The history of early South Asia has been the subject of several books, authored by established scholars in the field, with significant contributions made in the present century by Romila Thapar (Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300, London, Penguin 2002), Upinder Singh (A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century, New Delhi, Pearson, 2008), and Ranabir Chakravarti (Exploring Early India: Up to c. AD 1300, Delhi, Primus, 2016). Jaya Tyagi’s attempt can be viewed in the context of this scholarly tradition. A fresh look at the past is, in principle, both desirable and necessary in the present context, where early Indian history has become embroiled in high voltage identity politics designed to agitate rather than educate.
Tyagi spells out the need for caution in approaching the past in her introduction. She underscores the hazards of glossing over uncertainties in order to present a coherent and comforting picture and urges us to move away from state-centric, evolutionary models that often obscure the rich, complex diversities that are part of the history of the subcontinent.
Admittedly, translating this agenda into practice is by no means easy. The first substantive chapter, for instance, is packed with information on hunting-gathering and early food-producing sites. This dense mass of data is presented in terms of regions—with a list of sites and a cryptic summary of the archaeological material recovered from each. This can seem daunting to the reader, as information on tools, structural remains, ceramics, plant and animal remains, and burials is sometimes compressed within a single sentence or a short paragraph. At another more conceptual level, given Tyagi’s interest in questioning evolutionary models, the chapter could have been enriched by an examination of the thought-provoking, and occasionally provocative arguments of James C Scott (Against the Grain, A Deep History of the Earliest States, Yale, Yale University Press, 2017), and David Graeber and David Wengrow (The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, New York, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2021). One also wishes that there was some discussion on the accidents and circumstances of survival, and discovery of material remains, including the relative difficulty in recovering organic matter.
Fortunately, the chapter dealing with Harappan urbanism is more leisurely. It includes a summary of antecedent and subsequent phases, focusing on connections across space and time. The complexities of the archaeological record used to reconstruct settlement patterns, technology, trade, and the post-urban transformation are highlighted.
The chapter on archaeological evidence pertaining to the 2nd and part of the 1st millennium BCE summarizes a vast amount of information on archaeological cultures in the subcontinent and beyond. The reader may find the last section, which examines the Aryan debate, drawing on both archaeological and linguistic evidence, more interesting, as it focuses on the implications of reducing its complexities to arrive at a resolution that conforms to the requirements of chauvinistic agendas.
Part II introduces textual traditions, discussing the challenges of using these for historical reconstruction. Tyagi begins by laying to rest the notion of a Vedic Age, highlighting the specific and specialized nature of the Vedic textual tradition. She discusses the structural features of the Rgveda and its transmission, before turning to a set of concepts that can be retrieved from the text. These range from the socio-political to the cosmogonic. Other Vedic texts are discussed along the same lines. While there is a brief mention of objects that formed part of gift exchanges, a fuller discussion on elements of material culture—plants, animals, equipment, etc., that form part of the vocabulary of the poets/seers would have been more fruitful.
This leads on to a consideration of developments between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, including material culture, notions of kingship, state and society, as well as philosophical traditions. The latter include a discussion on concepts in the Upaniṣads, the Gṛhya Sūtras, and Buddhist texts. Here Tyagi suggests linkages between households and the state and diverse renunciatory traditions, in dialogue with one another.
Part III begins with an argument in favour of adopting Piyadassi instead of Ashoka, privileging the name used in most of his inscriptions. This is followed by a discussion on the relationship with lands to the west, drawing on textual evidence, including Greco-Roman accounts as well as material remains. The latter, Tyagi suggests, indicate the development of widespread trading and monastic networks that did not necessarily depend on state control. She goes on to contextualize the Ashokan inscriptions in terms of Achaemenid practices, before focusing more centrally on the former. She draws attention to the use of the first-person pronoun for the ruler, an exceptional practice, and the use of inscriptions for communication. She also revisits old debates on whether and how the inscriptions represent the Buddhist affiliations of the ruler. This is followed by a detailed discussion on the corpus, beginning with the Kandahar edict, followed by the Minor Edicts (both Rock and Pillar) and the Major Edicts (again, both Rock and Pillar), including translations, the significance and implications of statements and prescriptions, and the visual elements that often frame the written component.
Perhaps the most challenging set of ideas that Tyagi sets forth in this chapter as well as in the Introduction pertains to the nomenclature of rulers and dynasties, suggesting that the use of the names Ashoka and Maurya are perhaps inappropriate, if not misleading. She points out that the Ashokan inscriptions do not use the term Maurya, and that the name Ashoka also figures exceptionally rather than routinely in the inscriptions. At another, more general level, she alerts us to the limitations of labelling phases of history in terms of dynasties, as that obscures a whole range of socio-economic and cultural developments that need not necessarily coincide or correspond with dynastic changes. The last argument merits serious consideration, even as we may never have a consensus on which changes are significant.
