Somnatha - III

Few books I read with a prior opinion, Romila Thapar's "Somnatha the many voices of a history" is such a book. But I must admit I'm mellowed after reading it but still I find it difficult to agree to her thesis in substance. The book is an attempt at a sort of revision of the popular history of Somnatha raid by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1026 AD. Going by her own admission she doesn't try to recreate the entire event but mainly attempts to understand different voices emanating from various sources. What the book tries to analyze is essentially this - was the raid of Somnatha by Mahmud in 1026 really a seminal event which created the most inveterate of antagonisms between Hindus and Muslims? or lead to an ultimate crystallization of a collective hindu psyche? She analyzes five different kinds of sources 1. Turko-Persian 2. Sanskrit Inscriptions around somnatha 3. Oral traditions 4. Courtly literature of Rajput kings and biographies and Jaina texts 5. Colonial interpretation

Book can be summarized in following points..
1. Religious fanaticism was not the only factor there were many equally(and perhaps more) important factors such as desire for booty, breaking hindu political backbone by destroying somnatha etc etc. Economic motives are more rigorously advanced by her predecessor - if that's the right term - Mohammad habib, she just builds upon it

2. Turko-Persian accounts mentioning the raid are often exaggerated in order to appease Caliphate so that Mahmud can get political legitimacy from the him which he subsequently did get.

3. It might well be the case that Mahmud raided Somnatha believing that its idol was actually an idol of Arab goddess Manat destruction of which was the command of prophet Mohamad himself. Therefore Somnatha was more important to the conquerors than the conquered(somnatha being only one of 12 jyotirlingas for hindus)

4. At the time of the raid Somnatha was already under repeated attacks by various local Rajas and chieftains and therefore attack on Somnatha by Mahmud left local Hindus unperturbed. An explanation which goes well with the fact that almost no sources other than Turko-Persian accounts(chronicles of the conquerors) mentions the raid.

5. Activity of raiding or building the temples in those times was carried out in order to gain political legitimation, Rajas funded construction of temples to assert their authority and legitimation and by the same token Mahmud's raid should be viewed as an 'inverse legitimation' that is legitimation through destruction

The author is an eminent historian of India and a authority in ancient India but that no more impresses me after reading this book. What I find is a clever marshaling of facts to suit her hypothesis. Much can be said against her thesis...

1. Her's is a two pronged technique firstly she tries to diminish credibility of Turko-Persian chronicles by pointing to the contradictions in it. And secondly she tries to increase the reliance on other sources like hagiographies and epics and all that. This is against the classical approach where Islamic chronicles are considered more reliable than indigenous accounts which are full of myths and contradictions. In both this approach I think she is mistaken the contradictions in Turko-persian accounts are contradictions of details but in essence they inevitably agree. For example Turko-Persian accounts mention one fresh raid in every half century some say a mosque was built at the place of temple but all agrees that raid did occur different thing if mosque was constructed or not. And about other sources I think there is some indirect evidence as elucidated in earlier articles(see Somnatha-I, somnatha-II).

2. Arab chronicles maintains that Manat(arab goddess) was sent to Somnatha because it was a safe place for idols similarly Jaina texts also mention that jaina idols were sent to Somnatha for safety(probably from Turks). If raids on somnatha were so common that Mahmud's raid was considered minor irritant then why was this place considered safe?

3. If there were other motives(apart from loot and iconoclasm) such as political legitimacy and all that then why did Turks keep on raiding somnatha repeatedly particularly when after raids Mahmud restored local hindu kings? It seems rather odd that Mahmud was keen on destroying political symbols of hindus and glorify it when his actual political interests in India was so little that he didn't even care to install a Muslim ruler.

4. She stresses too much on Sufi stories regarding Mahmud many of which twists the story by asserting that Mahmud was a pious ruler and attacked somnath to emancipate people of somnatha from tyrant hindu raja. This must not be confused with views of hindus, these stories are propagated by sufi saints who might be familiar with Turko-persian sources(author admits this possibility). Sufi saints were missionaries also, they wanted to convert people through persuasion, in doing so it was necessary to create a positive face of Islam and while doing so they have to re-brand Mahmud and cast a benign image of Mahmud, sufi stories regarding Mahmud is but an example of such endeavors.

