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An Archaeological History
of Indian Buddhism
An Archaeological History
of Indian Buddhism
w
Lars Fogelin
1
1
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For Alice,
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CON T EN T S
Acknowledgments ix
A Note on Transliteration xi
1. Introduction: The Archaeology and History of Indian Buddhism 1
2. The Material of Religion 34
3. From the Buddha to Ashoka: c. 600–200 bce 70
4. The Sangha and the Laity: c. 200 bce–200 ce 104
5. The Beginnings of Mahayana Buddhism, Buddha Images,
and Monastic Isolation: c. 100–600 ce 146
6. Lay Buddhism and Religious Syncretism in the
First Millennium ce 180
7. The Consolidation and Collapse of Monastic Buddhism:
c. 600–1400 ce 202
8. Conclusion 225
Bibliography 235
Index 247
( vii )
AC K NOW L ED GMEN T S
This book is the product of almost twenty years of work on ancient Indian
Buddhism. I began studying Buddhist archaeology as a graduate student
at the University of Michigan in 1995. I continued my research while
working at Albion College, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and
the University of Arizona. During this time my research has been greatly
helped by the guidance and insights of my peers, professors, colleagues,
and students. I particularly thank Dr. Carla Sinopoli for her time, advice,
and encouragement. This book synthesizes, modifies, and extends on my
previous publications. This book would not have been possible without the
efforts of the editors and reviewers who have carefully combed through
my previous book and articles, poking holes in my arguments and suggesting new avenues to consider. Small portions of this book were adapted
from previous publications. For the most part, these sections are only few
paragraphs. In some cases, I have adapted a few pages. These sections have
all been modified or amended based upon my current understanding of
Buddhism and the needs of this particular work.
I would like to thank my colleagues and mentors in India. In particular, Dr. Himanshu P. Ray and Dr. Aloka Parasher-Sen have helped shape
my thinking about ancient India. While conducting research in India,
I received the invaluable assistance of the American Institute of Indian
Studies. Without their efforts to obtain permits and facilitate introductions, my archaeological research would never have occurred. The research
that informs portions of Chapter 4 of this book was greatly facilitated
by the Andhra Pradesh Department of Archaeology and Museums, particularly Dr. B. Subrahmanyam and Dr. E. Sivanagi Reddy. I also thank
the many students from Deccan College and Jawaharlal Nehru University
who have worked with me in the field over the years.
In the last two decades, my research has been supported by several
organizations. The greatest assistance has come from the Wenner-Gren
Foundation, who supported my dissertation fieldwork in India (Gr. 6597)
and allowed me to dedicate the 2012–2013 academic year to writing this
( ix )
( x ) Acknowledgments
book through a Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowship (Gr. 8470). The University
of Michigan, Albion College, the University of Arizona, and the American
Institute of Indian Studies have also provided critical support for my
research in India over the years. I also thank the Archaeological Survey of
India and the Andhra Pradesh Department of Archaeology and Museums
for graciously allowing me access to their collections and ­providing logistical support for my field research.
I thank Stefan Vranka of Oxford University Press for his initial support
of this project and his unflagging aid in getting it from proposal, to manuscript, to book. I thank Samantha Fladd for her help with the research
that informs significant portions of Chapter 6. The manuscript benefited
greatly from the suggestions of Dr. Emma Blake, Dr. Alice Ritscherle, and
two anonymous reviewers. Finally, I thank Alice, for everything.
A NO T E ON T R A NSL I T ER AT ION
Throughout this book I phonetically transliterate Sanskrit terms rather
than use the more modern system of diacritical marks that is commonly
employed in Buddhist studies. This was a difficult decision. Diacritical
marks undoubtedly allow for the most accurate pronunciation of Sanskrit.
I chose to use phonetic transliteration for two reasons. First, archaeological sites are by convention named by their excavators. In almost all cases
the names of archaeological sites are phonetically transliterated. For
reasons of consistency, other Sanskrit words should be similarly transliterated. Second, I expect that many of the people reading this book will
be scholars who work outside South Asia. Buddhist scholars and South
Asian readers already know how to pronounce Sanskrit terms, as shown
by the common practice of omitting diacriticals marks but otherwise leaving the spelling unchanged (e.g., “Asoka” rather than “Aśoka”). For the
non-specialist, however, neither “Asoka” nor “Aśoka” would suggest the
correct pronunciation—“Ashoka”—of the great Mauryan ruler’s name.
