The Difference Confucius Makes

The previous posting to this blog concerned the significant differences between the Indo-Vedic civilization on the one hand – which is to say the greater Indian sub-continent and thereabouts - and the Sino-Asiatic on the other – which is to say Southern and North-Eastern Asia. Various points of contrasts were noted – such as the Hindoo world giving way to the Boodhist – with a different relation to salt in the cuisine, and a different salt regime in general, being given as a crucial one. Readers can see the post, Salt and Civilisation, here.

The specific reason for noting the contrasts is that the present author has, in the past few weeks, traversed from one civilization to the other, crossing the invisible line that divides the two. After six months travelling around the sub-continent, most recently along the Malabar coast, he has now made it as far east as the Prince of Wales Island (or what the Malays call ‘Pe Nang’, the so-called ‘Pearl of the Orient’) to take up temporary residence in the elegant historic city of George Town. The contrasts between India and South-East Asia are marked, obvious and everywhere. As he adjusts to the relocation, more and more contrasts present themselves. There are still swastikas on the temples and the Musselmens still give the call to prayer five times a day, along with many other points of continuity with Hindoostan – indeed, there are plenty of Dravidians about and George Town includes an entire area popularly called Little India – so there is a definite sense of being in the same Asia as before, generally speaking. But the distinctions are more profound than the continuities. It is a different spiritual atmosphere, a different construction of traditions, a different culture. What exactly defines these differences? What factors are the most decisive?

One psycho-spiritual difference is immediately apparent: when one enters the Chinese or Chinese-influenced world one enters a new encounter with “luck”. The Hindoo, and even more the Mahometan, can be perfectly fatalistic and will indulge in prayers and amulets to confer good fortune and to attract blessings, but this is quite different to the Chinese preoccupation with “luck”. The Chinaman lives in a web of “luck”, which often manifests as a proclivity to gambling. The present writer saw no instances of gambling anywhere in India. No doubt it exists, but it is not a feature of Indian culture. It is, however, of the Chinese. And, as anywhere, it is unhealthy. “Luck” is surely a trivialization, a degeneration, of the ancient Chinese spirit, a symptom of metaphysical decline. In many respects the Chinese are not nearly as ‘religious’ as the Indians – depending, of course, on what we mean by ‘religious’ – but they are more directly ‘superstitious’ in a profane sense. It is the difference between being “blessed” and being “lucky”. The religious man still seeks blessedness (and whatever than entails) whereas “luck” is a desacralized and profane version of blessedness and is focused upon worldly things. In George Town one can see Chinese lighting incense sticks in temples to assist the outcome of a horse race. Indian superstition is rarely so crude. 

There are, all the same, ways in which the Sino-Asiatic culture is more refined and developed than the Indian. The present writer must relate that, to a great degree, it comes as a relief to be out of an Indian milieu and to be settled in the far more orderly – and clean – realm of the Chinese. A different social order prevails, a different sense of the civic. This is not merely sociological. It goes much deeper.

A friend of the writer, who was himself widely travelled and well acquainted with these distinct worlds, long ago made the remark that, in his opinion, the most fundamental difference between the Indians and the Asians – the Hindoostanis and the Sino-Asiatics – can be put down to one word, one name: Confucius. “Asia has Confucius,” he said, “Whereas India does not.” The two worlds have, as already noted, the Boodha in common, although the Asians embraced him and his fellow Indians did not (or not finally). And Taoism, indigenous to China, is pervasive in its influence in the Chinese world but has never made a mark in the Indian. But, more to the point, - more important even than Lao Tse - China had a Confucius and India had no equivalent.

Chinese culture and religious tradition is often stylized as an amalgam of three main streams: Boodhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Of these three, the latter is the one most often neglected by outsiders and especially by Western observers because it hardly seems like a “religion” at all, and yet it is the tradition that has made the deepest impression upon the Chinese and upon their wider world. Every aspect of Chinese life – the whole of Chinese civilization - is coloured by Confucius and the greater Confucian tradition, and this influence extends on every level throughout the entire sphere of historical and cultural Chinese influence, throughout the whole of South-east Asia as well as Korea and Japan in the north. Confucius and Confusianism, more than any other single factor, has created the very fabric of Sino-Asiatic life.

