CHAPTER 4 WAR : INDIA, HINDUTVA AND HISTORY
CHAPTER 4: WAR
Hindutva readings of history completely misunderstand
that essential feature of the age of kings – war. For one thing, they see war
as a deviation from an imagined norm of peace and communal, i.e., Hindu, oneness.
Besides the fact that Hinduism was never the sole and often not even the
dominant religion in ancient and medieval South India, the description to
follow in this chapter of the perpetual wars between the rajas of South India will
immediately dispel any such notion.
The borders of the South Indian kingdoms were
nose-to-nose with each other. This meant constant vigilance and demonstration
of power to keep neighbouring rajas at bay. It also created high drama, with
constantly shifting alliances and counter-alliances among rival kings and
chieftains. This was the nature of kingdoms in South India from the Sangam Age
to the British Raj.
Hindutva histories (deliberately) fail to see that
ancient India, and indeed all ancient societies, were essentially warlike. Land
was obtained by conquest, and borders were protected by outright battle or its
threat, typically demonstrated by raids and plunder. War was an essential
component of kingship, and this is the reason why so many generals rose to
become kings in their own right.
The primary training of a young prince was in fighting
and military affairs. Blood sports like hunting held great importance in the
royal and aristocratic lifestyle as they instilled the spirit needed for
fighting and killing.
The logic of war was written into statecraft. The might of a king’s armies and their military prowess backed proposals for alliances with rival kings and chiefs. Plunder and raids were also among the primary means of growing the wealth of a kingdom and meeting the expenses of its administration and armies.
It is entirely dishonest of Hindutva histories to make
a grievance of the wars and plunders of Muslim sultans, when the rajas that
preceded them – whether Buddhist, Jain or Hindu – built their empires by the
very same means. Not a single temple would ever have been built in ancient or
medieval India but for the wealth obtained from conquest and plunder. As we will
see, even trade was supported and protected by military might.
The cause of peace and of respecting national borders
has been raised to the status of a moral principle in international affairs only
in our age - the age of democracies and the learnings from the destruction and
brutality of colonialism and the World Wars. An age that has been spawned on
ideals that Hindutva rejects – egalitarianism, consensus, human rights and
pacifism.
This is, of course, perfectly well known by all,
including the votaries of Hindutva. The success of Hindutva politics since the
last century has been in manipulating the sentiment that attaches to nationhood
and the overthrow of colonial rule, to hoodwink Indians into abandoning the
democratic and pacific principles that gave birth to the idea of the modern Indian
nation and our Struggle for Independence in the first place.
Returning to the story of the warring rajas of South
India, the first millennium was a time of continuous rivalry between a number
of competing powers - the Cheras, Pandyas, Cholas, Pallavas, Gangas, and many
others. There was a break in the fighting sometime in 300 AD, when a sole
power, the Kalabhras, rose in Kerala and Tamil country after conquering the
Cheras, Pandyas and Cholas.
There are Tamil songs that say the Kalabhras kept in
confinement the “three crowned kings”, being the ancient Cheras, Cholas and
Pandyas. The defeated powers may have remained as feudatories of the Kalabhras,
as they re-appear - or dynasties with claims to being of Pandya and Chola
lineage appear in Tamil Nadu - at the end of Kalabhra rule. The Cheras seems to
have regained their territories in the Kerala region before the Kalabhras were
ousted from the Tamil lands (65).
The Pallavas appear in inscriptions of the Gangas as a
power based in Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu in the 4th-5th
century AD. According to these inscriptions, the Gangas became subordinates of
the Pallavas by the 5th century AD.
The Gangas later allied with the Cholas and Pandyas to
defeat the Pallavas; then with the Chalukyas against the Cholas and
Rashtrakutas; and then with the Rashtrakutas against the Taila Chalukyas and
Cholas.
