BOOK REVIEW
events, which in her view is the primary
A Mental Programme
of the Medieval Indian
Tanuja Kothiyal
I
n recent years studies in medieval
history of India have begun to raise
important questions beyond the
political and economistic approaches that
appear to have dominated history writ-
ing of this period. Works by eminent
historians in India and elsewhere have
underlined the necessity of bringing the
social and the cultural into the main-
stream history writing by pointing
towards the manner in which cultural
practices were deeply enmeshed in the
premodern political domain. Using a
wide variety of epigraphic, textual and
archival sources these works point to-
wards the enormous social and cultural
flux generated in medieval India with
the emergence of Indo-Islamic states
and society. Eugenia Vaninas book Me-
dieval Indian Mindscapes adds to this
growing body of work. The book at-
tempts to map a mental programme of
the medieval Indian man by creating a
rich cultural landscape through the
analysis of a wide variety of texts writ-
ten in medieval India. In the process
Vanina attempts to raise some important
questions about historical consciousness
in and about medieval India.
Four Dimensions
How does one read a book that claims to
map a mental programme of medieval
Indian man? Eugenia Vaninas book
Medieval Indian Mindscapes attempts to
do just that, but without problematising
either medieval or mindscape. For
Vanina, medieval is a long millennium,
from the early medieval to the early
modern. As for the mindscape, it is the
mental programme that prompted the
medieval man to think in particular ways
about the space around him, his sense of
time and history, his location in society
and his sense of individuality. Vanina
analyses an impressive range of texts
originally in Sanskrit, Old Rajasthani,
Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Telugu, Persian
28
Medieval Indian Mindscapes: Space, Time,
Society, Man by Eugenia Vanina (New Delhi: Primus
Books), 2012; pp 346, Rs 995.
and Urdu to recreate the mental world of
the medieval Indian man. She attempts
to do so in four chapters, titled Space,
Time, Society and Man that appear
to represent four important dimensions
of medieval world for her.
The chapter on Space explores the
spatial world of medieval man to under-
stand how Indians of that period viewed
their own country and the world around
it. For Vanina, spaces become important
in locating man in society as spaces
are associated with meanings that are
hierarchical (head and feet), directional
(left and right, north and south) and
cultural (forests or habitations). The
chapter on Time, which is the most
engaging chapter of this book, explores
varying notions of time, as mythical and
historical, represented through linear and
cyclical contexts. In Vaninas understand-
ing, referents to mythical and historical
times are present in the texts them-
selves, though often enmeshed in each
other and difficult to extricate, lending
historical texts to use and abuse of history.
Referring to simultaneity of multiple
temporalities that often has been viewed
as lack of historical consciousness in pre-
modern India, Vanina takes us through a
discussion on the relationship between
the idea of time and historical conscious-
ness in the medieval Indian texts. Here
Vanina, critically engages with the argu-
ments proffered by Rao, Shulman and
Subrahmanyam, in Textures of Time,
questioning the idea of texture itself in
evaluating the existence of historicity in
a text, as the texture itself could well
be a construction.
Analysing a range of genres from
epics to genealogies, Vanina goes on to
demonstrate how these texts constantly
reflect and contemplate upon historical
september 14, 2013
marker of historicity in texts and evi-
dence for a well defined sense of history
in premodern India. While advent of
modernity caused the rupture between
past and present for Europe, the absence
of forces of modernity prevented Indians
from viewing their past as antiquity, some-
thing that they were dissociated from.
This in Vaninas view is the reason why
premodern texts in India display multiple
temporalities simultaneously, leading to
them being considered ahistorical.
The chapter on Society deals with the
existence of multiple unstable hierarchies
in society. Rather than the diffused cate-
gory of caste, Vanina prefers to use the
category of estate, which she defines as a
bigger supra-caste community (p 140).
She describes the existence of four estates,
roughly resembling the four varnas, as
the people of the sword (ahl-i-saif), the
people of the pen (ahl-i-qalam), the people
of the market (ahl-i-bazaar) and the mute
majority of the peasants (ahl-i-raiyyat).
People in each estate were bound together
by status, corporate interests and common
socio-ethical and moral values. Various
aspects of these defining values can be
seen represented in the different texts of
the period depending upon the authorship
and patronage of the text. Thus, while
texts like Prithiviraj Rasau, Bisaldev Rasau,
Kanhadde Prabandh represent the values
associated with the warriors, the values
and mores of the trading communities
are underlined in the 18th century auto-
biographical text Ardhakathanaka. On the
other hand, peasants who formed the
mute majority went unrepresented in
the texts as it was the people of the
qalam, or the people with control over the
word that formed a kind of premodern
intelligentsia and thus chose only to
represent certain aspects of the medieval
world. Though these four idealised moral
archetypes (p 200) were in constant
interaction with each other, movements
between the estates were difficult to
achieve, and resulted over a period of
time in distinct identities.
So where was man (to whom this
mindscape would belong), placed in
this matrix of space, time and society?
Here Vanina faces an insurmountable
task as man is hardly ever discussed in
vol xlviii no 37 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

an individual capacity in the literature
she has chosen to survey. The dominant
identity that men possessed was in form
of a member of certain caste, estate,
corporation or community. For Vanina,
even where individual attributes like
physical features, age or behaviour were
discussed in reference to men, they were
circumscribed by social codes, specific
to origins and to the estates men belonged
to. It was rare for men to be able to break
free from the expectations of their loca-
tions. It was only in the realm of bhakti
that men could act independent of their
original locations. While on the one
hand bhakti insisted on the loss of I, its
insistence on a direct communication
with god paradoxically also allowed the
bhaktas to break free from their loca-
tions and act as individuals. In the realm
of kingship, kings could only legitimise
themselves by comparing themselves
with mythical and historical ideals, thus
could not really break away from the
norms set by their location. For Vanina,
human individuality is something that is
discovered only in late medieval and
early modern epoch.