This is evident in many ways, but primarily in what we might term an elevated notion of ‘civic virtue’. These pages are not the place to explain the manner in which Confucianism operates as a religion and not merely as a philosophy in the lesser sense - it is certainly much more than merely a code of social behaviour. It has much deeper roots in the Asiatic soul. But in practical terms, and for our present purposes, its effect is to inculcate civic virtues. This is conspicuously lacking in the Indian. The Indian order promotes many profound virtues, of course, especially those pertaining to family and to caste, and yet there is a remarkable lack of civic virtues. This becomes all too evident once one has a different social order, such as the Chinese, with which to compare. One wonders why the Indian does not seem to have the slightest degree of civic pride? His virtues are private, and based in family and caste affinities, yet are conspicuously lacking at the civic level. It is a problem with which governments in India must contend all the time – to no great effect. The modern Indian has a newly concocted sense of nationalism, certainly, but that is a different thing again. There is, aside from that, a very definite lack of civic consciousness and civic obligation, virtues which are deeply ingrained in Chinese culture by contrast.

This aspect of Indo-Vedic civilization is on display at every point in the civic environment in every part of the sub-continent. As any traveler can relate, the dirtiness of the Indian civic environment is truly something to behold. The Indian, as many travelers have long remarked, is very clean in his personal habits, and also in his home, but that is where it ends. He feels no obligation to keep the streets clean. Nor does he feel any obligation to respect the beauty of Mother India more generally. This writer heard a story related of a traveler on an Indian train who was chided for putting a plastic wrapper in a rubbish bin. “No, no,” he was told, “you throw it out the window.” He resisted this, but after a while a bin attendant arrived and duly emptied the entire rubbish bin out the door of the moving train. It was suddenly apparent that the traveler had been chided for making the bin attendant’s job more difficult. 

It is such things that make India so incomprehensible to outsiders. Indians are punctilious about purity but think nothing about spitting in public places. This is to say nothing about defecating! Poor Mother India, in truth, is the biggest urinal in the world. The present writer was shocked and horrified to arrive in Cochin – assuredly a beautiful location – only to find the entire foreshore literally ankle deep in rubbish. Most remarkable is the fact that no one seems to notice. Indian families sit on the sandy beaches conducting picnics in amongst the junk and years of accumulated plastic bags. No one makes the slightest effort to clean up the mess. Without doubt the most appalling abuse to be seen is in Boodha Gaya where Indians have been throwing empty drink bottles into the compound housing the Bodhi tree and the Diamond Throne of the Boodha. India is very raw.

Once one enters a world under Chinese influence, however, there is a marked difference. A sense of civic virtue prevails. George Town is spotless. The streets are pristine. The same sense continues throughout all those parts under Chinese influence, the entire Sino-Asiatic realm. Once, in Japan, this writer and his fellow travelers noted an item of rubbish screwed up and shoved into a hedge. It was the only item of rubbish to be seen in the entire city. Someone quipped, though, that the miscreant responsible would probably spend sleepless nights about it and would eventually go back, throw the rubbish in the bin, and might possibly turn himself into the police in shame. This is the mark of Confucius. Such is the hold that Confucius has upon the Asiatic soul. 

It is very noticeable. Why is India the way she is? Why are the profound spiritual traditions of India accompanied by civic chaos? The answer is that India never had a Confucius. In many respects Sino-Asiatic spirituality is not as lofty, not as transcendent, as the Indo-Vedic, but it is consequently more grounded, more concerned with civic realities. This is exactly the nature of Confucianism. We may have difficulty appreciating the ways in which it constitutes a ‘religion’, but such is the very nature of Asian religiosity, certainly as it was shaped by Confucianism. This holds in check the otherworldliness of Boodhism and the emphasis upon nature that characterizes Taoism. India never had such a moderating influence to bridge heaven and earth. 

Confucianism, of course, is far more than merely a deeply rooted civic code. It was among the so-called Neo-Confucian sages such as Zhu Xi and his followers that China found a parallel to the metaphysics of Plato. Westerners are often drawn to Taoism, but it is actually certain schools of Confucianism that are nearest to the occidental temperament. This might be the subject of a later post. 

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black

Kolam: Patterns at the Portals

The designs shown on this page are all from a single street in Mattancherry.

The tradition of “kolam” – also called “rangoli” and other names in other parts of Hindoostan ("kolam" being the Tamil word) – is thought to be very ancient. Being an ephemeral art it is very hard to tell. It consists of inscribing geometrical or interlaced patterns on the floor or ground, especially at the entrance to buildings. In an earlier post on these pages (see here) the present writer revealed his fascination for the symbolism of portals and doorways. Kolam is a traditional folk art that is associated with that symbolism. He collects photographs of portals, but he also keeps a collection of kolam designs as he encounters them during his travels. 

