by ROMILA THAPAR
Reverse in Sanskrit (Sharada script): avyaktam eka muhammada avat?ra nrpati mahamuda “There is one Invisible; Muhammad is the avatar; the king is Mahmud”.[97][98][99][100] OMAGE/Wikipedia
Mahmud of Ghazni’s raid on the Somanatha temple in 1026 did not create a Hindu-Muslim dichotomy. Indeed a rigorous historical analysis of five different narratives or representations of what happened yields surprising new insights.
MAHMUD’S raid on the temple of Somanatha and the destruction of the idol has become an event of immense significance in the writing of Indian history since the last couple of centuries. According to some writers, it has been seminal to antagonistic Hindu-Muslim relations over the last thousand years. Yet a careful investigation of the representation of this event and related matters in various sources of this thousand year period suggests that this conventional view is in itself a misrepresentation of the reading of the event in terms of Hindu-Muslim relations.
In 1026, Mahmud of Ghazni raided the temple of Somanatha and broke the idol. Reference is made to this in various sources, or reference is omitted where one expects to find it. Some of the references contradict each other. Some lead to our asking questions which do not conform to what we have accepted so far in terms of the meaning and the aftermath of the event. An event can get encrusted with interpretations from century to century and this changes the perception of the event. As historians, therefore, we have to be aware not just of the event and how we look upon it today, but also the ways in which the event was interpreted through the intervening centuries. An analysis of these sources and the priorities in explanation stem, of course, from the historian’s interpretation.
I would like to place before you five representations of this and other events at Somanatha, keeping in mind the historical question of how Mahmud’s raid was viewed. They cover a wide span and are major representations. The five are the Turko-Persian chronicles, Jaina texts of the period, Sanskrit inscriptions from Somanatha, the debate in the British House of Commons, and what is often described as a nationalist reading of the event.
Let me begin with a brief background to Somanatha itself. It is referred to in the Mahabharata as Prabhas, and although it had no temple until later, it was a place of pilgrimage.1 As was common to many parts of the subcontinent there were a variety of religious sects established in the area – Buddhist, Jaina, Shaiva and Muslim. Some existed in succession and some conjointly. The Shaiva temple, known as the Somanatha temple at Prabhas, dates to about the 9th or 10th century A.D.2 The Chaulukyas or Solankis were the ruling dynasty in Gujarat during the 11th to 13th centuries. Kathiawar was administered by lesser rajas, some of whom were subordinates of the Chaulukyas.
SAURASHTRA was agriculturally fertile, but even more than that, its prosperity came from trade, particularly maritime trade. The port at Somanatha, known as Veraval, was one of the three major ports of Gujarat. During this period western India had a conspicuously wealthy trade with ports along the Arabian peninsula and the Persian Gulf.3 The antecedents of this trade go back many centuries.
Arab raids on Sind were less indelible than the more permanent contacts based on trade. Arab traders and shippers settled along the West coast married locally and were ancestral to many communities existing to the present. Some Arabs took employment with local rulers and Rashtrakuta inscriptions speak of Tajika administrators and governors in the coastal areas.4 The counterparts to these Arab traders were Indian merchants based at Hormuz and at Ghazni, who, even after the 11th century, are described as extremely prosperous.5
The trade focused on the importing of horses from West Asia and to a lesser extent on wine, metal, textiles and spices. By far the most lucrative was the trade in horses.6 And in this funds from temples formed a sizable investment, according to some sources.7 Port towns such as Somanatha-Veraval and Cambay derived a handsome income from this trade, much of it doubtless being ploughed back to enlarge the profits. Apart from trade, another source of local income was the large sums of money collected in pilgrim taxes by the administration in Somanatha. This was a fairly common source of revenue for the same is mentioned in connection with the temple at Multan.”8
WE are also told that the local rajas – the Chudasamas, Abhiras, Yadhavas and others – attacked the pilgrims and looted them of their donations intended for the Somanatha temple. In addition, there was heavy piracy in the coastal areas indulged in by the local Chavda rajas and a variety of sea brigands referred to as the Bawarij.9 As with many areas generating wealth in earlier times, this part of Gujarat was also subject to unrest and the Chaulukya administration spent much time and energy policing attacks on pilgrims and traders.
Despite all this, trade flourished. Gujarat in this period experienced what can perhaps be called a renaissance culture of the Jaina mercantile community. Rich merchant families were in political office, controlled state finances, were patrons of culture, were scholars of the highest order, were liberal donors to the Jaina sangha and builders of magnificent temples.
This is the backdrop, as it were, to the Somanatha temple which by many accounts suffered a raid by Mahmud in 1026. There is one sober, contemporary reference and this comes, not surprisingly, from Alberuni, a central Asian scholar deeply interested in India, writing extensively on what he observed and learnt. He tells us that there was a stone fortress built about a hundred years before Mahmud’s raid within which the lingam was located, presumably to safeguard the wealth of the temple. The idol was especially venerated by sailors and traders, not surprising considering the importance of the port at Veraval, trading as far as Zanzibar and China. He comments in a general way on the economic devastation caused by the many raids of Mahmud. Alberuni also mentions that Durlabha of Multan, presumably a mathematician, used a roundabout way involving various eras to compute the year of the raid on Somanatha as Shaka 947 (equivalent to A.D. 1025-26).10 The raid therefore was known to local sources.
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