike Spengler and
Toynbee, Prof. Pande is not centrally concerned with charting
the path of rise and decline of various cultures as distinctive
organisms. Similarly, Prof. Pande does not share Sorokins
sociological predilection of drawing typological distinctions
between various kinds of cultures. He is more interested in
143
situating at the center of history mans universal yearning for

spiritual fulfillment.
Concerning historical understanding his ideas remind one
of Diltheys application of hermeneutics to it.149 He also shares
some of the concerns of the historians of mentality. Of late,
however, the history of mentality is showing sings of becoming
more and more interested in deviant behavior or becoming mere
intellectual history.150 One may also perhaps add the names of
Croce and Collingwood to the list betraying resemblance to
Prof. Pande.151 However, it needs to be underlined that some
elements of Prof. Pandes views in their individual profiles
may seem to bear similarity to those of many a other thinkers,
but these are only individual elements in an integrated view of
history. And it is the integration of the various elements into a
texture of coherence that gives a view its strength and appeal.
These elements therefore should be seen and understood in
their proper perspectives as parts of a whole and not detached
for the sake of comparisons per se.
In view of its contemporary practice, Prof. Pandes
interpretation of history is likely to produce doubt about its
feasibility and misunderstanding about its nature. To take up
the latter first, some historians of today, raised as they have
been in the intellectual climate dominated by empirical social
sciences and socialistic doctrines, may find the concern with
the spiritual and the cultural not palatable enough for their taste
and contend that history has been posited in a rarified plane.
The more militant historians, especially in the charged political
atmosphere in our country today, may even regard Prof.
Pandes formulation as subversive. It hardly needs to be
underlined that sober history ought to have inherent substance
and strength so as not to be tossed to and fro by the changing
winds of contemporary politics. But even if we set aside the
contemporary political concerns and ideological preferences,
the issue of the focus of historical study remains important and
144
has to be addressed. No meaningful study of history is possible

without a clear idea about what it should centrally deal with. A
proper appreciation of the importance of this issue would
considerably help in clearing the ground of possible
misunderstanding.
The engaging historicist ideal of Ranke to narrate what
actually happened has long been given up as an unattainable
ideal and is now looked upon more as a figure of speech than
a practical guide. A historian has to be inevitably selective;
everything that could be potentially included can not, in fact,
be accommodated. The rejection involved here is not the same
as what is done on the basis of unreliability. What is unreliable
does not have the potentiality to be included; it is a non-starter.
The selection that we are referring to is one of conscious choice
and not a mechanical device. It involves discriminatory
judgement of relative significance among a host of acceptable
material, all of which can not be accepted for want of relevance
or space or because of intractability. As the number of variables
keep on increasing, there is a corresponding increase in the
strain on manageability till it reaches the bursting point. The
strengthening and refinement of techniques and methods may
widen the area of manageability and push the bursting point
further, but the bursting point can not be eliminated; it remains.
Thus a historian has to select some areas or aspects. He can
not include all. Even within the chosen area, the historian has
to be selective; he can not include all. Selection is the inevitable
lot of the historian; he can not escape it. The notion of totality
in total history is not totality as physical fact; it is rather an
ability to create an ambience of totality.152 The notion is not
factual; it is suggestive. It is the suggestive ability of the narrative
that gives the total history its content of totality and not totality
as a fact.
The point that we wanted to make is that the idea of
significance plays a pivotal role in the writing of history. What
145
is significant is included in history in preference to what is not

significant. There is of course no objectively defined and
universally accepted basis of determining what lends
significance to a thing, but it is generally agreed that significance
has more to it than individual whims or fancy. And once the
notion of significance is let in, it would inevitably bring in its
train the whole gamut of issues ranging from the essence of
man to the meaning and goal of human life. And in this context
it becomes necessary to move into areas beyond the satisfaction
of mans biological needs and drives. It has been consistently
contended that biological needs and drives are traits common
to human being as well as other animals. Thus these can not be
considered as his distinctive characteristic.153 Even in the
socialistic formulation of history, the goal is a condition of
perfect harmony where the state has withered away and the
society has been set free and rendered unencumbered from the
pressures of material needs affording space for higher pursuits.
All the human pursuits can not be assigned equal status.
Unless human life is rendered devoid of a goal or center and is
made bereft of meaning and direction, a hierarchical ordering
of human pursuits is unavoidable. Thus logically there is room
for only one human pursuit that has the endowments to be the
end or the goal of human life; the rest can only be its means.
And even as means, all can not have equal importance. Thus
artha, kma and dharma are all means for the attainment of
moka. But even among the means dharma is more important
than artha and kma. The means are not unimportant; they are
highly important and are essential aids like vehicles navigating
a terrain. But the vehicles are not the destination; they only
help in reaching there. The difference between vehicles and
destination can not be sublimated.
One of the highly interesting aspects of Prof. Pandes
formulation is the interrelationship of value, culture, society
and civilization. Normally, culture is regarded as the product
146
of a society and society is considered to be the primary or the

original phenomenon and culture as a kind of secondary
creation of the society. This view looks upon society as the
cause and culture as its effect. Prof. Pande inverses this
relationship. Culture is not created by society; it is the other
way round. It is culture that brings society into being. It thus
follows that a society is not a natural organism. It is not a
biological entity that is endowed with an innate life force as in
Spenglers theory. A society is also not just a human group
engaged in the task of production and distribution. Any
collection of human beings does not automatically qualify it to
be designated as a society. It is only when a human group
coheres around a philosophy of life based on a system of values,
it becomes a society. The philosophy of life based on a system
of values constitutes a culture, which in its turn calls the society
into existence. It must be added that in Prof. Pandes view the
values are essentially moral values. Neither culture nor society
is a given. They are created. Borrowing Vicos terminology
culture and society can be counted as factum.
An attractive dimension of Prof. Pandes formulation is its
liberal spirit. Since culture is a vision of life of moral and
spiritual fulfillment expressed through a tradition embodying a
system of values, any number of communities may embrace it.
A society in Prof. Pandes formulation does not have to be a
monolith. It does not demand an all-encompassing conformity;
it only asks for sharing a certain core values and not for
conversions. While a societys cultural personality, in this
formulation, will wear a degree of distinctiveness and a certain
amount of individuation, it leaves ample free space for the
existence of plurality of customs, conducts and organizational
diversities. Thus a society as a vehicle of a culture can contain
within its fold a number of political communities and
civilizations. Such a liberal concept appears particularly
attractive and relevant in the context of the present state of
147
world with its rising tides of narrow ethnicism. Moreover, in

