Speaking historically: The changing voices of historical narration in Western India, 1400-1900

American Historical Review

Volumn 109, Issue 4, 2004, Pages 1084-1103

  Guha, Sumit ^a  

^a Rutgers University   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33751109777     PISSN: 00028762     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/530750     Document Type: Review

References (105)

1. Bonnie G. Smith, The Gender of History: Men, Women and Historical Practice (Cambridge Mass., 1998);
2. Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton, N.J., 2000), esp. chap. 4;
3. Turning Points in Historiography: A Cross-Cultural Perspective, Q. Edward Wang and George G. Iggers, eds. (Rochester, N.Y., 2002);
4. Peter G. Bietenholz, Historia and Fabula: Myths and Legends in Historical Thought from Antiquity to the Modern Age (Leiden, 1994);
5. Glen W. Bowersock, Fiction as History: Nero to Julian (Berkeley, Calif., 1994);
6. History and the Present, Partha Chatterjee and Anjan Ghosh, eds. (Delhi, 2002).
7. Donald R. Kelley, Fortunes of History: Historical Inquiry from Herder to Huizinga (New Haven, Conn., 2003), 337-38.
8. Ronald Inden, "Introduction," Querying the Medieval: Texts and Practices in South Asia, Inden et al., eds. (New York, 2000), 4.
9. Sheldon Pollock, "India in the Vernacular Millennium. Literary Culture and Polity 1000-1500," Daedalus 127, no. 3 (Summer 1998): 41-74.
10. For an analysis of how the rise of Maratha power bore on linguistic usage, see Sumit Guha, "Transitions and Translations: Regional Power and Vernacular Identity in the Dakhan c. 1500-1800," Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 24, no. 2 (Fall 2004).
11. The relevant literature is to be found in at least sixteen South Asian languages plus English. It is obviously impossible for me to do more than give a few examples. As the ultimate focus of this article is on Marathi-language writings from western India, most of my examples will be drawn from there. To avoid confusion, let me clarify that "Marathi" is the language; "Maratha" is the ethnonym, and "Maharashtra" is the name of the Indian state predominantly inhabited by speakers of Marathi.
12. François Furet, "The Birth of History in France," In the Workshop of History, Jonathan Mandelbaum, trans. (Chicago, 1984), 98.
13. Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation (Chicago, 1995), 4.
14. Youssef M. Choueiri, Modern Arab Historiography: Historical Discourse and the Nation State, rev. edn. (London, 2003), 71.
15. Also see David C. Gordon, Self-Determination and History in the Third World (Princeton, N.J., 1971). Even the matchless historical tradition of China had to be recast. What China needed, the leading intellectual Hu Shih wrote in 1914, was: "1. the principle of inductive reasoning; 2. a sense of historical perspective; 3. the concept of progress."
16. Cited in Min-Chih Chou, Hu Shih and Intellectual Choice in Modern China (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1984), 168.
17. See also Q. Edward Wang, "China's Search for a National History," in Wang and Iggers, Turning Points in Historiography, esp. the telling quote from Teng Shih, 196.
18. Dayanand Sarasvati, Satyartha Prakasa (1884; 34th rpt., Ajmer, 1998). This method is deployed throughout his work: for example, "when the Veda says this, why would intelligent people adopt the delusions of some foreigner?" 237.
19. See Laksamanasastri Josi's introduction to his edition of Rajavade Lekhasangraha (1958; rpt. edn:, Delhi, 1992), 1-13.
20. Smith, Gender of History, 103-29, 128.
21. Vinayak D. Savarkar, The Indian War of Independence (1908; first Indian edition, Bombay, 1947).
22. Valentine Chirol, Indian Unrest, cited in Bhaskar G. Deshpande, Krantisurya Savarkar, 2nd edn. (Pune, 2002), 110.
23. Sumit Sarkar, "The Many Worlds of Indian History," in Writing Social History (1990; rpt. edn., Delhi, 1999), 38-39.
24. Ranajit Guha, "On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India," introduction to Subaltern Studies I (Delhi, 1982), 1-8.