In the 9th century, Aditya Chola expanded
into west Tamil Nadu, capturing Salem and Coimbatore from the Pandyas. He also
reached up to the Ganga capital of Talakad on the River Kaveri in southern
Karnataka. But the Gangas appear to have remained in power as tributaries, and
later allied with his son Chola Parantaka (66).
In the last quarter of the 6th century,
Pallava Simhavishnu conquered northern Tamil country, “Tondaimandalam”, down to
the Kaveri River where he came into conflict with the Pandyas and Sri Lankans (67).
We read about the Satvahana kingdom (3rd-2nd
century BC to 3rd century AD) in the preceding chapters. It began in
Maharashtra and spread over a vast area that at its height covered Saurashtra
(peninsular Gujarat), Southern Madhya Pradesh, Northern Karnataka, Telangana,
Andhra Pradesh, and extended down to Kanchipuram in today’s Tamil Nadu.
As mentioned earlier, it is believed that that the Satvahanas were feudatories of the Mauryans in Andhra at the time of Ashoka. They were in turn succeeded by their former feudatories, the Andhra Ishkavakus (34).
In the mid-3rd century AD, the Vakatakas rose in the Vindhyas (69). Over the next three hundred years, they became a major power whose reign extended from the southern parts of Central India, through Maharashtra to the borders of the Kadamba kingdom in Karnataka on the south, and the Kalinga kingdom of Odisha on the east. The south-eastern extent of Vakataka lands included parts of Telangana and Andhra upto the city of Vengi, bordering Andhra Ishkavaku lands to the south.
In the 6th century AD, the Chalukyas
defeated the Kadambas and Gangas, and made their capital at Badami (Vatapi) in
upper central Karnataka. They also acquired lands in the Konkan by defeating a
branch of the Mauryas that ruled there (70). They defeated the Nalas in Bastar
(Chhattisgarh in Central India) and the Kalachuris who ruled in regions of
Karnataka-Andhra. The Chalukyas were able to reach upto Nasik in Maharashtra.
They established a line in southern Gujarat and the
west coast around Cambay, most likely through a brother of one of the ruling
Chalukya kings. This line is known as the “Lata Chalukyas”.
In Andhra, the Chalukyas defeated the Vengis. The Chalukyan king appointed his brother, Chalukya Vishnuvardhana, governor of his Andhra dominions. As mentioned in Chapter 3, the Andhra Chalukyas eventually declared independence. They are called the “Eastern Chalukyas” by historians to distinguish them from the Karnataka or “Western Chalukyas”. At their height, the Western Chalukyas extended their rule to Kanchipuram in Tamil country.
At this time King Harsha ruled in North India. He attempted an invasion of the Deccan, and was roundly beaten by the Chalukyas under Pulakesin II at the Vindhyas. It would be several years before a raja from North India would be able to enter the Deccan again.
As mentioned earlier, the Rashtrakutas rose as
feudatories of the Chalukyas. At its height, the Rashtrakuta kingdom extended
from Malwa in Central India to Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu. They defeated the
Chalukyas and Gangas in Karnataka.
They made their capital in Manyakheta in Kalaburagi
(formerly “Gulbarga”) in Karnataka. They also defeated the Palas in Bihar and
West Bengal, thus becoming the first Deccan power to reach the north and east
of India (71).
Needless
to say, all these centuries of changes of dynasties, and expanding and
contracting kingdoms, were the outcome of battle and plunder. It requires a
leap of the imagination amounting to sheer concoction to make the blood feuds,
invasions, conquests and violent theatre of ancient and medieval South India into
an age of Hindu solidarity.
The Rashtrakutas controlled
large parts of the Western coast which gave them access to the prized Arab
steeds that were traded there. Arabs were appointed as port agents and
governors by the Rashtrakutas in these areas, no doubt with an eye on their
horses.
The Rashtrakuta’s extraordinary military successes
appear to owe something to their superior Arab horses (33, 60, 72). We will see
that competition among the South Indian rajas for Arab and later Portuguese
horses played a major role in the history of the whole of the Southern
Peninsula.
