According to Walsh, what were the spiritual and social dimensions of caste? What can a historian learn about caste from Megasthenes’ account?
RIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCE ANALYSIS PAPER
Write an essay (500-600 words) on the prompt below. Include a word
count for your answer.
Prompt:
Read the excerpts from Judith Walsh’s A Brief History of India and the excerpts from Megasthenes down below in the files. According to Walsh, what were the spiritual and social dimensions of caste? What can a historian learn about caste from Megasthenes’ account? What, for instance, is the difference between religious texts such as the Vedas, which speak of four castes, and an eye-witness account such as Megasthenes’, in which he speaks of there being seven castes?
“You will be graded on: (i) Comprehension i.e. how well you understand the
sources (ii) Clarity i.e. how clearly you make your argument (iii) Coherence
i.e. how well your ideas hold together. Avoid long quotes (long = longer than
two lines or 30 words) and use your own words as much as possible.
Do not use additional sources: I’m testing you on the extent to which you’ve
understood assigned sources and lectures, not your ability to do research.”
Requirements: 500-600 words
End of Walsh reading. In Module 1, you learned what a primary source is and what a secondary source is (if you don’t remember, please read the handout “The Method of History” which is filed on Canvas for Module 1.). Walsh is a secondary source: She is a present-day historian who has written a book about India. Megasthenes meanwhile is a primary source. He lived during the times
we are studying and wrote about his time traveling in ancient India. He is the first primary source you will read for this class. I. How to Read a Primary Source The best way to read a primary source is to ask who, what, when, where, and why because these questions reveal more about the source and what it is doing. (i) Who: Megasthenes (c. 350-290 BCE) was a Greek traveler and geographer who was sent as an ambassador to the court of the Indian king Chandragupta Maurya (r. 320-298 BCE). He was a friend and companion of Selucus Nicator; Selucus was a general of Alexander the Great and Selucus later founded the Selucid Empire. When we learn who is writing, we can make educated guesses about them; for instance, someone who is writing from a position of social or economic power will have a different point of view than someone who doesn’t have such power. This doesn’t mean one point of view is right or wrong; they just represent different kinds of partiality. (ii) What: Megasthenes left behind an account of his travels to India titled “Indika” and what you’re reading below are excerpts from this account. When we learn what a source is, we can understand its limits and work within them. A legal code, for instance, will tell you about the what crime deserved what punishment, but it won’t tell you how people necessary felt about any of this; for that you would need to find letters or a diary. In this case, what we have is a traveler’s account which means it’s meant to explain a foreign land to the writer’s own people and so he will do so in a way that makes sense to them. (iii) When: We know this text was composed sometime in the 3rd or 4th century BCE. This means we can read it as a source for what India looked like at the time through foreign eyes. It’s good to know when someone was writing. For instance, if someone is writing about their childhood and they happen to be 80 at the time, that’s different from someone writing about something that happened to them a year ago. (iv) Where: We don’t know where Indika was composed and only fragments of it remain. Location and proximity matter when we read a text; if an author is writing about India, but doing so while sitting in France, and if we establish that the writer never traveled to India, then we will read the text differently than we’d read it if it was written in India. (v) Why: A good guess as to why Megasthenes is writing is because travel accounts—oral and written—were how people in the ancient world came to learn about each other. Merchants and soldiers traveled and came home to tell some tales about the lands they had seen. This also means that they could say anything they liked and not necessarily be corrected!