25. Ranajit Guha, An Indian Historiography of India: A Nineteenth-Century Agenda and Its Implications (Calcutta, 1987), 11-12, 33-35. The Purana(s) are massive Sanskrit compendia of traditional lore, including myths, king-lists, and legends.
26. Majumdar confessed himself unable to explain what he viewed as the lack of historical writing in India. "This fact seems to be more of an accident than the result of any definite cause or causes." Ramesh C. Majumdar, "Ideas of History in Sanskrit Literature," in Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon, Cyril H. Philips, ed. (London, 1961), 27.
27. Sarkar, "The Many Worlds of Indian History," 6.
28. Anthony K. Warder, An Introduction to Indian Historiography (Bombay, 1972), viii-ix.
29. Vishwambhar S. Pathak, Ancient Historians of India: A Study in Historical Biographies (Bombay, 1966).
30. Romila Thapar "Ideology and the Interpretation of Early Indian History," read at Cornell University, 1974, published in Interpreting Early India (1989; rpt. edn., Delhi, 1999), 20.
31. James Siegel, Shadow and Sound: The Historical Thought of a Sumatran People (Chicago, 1979), 209-10, and footnotes. Emphasis added.
32. Shelly Errington, "Some Comments on Style in the Meanings of the Past," Journal of Asian Studies 38, no. 2 (February 1979): 231-33.
33. Virginia Matheson, "Strategies of Survival: The Malay Royal Line of Lingga Riau," Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 17, no. 1 (March 1986): 34.
34. Nicholas B. Dirks, The Hollow Crown: The Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom (1987; new edn., Cambridge, 2000), 58-59.
35. Phillip B. Wagoner, Tidings of the King: A Translation and Ethnohistorical Analysis of the Rayavacakamu (Honolulu, 1993), 10.
36. Propagated by pamphlets like Ramjanmabhumi ka Raktaranjit Itihasa (Bloody History of the Birthplace of Ram), cited in Sarkar, Writing Social History, 2.
37. Daud Ali "Introduction," Invoking the Past, Ali, ed. (Delhi, 1999), 4.
38. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, "Recovering Babel: Polyglot Histories from the Eighteenth-Century Tamil Country," in Ali, Invoking the Past, 280-321;
39. V. Narayana Rao, David Shulman, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Textures of Time: Writing History in South India 1600-1800 (New Delhi, 2001; New York, 2003).
40. Textures of Time, 2-5, emphasis original; for karanams, see esp. 19-20, 115-18.
41. The confident assertion of a special unrecorded history of the "Hindu" community is found in BJP's White Paper on Ayodhya and the Rama Temple Movement (introduction by L. K. Advani), no place, dated April 1993. "There are unrecorded traditions of many military expeditions by the Hindus between 1528 and 1707 for repossessing the Janmabhoomi," 20, emphasis added.
42. Partha Chatterjee, "Introduction: History and the Present," in Chatterjee and Ghosh, History and the Present, 17.
43. "A Taste of Bamiyan," Outlook, January 19, 2004 (weekly from New Delhi; on the web at www.Outlookindia.com), 18-19.
44. The complete award includes a critical summary of the pleas and a scrutiny of documents produced on both sides. It dates from 1773-1774. Those attesting the award include Muslims, Brahmans, local artisans, tradesmen, and low-caste village servants. Bharata Itihasa Samshodhana Mandata Varsika Itivritta Sake 1835 [1912-1913]: 360-72.
45. Ludo Rocher, The Puranas (Wiesbaden, 1986), 123.
46. See, for example, the detailed statistical statements of Jodhpur in Mumhta Nainsi-ri Likhi Marwar-ra Parganan-ri Vigat, Narayanasingh Bhati, ed., 3 vols. (Jodhpur, 1968-1974), 1: 145-70, 186-372.
47. But these scribes would be more numerous and less accomplished than the elite polyglot karanams envisaged in Textures of Time. A valuable annotated translation of significant portions of the Rajasthani narratives has recently appeared: Richard D. Saran and Philip M. Ziegler, The Mertiyo Rathors of Merto, Rajasthan: Select Translations bearing on the History of a Rajput Family, 1462-1660, 2 vols. (Ann Arbor, Mich. 2001). They note that the narrative portions of Nainsi's work are devoted almost entirely to clan histories; 11.
