Abstract
This monograph is in the long line of studies on regional histories. Bengal has been one of the pioneering regions, being known for some very remarkable writings falling under this genre. Significantly, at least since the 1940s (some of the earliest works indeed go back to the 1910s), scholars have regularly produced histories of Bengal both in Bengali and in English. R.C. Majumdar edited The History of Bengal, Vol. I (Hindu Period) (University of Dacca, 1943) and Niharranjan Ray’s Bāṅgālīr Itihās, Ādiparva (Kolkata, 1949) almost acquired a cult status. A recent and reasonably comprehensive work on the subject is History of Bangladesh: Early Bengal in Regional Perspectives (up to c.1200
Ranjusri Ghosh displays reasonable sensitivity towards such shifting paradigms of the making of regional histories and also seems to be aware of nuances of different varieties of texts that become relevant for their reconstructions. No wonder, she invokes literary texts (both ‘indigenous’ and ‘non-indigenous’), gazetteers and survey reports of the colonial times, reports of archaeological excavations, the phenomenal corpus of inscriptions and numismatic resources, monumental and art remains (especially ‘image-sculptures’), and above all, her own substantive fieldwork stretching over a quarter century. The emphasis on each such text is somewhat uneven. The ‘image-sculptures’ have received far greater attention than, say, literary texts.
Ghosh throws up some hints about the changing contours of handling such variegated texts, though she is not always up to the mark in marshalling such techniques—a case in point would perhaps be the advances made in the domain of ‘landscape archaeology’, which have affected our understanding of the functioning of an archaeological ‘site’. These go beyond the enumeration of natural geographical features and show awareness of the changes in the courses of riverine networks, as has indeed been done by the author in the first chapter. The studies based on ‘Landscape archaeology’ tend to re-centre the ‘human’ element into the study of ‘cultures’ by invoking insights from such varied disciplines as geomorphology, zoology, botany, sedimentology, palaeoanthropology. 2
The second chapter is the shortest (just nine pages) and recalls some stray literary notices on Puṇḍravardhana. The texts invoked are Arthaśāstra, Divyāvadāna (200–350
Chapter three is an archaeological study of the evolution of settlements and settlement history of the region under study over a period of more than 1,500 years. Together with its more than forty-page Appendix (3A, pp. 281–322), it constitutes a very substantive contribution. In terms of harnessing raw data, it is fairly up-to-date. Not only the extant published reports, surveys and other secondary writings since colonial times on such landmark sites as Paharpur, Mahasthangarh, Bangarh, Moghalmari, Jagjivanpur, Mangalkot, etc., have been analysed threadbare, but Ghosh has also enlightened us about the great potential of the region by listing more than four hundred sites (Appendices 3A1.2 and 3A1.3). The chapter is particularly illuminating in highlighting: (a) distinct possibilities of ‘human habitation’ even before the ‘Maurya progression’ and (b) the need for re-calibrating chronology of the Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW) by showing its continuities/links with other wares, such as the Black and Red and Black-slipped. Incidentally, some recent writings on new excavations at Rajghat and in Varanasi (since 1994 and particularly between 2013 and 2016) have also revived the need for a rethink on the chronology of the NBPW, which, together with the punch-marked coins, has often served as the bedrock of determining stratification of early historic sites at least since the 1950s. 3 We have some issues with the nomenclatures used for various strata of sites such as Mahasthangarh, Bangarh, etc. These would include ‘Śuṅga-Kuṣāṇa’ and ‘Muslim’ occupation/periods. There is a need for questioning them—the former has little relevance in the context of Bengal and the latter is clearly a communal mode of periodisation. Ghosh has accepted them without a murmur.
