A Record of Religious Faith in the Indus Valley, Research Paper Example

Introduction

In 1905, Indian firms in the insurance and banking industries saw expansion in response to the nationalist swadeshi movement. A catalyst for twentieth century economic policy and political activism in India in the twentieth century, the movement exemplifies the integration of ideological solidarity amongst distinct sectarian groups in India. The same spirit of economic reform through social practices of negotiation and non-violence was promoted through Nehru’s policies and Mahatma Gandhi’s self-reliance platforms as the country moved toward independence in 1947 (Maddison 2007). An Attorney and a Hindu, Gandhi’s social activism was sourced in his knowledge as a colonial subject, spiritual follower, and magistrate to the British Empire. At the core of Gandhi’s interests as he promoted self rule with Nehru, was the spiritual yet secular approach to crafting post-colonial, democratic reform. Although British rule commenced during the Moghul Empire, Muslim and Hindu separatism at the point of independence instigated the separation of India from Pakistan, and so too the redefinition of religious and class positions in the country.

The devolution of Gandhi and Nehru’s struggle for political cohesion amongst all religious sects resulted in violence, and specifically destruction of the built environment (i.e. Mosques and Temples) in symbolic reconstruction of nationalism and manifest destiny. The foregoing essay examines the emergence of Hinduism and its descendant system of ecumenical philosophy, Buddhism in India, and elaborates on the specificity of the relationship between the two and the architectural universe that became theirs. While India retains a prevalent and rich Muslim cultural composition within its dense of array of religious faiths, for purposes of brevity in the assignment to compare Hinduism and Buddhism, the paper generates a brief prospectus on the nascent and ongoing coexistence of the two faiths in the Indus Valley through architecture, art and the historical materialism of the nation’s economy.

Contemporary to Aegean, Egyptian and Sumerian civilization in the third century B.C.E. the Indus Valley witnessed extensive cultural advancement in literature, art and architecture. Influenced by trade with neighboring Mesopotamian societies, the Indus Valley economy is evident in Ancient Indian Art dating back to the 1700 B.C.E. (de la Croix and Tansey 1980). Much like its aforementioned counterparts in the Ancient World, post this period a noted decline in the archaeological record (i.e. end of production of seals, literature and script) marks the termination of Indus Valley Civilization. During this period, only the Aryans, Northerners who occupied the Punjab, continued the tradition of Sanskrit into 1500 B.C.E. The Aryans composed the original Four Vedas: compilations of religious knowledge about the caste system, and ritual. Important to this development is the attendant socio-religious formation of a Brahmin caste, or ‘divine rulers’ within Aryan tradition. By 800 to 500 B.C.E. Hinduism emerges in response to scholarly religious works, the Upanishads. The foundation for Buddhism is laid, and the tenets of the Upanishads are as follows:

• Samsara – reincarnation
• Karma – past actions are incorporated into ‘rebirthing’
• Moksha – liberation (Hindus)
• Nirvana – cessation (Buddhists)

Architectural renderings of the spiritual cosmos date back to the earliest Indus Valley record, with structural design of stupa based on a circumambulation of the ground plan intended to reflect the rotation of the sun. Solar symbolism is present within early Hinduism, and the architectural environment is replicated in most religious composition, the Wheel of Doctrine or Mandala as sun wheel or swastika (i.e. a common ancient symbol). The custom of circumambulation was closely connected with ancient solar cults, as is shown by the fact that the procession always begins in the east and follows the course of the sun southwards and then westwards. The wheel is a universal symbol of time, the turning evoking time’s cyclic nature and the seemingly endless repetition of night and day and year after year. The spokes of the wheel create an image of the sun and, since the sun’s passage through the sky marks out time, the two are related. The ends of the swastika which constitute the four approaches to the lower path symbolize the course of the sun.

Similarly, the rotund configuration of the wheel represents the most basic form in Buddhist religious geometry, and symbolic expression of the supreme goal of escape from the cycle of earthly suffering. All growth and decay is reflected in the circular form. To escape from the cycle is to succumb to formless nirvana.

India’s tradition of architectural responses to faith can be seen in the continuity in syncretic space at Fatehpur Sikri. From the ‘Panch Mahal,’ the tallest tower in the palace complex the pitched roof in the center (to the left of the tree) demonstrates that even Christian architectural influence can be seen among the Persian (Islamic), Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain elements.This synthesis of architectural influences representing various religions is a reflection of Mughal Ruler, Akbar’s desire to create a syncretic religion, called Din-i-ilahi (literally, the divine faith), that brought together all the religions of his subjects. Akbar’s interest in this pursuit was inspired by his Sufi advisor and teacher, Shaykh Salim Chishti, around whose abode this magnificent city was built.

