CHAPTER 3 SUCCESSION AND RULE : INDIA, HINDUTVA AND HISTORY
CHAPTER 3: SUCCESSION AND RULE
|| Ashvamedha Yagyas-blood feuds-patricide and fratricide || matrimonial alliances as an instrument of statecraft || suzerainty as arrangements between sovereigns || power of tributaries and subordinates-local rajas and chiefs-concentric circles of local warrior chiefs, rajas, maharajas and rajadhirajas || ancient and widespread history of decentralisation and federation || traditions of local self-governance || Bimbisara-Ajatasatru-Shishunaga-Nandas-Mauryas-Kushans-Satvahanas-Andhra Ishkavakus-Cholas-Gangas-Vakatakas-Chalukyas-Rashtrakutas ||
Battles, Raids and Ashvamedha Yagyas
We tend to study history as a succession of mighty
kings, one ousting the other. However, a closer look at history reveals a
rather different picture. When a king defeated another in war, the convention
was to re-instate the defeated king or his sons, subject to a regular monetary tribute
and military alliance.
Battle was an instrument of expansion, and an alliance
or tribute to achieve the same ends was always on offer. Such alliances were
often sealed by a marriage between the parties. Only if the defeated king
repeatedly challenged the conquering one would he be deposed or killed.
The idea was to annex territory, aggregate wealth and
power, and gain the allegiance of other kings and their feudatories, rather
than simply to oust them. Histories that look at war merely as an exercise of
brute force, or a contest of thrones completely miss this. Wars were, and are,
brutal, but it was not mere lust for power or a blind wish to subjugate others
that drove them.
The logic of war is tellingly demonstrated in the
Ashvamedha yagya. It would begin with the king releasing a horse to wander “at
will” for a year through the surrounding country. Rajas whose domains the horse
entered would find that their equine guest was “accompanied” by a party of
soldiers. They now had the choice of giving allegiance, i.e., tribute, or
battle. So the Ashvamedha yagya was essentially a declaration of war, and the
receiving rajas had to make their assessment of whether to concede or fight.
Raids and counter-raids into neighbouring domains,
especially when a new king succeeded to the throne, was common to the point of
being conventional as a demonstration of power, and a way of maintaining borders.
A quick raid into neighbouring kingdoms was the standard way of warning them
off from any attempt at entering your own territory.
The Enemy Within
Succession within a dynasty posed a much greater risk
to the life of the king and his family than attacks from outside. This is
something that the Mahabharata brings out brilliantly. Kingly succession was
soaked in the blood of patricides, fratricides, coups and assassinations.
Most kings fell not on the battlefield, but on being betrayed or
dominated by their sons, brothers, or trusted generals and ministers.
Sons-in-law were frequent usurpers. Many an ambitious young commander used
advantageous matrimonial alliances to cut a path for himself to the throne.
Shishunaga and his sons were assassinated and succeeded by the Nandas around 364-345 BC. There are different legends about the founder of the Nanda dynasty. According to one story he was the son of a courtesan. According to another, he was the love-child of a queen.
The proximity of queens, princesses and courtesans to the throne gave them considerable influence. With intelligence, and not a little ruthlessness, they could become kingmakers.
Another class of kingmakers were royal teachers, preceptors and advisors. These were men of immense learning and power occupying royal positions as prime ministers, regents or rajagurus. Chandragupta Maurya, who founded the Mauryan Dynasty by defeating the Nandas, was famously mentored by the great acharya, Chanakya, also known as Kautilya. Chanakya wrote the Arthashastra, the well-known ancient treatise on kingship.
The legend goes that Chanakya bore a grudge against the Nandas, and set up Chandragupta Maurya against them in revenge. Incidentally, a similar story is told of the rise of the Shakas around 75 BC. The story goes that a Jain acharya, Kalaka, was slighted by King Gardabhilla of Ujjain (in Central India), and that he instigated the Shakas to invade that kingdom (45A).
The bloody history of the kingdoms of Magadh seems to be connected with the rise of the creeds of “ahimsa” or non-violence to which Buddhism and Jainism belong. These creeds may have risen as a response to a search among ancient Indians of a different social order to the fractious and unstable one of kingly games of succession.
As a reigning king neared old age, his court would be abuzz with conspiracies, real or imagined, over who would succeed. Rival groups of nobles and courtiers would coalesce around one or other of his sons or brothers. Plot would breathlessly follow upon plot, with mysterious poisonings and dramatic assassinations!
