Problematising Rajatarangini: Abstractions in Kashmir History

Rajatarangini is a long narrative poem written by a Kashmiri Pandit, Kalhana. It often draws comparisons as being to Kashmir what Shahnama is to Persia. The poem of Rajatarangini is divided into eight cantos, further divided into eight thousand verses and informed by eleven earlier existing works.

In  1825, H. H. Wilson introduced the poem of Rajatarangini as a ‘History’ and the only one existing within the Sanskrit literary universe. J. C. Dutt then carried the English translation of the poem and published it as ‘an account of people’ in a three-volume book (1879-98). A. L. Basham based his division of the poem into three sections on ascending accuracy.

For historians particularly, Kalhana’s poem Rajatarangini has been an exciting theme to deliberate upon. They have praised Kalhana’s set standards for historiography and also criticised his shortcomings as a historiographer. They have glorified Kalhana’s meticulous detailing of his contemporary times and also questioned his wispy portrayal of earlier Kashmir. They are devotees of Kalhana’s poetic excellence and, at the same time, reticent to the appropriation of this poetry as History. They commend Kalhana’s use of criticism as a tool for writing history and also interrogate his reticence towards source-criticism when consulting the earlier texts for compiling Rajatarangini.

Kalhana lauds–within the Rajatarangini–the qualities of being unbiased and impartial while recalling past events. In the poem's later sections, Kalhana constantly uses scepticism and criticism–exhibiting his credentials as a historian. Many historians of modern times laud these qualities as the ‘first virtues of a historian’. Basham even equates Kalhana’s understanding of history with the ‘educated men of medieval Hindu India’. Likewise, Romila Thapar considers Kalhana a man who did not have a closed mind, which is ‘an essential qualification for a good historian.’ However, Kalhana’s contemporaries, like Manakh and Alak Dat, have kept their praises restricted to the ‘poet’ Kalhana, not the ‘historian’ Kalhana.

Within Rajatarangini, historians have also highlighted Kalhana’s serious transgression of his set standards for recalling history. Kalhana’s discarding of causation by declaring ‘fate’ as the reason for events, misplaced chronologies that differ by centuries with the archaeological evidence, using fragmented and doubtful early accounts, and building upon caste prejudices, among others, has put the historicity of the poem Rajatarangini to question.

Kalhana employs fantastic poetic amplifications, as is rightfully expected of a poet writing poetry. At times, he credits to the valour of kings, highly exaggerated conquests and names a king, the king for three centuries. Mihirkula even precedes his father by seven centuries in Rajatarangini. Kalhana’s faith in magic and witchcraft further adds to this poetic flavour. Furthermore, the luscious stories, such as Sandhimati Arya Raja’s resurrection from the dead and encounters with the mythical serpentine beings ‘Nagas’, mixed with witty metaphors and creative fantasy, add to its poetic ornamentation.

The appropriation of Kalhana’s poem as History Proper–an approach to history based on objectivity, evidence-based research and factual interpretations over subjective experiences–has rescued Rajatarangini from what Kalhana himself presented as–poetry. In the process, Kalhana's praiseworthy artistic excellence is misplaced within the framework of history, which does not encourage such artistic concoctions. The work that merits celebration as a poetic masterpiece gets marred by appropriating it as History Proper.

Modern Historiographers, while writing, acknowledge that ‘there is never one history of the past.’ This training guides a historian to triangulate a piece of information by identifying alternate sources of information. If it cannot be verified, it is subject to scepticism. The work of Kalhana’s contemporaries that could have assisted in confirming the veracity of Rajatarangini is wanting. Thus, the burden of self-verification falls on the text of Rajatarangini itself. However, equating the poem of Rajatarangini as the ‘only’ history of Kashmir (in the absence of alternate verifiers) while ignoring the errors contradicting common sense, signals a campaign for pushing a partisan narrative.

One of the earliest and most widely read modern scholars of Rajatarangini, M.A.Stien described Rajatarangini as a ‘medieval chronicle’ instead of History. In 2003, Rao, Shulman and Subrahmanyam delineated the historiography within Rajatarangini as ‘weak’ due to it being ‘hyper-real’–a term used to describe something so worked upon that it ends up becoming exaggerated. Thus, a call for direct inspection of methodologies used by Kalhana to compose Rajatarangini was made.

Kalhana, despite acknowledging the importance of being unprejudiced in historical recollection, inadvertently builds upon many caste prejudices that were not considered as prejudicial during his time. He evidences these prejudices by his resentment towards a Svapaka (a lower caste) woman becoming a queen or entering a temple, his admiration for the ability of fire to purify the royal palace from the touch of lower castes, his generalisation of lower-caste people as exploiters of their masters and his appropriation of stealing as a task worthy of the lower-caste people. The essentialism thus evident within the poem of Rajatarangini underscores the influence of societal biases on Kalhana’s work.

Kalhana’s depiction of women sways with the gusts of circumstances. He sometimes praises women for their varied contributions to constructing temples and Viharas, stabilising the kingdom, and being faithful to their husbands. However, his poem also builds upon various prejudices about the ‘nature’ of women. Kalhana imprecates women as being ‘naturally wayward’, lacking within the heart room for chaste actions, naturally following a downward course, and being timid and materialistic. Such strong opinions make Kalhana’s construction of the past susceptible to scrutiny for patriarchal presumptions.

Kalhana, while writing his poetry in a transition period (1148-49 CE), surreptitiously passes in Rajatarangini, his emotive reflections concerning his contemporary socio-political understandings. Such language and its after-taste is much appreciated in poetry, whereas History requires objective recollections divorced from such emotive and subjective inferences.

Kalhana’s declared methodology (in the first Taranga of  Rajatarangini) should not be taken at its face value and generously applied to the entire text. On the contrary, Kalhana’s select methodologies used in various contexts, circumstances, scenarios, frameworks, and backdrops need problematising for a more nuanced understanding of Kashmir’s ancient past. This is because the methodology used to understand history precedes and informs the construction of the past and its subsequent understanding.

Despite its various abstractions, appropriations, generalisations and subjective inferences, Rajatarangini cannot be divorced from constructing Kashmir’s past. It is the only text of its contemporary time that sheds light (directly or in passing reference) on the multi-faceted contours of Kashmir’s past. This text still enjoys being the first corroboration choice for any discoveries of Kashmir’s past in modern times. Such corroborations help in two ways: instating the validity of discoveries and rectifying the errors within the Rajatarangini by corroborating it with the archaeological, numismatic and codicological discoveries.

The debate surrounding the historicity of Rajatarangini is more intense than ever. Appropriation of the poem of Rajatarangini as a History by European scholars in the 19^th century is contested by Historians of modern times. Kalhana’s declared qualities of being unprejudiced and unbiased are invoked by the proponents of Rajatarangini's infallibility in recollecting the past. Historians have countered this narrative by highlighting the poem's poetic exaggerations, prejudicial biases, emotive explanations and inconsistencies. Historians have also highlighted the problem of equating the poem of Rajatarangini with the History of Kashmir and what it entails for the sacred poetic position enjoyed by Rajatarangini.

New themes emerging in this debate continue to be luscious and interesting. However, pushing forward the debate around the historicity of Rajatarangini is possible only when the content of Rajatarangini is gone through meticulously and objectively without any partisan aspirations. If the Rajatarangini is not problematised, it will restrict our understanding of this fantastic poem to being static, muffled and boring. In the process, the history of Kashmir risks being perceived as such, thus limiting a nuanced understanding of the multi-faceted, multi-layered and multi-cultured contours of Kashmir’s rich past.

Moin S. Hakak, Research Scholar, CHRIST University, Bangalore