Archaeology

Language Ocean.

2009-11-06T17:17:05+01:00

Friends,

For a long time now I have been wanting to write something about Indian languages other than English…bhojpuri, hindi, bengalee, marathi, awadhi, braj, haryanavi, panjabi, maithili, angika, magadhi, paharia, santhali, birhor, ardha-magadhi, pali, latin, Sanskrit…the list of Indian languages (according to) G.A. Grierson. 1904. Linguistic survey of India….which is no doubt, now obfuscated, even if it is, for that period, a good record.

How is it…..how is it….how is it, that India, as a country, manages with such linguistic, diversity? The Brits, in the Colonial Period, almost broke, all records, of trying to document, each and every, language, and language family, and just so, the very much known dialects, of, India to understand this problem

However, as an archaeologist, with proper academic degrees, would let, u, know, easily, that a survey of a universe (of data) is only possible, through, a sample of it! the sample simulates the universe, but is not it.

As, no sample; although, in practical life we but test but one or two grain of rice, to adjudge, if all rice is cooked; and that, to all intents, and, purposes works…yet, we tend to think of the British, and British period surveys, like the Linguistic Survey, referred to above, that Sir George A. Grierson, could not, even, remotely, have pulled-up a perfect sample, of the total languages, and dialects of India in 1904! What, of, linguistic, developments, of over a hundred years, after-that? Think about that.

Complex web, this business, of Indian toungues, and a good question, here, would be, as to why, as an archaeologist, I am delving into it! A relevant book with this language issue at hand, that, comes to mind, is A.C. Renfrew's "The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins". Now AC Renfrew, more popularly known as Colin, to his students, is no Orientalist, but a contemporary archaeologist, with a subject-grasp, that spans the archaeology of the mediterranean, peer-polity relations, models and simulations in archaeology, cognitive archaeology, marxist archaeology, and more lately, his interest in Indo-European Languages, and their origin. I Was but a graduate student at cambridge, when, Colin, in his immaculate, elegant, very manegerial pinstriped suit, probably Seville Row, at that, would breeze through our department; chatting here, grabbing a student chip there, a coffee here; a chat with Nigel Holman, there. a perfect and true leader, and that is how all students regard all their teachers, anyway, so why not I?

There was once, a great debate, in our department, after which, quite as usual, we adjourned for beer at the Eagle Pub, where, for instance, the great Charles darwin, discovered his theory of the Origin of Species. But, we, did, not, make any such mistakes. we jus made jolly.

Now Colin, more than others, did not wear his erudition, on his, or any other cuff, at all, and, this is a fact.

His lectures packed a unique punch, so that, as his M.Phil Student, and the sole member, in my time, of the CUBC (Cambridge University Boxing Club), he made my head swim more than once, for asking useless questions.

A humbleman, he bycyled to the department, even as he was at the same time, Master of jesus College, Head of Department, and in the House of Lords.

That did not detract, at all, and that perchance was the message his pinstriped suit was meant to convey.

He was my Director of Studies. In one encounter, in his Disney professorial Office; I saw a very old and humble prof. Glynn Daniell, entering his office, with a very wet and dripping umbrella.

On another, i was summoned by him, to discuss with him, my plans for fieldwork, in the Santhal Parganas. Colin, everyday, worked, not lees than until eight in the evening, by which time, the night-guards, the librarians, the cleaning-staff, had all-but departed. Now that is working.

This late in the evening, with a Cambridge Professor is daunting enough for a student, more so an indian Student, however, particularly, so, if the first question fired by Colin, at me was, what is the type of religious belief of the Paharias?

I remeber it very clearly, yes, as you don't get to meet the Head of a Cambridge Deppt, all that often, or without an prior appointment, done by a very british and uppity secreatry, even if you are God!!!!

So, as fate would have it Sir Colin asked me this question, and i blurted, 'Why, Sir, they practice an anthropomorphic religion". "What is anthropomorphic".

And the story shall go on!

What wonderful Mysteries await its furthernb questioning

U shall get ur answerz as aaaeeeiii du!

Consider this;

Raj ki bitiya, Bhaat ki bitiya;
duno jani hatiya main haat peet kareli;
raja ke raani bhaili, mahant ke mahatin bhaili;
inko saat poot, unko saat-poot,
inkar saab jiyat rahal, unkar saah mar kahr gaeil;

"kaho tora bhaini ho roe ke nahaye ke sardha baa;
haan ho mora bhahinee ho roye ke nahaye ke sardha baaa;

Chaal chaal ja, tundar dhan pasariha;
larikwan aihen, giree bichchilainhe;
gari, pakee, phuti, mari-hari jahihen,
roe ke nahaye ke sardha pooree;

chal chal jayalee, tundare dhaan pasarelee;
laraikwan awailen,
khelelan kudelen;

Kahu mora bhainee ho naa kehu marelaa na kehu kharelaaa
charoo kudelaa phanelaa,
netua nachela, nagargeet gawela,
bhaat barmawela,
patoh soh kajar sendur karelee!

Pratap, Singh,
BHU
India.

Comments

A Monkey's Tale

2009-11-04T18:24:56+01:00

I once met, a very large monkey,
a sage langoor, without sindoor,
as this was deep-eastern-india,
there was nary tandoor,
nor jee hazur, no moor,
no country boor,
said the monkey to me,
what do you say, hey, that you should stay,
and i wander like this,
no bengalee chingree-fish,
yet, if you so wish, i may in a trish,
say, hello, to a memsahib, and such far pavilions,
sir, vidiya, vikram chandra,
the ghats of bandra,
ronnie tikari, and, sir kujur;
note, you heathen, the repleter, of the ozone layer,
i only chew leaves, and jump, about;
and, you, you;
it makes my throat sore, to sing you lore, your,
monkeying-tales-of-the-yore,
your, disasters, galore
never more?
lies, upon, lies,
cheating to the core;
this, planet; and the next,
you destory, whatever seems sore,
forever wishing for more, extension,
of gore, deplore,
dumbledore.

Comments

Rock Art of India: Prehistoric paintings at Wyndham Falls, Mirzapur Dist., Uttar Pradesh.

2009-11-02T16:52:42+01:00

Friends,

1. In association with my Ph.D. student, Shri Anand Prakash Pathak, I have just yesterday, concluded a third (the second this winter season!) fieldwork at the above-given site. This was mainly a documentation fieldtrip, with such field-surveying as goes, hand in hand, with documentation. With the permission of a very kind Forest Department Officer, we proceeded to our survey. For instance, we were equipped, this time, with a digital camera, to take close-up shots of the elephant shelter (WYN 1) which is about fifty feet high from the ground, and ofwhich we couldnotobtain good shots in the first-everfield-trip. This shelter is not easily climbable, and therefore, a zoomed picture was the only recourse. We went, first, to this groupof shelters, and got the required digital-images. I have since seen the results, they are almighty good. We have taken pictures, also, of the various evidences of weathering at the elephant-rock shelter, and, the ecological setting of this painted shelter. As before, in this fieldtrip, we found several fading or faded paintings, even at the elephant rock, which we missed in the first-ever field-trip, (wait for picture upload). We proceeded next to WYN 2, having previously taken a detour, crossed-over the river channel, and surveyed the opposite bank of the stream, which we have not so far done. Here there is significant soil-deposit, no doubt by the stream, and there are shallows created by ephemeral pools of water. perhaps, here we could take a trench with appropriate permissions.

Recording evidence at WYN 2, with a digital 3x camera was a great delight. The images could be seen, onsite, under magnification, and so making perceivable, many minute details, that misses the natural vision. We have, that is my student and field-assistant (wait for picture uploads!) managed, to document extensively, in still and video, the painted panel that you see in the Antiquity article...link given below.

I shall try to upload both still-shots and video.

Thanks.

ap, 09

2.In association, with my Ph.D. student, Shri Anand Prakash Pathak, I have, just yesterday, concluded, the second season of fieldwork, at Wyndham Falls, Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh; where significant clusters of prehistoric painted rock-shelters were located by us in the 2008 field season and now reported in Antiquity: http://antiquity.ac.uk/antiquityNew/projgall/pratap321/

As we were surveying, nearly till sun-down, the landscape, for urban-breds,like us, became slightly scary, as, at sundown, we were able to see, wolves, running around. Here and there, there was evidence, that a lot of local cattle, that was sick, got chewed by these wolves. Parts of mandibles, femurs, tibia and fibulae, bones, that were pretty obviously gnawed, to a perfection, gnawed bones, were, lying on the forest-tracks, available for examination. There have been some archaeologists, who have studied the gnawing-marks, of bones, in contemporary contexts, to understand scavenging behaviour of small predators like Wolves, Hyena, and Jackals, even rodents and their various subspecies; and have compared them to gnawing marks, that are found on bones, recovered from archaeological excavations. A usual methodin such studies is the microwear analysis where artefacts are examined under a suitable magnification provided by a hand-lens or a lowpower (that is say upto 100x microscope).

A comparison of these gnawing-marks, in the two contexts, ancient and modern (that is the archaeological), allows us to establish, which species, was being preyed upon by which.

A very large femur bone, lay, right next to a crevice in a boulder, along the river at Wyndham. Our field assistant, much to our chagrin tried to incite the wolf from its lair. The wolf was stuck fast, without any growling etc., inside its layer, and we requested our field assistant, to desist from antagonizing it, and moved on with the survey. The surprising thing, though, is that as yet, even in two seasons of fieldwork, we have not located, as yet, any stone-tools whatsoever! The pictures that you are seeing do not,by a long-shot, suggest that these could have been made by a Subsistence-Farmer group. For very simply the landscape evidence is also against it. The terrain is far too rugged and rocky for any significant economic practice other than Hunting-Fishing-Farming. Yet, in a close-look, at the long painted panel here given,I was able to discern that in the scene with flying arrows and the like,at the very right margin of the painting, there appears to be a depiction, which we couldnot previously understand, but which on this newest examination, seems to depict,a sort of house, with people sitting inside it, and the first of the archers is standing just outside of it, with his back, to this, hut, and firing arrows to the front of him, at a group of people who are quite away from the first archer and the house, and are firing arrows in the direction of the house. We now have anearly perfect tracing of this panel, and so, we, may study, the associations, with ease.

ap, 2009.

Comments

of nothing

2009-10-29T17:34:25+01:00

Of nothing.

The trouble with the rubble, the bubble,
Of sweet wine, without, cheese,
Should I dance, or,
Should I freeze?

There is a gentle, breeze,
Tells me there is geese, and,
Donot falter or sneeze,
As you slaughter, them, as,
You, just, want to,
Cure your wheeze!

I have had this medicine, before,
It doesn’t quite, work,
Because, there is so much, wrong,
And, not with the birds or bees,
Not with grass or trees,
Not with sahibs and ha jees,
Not with tahjeebs,
Nor frangipanees,
Nor keys,
To that heavenly land of leyvs and lees,
Of beatles, rolling stones, mick jagger,
Of the wonderous bee-gees,
But to be sure, hotel California
Is just a state of mind
Most likely to become
With those who state their mind, do you, ever,
unwind,
the protestant work ethic, dear,
permeates,
non-ethnic climes,
where do we go from here,
never fear,
the world, has, and always, shall be,
but; one system,
huff and puff,as,
you might,
the human spirit,
is meant to consturct, and,
it would, if, you would, let it;
see the brilliant sundown, the sunrise;
the whip of the breeze,
some alien smells, divine;
what is it, from whence it comes;
yet it uplifts, and i know;
my knowldge is never complete;
no matter,
what,
jeans, i wear;
or pyjamas, lungees, kurta; dhoti, or the nehru cap;
surely ideologies are not born of clothes;
it is clothes that begot ideoligies;
look at Gandhi Ji;
loin-cloth;
much as wrestlers of contemporary benaras wear,
all-saints;
and i had one of them touch my feet; why?

Comments

some anonymous quotable quotes

2009-10-29T16:59:14+01:00

Friends,

For a longtime now the idea has been brewing in my mind to build a compendium of 21st century quotable quotes (although keeping their sources anonymous). These, would be, if you please, the mantras, for successful, living, in the new millenium.

1. in america, it is this way. if you have somthing to show...then you better do it fast.

2. as india globalizes and connects with the outside world, donot expect a level-playing-field.

3. Ajay, sometimes, you have to just wait for some people to die

4. for this experiment, take, an iron-rod, of any metal

5. jharkhand, yes, over, my dead-body

6. hum dekh rahen hain, kee hum dekhenge

7. chalti kaa naam gadi

8. matter exists in three states; soolid, liquid and gaans

9. Hahan Chang..sentence banaow...uoont ke mooh mein jeera...Sir. Raam aur Sita kee kya Joree hai - jaise kee uoont ke moohn mein jeera

10. Sir, Kya, raam Ji ke jamnen mein Hitler Thaa?

11. The new Cheif ministers of thes newly states of ours are better to be called as CEOs - Chief Environmental Offciers.

12. Kya Jowra...tum bagh mara..us kase main kya hua...Huma jeet gaya...tum jeet gaya..kee tum to chor diya gaya

13. khudi ko kat itna bulund ki har tadbir se pehle khuda bande se khud pooche, battae teri raja kya hai

14. roj naya kuan khodo

15. delli station se gourgaon ka kitna paisa lagega? hum sirf auto kee booking karte hain. Why?

16. Dont be too hot-blooded like a Rajput. Use the Brahmin's guile.

17. if you listen to me carefully, you would find, that , i am always right.

16. sharm karo.

Comments

An Indian Landscape Archaeology?

2009-10-21T13:29:02+02:00

Friends,

I am reading Matthew Johnson's Idea of the Landscape and Christopher Tilley's A Phenomenology of the landscape. From whence this idea that landscapes have anything, if at all, to do with archaeology.

As with most things, in Indian Archaeology, in these books, we learn, after-all, that, again, it all started in Britain. No, it was not enough that OGS Crawford discovered Aerial Photography, which we today, use widely over here, alongwith INSAT, LAAR and other techniques of aerial survey, but that, it was the British Historian, W.G. Hoskins, who first got his teeth into Ideas of the landscape....as being important in archaeology.

In my opinion Matthew's fluidity, with his text, that is, his ease of expression, which wins him points over Christopher. Not necessarily, in terms of content. Christopher, like Matthew, has argued, that, from the palaeolithic, mesolithic, neolithic, chalcolithic, bronze age, iron age; upto the titanium age, each age, has had, its own perception of landscape, and that these are recoverable, and that this is good for archaeology; since, if we learn, how hunter-fisher-gatherer's, saw a landscape; then, we would, immediately see, how differently, that same landscape, was viewed by the subsistence farmers. In this way, we may work our way backwards from the nature and distribution of sites, pertaining to each technological age, on the same landscape, to recover a sense of which parts of a landscape, were of importance, and to what sort of economic group. Matthew, with his greatly clear, lucid, and enjoyable narrative, says, the same things, about historic Britain, in which he suggests, that contemporary historians and archaeologists have all but forgotten how multicultural the British countryside/landcape is.