While phonetic transliteration is less accurate and seems old-fashioned,
it is the quickest and easiest way to approximate proper pronunciation for
the non-specialist.
Using phonetic transliteration, Sanskrit and other terms are pronounced pretty much as an English speaker would expect. The one difference is the use of the letter “h” to mark certain consonants as aspirated
(e.g., “th,” “bh,” “chh,” and “dh”). With the exception of “th,” this does not
cause any significant confusion. As for “th,” it is never pronounced as a
fricative as in “them,” but rather as an aspirated “t” as in “stop”; “ch” and
“sh” are pronounced as they are in English.
There are a few instances where I do not phonetically transliterate. The
first are the names of the few archaeological sites that are not phonetically
transliterated. Rather than alter the name of these sites, I use the name
under which they are commonly published. I also have chosen not to alter
the transliterations of any scholars that I quote in the text. All quotes are
as originally written, with diacriticals omitted. Finally, when referring to
( xi )
( xii ) A Note on Transliteration
Buddhist texts, I use the title of the cited translation, however transliterated by the translator. In all of these cases I have sought to preserve the
intentions of the scholars I rely upon. While I may choose to use an older
transliteration system to aid novice readers, I do not wish to force this
decision on other scholars by altering their words.
w
C H A P T ER 1
Introduction
The Archaeology and History of Indian Buddhism
T
he study of Buddhism, like the study of most major world religions,
has long focused on written accounts of transcendent beliefs concerning the spiritual world at the expense of material expressions of faith in
the mundane, earthly world. Temples, however beautiful, are understood
as a reflection of faith, not faith itself. At some level, this perspective
makes sense. Buddhists, like the adherents of most other modern world
religions, explicitly champion the transcendent over the illusion of the
earthly and mundane. Being part of the mundane world, Buddhist temples are merely way stations on the path toward enlightenment. To study
Buddhism from a material perspective, then, necessarily imposes an alien
understanding that is antithetical to what Buddhists themselves believe.
Yet, this is exactly what I aim to do.
At its heart, archaeology is the study of the material remains of past
cultures—the empty buildings, the discarded tools, and the garbage that
people leave behind. While ruins inspire a peculiar sense of melancholy
in those who visit them by forcefully demonstrating the impermanence
of even the greatest of human accomplishments, archaeological remains
also provide a window into the worldly actions of the long dead. Though
different from the transcendental ideas preserved in ancient texts, these
worldly actions are no less important for understanding the history of any
people or any religion. This is not say that the study of ruins should supplant the study of texts. Rather, history needs to examine the interaction between the spiritual and the material, between the transcendent
( 1 )
( 2 ) An Archaeological History of Indian Buddhism
and the mundane, and between faith and the practicalities of daily life.
Accordingly, an archaeological history of Indian Buddhism must combine
both textual scholarship and archaeological scholarship to produce a more
complete understanding of the origin, development, and eventual collapse
of Buddhism in the place of its birth.
The standard, textually derived history of Indian Buddhism begins
in fifth or sixth century bce with Siddhartha Gautama, a prince who
renounced his life of privilege for the life of an ascetic (e.g., Basham 1967;
Davids 1910; Lamotte 1988; Lopez 2001). After many trials, Siddhartha
achieved enlightenment, seeing the path to ending the cycle of rebirth
and the end of suffering. For the rest of his life, he taught this path to
an increasing number of disciples. After his death, his disciples continued to promote the Buddha’s teachings and established a community of
monks and nuns, known collectively as the sangha. Initially members of
the sangha were wandering ascetics, living on the margins of society, begging for their food, and practicing meditation and other ascetic rites. In
contrast to the ascetic practices of the sangha, the Buddhist laity began
practicing pilgrimage to key sites of the Buddha’s life, and to burial
tumuli—stupas—that held portions of his cremated remains.