his theory there is nothing that would negate the possibility of
the growth of a global culture based on a uniform system of
values derived from the spiritual and moral essence of man. It
is here that the value of a traditional culture, especially Indian
culture, lies.
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V. S. Pathak, op.cit.
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Carins, The World Press, Calcutta 1977, pp. 59- 92.
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Significance of Moral Values in Human History, Bimal Krishna
Matilal, KarmaA Metaphysical Hypothesis of Moral
Causation in History both in Contemporary Indian Philosophers
of History, ed. Mahadevan and Cairns, pp. 115-134, 235-247.
We want to clarify that our use of the expression Indian attitude
to history should not be construed as either parochial or
apologetic. We do not subscribe to the view, which seems to be
quite widespread now, that things Indian, in the areas of thought
and ideas, are culture-bound and have validity only for India of
a bygone age. We want to assert that the Indian attitude to history,
in many of its aspects, is India-specific only in its distinctive
mode of thinking and articulation but has universal validity.
See below.
Contemporary Indian Philosophers of History, ed. T. M. P.
Mahadevan and Grace E Carins, The World Press, Calcutta 1977,
pp. 59-92.
Swami Adiswarananda, Philosophy of History: The Hindu
View, T. M. P. Mahadevan, Time and The Timeless and V.
V. Deshpande, Itihasa and Purana in Hindu Purusartha Vidyas
in Contemporary Indian Philosophers of History ed. by
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A different profile of Christian concept of history is depicted

by Christopher Dawson, Dynamics of World History.
Adiswarananda, op.cit.p. 28
Adiswarananda, op.cit., p. 29
Adiswarananda, op.cit., pp. 37-38
ibid.
Adiswarananda, op.cit., pp. 41-42
Mahadevan, Time and The Timeless in Contemporary Indian
Philosophers of History, ed. Mahadevan and Cairns, pp. 203232
Mahadevan, Time and The Timeless, p. 205
ibid.
R. G. Collingwood quoted by Mahadevan, Time and The
Timeless, p. 206
ibid.
Collingwood quoted by Mahadevan, op.cit., p. 207
Bradley, Appearance and Reality, quoted by Mahadevan,
op.cit.p. 211
Mahadevan, op.cit., p. 212
Maitri Upaniad, VI.15, quoted by Mahadevan, op.cit., p. 21
Mahadevan, op.cit., pp. 214-15
Alexander, Space, Time, and Deity, 2 vols. and Lewis Mumford,
The Conduct of Life cited by Mahadevan, op.cit., p. 217
ibid.
Mahadevan, op.cit., pp. 230-31
See above note 7
V. V. Deshpande, op.cit., p. 139
Deshpande, op.cit., p. 161
ibid.
Deshpande, op.cit., pp. 161-166
Deshpande, op.cit., p. 165
40.
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149
Dhirendra Mohan Datta, My Philosophy of History: The

significance of Moral Values in Human History in
Contemporary Indian Philosophers of History, ed. Cairn and
Mahadevan, pp. 116-34
Datta, op.cit., p.120; See also G. C. Nayak Evil and the
Retributive Hypothesis, Delhi 1993.
Datta, op.cit. pp. 123-24
Datta.op.cit., pp. 125-26
Datta, op.cit.,, pp. 129-31
The significance of the yuga theory and cyclical time have
been discussed above in Part I
Datta,op.cit., p. 134
Bimal Krishna Matilal, Karama A Metaphysical Hypothesis
of Moral Causation in History in Cairns and Mahadevan ed.
Contemporary Indian Philosphers of History, pp. 235-247
Matilal, op.cit., p. 245
Matilal, op.cit., p. 247
ibid.
J. N. Mohanty, Philosophy of History and its Presuppositions
in Cairns and Mahadevan ed. Contemporary Philosophers of
History, pp. 251- 262
Mohanty, op.cit., pp. 254-55
Mohanty, op.cit., p. 255
Mohanty, op.cit., p. 256
Kalidas Bhattacharya, Meaning and Significance of Social
Revolution and of the Idea of Progress in Hegelian, Marxian
and Indian Philosophy of History in Contemporary Indian
Philosophy of History, ed. T. M. P. Mahadevan and Grace E.
Cairns, pp. 61-92
He parameterizes the notion of revolution as tattvntara
parima.
Bhattacharya, op.cit., p. 89
Bhattacharya, op.cit., p. 87
ibid.
Collingwood, The Idea of History, pp. 59-60 (Paperback
Edititon)
See above, Part II, Section II
See supra part I, section III
150
63.
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86.
Pathak was writing in the early nineteen sixties.

Pathak, op.cit., p. 30.
Pathak, op.cit., p. 27.
Pathak,op.cit., pp. 28-29, 31, 46-48, 135, etc. Prof. Pathak has
taken these stages in the development of the story from the
theories of dramatic literature of ancient India.
Pathak, op.cit., pp 28-29. Navjyoti Singh has developed and
elaborated the ideas of Pathak and bound them into a cohesive
theoretical framework, Nature of Historical thinking and
Aitihya: Problem of Significance in Studies in Humanities and
Social Sciences, vol.,X. No.2 Winter 2003, Indian Institute of
Advanced Study, Shimla, pp.1-28. I have, to a large extent,
followed Navjoytis formulation in my discussion of Pathaks
point of view.
For example, the benediction at the end of the Mricchakatikam
Nasvjyoti, op.cit., pp. 1-2.
Hegelian or Marxist, or for that matter any other school of
historical interpretation, look for some invariant version of
human nature or ultimate telos.
Navjyoti Singh, op.cit., pp. 10-12.
Navjyoti Singh, op.cit., p. 7.
Published by the Centre for Studies in Civilizations, New Delhi.
We have used the 2003 edition.
This is how Prof. Chattopadhyaya himself evaluates the central
statement of his arguments, The Ways of Understanding the
Past, p.IX., p. 134ff.
Chattopadhyaya, op.cit., p. 33.
Chattopadhyaya, op.cit., pp.1, 10.
87.
88.
89.
90.
91.
92.
93.
94.
95.
96.
97.
98.
99.
100.
101.
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103.
104.
105.
106.
107.
108.
109.
110.
111.
112.
113.
114.
115.
116.
117.
118.
151
Chattopadhyaya, op.cit., p. 4, cf. pp. 161-63.

