The study of Indian history is one of the most complicated and perplexing exercise especially due to the confusion amongst historians about its facts and fiction. The article explores the dichotomy of two and proposes a way out. The facts lobby is normally lead by orthodox historians who see every work of Indian history written by British as a imperial manifesto and fiction lobby is led by the western historians who in their quest for international standardization brand all of Indian history to be a mythological discourse. Indian history, especially ancient history is a mixture of facts and figures. Facts are the tangible tangents connected with the imaginative leap of fiction. The two schools of thoughts need elaboration before their drawbacks are highlighted and addressed.
India is undoubtedly one of the oldest civilizations in the world. It inevitable underwent transformations from one stage to another where every succeeding civilization, inspite of continuing its predecessors characteristic features developed its own diaspora. This variation is unique to Indian history. It becomes difficult for a westerner with a continuous un-revealed history to be skeptical about existence of any such situation. This inherent characteristic feature of diversity necessitates India centric instruments for study of Indian history. Nextly, the sources of Indian history differ greatly than those prevalent in west. It would be unreasonable to expect every civilization to adopt some tools for recording and preservation of history. Every civilization has its own manner of recording and preserving historical facts. Merely because Indian kings preferred bards over commissioned historians to record history in prose does not make their history nonexistent and unreliable. Argument is not to blindly follow the words of commissioned bards as gospel truth and idea here is not to indulge into the great debate about their doubtful partiality. The sole undercurrent of the argument is that they have recorded history in the fashion that suited them the most. There are various other contemporary records of Indian history which are bound to be different from that of western historians.
While studying Indian history, especially Indian history it may not be lost sight of that recording of history, then was not merely an academic exercise as assumed by western scholars. It was an instrument of entertainment with the objective of conveying the intricate principles of life to masses in a way they can understand. Indian history therefore was not a drab exercise of alienated intellectual but a colorful picturisation to which the audience could connect itself. If would be wrong for western historians to disregard all prior to the Christian era as Dark Age or Age of Myth. This extremism of fictionist criticizers of Indian history especially ancient history is incorrect and unreasonable.
On the other hand the orthodox historians do not appear to be doing any good to the Indian history. They damage it due to their dogmatic approach towards Indian history. For them every word of Upanishads is a fact seen by naked eye and an allegation of heresy is blasphemy for them. This approach has caused great damage to the study of Indian history, more so to the history itself. This approach has lead rest to disbelieve it entirely. An orthodox argues that all of it imagined existed then. In his insistence for proving fiction to be facts the facts gets left aside and subjected to destitute. The extremism of orthodox and western historians is fatal to Indian history.
The way out is confluence of the two schools, best from both the worlds. It is the exercise of separating facts from fiction. Facts would be identifiable, palatable on the test of tools of modern historical investigation. The segregation of fiction from the facts. Let us examine Prithvirj Raso for that matter. The fact would be that after defeating Mohammad Ghori when Prithviraj Chauhan was taken prisoner he succeeded in killing Ghori. This could be corroborated with the date, time and circumstances of death of Ghori. It would not be proper to blatantly disregard Prithviraj Raso on all counts including this. Indeed, the exaggerated explanation of bravery of Prithviraj Chahuan will be have to be kept away from facts and counted towards the pool of fiction.
The facts can be acknowledged, once established on the basis of modern tools of history and successively the scope of fiction will reduce. The text under consideration will thus give a realistic understanding of the true events what we can call history.
The orthodox historians may have to give-up some of their supernatural claims about natural beings and western historians may have to accommodate some harsh facts dispelling long standing notions and prejudices towards Indian history. Lack of above is not a loss for the people and culture of India but a true loss for history, as such.
No comments:
Post a Comment