Over the centuries, and out of their desire to assist the laity on their
path to enlightenment, the sangha gradually settled into monasteries
and nunneries that drew the favor and financial support of the elite and
non-elite Buddhist laity. According to the standard history, by the end of
the first millennium bce, the sangha was becoming domesticated within
monasteries, with ever escalating obligations to their lay followers. With
the contact that these obligations demanded, the sangha began adopting
the practices of lay Buddhism—worshiping at stupas and, by the early to
mid-first millennium ce, Buddha images. Thus began a gradual degradation of the pure, ascetic tradition of forest monks in favor of scholastic
Buddhism centered in monasteries. Scholastic Buddhism focused on
the study of texts and the formal education of novitiates in ever-larger
­monasteries in the north of India.
In the mid- to late first millennium ce, increasing numbers of lay
followers abandoned Buddhism in favor of Hinduism, Jainism, and,
eventually, Islam. Without lay support, Buddhist monasteries and pilgrimage centers were particularly vulnerable to Turks from central Asia,
who invaded North India beginning in the second millennium ce. With
their monasteries in ruins and their pilgrimage centers abandoned, the
sangha either abandoned India for the Himalayas, China, Sri Lanka,
and Southeast Asia, or abandoned Buddhism for Hinduism, Jainism,
and Islam. By the fifteenth century ce in India, Buddhism survived in a
I n t r o d u c t i o n ( 3 )
few small isolated pockets and as traces in the ritual practices of other
religious sects.
Adding archaeology to the standard history of Indian Buddhism does
not wholly change the narrative. Particularly in the latter half of the
standard history, from the mid-first millennium onward, textual and
archaeological evidence are in broad agreement. This shouldn’t be surprising. Beginning in the mid-first millennium ce, the quantity, quality, and
diversity of historical source materials increase dramatically. With better
textual sources on which to base the standard history, it is not surprising that archaeological evidence is largely in accordance with it. The same
cannot be said of the first half of the standard history. When compared to
what is known of the archaeological record of Indian Buddhism, much of
the standard history appears to be wrong. Most important, archaeological
evidence of early Buddhism indicates that from at least the third century
bce—the earliest period in which substantial archaeological evidence
is available—the sangha was fully domesticated. Where the standard
history posits an ascetic sangha that slowly coalesced into monasteries,
archaeological evidence suggests something like the opposite. From the
earliest period in which archaeological evidence is available, the sangha
was monastically based. Rather than developing early, it appears that the
ascetic ideal only emerged in India in the mid- to late first millennium ce,
and even then only a small minority of the sangha abandoned monasteries
for the ascetic life of the forest.
While archaeological and textual evidence about early Buddhism seemingly contradict each other, it is not my aim to simply debunk the standard, textual history of Buddhism and replace it with an archaeological
history of Buddhism. The generations of textual scholars who developed
the standard history were often brilliant, and the historical narrative they
developed was based on real evidence. That said, the Buddhist textual
sources that historians relied upon were written by a small, literate minority for specific reasons in the early to mid-first millennium ce, some five
to ten centuries after the events they describe. I argue that the Buddhist
textual sources used to make the standard history of early Buddhism are
colored by the concerns of the sangha during the periods in which they
were composed.
In the mid-first millennium ce, the sangha was divided between
those who desired a more contemplative life as ascetics and those who
desired a scholastic life as monastics. Much of the standard history of
early Buddhism is based on readings of early to mid-first millennium
ce Buddhist texts written by the pro-asceticism faction of the sangha.
The authors of these texts sought to delegitimize established, monastic
( 4 ) An Archaeological History of Indian Buddhism
Buddhism by portraying the Buddha as the prototypical ascetic. By relying on these accounts, those scholars who created the standard history of
early Buddhism confused later polemic for actual history. This does not
mean that Buddhist texts that describe early Buddhism have no historical
value. Obviously, they have immense value in illuminating the sangha’s
concerns and interests at the time of their composition in the first millennium ce. But the texts also have value for understanding the early
history of Buddhism. In some instances, descriptions in Buddhist texts
strongly concord with what has been found archaeologically. By combining archaeological and textual sources, it is sometimes possible to separate
those textual accounts that have a high degree of historical accuracy from
those that are later interpolations. More so, Buddhist textual sources also
illuminate a central, long-standing tension in Buddhism—the tension
between the individual and the group. Relying on textual sources, many
scholars have argued that this persistent tension was central to Buddhism
from the very start (e.g., Carrithers 1979, 1983; Tambiah 1976, 1982).