Applying this notion, of the recoverability of past ideas regarding differring perceptions of the landscape, to the indian context, it seems that we have pondered this question only minimally, even in areas, such as the Ganga Valley, where we, very proudly claim, that almost every site, when excavated, looks like a multi-layered chocolate-cake. At the bottom-strata, it starts with palaeolithic, then mesolithic, then neolithic, then chalcolithic, and then, it is folllowed by, Mauryan, Sunga, Kanva, Satavahana, Kushana, Gupta, and the following 600-1200 A.D. cultural layers. It is still hypothetical, if all these cultures, were cohabiting a site, then have we paused to wonder, what or which, parts of the same landscape, appealed to them? and why?

In India, Bishnupriya Basak may be the first one to have addressed more directly this issue of recovering perceived landscapes of the past. I am not here speaking of the landscapes that geomorphologists see, read, and also recover, pertaining to the past, using their own scientific methods like takeing lake-sediments, soil sediments, and taking note of geomorphological features of an area that was in prehistory inhabited by prehistoric peoples. the issue here is that while geomorphologists consider that the landscapes they perceive is/was the landscape as perceived by prehistoric groups is the very idea here that is being questioned.

Thus we, again, return, to the emic/etic perceptions problem. and this is where rock paintings of the prehistoric period enter the scene as a very important resource for understanding emic perceptions of prehistoric landscapes. at the very least, and as neither Matthew, nor, indeed, Chris, have deemed it relevant to mention, to any significant degree, prehistoric art gives us more explicit visual cognitive parameters to eke-out prehistoric perceptions of the landscape.

Here I shall upload a relevant video.

I am, still, reading, these both, golden, books...you would get further answers, as I do.

Ap, 2009.

Comments

Theory in Indian Archaeology.

2009-10-13T11:29:22+02:00

Friends,

I have started work on this new book on theory in Indian archaeology. I am putting online the first draft of the proposed outline of this work for favour of your kind comments.

Kindly e-mail these to apratap_hist@bhu.ac.in which is my e-mail address.

Thank you.

Ajay Pratap
Reader
Department of History
Faculty of Social Sciences
Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi 221005
India

Comments

The Environmetal Crisis in the Jungle-terai of Santhal Parganas, Jharkhand.

2009-09-23T12:34:33+02:00

Ajay Pratap

India has many eco-systems that were utterly transformed during the `Raj’. The Indo-Gangetic plains were no exception. To the historians of ecologies falls the task of reconstructing some of these disappeared or disappearing eco-systems to understand the processes by which these clusters of thriving forests, mangroves, and, marshes, were transformed either into wasteland or relatively denuded countryside (See Ramachandra Guha - The Unquiet Woods -,Madhav Gadgil - This Fissured Land).

At a layman's estimate, the total population of the Indian subcontinent, in the 17th and 18th centuries, was 250 million people. However, the growth of population, in about 200 odd years, is over 400%! This is surely a greatly accelerated rate of growth, in a historically very short time span.As a consequence a lot of of forest, and related natural resources, in the time-period mentioned have all but disappeared.

Thus the study of the degradation of Indian forests must start from Mughal period. Why? Most of the texts on this subject, suggest, that the Mughal system did not interfere very much with the native systems of politics, society and economics. This was, as long as, they were able to retain their political and economic control. It is, however, suggested, side by side, that there was a great extension of agriculture in the Mughal period. It is then natural to ask if deforestation was or was not a corollary to this expanding agricultural system?

Students of history, particularly, will be aware that in the erstwhile state of Bengal, the colonial government introduced the rent settlement, called The permanent settlement. Bengal, at that time, included, all of the `new’ Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. Although these states of mughal period must have contained much hilly lands, in plains areas, particularly, there existed substantial forests, which had not been exploited commercially until onset of the Raj. In the district of Santal Parganas, created after the Santhal `Hul’ (uprising) of 1855-6, such lands were known as Jungle-terry or Terai. Buchana Hamilton report of 1810 records that the Santhals,originally settled in the birbhum disrict of Bengal, were in 1810-11,found to be moving into the Damin area in droves and setting up their villages and clearing forests forcultivation ofpaddy. Subsequent to Buchanan's report the Company agreed to invite these migrants further into the Damin and gave them Khuntkatee Raiyyatee, which was a land tenure system for the bandobast of these very marginal and subaltern of farmers who were nevertheless very adpet at rice-paddies and were therefore granted settlement and cultivation rights under this tenure. thus in a short timespan, say, between, 1810-1830 hundreds of santhal vilages had cropped-up in the Damin area and some of these new settlers of the Damin moved right-up the highlands and established villages right inside the erstwhile Paharia domains. Unfortunately, the British, in the 18th century, did not, understand that shifting cultivation system requires a fallow to cultivated land at the ratio of 1:10. That is to say, that, for every acre under shifting cultivation, at least 9 acres must be kept fallow, to allow the rotation of cultivated plots (see Bose, S. Carrying capacity of land under shifting cultivation). the fallow forests in this ratio also serve the purpose of buffer-areas, are used for hunting for animal protein, collecting of wild fruits, tubers, woods and fuel etc. thus santhal incursion into Paharia territory rang enormous bells of alarm.

as is well known the cutcherrie and courts of the 18th and 19th (first -part) century providely scarcely any recompense or alleviation to subaltern in this district - the santhal hul of 1855-6 was a direct result of this. thus between 1810-30 the British used the leverage of incursive santhals, to strong-arm the Paharia into settlement (or bandobast) of their lands, as well.

Terai lands surrounded the Rajmahal Hills, which formed the backbone of the district.

These hills were marginally populated since the Mughal period by a small group of people called the Paharia or Maler who practised shifting cultivation. However, the area was properly populated only towards the early 19th century when the British encouraged the immigration of the paddy-cultivating group called the Santhals. Francis Buchanan, in his diary (of tour through Bhagalpur and Monghyr districts) in 1810 has produced a map that shows that portions of the hills of Damin-i-Koh were divided and subsumed under Tappas and Turufs of lowland Zamindars.

This must lead us to the conclusion that even in the Mughal period some measure of fiscal arrangement, means of extracting revenues from these hilly lands was existing. The word Pargana, as in Santhal Pargana, although given as the suffix to the name of this district was done by the British. However, that the term pargana existed as a Mughal fiscal or revenue term is not in doubt.

Prior to this settlement, old British records speak of luscious forests, which abounded in various types of flora and fauna. A number of travellers also traversed this tract throughout the 18th and 19th centuries confirmed this ecological scenario. The French traveller Tavernier who crossed this area, much before the British, spoke of a number of species of fish as well as mammals thriving in the river. These included fresh water dolphins and crocodiles, to say nothing of the varieties birds, fowls and other species that usually thrive near sources of water. The traveller William Hodges, who passed by this tract, late 18th century, records in his Travels in India that wild elephants, the rhino, buffalo, as well as predatory species and various types of deer were to be found in this area. However, all this existed here in the period preceding the Santhal immigration.

The governments plan to convert the forested lands to cultivation attracted other than the Santal, many others to the district as well. Although the timber thus felled was utilised constructively (such as in construction of railway etc.) this process did destroyed much of the bio-diversity characterising the area. A realisation that a green cover was important dawned on the British only towards the end of the 19th century.

At that time Forest Acts were enacted, proscribing the felling of timber by all except the government itself. Indeed this century as indeed the next one were to see a spate of legislation to stop forest felling, as the administration had come to realise the value of timber. So what is the ecological picture available to the observer of this area today?

A modern visitor to the area will now not any longer see luxurious forests with its denizens, described vividly by the travellers in the early period of colonial rule. The plains around the Rajmahal hills are largely denuded and converted to rice lands. The only trees standing are fruit-trees and the occasional date palm. The population here is mostly santhal or a mixed rural one. A consequence of this felling in the plains, as indeed in the hills, is that run-off from the hills inflates the volume of the ganges every year, with resultant flooding in the plains. The absence of tree-cover in the plains has several consequences with which we are only too familiar. Today there is a great scarcity of fuelwood in the plains, and such forests as remain in the Rajmahals, are the site of continuous and repeated depradations, by plainsmen. Forestry and various Governmental Development Programmes are running, however, the paucity of local hospitals, roads, schools and such bare necessities of life are very evident.

W.S. Sherwill's Statement of Expenditure on account of the the Damin-i-Koh, or, The Rajmahal Hills, 1851. Source: Sherwill, Col. T. 1852. A tour through the Rajmahal Hills. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 267(889), 544-606.

Paharia Women, 1905. Photographed by F.B. Bradley-Birt. Source: Story of an Indian Upland. Smith Elder & Co. London.

A Farmer in the Hills.

Foothills of Rajmahal in Flood

Villagers Chatting

Jhum Workers, 1984.

Village School, 1984.

A Hill Stream, 1984.

A Hill Village, 1984.

Inter-lying Valleys

Ajay, 2009.

Comments

Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, Summer, 2009.

2009-09-16T18:12:14+02:00

Friends,

I do wish to discuss some tenets of postmodernism on this page. However, as the above philosophers have all en masse decried the modern constitution and metanarratives we have to devise alternate smaller narratives.

A well-stocked library is a scholar's delight. I well remember our University Library at the Cambridge University. Here you would check-in first into a locker room where you could deposit your shoulder-bags into lockers that operated with a ten pence coin (returned when you reopened the locker to collect your belongings). The freshen-up, and then proceed up some steps onto the first floor. The mezzanine of the ground-floor had a huge 10ftx10ft painting of (presumably) a past british librarian complete with a napoleonish-hat, and those 18th century boots, and the white-wigs, which the chief-justices of British India once wore, carrying a load of very rare looking manuscripts and books, and a smile to boot.

Up the steps from the mezzanine you entered the catalouge area, where some hundred or so very large bound, and metal-enforced, largeish ledgers, alphabetwize I think, were kept. This is where you could start your hunt for books or browse as to what was on offer. these bound volumes were all uniformally a very deep seaweed green in colour. these held references to such great books as edward shils on the indian education system, b.w. hodder on the tropics and their future, and books that would even tell you everything you would wish to know about papua new guinea.

Once you had a book of your choice located, you would take down the shelf number etc. and then depending on the state of your fitness, you would either take the steps up to the stack areas (some three floors of them) or most conveniently the very demure and small escalator. if the search for the book had already made ou hungry then you would press the G on the escalator and descend to the ground-floor that had an enormous cafeteria ( with smonking and non-smoking) areas.

Up the lifts your were purveyed into a classical dreamworld of rarest and the most modern bibliotheca....with small seats by the window-sides in which to sit and read...you did not need necessarily to issue books. I was a goner for the journals of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and the (later) Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, and some other weird Journalson the Orient, although, I do remember, that I did spare some time to read Vladimir Illich Lenin on the definition of `Peasant' as recommemded by Ennew, Hirst and Keith Tribe in their article on the same issue. Kautsky, Marx,Adorno and Gransci were too dense for me even as a BA student and the condition persists till date. Lenin was a far better writer for archaeologists wondering about peasants in the archaeological record.

The dusty volumes of these elite and scholarly societies held many curious artciles, mostly written by british officers in the employ of the british east india company in the 16th and ninenteenth centuries. needless to say the U.L. held all the volumes that is a complete set of these volumes. discussions in these journals ranged from origin of indic languages, descriptions of curious and newly found temples, to gangetic (as the EIC HQ was at Fort William) flora and fauna. to read curious accounts pertaing to indian forests, geology and the such like we had buchana hamilton and valentine ball. however these two sets of journals made a most interesting reading.

the library of the philosophy department was another of my haunts in Cambridge of the 1980s. Mary B. Hesse - Models and Analogies in Science', Karl Hempel, Karl Popper, Paul K. Feyerabend, Thomas Kuhn `The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" and last but not least Imre Lakatos. The Philosophy Deppt. Library had a night-box system for those either in a hurry to return books or returing them at odd hours. There was a hole in the wall through which you could drop books into the library even in the dead of the night. This was most convenient for people like me.

The university library held some pretty rare manuscripts in its collection including charles darwin's original handwritten copy of the origin of the species (which i then did not read busy as i was with my dissertation work) in which no pens were allowed for the safety of the manuscripts. however, this room, among hundredreds others, did, also contain, some of the 18th century, travelogues of india written by those such as William Hodges (about 1780) which were more than a hundred of years old , and were therefore kept in this rare books and manuscripts room. we were allowed to actually issue the book for reading within the room, but looking at the brittleness of its pages nothing more was allowed. the photocopies of any pages of such books were done by especialist library staff of that room and the photocopies could be collected.

Thus in this most modern building as the Vice-Regal Lodge or the old Mounbatten Residence at Shimla where the library of the Indian Institute of Advanced studies is presently located we may find many a book pertaining to postmodernism. The ones I read were Francis Lyotard's Post Modern Condition and Postmodern Fables; Bruno Latour's We have Never Been Modern, Jean Baudrallard's Simulacra and Simulation and Michel Foucault's The Order of Things. By all accounts Foucault is still easily grandfather to the other three postmodernist thinkers. And there are zillions other authors on this subject who write nothing more than heiroglyphics.

Francis Lyotard is very defining and precise and seems to carry the weight of the whole world on his shoulders as he sets about tearing apart the project of The Modern...he almost makes modernism seem like swine-flu or some other pandemic that the world must be alerted to. Consider the fate of third worlders who are yet to be modern! I have often therefore wondered if french intellectuals as they drink their coffee really come up with do or die sort of ideas.

Latour, on the other hand, was very funny to say the least. He actually made me laugh with sentences like "Nietsczhe said that the big problems in life were like cold water baths you have to get out as fast as you got in." Of course here Latour forgets that there are in the world countries of the third world where in the summers any average citizen would like to have a cold water bath for as long as is possible. However, Let's forgive Latour that.

