Upinder Singh historian
Historian Upinder Singh was a little tense when we met her at her husband's official quarters in St Stephen's College in Delhi. Her ninth book, Political Violence in Ancient India, was on the launch pad, but she was more worried about getting a rented house. Her husband, Vijay, had just retired, and they would have to vacate the quarters. One of the foremost historians India, and the daughter of former prime minister Manmohan Singh, she has no home of hers in Delhi.
Yet, once she started talking about the book, she was at ease. She talked at length about the evolution of state in India, about violence, about Arthasastra, and about military history. Excerpts:
Your book is titled Political Violence in Ancient India. Are you saying that formation of the political state had been a violent process?
I am looking at political violence in general, not just about the origin of the state. My story begins after the state has emerged. I am looking at the distinction between the force that was used to rule and other forms of political violence. I am also talking about kingdoms. Apart from the general discussion about violence and non-violence, I am also discussing the distinction between legitimate force and illegitimate force, as it is used by the king. I also looked at three specific issues—punishment, war and relationship between the state and the forest. Not just about forest resources but also about the people and the animals who inhabit the forest.
You are talking about kingdoms. Now, there is a thinking that during the evolution of the state, during the phase of the janapadas, the communities had settled into a contended existence. They were not seeking more territories, wealth or slaves; they might have been non-violent. And political violence appeared with the rise of monarchy or kingdoms with standing armies.
In the 6th BCE, where my story starts, there were two kinds of states—the rajyas and the sanghas or the ganas. Violence seems to have been very pervasive in this period, and was not confined to one kind of political system. So, I wouldn't say that it is only in the monarchies that we see violence, particularly warfare. It is there in the kingdoms; and it is there in the oligarchies.
So you think they were oligarchies, and not republics?
I am using the word 'oligarchy' in preference to 'republic'. In the older writings, the ganas or sanghas were sometimes considered as republics, or thought to be be having a very democratic kind of political system. But later research has shown that may not have been the case. Yes, instead of power being vested in the hands of one person, the king, power was in the hands of a kshatriya aristocracy in the ganas or sanghas. And there may have been differences in the pattern of landholding.
But if you look at the story of the Buddha, you find that the Sakyas were a hill tribe who were following a very non-violent and contended existence, and were quite jealously guarding themselves against the violent monarchical state that was rising in the Gangetic plains of Magadha. And also that ultimately the monarchical state came in and unleashed its violence on this janapada. The Sakyas was ultimately massacred by the armies of a monarchical state. Even the Buddha could not prevent it.
It is true that Buddhism and Jainism have had a close relationship with the oligarchies. But when it comes to warfare, the ganas or the sanghas were not peaceful. You cannot draw a contrast between the peaceful oligarchies and the violent monarchies. There is this constant warfare among the states and between the monarchies and oligarchies. Certainly the monarchies ultimately win out. But if you look at the Lichchavis, for instance, they were involved in a long and protracted—for about 16 years—struggle with the Magadhans. We know about the conflict in the time of Ajatasatru. The Buddhist texts refer to this.
There is a story in the Buddhist texts that Ajatasatru, the king of Magadha, sent his minister named Vasakara to the Buddha to seek advice on how he could defeat the Lichchavis. The Buddha gives some general advice which Vasakara interprets as indicating that the Lichchavis cannot be defeated in battle, and, therefore, the way to defeat them would be to sow seeds of dissension within their ranks to weaken them internally, and then for the Magadhan army to strike. So, even on the part of the Buddha there is this engagement with politics. There are these kings such as Bimbisara, Ajatasatru, Prasenajit, the big political leaders of the time who are known to have interacted with the Buddha. So, I don't think we should make that contrast that you are making between the non-violent oligarchies and violent monarchies.
But these republics—or oligarchies as you call them—didn't have standing armies. The standing army was something that rose along with the monarchical system.
We don't have accounts of their military system. We have to make inferences. And, you also have references to oligarchies having existed for many centuries after the time of the Buddha. Samudra Gupta had a military alliance with the Lichchavis [whose state was an oligarchy]. He was married to a Lichchavi princess. Oligarchies were there for a long time, but ultimately, as you said, they could not withstand the military might of the kingdoms.
Where did the Buddha draw his non-violence from, if it was not from his Sakya clan? What did his non-violence mean? Was it political non-violence, or only ritualistic?
Non-violence in Indian civilisation is very closely connected with renunciation. The history of both these goes back to earlier times. In fact, Jainism is much older than Buddhism. Renunciation and non-violence are issues that were being discussed even before the Buddha's period which is 6th century BCE. But it is in the 6th century BCE that both these things begin to explode. There were so many shramanas, so many thinkers—Ajita Kesakambali, Purana Kassapa, Makkhali Gośāla and so on. The Buddha and Mahavira are two of many such thinkers. Non-violence and renunciation were important factors in many of these doctrines. I think it is the Jains who were the first to place a great deal of emphasis on non-violence.