In the north of India, in Rajistan and elsewhere, the inscribed patterns are often coloured and resemble what are usually called mandalas. Often they are found on walls or the sides of buildings. In the south, though, the more ancient and rustic practices are preserved and the patterns are found at doorways or on the steps at the front of houses. It is a domestic religious art. Certain patterns are preserved and passed down through families, usually among women. The custom in the south is for women to sweep the doorstep of the house every morning and to inscribe the kolam on the ground using rice powder, a flour paste or, these days, chalk. 

The present author saw a great many such patterns in Bangalore during a visit there several years ago. On his recent journey he has only seen kolam in certain areas of Cochin, specifically some streets in the town of Nazareth and parts of Mattancherry. In particular, one street, resident to a community of Brahmin families, had a large collection of patterns drawn at the front of every house. The pictures illustrating this page are from that street in Mattancherry. 

A very handsome Brahmin gentleman invited the author to photograph them and was happy to discuss them, but he explained that it was largely a matter for womenfolk and he could not provide much information about the actual significances of particular patterns. Some are simple. Some are complex. Some are floriform. Some are astral and star-like. Some are explicitly geometric. Often women pride themselves on being able to inscribe the pattern in a single unbroken movement without lifting the chalk from the ground. “They invite in the god,” the Brahmin explained. This idea is the usual explanation – the patterns are an invitation to the gods, or to good spirits, or to “luck”. Inscribing the pattern at the entryway to the house every morning is regarded as auspicious. 

It should be noted, though, that the patterns are often labyrinthine, and are in this sense connected to portals and doorways. It is sometimes explained that the patterns are designed to bamboozle evil spirits that might try to enter an abode – that, quite the opposite to an “invitation to the god”, they are a barrier to the devil. 

This author is of the opinion that, most probably, the original idea behind such patterns is – like so much other traditional symbolism – astronomical in nature, and that the patterns represent the motions of heavenly bodies and planets as seen from a geocentric viewpoint. They are thus an extension of the astronomical symbolism of portals. The symbolism of the patterns is thus primordial, although its original significance has been forgotten. This is characteristic of Indian religion in general: it persists since very early times and is a remembrance of primordial forms, although the original ideas have been forgotten. Kolam are probably among the clearest examples of this - ancient, primordial patterns preserved as a mere "folk  art" in a simple domestic context. This most humble of art forms might, in fact, be the most pure and profound. The author hopes to explain more of this and expand upon it in later posts.

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black

The Hebraic Tongue Restored

About a third of words in Biblical Hebrew, so it’s said, are technically incomprehensible. They either only occur once or else are used in various senses with unique meanings multiple times, or are otherwise obscure in sundry ways. Biblical Hebrew is a compressed language. It has a relatively small vocabulary that is pressed into highly complex and subtle uses. This is all compounded by the fact that it lacks vowels – as a written language it is a language of consonants with pronunciations and distinctions between root words coming later by convention. It is inherently arcane.

* * * 

It is unknown when Jews first arrived on the Malabar Coast. A notice in the Paradiso synagogue in Jew Town, Cochin, says that it was in the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple, 72AD. Other traditions say that there were already Jewish traders there at that time. 

The present author was pondering these facts recently while sitting in the Paradiso Synagogue in Jew Town, Mattancherry, the only surviving functional synagogue in Cochin on the Malabar Coast. Once there was a large Jewish community supporting seven or so synagogues in this region. Most of the community has now migrated to Israel. The Paradiso Synagogue, dating back to the early 1600s, remains and is open to the public at selected times every day except the Sabbath. This writer had just had a pleasant conversation with Mrs. Sarah Cohen, aged 93, an embroiderer with a shop directly up from the Synagogue. She related that there is now barely a quorum and that, in all likelihood, when her generation is gone the synagogue will cease to conduct services. Like other Synagogues in the region it will then be classified merely as “heritage” and in the care of organizations based in Israel. It will be a pity, but probably unavoidable. Jew Town is now largely a tourist affair anyway. It is well-preserved and still retains its historic character, and it is frequented by Israeli tourists, but it is not really a Jew Town anymore.

In any case, the present writer was admiring the Synagogue, observing the strict silence and pious atmosphere of the place  as tourists came and went, when he realized that he had little trouble reading some of the Hebrew on the notices on the walls. He could read them quite naturally. This came as something of a surprise because, in truth, it must be over twenty years since he applied himself to any serious study of Biblical Hebrew. He once received some intensive study in the language from an Irish Catholic priest and thereafter dabbled in it – qabbalistically - on and off for several years without ever gaining anything like a decent proficiency. It is surprising how much of it has stuck. Even through years of teaching Biblical Studies – at an undergraduate introductory level – he had little call to use Hebrew to any great degree, other than a few words here and there. Yet, when confronted with a slab of Hebrew text, he can read the letters and recognizes much of the vocabulary, even if the grammar is gone. His every attempt to learn other exotic languages has born little fruit over the years yet, for some reason, he has managed to retain a good amount of Biblical Hebrew. 