Of the three, Baudrillard is the most difficult to understand. Reading Baudrillard is like trying to read Schopenhauer or Nietsczhe even though one of our erudite colleagues did deliver a paper on him. Nietszche writing, for a new reader to him,was a bit suspended in a no man's land. a small biography of him somewhere said that he was a very depressed sort of person. Postmodern latitudes, to my mind, however, do not mean that you can become incomprehensible. Then I tried Schopenhauer. There was a picture ofhim on the front cover ofhis book...his hair was very dishevelled, almost frightening...I backtracked and later agreed fully with one of my fellow Associates who said that we would go mad reading these books. However, a book on Gengis Khan published by the British Museum made very interestiung reading. Apart from other things, it seemed, Gengis was the Patron to very exquisite arts and crafts. The book is filled with brilliant pictures of cups, saucers and jewellery all made of solid gold....Apart from reading the books to complete the writing assignment given to us by the Institute, there was time enough to peruse books of our choice. Thus I happened to see a number of books on Rock Art - Neumayer, Mathpal, Chandramouli, Malla, Bahn, Chippindale and Pradhan. A rising concern these days in rock art studies is with identifying gender in rock art. Some specialists, especially western ones, hold that this is not possible. However, Indian Workers as indeed Paul Bahn seemed perfectly at ease identifying this or that figure as male or female. The IIAS Library is remarkably well-endowed with rare, now nearly extinct, and very difficult to find, excavation reports of some fifty of the most well-known archaeological excavations in India. I read FR Allchin's excavation report of the Piklihal Site, published by the Andhra Pradesh Government, in 1968. It is a fscinating read. Amidst all the hullaballoo about revising our archaeological process, reading Allchin's excavation report of the Piklihal Excavations, is both a great delight, and a great eye-opener, for novices like us. He is, in this report, so meticulous, and using fine and expressive language too, to take note of many archaeological features surrounding his site - this includes, in the main, the rock-bruisings, and, engravings, depicting, sheep, goat, deer, antelopes and many pastoral species. thus while FR Allchin, in the main, dedicates, his report, to discussing the excavated remains, stone tools, pottery, burials, sheep bones and bones of other domesticated and wild species of animals obtaining here; he has surely and certainly also taken into account, and discussed, the surface archaeological material occurring, several kilometers distant, but in the periphery of the area excavated. in modern terminology, and recent archaeologists like us are fond of calling this, in a fshionablw way, the context of a site. however, it is interesting to note that FR Allchin was already practicing in the 1960s what we are all profesing in the 21st century as a great theoretical turn and discovery in contemporary archaeology. thus, old wine in new bottles, is, here, presumably, not the fit description, for what we contemporary archaeologists, of the indian neolithic, are doing; but, neither, and by the same measure, is it fit that it is a case of new bottles in old wine! I do not think, here, that Ian Hodder, in his now famous book The Archaeological Process (which is a bible for new fangled archaeologists who call themselves postprocessual),suggests that he disapproves of the old,particularly,the that archaeologicalschool that ragarded history and archaeology as related disciplines. FR Allchin was both an historian of ancient india and an archaeologist and was thus very sensitive to recording all data that circumscribe a site he digs. Ian, and speaking again, of new bottls in oldwine (!), was trying to suggest, through his new mantra of the "context" of archaeological sites and finds, is merely that all archaeological phenomenon are local. That is they are not global in the sense that we may hardly posit a theory that the ancient Egyptians, Chinese and the Indian Civilizations, because they were all equally exotic and grand, were, in any sense guided by the same principles governing their social, cultural or economic behaviour. This is where even the processualists (who were yet again away from the old school, and, therefore, also new bottles (!) in oldwine) were at variance with the old school. However, nothing comes of trashing this school of thought or that, academics, tend to do this, for ease of moving on with newer more trendy paradigms of research. And why not?

Consider, here, in the context of Indian Archaeology, some very important contributions of the "Old School" in terms of Linguistic achievements of decoding brahmi and Kharosthi, the translation of Asokan Inscriptions, the findings of Vikramshila, Nalanda, Takshashila, Mohenjo Daro and Harappa, the coins and inscriptions relating to many ruling dynasties, from Chandragupta Maurya to 1200 AD. The Stupas of Sanchi and Amravati, the Buddhist Caves of Karla and Bhaja, Kanheri, Ajanta, and Bodh Gaya. Last but not least the translation of the extensive corpus of ancient Indian historical and literary texts. Thus, so what, if the "Old School" fell prey to theories of diffusion, migration of culture and such groups, and most despicably characterized Ancient Indians as lacking all or any historical sense!

It is only now, that we know, through the researches of the last and present century, that, every people, and at all times, have their own sense of history, howsoever it is expressed.

Comments

NO COMMENTS, PLEASE

2009-08-01T13:50:03+02:00

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, place, or thing, is purely coincidental. However, if greatly relevant to the narrative, your comments, are, indeed, welcome!

There was once, once upon a time, a merry school that was also a high school. As is the case with high schools there were over a thousand students, some boarders others dayscholars. The dayscholars thought the boarders had it better and the boarders thought likewise. On sundays the school would organize some film shows using traditional 35mm projectors and this was done in a hall that was also the theatre hall of the school. The primaries sat in the front seats, the juniors and the inters, after that, followed by the seniors, and then in the most dignified of the back-seats sat the British and American Priests of the Society of Jesus of Chicago. While the priests, seniors and inters saw the films, that were mostly in english, the juniors and primaries, since they could not make perfect sense of an Othello, or a John Wayne, a Peter Sellers, and the later to be Sir Michael Caine, except in the fight-scenes, and all the stars of the 1960s, they would often enough play their own games. One of these was to lick the stage after the hall had been abandoned after the picture show to see what a really horribly dirty stage tasted like.

Although there a host of other fathers (who lived in an enormous and very dignified fathers' building), and brothers (who lived, I donot know where!), it is simply not possible to remember every one of them. Father Welfle was aged, but enjoyed his swim. He would often, on saturday's and sundays, at leisure, have a swim with the boys. Father Welfle had the strangest of all strokes of swimming - he would simply lie flat on his back (in the pool-water, that is) and either simply float, with his white-belly protruding over the surface of the water clear enough for all to see, or gently paddle himself with his feet from one end of the pool to the other and back! Father Kevin Cleary, on the other hand, was another, and a very different piece of Cake! And Father Martin Carver, the piece de resistance of Cricket....always with a runny-nose...he always packed a mean bat....wearing the almost the non-existent catier-bresson spectacles, back in the 1960s, Father Martin Carver, was sure as anything, a Yorkshire Man! To be sure, even as primaries, we studied his moves, on the cricket-field....you may not do otherwise, if you catch my point, if cricket, is played, as it should, in pure whites!

There was a Fathers' Buidling where they all dwelt. We were allowed into the Fathers' building just once in awhile...like to play chess with an awfully old priest...who for some reason never ever spoke at all, but was absolutely brilliant at chess, and if I remeber correctly, we thought he was Russian of origin, not that that meant any thing at all. He was very old, with a terribly long beard, but with sufficient, patience, to play chess with trifling Indian children; his beard was very long, and, kind of stained with tobacco; from which we may infer, that, in the 1960s, the fathers' were free to smoke, to their hearts content. This Father, he wore a cassock, and would engage us in these chess-duels, up on the second floor of the fathers' building; here we had free-pass too, no holds barred sort of entry, if we but muttered his name, and explained that we were going to play chess with him, to any inquisitive priest who may have wondered what we were about in the father's building.

This Father, he was ever so patient, never spoke a word, except through his gesture of beating the best of our players very hollow. As he was undeafetable, there was one way, however, to get his blood up. Make the same moves as he made.

Of all the American priests, brothers or fathers, Brother Nayor was the most cocky of americans, looked like he was about to go to war, as he readied the quite second-world-war-jeep for the hostellers, in 1969, for a visit to the soon to be purchased irish school called St. Michaels, Patna.

I still remeber the day I was deposited in school. We arrived by train from Bhagalpur, my mother and father; must have travelled from the railway station, patna, to St. Xaviers high school, by cycle-rickshaw, in the morning, and then walked into the school. of course i had cleared their not so easy entrance exams, so i couldn't have been a moron. then, i remeber, the tennis court. an over six foot tall and very white cassocked and bulky, and pink, and jowelled, father Murphy, took me by the arms, in front of my very emotionally shaken parents, and must have said: "Don't worry, We shall look after him from here". that was a parting of sorts. i was sure my parents understood what they were doing handing me over to this very first priest i must have seen in my whole eight years oof life! yet, Kishore Choudhary was nearby, already inducted, into the selfsame second standard, and roller skating, grinning, through his few broken front teeth. so i thoguht, school must be a fun place if broken-toothed kids were similing and having a good time.

Father Cox, was always banging away at his Remington Rand typewriter. Father Murphy, our principal, till kingdom come, was too imperial. There was a picture up on the school wall that had father murphy shaking hands with president Zakir Hussain, and the marvellous photo studio had them both floating up in the clodus. How wonderful!

Before I come to the other things, the next thing really worth remembering about this school or high school was its refectory - on account of its superb diet served to the inmates. as far as i may remember the primaries, juniours, inters and seniors, we all shared the same dining hall. it was therefore very large and capable of catering at once to about five hundred students or hostel inmates. we were expected to display perfect table-manners and were served by liveried bearers most of whom had anglo-indian names like Peter and Henry. The prefect in-charge of the mess was rotated and we had more than one in the five years I spent at this school, first a primary and then a junior, and one of these was Brother Gomes. He was so neat and clean, I remember, that his nose used to absolutely shine. Perhaps he himself was also aware of this and in his demure but firm way he would be hiding the shiny part of his nose when he rotated around the mess-hall chit-chatting with students or instructing the bearers to do this or that. There was heavy and very shameful punishment for not maintaining perfect manners at the table, accidents apart. for a jug of spilt milk, you would be ordered off the table and asked to finish your breakfast in a tamcheen plate squatting on the floor infront of 499 students. However, the fare was very nutritious and par excellence.

There is not much to any school, this fictitious one also therefore had just such the same things as annual fairs called the spring-fair, a sports day, a swimming festival, an academic prize-giving (called honours-day) day, annual dinners called banquets, study halls, music and recreation rooms, changing rooms, dormitories, an infirmary, and electronics club, a film club, a dramatics society, a chapel, a Fathers' Building, and several playing grounds for football, hockey, cricket, described variously as the first -field, the second -field the third - field and so on, a basket-ball court, a tennis court, a swimming pool, and indoor games like Table Tennis, ludo, chess and carrom. Quaintly, an Irish Game still persisted in this fictitious school or high school in the 1960s - it was called handball, and must have come to India with the Irish Brothers. Handball, was played in proper courts, perhaps some four of them, and it was hugely popular with all primaries, inters, juniours and seniors alike. as juniors we were also free to indulge in the mohalla games that we remebered very well and brought to school like marbles, tops and very occasionally, on holidays, gulli-danda. as boys are wont to do, in a circumscribed environment, and the school was surely one of them, as we rarely saw anything of the outside world, we invented several new games that were played on sundays in abandoned and little known corners of the school. the Ice-Spice game was also played, with the difference that the boys would go and hide near the biology lab which made it very dificult for one den as the smells that emanated from this lab portended the most evil, swift, and dastardly end - the human skeletons that were kept in the lab and what they might choose to do on a night like this was a matter of immediate concern!

A typical day in the life of a primary strated at 5:00 am in the morning when we were roused from our very comfortable and warm beds by a very loud bell. Then every body scampered, in nightsuits, to the loo, then the shower, and then onto the changing rooms that are often in india called dressing-rooms. here about a 1/2 a second of time was given to get dressed in the school uniform, shoes polished to a shining, crisp clothes, nails neatly cut, and in the 1960s the use of hairoil was made mandatory by the school thus such brands a cantharidine and keokarpin existed side by side with jabakusum, ghritkumari, dabar amla, coconut hairoil and mahabhringaraj that very strongly scented and smelley type. there were assistants like Patrick Ji and Lagan Ji who taught us the basics of things like cutting nails and tying proper knots to school ties, shoelaces, and how to push the school belt through the loops around the waist of the half-pant. after dressing there was a quick inspection by a brother and then single-file by 6:00 am or so we were marched into the morning-study. here no vestigial sleep was allowed as there was always a prefect brother with a very threatening but elegant cane that amply cheered us to study while still half-asleep. for hostellers, there was a hour a week reserved for letter-writing, usually letters home - these would be every weekend, and would usually report on the week's activities, like what ice-cream was served with bun-beans-chips-chops on saturday and that we saw the film Tokyo Olympiad this week. there was even a book-store in the school that sold pastries and we got free tucks on sundays. I once tried posting my sister two or three tucks putting them inside the weekly letter envelope, just to let her know what I meant by a tuck. however, Mr. Jeff who was on duty as the letter writing prefect that saturday while collecting and inspecting all the letters noiced that strange protrusion from my envelope and I was then the laughing stock of the room.

Come the sports day, the Republic day and the Independence Day a morning march past was the routine, after the morning study, and yes, still before breakfast. No body was spared and primary to senior had all to dress appropriately and march up and down within and without the premises of the school. You could hit the broad road outside or be practicing in the Gandhi Maidan only if you were a senior. The most popular tune played on the school loudspeakers, for marchpast rehearsal, was Colonel Bogeys March tune from the film The Bridge On the River Kwai.

And since I am near around the gates of this fictitious school, I may as well also remember that Frontier Gandhi, better known as Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, visited our school once. I was still a primary then and got a view of him standing, I am mean actually standing up in a very large open car, probably an antique mercedes or chevrolet, going past the Fathers' Building and into the School. He was very tall and lean, quite aged, very fair-skinned, wearing white clothes and smiling and grinning at the boys. He had a very large hooked nose. As he was as white and tall as our priests we sort of looked at him with wonder and amazement, although since we had never seen Gandhi Ji we could not quite follow what was meant by Frontier Gandhi.

And while i am still about the gates of this fictitious school let me tell you that these gates of the school were always almost locked. all we could see of people hanging about, outside it, once the school-day got going, were various wallas, selling this or that that might have attracted some school-boys to buy. and what were these things. murhi-chaat and pachak. ice-cream was sold by Rudal inside the school. other than that it was the street-urchins usually who assembled at the gates and heckled the prim and properly-dressed school-boys. we were allowed-out of the gates only once in awahile,such as to see Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady, or Mary Poppins, which in the 1960s was showing at the Elephinstone, which was by far the best cinema hall of the town, in which this school or fictitious school was located. other than occassions like this, it was a visit to the dentist or the city hospital only that would earn us a trip outside of school. thus, and in other words,the school was self-contained and sufficed for most of our needs. it is no effort at all to take forward the eleven year story of a school or a fictitious school. first of all as some of the priests of the Society of Jesus of Chicago were obviously of american origin so our school had some peculiarly american aspects. in most schools of the time,in that town, drinking-water for students was provided through taps - we had curious silvery fountains that spouted water at the press of a lever directly into a mouth heldover the fountain.for rural boys like us it made drinking water a very funny and pleasurable activity leading some of us to drink as much water as was humanely possible in the course of a day. and then as we emerged from the school refectory, one fine morning, in 1968, the school black-board meant for urgent notices for the whole school, read as follows - MAN LANDS ON THE MOON. SCHOOL IS CLOSED TODAY.

Our school library, even in the sixties, was very well-stocked with story books, about which I shall have a lot to say later, the National geographic Magazine, and there must have been some other reading, or perhaps, as primaries, it was our peeps into the physics, chemistry and biology labs that the seniors used, were impetus enough for the primaries to form their own secret societies that very secretly pursued their own invention projects. we had our own sentries to guard against spies and such like of our rival inventing groups. i recall that a few of us who regularly lounged on the terrace of the school, from where we had a majestic and panoramic view of the Ganges, chose as our secret project to build a proto-type of Bachcha Baboo's Jahaj or Steamer, that we would see very often plying in the river. this was although merely a case of replication rather than invention since such toy-steamers were available for a farthing from the bazaar made by our famous and redoutable indian bazaar inventors who may make anything from the Apollo Eleven to the Tajmahal out of scrap tin, wires and the such like. our own project, this steamer one, as i remember, despite all our precaution to fend-off spies and the like, was a bit of a failure, as our prototype sank without so much as a spin of the ice-cream-stick-propeller affixed with a rubber-band, and that too in the very large sink in the bathroom meant for the primaries and the juniours.