Queens could be absolutely ruthless in securing the
throne for their sons, even, or perhaps especially, if they were yet
babes-in-arms. Rival widowed queens would set-off pitched battles for their own sons to succeed to the throne. Knowledge of this history gives new life to stories
like Manthara’s instigation of Kaikeyi in the Ramayana.
A common tactic when the putative heir to the crown
was underage was for a commander or high official to seize an infant prince of a
rival branch of the family, and rule as regent in his name. Many such princes
spent a lifetime confined as virtual prisoners to their palaces by their
so-called regents and prime ministers. Rival brothers were often blinded.
To avoid these vicious succession battles, Indian
kings in the early medieval times tried the strategy of crowning their infant
sons in their lifetime, and themselves ruling as regents. Needless to say, this
did not work. One Vijayanagar king’s young son was poisoned even as his
rajyabhishekha was being performed.
Kings would try to make up for the brutality of their assumption
of power by showing exceptional kindness to sons of rivals that they themselves
had executed. However, often they would find themselves betrayed by their wards
when they came of age.
In fact, the king was in the greatest danger from those that he loved the most. As mentioned earlier, ouster by a cherished protégé was far more common than by any king from other lands. Kings lost more lands through former governors or feudatories breaking away than from conquest at the hands of any foreign king. Even when a king from another land took over, it would more often than not be in alliance with a rival kinsman of the sitting king’s, or owing to the defection of one or other of his trusted generals or allies.
Betrayal was part of the game of kingship. The early
Cholas in the post-Sangam era rose as feudatories of the Pallavas (46). The
Chola King Aditya allied with the Pallavas to defeat the Pandyas in Kumbakonam
(in Tanjore, on the bank of the River Kaveri). Having increased his holdings in
Tanjore, Aditya Chola turned against the Pallava king, eventually killing him.
Marriage Diplomacy
Marriage diplomacy was a common strategy adopted by
prestigious dynasties to stay in place when finding themselves unable to prevail
on the battlefield. We have studied in Chapter 2 about matrimonial alliances
between the Mauryans and the Seleucids, as well as between the Shakas and their
tributaries with the Satvahanas. Aditya Chola made matrimonial alliances with
the Pallavas, as well as with a new power that rose in his time in neighbouring
Karnataka, the Chalukyas (49).
The Vakatakas, who replaced the Satvahahas in
Maharashtra, also entered into matrimonial alliances with their neighbours. One
of these was with the Guptas of North India. The Vakataka king who married a
Gupta queen, Prabhavati, died while their sons were still young. So Queen Prabhavati
ruled as their regent for many years. It is through her that Vaishnavism is
said to have entered the Deccan which was heavily Buddhist and Jain at the time
(47).
The Gangas of Karnataka were masters of the use of
marriage as a strategy of state (49A). They are vastly under-studied, even
though they are perhaps India’s longest-ruling dynasty ever. There is evidence
of the Gangas in the southern Karnataka region going back to the 200 ADs. They are
seen to be in alliance with the Pallavas and Kerala rajas in the 4th
century AD.
The Gangas reigned in Karnataka independently or as
tributaries of other powers for nearly 8 centuries continuously from the mid-4th
to the 12th century. They extended into the Arcot area of northern
Tamil Nadu, as well as parts of Kerala from time to time.
A branch of the Gangas ruled in Odisha from the 5th
to the 14th century. In this way, the Gangas saw the rise and fall
of all the major kings and dynasties of South India for over a millennium. It
is said that descendants of the Gangas are to be found till today in Odisha.
The Gangas are an example of how significant chunks of
history are overlooked owing to the over-emphasis on who defeated whom, rather
than looking at the arrangements on the ground before and after battle. The
Gangas were generally Jain, and made a historic contribution to this creed in
more than one way, as we will see in the chapters to follow.
The earlier Ganga kings of the 4th and 5th
century AD had matrimonial relations with their allies, the Pallavas of
Kanchipuram (47A). As the alliance with the Pallavas began to fray, a Ganga king,
Madhava III (circa 500-530 AD), married a princess of the Kadamba
dynasty (48). The Kadambas ruled north of Karnataka country, around Goa.
This was followed by the marriage of Ganga Durvinita (circa
570 – 620 AD) to a Chola princess. He seems to have done this as part of an
alliance with the Cholas against the Pallavas. This was a time when the Cholas
had begun to assert themselves against the Pallavas, whose tributaries they had
been for the previous few centuries.