During Kalabhra rule, a branch of the Cholas seems to
have remained in power in the Rayalseema (southern) region of Andhra Pradesh (73).
The Cholas appear again in the mid-9th century AD in a victory by
Chola Vijayalaya against the Mutharaiyar chiefs of Tanjore.
At this time, the Chola king accepted the overlordship
of the Pallavas (75, 79A). As we saw above, the Cholas later allied with the
Gangas against the Pallavas. Soon they began to make incursions into Ganga
territory, eventually defeating them in the early 11th century AD, as stated earlier.
Vijayalaya was succeeded by his son Chola Aditya, who
defeated the Pallavas in northern Tamil country by 903AD (79B). The Gangas
accepted his suzerainty for the moment.
Aditya Chola maintained friendly relations with the
Cheras to whom he gave a daughter in marriage. He was attacked by the
Rashtrakutas, but successfully fought them off, ending hostilities with an
alliance sealed by marriage to a Rashtrakuta princess.
Aditya Chola was succeeded by Parantaka Chola who
conquered Madurai in 910 AD. The relationship with the Rashtrakutas broke down when
Parantaka was challenged to the throne by his half-brother from his father’s
Rashtrakuta wife.
The Rashtrakutas supported their grandson against
Parantaka (79B). They shored up their forces against the Chola raja by allying
with the Gangas. The sister of Rashtrakuta Krishna III was married to Ganga
Butuga II whom the Rashtrakutas assisted in obtaining the Ganga throne.
In
mid-800 AD, the Eastern Chalukyas (in Andhra) claim to have given protection to
a Chola king (74). This was the start of a centuries-long mutually beneficial
alliance between these two royal houses.
In
949 AD, the Chola crown prince, Rajaditya, was killed in the Battle of Takkolam
against Rashtrakuta Krishna III. The fatal arrow was shot by Ganga Butuga II, the
ally and brother-in-law of Rashtrakuta Krishna III, whom we read about above. The
Cholas were not all eliminated, and bade their time under the brother of the
fallen Chola prince (79A).
From
the late-900 ADs, Rashtrakuta military might seems to have weakened. They were
attacked by the Paramaras of Madhya Pradesh. This was the first time in
centuries that a North Indian power was able to cross into the Deccan. The last
North Indian raja to cross the Vindhyas and reach deep into South India was the
Gupta king Samudragupta in the mid-4th century AD against Pallava Vishnugopa
in Kanchi. Though the Rashtrakutas remained on the throne, the Paramaras kept
up their raids.
Seeing
opportunity in the weakening of the Rashtrakutas, a warrior chief called Taila
seized the Rashtrakuta capital of Manyakheta. In the familiar pattern of the usurping
son-in-law, he had married the daughter of the last Rashtrakuta king (81, 82).
Taila claimed to be connected with the family of the defeated Western Chalukyas
of Vatapi in Karnataka.
The
Gangas, who were by now closer to the Rashtrakutas than the Chalukyas, fought
back. Taila Chalukya was victorious, and the Ganga king, Marasimha, took his
own life by ritual starvation in the Jain tradition of “sallekhana” (82A).
The
Cholas too began to rise with the weakening of their former victors, the Rashtrakutas.
Rajaraja Chola also tried to keep the Eastern branch of the Chalukyas in Vengi
(Andhra Pradesh) on his side by intervening in their internecine conflicts. He
gave refuge to two Vengi Chalukya princes, installing one of them as king there.
In an exercise of marriage diplomacy which must be familiar to the reader by
now, he also married a daughter to one of them.
But at the end of the 10th century AD, the
Cholas turned against the Eastern Chalukyas, taking their kingdom of Vengi, which is spread over the Godavari and Krishna river deltas (80).
Around the same time, Taila Chalukya defeated the
Rashtrakutas in Karnataka. He made a demonstration of power by invading Chola
country (81). His grandson did the same in the mid-11th century AD. This
convention of a new king testing his neighbours, or in turn being tested by
them when he first succeeded to the throne, continued till medieval times in
South India, as we will see in later chapters.