If Hinduism is the ‘Mother’ of all religious thought in the Indus Valley, any refutation of such an idea is readily denounced by way of tracking historical knowledge of teleological transitions in  interpretation of cosmological praxis. In comparative chronology, the birth of Christ within Christianity is marked by an immediate ascension of Buddhism in India approximately a century later. Interesting Islam’s late entrance into the field of religious thought, stemming from Judeo-Christian exegesis and reinterpreted through the prophetic words of Mohammed, and including the acceptance of Christ as a Prophet, rapidly expanded in the context of Buddhist and Hindu dominance, and religion of rule at the point of British Imperialist mandate during the Moghul Empire. India’s contact with the West is much prior to Britain’s colonial administration, however, and clearly earlier than even the infamous Silk Road trade between Europe and the Far East. In fact, Gandhara Art found its incorporation in the larger Hellenized culture of Alexander the Great. Stretching from the Mediterranean to Iran, Russia, Afganistan & Pakistan, Gandhara Sculpture is Greco Roman in composition.

Upon defeat at the Indus River in 326 B.C.E., Alexander the Great and his troops returned West. Post his death, one of his Generals, Seleucus Nicator re-invaded India. Chandragupta Maurya forces his defeat in 305 B.C.E. and the Maurya Dynasty was formed. It was only post this period that the Shunga, Andhra, and Kushan Dynasties reasserted rule in the Indus Valley, leaving behind a cultural archeology of objects related to Silk Road Trade (e.g. coins, modeled on the imperial coinage of Rome). Transition of Buddhist statuary was rapid, and progression to the seated Buddha, is simultaneous in the Mathura School example of the fourth century B.C.E. period, and softer, almost contemporary lines in the Gupta Period sculpture from fifth century C.E.

Trajectories within Hinduism also expanded in popularity and political assumption, and by the ninth century A.D. (C.E.), the Early Medieval Chola Period of Rajaraja Cholan the Great substantiated a Hindu Empire. Followed by Vijayalaya Cholan (AD 846-871), the founder of the later Chola dynasty whom conquered the country from a vassal chief of the pallavas, and established Thanjavur as the capital of the dynasty, his son and successor Aditya I conquered the pallavas and the Kongu country; and his son Parantakan I (AD 907-953), under his leadership continued the reign of the cholas as they acquired a dominion which foreshadowed the greater empire Rajarajan and Kulotungan. Rajarajan constructed the Great Bragtheeswarar Temple at Thanjavur, his capital, remembering the pious religious works of his ancestor Parantaka I. The temple is a stupendous monument of the religious instinct of the sovereign. The record of the Chola ascension is met with supplication of the presence of Bhakti in Chola, or Shiva’s creative destruction of the universe into the present.

Conclusion

When Gandhi decided to spin cotton rather than practice law as the ultimate expression of nationalist unity and market enterprise, he also proposed a spiritual denunciation of all things imported. He was making both an economic and spiritual statement. At the time of independence, economic outcomes included increased taxes and decreased capital income for Indians, yet an increase in the national surplus from 1868 to the 1930s, which mean transfer of about a fifth of India’s net savings which might otherwise been used for import of capital goods instead disappeared (Maddison 2007). Gandhi was correct in his interpretation of his national political context, in that the colonial economy was doubly destructive to the wealth of Indian subjects with the application of an ancient and rigid, hierarchical caste system circumscribed upon birth, and largely sustained through religious thought (Gandhi 2008).

The British impact on agricultural production was a series of property rights laws that did little for Indian title holders beyond taxation, and promotion of a mortgage industry. Money lenders gained substantial status in the economy and a considerable exchange of land was the result. Although institutional records provide an avid historical account of India since the independence period, the content of the religious form is literal prior to this period, and especially accessible through the art and architecture that served as cultural expression of those beliefs, and even made its way outside of India in exchange of statuary and other objects. As the mediated and technological world of India expands once again on the global market, there are opportunities to glimpse insights into the aesthetic representations of the kind of spiritual capital practiced by Gandhi – one only has to know where to ‘look’ for reconstructive Bahkti Chola energy – it is everywhere (Appadurai 1996).

References

Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity At Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Public Worlds). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

de la Croix, H. and Tansey, R. G. (1980). Gardner’s: Art Through the Ages. New York: Harcourt and Brace, pp. 356-371.

Gandhi, R. (2008). Gandhi: The Man, His People, and the Empire. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Maddison, A. (2007). Contours of the World Economy 1-2030 AD: Essays in Macro-Economic History. Oxford: Oxford University Press