Later, as Chalukya power rose against the Pallavas in
Karnataka, Ganga Durvinita married one of his daughters to Chalukya Vijayaditya.
Durvinita’s grandson through this marriage, Jayasimha Vallabha, grew up to sit
on the Chalukya throne (164).
Another Ganga king, Sri Vikrama (circa 635-650
AD), also married a Chola princess. Their son, Bhu Vikrama, defeated the
Pallavas in 674. The alliance with the Cholas thus worked well in Tamil country
for the Gangas for nearly a century.
But they also made sure to maintain good relations
with the Chalukyas. Ganga Bhu Vikrama (sometimes also referred to as Durvinita)
further consolidated his position in Karnataka by marrying a princess of his
house to Chalukya Pulakesin II. Her son was Vikramaditya Chalukya I, one of the
most powerful Chalukyan kings. He in turn married a Ganga princess.
A Ganga king, Sripurusha (circa 726-791 AD),
waged several wars against the Pallavas in alliance with Chalukya Vikramaditya
II. Sripurusha also married a Chalukyan princess, Vijaya Mahadevi.
Sripurusha further strengthened his position against the
Pallavas by allying with their then enemies, the Pandyas. A daughter of
Sripurusha’s was married to Pandya Rajasimha I. The alliance of the Gangas with
the Chalukyas against the Pallavas endured for over a century.
Ganga Sivamara II, circa 791 to 819 AD, defeated his brothers to take the Ganga throne with the support of the Rashtrakuta King Govinda II. The Rashtrakutas were former feudatories of the Chalukyas who rose to form a huge empire covering Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra at its height.
Both Rashtrakuta Govinda and Ganga Sivamara II espoused
Jainism. The Rashtrakuta king, Amogavarsha, also a great patron of Jainism,
married two of his daughters to the Gangas.
The later Gangas also made alliances with local rulers
in Andhra-Telangana. Telugu rajas bearing the name “Choda-Ganga” were a branch
of the Cholas who married into the Gangas.
The Chalukyas came to power by forming an alliance
with the Sendrakas who were tributaries of the Kadambas in northern Karnataka.
This included a matrimonial alliance with a Sendraka princess.
They were able to extend into Andhra country where
they defeated the Vengis. The Chalukyan king, Pulakesin II, appointed his
brother, Vishnuvardhana I, as governor of these lands. Vishnuvardhana I
eventually declared independence, establishing a separate Chalukyan dynasty in
Andhra known as the “Eastern Chalukyas” (62).
Chalukya Vikramaditya I defeated the Pallavas, Cholas,
Pandyas and Keralas, but re-instated them as tributaries (63).
The Cholas married one of their princesses to
Vikramaditya Chalukya at this time. The Rashtrakutas began as feudatories
of the Eastern Chalukyas with whom they had matrimonial alliances (64).
The Rashtrakutas declared independence in 733AD and
ruled till the end of the 10th century AD. They allied with the
Gangas against the Eastern Chalukyas. But they retained the Eastern Chalukyas
in place as tributaries after defeating them. Rashtrakuta Dantidurga, who
defeated the Chalukyas, had a Chalukyan mother who in turn had natal
connections to the Rashtrakutas.
The co-existence of this fierce rivalry with close
family connections is typical of the South Indian rajas of the time.
The Power of Tributaries and
De-centralisation
Kingdoms were divided into provinces that were in turn
divided into smaller principalities, cities and villages. In this way, there
were several tiers of rulers. In villages, small principalities and among
tribes there would be local Rajas, including warrior chiefs and clan heads. These
local Rajas would have alliances with a Raja of Rajas farther away, who would
have titles such as “Rajaraja” or “Rajadhiraja”.
Between the local Rajas and the Rajaraja, there could
be intermediary tiers of bigger local rajas or “Maharajas”. A local Raja might
rise to challenge a Maharaja, who in turn might rise to challenge a
Rajadhiraja. Rajadhirajas might challenge other Rajadhirajas in their
neighbourhood. Typically, this did not result in ouster but in the winning Raja
rising above the others, thus Maharajas could be demoted to the position of
Rajas and Rajadhirajas to Maharajas, and so on.
The Raja above would protect the Raja below from his local rivals, while the Raja below would generally pay a tribute and supply forces, or even fight himself, in support of the Raja above when needed. Marital alliances between rajas and their suzerains were common.
Direct rule by the king of a large kingdom would typically
be limited to his capital. Outside of the capital, the immediate rulers of the
people would be the local Rajas. They would usually be hereditary rulers with a
longer history among the people than the Rajas above them. They would generally
remain in place even when the Raja above them was ousted or made the tributary
of another Raja.