In part, this must be because he once owned a copy of and immersed himself in the wonderfully seminal work of the French poet Febre d’Olivet, The Hebraic Tongue Restored. It was once among his very favourite books. He bought a copy in a facsimile edition in the days when he was working in the second-hand book trade. Where this copy is now is a mystery. Like other once favourite books it is long gone. But he remembers it with great fondness. It is one of those priceless tomes, a formative work, strange, eccentric, charming, arcane, instructive, suggestive, impressive. Published by Monsieur d’Olivet in 1767, it is a work that proposes that the Hebrew tongue has great mystic powers and occult significances. It elevates the language of the Bible to a special status. D’ Olivet was writing in the era prior to the Rosetta Stone and the deciphering of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Among the central claims of his book is the claim that Hebrew contains the lost secrets of the priests of ancient Egypt. As such, it had a profound impact upon the French occult revival and its other European offshoots in the nineteenth century. It championed the notion that the “Hebraic Tongue” is an esoteric language of extraordinary cosmic, occult and metaphysical power. The book purports to investigate the very roots of the language. 

One of the luminaries who joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in London at the end of the nineteenth century once complained that he was promised to be shown the secrets of the universe, and upon this promise swore an oath to the death at his initiation, only to be given a copy of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Such an inflated, cosmic, account of Hebrew in European occult circles goes directly back to The Hebraic Tongue Restored. 

Of course, Monsieur d’Olivet was wrong about the Egyptian hieroglyphs, but aside from that his study of Hebrew and exposition of the roots of the Hebrew language was groundbreaking, insightful and competent. It remains an etymological and linguistic goldmine. And who is to say that his depiction of Biblical Hebrew as a language of extraordinary esoteric depth is mistaken? Its compression and compact vocabulary certainly render it mysterious and potent, and for Jews, as for Christians – and Mahometans too – it is, after all, a tongue in which God Himself chose to speak. By this perspective, every letter necessarily has infinite depth. It is a sacred tongue. It is not the tongue of the ancient Egyptians, but sacred nevertheless. It is a language compressed under the weight of the Divine Word. 

The highlights of the Hebraic Tongue Restored are the lexicon of Hebrew roots, and then – based on that – d’Olivet’s remarkable translation and exposition of the first section of the Book of Genesis, the cosmology of Moses. This is a tour de force in the application of the root ideas exposed in the lexicon and truly one of the most profound expositions of Genesis ever undertaken by either Jew or Gentile. In his younger years the present writer spent night after night delving into the mysteries revealed by Monsieur d’Olivet, and it is probably because these mysteries were so arresting and so compelling – so metaphysically fundamental – that they made a lasting impression upon him. Hebrew speaks to the heart. It is like no other language. The Koran boasts that its Arabic is easy to remember, but for the present writer the claim is even truer of the Bible's Hebrew. Terse, concentrated, potent with meaning, it seems a language just made to carry significances that extend beyond time and space. No study of the language makes this clearer than d'Olivet's Hebraic Tongue Restored. 

In the normal course of events, the present author is an avowed enthusiast and apologist for the inspired status of the Septuagint; in matters Biblical he is most at home with the Greek. But his recent visit to the old Synagogue in Jew Town in Cochin took him back to earlier interests and younger days when he engaged with and was fascinated by the cryptic powers of the Hebrew. The Hebraic Tongue Restored is still available in facsimile edition, and these days in PDF form. Anyone with any interest in Biblical Hebrew – and especially its deeper, qabbalistic dimensions – should acquire a copy. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

The Stories of Ruskin Bond

It is merely a surmise on the part of the present writer but he supposes that his favorite Anglo-Indian writer Ruskin Bond was so named, Ruskin, after the great John Ruskin, another favorite of the present writer. It is an unconfirmed surmise, but really, why else would an English couple name their son Ruskin in 1934? In any case, true or not, it remains a comforting thought, and it always enhances the experience of reading the many tales of the voluminous Mr. Bond. Indeed, he has – they say – written no fewer than five hundred or so short stories, along with poems and travel writings, and so it is entirely proper to speak of his “many tales”. The present writer has delved into some of them during his travels around the wide lands of Hindoostan. The sole purpose of this current post is to celebrate these stories and to recommend the works of Ruskin Bond to any readers who are not thus far familiar with them.