Following this insight, I argue that the strategies that different groups of
Buddhists used to address and ameliorate this tension were central to the
history of Buddhism in India.
I do not expect anyone to be convinced of my argument based upon
this short introduction. I also admit that my version of the standard history just presented ignores many significant debates among older generations of Buddhist scholars and the study of more quotidian Buddhist
texts by a new generation of Buddhist scholars (e.g., Lopez 1995; Schopen
1997, 2004, 2005; Strong 1983, 2004; Trainor 1997; White 2000). That
is what the rest of this book is for. Here I am laying out only the most
basic contours of an archaeological history of Indian Buddhism—a
history that spans almost two millennia and includes the sangha, the
laity, and the ruling dynasties that both were subject to. It must also be
remembered that Buddhism was always one of several religions in simultaneous practice in India. The history of Buddhism in India, then, is not
simply the history of Buddhist thought, but rather the history of the
Buddhist thought, Buddhists themselves, and the non-Buddhists they
interacted with.
While this book is primarily intended as a study of the history of Indian
Buddhism, it is also intended as an exemplar for the archaeological study
of religion. It might surprise a non-archaeologist to know that, until
recently, archaeologists have avoided studies of religion. For the most part,
religion was the explanation of last resort, with “religious” often meaning
little more than “I have absolutely no idea what this thing is or what it was
used for.” Its not that archaeologists have not found ancient temples and
I n t r o d u c t i o n ( 5 )
religious artifacts—they are almost unavoidable. Rather, archaeologists
have not known what exactly to do with them. Following the tradition of
seeing religion as belief, archaeologists often did little more than identify
sacred sites as sacred and religious artifacts as religious. Where possible,
archaeologists have also taken the bold step of correlating known archaeological sites with sites named in historical or ethnohistorical sources. In
American archaeology this is known as being the “handmaiden to history” (Hume 1964), and as most would likely guess, archaeologists don’t
want to be anybody’s handmaiden.
Beginning with the pioneering work of Colin Renfrew (1985) at
Phylakopi sanctuary on the Island of Milos in the Aegean and John
Fritz (1986; Fritz and Michell 1989) at Vijayanagara in India, archaeologist have begun to take up the challenge of studying religion (e.g.,
Bradley 2005; Fogelin 2007a, 2008a; Insoll 2001, 2004; Kyriakidis
2007; Shaw 2013a; Walker 1998; Whitley and Hays-Gilpin 2008). For
the most part, this challenge has been addressed by borrowing recent
anthropological theories that see religion as something that people do,
not simply something that people think about. Religion is created and
revealed in the performance of a ritual, the construction of a temple,
and the attendance at a ceremony. If people practice religion, then they
are likely to leave at least some material traces of their actions. Those
material traces are what archaeologists can use to identify and reconstruct ancient religions. For the most part, however, most archaeological studies of religion have been synchronic—identifying religious
practices in specific archaeological contexts or identifying the function
of religion at a particular time. With a few exceptions (e.g., Bradley
2005; Shaw 2013a), archaeologists have not studied long-term religious
change. They have not studied the ways that the material aspects of
religious experience can shape and alter future iterations of that religion. In Chapter 2, I will develop the methods necessary to animate the
archaeology of religion and incorporate its insights into the study of
long-term religious change.
DOUBTS, DISCLAIMERS, AND HESITATIONS
The ways that an author defines and writes about a subject are critical to
understanding the arguments an author is making. The choice of words,
and the way an author uses those words, significantly frame the boundaries of debate and discussion. These choices are important, as different
words, even those that nominally refer to the same thing, have different
( 6 ) An Archaeological History of Indian Buddhism
meanings. When choosing the best terms, it is necessary to recognize
that no term perfectly expresses the desired meaning, and that all terms
have their own history and baggage. In writing this book, I have been
forced to make several critical choices concerning what will, and will not,
be covered. These choices are reflected in the language I employ and the
arguments I make. Among the most important of these decisions is the
geographic region I intend to address.