48. Badriprasad Sakariya, ed., Mumhta Nainsiri Khyat, 4 vols. (Jodhpur, 1984-1994), 1: 1.
49. Rajaram V. Hervadkar, Marathi Bakhar, rev. enl. edn. (Pune, 1975);
50. Bapuji Sankpal, Bakhar Vangmaya: Udgama ani Vikas (Pune, 1982);
51. Marathi Vangmayaca Itihasa, Ramacandra S. Jog, ed. 6 parts (1963-1993; rpt. edn., Pune, 1999), 3: 490-571.
52. Most of the background information in this essay is drawn from these sources. Many interesting glimpses of the London manuscript collection are to be had from James F. Blumhardt and S. G. Kanhere, Catalogue of the Marathi Manuscripts in the India Office Library (London, 1950).
53. I take this idea from the outstanding work of Prachi Deshpande, "Narratives of Pride: History and Regional Identity in Maharashtra, India c. 1870-1960," (Ph.D. dissertation, Tufts University, 2002), 47-55;
54. "Writing Regional Consciousness: Maratha History and Regional Identity in Modern Maharashtra," in Region, Culture and Politics in Maharashtra, Rajendra Vora and Anne Feldhaus, eds. (Delhi, forthcoming).
55. Sankpal, Bakharvangmaya, 19-27;
56. Hervadkar, Marathi Bakhar, 1-5.
57. Dhundhiraja, Rajavyavaharakosa, ms. composed c. 1676;
58. Kailash N. Sane, ed., printed in Sivacaritrapradipa, Gangadharrao V. Mujumdar and Dattatreya V. Apte, eds. (Pune, 1925), 169.
59. Amarasimha, Amarakosah, annotated by Visvanatha Jha (Delhi, 1999), 1: 58.
60. Verdicts from judicial assemblies often ended with the warning: "whoever violates this will be a wrong-doer before the community and punishable by the Diwan."
61. Datto V. Potdar and Gangadharrao N. Mujumdar, eds., Sivacaritrasahitya 2, (Pune, 1930), 113-18.
62. This interesting manuscript is in the British Library, London, Mss Mar A-7 pt. 1, chap. 6, verses 40-41, 48: "tenen svamate lihili bakhar."
63. Sankpal, Bakhar, 70.
64. For an excellent account with many documents attached, see Vitthala T. Gune, The Judicial System of the Marathas (Pune, 1953).
65. Sakavali means "sequence of years." Ananta R. Kulkarni, ed., Jedhe Shakavali-Karina (Pune, 1999);
66. Karina, an Arabic loan-word, is derived from qrn - to join or connect; it is here applied to an explanatory history. John T. Platts, A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi and English (1884; rpt. edn., Delhi, 1997).
67. Maharashtra State Archives, Pune, Parasnis transcripts, vol. 12, fols. 22-23.
68. Parasnis transcripts, vol. 12, fol. 87.
69. Selections from the Peshwa Daftar, Govind S. Sardesai, ed., 46 vols. (Bombay, 1931-1935), 31: 67.
70. Rajwade, Marathyancya Itihasancin Sadkanen, 22 vols. (various places, 1898-1918), Vol. 15 (Dhule, 1912);
71. reprinted as volume 2 in the new series Marathyancya Itihasancin Sadkanen, (Dhule, 2002), 2: 86-89;
72. Appasaheb Pavar, ed., Tarabaikalina Kagadpatre, 2 vols. (Kolhapur, 1969), 1: 189-203.1 owe this idea to Prachi Deshpande (personal communication).
73. Mandata Itivritta Sake 1835, 43-45.
74. Sivacaritrasahitya 2, Potdar and Mujumdar, eds., 113-18.
75. Thomas Coats, "Account of the Township of Lony," in Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay 3 (1823): 192. He adds, "The cultivators ... form almost the whole of the population of the township ... A school is established in the town, where reading, writing and arithmetic are taught; but it is only attended by the children of brahmins, shopkeepers and patails [headmen], so that scarcely any of the cultivators can either read or write."