The Paramaras, in alliance with the Seuna Yadavas of
Maharashtra, continued to attack south Karnataka, now controlled by Taila
Chalukya (81A). Matters between the Paramaras and Taila Chalukyas were finally
settled when the Paramara king, Vakpati Munja, was caught and brutally impaled
in Manyakheta. The writer Anirudh Kanisetti describes his gory end at the hands
of the Chalukyas in these words:
“After his capture, legend tells us that he was
stripped, put in a cage, paraded through the streets of Manyakheta, and forced
to go from household to household begging for food….he was brutally impaled on
a stake to the roar of cheering crowds before being beheaded. His rotting head,
covered with ‘thick sour milk’, was put on display for visitors to the new
court of Manyakheta….(83).”
War was savage. This is how the Chinese traveller Hwan
Thsang of the 7th century AD describes the way that soldiers in Maharashtra
(it could have been anywhere in the sub-continent) went to battle: “The state
maintains a body of dauntless champions to the number of several hundreds. Each
time they prepare for combat they drink wine to intoxicate them, and then one
of these men, spear in hand, will defy ten thousand enemies. If they kill a man
met upon the road the law does not punish them. Whenever the army commences a
campaign these braves march in the van to the sound of the drum. Besides, they
intoxicate many hundreds of naturally fierce elephants. At the time of their
coming to blows they drink also strong liquor. They run in a body trampling
everything under their feet. No enemy can stand before them. The king, proud of
possessing these men and elephants, despises and slights the neighbouring
kingdoms (84).”
It is said that Paramara Vakpati Munja’s nephew, Bhoja
Paramara, who succeeded him, learnt of his uncle’s death at the hands of Taila
Chalukya in a play – a piquant parallel to the story of Hamlet! The young king
was so moved that he marched against Taila Chalukya and captured and killed him
in the same way as was done to his uncle.
Scholars have said that this is probably not
historical, but the tale tells us something of the ferocious spirit of the times
(85). The Kalyana Chalukyas were eventually able to defeat the Paramaras,
sacking and burning the Paramara cities of Dhara and Ujjain.
In the last quarter of the 10th century, the Cholas
regained their Tamil territories. Led by the brother of the Chola crown prince
who had been killed by the Rashtrakutas, they expanded northwards from the
River Kaveri into Pallava lands.
By
the end of the 10th century, the Cholas had taken over Madurai and
other Pandya lands. As described above, they also went up north against the
Eastern Chalukyas in Andhra. They reached as far north as Odisha. From here,
they went through Chhattisgarh to Bengal, and returned to Tanjore carrying back
Ganga water as a symbol of their triumph (86).
The
Cholas also invaded and sacked the Chalukyan capital of Manyakheta. The
Chalukyas described their invasion as brutal saying the Cholas “plundered the
entire country, slaughtering women, children and Brahmins (87).”
The
sacking of Manyakheta forced the Western Chalukyas to move their capital to
Kalyani. From this point on they are known as the “Kalyana Chalukyas”.
It should be clear by now that the sacking of the
capitals and major centres of a rival kingdom, and carrying back booty and
trophies from such excursions was common in the age of kings. The plunder and
raids by neighbouring kings, which Hindutva historians have made into an epic
grievance in the case of Muslim rulers, were by no means restricted to them.
In early-1000 AD, the Kalyana
Chalukyas of Karnataka attacked the Eastern Chalukyas of Vengi (Andhra),
burning their capital of Dhanyakataka (Amaravati) (88). As
the Vengi Chalukyas were at the time allies of the Cholas, this set off a
series of Chola-Chalukya wars. In 1053-4, the Kalyana Chalukyas killed
Rajadhiraja Chola in battle and managed to take Kanchipuram (68).
They
intermarried and would frequently end their enmity to join hands against a
common rival. Princes of the Pandya house fighting each other for the seat of
Madurai would often take refuge with the Sinhalas, or seek their support in
fighting against the Cholas.