Eventually, as in any school or a high school, we must eventually come to speak about the education itself. however, any succesful educational institution, must have a measure of discipline, to make sure all inmates imbibe or try to imbibe to the best of their abilities, what education is on offer. Now Father Edmund C. Rebeiro was our hostel superintendent, a very merry man, who smoked rolled-up cigarettes, and was more than leninet with his silver-mounted cane. his usual trap set for hostelers, in order to use his favourite cane was the washing or shower stalls. Father Edmund Rebiero sat on a stool, smoking his cigarette, and humming, whistling or singing the famous song "Lots of Choclates For Me to Eat" and swinging his cane to the rythm. That may have been music to him and My Fair Lady, but for us it was utter dread and struck the deepest terror in our hearts. The purpose of his presence at the shower-stalls was to ascertain the dirt-levels per student. To avoid the contingency of his cane, usually on a wet backside, we regularly bought clothes-scrubbers from the bookstore, and after soaping ourselves, we would use that hard scrubber vigorously on our arms and legs, the usual spots that Father Rebiero tested for the presence of dirt vestigial from football, hockey or simply rolling in the mud which some primaries resorted to for reasons best known to them.

The school tennis court was a multipurpose space. it was actually coloured red and was a hard-court. as i remember little tennis was played on it in the 1960s. mostly, it was used for those zillions of other games, like mini-bicycles, roller-skates, for roller-skating, and roller-skate hockey. next to this court was a absolutely huge banyan tree that held much significance for the primaries at least. in fruiting season, when the banyan would yield reddish fruits by the hundreds, there was these huge green flies, and the deadly yellow wasps, that would appear to feed on the fallen fruit or those on the trees and herein lay a game. such primaries, as me, would tie strings, really white threads to pieces of fruit, and then wait for one flie or wasp to pick-up the fruit. as soon as the wasp got the fruit, it would be soon airborne with the fruit and the length of string! that was thrill enough.
We played stairs-cricket by the side of that very tennis court.

Most importantly, come banquet-day, at the end of an academic year, it was this same tennis-court where 500 boys and priests descended to enjoy the evening. about fifty tables were laid out, with proper table-cloths, silver arranged, name tags in place, and a nice piece of music playing, that i shall remember shortly. each table has a presiding priest or a father, a brother, some seniors, inters, juniors and primaries. the repast started with music, liveried bearers bringing us soup, mostly cream of tomato, for which soup bowls and soup spoons were already in place. Over soup the head of the table would strike a conversation. as primaries since we were unable to understand what was being discussed between the priests, brothers, inters, we made ourselves busy with our own conversation, or else merely responded to any questions that were fired at us. these would usually be about sports, whether primary x or y had picked-up swimming, or about missing school-belts, about what we planned for our holidays. the banquet, after such elaborate preparations, naturally, lasted a few hours, but strict manners were mainatained, and there was no horsing around at all. it is possible for indian kids going to such schools, in the 1960s to forget most or everything about such lavish banquets, however, it is simply not possible to forget the vanilla ice-cream topped with hot molten chocolate sauce that usually rounded off the banquet. huge dollops of the ice cream and molten hot chocolate sauce srved in silver containers from which it was poured onto the ice cream. the chocolate bit was done by the waiters as primaries are likely to go after chocolate, molten or otherwise, with a vengeance. Sothat is where the eating habit of Xaverians comes from...at least I think I have got that right!

Now to education. it was not uncommon in the Xavier's of the 1960s that we had colleagues from such far aflung places like Rajasthan (Prithipal Singh Chauhan), Kolkata (Debashish Ghosh), Mahrashtra (Ajit Limaye), Nepal (Harsh and Shashank Koirala), and loads of Chinese boys, too, who were the by-products of a flourishing chinese community of doctors in patna. If we added to this menagerie of indians, our fathers and brothers and other teachers from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Pondicherry, not to mention Goa, then a complete roll-call, of citizens from all parts of india, would, be complete. And the there were, with us, the dozen or so, students who were doyens, of the any princely families of Bihar - Kursela, Tikari, Tilauthu, Amanwan, Banaili - and so on. However, Brother Ittoop, our Hostel superintendent, and Father Reberio, before that, were very strict about pocket-money, insofaras hostel inmates were concerned. Primaries were, in no circumstance, allowed a generous pocket-allowance, disbursed by the Hostel Soup hisself, and an account of which, had to be provided by each student, in a proper allowance-card, provided by the Soup's office, was a paltry Rupees 2. so princely or unprincely, rupees two is all a xaverian got per week.

Amongst the teachers there was Gordon E. Murphy (Moral Science), Mrs. Gurtu (Music), James W. Cox, Father Carver, Father Welfle, Father Starr, Father Zubricky, Brother Nayor, John James (The School Nurse!), Mr. Jeff, Mrs. D'costa, Mr. D'costa, Mr. Kujur, Mr. Robin Francis, Mr. Fernandez, Mr. and Mrs. D'rosario, Mr. Raj, Mrs. Cowell, Mr. and Mrs. Patnaik, Mr. Alam, Mr. K.P. Sinha, Mr. Tarafdar, Mr. Mitra, and Mr. Mishra. I was then too young to remember what each of these our teachers taught us, by way of subjects, however, what I do remeber is this: Father Cox taught Elglish Language and Literature; Father Zubricky also taught English Language and Literature, Mr. Robin Francis taught Physics, Mr. Kujur taught Hindi and Sanskrit, Mrs. Gurtu taught Music, Mr. K.P. Sinha taught Hindi and Sanskrit, Mr. Alam taught Urdu, Mr. Tarafdar taught Geography, Mr. Mitra taught History, Mr. Peter Francis taught Economics, Mr. Fernandez taught us Aritmetic, Mr. P.N. Raj taught us Advanced Mathematics, Mr. D'rosario geometry, Mr. Thomas taught Chemistry, and finally Mr. Jeff was our lord and master of all sports and games (except swimming!). Brother Ittoop was a nasty player of tennis and was ever so generously roping in senior students to play and was free with his racquet and balls. the school had two hard-courts and a grass-court. I have already spoken about the study hours maintained in the hostel for primaries, juniors, inters and seniors, alike. Study, breakfast, study, school, tea, games, shower and change, study, dinner, study, bed.

Ajay,2009

Comments

Tribal Science fiction?

2009-07-22T13:16:03+02:00

The Example of `Prehistory’

Many archaeologists are content, even proud, to call themselves prehistorians. In Europe the term creates links to the great tradition of writers such as Montelius and Childe and to all the knowledge that has been amassed of European prehistory. The term is a good description of the interests of many European archaeologists. But there are now difficulties in using the term. In a global context the term, taken for granted so long in Europe, becomes politically incorrect. For example when used in Australia the term implies that aboriginal groups had no history (see Wolf 1982). This is because `history' in the word `prehistory’ means written history. But, of course, non-western and non-literate peoples did have a vibrant history, even without written records of it. There is no such thing as a time before history unless we privilege the written over the unwritten, the western over the non-western which is clearly unacceptable. (Hodder, I. 1999. Crises in Global Archaeology. P.8. The Archaeological Process. Blackwell Publishers, London).

Friends,

There is such a wealth of tribal folklore in India that has been collected assiduously by both colonial and postcolonial ethnologists and anthropologists that this collection of myths, folkloke and fables would easily fill the largest library in the world. If these are impossible to collect and publish in one place then perhaps we may be able to data-mine some aspects of the cosmology present in such folklore and give it some representation nevertheless. One way to do this it to think that our tribal folks in their stories, fables and folklore imagined a universe that was significantly different from ours. What was the nature of this universe? I have read some of these, and since the original stories are to a great extent published and already available for reading, my attempt here is to build on that reading and create a tribal science fiction.

Ajay, 2009.

An Exploratory Story

There was once a man named Bhikhu. Bhikhu lived in a forested village and thus had plenty of space in which to roam, play his flute, graze and tend his goats, or to lie idle on the wet grass, gazing at a setting sun, followed by the rising moon, and then the stars. This he did for some twenty-five years of his life. And then one day, as he was lazing on his wet grassy-bed, gazing at a distant star, he was reminded of a story his old grandmother had told him long long ago about one of the constellations that was very visible to him right now. She had said that all good men of his tribe who have died had become stars of that constellation. That leads, Bhikhu thought, to the simple conclusion, that other groups of stars were then also ancestros and friends who had of other tribes, who had either died separately or together. She had said further that on some nights of the year, these star-men descended to the earth to ask after their respective clans welfare and brought for them gifts. However, she did add that these star men looked a little different from their tribe. And that depended on which clans they belonged to when they were alive. If their totem was the kusum flower, or the palm tree, or the tiger, or the leopard, or the lion, or the jackal, or the deer, or the mahua flower, or the jamun tree, then their bodies were altered suitably after their death and before they became stars. However, dead or alive, they remained kinsmen and attached to their respective clans and therefore posed no threat at all to the people they met on their infrequent visits.

Bhikhu's mind then turned again to looking at the stars. he suddenly saw a very bright shooting star, and what is that he wondered as he heard a heavy object thud, with a loud splash, in a nearby pond that he knew so well. on this moonlit night the water of the pond looked very inviting for a quick dip and a bath,however, Bhikhu, naturally, had other questions on his mind,as he did hear that thud and splash, such sounds as he had,never before,in twenty-five years of his living memory, he had ever heard. so he proceeded a little closer to the pond to investigate the source of that sound. the waters of the pond had a slight ripple, but no more was indicated, as to what might have fallen in it all so suddenly. then he gradually leant forward and took some of the pond-water and drank it out of impulse, perhaps a sudden thirst generated by this sudden event. gradually as his eyes focussed enough to be able to see the pond water more clearly in the bright moonlight he saw an amazing thing. he saw a number of very strange fish swimming in the pond water as it was visible to him at that point in the night. so without further thought and out of plain curiosity and without remembering anything of his grandmother's tale Bhikhu reached forward and literally took one of these fish in his hand. it came easily and without any struggle whatsoever and neither was it huffing and puffing like fish usually do if they leave water. The first curious thing Bhikhu noted was that the fish had a very fishy whiskers. Next that it lacked gills. what sort of a fish is this, thought Bhikhu. and I wonder if I can eat this one. he continued looking at it for some further spell of time. no fishy stench emanated from it, like it does from any other fish. and the fish as he soon noticed was not quite dead either. Next he looked more closely at the pond water in the bright moonlight. There were approximately three types of fish, according to colour - the pink ones, the blue ones and the red ones. A thought suddenly came to his mind that the pink ones were good fish, the blue ones, he would have to be careful with, and, the red ones, as their colour suggested, were best left far and well alone. Presently he had a pink fish in his hand and he continued to look at its visage in the moon light. it was certainly very large, as fishes go, and must weigh at least a few kilograms. aside of its whiskers it sported two feelers, like those of snails, at the very front of its head. its eyes, Bhikhu thought, were by far, the most interesting part. They were glowing a little greenish, in the dark, and seemed to look right into his and through his eyes right into his mind. And then, again, was Bhikhu reminded of his grandmother's story about clan ancestors descending from the stars. Was this fish one of them? the thought arose. If so, thought Bhikhu, what am I now supposed to do. Grandmother had died a long time ago. Could it be her, right here, looking into his eyes? How am I to deal with this ancestor? Shall I take it back to the village? All these question flooded his mind so that Bhikhu stepped back from the pond and looked to his restive goats, the satrs above, and then began a mid-night trek back to his village, with this strange fish in-hand.

it was now nearly midnight and bhikhu was greeted only by the raucous barking of the dogs of his village. Hedi,Hedi! he said to quieten the dogs, and then slowly found his way around the narrow footpaths, herded his goats into the goats enclosure in his compound, and then rattled the latch on his door to wake up his wife. his wife, also a village-woman called Dhenki, woke-up, and opened the door complaning at once of his late coming and as to what was the potential reason. Bhikhu said nothing at all and lowered his head, fish in hand, and entered the very large hut. inside the dying embers of the cooking-hearth illuminated his forty square foot hut. his wife said that his dinner was ready. he laid down his wooden staff and his hatchet, flute and some fruits and roots he had collected during the day, on a mud-shelf by the fireside and then turned to speak with Dhenki. but before that he accepted a glass of very sweet and cold water which his wife had proferred him, seeing him sweating and panting from his daylong exertions. She did not, even as Bhikhu began drinking that glass, notice what he held in his hand, owing to the fact that the dying embers of the hearth did not generate enough luminosity for the purpose.

After Bhikhu had drunk his fill, he started talking.

"It is strange what happened today."

"What indeed, did happen".

Bhikhu extendd his hand and proferred the very large pink fish he had picked up and carried from the pond to his wife.

"Why, that's just a fish. Do you want me to cut it and cook it up?"

"Oh, No! Not, at all!"

"Why, on earth?"

"Precisely", said Bhikhu, "This fish is not from the earth at all"

"I see! Then, where, kindly, can it possibly be from?"

"Well, you see. It is a long story..."

"As it usually is", said Dhenki, released a yawn, and started putting together the dinner, warming it, squatting near the hearth, lighting a kerosene lamp, and waiting for Bhikhu's latest story, to roll on. "You see dear Dhenki", continued Bhikhu, "as usual I was lying next to the ponf where we graze our goats everyday. And then sudenly there was a loud noise like something fallinf into the pond. and then when i went to the pond to investigate what it was that fell into it, i saw a number of differently coloured fish swimming in it. you know very well that our mountain fish do not grow to this size", here he pasued to let his story thus far sink in.

"So what if they usually don't. Maybe the gods are kind to us this year?"

"Gods? Kind? This Year?"

"Yes. I mean this strange looking fish could have grown to this size and colour purely from natural reasons. Remember what huge mushrooms we had for dinner a few years ago. Our mountain mushrooms, usually, do not grow to that size".

"Yes dear, I see your point. But for the life of me, I cannot help imagining that this fish is something else. Here, take it in your hand and see."

Presently, Dhenki, takes the fish in her hands and examines it by the dying embers of the hearth and beside the kerosene lamp.

"Yes, this pink colour is a little funny...and why has it got the feelers of a snail? I would, most certainly, refuse to eat anything like this, cooked or uncooked."

Patiently, Bhikhu, added, "No, dear...nobody is suggesting, at all, that you eat it...indeed it is one of our ancestors, in the sky, come back."

"You are not here referring to your Grandmother's tale???"

"Yes, indeed, I am."

"But that is what your Grandmother said, not mine."

"Yes, but that does not discredit what my Grandmother also said!"

"Fine, then..let me have your theory in a more comprehensible form."

"It is like this, Dhenki Dear. My grandmother believed very firmly that our totemic ancestors come to visit us once in awhile and bring gifts for us. however, they donot look like us. Now study this fish. It has no gills, it has feelers, it is hours since i took it out of the water and yet it is alive and breathing in someway that we donot know. also, i shall here mention, that, and using my grandmothers parameters, if this is a totemic ancestor of our, that is my tribe, then it would communicate only with me. now, when, i first held this fish in my hand a great serenity descended upon me. not a trace of any fear at all remained, which I felt, at once, as I heard a loud splash of something falling into the pond, that even you know of by now. Then I stepped closer to the pool of water, and by the even, insufficient, moonlight, I could see these luminous fish swimming in the water. They were this pink, red and blue in clour. I left the blue and red ones alone and took this pink one in my hand. At once the universe swirled in my mind. I was reminded

Comments

Maner: The social and historical significance of a little known medieval Monument of Bihar.