“Why?” is the most interesting question, because it gets to the heart of human intention. Why is the person whose words you are reading—thousands of years later sometimes!—bothering to write? This person isn’t thinking of us, so we must imagine who they are thinking of. Are they trying to impress their king? Are they trying to push a political agenda? Do they want to leave behind a book of memories for their children and descendants? Do they want to please their gods? As long as you can present evidence for your point of view, you can make a number of arguments about the “why” of a primary source. II. Megasthenes: Indika Below are excerpts from Megasthenes’ writing. Read these with a view to trying to see India through his eyes. Project South Asia editor’s note: We have removed the footnotes that appeared in J. W. McCrindle’s original text for clarity. Serious students and scholars who wish to see the footnotes are encouraged to refer to the original text. FROM FRAGMENT I OR AN EPITOME OF MEGASTHENES. (Diod. II. 35-42.) (35.) India, which is in shape quadrilateral, has its eastern as well as its western side bounded by the great sea.. [its] western side is bounded by the river called the Indus, which is perhaps the largest of all rivers in the world after the Nile. The extent of the whole country from east to west is said to be 28,000 stadia, and from north to south 32,000. Being thus of such vast extent, it seems well-nigh to embrace the whole of the northern tropic zone of the earth, and in fact at the extreme point of India the gnomon of the sundial may frequently be observed to cast no shadow, while the constellation of the Bear is by night invisible, and in the remotest parts even Arcturus disappears from view. Consistently with this, it is also stated that shadows there fall to the southward. India has many huge mountains which abound in fruit-trees of every kind, and many vast plains of great fertility–more or less beautiful, but all alike intersected by a multitude of rivers. The greater part of the soil, moreover, is under irrigation, and consequently bears two crops in the course of the year. It teems at the same time with animals of all sorts,–beasts of the field and fowls of the air,–of all different degrees of strength and size. It is prolific, besides, in elephants, which are of monstrous bulk, as its soil supplies food in unsparing profusion, making these animals far to exceed in strength those that are bred in Libya. It results also that, since they are caught in great numbers by the Indians and trained for war, they are of great moment in turning the scale of victory.
(36.) The inhabitants, in like manner, having abundant means of subsistence, exceed in consequence the ordinary stature, and are distinguished by their proud bearing. They are also found to be well skilled in the arts, as might be expected of men who inhale a pure air and drink the very finest water. And while the soil bears on its surface all kinds of fruits which are known to cultivation, it has also underground numerous veins of all sorts of metals, for it contains much gold and silver, and copper and iron in no small quantity, and even tin and other metals, which are employed in making articles of use and ornament, as well as the implements and accoutrements of war. In addition to cereals, there grows throughout India much millet, which is kept well watered by the profusion of river-streams, and much pulse of different sorts, and rice also, and what is called bosporum, as well as many other plants useful for food, of which most grow spontaneously. The soil yields, moreover, not a few other edible products fit for the subsistence of animals, about which it would be tedious to write. It is accordingly affirmed that famine has never visited India, and that there has never been a general scarcity in the supply of nourishing food. For, since there is a double rainfall in the course of each year,–one in the winter season, when the sowing of wheat takes place as in other countries, and the second at the time of the summer solstice, which is the proper season for sowing rice and bosporum, as well as sesamum and millet–the inhabitants of India almost always gather in two harvests annually; and even should one of the sowings prove more or less abortive they are always sure of the other crop. The fruits, moreover, of spontaneous growth, and the esculent roots which grow in marshy places and are of varied sweetness, afford abundant sustenance for man. The fact is, almost all the plains in the country have a moisture which is alike genial, whether it is derived from the rivers, or from the rains of the summer season, which are wont to fall every year at a stated period with surprising regularity; while the great heat which prevails ripens the roots which grow in the marshes, and especially those of the tall reeds. But, farther, there are usages observed by the Indians which contribute to prevent the occurrence of famine among them; for whereas among other nations it is usual, in the contests of war, to ravage the soil, and thus to reduce it to an uncultivated waste, among the Indians, on the contrary, by whom husbandmen are regarded as a class that is sacred and inviolable, the tillers of the soil, even when battle is raging in their neighborhood, are undisturbed by any sense of danger, for the combatants on either side in waging the conflict make carnage of each other, but allow those engaged in husbandry to remain quite unmolested. Besides, they neither ravage an enemy’s land with fire, nor cut down its trees. (38.) It is said that India, being of enormous size when taken as a whole, is peopled by races both numerous and diverse, of which not even one was originally of foreign descent, but all were evidently indigenous; and moreover that India neither received a colony from abroad, nor sent out a colony to any other nation. The legends further inform us that in primitive times the inhabitants subsisted on such fruits as the earth yielded spontaneously, and were clothed with the skins of the beasts found in the country, as was the case with the Greeks; and that, in like manner as with them, the arts and other appliances which improve human life were gradually invented, Necessity herself teaching them to an animal at once docile and furnished not only with hands ready to second all his efforts, but also with reason and a keen intelligence.