Chattopadhyaya, op.cit., p.8; cf. pp..135-37.
Chattopadhyaya, op.cit., p. 33; cf. pp. 136, 138.
ibid.
ibid.
Chattopadhyaya, op.cit., p. 11-12.
ibid.
ibid.
ibid.
ibid.
Chattopadhyaya, op.cit., pp. 13-14.
He also refers to the Puranas and some other forms of historical
literature such as gatha, but it is the epics that he mainly focuses
on.
Chattopadhyaya devotes practically the entire chapter Itihsa
and Epics to the enumeration and elucidation of these features,
op.cit., pp. 22-59.
Chattopadhyaya, op.cit., pp. 26-27; cf. Sri Aurobindo quoted
by Chattopadhyaya, op.cit., pp. 55-56.
Cf. the views of Tagore in Rmya Katha in Prachin Sahitya,
complete the ref.
ibid
Chattopadhyaya, op.cit., pp. 27, 29.
152
119.
120.
121.
122.
123.
124.
125.
126.
127.
128.
129.
130.
131.
132.
133.
134.
135.
136.
Chattopadhyaya, op.cit., pp. 37, 40.

Chattopadhyaya, op.cit., p. 90ff.
Chattopadhyaya, op.cit., p.118. See the entire chapter under
the title History as Science: Indian Context, pp. 100-132.
The lectures were later published in book form under the title
The Meaning and Process of Culture. In the present article we
have used the second edition published in 1989 by Raka
Prakashan, Allahabad, in 1989.
Bharatiya Parampara ke Mula Svara, New Delhi 1982; An
Approach to Indian History and Civilization, BHU, Varanasi,
1985; Foundations of Indnain Culture, vols I & II, Delhi 1990
are some of the more important books, and the article Culture
and Cultures in the Journal of Indian Council of
PhilosophicalResearch, vol. 11, 1993-94, pp.41-61 that may
be mentioned in this connection.
Published in 1994 under the auspices of G.B. Pant Social Science
Institute, Allahabad by National Publishing House, Daryaganj,
Newdelhi.
The Meaning and Process of Culture, p. 2ff.
Culture and Cultures, p. 46.
It is of course easy to brand this as obscurantism and hang it
by giving it such a name. But in the intellectual arena prejudice
should not normally be allowed to prejudge an issue before
giving due hearing to the case.
The view about the nature of the fundamental constituent of the
world appears to be undergoing some fundamental change in
the current scientific perception. It appears that the notion of
inert material substance is changing and is veering to the
traditional oriental notion of conscious substance as the
fundamental entity.
The Meaning and Process of Culture, p. 5.
Vision (vidya), praxis (sadhana), tradition (agama), structure
137.
138.
139.
140.
141.
142.
143.
144.
145.
146.
147.
148.
149.
150.
153
of norms and principles of practice (dharma and niti) constitute

the underlying basis of a culture or a distinctive marcro-society.,
Culture and Cultures, p.42; cf. Culture and Cultures, pp.
53-56. Modern thinkers too recognize the importance of ideology
for the formation of cultural personalities. In fact, science in its
form as scientism is fast becoming an ideology and is trying to
supplant all older beliefs.
So culture may be described as an order of values, which derives
from transcendental wisdom and its praxis and thus aspire after
universality but is actually limited by manifesting upadhis,
historic conditions and barriers of communication., Culture
and Cultures, p. 59.
Bharatiya Samaj, p. 23.
tm of course can not be an object of direct perception; it can
not be shown as a cow can be by taking it by horns, Bharatiya
Samaj, p. 24.
Thus while science and technology are inevitable end universal
elements, they occupy different places in the different traditions
of culture. At the same time, since science and technology deal
with a common objective reality, their symbolism easily crosses
cultural frontiers and this fact again enhances their universality.,
Bharatiya Samaj, pp. 36-39.
Patrick Gardiner, ed. Theories of History, New york, 1967
(Eighth Printing), pp. 211-225; Richard Harvey Brown, History
and hermeneutics: William Dilthey and the dialectics of
interpretive method in Structure, Consciousness, and History.
Ed. Richard Harvey Brown and Stanford M. Lyman, Cambridge
University Press, 1978, pp. 38-52.
Robert Darnton, The history of mentalites : Recent writings on
revolution, criminality, and death in France, in Structure,
154
Consciousness, and History, ed. Richard Harvey Brown and

Stanford M Lyman, pp. 106-138.
151. For succinct accounts of the views of Croce and Collingwood,
Patrick Gardiner, ed. Theories of History, pp. 225- 242, 249262.
152. David A. Bell, Total History and Microhistory: The French
and Italian Pradigms in A Companion to Western historical
Thought, ed. Lloyd Kramer and Sarah Maza, Blackwell
publishers, Oxford, 2002, pp.262-276. The article by Bell
focuses on how the old Annales ideal of total history exemplified
in the works of old masters like Marc Bloch, Lucien Febvre,
etc., and especially of Fernand Braudel, came to be restricted in
scope in the works of their successors like Le Roy Ladurie. It is
noteworthy that Braudel himself seems to have selected a
defined scope for his historical canvas, see Fernand Braudel,
On History, tr. Sarah Matthews, University of Chicago Press,
1980.
153. See above note 145.
Epilogue
Narrative of Past: Memory and Significance

It is commonly agreed upon that history is a narrative of human
past. Man occupies the centre of history. From this point of
view history is a deeply humanistic subject. Humanism here,
however, should not be seen as signifying an imperious sway
of man over the world where he has his being or even over the
destiny of his own life merely because man happens to be a
special kind of biological organism. It is humanistic in the sense
that man constitutes the basic subject matter of history. And
this fact that man constitutes the basic subject matter of history,
distinguishes history from certain other disciplines like geology,
paleo-botany, paleo-zoology, etc. which also deal with past.
History is centrally concerned with the past of man. In its
account of human past, history does often move to areas beyond
the strictly human world and deal with natural world, but it
deals with it so far as it impinges on the human affairs.
The term history is also sometimes used to signify the actual
past and not just the description or account of past. However,
the difference between the actual past and the account of past
can not be pushed beyond a point. The difference remains
predominantly perceptual. On account of the nature of time
and the inextricable relationship between time and change, the
past as a bodily entity does not exist. What remains is its
memory. And the articulation of the memory can not but take
a descriptive form. History thus, whatever may be its focus, is
basically an account of past.
There are two principal ingredients that go into the making
of this account. These are memory and significance. All past
accounts, we have emphasized above, are based on memory
data. Memory constitutes the basic resource of historical study.
158
The form that the historical study recourses to is narrative. The