2009-07-11T06:56:44+02:00

The medieval site of Maner is located about 25 KM from Patna and has for a very long time invited visitors of all sorts. The Archaeological Survey of India, has at this site,put up a placard,which says that this site was so important,in terms of its social and historical significance, that in its time, it had been visited by Babur, Sikandar Lodi and Tansen. I myself remember seeing it first as a very small kid. It was completely grown over with bush and jungle and we were, in the 1960s, told that it was a hang-out for criminals, and such like. The central tank was very dirty, so one might have enjoyed it only from a great distance. Even so, as far back as the 1960s, it was known to Patna-wallas, that this site, Maner, held a special significance; and it is thus that it was visited on occassions like New Year and such holidays, and local tourists, would, in day time, set up campfires, and cook their mutton curry and rice, as they do to this day, not too far away from the site.

It has been, only from about 2007, that I have been visiting this site, now that it is cleaned-up, and transformed into a sparkling monument, by the no doubt very strenuous efforts of the conservationists of the Archaeological Survey of India, for purposes of research and study.

It seems to me that just as anthropologists write biographies and ethnographies of peoples and cultures, it ought to be possible, to write such biographies and ethnographies of monuments as well. what would such an enterprise include? well, just the observations on, what was happening at the site, at the time of a researcher's periodic visits. Since 2007, I must have visited the site about ten times and on each occassion newer things are happening there and I tend to notice newer aspects of this very fine monument. Let me speak of its historical and architectural significance first. This site was built in 1617, under the orders of Emperor Jehangir, and executed by Ibrahim Khan, the then governor of the province of Bihar. Jehangir himself was born to Akbar, from Jodhabai, after many years of Akbar's ministrations at a Sufi Dargah of western india.

It is thus, we may expect, that Jehangir himself, came to respect the Sufi shrines, doctrines and the faith. The contemporary shrine of Maner is named after Sheikh Yahya Maneri, who had migrated from western India, to the subah of Bihar, and was the first Sufi cleric, or, saint here, and, after whom the town Maner Sharief, and the site, take their name. Sheikh Yahya Maneri has been commemorated in a shrine on top of a small hillock near this site and his shrine is called the Bari Dargah.

The monument, seen in the accompanying pictures, is actually that of of one of his descendants, Sheik Makhdoom Daulat, and is called, therefore, the Choti Dargah, even if it is, in physical shape and size, bigger. Ibrahim khan and his wife, are also buried, inside the sanctum sanctorum, of the Choti Dargah, perhaps for their favours of building this dargah.

At a slight remove from the southern face of the Choti dargah, and on a small hillock beside the water-tank, is the bari dargah, where Sheik Yahya Maneri is buried. An old-painting, by the company artist Thomas Daniell (in 1780), has captured the choti dargah, in all its beauty and splendour, as it existed at that time. The painting shows some devotees lounging in the hallway (as shown below), the northern perimeter-wall along the main entrance to the choti dargah, the river Son (Soane) flowing to the north of the monument.

However, as we drove our car through the maze of streets, lanes and by lanes, of the maner village, and then the Chaldi-hapra village, and then reached the river Ganga's banks, we had covered nearly Ten (10) KM. For our purposes, we concluded that, while the river Ganga, would have serviced the needs of those villages situated quite near its banks, where agriculture thrives to the day, it could not, possibly have, the residents of the villages, immediately neighbouring, the choti and bari dargahs. A quick conclusion then, and based on such field facts, is that, the enormous water-tank at the site of Maner, was built by Ibrahim Khan, to act as a permanent source of water-supply, and succour, to the visitors to the monument in the medieval period and natives living near the monument.

The architectural style in which the choti dargah (built in chunar santstone that varies from a light pink to creamish) and has been brought here in patias, and the neighbouring masjid (built also in chunar sandstone in 1697 also by Ibrahim Khan), enclosed within the perimeter walls of the choti dargah, the perimeter walls, the prayer halls, and the most grand and ornately sculptured and engineered, main entrance, to say nothing, of the main dargah itself, which is built in a square-shape with one dome and two floors, one containg the shrine, and the other the dome, its marvellously sculptured pillars, ornate designs on walls and cielings, the delicate jalees, the cupolas for diyas and incense, and the inner part of the dome overhead the shrine all speak of a certain care and finesse in its execution.

it is thus that the archaeological survey of india plate bearing information on this site proclaims this as the finest example of indo-mughal architecture in bihar. it also claims that this site was visited by babur, sikarndar lodi, and tansen.

however, the rajput elements in its structure are most prominent - both at the chchattrees near the water-tank and in the galleries of the front-entrance to the choti-dargah.

on the literary side, we have a reference in Naseem Hines's recent book, The Chandayan by Maulana Daud, that the Maner Khankah was repository to one folio of an early indo-sufi masnavi by the name of Chandayan. and herein lies an interesting bit of history, that of the cross-breeding of indian indian folk tradition, from which the protagonist Lorik is taken, and which is a folktale of Patna District to this day, with the indo-sufi poetry tradition, that yields, eventually, this masnavi, by the name of chandayan. However, it must be noted here, that while Naseem Hine's book even bears a photographic plate or two of this same Maner Dargah,of which I have here provided several pictures, she has nowhere,in her otherwise very erudite book, indicated,what historical bearing Maulana Daud's Chandayan has on either the founding of this shrine or its subsequent life. The story of chandyan,interestingly rendered, as it is,in Hines's book, is is here worth recounting, the brief account of which is presented here as possible to glean from the awadhi rendering of it given in Hines's book.

Chanda was a princess of great beauty born to a local raja. when she was but three years of age the stories of her beauty had already spread far and wide in india. and then another local raja asked her father for her hand in marriage. Chanda's father, seeing his royal lineage, agreed to marry-off his daughter, at the young age of three, to this local raja, who was very much older to her in years. Chanda departed her father's home and lived with this husband of hers for 13 years. However, when she was sixteen she realised how disastrous her marriage had been as her husband was deficient in every possible respect. So, without further ado, she upped and left her husband's abode, and, returned to her father's, and, in the process, inciting the ire of her husband. Her husband then made an alliance with another king to attack her father's dominions and reclaim her. Her father was militarily quite outmatched. At this time, Lorik, a local nobleman, enters her father's kingdom, and catches site of Chanda standing in the balcony of her royal house, and swoons. he is treated my local mendicants and recovers only to tell the hakeem that it was chanda's beauty that had caused it and that he must meet her again if he is to really regain his senses. when he does he returns to Chanda's village and meets with her and swears his love for her. Chanda asks if he is prepared to marry him. at which point lorik tells her that he already has a wife called maina. chanda then says how would a second marriage then be possible? Lorik is then called upon by Chanda's father to help him fight the invaders, which he does, and routs the enemy completely, killing most of Chanda's father's foes. Now Lorik is ready to elope with chanda and they meet in a temple to discuss the plans. Here, Maina, who has been informed by her friends, of the goings on between Chanda and Lorik, comes to the temple simultaneously, and engages in a bitter physical and verbal fight with Chanda. Both retire bruised and this firms Lorik resolve further to elope with Chanda.

this they do and flee very far from their native places, deep inside various jungles, to serve such purposes as for which elopement is done. however, quite tragically, Chanda, is bitten by a very very poisnous snake and is breathing her last, with a very distraught lorik by her side wailing and weeping and calling for help hither and thither in a very very deep forest. at last as Chanda's energies are all but fading comes by a Hakeem and pacifies Lorik saying that he would be able to cure her of the effects of the snake-bite, however, this he would do, only if he were rewarded handsomely. Lorik agrees at once to part with all the fineries and jewellery that he is wearing, the mendicant keeps his word, and Chanda recovers.

And then, as Lorik and Chanda venture further into the forest, their elopement not as yet complete, yet again, Chanda is bitten by another very venomous snake. Lorik sets up a wail again and not one soul comes to his aid or counsel. At last he builds a funeral pyre for her and ligting it he resolves to consign himself to the flames too. However, as chance would have it, yet another very accomplished hakeem chances upon them in the middle of this very compromising setting and asks him what his problem is. Lorik recounts his story, and, yet again, this Hakeem too, says, that he would cure Chanda, but for a price. The price, as Chanda and Lorik, are both, now, in a very weak pecuniary status, is bondage and slavery for the Hakeem. This price agreed, the Hakeem, sets to work, and, at once, cures, Chanda, who is all but dead. Chanda recovers and the couple in love now descend into slavery. As with other things, even slavery is short-lived, thus when their labours are over, Lorik and Chanda, return to Chanda's father's kingdom. Here they are feted and felicitated upon their return. Maina,who is Lorik's first wife,has also but wasted away in this long period of parting from her husband,however, as she is still deeply in love with her husband,Lorik,she makes peace with the idea that Chanda would be her co-wife. They alllive happily everafter.

Comments

The Life And Times of Mr. and Mrs. Dongre.

2009-05-26T12:13:52+02:00

Author's note: This is a work of pure fiction. Any resemblance to any person, place, or thing, is purely a matter of coincidence.

"The relationship between yin and yang is often described in terms of sunlight playing over a mountain and in the valley. Yin (literally the 'shady place' or 'north slope') is the dark area occluded by the mountain's bulk, while yang (literally the 'sunny place' or 'south slope') is the brightly lit portion. As the sun moves across the sky, yin and yang gradually trade places with each other, revealing what was obscured and obscuring what was revealed. Yin is usually characterized as slow, soft, insubstantial, diffuse, cold, wet, and tranquil. It is generally associated with the feminine, birth and generation, and with the night. Yang, by contrast, is characterized as hard, fast, solid, dry, focused, hot, and aggressive. It is associated with masculinity and daytime.

Yin and yang are complementary opposites within a greater whole. Everything has both yin and yang aspects, which constantly interact, never existing in absolute stasis.

Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang

"It is to the Riddle of the Sphinx that I have devoted fifty years of professional life as an anthropologist. It is of first-class importance that our answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx should be in step with how we conduct our civilisation, and this should in turn be in step with the actual workings of living systems.

A major difficulty is that the answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx is partly a product of the answers that we already have given to the riddle in its various forms. Kurt Vonnegut gives us wary advice - that we should be careful what we pretend because we become what we pretend. And something like that, some sort of self-fulfilment, occurs in all organisations and human cultures. What people presume to be ‘human’ is what they will build in as premises of their social arrangements, and what they build in is sure to be learned, is sure to become a part of the character of those who participate.

Gregory Bateson - Innocence & Experience. 1987 - p.178

Friends,

I often teach my B.A. First Year Ancient Indian History Class, when we are studying the religious philosophies current in Ancient India, of about the 6th Century B.C.E., that I have always imagined India as a country of phenomenal philosophical diversity.

Necessarliy, having wandered round the country more than my students, I have found, for the purposes of explaining the issue of the sudden proliferation of over three hundred religious philosophies, in India, in the 6th Century B.C.E., that I find that in India as a country, there must be at least one religious philosophy per person. This is easy to understand at another level. There are so many local cults, tribal religions and such like the country over.

This page delves into the religious philosophy of Vatsa, Naraka and Naraki, Mr. and Mrs. Dongre, a 6th Century B.C.E. couple, as those of Nautanki, Swayambhu, Chanakya, Chadragupta Maurya, Manu, and several foreign visitors, and those others, to Ancient India in this period, even if they are a figment of my imagination.

Ajay, 2008.

Act I Scene I

The Setting:

The second urbanization is in progress. The later vedic society of about 500 B.C.E. is intensly involved in deep-iron-tipped-plough agriculture; business is booming; arts and crafts guilds are coming-up; some semblance of a state is emerging, and as its first act, it appoints officers to expropriate the surplus from agriculture, with which further armies would be raised and further townships would be built; the litteratti are going about writing the precepts of their religions in fat books; Chanakya is not born yet, however, the preconditions, for his manual for the kings, the Arthasastra are being arranged; Manu, Yajnavalkya, Narada, and all the other ancient law givers, of the Hindu tradition, are also waiting, on the periphery, for this centuiry to pass-on quickly.

Two good friends, and citizens of Magadha:

Vatsa says to Naraka, " Dear friend, where have you been?"

Naraka, " Dear Friend. I had been sleeping all day, tired from building my new house. What's with these new deadlines for finishing our houses?"

Vatsa, " Yes. Yes. I heard that one too. You see this new five-hundred-year plan suggests that we must expend our capital to urbanize quickly as the government has many sops to offer us, if we meet their targets".

Naraka, "Yes, indeed. the environmental conditions of 6th century b.c.e. are also favourable. we are well into the holocene. the river ganga has already carved out its course, the soils are fertile, just the recipe for a financial boom".

Vatsa, " Yes, dear friend Naraka, but agriculture isn't everything; culture is; or haven't you heard? Lord Buddha and Lord Mahavira are up and about, preaching their gospels? Many Viharas, Universities and Buddhist, Jain and Ajivaka Cave Temples are also being carved-out of rock. The sculpture business is also booming thanks to these heterodox sects. So are the Ajivaka and there is yet another cult that preaches that everything that is morally wrong is infact right. I do not here wish to elaborate on the many other cults that have grown-up away from Magadha. I suppose we may thank the development of pali for that".

Naraka, "And quite heterodox too. they say that (when we are free from building our houses and raising revenues from agriculture) we may like to pay attention to matters of the soul. Nirvana is the best commodity of our age and as it is really important to register a steep rise in religious achievements of this age. That is easily done. A safe soul is one that dwells in a body that has a full-stomach".

Vatsa, "Dear Naraka, okay if it is government policy then there must be some rationale to it but I wonder why we must must pay attention to matters of the soul, when our forebears, in the vedic age, and earlier in the Harappan age, could barely define a relgion of any sort? Sure they were busy praying, I would admit that, I mean look at their seals and sealings; however, for them, praying to plants, animals, trees, the earth and the sun and the moon, and the bull was sufficient".

Naraka, "Yes, Yes, quite right. They did pray to inanimate objects and imbued them with a divineness and that was extremely beautiful and charming. I donnot at all like our contemporary rituals of any kind that suggest these very expensive and laborious rituals for finding nirvana. It is simply not cost-effective".

Vatsa, "Yes, Yes, Dear Naraka, expensive and laborious rituals tend to dampen the spirit. Its like filling-out so many forms for an appointment with God. That makes little sense at all. If the supreme being is all-seeing and all-present, then a simple household or anywhere sort of prayer is all that would seem to be needed...O Lord Almighty, Hear Ye My Prayer...sort of thing. The Vedic karmakanda is the blight of contemporary commemoration as it has developed at the end of the vedic age, and, I hear, that is the reason why so many new religions and cults have sprung-up to offer easier paths to propitiate gods and for nirvana. However, I cannot for, even a moment, agree that these other cults and religions did not always coexist with the dominant vedic tradition. After all there were people living in the bharatavarsha for millenia before the Harappan age or the advent of the aryans".

Act I Scene II.