In
the late 7th century AD, a Sinhala king came to power with the help
of the Pallavas. In the 9th century AD, the Pandyas sacked the Sri
Lankan capital of Anuradhapuram. The Sinhalas responded with a counter-attack
on the Pandyas in alliance with the Pallavas.
When
the Cholas rose to dominate Tamil country in the 10th century AD,
the Sinhalas sought to ally against them with the Pandyas. A Pandya king sought
refuge in Sinhala after being defeated by the Cholas (86A). The
Sinhala king is also said to have accepted overlordship of Vikramaditya
Chalukya at one point (89).
Chola invasions and raids of foreign countries were
violent and devastating. Initially, the Cholas only went into Sri Lanka for
plunder. But in a familiar progression to such excursions, the Cholas
eventually decided on territorial conquest there (86).
When Rajaraja Chola invaded the Sinhala capital of
Anuradhapura, his armies sacked and looted the city, broke Buddhist viharas and
stupas, stole their shrines and relics, and carried away their queen. Sinhala
chronicles describe them as “blood-sucking yakshas”.
The carrying off of queens of a defeated king was
common among the ancient South Indian rajas. Ritual suicide after defeat in war
by rajas, and sati by Chola and Pandya queens finds mention since the Sangam
Age (90).
Northern Sri Lanka remained under Chola suzerainty
till they were ousted by a Sri Lankan king in 1070 AD.
This brief description does not do justice to the deep
and many-hued history of South India with Sri Lanka. The subject is complex and
has many lessons for us that are relevant even today on communal conflict and
reconciliation. Perhaps I will return to it one day.
This paper is also limited in that it deals only
cursorily with the history of South East Asia and the Far East with South India.
There is also very little in this paper about Kerala, a major lacuna that will
have to wait to be filled another time.
For the moment, I have given this brief summary of the
overseas adventures of the Tamil rajas to demonstrate that contrary to the
impression created by Hindutva histories of foreign conquest being a perverse
act, Hindu kings were no less prone to invasions and conquests abroad than any
other kings.
Besides northern Sri Lanka, Rajendra Chola also
invaded the Maldives, and sent embassies to the Chinese Song Emperor with
troves of precious gifts. Rajaraja’s son, Rajendra Chola, sent naval
expeditions to the Maldives and the Andamans.
The sea route to the Chinese Empire had a number of
important ports and maritime kingdoms on the way. An important maritime kingdom
based in Sumatra was known to the Tamils as “Srivijaya”. The Malay port of
Kedah, was part of the Srivijaya kingdom. It was known to the Tamils as
“Kadaram”.
The Might of Smaller Kingdoms
This brings us to a point raised in the opening
chapter, that it may be a mistake to judge the wealth and might of a king based
solely on the size of his domains. A king could have been confined to a relatively
smaller area because he was equally matched by his neighbours. Such a king
might well have wealth and military might surpassing a contemporaneous ruler
elsewhere, with greater lands and weaker neighbours.
Rajaraja Chola’s territories were smaller
than Ashoka’s or the Gupta’s, or the upper Deccan powers like the Satvahanas
and the Rashtrakutas at their height, but the Cholas may well have matched and
even surpassed them in wealth and influence. Certainly, the historical and
cultural legacy of the Cholas, Chalukyas, Gangas and Hoysalas is no lesser than that of these other dynasties.
The period beginning with Rajaraja Chola’s reign
starting 985 AD to the 12th century AD was the grandest period of
Chola rule in Tamil country. They made their capital in Tanjore, where they
built marvellous temples that are considered to be among the finest in India
even today.
The most celebrated of these was the Brihadisvara
temple of Shiva built by Rajaraja Chola in Tanjore. It happens to be situated
less than an hour’s drive from my ancestral village of Karguddi.
In the 11th
century, a new power called the Hoysalas began to rise in southern Karnataka.