At each level in these tiers of chiefs, Rajas, bigger Rajas
and Rajarajas, dealings, including marital and martial alliances, would
typically be limited to between the immediately subordinate and immediately
superior power. Local chiefs ruled according to the traditional laws, customs
and practices of the people in their domains, and the raja above would not
interfere in these matters.
In this way, rule was decentralised, and the immediate
or direct rulers of the people did not change even after defeat of the king
above them.
Terms such as “feudatories”, “tributaries” and “governors”
convey a degree of subordination to the higher raja which is not borne out by
the prestige, independence and influence of local rajas. They are much better
understood as powerful local allies who were contained in their territories by
their so-called overlords on their own terms.
The suzerain had to keep his tributaries satisfied, or
be vulnerable to their changing allegiance at the first appearance of a
challenger, whether from within or without.
For example, the Gangas, though operating as tributaries
or subordinate allies of other powers for hundreds of years, were kingmakers,
and fabulously wealthy. Their monuments which survive, such as the towering
statue of Bahubali, also known as Gomateshvara, at Shravana Belagola in
Karnataka, are a testament to their authority and prestige.
The Bahubali statue of Shravana Belagola was built by
Chamundaraya in the 11th century after the death of Ganga Marasimha.
He died after undertaking ritual renunciation of nourishment in the Jain
practice of “sallekhana” after being defeated by Taila Chalukya toward the end
of the 10th century. Though there were two or three Ganga kings
after Marasimha, his death began the final decline of this grand old dynasty in
Karnataka. Chamundaraya was a Ganga son-in-law who served as a senior minister
to the last of the Gangas.
The fact that Chamundaraya could undertake a work of the scale and magnificence of the Shravana Belagola Bahubali and associated monuments even at the very end of Ganga rule in Karnataka, and not even as a raja in his own right, but merely as a minister, is a testament to the wealth and prestige of this dynasty. It also belies the idea that feudatories and tributaries were “mere vassals”, to use a misleading phrase much favoured by historians.
This is how Nilakanta Sastri describes the times: “The ruler had ordinarily little control over the numerous social, economic and religious concerns of the people, except by way of dispensing justice when disputes were brought before him or his courts. The details of the daily life of the people were looked after by numberless autonomous groups and associations bound by ties of locality, caste, occupation, or religious persuasion……
…..by a natural and easy transition anyone who felt
equal to the task of undertaking the rule of a particular area and did not
hesitate to do so was more or less readily accepted as the ruler. Each
successive adventurer became a king and gained respectability by maintaining a
liberal court, patronising learning and the arts, and causing prasastis
(praises) to be composed in honour of himself and his family. Moreover,
aggrandizement was the recognised duty of the ruler; he had to be a vijishu
(one who wishes to conquer) and the general acceptance of this ideal led to
frequent wars and skirmishes resulting in changes in the relative precedence
of the different powers involved….
….as a consequence of these two factors, political
changes did not have in India such profound effects on the structure of society
and civilisation…The organisation which made for the continuity of life and
tradition, held society together, and carried it safe through the storms and
turmoils of political revolution was the autonomous, self-sufficient village
(60A).”
In Mauryan times, the empire was divided into
provinces, each with a city designated as its capital or headquarters (50). The
king wielded direct power in the capital of Patliputra and its neighbourhood.
Governors or autonomous tributary kings held sway over
important cities and trade centres, such as Taxila and Ujjain. Far-off
tributaries such as the Rathikas and Bhojas of the western and northern Deccan
enjoyed great autonomy.
Intermediate regions and forests might have only been
subject to tributes of elephants or forest produce, and road or river tolls.
There was decentralisation even for centuries before
the Mauryans. Gandhara (north Pakistan-Afghanistan), which was brought into
Persian dominion in the 6th century BC by King Darius, was
autonomous, with a local governor (51).
Alexander appointed Porus, Ambhi and other native
kings as governors after defeating them in the Punjab area. As we read in
Chapter 2, with the death of Alexander, the Seleucid Empire arose from former
Alexandrian generals. They took over the Alexandrian provinces in today’s
Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Alexandrian province of Bactria in northern
Afghanistan continued as a tributary of the Seleucid Empire. It eventually
declared independence in the mid-3rd century BC.