positivist assertion that the historical mode of knowledge shares
scientific character has fallen into disfavor. History does not
exemplify scientific mode of knowing, it represents narrative
mode; history essentially tells story. However, this story is based
on memory and not on imagination. History is not an imaginary
tale; it is not a kath, it is itihsa. It narrates what has happened
(iti ha sa). Lionel Trilling observed that while history describes
what has happened, fiction describes what might have
happened. Truth claims of history and fiction do not coincide,
but in some respects they do overlap. Fiction does not have
facts in the ordinary sense as its basis, but it does not necessarily
do violence to the demands of reality and thus can claim some
order of factuality.
Historical narrative does not, in fact it can not, aim at the
replication of past. History is representational. The decision as
to what is represented is conditioned by the notion of
significance. Anything and everything that takes place can not
be included in history. History necessarily has to choose and
the choice depends on what is considered as important. As
memory is the fundamental resource of history, there is a natural
and automatic element in the choice. The holding capacity of
memory is limited by nature and this sets a natural limit to the
field of choice. Apart from this natural choice, a further round
of choice also takes place, which is more discretionary and
judgmental than the natural one. It is this later round of choice
that reflects the notion of historical significance. It is only that
which is considered as significant is chosen to represent the
past. The account of what has happened, in contradistinction
to what has taken place, is the same as the account of what has
been and continues to be significant. Itihsa is a narrative of a
universal paradigm. It is not just ordinary memory of past, it is
the memory of memorable events.
Epilogue
159
Memory once it steps beyond the realm of the lives of

individuals can survive only in the form of narratives. Collective
memory is articulated memory and the articulation has to be
more than in the form of disparate statements. It takes the form
of narrative and it essentially contains a story. A narrative
consists of a collection of statements, it has an internal unity. It
is a body of codified and significant statements. As a matter of
fact, narration itself is an act of signification. It does this through
a process that can be described as summation. Every act
involves countless activities, movements, repercussions,
reactions, etc. Every act thus has innumerable dimensions to it
all of which are not even immediately perceivable. Descriptive
labels are attached to the acts that help us in their cognition.
The attaching of such descriptive labels is also an exercise in
summation. And, the summation other than helping as a
cognitive apparatus also performs the job of signification. A
simple expression as walking, for example, summarizes the
countless activities and movements of the molecules in the body,
the activation of millions of atoms on the surface of the earth
because of the pressure exerted by the moving feet. Moreover,
this expression also indicates what constitutes the significant
essence of those countless activities of atoms, molecules and
tissues, and muscles, etc. This significance is captured in the
descriptive label walking. It is needless to emphasize that
this construction of significance has relevance for the human
world.
There are different levels and orders of significance and these
levels can be arranged in a scale of higher order of significance.
This scale moves upward from the physical and biological
towards purposive and intentional to the moral and universal.
Thus the expressions lifted, he lifted his bow, and Rama
lifted his bow for the protection of dharma are summations of
significance of different levels. The hierarchy of ever-higher
order of summation has to reach towards the universal paradigm
160
of justice and peace. And it is this universal paradigm that really

constitutes the proper subject matter for history.
It is perhaps necessary to reiterate that the question of
historical significance has to be distinguished from the notion
of interest. Interest, either from the point of view of individuals,
or of groups or even of larger units like society, nation, etc.,
remains entangled in the domain of conflict. Interest has a
natural tendency to clash with other interests or interests of
others. Thus it remains hemmed in the arena of conflict.
Therefore, what may appear as significant purely from the point
of view of interest can not be considered as fully or indubitably
significant; at best it can be significant in a partial and limited
way. Now, if history is a significant account of past, it has to
aspire to reflect that which is of universal and undisputed
significance. Ideal history should be an account of harmony,
peace and justice. Harmony, peace and justice are universal
not only because they transcend localization, they are also
universal because they do not change with the change of time.
One of the major problems of the modern notion of history
springs from its refusal to sort out the problem of change and
invariance. Moreover, the modern notion of history seems to
emphasize differences, discord and conflict. It seems as if
history refuses to leave behind the area of conflict and move
ahead into the area of harmony and justice.
Perception of Past: Change and Invariance
History, looked at either as a process or as an account of past,
is basically a quest; it is a quest for significance. The enterprise
of making sense of the past has had a ubiquitous presence in
all human societies across all climes and ages. This urge to
understand the past occupies a major part of the consciousness
of man and his endeavours. History consciousness, in some
form or other, is ingrained in the very nature of man, for,
without this consciousness human life would have been a mere
Epilogue
161
biological existence of feeding, sleeping, fear and procreation

(hra nidr bhaya maithundi). It is history consciousness
that really makes a genuine social life possible. Man derives
his identity, his sense of belonging, his aspirations, his sense
of direction and purpose from this consciousness. It is the past
and the memory of the past which generates the order that is so
very necessary for a purposeful life. All knowledge, all
experience emanates from the past. To be human is to be
historical. Everybody has to have some knowledge of history;
without this knowledge it would be impossible for us to lead
our normal lives. Carl Becker put it very effectively. To become
bereft of all knowledge of history is to be a lost soul indeed.
I suppose myself, for example, to have awakened this morning
with loss of memory. I am all right otherwise; but I cant
remember anything that happened in the past. What is the result?
The result is that I dont know who I am, where I am, where to
go, or what to do. In short, my present would be unintelligible
and my future meaningless.
History deals with the past. It is the past that is the real subject
matter of history. But it can not be the past for the sake of past.
In fact, such a proposition as past for the sake of past is a
mere rhetoric; it is a chimera. All past is apprehended from the
vantage point of the present. There is no other way of
apprehending it. Thus the present can not be eliminated from
the understanding of past. The presence of present is an
inevitable element in the cognition of past. But in the
discernment of past the present ought not to be an intrusive
element. The present is only the ground for the view of the
past and not the view itself. Historical account can not be a
back projection of the present and the present can not be allowed
to become an obstruction in the viewing of the past. An
uncontaminated perception of the past without the alloy of the
present perhaps does not exist, but the view of the past can not
be the same as the view of the present. It is the past that forms
162
the primary view. The present being the ground from which
the view is obtained will condition to an inevitable extent the
limits of the view, but it can not constitute the view itself. The
grafting of the present on the past is not historical understanding.
History is primarily and predominantly an account of past.
The course and operation of change find particularly strong
articulation in the composition of past. Temporality is a special
feature of the composition. The present and the future also
reflect temporality but that reflection is not as vivid as it is in
the case of past. The temporality characterizing the present
and the future can be apprehended mentally, through logical
deduction, but the temporality in the present and future does
not have the same kind of corporeality that it manifests in the
case of past. Past thus is a characteristic repository of change.
As an account of past the function of history is therefore
considered as particularly related with the depiction of the
process of change. The generally accepted idea of history is
that it should give voice to the passage of change that had been
occurring in the lives of men from its hoary beginnings to its
contemporary expression. From this point of view, it may be
contended that the business of history is the depiction of the
ephemeral nature of the phenomenal world including the affairs
of men.
However, there is an obvious danger in overplaying the
element of change in history. If history is thought to deal merely
with change then its depiction will lose all meaning and would
become a pointless exercise. If everything keeps on changing
incessantly, if nothing lasts what is the point in charting it? It
will amount to a depiction of a continuous drift, of a nonstop
movement that does not lead to anything and never reaches
anywhere. Historical process then would be a futile toil like
that of Sisyphus, here condemned to an unending journey in
which he moves on and on and on never reaches anywhere.
Such a totally nihilist view is hard to digest.
Besides the underlying utterly nihilist philosophy, there is a
Epilogue
163
more serious reason why such a view of unmitigated change

