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Speaking from Siva's temple: Banaras scholar households and the Brahman ‘ecumene’ of Mughal India

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 2; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/19472498.2011.553496

1947-2501

Rosalind O’Hanlon,

South Asian Studies and Conflicts

Abstract By the early sixteenth century, a substantial community of Maratha Brahman scholar families had emerged in Mughal Banaras. These scholar households mobilized substantial cultural and practical resources to address the challenges that 'early modernity' posed to Brahman communities such as themselves. They provided the locale within which reputations were built up and skills passed on. Locating their assemblies in the city's Visvesvara temple, Maratha scholar-intellectuals were able to advertise an arena where disputes could be resolved and Brahman unity restored. Drawing on older universalizing geographies of Brahman identity, they addressed their letters of judgement to Brahman communities across the 'gauḍa' and 'drāviḍa' regions of northern and southern India and appealed explicitly to a 'we' of the pious and discerning, the 'good people' of the Brahman śiṣṭa. This remarkable position of social and intellectual leadership emerged very much within the context of the Mughal imperial framework. The latter's gradual disintegration also spelled the waning of this remarkable social formation within the city, as many of its functions passed to new regional states. Keywords: BrahmanscholarhouseholdBanarasMughalpublic Acknowledgements For their kind assistance in developing the arguments in this essay, I thank participants in the Oxford 2009 workshop 'Religious cultures in early modern India' and also Arjun Appadurai, Hans Bakker, Ted Benke, Jim Benson, Raul Concha, Nina Mirnig, Sheldon Pollock, Alexis Sanderson, Travis Smith and Peter Szanto. Notes 1. See Alam and Subrahmanyam, 'Making of a Munshi'; Narayana Rao, et al., Textures of Time, 93–139; Subrahmanyam, 'Aspects of State Formation'; Alam, 'Culture and Politics'; Chatterjee, 'History as Self-Representation'; Guha, 'Speaking Historically'; Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics, 64–96; and O'Hanlon and Washbrook, 'Munshis, Pandits and Record Keepers'. 2. Particularly, of course, in the project 'Sanskrit Knowledge Systems on the Eve of Colonialism'. See http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pollock/sks/papers/index.html (accessed February 2, 2011); and Pollock, Language of the Gods. For a review of the project, see Kaviraj, 'The Sudden Death of Sanskrit Knowledge', 119–42. For more recent discussions, see Pollock, 'Is There an Indian Intellectual History?', 533–42. 3. See in particular Pollock, 'New Intellectuals'. 4. See Pollock, 'Pretextures of Time', 366–83; and Narayana Rao et al., 'A Pragmatic Response', 409–27. 5. I thank Sheldon Pollock for a very helpful discussion of Brahman privilege. See also Houben, 'The Brahmin Intellectual', 463–79; Parry, 'The Brahmanical Tradition', 200–25; and O'Hanlon and Minkowski, 'What Makes People Who They Are?', 384–6. For the importance of historicization, see van der Veer, 'Concept of the Ideal Brahman', 67–80; and Smith, 'The Sacred Center'. 6. For western India, see, for example, Preston, The Devs of Cincvad; Perlin, 'Of White Whale and Countrymen'; and Fukazawa, The Medieval Deccan, 1–48 and 73–87. 