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A History of Sanskrit Literature c14.s6: 6. Kalhaṇa as a Historian

A History of Sanskrit Literature c14.s6

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6. Kalhaṇa as a Historian

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To understand Kalhaṇa's outlook on history we must not, of course, think of Thucydides or Polybios; we must, as has been well said, remember that, with these great works before them, Roman opinion was still content to see in history the opportunity for displaying command of rhetoric and of inculcating moral maxims. Kalhaṇa's aim is to produce a work which shall conform to the demands not of rhetoricians—of whom India had none—but of writers on poetics, and at the same time to impress on his readers moral maxims. The first of his aims he frankly admits at the outset: ‘Worthy of praise is the strange power of true poets which surpasses in value even the drink of immortality, since by it not only their own bodies of glory, but also those of others, are sustained. It is the creative genius of the poet alone which by its power of the production of beauty can place past times before the eye of men.’ He admits¹ the difficulty which he has to face; the amplitude of his task forbids the development of attractive variety (*vaicitrya*), which means that, having so much to narrate, he could not follow Bhāravi and Māgha in filling up his poem with descriptions of the poet’s stock-in-trade. There are indeed digressions but modest in kind, and it is only in them that we find the constant occurrence of the ornaments which mark the true poetic style. Nothing, however, shows his self-imposed moderation better than comparison with Bāṇa’s *Harṣacarita* or Bilhaṇa’s poem.

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¹ i. 6.

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The influence of the epic combines with that of poetics to produce the second mark of Kalhaṇa’s chronicle, its didactic tendency. Poetics requires that each poem should have a dominant sentiment, and that of the *Rājataraṅgiṇī* is resignation;² it is definitely so asserted, and based on the impression produced on the mind by the sudden appearance of human beings who last for a moment alone. It is reinforced by insistence on the tales of kings who by renunciation or otherwise come to a pathetic end, and Books I–III and VII are deliberately brought to a close with the occurrence of such episodes. Stress is ever laid on the impermanence of power and riches, the transient character of all earthly fame and glory, and the retribution which reaches doers of evil in this or a future life; the deeds of kings and ministers are reviewed and censured or commended by the rules of the Dharmaçāstra or Nītiçāstra, but always with a distinct moral bias. In this we certainly see the influence of the *Mahābhārata* in its vast didactic portions and its general tendency to inculcate morality, but we cannot say whether it was original in Kalhaṇa or had already been noted in the works of one or more of his predecessors.

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² i. 23.

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Kalhaṇa, therefore, makes no claim to be a scientific investigator, and in complete harmony with this tells us nothing of the divergences in his authorities. It is, in fact, clear that down to the middle of the ninth century with the advent of the Utpala dynasty he had no trustworthy materials to go upon. But, in lieu of sifting what he had and confessing his ignorance, he chose instead to patch up a continuous narrative. The results have already been seen; his chronology for the older period is hopelessly absurd and Kalhaṇa is quite unable to recognize the absurdity. Moreover, he is exactly on the same level as his average fellow-countryman in his attitude to heroic legend and to fact; he accepts without hesitation the ancient legends of the epic as just as real as things of his day; some sceptics went so far as to doubt the magic feats of Meghavāhana and other kings, but Kalhaṇa will have none of them;¹ indeed he takes occasion, when recounting the acts done by Harṣa in his madness, to observe that future generations may on that account doubt their truth as they do the tales of Meghavāhana, apparently wholly unconscious of the vast difference in the character of the two kinds of stories. Inevitably, too, Kalhaṇa’s outlook was dimmed by the narrow limits of his home and its isolation; hence we do not find in him any real appreciation of the relations of Kashmir to the outer world; the invasions of the Kuṣaṇas and Hūṇas are confused and misunderstood. A further Kashmirian trait reveals itself throughout his work; the land was known to Marco Polo² as famous for sorcery and ‘devilries of enchantment’, and Kalhaṇa quite cheerfully accepts witchcraft as a legitimate cause of deaths;³ we may remember the Roman⁴ and medieval acceptance of poison as a natural cause of the dooms of princes. The deplorable chronology was doubtless not invented by Kalhaṇa, but he took it over and never realized its flagrant absurdities and its ludicrously long reigns, though contemporary experience would have shown how absurd they were.

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¹ vii. 1137 ff.

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² Yule, i. 175; cf. Bühler, *Report*, p. 24.

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³ So the *Arthaçāstra* seriously commends this expedient against foes.

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⁴ e. g. Tacitus, *Ann.*, iii. 17; Pliny, *H.N.*, xxix. 20; Mayor on Juvenal, xiv. 252 ff.