The fourth chapter ‘Economy and Society’ starts with a sort of disclaimer: ‘I begin with an admittance that the sources of information for both Economy and Society are not sufficient…’ (p. 95). This is quite damning, especially in view of the kind of texts that have been listed in the bibliography and also invoked in this chapter. Ghosh’s opening eschewal almost negates phenomenal writings since the 1950s that focused on new socio-economic formations on a pan-India scale (including Bengal), which are essentially rooted in texts already familiar to her. One can perhaps understand her hesitation to get into the intricacies of the long-standing debate on ‘feudal’ social formation and its alternative paradigms. Given such a disposition, it is not surprising that she has very haltingly listed some agrarian and craft activities and industries (e.g., textiles and sericulture); identified some occupational groups; catalogued types of land, land measures and landholding groups; worked out some networks of regional (and beyond, too) trade routes and transactions; and sketched the transformation of hated non-Aryan Puṇḍras of the early Brahmanical texts into a ‘two-fold varṇa system’ (of brahmins and shudras) by the time of the Pālas. Some revealing details of society also sprout out of imaginative use of ‘image inscriptions’ and charyāpadas (especially those mentioning dānapatis and female dedicators/donors). These bring out some fascinating nuggets about ‘ascetics interacting with the society’ and ‘process of assimilation between the local/tribal and Brāhmaṇical cultural traits’ (pp. 156–61).
The last chapter bears the title, ‘Society of Puṇḍravardhana/Varendra from the Perspective of its Religious Cultures’. This is not only the longest chapter of the monograph, but along with ninety-five pages of its two Appendices (5A and 5B) also constitutes more than 50% of this regional study. Evidently, Ghosh has laboured very hard to create its apparatus—documenting and profusely illustrating more than a thousand images, sculptures, terracotta, etc. (Appendix 5B) must have been a herculean task. ‘Religious Cultures’ are seen principally through the functioning of ‘Brāhmaṇical’, Buddhist and Jain systems. Of these, ‘Brahmanical’ is seen as an omnibus that carries plethora of votaries of Viṣṇu, Śiva and his entourage, Pārvatī, Gaurī (several Gaurīpaṭṭas are noticed), Sūrya, Śakti, Manasā (the snake goddess), Navagrahas, Durgā, Chāmuṇḍā and other countless divinities. Extensive presence of kaula/tantric culture in Bangarh and other places of Puṇḍravardhana has also been noted (p. 223).
Vicissitudes of not only individual deities but of major religions as well have been delineated in the fifth chapter. One gets a kaleidoscope of competition (sometimes even quite bitter) for patronage from the ruling elite. Appendix 5A undertakes a detailed analysis of a ‘Śaiva Complex at Bangarh’ and demonstrates how the Śaiva āchāryas of Durvāsas lineage unleashed the Śaiva Siddhānta movement from the ninth/tenth century onwards, which almost displaced the Buddhist as well as the Pāśupatas from their privileged position under the Pālas. These āchāryas functioned as rājagurus (royal preceptors), who wielded considerable political clout. This gurudom emerging as an overawing component in the kingdom reminds us of the deadly combination of asceticism, militancy and acquisitive monasticism brazenly displayed by the Śaiva Siddhāntins of the forested areas of the Vindhyas and the Gopāchala region (around the Gwalior region in northern Madhya Pradesh) between the seventh and the fourteenth centuries
By and large, Ghosh has refrained from undertaking a narrow and hugely technical iconographic analysis of the stupendous repertoire of image sculptures. She has rightly focused on seeing ‘human’ elements in these ‘small documents’ to decipher ‘variegated groups of people’ in the social landscape. Of course, it makes considerable sense to see the sculptor playing the dual role of both an artisan and an artist as a social being (p. 176). However, since the author has used iconography to derive some chronological and quantitative implications (e.g., late entry of Viṣṇu in Bengal, absence of diversity in his representations, smārta Vaiṣṇavas contributing to the rise in their numerical strength but still lagging behind larger number of joint or individual imageries of Śiva and Śakti, pp. 220 and 264), we are tempted to draw her attention to the potential of a rethink on the four images of Durgā Mahiṣamardinī discussed by her (p. 180). Long ago, Stietencron in his perceptive essay published in 1983 (in German, and now available in English) identified five types on the basis of evolution of the representations of the goddess and the buffalo-headed demon between the Kuṣāṇa times and the early medieval centuries. 5