The biography of Mr. Bond is readily available. Many of his stories are also wholly or partially autobiographical. He is not, therefore, a figure of mystery. His parents were English and lived and worked in British India. At an early age, however, they separated and his mother married an Indian gentleman and so Ruskin was raised with an Indian step-father. He is not of Anglo-Indian genetics, but he is certainly so by culture and by upbringing. This accounts for the charm of his stories. He is counted as an “Indian author of British descent” – he brings a distinctly English sensibility to a distinctly Indian experience. This is all to the good. The best things in modern India are always so. The present author, at least, has a self-confessed fondness for the synthetic fusion of things both British and Indian. Things Indian are usually much enhanced by contact with things British, and things British are certainly made more interesting by a touch of India. The British are stuffy, formal, cold. The Indians are raw, rowdy, alive. It is an unlikely coupling. That a people so reserved and utilitarian as the British should ever rule anywhere as ungovernable as India is one of the great ironies of history. Ruskin Bond is a very English writer, to be frank about it, but he is very English about India, and writes wonderful stories about the life, manners, customs and peculiarities of Hindoostani society as seen through his English eyes.

He might, perhaps, dispute this assessment, yet it is true. As one reads his stories one realizes that this is a man who – by the very circumstances of his life – cannot not be British. (How could he be anything else with a surname like Bond?) And thankfully he never attempts to be. He writes very honestly about himself and the world in which he grew up and has lived most of his years. A pervasive quality of his work is that he is a writer who is true to himself. He is very naturally both British and Indian. There is no ideological agenda, least of all a post-colonial one such as infects so much Indian fiction. He is writer who is very comfortable in his own skin, and who displays a great compassion for his characters. That is, for all their Britishness, his stories are throughly Indian as well. They are some of the best and most compelling evocations of Indian life – especially Indian boyhood - you will ever read. One can only think of someone like Rudyard Kipling as a storyteller after this pattern. Ruskin Bond stands in that company.

Where to start? Start with any of the collections of short stories. He won an award early in life for his novels, but he is essentially a short story writer – and this is very much in his favor as well. He may have written over five hundred tales, but they are short and sweet, lovely little gems. (The present author attended a bargain book sale in Enarkalum in Kerala of late and was confronted by the dozens and dozens of chunky spy-thriller novels by John Grisham, always popular with literate tourists. But, frankly, any man who writes that many long-winded novels and that many words and pages deserves to be beaten with a stick! The present writer confesses to having a long-held horror of superfluous novels and regrets living in an age beset by them. If a fiction writer has any real integrity he will recognize the short story as the essence of his art and the novel as a grotesque indulgence. Mr. Bond understands this.) Any collection of Mr. Bond’s stories – say, Potpourri, will do. Or The Best of... Or any of the themed collections. Stories and travel writings concerning the Ganges River – All Roads Lead to the Ganga, or stories concerning the Indian railways, or the jungle, or the mountains. He has been writing so long, Mr. Bond, that he has anthologized his own works according to a dozen different themes.

He is sometimes categorized as a children’s author. (Such is the fate of many short story writers. It seems that to be taken seriously as an adult writer one needs to write novels. Big books for big people.) Mr. Bond has certainly pioneered and developed the genre of children and young adult fiction in India, but the categorization is unfair if it is taken as a limitation. Readers of any age will find cause for delight in the stories of Ruskin Bond. (His books of light verse are fun as well.) Defying the label of ‘children’s writer’ is a novella entitled ‘The Sensualist’ – a study of nascent erotic obession, Mr. Bond’s most controversial work, but also one of his best. Few writers handle the erotic with as much insight and sensitivity as this. 

It was certainly a delight for the present writer to discover the works of this "Anglo-Indian" and to have them as a companion during the five and more months he has travelled from Calcutta, to the mountains, to the Ganges, to Delhi and southwards. There are, no doubt, many fine Indian writers about, but Ruskin Bond has been a steady contributor of excellent stories for many decades and surely stands as one of the great writers of modern India. Others - Salman Rushie, Arundhati Roy and co. - may be more the darlings of the Leftist literati and may tackle the supposed burning issues of our times in incendiary novels, but Ruskin Bond's unpretentious, understated tales have a directness and freshness that make him the better storyteller in the traditional sense. There is an innocent charm in the writings of Ruskin Bond not found in other contemporary Indian writers.

