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Syncretism and Acculturation in Ancient India: A
New Nine Phase Acculturation Model Explaining the
Process of Transfer of Power from the Harappans to the Indo-Aryans
-- Sujay Rao Mandavilli
This paper provides a case for rejecting the Autochthonous Aryan theory and proposes an
alternative to the Aryan Migration Theory, i.e., it examines why the genetic input from Central Asia may have
been extremely small and how the spread of Indo-European
(IE) language and culture in India might have occurred in trickle in
scenarios, i.e., when movements of IE speakers were small. It suggests that the
IE speakers first migrated into and settled in the northernmost tip of the
sub-continent, trickled into the plains due to climatic changes in the northernmost tip of India, synthesized with the Harappans,
fused with them and got the upper hand when the transfer of population from North-West India into
the Gangetic plains took place around 1900 BC, and then desynthesized with whatever was left of
the Harappan civilization till it vanished around 1400 BC. Cultural contacts with West Asia and then
with South India would complete the process of spread of IE language and culture in India. This
paper suggests the need for delinking race with spoken and written forms of language and culture
while studying the identity of the Harappans, analyzes the role of internal and external migrations in
shaping Indian culture and questions some other long-held assumptions about
post-Harappan India. It also suggests that an integrated framework be developed for studying Ancient India.
The paper stresses the need for adopting via media approaches for resolving the Aryan issue and comes up with a new
hypothesis which will be taken up for a debate and
discussion. It also proposes a concurrent dating paradigm
and a new heuristic framework which will be useful both for future cultural studies of Ancient India
and for conducting further archaeological excavations, and then uses this framework to make
inferences about the cultural and religious history of the sub-continent. The methodology
adopted takes the Aryan Migration Theory (1500 BC) as a base and
works backwards to arrive at a fresh set of conclusions. © 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Situating Kalhana and his Chronicle Rajatarangini
-- Rattan Lal Hangloo
History is re-written in every age but historians have to guard not only against the prejudices of
the past but also of the future otherwise their work would be untranslatable in troubled times. This
paper has grown out of an interest in Kalhana's
Rajatarangini which has not received adequate attention
in Indian historiography. Kalhana is one of the foremost historians of early Kashmir and one of the
most original scholars in this field. His method, however, does not only fit the familiar moulds of
social, economic, political and cultural history but his writing also corresponds to our history of ideas
and over laps with what has recently become known as the history of mentalities. This paper is not
concerned with the details of looting of Kashmir by Damaras or with the abilities of Kings such as Lalitaditya
as illustrated by Kalhana. But it indicates how necessary interpreting the
Rajatarangini is as a source text as the evidence of a personal stand point, which has acquired a lasting significance from
the individuality of the author, uniqueness of the historical situation and specificity of region and
time. The principle subject is not the historical reality of events and state of affairs recorded by
Rajatarangini; what appeals the reality of the mental activity manifested in this chronicle which also shows
how Kalhana's account of complex social economic and political processes and patterns in Kashmir
interacted with the wider world. © 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
On history of damage caused
to Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque by cannon fire employed to
break the Delhi
Iron Pillar
-- R Balasubramaniam
A significant mark on the Delhi Iron Pillar is a large crater due
to a cannon shot. The history of this cannon shot has been first traced to show that the shot was probably fired by Nadir Shah in the
year 1739. The probable reason why a second cannon shot was not fired on the Pillar has been arrived
at based on the analysis of existing structures of the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque and the location of
the cannon relative to the Pillar when it was fired. Damage of the structures on the southwestern
portion of the historically significant Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque due to wayward cannon fire appears to
have prevented a second shot being fired on the Pillar. It has further been shown that the cannon,
which fired the shot, was moved into the courtyard of the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque through the gap in
the northwestern portion of the wall and was located north of the Pillar at a distance of approximately
30 feet from the Pillar. A brief discussion on the surprising ability of the
Pillar for withstanding the cannon shot concludes
the paper. © 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Book Review
Religion, Law and Power : Tales of Time in Eastern India, 1860-2000
-- Author: Ishita Banerjee-Dube,
Reviewed by Rila Mukherjee
Mahima Dharma, much in the style of the Lutheran
Reformation that rebelled against the practices of the corrupt Catholic
church by popularising direct devotion to the Holy Trinity in
16th century Germany, eschewed temples and idols and advocated, instead,
direct worship of an all pervasive, formless Absolute. This formless
Absolute was declared, in the Mahima Dharma cult, equally accessible to
all. The subaltern cult of Mahima Dharma, therefore, dealt a blow to religious mediation
through temples, to idol worship and, most important of all, to the centralized Jagannatha cult
in Orissa, which has been linked with the Oriya ruling class since the
11th century.
© 2009 IUP holds the copyright for the book review. All Rights Reserved.
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