(40.) The whole population of India is divided into seven castes, of which the first is formed by the collective body of the Philosophers, which in point of number is inferior to the other classes, but in point of dignity preeminent over all. For the philosophers, being exempted from all public duties, are neither the masters nor the servants of others. They are, however, engaged by private persons to offer the sacrifices due in lifetime, and to celebrate the obsequies of the dead: for they are believed to be most dear to the gods, and to be the most conversant with matters pertaining to Hades. In requital of such services they receive valuable gifts and privileges. To the people of India at large they also render great benefits, when, gathered together at the beginning of the year, they forewarn the assembled multitudes about droughts and. wet weather, and also about propitious winds, and diseases, and other topics capable of profiting-the hearers. Thus the people and the sovereign, learning beforehand what is to happen, always make adequate provision against a coming deficiency, and never fail to prepare beforehand what will help in a time of need. The philosopher who errs in his predictions incurs no other penalty than obloquy, and he then observes silence for the rest of his life. The second caste consists of the Husbandmen, who appear to be far more numerous than the others. Being, moreover, exempted from fighting and other public services, they devote the whole of their time to tillage; nor would an enemy coming upon a husbandman at work on his land do him any harm, for men of this class, being regarded as public benefactors, are protected from all injury. The land, thus remaining unravaged, and producing heavy crops, supplies the inhabitants with all that is requisite to make life very enjoyable. The husbandmen themselves, with their wives and children, live in the country, and entirely avoid going into town. They pay a land-tribute to the king, because all India is the property of the crown, and no private person is permitted to own land. Besides the land-tribute, they pay into the royal treasury a fourth part of the produce of the soil. The third caste consists of the Neatherds and Shepherds and in general of all herdsmen who neither settle in towns nor in villages, but live in tents. By hunting and trapping they clear the country of noxious birds and wild beasts. As they apply themselves eagerly and assiduously to this pursuit, they free India from the pests with which it abounds,–all sorts of wild beasts, and birds which devour the seeds sown by the husbandmen. (41.) The fourth caste consists of the Artizans. Of these some are armourers, while others make the implements which husbandmen and others find useful in their different callings. This class is not only exempted from paying taxes, but even receives maintenance from the royal exchequer. The fifth caste is the Military. It is well organized and equipped for war, holds the second place in point of numbers, and gives itself up to idleness and amusement in the times of peace. The entire force–men-at-arms, war-horses, war-elephants, and all–are maintained at the king’s expense. The sixth caste consists of the Overseers. It is their province to inquire into and superintend all that goes on in India, and make report to the king, or, where there is not a king, to the magistrates. The seventh caste consists of the Councillors and Assessors,–of those who deliberate on public affairs. It is the smallest class, looking to number, but the most respected, on account of the high character and wisdom of its members; for from their ranks the advisers of the king are taken, and the treasurers, of the state, and the arbiters who settle disputes. The generals of the army also, and the chief magistrates, usually belong to this class.
Such, then, are about the parts into which the body politic in India is divided. No one is allowed to marry out of his own caste, or to exercise any calling or art except his own: for instance, a soldier cannot become a husbandman, or an artizan a philosopher. ** III. Terminology: ¥ Bosporum: Possibly a grain found in India for animal and human consumption. ¥ Dionusos: Also spelled Dionysus, and known by the name of Bacchus. The Greek god of wine, sacred rites, and the god who could induce madness or ecstasy. A later god in Greek mythology, born of Zeus. ¥ Gangaridai: A term derived from the River Ganges, in Bengal, to describe the people who lived there. (Note that the old name for the River Indus is “Sindhu.” Persians referred to those who lived on the banks of the Indus as “Hindus.” ¥ Gnomon: The part of a sundial that casts a shadow. ¥ Hades: The underworld. ¥ Indos: Indra, the god of war in the Rig-Veda, who delights in wine ¥ Katapagon: Kapardin, a name for Shiva ¥ Lenaios: Lingayasas, a name for Shiva ¥ Neatherds: Herdsmen ¥ Pataliputra: Chandragupta’s capital. Modern-day Patna in North India. ¥ Sillas River: This river has never been found. Historians are unsure as to what river Megasthenes meant. ¥ Stadia: A unit of measurement used in the ancient world (between 180-200 meters).
History 135: Indian Civilizations– All Readings for Module 3 For this module, you will read two sources: The first is an excerpt from Judith Walsh’s A Concise History of India, Chapter 2. The second is a primary source by a Greek traveler, Megasthenes. From Walsh:
End of Walsh reading. In Module 1, you learned what a primary source is and what a secondary source is (if you don’t remember, please read the handout “The Method of History” which is filed on Canvas for Module 1.). Walsh is a secondary source: She is a present-day historian who has written a book about India. Megasthenes meanwhile is a primary source. He lived during the times
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