They were feudatories of the Chalukyas who claimed descent
from the Yadavas of Mathura. The Hoysala king, Veera Ballala, defeated the last
Chalukya king – apparently using his horses to advantage against Chalukyan
elephants (91A). The Hoysala capital was in Dvarasamudra (Halebidu).
At the same time, another Yadava power – the Seuna
Yadavas – rose in Maharashtra. These Seuna Yadavas are said to have been
offshoots of the Hoysalas that based themselves in Maharashtra. Shivaji, who
would be born in the future, came on his mother Jijabai’s side from the Jadhava
clan which was related to the Yadavas (92). The Yadavas established their capital
in Maharashtra’s Devagiri (Deogarh).
The Hoysalas drove the Cholas out of Talakad and other
Ganga territories in southern Karnataka (92A). They also fought the Yadavas to
establish themselves in Dharwad in northern Karnataka upto the River Krishna.
In 1070, the Chola Raja Kulottunga succeeded to the throne of Tanjore. The Pandyas still held sway in the coastal region of Kottur in Kanyakumari, in the southern-most reaches of the Southern Peninsula. They also continued on the throne of Madurai with the Cholas as suzerains.
Kulottunga Chola would frequently raid the Pandyas who
would flee to take refuge with their allies in Sri Lanka. This would in turn
bring the Cholas to fight with the Sri Lankans.
Around 1170 AD, fighting for the throne of Madurai
broke out between the incumbent Parakrama Pandya and one Kulasekhara Pandya (93).
Parakrama Pandya appealed for help to the Sri Lankans who agreed to support him.
But before the Sri Lankan army could reach, Kulasekhara killed Parakrama along
with his queen and children, and installed himself on the throne of Madurai.
The Sri Lankan king decided to continue the march to
Madurai. He was able to oust Kulasekhara. A surviving son of Parakrama, Vira
Pandya, who had taken refuge in Kerala country during the earlier fighting, was
installed on the throne of Madurai.
Kulasekhara appealed to the Cholas for help. They sent
in one of their Pallava subordinates. All the Tamil rajas were now at war. The
Sri Lankans fought fiercely, burning down Chola ports and towns. But as soon as
they left, the Cholas resumed the fight.
The Sri Lankans claimed to have left after achieving victory over the Cholas, but the Cholas claimed that they had “cut off the noses” of the Sri Lankans and driven them away. So, it may be noted, that in places of repeated contest and plunder, it is not unusual to find each side claiming victory over the other in the same battle.
This fog of history has been much misused by Hindutva activists, who have made a project of teaching tour guides at various historical sites around Rajasthan to tell visitors that this or that raja was never defeated by “the Muslims”. Which, apart from anything else, begs the question as to why then they bear such a grudge against them.
In the South, the Cholas ousted Vira Pandya and
installed Kulasekhara’s son Vikrama Pandya on the throne of Madurai. At this
time, Kulottunga III succeeded to the Chola throne. On a renewal of hostilities
by Vira Pandya, Kulottunga III killed him and “carried his queen into
servitude”.
He is said to have placed his foot on the severed head
of Vira Pandya and taken the title “Pandyari” – enemy of the Pandyas. Kulottunga
III retook Kanchipuram in the north.
He also made friends with the Hoysalas, marrying a
Chola princess to Hoysala Veera Ballala II. She came to be known in history as
the “Chola Mahadevi”. The title “Mahadevi” indicates that she would have been
the chief queen, and the right of succession would vest in her son.
In the 9th century, the Rashtrakutas appointed
their relatives and commanders, the Kakatiyas, to the charge of Warangal in
Andhra country. Warangal was at the time on the borders of the Rashtrakuta
kingdom (94). In the 10th century, a Kakatiya governor aided a
friendly Eastern Chalukyan prince in gaining the seat of neighbouring Vengi.
Soon after, both the Rashtrakuta and the Eastern
Chalukya thrones collapsed. Taila Chalukya of Karnataka was on the rise, and
the Kakatiyas consolidated their position in Warangal, taking control of former
Eastern Chalukya territories.