3. Then comes the confusion created by Tantrik tradition stories, here they seem to praise Mahmud as a brave man(though no mention of raid). This I cant understand but surely this must not mean that hindus praised Mahmud for his iconoclasm or a decisive evidence that hindus have forgotten raids by him.(this perplexity can be better understood with what is discussed in Somnatha-I, Mahmud survives in oral traditions long enough even when intermediate ages show no mention of him, this means penetration of Turko-persian or sufi sources in oral traditions and also means that hindus didnt have any direct memory of the even but that doesn't mean that the anguish created by the event had subsided- it might have been transformed from a person to a religion i.e. from Mahmud to Islam in general)

4. There is another approach that I cant agree to. She(all marxist historian in general) argues that the concept of the Hindu as a monolithic identity(like Islam and Christianity) is fundamentally flawed, that hindus didn't have any common identity they were divided and known by their castes,varnas etc and 'hinduism' is more of a convenient label. This I agree wholeheartedly. Modern idea of a religion stems from our understanding of religions of book like Islam,Judaism and Christianity all of which have a high level of ideological uniformity. On the other hand there is almost nothing that cements all hindus in one frame. So a freshness in attitude is indispensable to understand Indian history. But this conceptualization should not be selectively applied, each hypothesis must be re-examined whenever religious factor appear to influence order of events. This is not what the author does, she invokes the idea of nonuniform 'hinduism' only when it aids her thesis. For example she lays too much stress on hindu kings and bramhins allowing(grants were also given) Arab traders to build their mosques in and around somnatha in 13th century, this she asserts is a sign that there was no animosity between hindus and muslims. This is a flawed conclusion. An ordinary hindu has nothing to do with hinduism as such his only religious concern lies in temple rituals and following caste norms, and in this a mosque doesn't give any threat to his limited religious objectives. And for priests there was no reason to feel threatened by Muslims because their thin number would mean that muslims will never be able to compete for state patronage. Here the primary reason is lack of any zeal to proselytize. For a muslim mindset(or any religion who believes in proselytizing) a center of worship of some other religion is something undesirable, because in his ideal world there is no other religion but Islam. Hinduism simply lacks this incentive, their outlook is fundamentally different. A merchant is both a merchant and a religious man, in his mind there is division between dharma and artha, so he wont mind doing business with an Arab merchant(as prevalent in somnatha of that era) but at the same time due to his dharma he wont eat food cooked by him(as mentioned by Al beruni in his Kitab-ul-hind, he was contemporary of Mahmud). A muslim mindset cant comprehend this for him Islam is not just a religion but a politico-economic doctrine(I am just comparing without implying any moral overtone). This lack of dominantly religious outlook- the division between karma and artha - helps us to reconcile many a contradictions.

Let me explain it a bit further, Al biruni's account goes diametrically opposite to what Thapar tries to explain through indigenous sources. Al-biruni is sometimes called 'first indologist', his erudition is evident even if you read a few pages from his book on India. So if you go against his observations you have to explain it satisfactorily why he was mistaken. Sadly, Thapar doesn't try to explain his observations in any serious way. Al-biruni makes following observation relevant to our discussion(he writes this in 1030 a few years after Mahmud raid) 1. Somnatha economy is devastated due to raid 2. Raid has created the most inveterate antagonism between hindus and muslims 3. Hindus find Turks and their customs so alien that they frighten their children with us. Thapar says that economic devastation of somnatha was temporary and Al-biruni was talking about brahmans when he used the word Hindus. The contradiction completely escapes her that those grants to the mosques she is so obsessed to talk about were provided by these very bramhans and those sanskrit inscriptions too were written at the behest of these bramhans only.

Addendum:-
om namo adesha guru ka,
turkani ka put mahmanda bir,
nari ka put narsingha bir,
age chale mahmanda bir,
piche chale narsingha bir. - A couplet from Tantrik tradition

Somnatha - ll

This should be read in continuation of Somnatha-I

A college going Muslim girl from Ahmedabad said she had started wearing veil- the symbol of her faith after Godhra riots(apparently telling the government "you killed muslims I am muslim do whatever you want"). It didn't deter her that she had never worn a veil before and it will only increase her discomfort without creating any problem for government. Such themes are understandable, Government was held responsible for attacking people of a particular identity and as a result that identity became more assertive and more crystallized. In such events fear of losing one's identity makes him more assertive about it. There are other examples of such themes, importance of vegetarianism and non-violance increased when jainism threatened hindu faith, caste system became more rigid after the rise of Buddhism, Dharmashashtras and Manusmritis were written to counter the effects of increasing urbanization In this background I find it easy to understand why temple building activities increased after the raids of Mahmud Ghazni, it was a peculiar kind of resistance not unlike that of an anxious Muslim girl. As I understand it the author(R.Thapar of Somnatha many voices from a history) attributes this rise in temple building to economic prosperity of Rajas and the increasing importance of temples, but even that explanation leaves unanswered the question why temples were increasingly more important. Unlike author I tend to see even this activity as an 'epics of resistance'.