India
Throughout this work I use the term “India” to refer to mainland South
Asia south of the Himalayas. This use of the term “India” has no relationship to the borders of the modern nation of India. Rather, India, as I am
using it, roughly corresponds to the territories of the modern nations of
Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and lowland Nepal. Though I wish it were
otherwise, the region I am calling India matches the borders of British
colonial India. By using “India” in the way I am, I am not trying to reference colonial India, but I cannot fault anyone who is troubled by the correspondence. I am using the term “India” in the way I am simply because it
is less cumbersome than consistently referring to the region as “mainland
South Asia south of the Himalayas” or “the regions now called Pakistan,
India, Bangladesh, and portions of southern Nepal.” Without a better
term, “India” is the best I’ve got. To avoid confusion, throughout the text
I use “modern India” to refer to the modern Indian state and “colonial
India” to refer to British India. I use “India” to refer to the region in which
Buddhism originated and initially spread in the centuries immediately
after the Buddha’s death.
The Buddha was born and raised a small kingdom in what is now southern Nepal. The other key moments of the Buddha’s biography (enlightenment, first sermon, and death) occurred in North India. Within a few
centuries after the Buddha’s death, the practice of Buddhism spread to
peninsular India and present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh. Later still,
Buddhism was adopted in Sri Lanka, Central Asia, East Asia, Southeast
Asia, and the Himalayas. The spread of Buddhism beyond India is among
the most important and complex topics in the history of Buddhism.
Wherever Buddhism was adopted, it was partially transformed to suit the
needs of its new practitioners. As such, the history of Buddhism in China
is different from the history of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, which is different from the history of Buddhism in Cambodia. A complete account of
the spread and fragmentation of Buddhism in all the nations in which
I n t r o d u c t i o n ( 7 )
it is, or was, practiced would require multiple volumes. Given this complexity, I have chosen to focus only on India, the place of Buddhism’s
origin, development, and initial expansion. That said, I recognize that it
is impossible to completely divorce Buddhism in India from Buddhism
elsewhere. Throughout this book I make frequent use of information concerning India preserved in Chinese and Sri Lankan texts. I also note when
doctrinal and other developments beyond India affected the practice of
Buddhism in India.
Early Buddhism
Another term that should be noted is my use of “early Buddhism.” As used
here it is intended to be a substitute for the term “Hinayana Buddhism.”
Hinayana translates as “lesser vehicle” and refers to the earliest forms
of Buddhism that existed in India. This was not the term used by early
Buddhists themselves; it was applied by later Mahayana (greater vehicle)
Buddhists as a somewhat derisive label for those who preceded them. In
some of the earlier academic literature of Buddhist studies, “Hinayana”
also became a term used to describe the later forms of Buddhism found
in Sri Lanka and parts of Southeast Asia. The use of “Hinayana” for these
later forms of Buddhism was predicated on the idea that these forms of
Buddhism, particularly those found in Sri Lanka, had undergone less
change (or corruption) than the Mahayana Buddhism of Central and East
Asia. Rather than Hinayana, I refer to Sri Lankan and Southeast Asian
Buddhism as Theravada Buddhism, the term preferred by Theravadin
Buddhists themselves.
I am also skeptical that Theravada Buddhism is a better model for early
Buddhism than any other form of Buddhism. There is ample reason to
suspect that it has gone through as many profound changes as any other
Buddhist tradition. Almost all Buddhist sects claim that their teachings represent the original words of the Buddha. From my perspective,
I see no reason to privilege one a priori. For this reason—in addition to
the negative connotations of Hinayana—I prefer to use the term “early
Buddhism” until such time as Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism began
to emerge and diverge. Early Buddhism, as I use it, dates from the time of
the Buddha through the second or third centuries ce. It should be noted,
however, that the terminal date is extremely fluid. The process in which
Mahayana Buddhism developed is exceedingly complex and existing
academic understandings of it contested (see Schopen 2000). It is likely
that some Buddhist sects adopted Mahayana practices more quickly than
( 8 ) An Archaeological History of Indian Buddhism
others. Even within individual sects some practices changed quickly,
while other practices continued to follow earlier forms. Thus, the boundary between early Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism is permeable and
likely indefinable.
