History Writing in the Subcontinent - 1
By Syed Osman Sher
Mississauga, Canada
According to the British orientalist F.E. Pargiter, “Ancient Indian history has been fashioned out of compositions, which are purely religious and priestly, which notoriously do not deal with history, and which totally lack the historical sense.” As for the history of later periods, it has been structured by literary texts, monuments, inscriptions, numismatics, and accounts of foreign travelers. Such a history is thus mostly a string of names and incidents without details, and often with wide gaps.
It also looks strange that for a period of four thousand years of civilization down to the Muslim’s arrival in India in the eighth century AD, India did not have historical text of any kind. It was only when the Muslim historians, and sometimes the rulers themselves, started to keep records of events that we got the written history. These accounts may be called the first-time written history of India because before that there was no tradition of history writing.
Abu Rihan Al Biruni observes thus, “Unfortunately the Hindus do not pay much attention to the historical order of things, they are very careless in relating the chronological succession of their kings, and when they are pressed for information and are at a loss, not knowing what to say, they invariably take to tale-telling.” (Kitabul Hind, Volume II, pp. 10-11). Al Beruni further writes about the Hindu psyche: “They consider as canonical only that which is known by heart, not that which exists in writing”. Thus, they memorized the Vedas and forgot history. It cannot be fully explained why the Hindus have not attached importance to their past. It may be argued, however, that the culture of a society shapes its psyche, and, therefore, since the Hindus view this world as an illusion (maya), no importance was attached to the physical existence of men and matters. Only the soul is the real thing, and that too aspires to get deliverance from the cycle of births. That is why the Hindus burn their dead and do not raise tombs.
Anyway, ancient India suffered from the paucity of written history. However, some literature was in existence that was passed from generation to generation. But they did not throw much light on the political and social condition of the time. Further, their fidelity may be doubtful because of some understanding between the bard and the prince— a ‘barter of solid pudding against empty praise.’ However, hyperbole and gross flattery are institutionalized features of the courtly historiography everywhere at all times. Anyway, before the advent of the Muslims in India, it was only Kashmir where we find a tradition of historical writing. But again, it may be so because of the dominance of Buddhism in that area. The historical work of Kashmir, Rajatrangini, written by Kalhana in the 12 th century, stands ‘unique as the only attempt at true history in the whole of surviving Sanskrit literature’ In addition, one important historical biography is Bana’s Harshacharita.
It is said that the Muslims, like many other nations, have a keen desire to know their past, and have maintained historical records in the tradition of the Greeks and Chinese. In the Islamic world, the writing of royal histories had long been an established practice. Especially, it seems to be a tradition with the Mughal emperors to write their autobiography. The tradition of history writing as a state affair was established by Timur. Thus, we find Malfuzat-i-Timur or Tuzuk-i-Timuri, an autobiographical memoir of the Emperor Timur, written in the Chagatai Turki language. Sharfuddin Yazdi who wrote Zafarnama after only thirty years of Timur’s death to commemorate his victories mentions in his preface the following: “The third recommendation (of this work of mine, named Zafarnama) is its truthfulness—the exactness and verity of the accounts and descriptions of the various events of Timur’s life, both at home and abroad. Men of the highest character for learning, knowledge, and goodness, Aighur officers and Persian secretaries were in attendance at the Court of Timur, and staff of them under the orders of the Emperor wrote down an account of everything that occurred. The movements, actions and sayings of Timur, the various incidents and affairs of State, of religion, and the ministers, were all recorded and written down with the greatest care. The most stringent commands were given that every event should be recorded exactly as it occurred, without any modification either in excess or diminution. This rule was to be particularly observed in matters of personal bearing and courage, without fear or favor of anyone, and most especially in respect of the valor and prowess of the Emperor himself. The learned and eloquent writers having recorded the facts, their compositions were polished and finished off in verse and prose. From time to time these writings were brought into the royal presence and were read to the Emperor, so as to ensure confidence by the impress of his approval. In this way, the records of the various incidents and actions of the life of Timur, whether recounted in Turki verse or Persian prose, were revised and finally recorded in prose and verse. Besides this, some of the officers of the Court wrote down the incidents of the reign of Timur and took the greatest pains to ascertain the truth of what they recorded. Accomplished writers then molded these productions into Turki verse and Persian prose.”
Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire, wrote his own memoirs in Turkish, called the Tuzuk-i-Babri (translation Baburnama). His son Humayun, being either on the run or in pursuit of his enemies in the shape of his brothers and the other aspirants to the throne like Sher Shah, had no time to write his autobiography. His life-account was written by his sister Gulbadan Begum. His son Akbar was probably dyslexic and thus physically unable to read. But he developed the practice of having himself read to daily. Jahangir commented in Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri: “My father always associated with the learned of every creed and religion, especially with the Pundits and the learned of India, and although he was illiterate, so much became clear to him through constant intercourse with the learned and wise in his conversation with them, that no one knew him to be illiterate, and he was so acquainted with the niceties of verse and prose compositions that his deficiency was not thought of.” Akbar, therefore, set the tradition of having a detailed history written by official command. In all the official history-writing works, or Namahs proper, the events were arranged chronologically, and the book was divided into chapters for each year of the monarch’s reign. For such a collection of facts, written official reports from all over the country required to be sent to the central government. This could only be done by waqainavis, or scribes to record the events. In the 24 th year of his reign (1580), Akbar appointed in each province of his empire a waqainavis for this purpose. In addition, there were akhbarat-i-darbar-i-mu’ala, or reports of everything that was done or said in public at the Court or camp of the Emperor. The Mughal Emperors appointed scholars who had mastery over prose writing to write the official history of the reign or the Namas.
This system was continued by Jahangir. He writes, “It had been made a rule that the events of the subahs (provinces) should be reported according to the boundaries of each, and news-writers from the Court had been appointed for this duty. This being the rule that my revered father had laid down, I also observe it”. By the time Jahangir came to the throne, the Mughals had lost their hold on their hereditary language, and as such he had to write his autobiography Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri in Persian. Had Shahjahan also written his autobiography it would have revealed a great deal more of his personality than the formalized histories we possess. Not lagging behind others, he also ordered the history of the time written by scholars.
The practice of history writing by official historiographers, which was started with Akbar, was discontinued at the time of Aurangzeb when after the end of his ten years of the reign historians were forbidden to write about the events of the administration. Under his orders, the history of the first ten years of his reign was written by Mirza Muhammad Kazim, under the title of Alamgir-namah, but he was prohibited to write it further. Aurangzeb closed the department of history writing altogether, probably to curtail the state expenditure. But some adventurous persons were not deterred by the orders given by the Emperor. Especially, SaqiMustaid Khan continued to write secretly, confining himself mainly to the description of conquests of territories.
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