Somnatha - I

When Mahmud of Ghazni raided Somnatha and desecrated the temple, what was the subsequent reaction from the local people? how did hindus view that event? how did they come to terms with it? After Ghazni's raid he had been and still continues to be hailed as a champion of Islam, as a holy warrior who brought Islam in India. His raids are glorified in words and repeated in deeds throughout the medieval Islamic world. Turko-Persian accounts mention the event in gory details. If we call this 'epics of conquest' what were the corresponding 'epics of resistance' from hindus of the time? what was the retaliation?

There is a serious lack of contemporary accounts to begin with and that hindus have no sense of history writing complicates it further, what is available is the inscriptions and texts from about a century onwards of the event and there seem to be a mysterious silence about the event. Almost all accounts mentioning somnath apart from Turko-persian ones don't mention the raid at all. But one unusual 'memory' manifests itself repeatedly. One inscription dating the reconstruction of the temple in 12th century(that is more than a century after the raid) attributes the dilapidated temple(and hence the need to reconstruct) to 'Kaliyuga' where there is moral decay,rajas dont protect their temples and administrators are corrupt. There are stories saying that temples will continue to be destroyed in Kaliyug. In one such story from 15th century speaks of a dialogue between Narada and Vayu, a question is posed that, if an image, when consecrated, becomes the habitat of the deity, how can it be destroyed by the Yavans(meaning Turks here)? Why do the gods not prevent this? The answer covers more than one facet. It is said that there has been and will continue to be a conflict between devas and the daityas and other evil ones. The Yavanas are a part of this conflict, which will continue until the end of this Kaliyuga cycle. The current Yavanas are presumably repeating what the earlier ones have done and doubtless the Yavanas still to come will be doing the same. The Yavanas destroy images as do the asuras, and devas do not prevent this, since the conflict is eternal and cannt be stopped. It is now the Kaliyga and iconoclasm is to be expected because the world turns upside down in this age. The Yavanas are already carrying the burden of being cursed. Whenever rulers are lax in their duties or devoid of faith in Shiva, the Yavanas will break images. Fatalism is complete in this story, no one is thinking of fighting against the Yavanas and save the temples, all they are prepared to do is to rebuild the temples once the Yavanas have their rampage spree. In another story it is said that due to too many good people heavens are overflowing and then gods decide to destroy the temples themselves and thereby corrupting people so that they become less virtuous and heavens become less crowded again. In yet another story it is explained that in the Kaliyuga gods leave the idol so it simply doesn't matter if you break them or worship them. How utterly resigned to fate! Am I using this myths selectively or is it really that after having failed to resist the Turks, after having failed to protect themselves, Hindus resorted to mythmaking to assuage their trauma? Is this the sign of Trauma? To me it seems rather clear that these are the 'epics of resistance' represented not through defiance and glories of war but slowly and subtly through mending inner beliefs in such a way that not only tolerates but accepts the mayhem of the outer world no more in your control. Myth-making is effectively used as a balm to the wounded conscience.

Romila Thapar poses a question somewhere in her book("Somnatha the many voices of a history") "why the saviour figure of Kalkin, the tenth and last Vaishnava avatara, is not invoked to counter the Turkish attacks on temples?", she considers only two admissible answers to her quest "..those so traumatized either exorcise it by referring to the experience again and again to expurgate their fear; or, alternately, they suppress it by withdrawing and refusing to have anything to do with those who have perpetrated the trauma." No there can be other possible reactions if only we are ready to understand their semantics.

Regressive step?

Ok so there are talks of 'prescreening' content on social networking sites like Facebook and Google with government throwing its weight to put censorship and IT companies refusing to buckle. Shashi tharoor wrote an article 'Virtual reality' (deccon chronicle, 9 Dec,2011) on this controversy. His defense of gov's position is neither consistent nor logically sound.