Readers of this blog might be aware that the present author - in another incarnation - is himself a dabbler in the short story – his own style and subject-matter is very different to that of Mr. Bond, but he nevertheless feels an affinity with him and admires him as a writer and aspires to be even remotely as lucid and prolific as he. It is a pity that he was not able to fulfill his ambition of visiting Mr. Bond in his aged solitude at Landour, near Mussoorie, amidst the hill stations north of Delhi, the familiar territory of some many of Mr. Bond’s stories. Hopefully, on some future journey. 

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black

The Lost City of Muziris

The Tabula Peutingeriana

The Romans, we know, traded for spices at sites along the western shores of the Hindoostani sub-continent, but the most famous trading centre of all, usually known as Muziris (or Muchiri), and mentioned in several Latin sources, including Pliny, and marked on the famous Roman map the Tabula Peutingeriana, is lost to us. Southern Indian sources speak of the Yavanas (Romans) and their “beautiful ships” that “stir the white foam on the Periyar River” coming to the “city where liquor abounds”, the “city that bestows wealth… to the merchants of the sea…” But where exactly was this illustrious city? It was, we can surmise, somewhere in the vicinity of present-day Cochin – the port city now at the mouth of the Periyar River - but its exact location in that area is unknown.

The problem arises because cyclonic floods of catastrophic proportions in the year 1341 completely reshaped the Malabar coastline. Muziris – or the city that succeeded it, by then called Cranganore – was drowned and the ancient port silted up. It is estimated that the coastline shifted several kilometers. A new opening of the Periyar into the Arabian Sea was opened and a backwater formed by the long stretch of the newly created Vypen Island. 

The complex waterways where the Periyar River meets the Arabian Sea was reshaped by the floods of 1341. Muziris was lost. Kochi (Cochin) became the principle port. 

It was after the events of 1341 that commerce shifted to Cochin which then became the centre for inter-civilizational trade for a series of early modern colonial powers: first the Portugese, then the Dutch and finally the British in turn. The history of Cochin is well documented, but anything prior to 1341 is sketchy at best. The great trading port known to the Romans, once the meeting place of east and west, is lost. 

It would be a great boon to discover it again, because it was there, in ancient times, that Rome met China, and also where the three great Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Mahometanism are supposed to have made their first entry into India. The Tabula Peutingeriana indicates that the Romans had built a Temple of Augustus there. Jewish legend says that Jews from the period of Solomon settled there, and then over 10,000 refugees from the destruction of the second Temple made their way there in the year 72AD founding synagogues along the Malabar coast. Christian sources relate that St. Thomas travelled there in the year 52AD, founding seven churches and bringing Thomasine Christianity to Southern India. Then, Muslim sources relate that the king of Muziris travelled to Mecca, met the Prophet Muhammad and converted to Islam and in this way Islam was first brought to India. Land routes came later. The sea route from the Red Sea or Persian Gulf to the Malabar Coast was of prime importance in the beginning. 

Thus was Muziris axial in the contacts between India and the West, as well as hosting a community of Chinese traders (famous for their distinctive fishing nets which still characterize the coastline in this region today) and thus being the midpoint between great civilisations. Muziris was one of the great hubs, the great junctions of human civilization. 

Without knowing the location of the city, and until excavations of the location have been made, however, much of the history of the western or Malabar coast is in question and subject to sometimes rancorous debate. Was there really a Temple to Augustus? When did the first Jews arrive? How early was Christianity established in Western India? Was there a trade of ideas between Europeans and the Chinese? 

A historical marker on the foreshore of Fort Kochi relating the great flood of 1341 explains that the Chinese fishing nets previously located at Crangancore.

The author is presently residing in Fort Kochi, on Cochin island, and has been spending his days visiting historical sites and pondering some of the historical problems related to this lost city. His interest is mainly in issues concerning the St. Thomas Christians and, even more, the Malabar Jews, and the peculiar religious traditions found in this famous region. It is, though, a very tangled matter. Local debates concerning the long lost ‘Muziris’ have caught his attention in the last few days, and they are rancorous indeed. As noted above, the very geography of the region has shifted considerably since ancient times, and there is now no agreement about how the area might once have looked. Debate rages. There are contending camps, and efforts to locate the lost city are hindered by the peculiar ferocity that characterizes Indian historical debates.

