লিখেছেনঃ Dr. Bhagwan Singh and Shamsuzzoha Manik, আপডেটঃ November 10, 2007, 12:00 AM, Hits: 4852
( Dr. Bhagwan Singh is a renowned Vedic scholar of India . During the year 2000 Shamsuzzoha Manik (an author of The Aryans and the Indus Civilization) and Dr.Singh exchanged several letters expressing their views on Indus Civilization, Aryans and some other relevant historical issues. Considering their last two letters as an interesting and important discourse on some important historical or pre-historical issues it has been decided to publish them online. --- Bangarashtra, 10 November, 2007 )
Letter from Bhagwan Singh
Date: Friday, 01 September, 2000
Dear Mr. Manik,
I have received both of your letters. The Internet connection is so time-consuming in certain areas in our city that I generally avoid checking the incoming mail and postpone sending my own letter as long as I can. That is why the delay.
I shall be ever willing to exchange notes with you. I feel glad that you have decided to pen down your ideas in Bangla and intend to publish it. This time you are likely to get an established publisher either in your country or West Bengal . For your information, my book in Hindi Harappa Sabhyata aur Vaidic Sahitya, Pub. 1987, in two parts (of which the Vedic Harappans covers only the First one) has much larger readership than the one in English.
The thesis is tolerably good, even if you insist that the decline and fall was caused by religious dissension (you may throw a new surprise to be picked up by those historians who support the communal line). But, Marxists as you are, you know that religion is only a part of the superstructure. Problems of infrastructure are nor created by the superstructure, even if it generates blind forces to support it. They have deeper malice spreading in the dark areas of socio-economic relations. But here, in Harappan or say the Rgvedic case, it was the result of a meteorological crisis of rare magnitude, which covered most parts of Central Asia and South Asia . Urban cultures and trade and commerce suffer with gradual accentuation of the crisis. In their plight they robbed, they killed, they captured agricultural land, they settled closest to water sources which gradually dried. They ran to erstwhile marshlands such as in the sub-Himalayan Bihar , and populated it for the first time. Read with critical eyes the Videgha Mathava episode in Satapatha Brahman, available in Eggling’s translation in Sacred Books of East Series XII, SB. Pt. I. page 104 ff., and the account of the Great Famine which authored the end of a glorious Age Treta in Mahabharat, Shantiparva, chap. 139. The vivid account is incomparable in the history of reporting.
You have raised some points regarding the evolution of agriculture and Story of Rama and Sita and offered some guesses. We are really confused about the entire development. Story of Ram has many threads -- some of it goes back to the initial stages of agriculture. There it is said that the Vishnu, which is a synonym of sacrificial fire, was lost. They, the Devas, started looking for it. They found Him hidden in the roots of the cultigens. They discovered him by digging. That is why they till the earth three to four cubits deep. So Ram being incarnation of Vishnu is associated with this great advancement in human civilisation. Then there is another thread from the Vedic Period, a revolutionary character, who revolts against sacrificial rituals and perhaps Varna-system is said to be the son of king Sudas, by his wife Sudevi. He is recited in Puranic accounts. He is cursed by Vasishtha to be Rakshas and he devours the sons of Vasishtha. Sudasa is a Bharat, you know. Both Vasishtha and Visvamitra are the priests of Sudas. There is some conflict between the two as Vishvamitra was removed due to designs of the latter. Now in epic story Vishvamitra is the teacher of Ram and Lakshmana while there is no mention of the teacher of Bharat. Naturally it is Vasishtha. The priestly tussle combined with the royal house intrigues results into something closer to banishment of Ram and exile of Vishvamitra (his remote place of worship) in Ramayana and his crossing the twine rivers in the Veda. Then there is another thread possibly related to kashi and the last one that of the Shakyasingh, Gautam Buddha who is born in previous life as Rama Pandit, in the family of a king at Ayoadhya. It is a developing Epic and has been written and sung continuously for millennia after millennia picking and assimilating new lores.
Now as for the plough cultivation and simple digging are concerned, the problem is again confusing. There is a long tradition of Indian agriculture a hint of which is available in my book in the relevant chapter. It is likely to precede Mehragarh by millennia. There are reasons for holding this view, which I prefer not to detail here. In fact, many of the backward tribes are the captives of their own arrogance. At one stage or the other, they were much ahead of other societies. They refused to learn from the other when when the latter learnt all that they had to teach and improved upon it. All the developments are recorded in the Vedic tradition in a disorganised and disjointed shape. The shift cultivation or slash-and-burn is stated to be the oldest one, then comes clearing the land through digging and lastly the plough cultivation. By the time Rgveda was composed we have three devices for tilling and scattering the seeds-VRIKA, SIRA and LANGALA. What was the exact shape of the two instruments, we can not be sure. However, SIRA was driven by animals.
In history, and even in current events, firstly, we have some evidence (clinching or circumstantial) and facts, which have their serious limitations. Secondly, there are interpretations based on those facts and evidence. Lastly, there are hypotheses built to connect the two as well as to fill up the gaps. Imagination, guesses, prejudices, all have free play in case of the last one, but the second one also allows an amount of mischief. Prejudices may cause even faulty, lopsided or even false presentation of facts. A professor of history at prestigious Jawahar Lal Nehru University, Shereen Ratnagar, speaking at a seminar, told the audience that the river Sarasvati is mentioned only once in the Rgveda. The news item in accessible through Internet, Hindustan Times, dated 18 August, 2k. One must be elaborate, multidimensional and free from biases acquired from creed, country and ideology, to remain authentic. Imagination and guesses must be brought to their minimum and one should be ready to concede if an alternative view is more convincing.