7. For a good recent survey of these themes, see Asher and Talbot, India Before Europe, 126–85. 8. Bayly, 'From Ritual to Ceremony', 163. 9. See O'Hanlon, 'Letters Home', 228; and O'Hanlon, 'The Social Worth of Scribes', 563–95. 10. Derrett, 'Kamalakara on Illegitimates', 231. 11. Bayly, Empire and Information, 180–211. 12. Davis, 'Dharma in Practice', 813–30. I am also grateful to Sheldon Pollock for assistance with this point. 13. Deshpande, 'The Changing Notion of śiṣṭa', 75–116. 14. For general histories of society and state in western India in this period, see Fukazawa, The Medieval Deccan; Gordon, The Marathas; Wink, Land and Sovereignty; Eaton, A Social History of the Deccan; Kotani, Western India in Historical Transition. 15. See, for example, the satire of the south Indian poet Venkatadhvari, writing during the 1630s in his Viśvaguṇādarśacampū, vss. 133–8, 111–17; and Tukārām Gāthā, vol. 2, nos. 6163–6. 16. Bakker and Isaacson, Skandapurāṇa. The Vārāṇasī Cycle, 66–82. See also Eck, Banaras; Altekar, History of Banaras; Parry, Death in Banaras; Minkowski, 'Nīlakaṇṭa Caturdhara's Mantrakāśikhaṇḍa'. 17. Kāśi Khaṇḍa, Purvārdha, adhyāya 79, vss. 70–5. 18. Bakker, 'Construction and Reconstruction of Sacred Space in Vārāṇasī', 43. Bakker and Isaacson argue for the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century and a link with Hindu responses to the challenge of Islam. Smith suggests that both Kāśīkhaṇḍa and temple predate the Muslim invasions and expressed the imperial ambitions of the eleventh-century Kalacuri kings and the Saiva Siddhanta cults with which they were associated. Bakker, 'Construction and Reconstruction'; Smith, 'The Sacred Center' and 'Renewing the Ancient'. See also Kṛtyakalpataru of Bhaṭṭa Lakṣmīdhara, introduction by Aiyangar, pp. lxxxv–lxxxvi, for a twelfth-century description of Banaras which does not mention the Kāśīkhaṇḍa or a great Visvesvara temple. Smith suggested a deliberate omission by its author, minister to the Gahadavalas who had displaced the Kalacuris and patronized different Saiva institutions. 19. Tagare's English translation of the Kāśīkhaṇḍa suggests that the author may himself have been a southerner: Tagare, Kāśī-Khaṇḍa, Pūrvārdha, 10–11, n. 1. Smith's suggestion of a Kalacuri imperial association for the Kāśīkhaṇḍa would certainly help explain its 'southern' themes, because the Kalacuris themselves had important links with central and southern India. I thank Travis Smith for helpful exchanges on these themes. 20. Shulman, 'Ambivalence and Longing', 192–214. 21. For Paithan, see Morwanchikar, The City of the Saints. For Jaunpur, see Asher and Talbot, India Before Europe, 97. 22. See O'Hanlon, 'Letters Home'. 23. For the Sesa family and their links with Nanded, Bijapur and Banaras, see Benke, 'The Śūdrācāraśiromaṇi of Kṛṣṇa Śeṣa', 17–55. Older sources are Kanole, 'Nāṅḍeḍace śeṣa gharāṇe', 56–73; and Aryavaraguru, 'On the Sheshas of Benaras', 245–53. 24. Kanole, 'Nāṅḍeḍace śeṣa gharāṇe', 56–73. 25. Joshi, ''Ālī Ādil Shāh I of Bījāpūr'. 26. Kanhere, 'Waman Pandit', 305–14. 27. Aryavaraguru, 'On the Sheshas of Benaras', 247. I thank Sheldon Pollock for suggesting the appropriate translation of this title. 28. Ibid., 60–1. 29. Ibid., 61. 30. Sarma, 'Manuscripts Collection of the Jade Family'. 31. Gode, 'Some Authors of the Ārḍe Family', 17–24; and Katre, 'Nārāyaṇabhaṭṭa Ārḍe', 74–86. 32. Bayly, Empire and Information, 180–211; Bronkhorst, 'Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita on Sphoṭa', 3–41; Pollock, 'New Intellectuals'; Minkowski, 'Sanskrit Scientific Libraries'; and O'Hanlon, 'Letters Home'. 