First as common place among apologists, he empathizes importance of freedom of speech and then starts justifying moves which are indistinguishable from a moderate censorship. He begins by saying that all societies exercise some kind of control on freedom of speech as with US where any racist remarks are de facto bans. But then he ventures from social conventions to government policies arguing that government policies also should curb freedom the way social conventions do. If social traditions can so smoothly be allowed to convert itself into laws then we would never have got rid of untouchability for example, no denying social traditions are a factor for consideration but there are other factors which easily supersede local cultures, and Tharoor wont deny that freedom of expression is such a first principle.

Meaning of freedom of speech does change from place to place but then we can always tell what interpretation is progressive or what is not. Surely Tharoor wont say that freedom in china is just a different kind of freedom and not a regressive one. Western form of freedom of speech is more mature than Indian just as Indian form is more mature than Pakistan or China.

Further he argues if there are regulations on print media, broadcast media then why only internet media is exempted? well even in those media trend is that regulating becomes more and more lax except recent attempts by the same gov to tighten regulations again. Additionally sites like FB and google too are regulated by respective organizations.

Then he gives the example of 'shouting fire in a theater when there is no fire' to empathize again that freedom cant be absolute. Now this shouting-fire metaphor is borrowed from a US SC judgment way back in 1919 which convicted an anti-graft propagandist during world war-I. He uses the analogy wrongly, the judgment also stressed 'clear and present danger' criteria to curb freedom of speech. And in present context where pre-screening is disputed, the danger caused by FB is neither clear(all abstract arguments that it will hurt religious sentiments and all that) nor present(not a remote possibility of FB inciting a riot). If something from US is to be put in context it should be 1969 judgment which acquitted a Ku Klux Klan member upholding freedom of expression despite organization's open provocation to bring down gov through violent means and threats to Jews and niggers(acquittal despite another fact that Ku Klux Klan was a headache for gov sort of semi terrorists)

He is not yet satisfied with metaphors he puts another extremely abstract metaphor, 'match stick near a petrol storage'. Now here is a problem, one can also argue that its not the match stick only that can be blamed but the combustibility of the liquid poses a greater danger. A Gandhian analogy inevitably comes to my mind, he believed that lasting Bramhcharya cant be attained by keeping away from women it can only be achieved by cultivating mental discipline strong enough that sexuality no more troubles you. No doubt there is a dangerous immaturity in a person who will start rioting after reading a Facebook status. So instead of playing guardians of people's sentiments and creating a pampered, hypersensitive society teach them that tolerance is absolutely essential, there should be enough provocations all around that people find nothing provocative at all(case in point is Indian cinema, Delhi belly in black and white era would have sent guardians of morality into a hysteria, but see society has improved we don't feel particularly immoral after watching that movie nor do we go out and rape anyone). Only economic reforms wont do social reforms are equally important though i would hate the idea that government should play any role in such reforms but at least they should remain neutral.

Finally he concludes "I reject censorship. Art, literature and political opinion are to me sacrosanct. But publishing inflammatory material to incite communal feelings is akin to dropping a lighted match at a petrol pump", without giving any clue on how to decide/who will decide what is 'sacrosanct' and what is 'inflammatory'.

In philosophy there have been two schools of thought running counter to each other, one side looks at the material world and from the uniqueness of physical truths(reality) deduces that morality and other value judgments are also of this nature. These abstractions too have eternal veracity like laws of nature. Thus a bad action is a bad action inherently, regardless of its consequences. This is a basic element of Aristotelian thought. On the contrary there goes another school of thought, it looks at the multiplicity of sense-perceptions and variety of moral values and concludes that all facts of the material world have similar multiplicity. There is no single truth(reality), sense perceptions are subjective so are the truths of material world perceived through senses. No this is not exactly like solipsism or anything of that short, because though these schools base their theory on the variety of sense perceptions, they believe that ultimate truth is one and unchangeable. Whereas here it is admitted that truths themselves have multiplicity, for example its possible that two mutually contradictory theories may be true. This I think is distinctively a Hindu philosophy(if that's a proper term), i don't remember to have come across anything like this in western philosophy(in my very limited amount of knowledge). Though this philosophy seems very innovative at first, i think it suffers from a careless metaphysical treatment, it's not well explained or not well understood if explained.

To a modern scientific mindset none of these schools may appeal, however they are very interesting and enlightening.

P.F: written a bit carelessly, may not be a very accurate classification.

On omniscience

       The paradox of omniscience is a favorite argument for rationalists to bring down theistic arguments. I too have used this paradox extensively to win arguments with theist types. But I think the paradox is more interesting than what I've hitherto believed, it has greatly disturbed me since. Let me explain.

