Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c28.s12: Twelfth Century AD — The Dividing Line

Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c28.s12

Language: English

Twelfth Century AD — The Dividing Line

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Our monograph is restricted to the ‘ancient’ period of Indian history which ends with the date of AD 1200. Of course, this date is provisional and somewhat arbitrary. Many scholars have argued that the medieval period in India started after the collapse of the Gupta empire. We may argue on the contrary that the Brāhmaṇic and Buddhistic traditions in India continued well beyond AD 1200. The thirteenth-fourteenth-century AD text Rasaratnasamuccaya and many other Sanskrit texts up to sixteenth century AD, not discussed in our monograph, distinctly reflect pre-Islam or pre-medieval traditions being constantly updated. After the fall of the Cola empire, the Vijayanagara and Nāyaka dynasties in the South patronised the ancient art of casting icons. This medieval continuity certainly did not reflect Islamic tradition. Even today the sthapatis or the icon-casters of Swamimalai, the temple-town on the bank of the Cauvery, Thanjavur district, Tamil Nadu, are earning their living by making bronze icons in accordance with a tradition which started well before AD 1200. (Ganapathi, 1990)

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Some significance may however be attached to the provisional date of AD 1200 by referring to the collapse of the Hindu dynasties in the northern half of the sub-continent in the face of the onslaught of the invaders. With remarkable objectivity, Al-Birunī described the Indian scenario of AD 1030: “Mahmud utterly ruined the prosperity of the country . . . . Hindu sciences have retired far away from those parts of the country conquered by us”. By AD 1200, the invaders reached the eastern part of the sub-continent. In February 1199 Muhammad Bakhtyar invaded and sacked the Buddhist monastery of Odantapurī burning a great number of books in the library.

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The iconoclasts burnt the books but could not destroy knowledge, destroyed and melted the icons but could not annihilate the arts and science of the icon-making tradition which, as we have said, persisted well beyond AD 1200. Six centuries later came another group of invaders who were more enlightened and sufficiently knowledgeable to realise that the pre-modern traditions in India related to minerals and metals had indeed been creditable.

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Linked texts (2)

Rasaratnasamuccaya — Vāgbhaṭa (alchemist), Sanskrit
Mānasollāsa (Abhilaṣitārthacintāmaṇi) — Someśvara III, Sanskrit