Buddhist Sangha/Buddhist Laity
Throughout this book I frequently contrast the actions of “the Buddhist
laity” and “the Buddhist sangha.” I use these terms for the same reason I use
the term “India”: because all of the other options are worse. The primary
problem with these terms is that they imply far more coherence among
“the laity” and “the sangha” than likely ever existed. Neither the Buddhist
laity nor the sangha were ever homogenous. The sangha, as already noted,
was divided into several different, often rival, sects, and Buddhist textual sources note several failed attempts at preventing sectarian schisms.
Even within individual Buddhist sects there were marked status differences between members of the sangha, with abbots and those who had
been ordained the longest having the highest status. These differences
were even more pronounced in regard to gender. In some accounts, the
Buddha was said to have only reluctantly accepted nuns into the sangha,
and only after stipulating that even the most senior nun was subordinate
to the most recently ordained monk.
If anything, the Buddhist laity were even more diverse than the
sangha—with the same divisions in terms of status, wealth, and gender,
but with additional divisions as subjects of rival kingdoms. The other
problem with contrasting the actions of the Buddhist laity and the sangha
is that neither were wholly separate from the other. Members of the laity,
particularly older wealthier members of the laity, were often ordained late
in life. Similarly, young people often became novitiates at Buddhist monasteries, gaining an education before returning to lay life. All told, the
boundaries between the sangha and the laity were somewhat fluid. While
it is difficult to talk about the history of Buddhism without discussing the
sangha and the laity, it must always be remembered that neither group was
completely coherent or completely distinct.
Similar to the division between the laity and the sangha, I also often
speak of the differences between lay Buddhism and monastic Buddhism.
Again, these terms likely obscure significant variation within, and similarities between, the forms of Buddhism practiced by the laity and the
sangha. As used here, these terms are meant to draw on recent approaches
to Indian religions that differentiate the popular religion of the laity from
I n t r o d u c t i o n ( 9 )
the more abstract and esoteric religion of the sangha (Fuller 1992; Lopez
1995). As stated by Lopez (1995:11),
Buddhism has a vast literature dealing with what we term logic, epistemology,
and ontology—works that are (depending on one’s perspective) as profound or
as impenetrable, as rich or as arid, as anything produced in the West. However,
like philosophical works in other cultures, Buddhist treatises are the products
of a tiny, highly educated elite (largely composed of monks in the Buddhist
case) and rarely touch the ground where the vast majority of Buddhists lived
their lives.
The standard history of Buddhism posits a gradual corruption of the
more meditative and esoteric aspect of monastic Buddhism with the more
vulgar practices of lay Buddhism. In subsequent chapters, I argue that
something like the opposite occurred. Whether following the standard
history or the revisionist history presented in this book, the arguments
require an analytical division of the laity and the sangha, lay Buddhism
and monastic Buddhism, if only to allow for the patterns of interaction
between different Buddhists to be fruitfully examined.
Colonial and Postcolonial History
A massive body of literature focuses on colonialism and postcolonialism in India.1 With each year, these investigations become more nuanced
and subtle, tracking the effects of colonialism and postcolonialism with
increasing detail. Although my focus is not on the history of colonialism
itself, it is important to examine the effects that colonialism has had on
the study of Indian archaeology (Chakrabarti 1997, 2001; Lahiri 2005;
Singh 2004; Thapar 2000). These effects color both the colonial and postcolonial sources that I rely on. For this reason it is necessary to approach
historical sources with an understanding of the context in which they
were created. Many of the historical themes I explore here are based upon
one simple “fact”—Sanskrit is an Indo-European language related to
Persian, Greek, Latin, and most other European languages. Further, the
Rig Veda, the earliest readable text from India, is written in Sanskrit. For
the British and other Europeans, this established that some ancient link
existed between the European and Indian civilizations.
1. For example, see Dirks 1993, 2001; Guha and Spivak 1988; Breckenridge and
van der Veer 1993; Inden 1990; see also Said 1978.
( 10 ) An Archaeological History of Indian Buddhism
With the recognition of the common origin of Sanskrit and European
languages by Sir William Jones near the end of the eighteenth century
(Jones 1824), modern European narratives of Indian history began to
emerge. Thomas Trautmann (1997) provides a nuanced investigation
of these narratives, arguing that colonial history emerged as a synthesis of the work of European Sanskritists and the racial science of
nineteenth-century anthropology. In this synthesis, the introduction of
Indo-European languages was assumed to coincide with the migration of
Indo-European people from Central Asia—the Aryans—into India during the second millennium bce. Colonial historians credited the Aryans
with introducing “civilization” to India.2 They were considered a race superior to the indigenous South Asians, who were forced southward as the
Aryans assumed control over northern India. For colonial historians, this
served to explain the modern distribution of languages and races found
in British India.
