Here are three quotes about history, in
particular Indian and Tamil history, that I find quite insightful and
fascinating, all the more because they seem somwhat orthogonal to each other.
The first is by Bishop Robert Caldwell, famous
for writing a book titled “Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South Indian
Family of Languages,” which ushered in a new era in linguistics. This particular
quote is from his book “The History of Tinnevelly.” Tinnevelly is the British
spelling of Tirunelveli, a town and district in the far south of Tamilnadu.
“It is singular fact, that the Hindus, though fond
of philosophy and poetry, of law, mathematics and architecture, of music and
the drama, and especially of religious or theosophical speculations, seem never
to have cared anything for History.”
This is a very common observation, by most
historians. The contrast between the voluminous histories of ancient civilizations
like China, Egypt, Rome, Persia and even Sumeria, stands in stark contrast to
the lack of a historical sense among the Indian literati.
But here’s a very different opinion, from a contemporary
of Caldwell, the American novelist Mark Twain, who visited India in the later
19th century. Obviously, Twain was no historian, but he had a sense
of India as a culture that seems to transcend the dry series of events, that often
constitute history.
“India is the cradle of the human race, the
birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend
and the great grand mother of tradition.”
A little hyperbolic, no doubt, but some of Caldwell’s
British predecessors, like Sir William “Oriental” Jones, who founded and ran the
Asiatic Society, and his remarkable successors like Horace Hayman Wilson, Henry
Colebroke, James Prinsep and Alexander Cunningham and Lord Curzon would have
wholeheartedly agreed. So would have the stalwarts of the Madras school of
Orientalism, like Colin Mackenzie, FW Ellis and Walter Eliot. But the more lastingly
famous Brits, like John Mill, Lord Thomas Macaulay and that irrepressible
colonialist Winston Churchill would have and vehemently contest this. And it is
their legacy that fills our history books, while the legacy of the Orientalists
decorate the land and its musuems and the hearts of Indologists.
I give the final word on a sense of history, to one
of my favorite historians, PT Srinivasa Iyengar, who begins his book “A History
of the Tamils: From the earliest times to the sixth century AD,” thus:
“If by history is meant
the story of rise and fall of royal dynasties, on the slaughter of an immense
number of human beings on the fields of battle in the name of heroism, the tale
of the displacement on the map of the world of large masses of humanity, eager
to plunder the wealth accumulated by the patient toil of peaceful people, the
narrative of rape of royal maidens and shedding innocent blood in revenge for
the outrage, then Tamil India is the happy country, which has had no history to
recount upto 600 A.D.
“On the other hand, if
history means the slow evolution of the social and religious life of a people,
under the stimulus of geographical conditions of the environment and the
influence of contact with peoples who have developed different kinds of
culture, the description of the slow change in the ways they ate and drank,
played and loved, sang and danced, paid court to kings and gods, the relation
of the story of development of their internal trade and commerce with foreign
countries, far and near, the narration of the evolution of their literature
from humble beginnings till a complicated scheme of literary convention was
established, there are ample materials for reconstruction of the history of the
Tamils from the earliest times upto 600 A.D. This story is attempted to be
recounted in this book.”
On September 25th,
I gave a lecture on the History of the Early Tamils, for the Southern India
Cultural Series, conducted by Ramu Endowments and its founder RT Chari, at Tag
Center Alwarpet. And I used Srinivasa Iyengar’s book as a major source for that
lecture and my understanding of Tamil history.
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The takeaway for me is that India and in particular Southern India has rich and extensive history, but we have had relatively less interest in "factually" (as in written by winners) tracking and narrating it, leaning more towards impressions and legend ("kaalakaalangalaga engal munnorgal" and so on).
ReplyDelete" And it is their legacy that fills our history books, while the legacy of the Orientalists decorate the land and its museums and the hearts of Indologists."
ReplyDeleteSo aptly said and it's sad. There is a need to rewrite history books. With the kind of magnificent temple architecture still around that stand to tell stories of those times, I have found myself helpless as a tourist and a parent, not knowing what those stories are and hence, not knowing what to look for. I marvel at the magnificence and leave the place with a feeling of "Did I really get all of what it once stood for?"