The Setting:

Naraka and his wife Naraki converse at their abode, after Vatsa departs for the day.

Naraki, "Where on earth have you been allday? I keep cooking and cleaning, there is the house to finish, and you always come back, so late into the night? What do you expect me to say or do "Dear Lord of Magadha"? Am I a minion? I am sure you were with that good for nothing Vatsa discussing politics again. This is the limit!".

Narak, "Hold your horses, good woman of my house. Now then, there is such a pressure upon our household. A man must do what a man must do".

Naraki, "What must a man or a woman do? From where do you get this idea that our roles in society are defined? Prithee do tell me? Budhha is admitting women into the Samgha, so is Lord Mahavira. Since the early and later vedica ages too our status and role in indian society has been very good. Therefore why must I sit at home while you wander around? And don't take matters back into Harrappa and mophenjodaro, and prehistory before that. there are leading studies by leading universities on primitive tribes that argue that in prehistoric indian society and in protohistory women enojoyed a very dominant status. these societies were therefore called egalitarian societies. And I haven't even started talking about your other good friend Mr. Dongre as yet".

Narak, "Listen here you good lady of my house. Vatsa and i were simply talking about india in the 6th century b.c.e. Do not these discussion hold some merit? Agreed that women occupy today an equal place with men, how does that limit our speech, and discourse? Must men stop talking at all? Must we structure our conversations in line with the idioms most commonly used by women? finally do you not think that issues such as house building, religion and personal faiths occupy a centre-stage in contemporary life?"

Naraki, "No, my dear, I certainly do not think these to be very relevant issues anylonger!".

Act II Scene I

The setting: A hundred years have since passed and we are into the 5th century b.c.e.The wide expanse of the Ganga Plains. There is a village well into the river-plain of the Ganga, in the Magadhan area, close enough, for its people to be bathing in the river everyday; the fields, all very productive, on account of the gangetic alluvium enriched by annual flooding of the plains; the landscape dotted with syncretic shrines that Indians are forever praying in.

Mr. Dongre, another citizen of Magadha, to a villager, named as Nautanki, of a local village called Chaldi-Hapra. "Dear Good Sir, I certainly like the look of these country boats of yours that are stranded up here in these dry-season alluvial accretions...frankly they all look like the noah's arks. why does your life depend so much on the river?"

The villager of Chaldi-Hapra whose name is Nautanki, replies, "Dear Good Sir, these so called noah's arks each cost us about three lakhs panas each to build and they are very serviceable for many seasons. As to why they are here moored on the alluvium I may only say that our lives, and boats, are a subject to the rivers whims. These same arks would be swimming like ducks and swans when the Ganga Mai floods and her waters shall cover the ground upto here. We may then fish, ferry people accross, and lead a normal life."

Mr. Dongre to Nautanki, " Dear Good Sir, in that case, what do you do for a living, the rest of the year, when Ganga Mai is flowing at that remote distance?".

Says Nautanki to Mr. Dongre, " Dear Good Sir. Much of our village life therefore depends on our nature gods to whom we pray profusely. We have already spoken of the Ganga Mai. We do infact have a lot of other Mai and Baap Gods that we fall upon for subsistence purposes, in the lean season. There is the Bel Tree, The Mango Tree, The Jack Tree, The Tamarind Tree that give us ample fruit to sell in the market, to earn some money, with which we buy food-grains.

Dear Good Sir, here you must not forget, that when Ganga Mai, recedes the soil becomes very fertile. We sow our annual crops of wheat and other pulses, lentils, grams, peas and also cultivate vegetables of all orders. All these, we consume partly, and partly sell the surplus, for our subsistence."

Mr Dongre to Nautanki, "Ah Ha! But where are the gods in these things, that you just spoke of? God is a living thing so how can he live in a non-living thing? Does your god live in the trees and the soil? Ours do not. They live in temples and shrines."

Nautanki to Dongre, "Dear Good Sir. A god is one who may dwell anywhere as per his or her likes and dislikes. If He/She chooses, in your religion, to live and travel on a mouse, as Ganesha does, then why may our Mais and Baaps not live on this tree or that tree? Why may they not be inside the bel fruit and the watermelon? Indeed we alo do pray to your gods. See that Shiva Temple in the distance. However, Shivji is a very big God and we do not disturb him or Parvati or Hanuman for some small ills that may befall us. For that we have a slurry of small and very-small gods, like Chunni devi, Chirchiria baba etc. ."

Act II Scene II.

Another hundred years pass and we are now into the 4th century b.c.e.. Mrs. Dongre, wife of Mr. Dongre, and also a citizen of Magadha, who has been wandering around the wide expanse of the Gangetic village, Chaldi-Hapra, while Mr. Dongre has been engaged in a conversation with Mr. Nautanki, now bumps into a Greek Traveler Aristophanes, who is also wandering around Chaldi-Hapra.

Mrs. Dongre, "Dear Good Sir! Where is your name? Where are you from? What brings you to Pataliputra? Your clothes belie that you have come from afar!".

Aristophanes, "Dear Good Madam! My name is Aristophanes of Macedonia. Remember the play Medea, it is performed still with great aplomb at our ancient theatre of Phillippi in Macedonia.

I wear the clothes of Greece from which land I come. I am sorry that I have arrived very recently and there has not been the time to engage a tailor of Pataliputra to stitch me the garments peculiar to this area".

Mrs. Dongre, "Aha! I thought as much. Your robe is of course very Macedonian-Greek. Yet, how did you find your way to Pataliputra and then Chaldi-Hapra?"

Aristophanes, "Dear Good lady, actually my ancestors had already settled in Gandhara long before, for trading purposes, long before our King Alexander decided to launch his campaign of world conquest. My ancestors lived in the north-western parts of India and were called Bactrian-Greeks or Indian Greeks. they were mainly into trade and commrc with your people and even issued their own gold and silver coins.

Later Alexander, our King of Macedonia, decided to lead an army across West and Central Asia to Gandhara and then invade India, and was of the idea that some historians should accompany his entourage to record his exploits.

It is thus that I come to Pataliputra. After Alexander departed for Macedon, disillusioned with his Indian campaign; and Seleucus Nictor, a general of his erstwhile army, and the Satrap of Bactria, married his daughter to Chandra Gupta, your King, and send Megathanes as his ambassador to Chandragupta's court. I am a friend of Megasthanes and travelled from Gandhara to Pataliputra with him. There are six of us historians with Megasthanes. Today he is busy writing and has deputed me here, to survey the lands near Pataliputra, to learn the manners and customs of the people here, the geography, agriculture and other economic practices, arts and crafts, and of the flora and fauna of this gangetic area, so that he may write about it in his History."

Mrs. Dongre, " Aha. Did you know that the river Ganges has over ninety types of fish? These include Mrigal, Katla, Five types of Ilsha, Rehu, Catfish, Crowfish and numerous other types. The river also has Fresh Water Dolphins the locals call "Sos", but these are not eaten by humans. The Ilsha and Rehu actually migrate upstream from downstream Farrakka during their spawning season and this is when a great number of them are netted by the villagers and used partly for subsistence diets and partly for sale in Pataliputra."

Aristophanes, "I see. Then I might even try some of these varieties myself, or, how else could I tell Megasthenes about what they taste like? In Greece, however, we get mostly sea-fish, as we are surrounded by Seas on all sides."

Act III Scene I

Another hundred years pass and now we are properly into the age of the first and truly historical written primary sources - the first of which is the Arthasastra - said to have been written in the 4th century B.C.

The Mauryan Empire is of course flourishing, with Chandra Gupta at its helm. The city of pataliputra has a city-council called Pauda-Janapada which acts as a municipality of sorts and vested with the responsibility of keeping the city of Pataliputra well-organized. The city is surrounded by fortifications made of wood on account of the internecine warfare between the 16 great monarchies and republics of the age of Buddha. These city-states traded and fought with each other as well to gain more territory, no doubt to accommodate the increasing population since the Early Vedic age c. 1500 B.C.

Kautilya to Chandragupta, "Hello, Good Sir! And how are we today?".

Chandragupta, "Oh. Just the same Sire. Infact, I do have a blinding headache today!"

Kautilya, "Oh, is that so Good Sire? Then there must be something troubling you since last night? These are called nightmares and these are not half as serviceable as the real steeds that you have employed for your personal equestrianism and for the Magadhan Cavalry. Just the same do take the trouble of telling me your problem, there are many physicians, mendicants and mystics in our employ who would readily provide a curing remedy."

Chandragupta, "Matters of the state no doubt. I had a curious dream last night. I saw that I was sailing in a boat in the Ganges, and there were very large expanses of alluvial soils, by the margins of the river, dotted with villages, some country-boats moored like noah's arks, here and there; but nowhere is there any evidence of cultivation. Isn't that a horrifying vision? Imagine how much revenue we are losing that these lands should not be under intensive agriculture."

Kautilya, "Dear Good Sire. I did tell you that that was a nightmare. However, I have learnt from good authority that there are some village still on the periphery of Pataliputra where the cultivators are a bit indolent and they make their subsistence from natural products like fruit-trees and some small vegetables they may grow. For the rest, they make their remainder of the subsistence, living from the Gangetic fauna -that is the fish. You were very right that this was a very disturbing vision, as what we are primarily interested in, is agriculture from which the state may rightly raise a surplus and revenue to boot. What do we do with fish and fruits? That is scary!"

Chandragupta, "Not to worry. First give me a glass of tepid water with some lemon squeezed in and a touch of sugar and salts. That should take care of my headache. I really do not have the time this morning to answer all those weather, mood and diet related questions that our auyurvedic and other mendicants are perptually asking. I ask you, does the King have the time for these sorts of things or to worry mainly about revenue and expanding territories.

Surely, we could send-out our army this very morning and bludgeon these peansants into cultivating their lands properly and regualry on an intensive basis. I would leave to you the task of recovering the revenues.".

Kautilya, "No. No. Sire. We are still in the 4th century B.C.E and such haste would not look good at all. We are the Empire, and the Empire must take its own time. Let not these weaslas think that we are so taken-up with their indolence that we have sent out our army in a jiffy to deal with their half-horse ways and means. Give them a long-rope.".

Chandragupta, "Yes, Sire. Aesthetics are also something. On that note, how is the Didarganj Yakshi that I ordered coming-along. I thought we needed a good piece of sculpture that the posterity may remeber us by and that should adorn the palace-entrance. What of the crafts, and small-scale manufacture. Do apprise me."

Act III Scene II.

Chandraguta sits down to breakfast. A flurry of minions of all orders, cooks, watchmen, ministers (or amatyas), women of the house, pall-bearers, and of course Kautilya take their seat my him.

Chandragupta, "Aha. No flies this morning. I hate this summer. So many flies. Especially hateful is that big green one that very aggresively buzzes around my mango. I like the taste of the dhuska, though. what is it made of - maida? it goes very well with the ol ka chatni. the purees are also very nice, and so is the aloo ka bhujia. tell that cook not to serve me litti-chokha every morning. i know it is the very outstanding cuisine of our period, but it does get repetitive, to be eating, litti-chokha, every morning. Dear Kautilya, as I eat, kindly do tell me the state of our royal gardens in Pataliputra?".

Kautilya, "Very Good Sire. We have built about twenty of them around the city, the Pauda-Janapada Officers are entrusted with the task of looking after the Marigolds, Orchids, Chrysanthemums, the Money-Plants, and the range of Cactii that have reached the Royal Palace as gifts from Gandhara".

Chandragupta, "Tell me. Are there any fruit-trees in my orchards, as well? What fruits do they give?".

Kautilya, "Sire, they give mangoes, litchis, Bananas, Jackfruit, Bel, Tamarind, Jamuns, Guavas, and all else, that would grow successfully in the Gangetic climatic regime".

Chandragupta to a minion called Swayambhu, "You there. Will you stop staring at me. First of all you chaps from Chaldi-Hapra produce no revenues and thus become poor. Then I have to give you jobs, illiterate, as you are. That is how you enter palace-service...",

Swayambhu interrupts him (in his illiteracy), "Sire. Sire. Sire. Be calm. Be wise. We from Chaldi-Hapra are the very foundations with which your Empire is built!"

Chandragupta (bemused), "Ah. Now my minion is my Master!".

Swayambhu (further), "Sire. you see there would be no empire if there was no territory. At least that much is evident from Kautilya's conversations with you day in and day out."

Chandragupta (thinks), " Swayambhu! My man! yes, do go on...".

Swayambhu, (overjoyed, and now courteously), "Sire. In the context of what I have just said, then how may you remonstrate, even if our lands are unproductive, in your sense of the term? Needless to say I have learned such tarka in association with the royal palace itself.".

Chandragupta, now finishing his breakfast, disbands the gathering, and proceeds to conduct his royal court.

Act IV Scene I

It is conjectured that in the 4th century B.C.E. the city of Pataliputra was adorned with a Central Royal Palace, and several other public buildings, some of these halls for public assembly for matters concerning the public, and some were indeed Buddhist Viharas, well within city-limits. The city of Pataliputra was surrounded with a wooden perimeter wall. Chandragupta Maurya descends from his Royal Palace and makes his way in a chariot to the asembly hall to hold his court, dressed in finery that he has received as marriage gifts from Seleucos Nikator as he is wedded to his daughter.

Chandragupta, "Dear residents of Pataliputra, and those who have come from afar, in my dominions. I am indeed of very good disposition today and hence would like to divulge that I am contemplating travelling to Videsha that means a foreign country soon. You are already away that in this period sanskrit inscriptions are found as far away in Vietnam and Cambodia through which our presence is already acknowledged there. The point is for me to visit there to strengthen our ties insofaras our trade and commerce, art and architecture, crafts and all else are concerned? What do you think?

The courtiers replied en masse, "Hail be the King. We are very glad to hear such good tidings. May the King depart soon, sail the seas safely, and by the will of the gods return safely and soon".

Hearing this Chandragupta Maurya (casts a jaundiced eye around the assembly) and says, "Dear courties, thank you for your agreement and good wishes. I hear, however, that travelling to videsha, is not very easy, much as it would serve the common cause in this century, jealousies are very rife. I do not wish that any of our minor feudatories, seized with jealousy, invade my empire, when I am away. This is just one of the problems".

Hearing this (the compromise of their Raja) the courtiers reply as follows, "Hail be the King. You are lord and master of our dominions. Who are those who obstruct your path?".

Chandragupta, "Dear friends, It is not that I want to divulge any names, that would precipiate a war sooner than the news of my proposed travel to Videsha. That is not our purpose here. I just wanted to bring to your notice such matters of the state that besiege a King and for which he must think comprehensively about each issue".

The courtiers, not satisfied with such an evasive answer, "Prithee, then our counsel has been in vain, as you seem not to have reached a decision?".

Chandraguta, "Then so be it".

However, it happens perchance, that Mr. and Mrs. Dongre are also amongst the courtiers this morning, and they see a very good opportunity to speak-up.

Mr. Dongre, "Sire. These are not good tidings. A king is a king, and he must do what he must do, irrespective of the impediments. Let me tell you that I have been up and about in your kingdom surveying the lands and its people. I am most impressed with the latitude people here have to pray as they like and speak as they like. This is not what, in this century, we may say about the other petty rajas of Bharata and their principalities. These latter ones have not even a modicum of democracy in them. So I would advise you to undertake your travel and the Magadhan army is always there to quell any revolts".