can not be accepted. The notion of an unrelieved succession
of changes with nothing abiding would leave no scope for the
comprehension of anything. It will shutoff all possibility of
understanding or perceiving the past, there would be no link
between the present and the past. With everything lying
separated, everything cut off from everything else, no
connection can be established between things and thus no
comprehension whatever will be possible. Even the most
extreme ksanikavada has to posit some stable entity, even if it
has to do it at the trans-phenomenal level. No concept of history
can sustain purely on the basis of the notion of change. Historys
basic postulate is that past can be perceived. Without this
postulate history as a discipline will cease to exist. History thus
is predicated on the assumption that besides the fact and process
of change, there lies an area that is not affected by change. If
history deals with the variants, it also deals with the invariant.
Moreover, the change itself can not qualify to be counted as
the invariant, the invariant has to be located somewhere outside
the change.
It is on the issue of identification and location of the invariant
that the various Western schools of historical interpretation differ
from each other. The Christian, the Idealist and the Marxist
differ in their concept of the invariant while agreeing on the
format and features of historical dynamics. All these schools
believe that the historical process gradually but inexorably
moves forward to a given goal of perfection through a series
of conflicts between opposite forces. In these respects they
agree with each other. Their difference lies in their differing
formulations of the goal and the invariant element that provides
the driving force behind the historical movement. For the
Christian it is the establishment of the city of God and will of
God that represent the goal and the invariant respectively.
Similarly, for the Idealist the attaining of the stage of perfect
164
self-realization and the spirit represent the goal and the driving
force, while for the Marxist these are the classless society and
the mode of production respectively.
The Christian, the Idealist, the Marxist all posit the notion of
progress and its inevitability. The idea of progress, even after
being fortified by the idea of inevitability attached to it, can not
fully release itself from the grip of temporality. Any process of
graduation remains a subject to the course of time and
automatically partake of change. Progress really belongs to
the domain of change. Moreover, the notion of progress in the
context of history inevitably leads to the point where all history
has to end, where all history has to freeze, as it were. It leads to
a curious and paradoxical situation. The idea of progress entails
the achievement of a final goal. The theories of progress,
particularly in the Idealist and Marxist formulations, visualize
the state of perfection as the one where time will continue to
operate but will not affect the human life, men will not be
required to pursue any ideal or to strive for it. The Marxist
commentary on this point, for instance, has sought to meet this
objection by saying that after the classless society has been
achieved men being unburdened from the pressure of economic
exploitation and tension will be free to achieve self realization.
In that case, however, the real invariant in history can not be
located in the mode of production. The economic interpretation
of history will then be rendered as applicable to a small segment
of history, that is, up to the establishment of the classless society
and not to the whole of it. It will be small both in terms of
temporal length as well as in terms of significance. Human
history will be left to pursue other distant goals like spiritual
fulfillment. The goal of history then will have to be relocated
in a non-material domain. It seems that the problem of the
freezing of history within the theory of progress can be
circumvented by either positing different grades of millennia
or by putting the state of perfection at an unreachable distant
Epilogue
165
future. But by doing so the very force of the idea of progress

will have to be surrendered. Progress then will lose all its
significance.
History therefore can not afford to remain locked up in the
domain of the ephemeral, of the changing and the brittle (ksara),
it has to deal also with the stable, the invariant (aksara). Yet,
the invariant can not also be located in some trans-historical
sphere; it has to be located within the human past.
Itihsa and History
Itihsa in contrast to history appears to face the question of
invariance more steadfastly. It does not set great store by the
depiction of mere change. What is valuable and worth
remembering and worth recording is not the world of change
and mutation. That which comes into existence merely to pass
away is fated to disappear whatever may be the effort to
preserve it. In fact, the very effort is misplaced; it is stillborn.
The futility and barrenness of such efforts are the stuff that
tragedy is constituted of. History, taking its birth in Greece in
the midst of not too hospitable surroundings, seems to have
retained the Greek fascination for the tragic. Itihsa on the
other hand celebrates not the wastage of efforts, but its
fulfillment. The terrain of conflict thorough which the efforts
and endeavors of human being have to traverse must finally
reach the shores of fulfillment; the seed that is planted in the
soil must bear fruit. The overpowering sense of wastage that
the Greek tragedy leaves did not find much favour with the
itihsa narratives in India.
Itihsa narrative basically charts a movement from the
beginning (prrambha) to accomplishment (phalgama), from
seed to fruition. A story that does not traverse this whole course
is not a complete story; it is an aborted story, a story that goes
astray. Such a narrative is a barren story, a fruitless exercise
devoid of any real value. And, a barren story can not be the
166
proper subject of itihsa. Whatever is not valuable and

significant is not historical. It is not that Itihsa does not
recognize conflict and difficulty in the path of the
accomplishment of the goal. Conflict and difficulty are, in fact,
the very driving force, as it were, of itihsa. It is the conflict
and difficulty that makes the triumph over them truly
memorable. Itihsa is not a fairy tale of all smooth; it is the
story of the rough and smooth, the smooth being the final
outcome of the roughs. The seed that drives forward to fruition
is planted in the soil of this earth and it has to labor its way
forward through this soil. It is therefore not the everyday story;
it is not the story of everyday happening; it is a very special, a
very extraordinary story, a narrative of past which gives the
intimation of eternal paradigm (santana dharma). It is the
saints, the pure souls, who envision this paradigm and articulate
it, and it is the great men who act this paradigm out in their
actions and deeds. Itihsa is the narrative (khyna) of these
deeds.
It may appear that there is a kind of linearity embedded in
itihsa. However, this linearity has to be distinguished from
the linearity that is generally posited in the current concept of
history and its outcome the notion of progress. The linearity in
itihsa is the linearity of the narrative structure or the linearity
embedded in an action or a cluster of actions driving forward
to self-fulfillment. This linearity does not have anything to do
with the notion of progress characterizing the entire course of
human history. Itihsa being the narration of what actually is
an eternal paradigm repudiates any notion of continuous
progress. Because the paradigm is eternal, it has a changeless
quality in it and thus it can not accommodate the idea of
progress or the concept of a continuous linear change. Moreover,
the larger conceptual framework of the temporal process that
was current in early India was of cyclical character. It was
within the thought climate where the cyclical theory of
Epilogue
167
succession of yugas held sway that the concept of itihsa had