If we can trace the history of renunciation, I think we can trace the history of non-violence. I think it is the Jains who were the first to place a great deal of emphasis on non-violence. We need to contextualise the doctrines of the Buddha and Mahavira in the 6th century BCE by recognising that this is the period when we have a transition from tribal economy, society and polity towards the state. It was a time when cities are emerging. It was time when social conflicts of various kinds are getting accentuated. It was also the time when you have all these yagyas, some of which involved animal sacrifice. And you also have very intensive and pervasive warfare. I know, it does not fully answer your question. But there was a very detailed philosophical analysis and understanding of non-violence in these states. So, what these religions did was to make non-violence a very important tenet of both monastic practice and lay practice. They introduced a code of ethics—a kind of coherent systematic code of ethics for the first time in which non-violence is central both for monastic community and the laity.
You linked non-violence to renunciation. But today it is also being linked to vegetarianism. But as I understand, the Buddha himself was a non-vegetarian. Didn't he die of eating bad meat?
The Buddhist texts say that the Buddha lived up to the ripe old age of 80 or more, and that he died due to some illness caused by consumption of some meat. For the Buddhist monks, the important thing was that the animal should not be killed for you or by you. But if a monk, when he is on his begging round, is given some chicken curry, he was obliged to accept it. It was all right to accept meat, provided that the animal was not specially killed for you. Even today there are various issues around vegetarianism [as a tenet]. If you got to Tibet [where Buddhist monks, too, eat non-vegetarian food], there are these discussions about vegetarianism.
But vegetarianism does not mean abstaining from violence towards certain animals. What matters is the context in which you resort to or abstain from violence.
How and when did vegetarianism get into Vaishnavism? In the mediaeval period?
Even much earlier. In early Brahmanism or Vedic religion, and even in the Upanishads, you can see elements of non-violence. But they are not very important. Non-violence becomes a central philosophical issue and concern after the 6th century BCE. That is why you get those discussions of non-violence particularly in the Mahabharata which talks about ahimsa paramo dharma, and yet tells us the story of a very very bloody war and ultimately justifies it.
The rise of the Mauryan empire itself was a violent one. But when you reach Ashoka you find non-violence coming again as a precept of the state. Was Ashoka's non-violence a political tool to impose pax Mauryana aimed at consolidation of the empire?
The way I look at Ashoka's inscriptions, I feel that he had a very deep commitment towards various values especially nonviolence. His inscriptions have a strong ring of sincerity to them. I think the fact that he got these inscriptions on dharma inscribed in various parts of the subcontinent over such a long period of time, shows that he was obsessed with dharma. From the fact that many of his inscriptions talk about dharma in the first person, you get the feeling that he was a king who was grappling with moral issues both at the personal level and at the social and political level..... We should not dismiss it as mere legitimation of his politics.
But his dynasty ends with a strange act of political violence—the first and perhaps the only instance of a military coup in ancient India, where Pushyamitra Sunga captured the throne after assassinating Brihadratha. Were such violent coups common in ancient India?
We have to rely on what our sources tell us. There were so many different kinds of political events that may have happened and may have not been recorded. This is one military coup which is very clearly recorded. We know that Pushyamitra Sunga assassinated the last Mauryan king Brihadratha while he was inspecting a military parade.
Like the way Anwar Sadat was assassinated in Egypt...
Well, there could have been more such incidents, which have not been recorded.
What do you think of the Arthasastra as a treatise of violence? Much is being made out of the fact that it deals with the rules of warfare, the formations and the dos and don'ts of warfare. But I find that the Arthasastra author merely prescribes the rules, and does not say anything about how battles are to be waged, led and won. He has no idea of tactics and strategy which you find in Clausewitz or Sun Tzu.
Well, it has been said that the Arthasastra was written by someone who was some kind of pedantic pundit. Because he is so fond of classification and detailed discussion of the kind that may not be connected with practical politics. But I think where the Arthasastra is different from Sun Tzu or Clausewitz is that there is more in it. War is just one part of the Arthasastra. Kautilya actually creates a new discipline—the discipline of political economy. We need to recognise the genius of the man who could visualise the state in such elaborate manner, and even think of so enormous and elaborate kind of spy system.
Yes, like many other famous or notorious historical figures, Kautilya is a little misunderstood. Just as Ashoka is held up as an icon of nonviolence, Kautilya is held up also as an icon of ruthlessness and deceit.... You should also remember that Kautilya is always emphasising on careful thought and careful calculation when it comes to the use of force. He advises the king to listen to good advice. Similarly in his discussion of war, he also says that war must be a last resort. I think that is where a lot of military thinkers would agree. Even Sun Tzu does say that.
But, didn't Arthasastra attempt to regulate warfare to a static game of chess with limited possibilities of employment of tactics and strategy? Didn't it limit strategic thinking and nip in the bud any kind of strategic culture being founded in India?
I don't know whether ancient Indian kings were fighting their battles according to Arthasastra. It is a very technical work on statecraft. Although Kautilya says he wrote this work for the sake of kings, I am not sure about how many kings were bothered about reading this book. So there are other aspects of military history—whether it is strategy or military technology. But that is another issue which I haven't gone into in this book.
