Topic: Periodization in Indian History
Objectives:
To get basic idea of Periodization and its importance in Historiography
To understand the various existing ideas regarding the periodization of Indian History
To find out the most updated and most logical periodization of Indian History
Discussion:
Periodizing Indian history is not an easy task. It is controversial and sensitive also. If you go through logic it will refuse the old tradition of Puranic periodization. If you follow the European concept of periodization it will not suit properly in Indian context. Ancient traditions exist in circular chronology. But in the European concept time is linear. In modern historiography, however, this linear chronology is adopted and in that way the epoch of Indian history is divided.
Before we go our main discussion we need to ruminate on what is History and what is periodization. History refers to a subject that seeks to give a consistent account of human evolution. And Periodization is the process or study of categorizing the past into discrete, quantified named blocks of time. If we accept the continuity of history, then the division of eras becomes irrational. Because in order to periodize, one has to mark a certain day or year as the end of the previous era and the beginning of a new era. But History is a continuous process and never ends. So how can we mark a certain day/year as a watershed? In spite of such irrationality for the convenience of discussion, we divide the whole of history into different periods, marking them as different eras.
According to Puran Kal (time) is divided into four Yugas (eras): Satya, Treta, Dwapar and Kali. Satya Yuga is the best age and Kali Yuga is the most abominable age. Each subsequent era is degraded compared to its predecessor. The final stage of social decay will occur in Kali Yuga. Arrival of Vishnu in the Kalki incarnation will be in the Kali Yuga and Satya Yuga will begin again with the end of the Kali Yuga. So according to Indian traditional thought, time rotates.
In Europe, on the other hand, the idea of time is completely opposite of the Indian traditional thinking. Francesco Petrarch in his writings, identified the period before the 14th century Renaissance as the "Dark Ages" and the period before the barbarian invasion as the Classical Age. And of course the 14th century is the age of enlightment. Although the Dark Age theory has been criticized and rejected . However, Petrarch’s idea of time flowing is linear.
A Scottish economist and political philosopher in his massive three-volume book 'A History of British India' (1817 C.E.) applied Petrarch's idea of linear time flowing, but periodized Indian History in a different way. According to him, India was in an ‘era of darkness’ before the arrival of the British. And it is their responsibility to enlighten the Indian. Actually he tried to legalize their colonial rule morally. He divided Indian History into three periods, namely, Hindu period, Muslim period, and British period. The period of Turk-Afghan and Mughal rule before the beginning of British rule in India was identified as 'Muslim era' and the period before Turkish rule as 'Hindu era'. This periodisation came to be widely accepted. Can you think of any problem with this way of looking at Indian history?
Why do we try and divide history into different periods? We do so in an attempt to capture the characteristics of a time, its central features as they appear to us. So the terms through which we periodise – that is, demarcate the difference between periods – become important. They reflect our ideas about the past. They show how we see the significance of the change from one period to the next.
In any case, can we refer to any period of history as ‘Hindu’ or ‘Muslim’? Did not a variety of faiths exist simultaneously in these periods? Why should we characterise an age only through the religion of the rulers of the time? To do so is to suggest that the lives and practices of the others do not really matter. We should also remember that even rulers in ancient India did not all share the same faith. Ashoka and Kanishka were Buddhists. Chandragupta Maurya was jain. If somehow it is assumed that ruler’s religion is the criteria of age division so why is the British era not Christian era?
In fact, James Mill's division was not only irrational, but also communal provocative. which was a part of their ‘divide and rule’ policy. Moving away from British classification, many Indian historians accepted the idea of Hindu period and considered the Turkish invasions a watershed in indian history. They did not necessarily accept the ‘Muslim’ period lebel. This is inflicted in The History and Culture of the Indian People, an important and influential eleven volume series containing the writing of some of the most eminent historians of its time. R. C. Majumdar, the general editor of the series, described the Hindu, Muslim and British lebels as inconcistant and absurd, and suggested their replacement by terms ancient, medieval and modern. Majumdar associated the history of India with a history of Hindu civilization and considered the advent of Islam as a calamity. So the new divisions came into exist are as following:
Ancient: From the beginning of civilization to the beginning of Turkish rule (1206 C.E.)
Medieval: From 1206 to the Battle of Plassey (1757 C.E.)
Modern: From the Plassey (1757 C.E.) onwards
This division too has its problems. It is a periodisation that is borrowed from the West where the modern period was associated with the growth of all the forces of modernity – science, reason, democracy, liberty and equality. Medieval was a term used to describe a society where these features of modern society did not exist. Can we uncritically accept this characterisation of the modern period to describe the period of our study?
An eminent historian Acharya Jadunath Sarkar has marked the Battle of Plassey (1757 C.E.) as a watershed between Medieval and Modern age. Because according to him since Plassey western modern ideas like liberalism, rationalism, humanism etc have been infiltrating through the Britishers. As we will see in our further readings, under British rule people did not have equality, freedom or liberty. Nor was the period one of economic growth and progress. Many historians therefore refer to this period as ‘colonial’ and after partition (1947 C.E) as ‘post-colonial’.
Starting from the 1950’s, Marxist historians inaugurated a major change in the historiography of ancient India, making a strong case of shift in focus from dynastic history towards economic and social processes. While nationalist Majumdar marked c.700-1000 CE by the age of imperial Kanauja and c. 1000-1300 CE by a struggle for empire, Marxist D.D. Kosambi, in his book, An Introduction to the Study of Indian History put forward a two stage theory of Indian feudalism to characterize the pre-sultanate India. Ram Sharan Sharma, another Marxist historian in his famous book Indian Feudalism, suggested that c. 400-1200 CE was characterized by significant structural changes in economy, society and polity. He elaborately discussed these changes within the framework of emergence, maturity and decline of feudal order. This feudalism model reigned supreme for about three decades, especially in Indian academia. In the course of this debate, most schoolers swiftly became habituated to thinking and talking about c. 600-1300 CE as a unit and referring to it as the early medieval period. B.D. Chattopadhyaya in his introduction to The Making of Early Medieval India has given a clear definition of the early medieval, where he identified the term the age of regionalism. The precise beginning and end of this period remained hazy. It should also be noted, however, that not everyone not accepted the designation of c. 600-1300 as ‘early medieval’. For instance in the context of South Indian history Burton Stein and others referred to this period as full fledgedly ‘medieval’. Some historians are also there, who use the term early medieval for the Sultanate period and distinguish it from the ‘later medieval’ period which was identified with Mughal period. But most of schoolers believe in the following periodization:
Early India: Beginning to 6th century CE
Early Middle India: 7th century to 12th century CE
Medieval India: 12th century to mid-eighteen century CE
Colonial India: Mid-eighteen century to 1947
Post Colonial India: 1948 onwards
Bibliography
Chattopadhyaya, B.D. (2012). The Making of Early Medieval India (2nd ed.). Oxford India Perennials.
Farooqui, A. (2019, December). The Dilemma of Periodization. Communist Party of India (Marxist). Retrieved 10, 25, 2020, from https://cpim.org/content/indian-history-dilemma-periodization
Kosambi, D. D. (2016). An Introduction to the Study of Indian History. Sage.
Sharma, R. S. (2019). Indian Feudalism. Laxmi Publications.
Singh, U. (Ed.). (2012). Rethinking Early Medieval India. Oxford India Perennials.
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