They extended their control to neighbouring Anumakonda
or Hanumakonda. They allied with the western Kalyana Chalukyas against the
Cholas, and were granted more lands in return. In this way, they grew more and
more powerful in Telangana-Andhra country. In 1163, the Kakatiya Pratap Rudra
declared independence.
Thus, we have yet another example of former favoured
governors becoming more and more powerful to finally break away from their
overlords. The Kakatiyas continued to expand, taking land in the coastal Andhra
region between the deltas of the Krishna and Godavari Rivers (94C).
In the course of the 12th century AD
another feudatory, this time of the Kalyana Chalukyas, called the Kalachuris,
rose to overthrow them in Karnataka. The Kalachuris were assisted by the Telugu
Kakatiyas.
For a while Prolaraja Kakatiya kept the Kalyana
Chalukya king, Tailapa, captive as a nominal king, while he and other
feudatories exercised effective power. Tailapa eventually fled to Banavasi in
central Karnataka (94D).
The Kalachuris patronised Virashaivism, and Basava,
the founder of the Lingayat movement within Virashaivism, held a high office in
the Kalachuri court. Basava fell out with the Kalachuri king, Vijjana, leading
to a divide within the Lingayats.
Matters escalated, culminating in the assassination of
Vijjana, and Basava giving up his life. This internal dissension led to the weakening
of the Kalachuris in Karnataka. As a consequence, the Chalukyas were able to re-establish
themselves for a few more decades, until they were finally ousted by the
Hoysalas (94B).
Despite the downfall of the Kalachuris, the Lingayat doctrine
continued to flourish, and it is a major creed till today in Karnataka country.
In the 13th century, Telugu warrior chiefs,
calling themselves Telugu Chodas, held sway in Nellore just north of Chola
territory. They attacked the Cholas, going as far as Kanchipuram at one point.
The Kakatiyas, whose territories were to the north of
Nellore, in turn attacked the Telugu Chodas, making them their fiefs. From here
the Kakatiyas made excursions into Chola territory themselves, reaching as far
as Kanchi under Kakatiya Ganapati Deva of the 13th century. Ganapati
Deva was able to extend the Kakatiya kingdom to coastal Andhra (94E).
In the meantime, the Pandyas under Sundara Pandya were
able to oust the Chola-Chodas from Kanchipuram in northern Tamil Nadu and
Nellore in Andhra country. From the mid-13th century onwards, they
too went on to alternately invade and ally with Sri Lanka.
One of these invasions was conducted when Sri Lanka
was greatly weakened by a famine. Pandya Maravarman Kulasekhara is said to have
stolen relics of the Buddha in this invasion, though they were returned on the
intervention of the Sri Lankans (94A).
Mahabharata
You can get a sense of the boisterous, buccaneering
spirit of the South Indian rajas from the titles they gave themselves.
Narasimhan Pallava called himself “Vatapikonda” – captor of the Vatapis – after
winning a victory over the Chalukyas of Vatapi (Badami). He boasted that he was
like the Sage Agastya who had eaten the demon Vatapi.
Later, when the Cholas
conquered Madurai from the Pandyas and took territories in the east from the
Gangas, they gave themselves titles like “Maduraikonda” (captor of Madurai), “Madurantaka”
(destroyer of Madurai), and “Gangaikonda” (destroyer of the Gangas)!
When the Chola armies returned to Trichy with Ganga water from Bengal after their successful northward raid described earlier, they founded a new capital there which they gleefully named “Gangaikondacholapuram” (95). This may also have been the title they gave themselves after defeating the Gangas at Talakad in the early 11th century.
When the Rashtrakutas
briefly took Chola territories they gave themselves titles like “Destroyer of
Kanchi and Tanjore”. When they attacked
the Eastern Chalukyas of Vengi they boasted that they had “offered the
Chalukyas like a sacrifice to Yama”.