33. Raghavan, 'The Kavīndrakalpalatikā of Kavīndrācārya Sarasvatī'. 34. Sarma and Patkar, Kavīndracandrodaya. For a less well-known address, see Nṛsiṁa-sarvasva Kavyām, in Shastri, Descriptive Catalogue, vol. iv, 81–5. I thank Chris Minkowski for assistance with translation of this text. 35. For the award of titles, see Shastri, 'Dakshini Pandits'. 36. For these traditions of debate, see Vidyabhushan, Indian Logic, 1–21, 55–114. 37. Minkowski, 'Advaita Vedānta in Early Modern History', in this volume. 38. For a penetrating discussion of the neglected sphere of the household, see Chatterjee, Unfamiliar Relations, 1–45. 39. Scharfe, Education in Ancient India. 40. Raghavan, 'Kavīndrācārya Sarasvatī', 159–65. 41. See Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 334–5. 42. Scharfe, Education in Ancient India, 98. 43. Kane, Vyavharāmayūkha of Bhaṭṭa Nīlakaṇṭha, vii. 44. Kane, History of Dharmaśāstra, vol. 2, part I, 929. 45. Kane, Vyavharāmayūkha of Bhaṭṭa Nīlakaṇṭha, xi. 46. Ibid., xxiii. 47. Benke, 'The Śūdrācāraśiromaṇi of Kṛṣṇa Śeṣa', 30. 48. Davis makes the point that the household was the foremost institutional locale for ritual observance as required in the laws of dharmasastra. Davis, The Spirit of Hindu Law, 39. 49. Shastri, 'Dakshini Pandits', 13. 50. Katre, 'Nārāyaṇabhaṭṭa Ārḍe', 74; and Pangarkar, Moropant, 113. 51. Gode, 'The Identification of Gosvāmi Nṛsiṁhāśrama', 447–51. 52. Gode, 'Nīlakaṇṭha Śukla', 471. 53. Gode, 'Date of the Bhāṭṭabhāṣāprakāśikā', 69. 54. Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 334–5. 55. This combustible mix of filial and quasi-filial relationships could also fuel animosities: see Bronkhorst, 'Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita on Sphoṭa', 12–15; Minkowski, 'I'll Wash Out Your Mouth with My Boot', 113–36; and Bali, Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita, 6–7. 56. See the discussion in Kelkar, 'Mahārāṣtṛātīl kāhī paṅḍit gharāṇī', 29–34. 57. Minkowski, 'Sanskrit Scientific Libraries'. 58. Katre, 'Nārāyaṇabhaṭṭa Ārḍe', 86. 59. Sarma, 'Manuscripts Collection of the Jade Family'. 60. For libraries as tools of livelihood, see Minkowski, 'Sanskrit Scientific Libraries', 97–105. See also Sastry, Kavindracharya List, for the catalogue to Kavindracarya's library. 61. Gough, Papers, 22. 62. A brisk movement of manuscripts between elite Maratha households is described in Sardesai, Selections from the Peshwa Daftar, vol. 18, nos. 78–84. 63. Sardesai, Selections from the Peshwa Daftar 9, no. 68 (undated). 64. Ramdas, Dāsabodha, daśak 19, samās 1, 'Lekhankriyānirūpan', 433–4. 65. Ibid., 434. See also Gode, 'Saint Rāmadāsa's Discourse', 127–8. 66. Kane, Vyavharāmayūkha of Bhaṭṭa Nīlakaṇṭha, 136–8. See also Kane, History of Dharmaśāstra, vol. III, 581–5. This aspect of Hindu family law generated continuous litigation in the colonial law courts, until the passing of the Hindu Gains of Learning Act in 1930. Newbigin, 'The Hindu Code Bill', 89–92. 67. Aryavaraguru, 'On the Sheshas of Benaras', 250. 68. Kane, History of Dharmaśāstra, vol. I, part 2, 941. 69. Gode, 'Date of Rāghavabhaṭṭa'. 70. Sarma, 'Raghunātha Navahastha', 69–82. 71. Gode, 'The Contact of Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita with the Rulers of Ikkeri', 205. 72. Aryavaraguru, 'On the Sheshas of Benaras', 247. 73. Deshpande, 'On Vernacular Sanskrit', 32–51. 