By the mid-nineteenth century, colonial historians discovered that the
Dravidian and Munda language families of peninsular India were different from the Indo-European languages of North India (Caldwell 1856;
Campbell 1816; Ellis 1816; see Trautmann 1997 for a review of the identification of the Dravidian language family). European historians postulated that the people who spoke these languages were the descendants of
the people displaced by the Aryans. Thus, a linguistic divide between the
North and South was explained as the product of the historical replacement and migration of different races. This racial explanation was buttressed by the observation that people in the South were dark skinned
in comparison to the lighter skin of the descendents of the Aryans in the
North. The one “fact” left to account for was the apparent sophistication
of the Dravidian speakers of the South. This was explained by a process of
“Aryanization” or “Sanskritization,” in which northern Aryans were postulated to have moved south to become the political and religious elite
over the Dravidian speakers of the South (see Srinivas 1966, 1989). Just
as the British employed local languages in their own colonial endeavor,
2. The recognition of pre-Aryan cities at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro in the early
twentieth century muddied this picture but did not cause significant changes to
the Aryan framework promoted in colonial histories. Rather, the Aryans were credited with destroying the pre-existing civilizations of India, creating a strong break
between pre-Aryan and post-Aryan civilizations. The pre-existing civilizations
of India were then reduced to an interesting historical oddity, without any direct
impact upon the later historical developments. More recent archaeological research
(see Schaffer 1984; Kenoyer 1997) has asserted much greater continuity between
the Indus Valley civilization and later historical periods, rejecting many of the
­assumptions of the Aryan explanation.
I n t r o d u c t i o n ( 11 )
the Aryans who moved south adopted the local languages of their new
homes, slowly losing their original Aryan tongue. The presence of numerous Sanskrit loan words in Dravidian languages and common religious
elements between the North and the South were seen as survivals of the
process of Aryanization.
Over the course of two centuries of colonial scholarship, a simple story
of Indian history was constructed. The origins of Indian civilization
were viewed as the product of an earlier influx of colonizers, who were
themselves the progenitors of the Europeans who now were in the process of re-colonizing India. Today it is almost impossible not to recognize
that this historical narrative legitimized the colonial practices of the
British in India (see Chakrabarti 1997, 2001; Lahiri 2000, 2005; Singh
2004; Trautmann and Sinopoli 2002; Trautmann 1997). Nevertheless, it
should also be remembered that much of the colonial scholarship remains
valuable to this day. That this scholarship existed within the context of
British colonialism does not necessarily limit its usefulness in studying
pre-colonial Indian history and archaeology.
If colonial histories of India emphasized the civilizing affects of foreigners, postcolonial histories of India emphasized the indigenous development of Indian traditions. Where colonial archaeologists saw social and
technological advances in India as the result of successive waves of invaders bringing new ideas to India, postcolonial archaeologists were more
likely to see these advances as homegrown. This does not mean that postcolonial historians rejected the claim that Sanskrit was an Indo-European
language. Rather, postcolonial historians argued that Sanskrit was
adopted by Indians rather than imposed by foreign invaders. More so,
simply because Indians adopted Sanskrit, it does not mean that every
other advance in India was a result of foreign innovation. Where British
colonial archaeologists constantly looked outside India for the origin of
cultural practices, architectural and artistic traditions, and systems of
governance, postcolonial archaeologists emphasized the organic development of these practices and traditions within India.
Overall, I tend to follow a more postcolonial view of Indian history.
While India was located at the center of trade routes that linked East Asia,
Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Africa, the Near East, and the Mediterranean,
India was not simply a container into which foreign ideas were poured.
This is not to say that all developments in India were entirely independent.
They weren’t. With trade contacts came new commodities and ideas that
Indians adapted to their own use. India, particularly Northwest India, was
repeatedly invaded and occupied by Central Asians. Indians benefited and
borrowed from the foreigners they came into contact with, but foreigners