Hindu Kings Research Articles

The laine controversy and the study of hinduism

In 2003 Oxford University Press released a book by James W. Laine, Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India, just as the monsoon's storms were arriving in the subcontinent.1 The book offered a fascinating inquiry into the historiography surrounding the Mar?th? monarch ?ivaj? (1627-80), who is best known throughout India, and in the Western academy, as a Hindu king who heroically challenged the archetypically villainous Indian Muslim ruler, Awrangzib (1658-1707). In Shivaji Laine brilliantly detailed how Marathi historians, biographers, and hagiographers have spun SivSji's legacy into a Hindu one and set it against a constructed Muslim enemy. Furthermore, Laine showed that in ?iv?jfs own time, and largely under his control, Sivaj? himself nurtured the persona of a kingly Hindu Ksatriya (warrior) through his coronation ceremony in 1674 at Raigad, in Maharashtra2 and through the creation of a regal genealogy by the Maharashtrian Br?hma?, resident in Benares, G?g? Bhatt. A study of narratives and stories, Laine's book was not intended to intercede in the history of Sivaji but rather comment on the rich parade of pronouncements and political uses that have circulated around the great Mar?th? king's legacy for three centuries. Indeed, the author makes plain in the text that his audience is made up of "those who study religion and religious identity" and who seek a "thicker description of South Asian Islam" and a "richer portrait of medieval Hinduism" (Laine 2003a: 15). In addition, Laine hoped to "rescue" ?ivaj?'s biography "from the grasp of those who see India as a Hindu nation at war with its Muslim neighbors" (2003a: 6). This rescue was to be accomplished by providing a nuanced account of how Siv?ji became a representative of "Hinduism" in multiple ways, thus providing a counterpoint to a homogenized Hindu Right historiography that takes Sivaj? as an exemplar of militant Hinduism. In this way, Laine's work joined a chorus of scholarly voices arguing multiple perspec

Turning point article the wandering of a Botanist

My earliest memories are of growing up in a rural area in the northcentral part of the state of Uttar Pradesh in British India. All around us were dense woods, and fields of wheat, rice, and sugarcane, interspersed with scores of mango groves. On clear days, we could see snow-capped Himalayan peaks in the distance. We had a large and comfortable house, but no running water, electricity, and certainly no television, telephone or, radio. There were no paved roads, restaurants, or movie houses. It was largely a poor and underdeveloped area, close to the places where Lord Buddha was born and attained Nirvana. Much natural beauty surrounded us, but there was also plenty of poverty, misery, and sickness. Malaria and typhoid were rampant, and there were frequent epidemics of cholera and bubonic plague. We were a small but close-knit and loving family – my parents, my older brother and me. I fondly remember a happy and carefree childhood. Apart from school, my pastime was playing with friends, and daily long walks in the surrounding woods and along a nearby river. After sundown, before and after dinner, my father would tell us stories from the great Hindu epics Mahabharata and Ramayana, and tales of ancient Hindu kings and warriors. He talked with great passion and hope about the ongoing non-violent struggle for independence from Britain led by Mahatma Gandhi and his followers. Some of these accounts would last for months. They were far more interesting and informative than the history we were taught at school, which was based largely on the rather biased British version of Indian history. We looked forward to the story time each evening. My father was a successful businessman. Owing to family circumstances, he did not have the opportunity for much formal education. Yet, he had great love and appreciation for education. He was an avid reader and was exceptionally good with numbers (arithmetic). He had a large personal collection of books representing the best of Hindi literature, and many volumes on Indra K. Vasil. Born August 31, 1932, in India.

Guru et politique en Inde. Des éminences grises à visage découvert ?

Guru and Politics in India: Uncovered "Eminences Grises" ? Christophe Jaffrelot In ancient India, the Hindu king was guided by a spiritual counsellor, a guru. This tradition receded in the background after independence because of the secularisation of the state. Yet, politicians, like Indira Gandhi, have continued to cultivate close relationships with guru, and have even occasionnally publicised this relationship when such a move helped them to improve their image. Such relationships were not legitimate in two cases only, that of the tantric guru and that of men with some underground connection. The conception of power that the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Association of National Volunteers) has developed directly derives from the traditional pattern of a king and his guru. Since its inception, the RSS aimed at becoming the Raj guru of the Indian state. The rise to power of the BJP in 1998 enables it to play such a role today. After doing so in the background for long, the RSS is now coming forward because the Prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee try to benefit from his association with an organisation which is well known for its Hindu nationalist ideology and integrity. The secrecy of the relation between politicians and guru therefore, is not imperative. It may be publicised for strengthening the legitimacy of the former.

Conquering the quarters: Religion and politics in Hinduism

Our understanding of South Asian society and history is sometimes muddled by the rigid distinctions we make between ‘religion’ and ‘politics.’ The resurgent appeal of Hindu nationalism, the involvement of Hindu renouncers in contemporary Indian politics, and the continuing relevance of religious issues to political discourse throughout South Asia, show that such a distinction is of limited utility. In this essay, I have examined the notion of digvijaya in some detail, in an attempt to show that this ‘most important Indian concept with regard to sovereignty’ was always both a ‘religious’ and a ‘political’ phenomenon. When it was performed by Hindu kings in the classical period, the ‘political’ dimension of digvijaya was foregrounded, while in the medieval and modern periods, when it was associated primarily with Hindu renouncers, its ‘religious’ aspects were paramount. But neither ‘political’ nor ‘religious’ aspects were ever absent from any of the digvijayas discussed here because religion and politics were mutually entailed in the digvijaya at all times, just as kings and renouncers were—and still are—alter-egos of each other. I am tempted to conclude that the digvijaya melded religious and political domains. Yet perhaps even to speak of ‘melding’ religion and politics is a peculiarly modern kind of discourse. Perhaps we need to rethink our categories and recognize that politics always has a religious element, while religion is always a political force.