Says Mrs. Dongre, "Yes, Sire. Like my husband, I too have been up and about your very pleasant kingdom and have met a variety of individuals, some indeed greek by origin. I am most impressed with the cosmopolitan nature of Magadha and particularly the city of Pataliputra. Look at the varieties of fishes in the sone, Gandak, Burhi Gandak, Ghaggar, Punpun, Koilver, Kosi and Ganga rivers of Magadha. The agricultural outputs are also very diverse and plentiful. It is just that the dasa pratha (slavery) that is currently prevailing in Magadha leaves a lot to be desired. Surely this is anti-democratic. If the king were to alleviate the lot of the common cultivator then he would surely have my support too for his proposed travel to Videsha".

Swayambhu, who has so far been lurking in the background, in this public assembly, finds a chance, to get his tuppeny's worth in.

Swayambhu to Chandragupta, "Dear Dear Sire. The Dongre's had visited my own village Chaldi-Hapra, and report on what they saw over there. However, I am not an occassional visitor like them, indeed I have lived my whole life there, and may be able to put before you in better and greater detail what ills befall the people there.".

Chandragupta, now properly bemused, beckons to Swayambhu, that he may speak.

Swayambhu, "Sire. By the diktats of Kautilya, all lands in the kingdom now belongs to Sire. The lands that the Sire keeps an eye on and of which the total produce goes into the royal treasury is called Sita Land. Such lands are a major part of the total lands of Magadha. However, Kautilya thought it fit to lease out the remainder of the lands to the various poor peasantry, that had been inhabiting these lands from the time of Mahapadma Nanda, and these are the lands from which Sire realizes tithes upto 1/6th of the produce.

Lately, in the wake of the many wars that the Sire fought, to expand the kingdom of the Magadha, Sire has taken many prisoners of war, who were brought to Magadha, and they are the labour that raises crops on the Sita land. It is this system of labour, that has little recompense, that Madam Dongre has referred to as Dasa Pratha (or slavery).".

Chandragupta (beaming with pleasure that the matter has been explained him with such clarity by Swayambhu, a thing that the more learned of the courtiers could not do), "Swayambhu, My Man. And yet again you prove, how valuable an advisor you are to me. I get the point now.".

Swayambhu, "Sire. Sire. Are you sure you have understood fully this issue of slavery?".

Chandragupta, "Indeed, yes. Swayambhu, now you may sit down, and let me speak".

Chandragupta looks around the asembly hall with another jaundiced eye and speaks thus," So there are some discontenteds in my court. This is revelation no less. I thought the people of Pataliputra support whole-hog my policies of expansionism. From whence this murmur of slavery and such like?".

The Dongres speak together, "Sire, we are, but travellers, from Kutch region near the Arabian sea, and as we have a fully democratic nature of governance in our own lands, we have raised this issue, in the hope, that Sire may find it useful in his system of governance here in Pataliputra.".

Chandragupta, " I see I see. Governance, Democracy, Prisoners of war, Land revenue. These are all very vexing issues, and, in this century, since I am taken-up mostly with the expansion of the limits of the Empire, I shall let Kautilya speak on my behalf".

Kautilya, "Dear assembled towsnmen and nobles of the court. Your questions to our noble king belie that you haven't the faintest of clues as to how an empire has its origin, how its limits are extended, and how indeed are the finances to be raised for its administration, safety, and further expansion. Yes, I have been the main advisor to the king, in matters of finance, and it seems to me that our land administration policy is already being hailed as the most promising so far in the Indian context".

Chandragupta, "Dear Kautilya, just cut the long-story short by a bit. Speak economics only for awahile, as I have other matters to attend to today.".

Kautilya, " It seems to me that it is illiteracy that is our major drawback, for resolving court matters, in a jiffy. I have already penned several volumes on how a state is to raise its finance, that if the Dongres had consulted them then such convoluted questions would never have arisen. Thus I shall accept that it is to the fact that many people have not read the arthasastra that they fail to follow that a state can and must raise revenues, every cent of it, from whereever, even a cent is available. Indeed in this book I have recommended that such people as bards and musicians should be prevented from entering villages since the revelry or the musings they create reduces, even by that much time, the entire productive effort. I have also recommended many punishments for tax-defaultesr of various kinds, and for defaulters of other kinds, from whom we may realize other revenues by way of punshment taxes. Every penny counts as they say a penny saved is a penny earned, by the royal treasury. Thus it is that our prisoners of war have to be taxed one hundred percent to pay for the war that they engaged us is. it is not therefore slavery, it is called complete taxation. Indeed I have spared not even the madmen in our country as i have recommended that the state should use their services as spies which role they would fit perfectly as nobody would suspect their role. i feel sure that no body would recommend that we need pay them a salary?".

The nobles and coutiers of all ilk shift a little this side and a little that wondering what this discussion of slavey would ultimately lead to, and above all else, they are hungry and want to get to the royal feast that awaits them after the sessions court. Thus some of them signal Swayambhu, known ever so well, to have a way-out of tricky situations like this, to take the lead and bring reprieve to the chastened, hastened and a very hungry gathering.

Swayambhu, " Sire. I see Mr. Megathanes is with us today. Surely the learned man from Greece would have something to add here?"

Megasthenes, " Sire. I am a man of letters and wish to remain as such as I am writing my history. However, it does behove me to say that the Sire does what every King, including our own Alexander of Macedon, has done in this age. We wage war and take prisoners from the defeated side and then do with them as we wish. It is thus that Aleander has become unpopular in central asia. But what is the recourse?

Thus it my recomendation to Sire that he should do as he wishes. Slavery is a term developed in Europe and best fits what they do there. The Sire is wise, of good intellect and we have nothing against him on our records, thus this sugust assembly in my view must approve his travels to Vietnam and Cambodia. That is to strengthen our relationship with those countries. This is important. And then the Magadhan Army is still supplied with good horses, elephants and such like to fend-off any attack on our state. This is what I wish to say".

The assembled court then thump their approval on their desks the assembly is adjounred and every one makes a beeline to the cafeteria.

Act V. Scene I

This is the very first trip abroad for young Chandragupta and he is very nonplussed what must be done even if he as an escort. He has arrived at Googly, the port city, from where they are to sail for Videsha. He is accompanied by all the characters in the play, Vatsa, Narak, Naraki, Kautilya, Swayambhu, Aristophanes, Mr. and Mrs. Dongre, Nautanki, Megasthanes and Arrian and some other courtiers.

Chandragupta, " Dear Kautilya, Dear Swayambhu. Can we,in this century, get some tea around the Googly?"

Kautilya, " I shall see Sire. They do say that the Chworah area is full of tea-shops. Actually sanskrit inscriptions are also there in china, and they have gifted us some plants of tea, hence it is that Googly is the only area where tea is freely available in this century. The Boston tea-Party takes place much later, Sire, if you were think about that".

Swayambhu, " Sire, I shall run and get some tea, as I think Kautilya is about to wite another book further to his series of eight already".

Presently Swayambhu fetches good hot tea and the entire retinue sits and everyone help themselves to this delightful new drink. The conversations rolls on.

Swayambhu, " Sire. Do kindly tell us why we are headed where we are?"

Chandragupta, "Swaymbhu my boy. My father use to tell me the overseas travel tends to open one's eyes to the world we live in".

Swayambhu, "how do you mean open one's eyes? And why in this respect? For me my village and your palace is everwhere I would ever wish to travel".

Chandragupta, "Yes, that may be so in the short-run, but you are not King. Am I right?"

Swayambhu, "Yes. Yes, Sire, I see the point now. I am definitely not the King. You are the King. Now prithee tell me why does a King need to travel thus?".

Chadragupta, to the gathering at large, "Well, Swayambhu, you see, and since you ask, thus, I shall have to take you into a bit of histry. Mega sthenes, please you don't mind my meandering with your subject. Drink your tea that you are not likely to get in Greece in this century.

Swayambhu, you see, If an empire is not made in a night, so is not a king. Kautilya and I have travelled and seated ourselves to a limb, going fro Taxila to Parvat raising the army that beat the nandas, from whence our own empire took its origin. That was not easy and it did undertake some travel. we fought the greeks, who had, however, seen many worlds different from theirs as by when they arrived on the borders of bharata, they had already crossed the very many cultures that inhabit the region from Greece to Bharata. Plutarch, Justin and now Megathanes and then Arrian and god knows how many more foreigners are on our soil doing what they do. Have you ever ever stopped to wionder what brings them here and why they busy themselves writing our histories. Why don't we ourselves, for instances, busy ourselves writing our own histories? Since I know you, and probably, partly, your mind, I daresay, you may think that we do so as a matter of convenience that it is best to let the foreigners write our history, since that is one task less for us.

That is all very well. However, if the king does not travel, and by that means does not make new history, then what are these historians going to write about?

Swayambhu, "Yes, Sire."

Chandragupta, "Well, Then?".

Kautilya, "Master. I hear that our ship for the purpose of taking us to Kampuchea is here. Let us not tarry."

That news sends a ripple through the crowd and all of them get-up and start collecting their belongings to embark.

The ship is a fine masted sail=boat that could see the strong waves of the Indian Ocean, it is laden with food drink and all essentials necessary for the journey.

Chandragupta and his entourage move onto the ship and the ship reels in its anchor and sets sail.

Act VI Scene I.

The issue of how Indian religions like Hinduism and Buddhism and those others that we do not know so well about struck roots in the distant climes of China, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia is far from fully settled. The material evidence like the Angkor Wat in Kampuchea, and Sanskrit Inscription in Vietnam and folk performance of the Ramayana in Laos all suggest that some diffusion of these ideas did probably take place through people to people contact. Buddhism, similarly, also enjoyed a terrific and widespread popularity originating from India and spreading with the travels and journeys of Indians to countries of the South-East Asia and the Far-East.

Chandragupta, "Dear Kautilya, may I ask how many leagues is Kampuchea from Googly?".

Kautilya, "Oh Sire about a million Yojans. And then the difference in wind conditions would also either lengthen or shorten our travels".

Swayambhu, "Oh, Sire. Do not worry. We have plenty to eat and drink along the way. If sire grows tired then he may like to recline in his special cabin that is also complete with a library. Before embarking I had instructed the Pustakadhyaksha to stock the library with the Vedas, Puranas, that is with all the Smriti, Shruti and Itihaasa volumes, as well as the Pitakas - Vinaya, Sutta and Abhidhamma, and the more new fangled writings such as those of our own Kautilya, and even those of Manu, Narada and Brihaspati. If sire would like a change from reading then we have with us the best of of court musicians who would play beautiful Magadhan melodies. Consider their current rage". Here Swayambhu sings, "Dil Jalta Hai to Jalne De, Aansu Na Baha, Fariyaad Na Kar, Dil Jalta Hai To Jalne De".

Chadragupta interrupts Swayambhu, "Yes, I get it. It's the Dil Dhoondhta Hai Phir Wahi sort of melody. I was looking for something more ethnic. I do not mind that it would be a folk melody since in this century high art seems to be getting the pride of place."

Swayambhu, "Sire, I shall enquire with the choir and get back to thee." Swayambhu exits.

Nautanki enters.

Nautanki, " Sire. I came to thank you. This is my very first journey to videsha. I am really thrilled to seee this wide-open sea. The waters of Holy Ganga at Chaldi-Hapra were never so wide nor so blue nor indeed would thunder thus. I hope our boat would take the journey."

Kautilya, "Dear Nautanki. The wonders of the sea are many. It is not apparant that the sea also has many living things in it. First of all the sea-fish are much bigger and more varied than the river-fishes. They come in all types, shapes and sizes. Up above nearer the surface they are some of the edible types and very far below they are of a kind that seldom surface and their shapes and sizes are even more umimaginable to those who have seen only river-fish. Do not worry about the journey. The boat can take it. After-all this is not the first boat that we have sent accross from our shores to Kampuchea. It is the same sea-farers who have told me about the properties of the ocean"

Aristophanes, "Sire Kautilya, I have visited Nautanki Ji's village, seen something of the environs their, and we even heard a longish discourse from him regarding the gods of the forests trees and such like. In Greece, in our part of the world, there is the Aegean Sea whihc is very shallow, sky blue and is dotted with hundreds of islands that are all inhabited. We grow fings, olives, grapes and numerous other fruits and vegetables that are in great demand from other civilizations. But this Indian Ocean is very different. The winds in this season are very strong which may make for good-sailing, but to a Greek they are also very threatening as our sea, for most of the year, is very placid."

Kautilya, "Dear Aristophanes. Are you bothered by sea-sickness or some such thing or is it plain nervousness? The King's library is open to our distiguished foreign guests. As you have seen a sea before, and are bothered by this one, although I would comfort you by saying that our Magadhan boats are very sturdy and have navigated all the oceans of the world; I would thus advise you to retire to the library in this boat and catch up your Vedic reading. I have seen Homer's Illiad and Odyssey that mentions a lot of Greek seafaring and read with much interest the number of different types of boats you have, your gods and monsters of the sea and the land, your ritual procedures for dispelling these, the way you have waged wars on humans, your notions of chivalry..."

Aristophanes who is obviously too ill, "Sire, I would take your advise to retire to the library... are there any couches there?" And thus Aristophanes exits. But not before Kautilya's final question to him, "Tell me good sir. Where is our ambassador Megasthanes?".

Aristphanes, "Sire, the last I saw of him he was enjoying a basket full of mangoes at the helm of the boat. I have not travelled half as much as him, as I tended to stay put in Athens and write my comedies. He is a much travelled man, certainly more than me.

Act Vii Scene I

Even as the humdrum of the sea-voyage is taking place and all the inmates of the boat are settling-down to a journey that would, even with the help of strong-winds, take at least a week to be completed, an enormous monster of the sea Varga shakes the boat violently. Chandragupta is woken up violently from his sleep and Megathanes loses some of his mangoes to the sea. All are shocked. Varga rears its scary head and looks the boatmen in the eye.

Kautilya, "Who art thou and why do you thus trouble us?"

Varga, "I am an ancient occupant of this sea and you travel in my area without my permission. Who are you?".

Kautilya froths at the mouth that there should be any in the Magadhan realms that should not know who he is so Nautanki comes to the fore.

Nautanki to Varga, "Prased be the Gods that you Varga should show yourself to us. I have heard about you from my Grandmother who travelled once in the ocean. You are truly Great.".

Varga to Nautanki, "You have a very likeable countenance and speak very well of me. Tell me, who are these people?".

Nautanki, "Good Varga, Lordess of the Indian Ocean, it is no less than Chandragupta, The Supreme King of Magadha who sails this boat. Alongwith are his ministers, courtiers and noblemen of different descriptions, and we sail for the distant lands of Kampuchea to conduct affairs of the State".

Varga, "I see. So this is a State-Visit, and all this without my permission. Look here noble Nautanki, the King and the Commoner, are both equal before me, I may destroy your boat and all of you would perish as soon as it takes the waters that are at my command to swallow you all up. Who speaks to alleviate your lot?''