V.D. Savarkar's writings have given a notion to several Indians that India's imperial glory was in the early Mauryan period and the culture of non-violence that began with the Buddha and made political by Ashoka quelled the imperial quest in India. He even suggests that India came to be subjected to so many invasions because of this non-violent culture. Your views.
If you look at the Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History by Savarkar, there he sees non-violence as a sign of weakness. For Savarkar, Ashoka is not the hero. It is Chandragupta Maurya. So there is this idea that Indian history has been one of foreign invasions and the real heroes of Indian history are those who have thrown the foreigners out. I think this is a very strange way of looking at history. If I compare Nehru's Discovery of India with Savarkar's Six Glorious Epochs, well, there is no comparison.
You certainly have certain religious thinkers such as the Buddha, Mahavira, you have certain communities who have drawn inspiration from them. For them non-violence is important. You have kings like Ashoka for whom non-violence is important. Other than that, I don't think that ancient India was pervaded with some kind of strong element of non-violence that led to all kinds of other things in history including defeat in war. I think defeat in war has to do with access to resources, military technology, and military strategies.
You end your study with the Huna invasions. But even after Toramana and Mihirakula, there was the illustrious empire of the Vardhanas. Harsha had waged extensive wars, and even suffered defeats—one of them at the hands of the great Chalukya king Pulikesin. Why didn't Harsha fall within the purview of your study?
Well, this has been a very long project. I didn't proceed chronologically. The first text that I studied was the Nitisara. Then I went to Asoka, then I went to Kalidasa, and then decided to fill in the gaps. I had to go back to Mahabharata and Ramayana which too are culturally extremely important. And because my training is in inscriptions, I had to look at inscriptions. Because I am interested in art, I had to look at artistic remains. I had to look at Panchatantra and other texts. So, I had to have a dividing line somewhere. So I thought, if I was to start my story in the 6th century BCE with the emergence of the state, let me finish with 600 CE with the decline of the Gupta empire.
Certainly I could have included Harsha. Well then, one could have stretched it even more because the story becomes even more interesting afterwards. But I really thought that this 1,200-year period is very foundational. And I am not looking so much at political events; I am looking at political thought. So the texts that I have chosen are very fundamental in understanding the evolution of ancient Indian political thought.
But post-Harsha, we find India falling into a sort of black hole of history. There was no great empire—you had the Pratiharas, the Pramaras, the Rashtrakutas, but none of them was a patch on the Mauryas or the Guptas. I was once trying to understand the political history of India at the time of Sankara, and I found that there was not even one single great empire at that time. But yes, several of the great texts were written during that time. Why this contradiction? Usually great sciences and arts are all flourishing under great empires.
I don't see that period as a dark age or black hole. Very often in history we think that the focus should be on the period of the great empires. So, for a very long time, there was great focus on the Mauryan empire, and on the Gupta empire, and the period in between was seen as some kind of a dark age. But we know that actually from the point of view of not only political history but also cultural history, there is so much that happened in that period. That was also the period of invasions. That is when the Kushans, the Indo-greeks, and others came in. That is when you have the Gandhara and the Mathura schools. That is when you have the emergence of Mahayana Buddhism, the emergence of bhakti, Vaishnavism, Saivism, their early forms. So, there is this kind of bias—we want to see the big empires and we think those eras of empires are the great periods in Indian history. But the historian looks at things in a little different way.
Have these periods been studied adequately?
Take the period from 600 to 1200, which you are asking about. Actually for the last 50 years there has been a lot of work on that period. From the point of view of social and economic history. Look at things from the point of view of cultural history. Look at south India, look at the Cholas, look at temple architecture. The most magnificent examples of temple architecture are from this period. The foundation of the Hindu temple architecture is laid in the Gupta period. The magnificent temples in Orissa or the Tamil Nadu temples like Chidambaram all happened in this period. This is also the period when we had the flowering of regional cultures.
What seems to us from a distance as an all-India empire were not all-India. One doubts whether the Magadhan king actually had control over that whole area. The Gupta empire was also confined to certain parts of north India and central India. The Vatakatas were ruling in the Deccan. And after that though you have certainly regional kingdoms, these kingdoms really formed the basis of some very dynamic developments especially in the cultural sphere. You very rightly talked about literature. I would add art and architecture. Even in the history of religions this is a very dynamic period. You have the Alwars and the Nayanmars in the south. So there is very lot happening in these periods due to which I think you should not consider this a dark period.
So, can I summarise your book as a story of political violence?
No, my book emphasises the importance of the history of ideas, which is a very neglected sphere in our country. The other thing that I would like to emphasise, is that when we think about history we need to be less India-centric. There were so many exciting things that were happening—the intellectual and cultural exchanges between India and China, India and southeast Asia. We Indian historians are too India-centric. When you expand the geographical horizons, when you think of things in a comparative perspective, even Indian history becomes much more exciting.
Political Violence in Ancient India
By Upinder Singh
Published by Harvard University Press
Price Rs 999
Pages 598