Turning to the first set of suggestions, it may be worth keeping the content of the Ashokan inscriptions in mind—one of the points the ruler makes repeatedly is that he was breaking away from the past (e.g., Major Rock Edict IV and V). Whether this was factually accurate or not is another matter, but it is likely that he would not wish to mention his ancestors or ancestry if he was claiming to be an innovator. Should he have mentioned his name Ashoka more often? Again, if this was a name specifically connected with his Buddhist affiliation, he may have preferred not to use it in inscriptions meant for a wider, diverse readership/audience, choosing other epithets instead. And, given that we now have the label inscription from Kanaganahalli, mentioning Rāyo Asoko, it is possible that people were familiar with the name. Further, although perhaps anachronistic, consider the ‘names’ of some of our most celebrated leaders of the 20th century—Babasaheb, Bapu, Netaji—it is unlikely that they would have ever used these for themselves in their own writing, and yet, people would have identified them far more easily through these epithets than they may have done through their formal names.
Two further points in this connection—Mauryan history, as available at present, has been reconstructed through painstaking scholarship, piecing together and comparing evidence across texts, inscriptions and material culture over more than two centuries. While uncertainties remain, and are likely to remain, these need not warrant jettisoning the existing consensus. Also, we live in times when place names and our understanding of the past are being challenged and changed rapidly; one wonders when and whether the fact that the Mughals called themselves Timuriya or Chaghtaiya rather than Mughals may become the basis for erasing a name that is so much a part of our culture and traditions.
The last chapter draws attention to a wealth of numismatic evidence. That from the northwestern part of the subcontinent indicates the prolific use of coins for trade and tribute. Within the subcontinent too, coins proliferate, associated with distinct regions. Drawing the attention of the readers to this rich material and its analysis is valuable, as it represents political and cultural diversity, as well as a range of economic activities. Also included is a discussion on early stone architecture and sculpture, once again indicating linkages within the subcontinent and beyond. Finally, Tyagi introduces a series of texts, ranging from works on Sanskrit grammar to the Dharmasūtras, the Arthaśāstra, and the Sanskrit epics, locating these in the context of other textual traditions. The author ends with a brief and somewhat abrupt discussion on the Vikrama Era and the Sātavāhanas.
Overall, given Tyagi’s averred focus on sources, the work could have been enriched throughout by providing some indications on the ways in which approaches to each source have shifted over almost two centuries. Also worth tracing are the changes in the questions posed by archaeologists, epigraphists, numismatists, art historians, and those who analyse textual traditions. How, for instance, have approaches to the Harappan civilization changed over a hundred years, and in the case of Ashoka, over almost two hundred years?
On another note, several errors, minor and not so minor, have crept into print, and will hopefully be rectified in future editions. These include the date of the Minor Rock Edict at Bairat (p. 505), the Council of Valabhi (p. 515), the spellings of bhikkhu and bhikkhunī (e.g., p. 508), Ajita Kesakambalin (e.g., p. 513), Cyclopean (e.g., p. 579), Tāmralipti (p. 580), Kauṭilya (e.g., p. 559). Readers may stumble upon several other examples. In many instances, the error is repeated on more than one occasion. Further, the use of diacritics seems erratic rather than systematic.
Also, given that State names have been changed, and new ones created, it may be worth adopting those—so, Odisha may be preferable to Orissa. And it is surprising that the list of paleolithic sites in eastern India (pp. 89-90) includes sites from Uttar Pradesh as well as Sri Lanka, and that two different dates for the site of Patne are listed on adjacent pages (pp. 84-85).
While the source of translation of some of the Ashokan inscriptions is mentioned, most of those of the Major Rock Edicts (pp. 618-638) remain unspecified. Given that there are several translations, it would have been useful if the reader was informed about the choice made by Tyagi.
Tyagi’s attempts to compress complexities occasionally lead to curious and somewhat unfortunate anomalies. The following sentence, repeated twice in the course of ten pages, is just one example:
The Puruṣasūkta seems to imply the hierarchy of the varṇas—it justifies the ‘eating’ of the vaiśya by the brāhmaṇas and the rājanya, the denial of access to rituals for the śūdras, and justifying it as the difference between good and evil (p. 425, p. 435).
The reference cited is from my work, The Emergence of Monarchy in North India (New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 48). This states that what is discussed are ‘variations of the Puruṣasūkta’, with this particular variation being from the Pañcavimśa Brāhmaṇa, and not the Vedic hymn. The Brāhmaṇa belongs both to a different period and a different genre. Blurring these differences can be confusing.
Given the scope and range of the book, illustrations, either simple black and white photographs, or even line drawings, would have been useful, especially for tools, coins, pottery, etc. Also useful would be a consolidated list of abbreviations. In terms of structure, too, the distinction between the statements enclosed within lines and in a different font and the main body of the text is not always clear. It would have been helpful if the logic of this differentiation had been stated explicitly.
The maps, too, could do with some rethinking. There is considerable overlap between Maps 2 and 3. There is a mismatch between the key and the sites in Map 5, and a mysterious set of dots between Amri and Shahjo Katro in Map 6.
Finally, the last chapter (and readers) would benefit if there was a section on developments in the lands beyond the Vindhyas, including the emergence of textual traditions in Tamil, rather different from the Sanskrit/shastric tradition.
Kumkum Roy is former Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.