Indian civilisation, it has been said, was characterised by an absence of a sense of history. This view has been held since the 18th century, when the early Orientalists first read Sanskrit texts and argued that there were no histories of India in Sanskrit. But few attempts were made to explain why this was so, if, in fact, it was so. The search was for histories that would conform to post-Enlightenment European histories, which emphasised a chronological frame and a sequential narrative of mainly political events with some attempt at evaluating sources and drawing out causes. Unsurprisingly, such histories, which were specific to European traditions about the past, were not to be found in India. The one exception that was always quoted was the Rajatarangini. This was written by Kalhana in the 12th century and is a history of Kashmir from what he saw as the earliest beginnings.
The insistence on Indian civilisation being 'ahistorical' facilitated the claim that the Indian past was being rediscovered by colonial scholarship. This was not altogether incorrect. The deciphering of the Brahmi script in the early 19th century introduced the vast body of inscriptions as sources of history. Archaeological excavations revealed tangible evidence of historical activity. This was done partly out of curiosity about the Indian past. But the more significant aspect was that the texts used for writing Indian history were now supplemented by inscriptions and archaeology. However, the interpretations provided were coloured by colonial policy. The absence of historical writing was attributed to Indian society having been static and unchanging. The recognition of change and the explanation for it is essential to a sense of history. It was a common belief that only societies such as the Judaeo-Christian had a concept of history. This had a clearly marked beginning and end, and an understanding of change determined by a sense of linear progress. India, it was said, knew only a cyclic concept of time that emphasised repetition, whereas a historical sense required linear time to emphasise the uniqueness of events.
Critical enquiry into historical texts has emerged from the extensive discussion of the past in recent times. What is of interest is not so much the question of how closely these texts approximate to our modern notions of history, but rather why they were written, what they were intending to say, and whether they referred back to records of the earlier past. Were the later texts that drew on the earlier intended to create a historical narrative? In India, the historical tradition was expressed in various genres of texts – genealogies, biographies claiming to be historical, chronicles and annals in the form of inscriptions. These tended to provide the official version of social links and events. The oral tradition was also present, although it was largely confined to genealogies and epic poems. These also claimed to be historical. The category that this piece shall focus on, however, is the vamshavali, the chronicle written as historical narrative. These were written in various parts of the Subcontinent, but always pertained to the local area. Their format and content suggest attempts to retain elements from earlier genres of texts as representative of the past.
Thus it was
It has repeatedly been said that only one text in early India could be regarded as history, and this was the Rajatarangini. Without doubt this was the foremost of the chronicles, and is impressive on all counts. Nevertheless, it is one among many. A lesser one is related to what is called the itihasa-purana tradition: itihasa meaning 'thus it was' and purana being 'that which is old', the compound phrase suggesting a historical tradition. Chronicles of lesser importance maintained locally often provide a different glimpse of events from depictions in the major ones. My example is the vamshavali from Chamba, a small hill state in the western Himalaya on the banks of the upper and middle Ravi River. Its style is by no means as sophisticated or elegant as that of the Rajatarangini. It is a fraction of the length of the Kashmir chronicle, but the text illustrates several important points about early Indian chronicles. It relates the history of a small kingdom, hemmed in by larger ones.