"I, Vatsa, do", replies Vatsa and thus speaks further, "Noble Varga, mistress of the Indian Ocean, and imbued with such divine powers to create and destroy, that Varuna has bestowed upon thee.

We are but sailsmen who are ploughing the seas with our boats that we may reach the foreign lands of Kampuchea to promote India Trade and Commerce and build a goodwill between the two peoples. We do not carry any animosity with us although there is always a possibility that discord may arise between peoples of two cultures, such as Bharata and Kampuchea, since our language, manners and customs are so different. It is thissame intersubjectivity that puts you at logger-heads with us. We did not intend to transgress your domains at all. But unless we do how do we sail further and reach the land that is our destination? at Googly we remained too preoccpied with this new drink called tea or chai and all but forgot to have our priest Kautilya invoke you and offer oblations and mantras to appease you before we set sail? I humbly beseech you on behalf of our King and countrymen to let us pass.".

Hearing this Varga's temper cooled-down a bit and She speaks thus, "O, Vatsa, you too have a pleasant countenance and speak well for your King and countrymen. However, you should understand that the laws governing land are made by the King however, the laws of the forests and the oceans are made by such creatures as me. If we were not to scare the humans from time to time then you would plunder all the wealth of the forests and the oceans much the same as you have deprived the lands you govern of many things of extreme beauty, plenitude and joy. This course of human history is most repugnant and therefore we are commanded by our own gods to restrict the activity of the humans on this earth.".

Swayambhu is in the meanwhile back from the Magadhan choir and seeing the spectacle of his boat held to ransom by the sea-monster Varga speaks thus, "Oh, noble Varga, our Magadhan choir is on-board with us and I shall ask them to sing a tune that would appease your soul such that you may let us pass unmolested".

The Magadhan choir then assembles quickly and with all the instruments, cymbals and drums and flutes and stringed instruments sing Rang Barse, Beege Chunar Wali Rang Barse".

Hearing this lilting melody sung by the finest of Magadhan singers, Varga lowers her ferocious hood and disappears beneath the blue waters of the Indian Ocean.

Act VIII Scene I

With Varga out of the way the Magadhan Sailboat makes good speed towards the distant shores of Kampuchea. Further events and discussions occupy the inmates of the boat now. As a first act after recovering from the destruction that was well-nigh, the King Chandragupta summons the Captain of the boat Kumarmangal and speaks thus:

Chandragupta to Kumarmangala, "Good Sir, it was lucky of us that Varga let us pass unmolested. I am myself in great shock. You, of all people should have known that such a contingency may have arisen and warned us suitably when we were in Googly to perform the necessary pujas. Anyway, let bygones be bygones. Do tell me of the way ahead to Kampuchea.".

Kumarmangala, "Sire. There is no sea that leads us directly to Kampuchea. The Kingdom of Thai lies in the way. Thus we must sail directly to Thai and take our boat down the Tenashri River of the Thais and emabrk there. The journey from there to Kampuchea may be by another boat or by Land, whichever the Noble Sire thinks fit."

Chandragupta, "By Land! No that I do not prefer. Besides Narak, Naraki, Nautanki, Vatsa, Kautilya, Mr. and Mrs. Dongre, Aristophanes and Megathanes and Swayambhu have all asked me to take them on a sea-voyage. So the sea-route it shall be.".

Kumaramangala, "So it shall be Sire."

Scene II.

The Magadhan boat is now well accross the Indian Ocean and nearing the coast of Thai and the river Tenashri. There is a marginal change in the properties of the sea, the rocky islands, the wind conditions. The inamtes of the boat are now in some apprehension as to how they would be received in the kingdom of Thai, as they are, except forthe King and Kautilya, all veritable strangers there.

Chandragupta orders Kautilya to summon Vatsa, Narak, Nautanki and Swayambhu. This order is promptly carried-out by Kautilya. A special meeting is convened in the library and Candragupta speaks thus:

Chandragupta, "My good noble Magadhans. You may be impervious of the king and not entirely uptodate with what information he possesses of his citizens. With the help of Kautilya here I am well-informed of all your musings and speculations about Dharma, Karma, Artha and Moksha, as indeed I am of your views about my five-hundred year plans. In these musings you Vatsa and you Narak have displayed tremendously developed powers of thought, so it is to you, assisted by Nautanki and Swayambhu, that I enturst the most crucial task ahead. As our boat arrives at the banks of Tenashri, you are to disembark, and would proceed as my special emissaries to the King at Ayutthaya Maalikaadityavarman. However you are also to visit the cities of Si Satchanalai and Sukhothai. You are to carry as presents copies of several of our books dealing with religion, logic, grammar, state and domestic affairs and philosophy and a few of our sanskrit inscriptions from this century in which I have expressed my goodwill towards King Maalikaadityavarman and in which I have expressed happiness that Hindusim and Buddhism have both been accepted and promoted by Maalik and in which I further wish for a continuing relatioship of peace, harmony and goodwill between our respective kingdoms. Naturally, as Kautilya would readily espouse, nothing moves without trade and commerce, therefore, these inscriptions also enjoin the trading communities of Thai to entertain no fears in treading our waters, and our traders in treading theirs, for the purposes in trading legitimate items of benefit to the peoples of these two countries. You would be assisted by a fine team of our soldiers on-board and would be supplied good steeds that you may accomplish this jourbey, both ways, with great alacrity. Return, at onace, as soon as your mission is over. Also inform the King that I have harboured at his port and shall be moving ahead, without meeting him, to O Dong, in Kampuchea. However, on the return journey, I shall make my very best attempt to alight at a suitable port and try to meet him in person.

Scene III.

Hearing this Vatsa and Naraka are both delighted and overjoyed that they would get to see something of the Kingdom of Thai. The sea journey of even a week has tired them a bit so they speak thus:

Naraka, "Sire, I am much given to reading about the Kingdoms east of Magadha, and it has been my desire for a long time now to see something of these distant lands. I am therefore very grateful to you for, among others, having chosen me to represent you thus. Thank you indeed."

Vatsa, "Sire. I am given to religious thoughts and philosophy of all religions of all the countries. Lately, and due to the housing-boom, that you are aware of, by your own accounts, I have beem immersed rather too much in material thoughts, and have not had much time to travel or read. Needless, to say, this opportunity that you have given us, to travel by land, in the Kingdom of Thai, would allow me to update myself with the religious philosophy of the Kingdom of Thai. I, sire, thank you very much."

Having thus discoursed with their King and countrymen this squad of Magadhans disembark and helped with sturdy steeds they hasten towards their assigned location Ayutthaya, Si Satchanalai and Sukhothai. Here is their conversation en route.

Naraka, "Dear friend Vatsa. What a relief to be able to leave the ship! I had been getting very sick indeed. Water water everywhere and not a single drop to drink?".

Vatsa, "Quite right, dear friend, and I was really scared when that monster Varga reared her head. I do look ahead to discuss a lot with you and to see a bit of the Kingdom of Thai. The country here, I may note at the very outset, looks very similar to ours. The soil is brown and very fertile, there are plenty of mangroves in the coastal area, and I expect that there would be rivers and mountains and forests very much like ours when we get more inland."

Gradually they inch forward from the area of the tenashri river towards auttaya. the roads are lined with buddhist and hindu temples and the markets teeming with art objects like paintings of gods and goddesses, and metal images in gold and silver.

Swayambhu to Nautanki, "Dear Nautanki, how do you feel in this market-place? Do these alien gods and goddesses scare you? Do they make you happy? What?"

Nautanki, "Dear Friend Syawam. Gods and goddesses, of any kind, ought not to scare, god has given us monsters for that purpose. Gods of any religion, after-all, are meant to be benign. So I expect that these rather flat-faced gods and goddessses, despite their facial and other features should also be benign. Why should I be scared of them?"

Swayambhu, "Well since this is your first journey aborad and so far you have been praying only to gods of the trees and forests, therefore I thought this question was appropriate."

Nautanki, "that is quite alright dear frined. now my suggestion to you, even as our nobles vatsa and naraka are resting isthat we do a survey of thismarket place to see if there are any further new drinks available?"

Swayambu, "yes, that is a jolly good idea."

Scene IV

Vatsa and Naraka are suitably rested and Swayambhu and Nautanki come to gradually the following morning in the glorious sunrise that spreads a riot of colours into the Ayuttaya countryside.

Vatsa, "Dear friend Naraka. About time we went calling on King Maalikadityavarman. The King has allowed us a very short period of time."

Naraka,"Yes good friend. He awaits us eagerly at the ship with such news as we may carry. Let us hasten on our journey. The road to Ayuttaya is but not far. We should be there in a few hours if we hasten"

Vatsa, "Swayambhu, Nautanki. Wake up and let us all saddle-up.We should be departing to meet the King of Ayuttaya"

Nautanki, "Master. We are already up and ready and so are the horses. Let us ride".

Scene V.

The entourage led by Vatsa speeds through the valleys and mountains and finally enters the precincts of the Royal Palace. The guards question them and they are allowed entry into the city to seek counsel with the king.

Maalikaditya, "Good Sirs. I am told that a Magadhan ship is moored at Tenashri and Candragupta no less is aboard alongwith some greeks and most importantly the Noble Kautilya. I have greatly admired his Arthasastra. A thing of beauty is joy forever. Recently we have initiated mining activities in Kampuchea purely from the caveats of the Arthasastras that recommends this as the best means to shore-up the royal treasury. However, we have not as yet perfected fully the mettalurgical part of metal-manufacture and we hope that Magadha could help us with this. Do you think we may send our tin, copper and iron-ore to India fro metallurgical processing and conversion into household, agricultural products?"

Vatsa, "Sire. That decision would be upto King and Kautilya, yet I may say that Pataliputra is well-suited to such conversions. However, we bring for you several presents from Candragupta. These are our expressions of goodwill."

Maalikaditya, "These are accepted. You may now rest for the day and night, and carry my message to Candragupta."

Scene VI.

These events over the emmissaries of Candragupta return to mother-ship dcked at Tenshri river.

Mr. Dongre to Candragupta, "Sire, I have not spoken with you before either at Pataliputra or in the week-long voyage that this has been. Now I am really curious as to what your emissaries have to say of the Kingdom of Thai and their meeting with King Maalikadityavarman and of the lands and people of Thai."

Mrs. Dongre to Candragupta, "Sire, Me too. I too have some similar questions of Sire. What is the Thai cuisine like? what sorts of people are they? what do they wear, their folk customs, and local manners?"

Candragupta to Naraka, "You have travelled for three-days in the kingdom of Thai. Let our boat-people know about you journeys."

Act IX Scene I

Megasthanes, Aristophanes, Kautilya and the other boat-people are assembled in the royal library where vatsa and naraka are to relate their travels. The ship has unmoored from Tenashri and is asail to Kampuchea.

Naraka, "Varga was foremost in our minds, Sire, as Vatsa and I assissted ably were on our way to Ayuttaya. We were very worried lest we encounter some land monsters also. We passed many a grove, swamp and plain land, but nary a monster came forward to challenge us. Surely this is due to your kind compensation and those of our gods."

Vatsa, "The people of Thai are very good-natured and merry. They eat, drink and dance like us. Even their language and songs resemble that of Pataliputra. They have assembled very large temples to commemorate the Buddha and this made us feel very much at home."

Swaymbhu, "Sire, the common people there live in villages like our own Chaldi-Hapra and eat a lot of fish."

Nautanki, "Their sense of the divine is very much like ours. They have big gods and small ones - gods of trees and forests, and goddesses of lakes, ponds, rivers and the seas. They were all very nice to us and very courteous."

Vatsa, "Sire, we have communicated to King Maalikadityavarman your presents and good wishes. He wishes to trade with us. He would like the unrefined ores of Iron and others types of ores to be shipped to Pataliputra where they would be purified and converted into metal objects."

Candragupta, "Well then that is a job well-done. As per Kautilya's suggestion it is trade that binds nations together, so we have succeeded in building economic and cultural contracts with the kingdom of Thai."

Candragupta to Kumaramangala, " Let us now sail on to the Kingdom of Kampuchea."

Kumaramangala, "Sire that would take another week as we would have to take a detour around the southern coast of the Kingdom of Thai and only then the seas allow us access to the harbour of Kampuchea."

Candragupta, "Thank you Kumara. That would give us more time to learn from our emissaries about the habits of the Kingdom of Thai. That is good."

so the magadhan shipsets sail for kampuchea and arrvies there shortly, and the affairs of thailand are discussed amongst the ship's inmates adequately by then, the salient point here being the diffusion of buddhism to thailand. on arrival at kampuchea chandragupta orders his embassy consisting of vatsa and narak, megathenes and aristophanes, mr.and mrs.dongre, to be accompanied by a suitable detachment of Magadhan toops to at once set out for angkor where as per kautilya's information the King Vilasadeva III is presently encamped.

Vatsa,"Dear King Vilasadeva. We come in friendship and in harmony and wish to build maritime trade contacts with your kingdom. Magadha is very rich in all types of mettalic ores and we have just concluded a major treaty with your neighbour, the Kingdom of Thai, in this same regard. Our King, Chandragupta Maurya, King of Magadha, which is across, the Indian Ocean, from you, wishes, that we give you these gifts, and hear what you have to say in this regard. This is our purpose in coming to you here!"

Vilasadeva III, "Dear Ambassador. It is not for nothing that our Khmer ancestors thought it fit to adopt both Buddhism and Hinduism. Our finest temples bear evidence that religions from your country are very popular here. It is not as if we do not have our own cults and belief systems. However, as you say, a relatioship of goodwill between us, compacted through trade, is the genuine need of the hour. I undersatnd that your sailing ship, Kusumlata, is very able bodied, and that after Kampuchea, your King and embassy, is planning to compact further such agreements, between the Kingdoms of the Viet, Laose, Indones, Malayese, Jappone, Chine, SauvyaShri, and Siam..."

Vatsa, "Dear Lord Vilasadeva III. Yes that is true. This is the fourth century bce and we are, in india, in the midst of what our historians call the "second urbanization". They, suggest, themselves, that it is the economic growth that would fuel urban growth and expansion...as each of us, is, in our actions, compelled, by the models and paradigms, concurrent, therefore it is our fate, as you have very correctly stated, to venture further to compact trade and commerce oriented treaties, with such nations, as you have described".

Vilasadeva III, "Then your gods be with you."

Here both the sides exchange gifts and fineries and the Indian Embassy gifts many inscriptions in sanskrit to the Kampuchean King that record the agreement and text of their treaty, and then Vatsa, and his entourage, take courteous, leave, of Vilasadeva III, and prepapre to return to ship. He Narak intervenes and explains to Vatsa that the Indian Embassy could, equallywell, tour, both Laos and Vietnam, using the land-route from Kampuchea. This is agreed. Kautilya orders a detachment of Magadhan troops to head back to the ship for its defence and to let Emperor Chandragupta know of their new plans. That done Kautilya, accompanied by the Indian Embassy, mounts a suitable steed, and the posse of riders embark for Laos,by land,from Kampuchea.

Ajay, 2009.

Comments