Ghosh also tells us on the basis of Francis Buchanan-Hamilton’s allusion of 1833: ‘After Muslim occupation, Bangarh lost much of its Śaiva flavour as the Saiddhāntikas vanished and the edifices were altered to Islamic religious buildings’ (p. 343). At another place, citing Filliozat, she endorses that ‘Buddhist Pandits emigrated from Bengal to the Indo–Chinese peninsula owing to an invasion of Turkish peoples’ (p. 88). This notion of destructive ‘Muslim occupation’ and ‘Muslim period’ forcing Buddhists and Śaivas to leave, figures at several other places in Ghosh’s monograph. However, no corroborative archaeological evidence from Puṇḍravardhana/Varendra has been given on this issue. Also worth noting is that while monasteries and temples have been exposed in Bihar and West Bengal, ‘“human settlements” of … “early” and “late” medieval cultures (between the seventh and nineteenth centuries
There are several other issues concerning nuances of historical processes that deserve some attention in the context of broad reconstructions of society, economy and the so-called ‘religious cultures’. It is not that Ghosh has missed some important readings, but her failure to be perceptive in her characterisations on the basis of texts already known to her, which is rather disconcerting. To begin with, a theoretical concern needs some pondering. Do ‘religious cultures’ stand alone and function outside the society in an autonomous way? Ghosh would have been in a better position to reflect on this vexed question if she had harnessed Purāṇas, especially the ‘Bengal Purāṇas’, in a concerted manner. Strangely, they are completely missing in the fifth chapter! Notwithstanding some stray and scattered allusions to some sectarian conflicts and rivalries (pp. 174, 339), the dynamics of religious milieu in the society reflected in these sectarian texts are missing. The shifting frontiers of pāṣaṇḍas (heretics) identifiable in the Purāṇas, especially the intolerance vis-à-vis the Buddhists as well as the process of brahmins establishing their hegemony over other social groups through what is called ‘Puranic Process’ involving cultural interactions facilitated the construction of a regional tradition. 6
The absence of recognition of an evolving socio-political process is also discernible in the fourth chapter. Ghosh does appear to be conversant with fairly up-to-date textual material, especially epigraphic data (pp. 71–85), and has also harnessed empirical evidence well. However, unlike some other scholars who have also invoked similar material, she has not been able to reflect on the unfolding of the historical process unleashed during the period of her study. More than fifty years ago, Morrison studied more than eighty (the number has gone up considerably now) Bengal inscriptions in 1970 (not 1980, as listed in Ghosh bibliography, p. 439, being that of an Indian reprint), envisaged sub-divisions of the region, located property transfers through eight century-wise (fifth to thirteenth) maps, and also remarked on the character of polities in early Bengal. More recently, Furui has also identified the process of historical change through the interaction of such elements as agrarian expansion, stratification of landed relations and establishment of a regional kingdom. Further, the spread of markets and merchant groups into the rural societies is seen as an indication of the ruralisation of urban elites—a process that perhaps echoed jāti formation later on. 7 Absence of such insights into historical processes, though somewhat speculative, is missing in Ghosh’s strong empirical narrative.
The discussion of ‘Media of Exchange’ (pp. 118–24) is short on empirical evidence and too sketchy in its overall treatment. B.D. Chattopadhyay and B.N. Mukherjee certainly have not said the last word on the currency and exchange system of early Bengal. Though Ghosh has rightly noted: ‘Till now, not a single silver coin is recorded from the Pāla levels at Mahasthangarh, Bangarh and other places’ (p. 123) and that ‘it has been proved by the archaeology of pre-city phase in North Bengal that coinage did not exist in any form’ (pp. 118–19), there is much that still needs to be worked out for the spread of ‘monetary transactions’, especially in rural society. Cowries (kapardakas) and ‘gold dust’ (chūrṇī) do not provide adequate evidence for the sort of regional trade network and operation of merchant groups therein worked out by quite a few scholars. 8
On the whole, Ghosh’s monograph is a serious attempt to study the making of the regional identity of North Bengal over a long span of 1,500 years. Future researchers would feel indebted to her for the massive archive of hitherto unexplored data created by her. And for this reviewer too, it has indeed been a great learning experience.