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We must, however, realize that Kalhaṇa was completely under the dominion of Indian views of life, which rendered doubt on such topics idle. The current theory of the ages of the world told him that he was living in the Kali age, when things were far declined from their ancient glory; it was, then, idle to mete the past by the present. Again, to seek for rational explanations of human action by merely stressing the motives of the present day would be idle, for man's deeds are the outcome of ancient acts, looming up from a forgotten past which may at any time bring forth deeds incalculable and utterly at variance with the character of their performer. Yet fate ranks also as a cause of action, nor does Kalhaṇa take care to show that it can be reconciled with the doctrine of Karman. It is fate¹ which drives Harṣa at the close of his life to disregard wisdom and policy, though it is clear from the poet's own account that the unhappy prince was a madman. Fate again is blamed for the ingratitude shown by recipients of the royal favour. But if all these explanations fail to satisfy Indian credulity avails, for it admits possession by demons, and Kalhaṇa actually himself ascribes² to this cause an obvious political murder. He accepts also the power of the man who starves himself to death to bring about terrible effects, though he hated the Brahmanical employment of this device to influence royal policy. The desecration of shrines naturally evokes the wrath of the gods, and Harṣa and Sussala pay for their evil acts by death. The anger of Nāgas, spirits of Kashmir's springs, is specially frequent and deadly, while omens and portents are accepted as of unquestionable validity. We need not wonder, therefore, when we find Kalhaṇa solemnly recording and believing in the resurrection by witches of Sandhimati, impaled by his jealous king, and his attainment of the royal power.

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¹ vii. 1455 ff.

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² viii. 2241.

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We are in a more normal world when we find Kalhaṇa concerned to prove to us that evil deeds meet retribution, by an enumeration³ of the cases in which the avarice of kings resulted in the alienation of their subjects, though as a true Brahmin he admits that the use made of evil gains may sanctify the means, as when they are bestowed on Brahmins. But beyond this Kalhaṇa does not advance to any philosophy of history; he only exercises a criticism of individual actions on the basis of established rules of the Çāstras. Thus Kamalavardhana's folly in seeking to attain by diplomacy what could only be won by the sword is shrewdly commented on,¹ and Jayasiṅha's fiasco in the Kiṣangaṅgā valley is explained² as due to the folly of attack without adequate information, and undue deliberation in the face of the foe. His own contribution to an art of governing Kashmir is placed in the mouth of Lalitāditya³ and is very much in the spirit of the *Kauṭilīya Arthaçāstra*, but with the great advantage of reference to particular conditions, as is indicated by the distinctly Kashmirian flavour of the advice given. The border tribes are never to be left in peace, even if they give no offence, lest they acquire wealth and plunder the country. The peasants are not to be allowed to keep more than one year's consumption of grain or more oxen than essential for working their land. The maxim is clearly aimed at the Ḍāmaras, whose exactions from the peasants were the source of the turbulence which plagued the country and won them from the poet the sobriquet of robbers (*dasyus*). Border forts are to be guarded securely, and high offices are to be shared among the great families, so as to prevent ill feeling and conspiracies; above all, no faith is to be put in the loyalty of the changeable and untrustworthy people.

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³ v. 183 ff., 208 f.

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¹ v. 456 ff.

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² viii. 2521 ff.

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³ iv. 344 ff.

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We need not doubt that Kalhaṇa endeavoured to attain his own ideal—'that noble-minded poet alone merits praise whose word, like the sentence of a judge, keeps free from love or hatred in recording the past.' His treatment of Harṣa supports this impression, for his father had been a trusted minister and evidently fell with his patron, but Kalhaṇa does not ignore the appalling cruelties of this Indian Nero, however much he pities his end. His description of incidents in recent history appears to achieve a high standard of accuracy, and is filled with those small touches which imply personal knowledge or acceptance of the testimony of eye-witnesses, as when he recounts the details of the self-immolation of Sūryamatī or of Sussala's murder.⁴ The popular sayings and anecdotes which he records bear the stamp of being taken from life. Excellent also is his delineation of character, and the change from the manner of the earlier to that of the later books is significant. The former give but the typical poetical description of heroes such as Tuñjina and Pravarasena, the latter present vivid personalities such as Tuṅga, Ananta, Harṣa and Sussala; there is nothing like this in Bāṇa, Padmagupta, or Bilhaṇa. In the minor figures his humour, sometimes Rabelaisian, has full play, as in his picture of his contemporary Kularāja, whose abilities had raised him from the rank of a bravo to that of city prefect. His accuracy in genealogical information is conspicuous, and his topography most favourably distinguishes him from such a historian as Livy, who apparently never looked at one of the battlefields he described.

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⁴ vii. 463 ff.; viii. 1287 ff.

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