74. For the wada as a family home, see Bhagwat, 'Home and the March of Times'. 75. Benson, 'Saṃkārabhaṭṭa's Family Chronicle', 105–17. 76. For the Bhatta family tree, see Kane, Vyavharāmayūkha of Bhaṭṭa Nīlakaṇṭha, xvi. 77. Shastri, 'Dakshini Pandits', 12. 78. For a recent discussion, see Washbrook, 'India in the Early Modern World Economy', 87–111. 79. For a discussion of this 'public' dimension of the household, see Guha, 'The Family Feud', 73–94. 80. For geopolitical space in the Sanskrit 'cosmopolis', see Pollock, Language of the Gods, 189–222; and Inden, Imagining India, 244–62. 81. Vaidya, History of Medieval Hindu India, vol. III, 375–81. For a discussion of Brahmin migrations, see Datta, Migrant Brāhmaṇas, and a review of the work in Witzel, 'Towards a History of the Brahmins', 264–8. See also Kane, 'Gotras and Pravaras'; Kosambi, 'On the Origin of Brahmin Gotras', 21–80; Witzel, 'On the Localisation of Vedic Texts and Schools', 173–213; and Witzel, 'Regionale und überregionale Faktoren', 37–76. 82. Memories of Vijayanagar as exemplary 'Hindu' kingdom clearly played some role here: see Hawley, 'The Four Sampradāys', in this volume. I thank Jack Hawley for many insightful discussions of this theme. Samkarabhatta's family history represents Vijayanagar as a place of learning, but an unhappy place, whose ruler offended Ramesvara by attempting to give him an elephant. Benson, 'Saṃkārabhaṭṭa's Family Chronicle', 110. See also Guha, 'Frontiers of Memory', 269–88. 83. See, for example, Krsna Sesa's description of his father: Kanole, 'Nāṅḍeḍace śeṣa gharāṇe', 62. The term could also include Gujarat: Gode, 'Harikavi alias Bhānubhaṭṭa', 113. 84. Benson, 'Saṃkārabhaṭṭa's Family Chronicle', 12–13. 85. Katre, 'Dvijārajodaya', 144–55. I thank Sheldon Pollock for suggesting this translation. 86. Sircar, 'Gauḍa', 123–34. 87. In an inscription of CE 1024–1025, for example, the western Chalukya king Jayasimha III described his triumphs: 'the eradication of the Cola, the mighty overlord of the five drāviḍas, the requisition of the treasure of the lords of the seven Koṅkaṇas'. Hultzsch, 'Inscriptions of the Kailāsanātha Temple at Kānchīpuran', 113. I thank Whitney Cox for a discussion of these points and translation of this Tamil inscription. For these geographies, see Sircar, Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India, 68–109. 88. Whitney Cox, personal communication. 89. Sirkar, 'Rashtrakuta Charters from Chinchani', 46–7. 90. The only standard edition is da Cunha, The Sahyādri Khaṇḍa of the Skanda Purāṇa, published in 1877. The purana was probably in existence by the twelfth century, because fragments are quoted in the Caturvargacintāmaṇi of Hemadri, minister of the Yadava king Mahadeva: Hemadri, Caturvargacintāmaṇi, vol. 1, 718–9; vol. 3, 306. We do not know, however, when these particular verses of the purana were written. See Levitt, 'The Sahyādrikhaṇḍa: Some Problems'. 91. Sahyādrikhaṇḍa, Uttarārdha, Adhyāya 1, 'Origins of the Chitpavans', vss. 1–2. 92. Ibid., vss. 5–6. A Brahman's six karmas or ritual privileges and duties were adhyāyana and adhyāpana, studying and teaching the Veda; yajana and yājana, conducting and procuring a sacrifice; and dāna and pratigraha, giving and accepting gifts. Apte, Social and Religious Life, 8. 93. Hultzsch, 'Inscriptions at and Near Virinchipuram', 84. Padaividu was a kingdom in north Arcot. 94. Deshpande, 'Pañca-Gauḍa'. 95. Bendrey, Mahārāṣṭretihāsaci Sādhane 2, no. 457 (8 June 1749): 491–5. 