76. Jean-Baptiste Bossuet, Discourse on Universal History [1681], Elborg Foster, trans. (Chicago, 1976).
77. One manuscript was edited and printed by V. K. Rajwade: Mahikavatici Bakhar (1924; rpt. edn., Pune, 1999). Others exist: a slightly variant one is British Library, London, Add Mss 26494 B.
78. Mahikavatici Bakhar, text: 41. The two dates do not match.
79. Mahikavatici Bakhar, text: 1-31.
80. Mahikavatici Bakhar, text: 32. The dates do not match. Rajwade dated this part of the text to 1448 CE.
81. Peshwa Daftar, 31: 21.
82. Peshwa Daftar, 31: 88-90.
83. Mandala Itivritta Sake 1835, 319-23. The first Arabic year is garbled, and neither of the events mentioned occurred in 1501-1502. The later dates are quite accurate. The Arabic words spell out the Suhur year.
84. Rajwade, Marathyancya Itihasacin Sadhanen, new series, 2: 242.
85. Ramacandra Pant, Ajnyapatra, S. N. Banhatti, ed. (1961; rpt. edn., Nagpur, 1986), 59.
86. Krishnaji Anant, Sabhasad Bakhar, Bhimrao Kulkarni, ed. (Pune, 1987), text: 1, 100.
87. Paramananda, Sivabharatam, introduction by Vinayakraya Apte (Pune, 1930), Chap. 1, verses 42-43.
88. Setumadhavrao Pagdi, Hindvi Svarajya ani Mogal (Pune, 1966), 17-18.
89. British Library, London, Mss Mar D.31, fol. 126.
90. This most important insight is from Deshpande, "Narratives of Pride," 19-20.
91. Sabhasad Bakhar, 2.
92. Printed in Ramdas ani Ramdasi 27 (1958-1959): 239.
93. "An Account of Shahaji and His Son Shivaji," in George W. Forrest, ed., Selections from the Letters, Despatches, and Other State Papers in the Bombay Secretariat: Maratha Series (Bombay, 1885), 1-22.
94. James Grant Duff, A History of the Mahrattas, 3 vols. (London, 1826).
95. The Marathi translation appeared in 1829-1830 and became a required schoolbook, reprinted eleven times by 1838. Jog, ed. Marathi Vangmayaca Itihasa, 4: 553-54.
96. Pesvyanci Bakhar, Bhimrao Kulkarni, ed. (Pune, 1987), 146.
97. Phillip B. Wagoner, "Precolonial Intellectuals and the Production of Colonial Knowledge," Comparative Studies in Society and History 43 (October 2003): 783-814;
98. also Nicholas B. Dirks, "Colonial Histories and Native Informants: Biography of an Archive," in Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament, Carol A. Breckenridge and Peter van der Veer, eds. (Philadelphia, 1993), 279-313.
99. Richard Jenkins, Report on the Territories of the Rajah of Nagpore (1830; new edn. with modernized spelling, Nagpur, 1923), acknowledges his British assistants, but never mentions Vinayakrao. Hundreds of folios of Vinayakrao's Modi script field-notes, tour diaries, and transcriptions from 1808 to 1823 are in the British Library, London, Marathi Mss D.35 to D.46.
100. Marathi Vangmayaca Itihasa Jog, ed., 4: 556.
101. Rajwade, Itihasacarya Vi. Ka. Rajwade: Samagra Sahitya, 10 vols., M. B. Shaha, ed. (Dhule, 1998), 10: 1-8, 24-25.
102. Deshpande, "Narratives of Pride," 116-44.
103. I rely here on Jog, ed., Marathi Vangmayaca Itihasa, Pt. 5, 1: 448-49;
104. Deshpande, "Narratives of Pride," 124, cites the popular novelist V. V. Hadap: he claimed to use his imagination only where "historical evidence had failed in its task" (Deshpande's translation).
105. Mahikavatici Bakhar, introduction, esp. 109-10.