I have not made an exclusive study of the complexity of Ramayana story back to its embryonic stage which is needed for making definite claim. Hypothetically I find my explanation sound.
I hope your Bengali version is progressing well.
Bhagwan Singh
To: Dr. Bhagwan Singh
From: Shamsuzzoha Manik
Sub: Reply of letter dated 1September 2000.
Dear Dr. Singh,
Thank you for your letter dated Friday I September 2000.
I feel that there is some misunderstanding regarding our argument on the role of the Vedic movement. We actually did not mean in our book that the decline and fall of Indus Civilization was caused by religious dissension. Our argument is that primarily due to the crisis created by the failure of the man-made river control system religious dissension could have occurred and gained firm ground and this dissension did not cause but accelerated the fall. (Discussion on the pages 74-77 in The Aryans and the Indus Civilization may be referred to in this respect.)
To blame the Vedic movement for the decline and fall of the Indus Civilization is something like blaming the rise of Christianity for the fall of the Roman Empire , even though it might have played some role in accelerating the fall. But it is true that we see a social conflict behind the Rigveda like all other religious upheavals of the world. As we see, this conflict effected the impetus for the formation of the Rigveda as well as the Vedic religious reforms. But it does not negate the idea that some hymns of the Rigveda may be of much earlier origin, since the Rigveda evolved from the religious tradition of a long civilization.
However, from your view about our central argument I feel that we might have made some mistake in our book in respect of presenting our argument. So, we will be careful not to repeat it in our Bangla book.
But, we do not see the reason why, if we see social conflicts behind the Vedic movement like all other religions, the historians who support the communal line should pick up the idea and the others should not.
I value your argument on the meteorological factors creating crisis for the three contemporary major ancient civilizations, viz. Indus , Mesopotamian and Egyptian. But here my point of argument is that the social crisis created only by nature or meteorology, in fact, cannot create social conflict of that nature, which may lead to a great social upheaval, in the context of given space and time, that is essential to get the impetus for the creation of any great literature (popular epic, scripture etc.) or ideology (popular doctrine, religion etc.)
And it is very significant that our ancient literature is full of innumerable stories recounting conflicts between the Devas and Asuras. And when we make a comparative study on the Rigveda and the Avesta, it becomes easier for us to vivify and recognize a great conflict that occurred on the Greater Indus-Sarsvati Valley reasonably during the last or declining phase of the Indus or Harappan Civilization.
I am now discussing the point of infrastructure. The factors behind the success of Indus Civilization and the failure of Mesopotamian or Egyptian Civilization in creating a great religion like the Vedic one seems to have laid in the nature of water management. In respect of water management, Indus Civilization seems to have a different kind of infrastructure. Others also used river water to irrigate lands. But they did not build barrage with gates across the rivers to control or regulate flow of water for irrigation. So, they utilized nature, but did not aggress upon or establish control upon nature in the sense that the Indus people did. So, when normal supply of river water was severely disturbed due to meteorological change, they had no reason to get the people mobilized against any non-existent man-made infrastructure as well as the people related to it for the solution. There the people simply died, killed or got killed, robbed or got robbed, dispersed and migrated wherever possible or accepted fate. In the case of Indus Civilization a different situation seems to have happened, At least form the Rigveda we can deduce that. In this respect, some archaeological findings also have helped us to strengthen our hypothesis.
The peculiar form of river control and water management, as we visualize from the hymns of the Rigveda, became the target of a large part of society because of its failure to ensure necessary supply of water for irrigation and maintenance of urban life. Even if we assume that due to meteorological crisis or geological change dams failed, the imagination or perception of the people should have been different. And from the evidence of the Rigveda we can assume that in such a situation a religious reform was made to destroy the failing dams.
However, dam-based river control system is still our hypothesis that we have mentioned in our Ô The Aryans and the Indus CivilizationÕ. We will have to find some remnants of major embankments and especially sluice-gates on some paleochannel before we can conclude finally. Although both the embankments and sluice-gate of the Harappan period have been discovered, yet we do not consider them sufficient to draw a conclusion from the archaeological point of view.
Before going to the next issue I would like to say something to change some notion of you about me. Actually, it is long ago that I had been a Marxist, although with some critical mind. But since the beginning of the `70s I have not been a Marxist. I do not accept mechanical and too much economistic methodology of Marxism. So, I have tried to develop my own way of looking at things.
Now, regarding your discussion on the Ramayana I would like to say that we have found it very helpful for us, because we intend to touch the issue in our Bangla book. If we quote in our book your discussion on the Ramayana from your letter as an expert-opinion, will you have any objection? If you do not have, then will you please let us know that without much delay?
I think that imagination and guesses are needed to make any breakthrough in the field of conceptualization. But they should be based on facts and scientific methodology. However, men’s experiences and positions are very important factors in influencing their outlook and methodology. So, there will never be complete unanimity among all on any social issue, be it contemporary or historical. However, there should be some basic truth to be accepted by all, which is also relative and conditional.
Finally, thank you again for your valuable letter and especially for your valuable discussion on the Ramayana.
Our Bangla version is progressing.
Yours sincerely,
Shamsuzzoha Manik.
14.09.2000