       First of all to forestall quantum mechanics from being considered as a possible explaining factor, we'll assume prevailing scientific opinion regarding quantum mechanics. The opinion is that despite our material world being non-deterministic at the sub atomic level, it does follow all the laws of classical physics at the macro or aggregate level. Therefore as the definition of classical physics goes all the events are deterministic. If a state of an object is given, theoretically we can apply laws of physics on that state of the object and determine the subsequent states of it. By this way we can predict each and every event of this world with complete accuracy, all events are knowable before it actually occurs and gets known. For example it is perfectly knowable in advance whether I'll have a glass of juice before I sleep or not. Continuing the same example the answer to this question can be given if some extraordinary super computer is given all equations regarding laws of nature and all the necessary data like the current neural network pattern of my mind, environment information, every minute information about my physiology and internal processes. The ultimate answer will be either 'yes' or 'no'. Here is the paradox, if the machine answers yes I'll go to sleep straight without having juice and if it answers 'no' than I'll have it. In both cases the assumption that 'physical world is deterministic' is violated. But if we dispense with this assumption our entire concept of classical physics will be proven erroneous. So it follows that the paradox of omniscience is not only a pastime argument to irritate theists but it also confuses our understanding of science.

       Looking on the formidable questions that this paradox can raise about science, I think I must admit a probable chance of error in the basic understanding of physics on my part. But so far as my confidence goes I've studied my high school physics too religiously to err on that and I think that for anyone who has an inkling of the philosophy of physics this problem of omniscience will be only too obvious, but surprisingly I've never come across anywhere where this question is considered.

Misunderstood atheism....

Of late I've noticed a surge in the number of atheists. Their number is bound to soar still higher owing to the availability of internet and books on atheism (such as 'the god delusion' by Dawkins). The atheist communities and organizations campaigning atheism are flourishing in the western society(Estonia is a atheist majority country). I must admit that I fully admire these efforts because ultimately they help free people from the tyranny of religious dogmas and false notions of God. But despite my wholehearted appreciation somehow I find myself uncomfortable and out of place with this scheme of things, I can't identify myself with this cause or if I do identify, I cant appreciate the way it is being carried out.

I think the goal should rather be rationality or clear thinking and the atheism shall automatically follow. Fundamentally human mind has a natural inclination to avoid clear thinking and favor obscure/superficial thinking because superficial thinking is less exhausting and thus more comfortable. This is the reason why dogmas and prejudice of every kind are entertained by human mind. In such conditions whenever atheism is preached or arguments against the existence of God or arguments against the religious authority are put in front of the person and as a result he is convinced of the arguments and therefore has become an atheist, he is actually spoon-fed only. He hasn't arrived at the arguments buttressing his newly acquired atheism by reflection but by a sort of intellectual cajolery. Therefore his reluctance to clear-thinking mostly persists because a short period of spoon-feeding can't make him think clearly. This ends up in producing atheism of a fragile character, the sort of atheism which justifies the famous saying "there is no atheist in a pit". Such atheists, because of their fragile intellectual conviction, will become believers again in the moments of serious illness or when a tragedy destroys their personal life. When such kind of people free themselves from religious dogmas their irrational mind is still susceptible to seek refuge in another kind of dogmas. He might continue to believe in astrology or frighten when a cat crosses his path for instance.

This spoon-feeding must end if we are to inculcate a healthy and a lasting scientific disposition in a person. Cultivating the art of clear-thinking and acquiring a thoroughly rational mindset is the only way out. But unfortunately there is no short cut for it, you can not become rational in a day or two or by reading a book. It's a long and continual process which may consume considerable energy just like learning calligraphy or a musical instrument. But once it is learned, all dogmas will vanish into thin air including religious ones and even if he still hold the belief in religion and Gods it will be a harmless and refined predisposition the way it had been held by people like Plato, Leibnitz, Newton and likes.

Another grave objection to atheism without a rational mindset can be that it can nourish an ideology of escapism from the generally accepted moral codes,it can become a convenient way to rationalize nonconformist instincts of a person. People like Hitler are atheists not because they don't find the moral codes of religions unconvincing but because they are too cruel and too mean to conform to any kind of moral behavior except what satisfy their instinctual tendencies.

"Man is a rational animal — so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favor of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents." - Bertrand Russell