As described in the previous chapter, when the Mauryan Empire declined, their former feudatories, the Satvahanas, rose in Andhra and Maharashtra, and the Shakas spread from Gandhara into Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Mathura. Like the Greeks and Seleucids, the Shakas ruled through autonomous native governors called “kshatrapas” or “mahakshatrapas”. Often these governors were the re-appointed defeated kings of these lands.
“Kshatrapa” is a word used in Hindi till today to
signify a powerful local leader. The native kshatrapas had great autonomy and
eventually declared independence from their Shaka overlords. The Abhiras or
Shaka Abhiras, who came to power in briefly Maharashtra after the Satvahanas
are said to have been the generals of the Kshatrapas (42).
The Satvahanas too had decentralised rule. While the
king sat in Amaravati in Andhra country, the crown prince would be sent to
Maharashtra to govern the northern Deccan parts of the kingdom. Maharashtra had
a number of provincial kings and chiefs in alliance with the Satvahanas who were
given the titles of “Maharathi” and “Mahabhoja” (52).
Satvahana territory was divided into administrative
units called “aharas”. There were also village headmen called “gramikas” and
self-governing guilds of craftsmen and town corporations called “nigamsabhas” (53).
The Kushans, who followed the Shakas in India, also
established a de-centralised empire here. They too appointed kshatrapas, and
their kings had “king of kings” titles like “Maharaja-Rajatiraja”.
The Vakatakas divided their lands into provinces called “rashtras” or
“rajyas” (54). Rajyas were administered by governors called “rakjyadhikritas”.
Rajyas were progressively sub-divided into “vihayas”
and then “aharas” and “bhogas” or “bhuktis”. Village headmen were called
“gramakutas”. There was also an administrative unit called “dronagraka” or
“dronamukha”.
The Guptas, who ruled in North India at the same time as the Vakatakas of the Deccan, claim to have brought various South Indian powers under their suzerainty as subordinate kings who were captured and released by them, including the Pallava king, Vishnugopa, the ruler of Vengi in Andhra and the Kalingas in Odisha (55, 56).
The coastal areas of the Pandyas in Tamil country were
kept under the direct rule of the Marava and Setupati chiefs.
The Chalukyas also had a de-centralised system of
governance, with, as was mentioned earlier, the Rashtrakutas starting out as
one of their feudatories. The Rashtrakutas ruled directly in the area between
the River Narmada in the north and the River Tungabhadra in the south. In the
other areas, the local kings were placed under Rashtrakuta suzerainty (59).
Andhra and Telangana were ruled by mighty local
chieftains who accepted Chalukyan overlordship called “Nayakas”. By some
accounts there were seventy five such Nayakas. Under Vijayanagar rule, the Telugu Nayakas
came to be appointed as governors and grew to rajas in their own right in
Madurai and Tanjore.
Chola rule was famously de-centralised. They exercised
direct rule in their capital of Tanjore and nearby Trichy. This constituted
“Cholamandalam”. Beyond this, lands were under different chiefs and feudatories,
including the local rajas of Pudukkottai and the Gangas, whom the Cholas had
defeated in Talakad in Karnataka in 1004 AD (57).
The Cholas had a detailed and highly organised system of village assemblies called “sabha” and “ur”. Sabhas were grouped into wards. Since people following the same occupation tended to live together, some wards evolved into craft-guilds and other representative bodies for artisans and manufacturers.
Farmers made collective decisions regarding sowing, irrigation and crop-selection through the sabhas. These village assemblies would also collect taxes, assess produce, and resolve land and irrigation disputes
The urs and sabhas had sub-committees for different
matters. Election to a sabha or ur was by vote. The voting rules were of a
detail and standard that would match our modern systems. They included rules
for transparency and secret ballot (58).
Readers will be interested to note that it is in the
context of this history of highly organised and ancient systems of
de-centralisation, federation and village autonomy that Westerners opposing
European imperialism at the turn of the last century would say that the
democratic ideal of self-governance originated in the East.
Annie Besant began her address on being elected
President of the Indian National Congress in 1917 with an interesting reference
to this: “……I have not the privilege to be Indian-born, but come from that
little island in the northern seas which has been, in the West, the builder-up
of free institutions. The Aryan emigrants, who spread over the lands of Europe,
carried with them the seeds of liberty sown in their blood in their Asian
cradle-land. Western historians trace the self-rule of the Saxon villages to
their earlier prototypes in the East, and see the growth of English liberty as
up-springing from the Aryan root of the free and self-contained village
communities.
Its growth was crippled by Norman feudalism there, as
its millennia-nourished security here was smothered by the East India Company…..(61).”
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