developed. The idea of progress thus is totally alien to the nature
and environs of itihsa mode of thinking.
There are a number of other differences between itihasa
and the current notions of history. History with its emphasis
on empirical facts considers everything that happens as suitable
for inclusion within its ambit. All happenings, according to it,
are potentially historical. Of course, the historian has to make
selections, for everything can not be included. Had it been
possible to include everything, everything would have been
included. Conceptually at least there is no bar in this respect in
history. Itihsa on the other hand is much more explicitly and
transparently selective. It makes no bone about the fact that it
is only those extraordinary events of the past, the ones that
exemplified the practice of the santana dharma, those which
exemplified the practice of justice and peace, that alone qualify
to be counted as the proper material for itihsa. History,
compared to itihsa, is much more liberal or indiscriminate in
the selection of its material. The consequences of this
permissiveness have not been an unmixed blessing. To a very
large extent history seems to have lived up to the misgivings of
some critics of history. History has helped keep alive the
memory of old sense of injury; in many cases it has dug out
many buried old wounds. Remembering injustice rather than
justice is perhaps the easier of the two options. Justice to a
large extent being santana in character does not lend itself to
temporality to the same extent as injustice does. It is therefore
easier to write the history of injustice. But the moot question is
whether the perpetuation of the memory of old grievances,
real or imagined, has contributed towards the creation of a
happier and a more harmonious world?
Related to this is the issue of the value of itihsa and history.
After all history as an ordered account of past ought to play a
larger role than preventing individuals to fall victim to amnesia
168
as in Beckers formulation. History, as also any other branch

of knowledge, ought to promote human well being. On that
count the record of itihsa narratives in serving the cause of
peace and harmony appears to have been more positive than
that of history.
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Index
Absolute 88, 89, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96,
106, 111, 135,
cra 17, 55, 57, 138
adharma 18, 49, 107
adrthaka 26, 55
Advaita 91, 92, 95, 102, 103, 105
Afghanistan 22, 70
gama 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 140
ahis 101
Ainslie T. Embree 69
Aitareya Brhmaa 26, 71
aitihsikas 27
aitihya 104
khyna 25, 27, 29, 31, 32, 37, 38, 51,
58, 85, 166
khynavid 27
khyyik 29, 30, 31, 42, 43, 51, 58
akapaala 20, 21, 69
Alberuni 19, 20, 22
Allex Callinicos 65, 68
Amaury de Riencourt 7
mnay 57, 136, 137
andi 116
Andre Beteille 70
girasa 55
Anindita Niyogi Balslev 66
Anirvacaniya 94
Anirvana 68, 78, 79
Ankersmit 14
Annales School 12
anti-historical Indian outlook 100
anuvaapuraja 34
anviksiki 48, 54, 56, 79
aparigraha 101
pastabmba 49
apaurueya 35, 116
Appaya Diksita 96
apthakasiddhi 95
artha 30, 45, 50, 51, 63, 133, 136,

138, 145
Arthastra 28, 30, 31, 32, 48, 69, 71,
72, 73
arthavda 28, 48
Arvind Sharma 21
ryamrga 134
ryaprayena 134
Assam 23, 64
asteya 101
valyana Ghya Sutra 41, 71, 74
Avamedha 26, 27
Atharvan 55
Atharvgirasas 35
Atharvaveda 26, 27, 35, 55,
Athens 62
atitavatthu 39
tmabodha 136, 137, 138
avatras 96
avyakta 137
ayurveda 55
B. Croce 66, 143, 154
Bana 42, 72
Basham 9
Bhamaha 42
Bharata 19
Bhratkhyna 32
Bhratkhynam 35
Bharatavkya 112
bhvan 134
Bhrigvgirasa 34, 35
bhutrthakathana 42
Bimal Krishna Matilal 87, 100
Bradley 94
Brahman 74, 94, 95, 96, 98, 105
brahmana 36, 62
Brahmanas 7, 38, 73, 90
178
Index
Brahmanas 7, 28, 38, 47, 50, 78

Brahma 35, 37
Brahmasutra 103
Bhadarnyaka Upanisad 80
Bhaspati 22, 56
Brian Fay 65, 66, 67, 78
Bhatkath 50
Buddha 24, 106
Buddhist 23, 44, 51, 52, 63, 105, 133
Burajs 23
C. H. Philips 65
Caraka 19
carita 15, 45, 50, 51, 58, 85, 109, 110
carita kvyas 45, 50, 51, 110
Carl. G. Hempel 78
Caturvarga 9, 105
Caula 28
Chandra Gupta II 41
China 18
Chinese 2
Christopher Dawson 148
Civilization 62, 139, 140, 141, 145
Colas 21
Collingwood 54, 93, 94, 143
court-poets 8
creation account, siiprakriy 28
Culture 3, 7, 15, 16, 18, 19, 35, 61, 109,
110, 120, 124, 127, 128, 130, 131,
133, 134, 135, 138, 139, 140, 141,
142, 145, 146, 147
cyclical view 88, 89
D. C. Sircar 22
D. P. Chattopadhyaya 117
daiva 101
Damodarpur inscriptions 62
daanti 31, 48
dea 17
deadharma 18
Descartes 10, 11, 108
dharma 17, 30, 37, 38, 45, 46, 48, 49,
50, 51, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 61, 63,
91, 97, 101, 107, 138, 140, 145,