96. Pangarkar, Moropant, 108. I thank Janaki Bakhale for making this text available to me. 97. The poem is printed in Lalji Vaijanath Sastri's Sadbodhacintāmanī, 182. 98. Sabda-Kalpadruma of Raja Radha Kanta Deva, vol. ii, 370, first published in 1820; Gunjikar, Sarasvatī Maṇḍala, 4–5; Bhattacharya, Hindu Castes and Sects, 24; and Russell and Hira Lal, Tribes and Castes, vol. II, 357. 99. See O'Hanlon, 'Letters Home', 218. 100. Ibid., 219. See also the discussion and photographs of the present-day remains of Narayanabhatta's temple in Michell, 'Temple Styles', 80; and Gutschow, Banaras, 34. Michell questions the link with the Kāśikhaṇḍa's structure. However, this may be a misreading of Prinsep's 1827 reconstructed ground plan of the temple, which shows a cruciform construction of four mandapams, as described in the Kāśikhaṇḍa. Prinsep's plan is reproduced in Altekar, Banaras, 50. 101. Tavernier, Travels in India, vol. ii, 180. 102. Michell, 'Temple Styles', 82. 103. Mundy, Travels, vol. 2, 123. 104. Tavernier, Travels in India, 181–2. 105. Quoted in Habib, Medieval India, 147. 106. In the early eighteenth century, the kāyastha scribe Bhimsen also attributed the temple to the generosity of Vir Singh: Tarikh-i Dilkasha, 3. 107. Tavernier, Travels in India, vol. ii, 182–3. See also Gode, 'Bernier and Kavīndrācāya'; and Gode, 'Some Evidence'. 108. Ibid., 184. 109. It is likely that he composed this work after the temple rebuilding, because he implies that visiting pilgrims would see a new liṅga: 'though here the liṅga of Visvesvara is removed and another is brought in its place by human beings, owing to the times, the pilgrims must worship whatever liṅga is in this place'. Tristhalisetuh of Narayanabhatta, 208. I thank Vincenzo Vergiani and Jim Benson for assistance with translation here. 110. Kāśī Khaṇḍa, Pūrvārdha, adhyāya 79, vs 54; and Narayanabhatta, Tristhalisetuh, 188. 111. Narayanabhatta, Tristhalisetuh, 189. 112. Pusalkar, Vāḍeśvarodaya-Kāvya of Viśvanātha, 66. Pitre is a Karhade name: Gode, 'Origin and Antiquity', 25. 113. See Kane, History of Dharmaśāstra, vol. II, part 2, 965–73. 114. For this dispute, see O'Hanlon and Minkowski, 'What Makes People Who They Are?' 115. Pimputkar, Citaḷebhaṭṭa Prakaraṇa, 76–7. For the provenance of these letters, see O'Hanlon, 'Letters Home', 239–40. 116. Gunjikar, Sarasvatī Maṇḍala, Appendix 2, 22–4. 117. Pimputkar, Citaḷebhaṭṭa Prakaraṇa, 78–81. 118. For further discussion of these assemblies, see O'Hanlon, 'Letters Home'. 119. For these episodes, see Horstmann, 'The Temple of Govindadevajī'; and Pauwels, 'A Tale of Two Temples', in this volume. See also the discussion in Asher, Architecture of Mughal India, 254–5. 120. Michell suggests that this positioning was deliberate, a lesson to the city's Maratha Brahmans for having sheltered Sivaji during his flight from Agra 3 years earlier: Michell, 'Temple Styles', 80. 121. See Bendrey, Coronation of Shivaji the Great. 122. See Bhave, Peśvekālīn Mahārāṣtra, 97–8, 375–96. 123. See Horstmann, 'Theology and Statecraft', in this volume; Horstmann, Der Zusammenhalt der Welt; and Peabody, Hindu kingship. Maratha Brahmans at these courts are discussed in Gode, 'Viśvanātha Mahādeva Rānaḍe'; and Gode, 'Some New Evidence Regarding Devabhaṭṭa Mahāśabde'. 124. O'Hanlon and Minkowski, 'What Makes People Who They Are?' 125. Minkowski, 'Advaita Vedānta in Early Modern History', in this volume. 126. Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics, 64–96.