“Sultan among Hindu Kings”: Dress, Titles, and the Islamicization of Hindu Culture at Vijayanagara

When Robert Sewell inaugurated the modern study of the South Indian state of Vijayanagara with his classicA Forgotten Empire(1900), he characterized the state as “a Hindu bulwark against Muhammadan conquests” (Sewell [1900] 1962, 1), thereby formulating one of the enduring axioms of Vijayanagara historiography. From their capital on the banks of the Tungabhadra river, the kings of Vijayanagara ruled over a territory of more than 140,000 square miles, and their state survived three changes of dynasty to endure for a period of nearly three hundred years, from the mid-fourteenth through the mid-seventeenth centuries (Stein 1989, 1–2). According to Sewell, this achievement was to be understood as “the natural result of the persistent efforts made by the Muhammadans to conquer all India” ([1900] 1962, 1). Hindu kingdoms had exercised hegemony over South India for most of the previous millennium, but were divided among themselves when the Muslim forces of Muhammad bin Tughluq swept over the South in the early decades of the fourteenth century: “When these dreaded invaders reached the Krishna River the Hindus to their south, stricken with terror, combined, and gathered in haste to the new standard [of Vijayanagara] which alone seemed to offer some hope of protection. The decayed old states crumbled away into nothingness, and the fighting kings of Vijayanagar became the saviours of the south for two and a half centuries” (Sewell [1900] 1962, 1).

Is a Theory of Caste Still Possible?

A theory of caste must offer a way of ordering the facts in such a way that it does not diminish the significance of some or ignore others. It must also be comparative. Caste organisation is found in some parts of South Asia but not all. Equally, structural parallels may be found in many other parts of the world and one should not therefore assume that the defining characteristics of caste are unique to Hindu communities or to the ideology of Brahmanism. What is needed is a theory which explains why all of the traits associated with caste are found together where and when they are, whether in South Asia or elsewhere.Various theories of caste are reviewed in this chapter before coming to the conclusion that one of these makes much more sense of the historical and ethnographic evidence than the others. Most theories depict castes as arranged in a ladder-like vertical order. Sociologists have tended to emphasise this ‘stratification’, regarding the ideological and ritual manifestations of caste, such as the pervasive concern with purity and impurity, as epiphenomenal. Anthropologists have generally avoided this error but have faced other intractable problems. Some see caste as a recent colonial artefact, others as an ancient indigenous category. Many are heavily influenced by the ideological reductionism of Dumont's theory of Hindu society. On the other hand, Dumont's analysis raises so many problems that some have attempted to retreat from theory and restrict their studies to ethnographic description.The argument here is that caste results from an uneasy stalemate between the pull of localised lineage organisation and the forces of political, ritual and economic centralisation encapsulated in monarchical institutions. Caste systems are the product of a certain degree of centralisation which involve the organisation of ritual and other services around the king and dominant lineages. The central institution is (as Hocart suggested) the monarchy, and not (as Dumont suggested) the Brahman priesthood. The removal of Hindu kings in India with the advent of colonialism does not negate this thesis, for it is a specifically western view of kingship which allows for only one monarch within a territory. Kingship (and the configurations of castes associated with it) was always reproduced at the court of lesser chiefs, and is still replicated today in the households of members of dominant castes.

Notes on the early Kidung literature

Professor P. J. Zoetmulder has already taught us, in his Survey of Old Javanese Literature appropriately entitled Kalangwan, Beauty (Zoetmulder 1974: 151-165), to appreciate the figure of the poet (kawi) as a man of letters in the setting of his times and culture. Taking his information from the literature itself, he has given us a picture of the poet as practitioner of the cult of beauty, as it flourished in and around the courts of early Java. And so we are able to catch a glimpse of a fragile world of particular charm. It may even be possible to take his account a step further, but in order to do that it is first necessary to limit the scope of our discussion in time, and accordingly I wish to devote some comments to the state of the arts in the Majapahit period (defined roughly as the 14th and 15th centuries). During this time a line of Hindu kings ruled at Majapahit in East Java. From surviving works of Old Javanese literature we know that leading poets often worked under the patronage of kings or members of the royal family. Is it perhaps possible to say something more about the nature of the relationship between royalty and the court and the prac tice of the arts, including poetry? (It hardly needs to be stressed that poetry is only one of the arts that were cultivated at court.) Evidence on this point is to be had from the Old Javanese prose work Nawanatya. Selections from this have been published by Pigeaud1 ; although it is unfortunate that he did not reproduce the whole text, this contains a passage that is of considerable interest for Javanese cultural history. The Nawanatya is available apparently in one MS.

IX. Translation of a Sanscrit Inscription, relative to the last Hindu King of Delhi, with Comments thereon

The Inscription, of which I have the honour to present a copy and translation to the Society, is a memorial of an important period in the History of India, especially that part familiarly, though restrictively, denominated Hindust'hán. To define the limits of this somewhat vague application, is of no great moment; but I believe it is generally to be understood as denoting the space between the mountains of Himálaya and the Nermadá river, north and south: a line in the meridian of the source of this river at Ameracantac, passing through Prayág, and meeting the great northern chain, forms the eastern limit; and westward, towards the Indus, it comprehends all the tracts within the limits of cultivation. This is generally understood to be Hindust'hán proper.