166, 167
dharmamula 55
Dharmapati 49
Dharmastra 77, 81
Dharmasutras 55, 76
Dhirendra Mohan Datta 87, 100
Dhtavrata 49
Digha Nikaya 77
Dilthey 143, 153
Dpavaa 23, 80
drthaka 26, 44, 55, 57
Drthakathana 42
Duhkhabodha 133
dvpara 51
Empiricism 5, 40, 41
Eulogies 8, 25
Factuality 5, 6, 42, 43, 59, 61, 158
Fernand Braudel 154
Fox-Genovese 65
Frederick A. Olafson 67
French Revolution 15
G. C. Nayak 149
G. C. Pande 3, 87
G.R. Elton 66, 78
Gandharva 49
gandharvaveda 55
gth 25, 26, 27, 32, 37, 38, 47, 54,
58
gthin 25
Gautama 56
Geoffrey Roberts 66, 67, 78, 80
Ghoshal 9, 66, 70, 71, 75, 76, 81
Gibbon 12
Gopa 21
gotra- pravara 17, 25, 26
Grace E. Cairns 87
grma 17
Greco-Roman 20
Greeks 7, 62, 89
Index
ghya and srauta sutras 25
Guptas 110
H. Von Stietencron 41
Haracarita 31, 42, 72
Hayden White 14, 67, 68, 74, 80
Hegel 7, 65, 88
Herman Kulke 62
Hindu philosophers 89
Hinduism 8, 9
Hindus 8, 9
historical process 11, 16, 52, 59, 89,
113, 127, 162, 163
Historiography 9, 61, 62, 63
history as account 16
history as events 16
Hobsbaum 139
Huizinga 68
Huntington 68
Indian philosophy and metaphysics
87, 92, 93
Indian philosophy of history 86, 96,
102
indragths 27
ivara 96, 98
itihsa 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32,
34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45,
48, 49, 50, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58,
59, 60, 61, 63, 64
itihsa mahpuyah 45,
itihsa-pura 15, 18, 34, 35, 37, 43,
55, 58, 79, 85, 97, 98, 99, 100
Itivtta 29, 30
J. N. Mohanty 104, 105, 105, 107,
108, 149
Jaimini 35
James Mill 7
Janapada 21
Jtakas 39
jti 17, 62
jva 96, 98, 99
jna 57, 98
179
Julian Huxley 102

Jyotia 23
K. M. Panikkar 65
Kdambar 42
kaldharma 18
Kalhaa 22, 23, 42, 45, 46, 62, 65, 75,
76, 79
kali 41, 51, 52, 53, 59, 74, 77
Kalidas Bhattacharya 86, 107, 147,
149
Klidsa 7, 19
Kaliyuga 24, 39
Kalpa 24, 37, 52
kalpa-jokti 37
kma 45, 50, 51, 133, 136, 145
Kangle 20, 69, 71, 72, 73
Kant 88
Kapilavastu 44
Karma 43, 44, 75, 87, 91, 93, 98, 100,
101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 115
Karman 8
karu 101
Kashmir 22, 23, 46, 64, 75, 76
Kath 42, 43, 57, 158
Khaka Sahit 26, 71
Kautilya 28, 29, 32, 54, 71
kavi 8
kvya 60, 80, 109
Kayasthas 62
Keith 7, 8, 9, 65, 70, 75, 79, 81
Katriya 34, 90
kula 17
Kumrila 55, 78
Kua 22
Lasch-Quinn 65
Laukika 21
Lawrence Stone 12, 67
Lewis Mumford 95, 148
linear view 88
Lokasamgraha 96, 103
Lomaharaa or Romaharaa 35
180
Index
Louis O Mink 14, 67

M Eliade 77
M.A. Stein 76
Macaulay 12
Macdonell 7, 9, 62, 65, 70, 75, 79
MacIntyre 61
Mahbhrata 29, 32, 35, 36, 37, 39, 41,
45, 48, 49, 50, 56, 58, 77, 79, 85, 97,
102, 113, 123, 124,
Mahadevan 83, 87, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96,
147, 148, 149
Mahvasa 23, 80
Mahvra 24
Mahyna 44
Maitryan Sahta 18
maitri 94, 148
Maitri Upaniad 94, 148
Mandelbaum 80
Manu 55, 56
manvantara 37, 38, 51, 53
Marxist, Marxists 12, 67, 88, 150,
163, 164
My 94, 105
Medhatithi 28
Metahistory 11, 67
Michael Witzel 65, 68
Michlet 15
Milton Singer 68
Mimamsa 63, 78
Mithy 107
moka 95, 98
moka-stra 103
Nagarkot 22
nairuktas 27
nma-rupa 111
Nrada 22, 56, 96
nrnams, Narasamsa 78,
Narrative 5, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 29,
31, 33, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46, 56, 57, 60,
64, 66, 67, 68, 75, 76, 80, 98, 109,
10, 112, 113, 114, 116, 120, 121,
122, 144, 157, 158, 159, 165, 166
narrativist school 10
Nationalism 62
Navjyoti Singh 64, 81, 112, 150
Navya Nyya 62
Nepal 23, 64
New History 11, 12
nihreyasa 45
Nilakantha 56, 79
nirva 133
Niedha 45
Nitya 95
niyatpti 31, 111, 117
Niyativda 103
notion of progress 91, 93, 99, 164,
166
nuclear arms race 93
Nyya 48, 62, 66, 78, 105
Nyya-Vaieika 66, 105
P. Teilhard 102
Paccupaavatthu 40
Paila 35
Palas 70, 110
Pallava 41
Pini 19, 68
para 24, 77
parbrahman 98
Pargiter 34, 36, 37, 38, 40, 72, 73, 74,
77, 81
Priplava 47
Priplavai 29
Patrick Gardiner 66, 153, 154
Paul Ricoeur 12
paurika 34, 35, 73
Peapla 21
Persian 7, 62
Peter Burke 68
Peter Novick 66
Peapla 21
phalgama 31, 60, 111, 112, 165
philosophia perennis 134, 135
philosophy of history 10, 11, 12, 16,
40, 46, 66, 67, 68, 78, 86, 91, 92,
96, 102, 103, 104, 106, 108, 129,
147, 149
Index
pitar 17, 42, 57
pit a 17
Positivism 13
Post Modernists 5
practicing historians 5, 11, 12
Pradyota 19
Pralaya 53, 98
Prama 104
Prpty 31, 111
Prrambha 31, 60, 111, 112, 165
Praastis 60, 76, 80
Pratiharas 110
pratisarga 37, 38, 52, 53
Prayatna 31, 111
Punic wars 7
Pura 29, 36, 147
pura sahit 35, 36, 37
pura-itihsa 34, 36
puraja 34
Purakras 33
Puravid 27, 34
Puranic 37, 40
purika 33
Puvid 27, 34
Puravrtta 30
Pure Being 89
Pururav 28, 51, 71, 77
Purusartha 147
pururtha sdhan 134
pururtha vidys 97, 98, 100
Purvapaka 88, 131
purvasur 19, 57
Pustakapla 21
Pustapla 21
R. C. Majumdar 76, 81
R. F. Atkinson 66
R. Morton Smith 74
Raghuvasa 19, 46, 60, 69, 79, 80,
110
Rjasuya 27
Rajatarangini 69
Ranke 144
Rashtrkutas 110
181
Ratnval 110
Ratnins 62
Richard H. Brown 67
Richard Lanham 67
Riencourt 7, 62, 65
Rigveda 56
Rita 57
k, saman, yajus 26, 35
Rmyaa 45, 50, 58, 75, 77, 79, 85,
110, 113, 123
Robert Lingat 79
Romans 7, 69, 89
Romila Thapar 65
Rudolph, L.I. 68
Rudolph, S.H. 68
S. N. Roy 71, 73, 74
Sabara 48
Sadcra 55
sdhan 134, 152
Sahi rulers, Brahmana Sahis 22
saints 8, 73, 166
akas 41
Samhart 20
Sasra 93, 103
saskra 134
sayama 46, 101
Santana 135, 137, 167
Santanadharma 134, 135, 166, 167
ankara 95, 96
ankarachrya 70, 80, 95, 96
Skhyyana rayaka 25
nta rasa 46, 79
ntiparvan 39, 74
Sarga 37, 38, 52, 53
satya 95, 101, 107
Sheldon Pollock 55, 62, 65
Siddartha Gautam 44
Sieg 48, 49, 74, 57, 76, 77
icra 55
Smti 17, 55, 79
social consciousness 136, 137
Social sciences 5, 11, 12, 13, 131, 141,
143, 150
182
Index
Sorokin 16, 142