After the age of the Cholas and Chalukyas, when the Raja
Gajapati of Odisha reached Trichy (in Tamil country) fighting the Hoysalas of
Karnataka, he called himself the “yawning lion to the sheep of the Karnataka
King”. The Sangama brothers, who founded the Vijayanagar kingdom, had the feisty
sobriquets “Hakka” and “Bukka”.
The blood lust in the Deccan continued from ancient through
medieval times to the start of the British Raj, with one great dynasty fighting
the other, making raids and counter-raids, losing and regaining their lands,
sacking each others’ temples, making off with their idols and queens, and
furiously entering into matrimonial and martial alliances to stymie each other.
In their flamboyant epithets and rambunctious
inscriptions one can literally see the South Indian rajas twirling their
moustaches and hear them slapping their thighs as they vow to trounce their
rivals!
But the intense rivalry of the deep South with
numerous powerful rajas and chiefs in a relatively constricted space, taught
them not just how to fight, but also how to make up. The focus on battle and
“who won”, tends to obscure the fact that in order to be in play on the
chessboard of the Deccan, rajas and chiefs had to learn not to be rigid in
their attitude to their enemies. The enemy of today, would frequently be
tomorrow’s valued ally.
This history contradicts the hyper-emotional way in
which Hindutva-thinking treats war and defeat. No doubt, there is emotion and
passion in the rhetoric of battle, and its banners, slogans and war-cries. This
is needed to fight. But the before and after of battle is different.
Then the considerations are, if not political and
cynical, then atleast politic and objective. Kings could not afford to make
fighting too personal – afterall the price of war is blood; and they had to be
intelligent rather than sentimental in making both war and peace.
How the soldier reconciles this; how he is able to
fight with conviction, while knowing the hard politics behind war – is by
fighting with honour, by holding it as his duty to fight bravely and well. In
this way he fights without hate, he kills without hate, and he takes the
enemy’s blows without hate.
This is the spirit in which, once defeat was certain,
Rajputs would fall on their swords, or walk four-by-four back onto the field to
die rather than face defeat. It was the spirit in which so many South Indian rajas,
especially the Jain ones, gave up their lives after being defeated on the
battlefield.
This is also the spirit in which their women would
commit jauhar. These women needed to adopt the attitude of warriors. How else
could you willingly send your son or husband to the battlefield?
Jauhar has to be understood as an embrace of war by
the women of warrior communities. An embrace of war in all its aspects,
including death and defeat. Jauhar was an expression of chivalry and solidarity
with their menfolk.
It was also a type of resistance. But not, as
Hindutva-thinking would have it, resistance against the victor, but of
resistance against defeat itself.
The idea of the warlike ethos of the women of warrior clans is beautifully expressed in Maithli Sharan Gupt’s “Yashodhara”. She is the wife of Gautam Buddha, and the poem tells how she woke one morning to find that he had left forever in search of enlightenment, without saying a word to her.
The refrain goes, “Sakhi, ve mujh se keh kar jaate” - “He
could have bid me goodbye”. In a moving passage, Yashodhara says that she would
not have stopped the prince for a moment, for did she, a proud Kshatriya princess,
not know how to dress her menfolk for war?
“सखि, वे मुझसे कह कर जाते ।
स्वयं सुसज्जित करके क्षण में,
प्रियतम को, प्राणों के पण में,
हमीं भेज देती हैं रण में, -
क्षात्र-धर्म के नाते
सखि, वे मुझसे कह कर जाते। (95A)”
Hindutva uses the killing of Rajputs on the
battlefield and the jauhars of their women as a sort of rebuke against their
Muslim adversaries. But the fighting spirit that lay behind this history is a
completely different thing to what Hindutva-thinking makes of it.
We must not let embittered Hindutvavadis corner our
history and tell the stories of our ancient kings and queens from their point
of view, which has neither the poetry nor the large spirit of the times.
Click here for Table of Contents and full paper
Comments
Post a Comment