* * * 

The rancor was on full display just a few days ago. The President of the Indian Republic made a visit to the area and was due to visit the so-called 'Muziris Heritage Project', this being a set of archaeological diggings in the village of Pattanam. His visit caused an uproar, however. A group of historians rose up to denounce the 'Muziris Heritage Project' as fake and urged the President to stay away. This, at the eleventh hour, he did, and that decision was duly denounced as "painful" and "hurtful" and "perplexing" by a counter group of historians who have worked on the diggings at Pattanam for many years. What, the present author wondered, was all the fuss about? It is difficult to work out. The entire matter is hopelessly politicized in a thoroughly Indian way. In such a climate of disputation it is almost impossible to establish the truth. The matter, however, seems to have gone as follows:

*It is generally agreed, based on all records, that Muziris was in the vacinity of the medieval city known as Cranganore (known to the Jews as Shingli) and this is identified as the modern village of Kodungallur. 

*Diggings at Kodungallur, however, have been fruitless. No evidence of an ancient city on that site have been discovered. There are artifacts from the medieval period, but no earlier. So it happens that Muziris is not where we expected. 

*In the early 2000s another excavation was made at nearby Pattanam. This was done by the Kerala Council for Historical Research mainly consisting of amateur local historians. Diggings turned up some Roman coins and other artefacts along with a profusion of glass beads.

*The KCHR announced that Muziris had been found at Pattanam. Subsequently, the 'Muziris Heritage Project' was established and promoted to tourists. 

*But the identification of Pattanam with Muziris is premature. The fact that Roman coins etc. were found there is not in the least conclusive. Roman coins etc. have been found at many sites. It does not mean that Romans were at those sites, only that people at those sites traded with Romans, or traded with people who traded with Romans. 

*There are now contending groups of historical opinion. Some - mainly locals - proclaim Pattanam as the long lost city. Others - mainly outsiders - are sceptical or indeed denounce the Pattanam diggings as spurious. These critics believe that Pattanam was nothing more than a centre of glass bead-making and a marketplace. The 'Muziris Heritage Project', they say, is a tourist scam. 

*Nevertheless, the diggings at Pattanam are, at least, promising and perhaps indicate part of the ancient city. Much more exploration is needed. This, however, is hindered because the good people of Pattanam fear that their land is being taken from them and have resisted further archaeology. 

*It was into this tangle that the President wandered. At the last minute his advisors told him to back out, which he did. Thus the furore. History in modern India is like that. The experts agree on nothing. There are religious and ethnic sensitivities at every turn.  Parties are always eager for legitimacy. The slightest affront unleashes tirades of dispute. 

The present author has visited at least some of the areas of contention, but he is certainly in no position to make his own determination on such vexed matters. We know that Muziris was around here somewhere, but where? The land is low-lying, a maze of islands and backwaters. There are many layers of history, but the catastrophe of 1341 seems to have been decisive. History earlier than that is well and truly lost. Is Muziris at Pattanam? Unfortunately, it is just as possible that the original site of the great ancient city is currently somwhere at the bottom of the natural harbour of which Cochin now forms the gateway. 

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black

The Forgotten Queens of India

We account for the rise of the modern Indian nation state through the retreat of the British Raj and the decline of the British Empire, but in fact it was more than that: more than a movement for independence among Indians, it was also a movement for republicanism and Indian unity and the end to the many centuries of all the various kingdoms and principalities that had existed as a shifting patchwork in the Hindoostani sub-continent. This was its wider ideological agenda. It was essentially a socialistic national movement - altogether typical of that part of the XXth century - that matched "anti-imperialism" with a liberal egaliatarian nationalist ideology. Independence activists were not only against the British but also, necessarily, against many time-honoured Indian institutions as well. The British Raj had, in fact, been an umbrella over a network of local kings, princes, maharajas, nizams and others. When the Raj ended - more because of the exhaustion of war against the Germans in Europe than because of the merits or methods of so-called 'freedom fighters' in India - the influence of Indian royalty ended as well. Today, the Maharajas have no official power, although many of them continue to be influential, wealthy and widely respected (where they have not degenerated into buffoons or tourist celebrities.) 

A new book, published on the last day of 2015, celebrates the forgotten queens and princesses of the wide lands of Hindoostan. The simple purpose of this post is to recommend it. The book, Maharanis: Women of Royal India, is a collection of exquisite photographs of the women of those royal houses that became officially defunct in 1947. The photographs have been collected from diverse sources and are presented with accompanying essays, mostly concerning the photography and the role of photography in modern Indian history. It is a book, that is, by and for photographers, first and foremost. But it is also a beautiful and timely book for those of us who remain firm in the conviction that royalty and monarchy are worthy expressions of human dignity, embodiments of the sublime, and not just "outmoded forms of inequality" as the envy-driven would have it.