Spencer 93
Spengler 142, 146
reyasdhana 45
Sridhara 42
ruti 17, 18, 56
St. Augustine 16
Sthnika 21
Sudras 90
Sumantu 35
Sunahsepah 28
Suta 34
Sutradhra 111
Swami Adiswarananda 87, 147
T.R. Tholfsen 73
Tacitus 12
Tagore 3, 46, 75, 81, 151
Taittrya rayaka 48, 76
Tantravrttika 78
Tapasy 46
the linguistic turn 13, 109
Thucydides 12
Time 7, 9, 12, 18, 22-25, 28, 30, 32,
35, 37, 39-41, 45-47, 49-53, 55, 57,
59, 64, 66, 67, 78, 80, 81, 83, 90, 92,
94, 96, 96, 99, 100, 105, 106, 107,
109, 111, 113-116, 118, 120, 121,
124, 125, 129, 135, 148, 149, 153,
157, 160, 164
Tocqueville 15, 70
Toynbee 16, 102, 142
Tray 48, 54
U. N. Ghoshal 66, 70, 75, 76
Udharaa 29
Udayana 19
Ujjayini 19
Upkhyna 37, 38
Upanayana 28
Upaniads 27, 40, 50, 94
Upya 45
V. Smith 40, 74
V. V. Deshpande 87, 96, 147, 148
V.S. Pathak 31, 34, 66, 71, 72, 74, 76,
77, 80, 81, 86, 109, 147
Vaidika 64
Vaiampyana 35
Vaieika 105, 115
Vlmik 123
vama 25, 26, 32, 37, 38, 50, 51, 53,
58, 60
vaacintaka 34
vaakuala 34
vanucarita 32, 37, 38, 53
vaa-puraja 34
Vaavalis 65, 68
vaavid 34, 80
Vanaparva 49, 77
Varieties of history 6
Varna 34
vrtt 48
Vyu 35, 37
Vyupura 39, 73, 74
Veda 17, 18, 27, 35, 36, 40, 45, 54, 55,
63, 68, 71, 75, 78, 79, 97, 124
Vedgas 23, 78
Vico 146
Vidhi 45, 116
vidy 45, 134, 136, 152
Vidysthnas 55, 56, 61
vagaagin 25
vgthin 25
Vieana 95
Vieya 95
Viu Pura 35, 72, 73
Viupura 32
Vysa 35-38, 97, 124
Vyavahra 57, 138
W. H. Dray 66, 68
W. H. Walsh 66
Warder 9, 39, 65, 66, 70, 74, 77
Wendy D. OFlaherty 75
Index
Wilhelm Halbfass 65
Winternitz 7-9, 32, 62, 65, 71, 72,
73, 74,
Witzel 18, 65, 68, 70, 79, 80, 82
World Wars 93
Yadcchvada 103
Yajagthas 27
Yjvalkya 56
Yaska 19, 27
Yayti 51
Yuan Chuwang 22
Yuga 18, 24, 54, 107
Yugntara 51, 53
183

Understanding Itihasa

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UNDERSTANDING ITIHSA

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDY

First published 2010

Typeset at Sai Graphic Design, New Delhi

In memory of my elder son

Part One The Path that Great Men Walked

Part Two In the Shadow of the Absolute

History in Early India: Theory and Practice

cultural or geographical identities; it preferred to think in

go through the draft of Part One of the monograph and gave a

The Path that Great Men Walked

History in Early India: Theory and Practice

The Path that Great Men Walked

philosophical and psychological makeup was anti-historical.

History in Early India: Theory and Practice

embraced the doctrine that all actions and existence are a

The Path that Great Men Walked

effect has been to reinforce it. Professor A.L. Basham, for

History in Early India: Theory and Practice

from another perspective. We may try to understand the kind

The Path that Great Men Walked

up the consensus of Western philosophy.14 However, in spite

History in Early India: Theory and Practice

philosophical interest in historical knowledge began moving

The Path that Great Men Walked

History in Early India: Theory and Practice

narrative? These were some of the important questions in the

The Path that Great Men Walked

but he is guided by the demands of the story he has chosen to

History in Early India: Theory and Practice

resided within the culture complex where they were produced

The Path that Great Men Walked

History in Early India: Theory and Practice

the memory. The Vedic poets were keenly conscious of the

The Path that Great Men Walked

in producing the opposite effect. It gave birth to the stereotype

History in Early India: Theory and Practice

The Path that Great Men Walked

his subordinates sthnika, gopa,etc., had to maintain their own

History in Early India: Theory and Practice

without documents the world would have come to grief, there

The Path that Great Men Walked

like grants, consecration-inscriptions, praastis, etc.66 There is

History in Early India: Theory and Practice

time for the performance of ritual. Even in the Rgveda there

The Path that Great Men Walked

reckoning in eras was unknown. A large number of powerful

History in Early India: Theory and Practice

literature. The recounting of glorious and heroic stories of past

The Path that Great Men Walked

sacrifices historical narratives acquired a place in the ritual

History in Early India: Theory and Practice

covered a great deal of common ground and must have often

The Path that Great Men Walked

History in Early India: Theory and Practice

event or a string of events constituting a story with a

The Path that Great Men Walked

Itihsa in the light of the Arthastra passage appears to

History in Early India: Theory and Practice

Mahbhrata that was also called Bhratkhyna though it

The Path that Great Men Walked

development of puras through adaptation, absorption and

History in Early India: Theory and Practice

The Path that Great Men Walked