The present writer, in any case, makes no secret of his fondness for royalty as an institution and for monarchy as an element of tradition and government. (The organic principle of monarchy is that the best analogy of the state is a family, not a corporation, not a contractual partnership, not a machine.) This book records and celebrates a dimension of the royal houses of Hindoostan - and some of their marital interconnections with royalty from other lands - that is usually overlooked or has, indeed, been kept from public view. Alas, in contemporary India these women have been replaced by the vamps and tramps of Bollywood - you cannot really abolish aristocracy, you only end up replacing it with secular dynasties and  ill-bred pretenders. 

The photographs are beautiful in themselves, as are the women, but also of interest in the way that royal portraiture developed in India, usually by the adoption of British Victorian conventions. In some cases, though, distinctive Indian traditions intrude, such as conventions borrowed from the traditions of the Moghul miniature, especially among official the court photographers in the larger royal courts in the north of the sub-continent. 

Click on any photograph for an enlarged view.

Thakorani Vijayalakshmi Devi Sahiba of Kotda Sangani, c. 1941 – 1942 

Rani Sethu Parvathi Bayi and Rani Sethu Lakshmi Bayi of Travancore

Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur, c. 1960s

Rani Prem Kaur Sahiba of Kapurthala, Hyderabad 1915

Princess Rama Rajya Lakshmi Rana, undated

Princess Rafat Zamani Begum – Bari Begum Sahiba of Rampur, of Najiabad Family, 1960.

Kanchi Bada Maharani Balkumari Devi Rana of Nepal in 1908

Maharani Vijaya Raje Scindia of Gwalior, c. 1940s

Shrimant Maharajkumari Mrunalini Raje Gaekwad of Baroda, the Maharani of Dhar, 1940

Princess Durru Shehvar, Princess of Berar by marriage and Imperial Princess of the Ottoman Empire by birth. c. 1940–1945

Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur, also known as Princess Ayesha of Cooch Behar, 1951.

Maharani Sita Devi of Baroda in 1948

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

The Ginger House in Jew Town

Museums in India can be disappointing affairs that demonstrate more a lack of funding and archival expertise than they do the history and culture of the great lands and peoples of Hindoostan. Indians of a post-colonial mind often fume about artificats that have found a home in foreign museums, but when the same artifacts are returned to the bosom of Mother India they end up in shabby, poorly lit, dusty museums, wrongly labeled and deteriorating rapidly with the humidity and direct sunlight. Even the great collection that was once the Royal Asiatic Society in Calcutta, as the present writer discovered, is these days poorly presented with many displays unimproved since the 1950s. Moreover, the official museums often present tardy collections because the real jewels of Hindoostani history are pirated by a corrupt trade into private hands; the public museums are just so-so because the best pieces fall into private collections.

By far the most impressive collection of Indian artifacts that this writer has encountered during his long sojourn in the sub-continent was not in a museum but in an old warehouse in the back streets of Jew Town in Cochin. The warehouse is called the ‘Ginger House’ because, in former days, it was a store for the Dutch trade in ginger. It fronts directly onto the water and an area that was once a busy dock. Now it is an extensive series of large rooms brimful - overflowing! - with remarkable art objects, statues, idols, and other paraphernalia taken from old temples, churches, mosques and sundry holy places from throughout the length and breadth of India. It is the most extraordinary collection of such pieces imaginable.

It is a private collection with all items for sale. It is said to be “government approved” although it is uncertain exactly what this means. The present author was curious about the legitimacy of purchasing objects from there if they were to be taken out of India. Upon this inquiry a woman of earnest demeanor arrived reiterating that everything is “government approved” and testifying to the soundness of the mailing system. “But what if I buy this Ganesh statue for $10,000 only to find that it can’t be taken out of the country?” the author persisted. “No, no, sir,” she said. “It is packed in a secure crate and sent to your home address.” She explained that their clientele are wealthy collectors from far and wide.

Where does it all come from? It was explained that it had been collected from all over India for a period exceeding thirty years. (So, the author thought, this is where the artifacts pilfered from the temples of Tamil Nadu end up!)

In any case, it is far more extensive and comprehensive - and impressive! - than any public collection, by far. Upon walking in one is simply gobsmacked by the extent and the quality of the work for sale. There are literally entire temples, pillars and all, for sale. In one room there seems to be all the panels and icons and decorations from an entire Catholic church. 

There are signs throughout saying ‘Sorry, no photography’ and yet people were wandering through photographing it right in front of the staff. The photographs below give only an introductory impression of just how extensive, how vast - room upon room upon room, a wonderland, of religious artifacts - is the collection at the ‘Ginger House’ in Jew Town.

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black