These are all impressive formulations,
though not new, and it is difficult to dis-
agree with Vaninas primary objective
that she lays down in the introduction
itself, that is to move beyond the politi-
cal and economic and set a cultural con-
text. The problem lies in the manner
that she chooses to approach her objec-
tive. Vanina brings together a myriad
range of texts written between 8th and
18th centuries CE, as well as their read-
ings and interpretations by modern his-
torians, in order to create a cultural
landscape of medieval India.
Inadequate Explanation
In trying to trace medieval Indian mind-
scapes, she attempts to evolve conceptual
categories through which she can ap-
proach the mentality of the medieval
common man. However, the four ele-
ments of the mental programme of the
medieval Indian man, that is space,
time, society and man, remain largely
unexplained. To elaborate upon these
categories, Vanina deals with a wide ar-
ray of themes, but often fails to connect
them with each other, virtually leaving
Economic & Political Weekly EPW september 14, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
the reader in a labyrinth. She takes the as feudal dimension that historiography
reader through multiple perceptions of of medieval India has far transcended.
space, time and social hierarchies, but In recent years, comparisons between
the interrelationships between the three European and Indian societies have
remain unclear. So the reader is left undertaken to explore the specificities of
grappling with a range of examples, these societies as well as their connected-
from functioning of medieval clocks to ness, rather than looking for the exist-
bhakti literature, without understanding ence of overarching historical processes
how these relate to the mindscape of like feudalism. Also, Medieval is a long
the medieval Indian man. Besides, period that Vanina explores and to
Vanina uses the concept of a mental pro- attempt to make a coherent argument
gramme without adequately explaining about the mindscape of a whole millen-
what she means by it. nium is a difficult task.
Does she mean that men/societies The period from early medieval to
were mentally programmed to act in early modern witnessed wide-ranging
certain ways? According to her, Indians political transformations from the rise of
were still rooted in a medieval mental regional polities to the rise of the Mughal
programme, while the British came to Empire. Besides, regional diversity in the
India with almost fully modern mental Indian subcontinent led to these trans-
programme. So mental programmes formations being manifested diversely
could be temporally, spatially and ideo- in different regions. The interactions be-
logically specific, and thus could be tween indigenous polities and immigrants
oriental and occidental. However, Vanina generated tremendous social flux at
paradoxically appears to reiterate through- multiple levels which is evident in several
out the work that the mental world of facets of medieval society ranging from
the medieval Indian man was not very textual productions to architectural styles.
different from that of the western man. In a way, both textual and architectural
So, if the mental worlds were so similar, productions were statements of both
then how did historical processes, particu- conflicts as well as assimilations and
larly modernity have such different im- thus were very political. Vanina appears
pacts on societies? In fact, the major com- to gloss over the complexities represented
monality that she discovers between by these texts in her attempt to piece
India and the west, is the presence of together a medieval world.
characteristics in both societies, which
are completely corresponding with major Multiple Recordings
features of feudal society (p 283). In her project of recreating the mind-
Thus, in some ways Vaninas idea of scape of the medieval man, Vanina de-
medieval remains caught in the medieval pends on a range of texts, production of
Survey
August 27, 2011
Experimental Economics: A Survey
by
Sujoy Chakravarty, Daniel Friedman, Gautam Gupta, Neeraj Hatekar, Santanu Mitra, Shyam Sunder
Over the past few decades, experimental methods have given economists access to new sources
of data and enlarged the set of economic propositions that can be validated. This field has
grown exponentially in the past few decades, but is still relatively new to the average Indian
academic. The objective of this survey is to familiarise the Indian audience with some aspects
of experimental economics.
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email: circulation@epw.in
vol xlviii no 37 29
BOOK REVIEW
which was largely an enterprise patron-
ised by the political class. In the French
historical tradition, the project of history
of mentality based itself on a wide range
of quantitative data like estate inventories,
church records, judicial archives, wills
and library catalogues among others.
Vaninas attempt to discover a particular
way of thinking common to people in-
habiting a wide region over a thousand
years bases itself on an uneven reading
of a range of texts that certainly were
not produced by the common man. Vani-
nas predominant focus on non-Persian
texts certainly helps in moving away
from the dominance of Persian texts in
historiography of medieval India. How-
ever, while the existence of non-Persian
texts in medieval India demonstrates the
Agarwala, Rina (2013); Informal Labor, Formal
Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India
(Cambridge, New York, Delhi: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press); pp xx + 250, price not indicated.
Amar, Paul and Vijay Prashad, ed. (2013); Dispatches
From the Arab Spring: Understanding the
New Middle East (New Delhi: LeftWord Books);
pp 415, Rs 550.
Amjad, Rashid and Shahid Javed Burki, ed. (2013);
Pakistan: Moving the Economy Forward (Lahore:
Lahore School of Economics); pp vi + 608,
Rs 495.
Balachandran, P P (2013); A View from the Raisina
Hill (New Delhi: Har-Anand Publications);
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Bano, Masooda (2013); Breakdown in Pakistan: How
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Chatterji, Rakhahari (2013); Gandhi and the Ali
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(2013); Political Science (Vol 3: Indian Political
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Ghosh, Atig, ed. (2013); Branding the Migrant:
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30
existence of strong vernacular tradi-
tions, it should not be forgotten that
these traditions also developed under
patronage of regional polities. In recent
years along with textual productions,
historians have begun to explore oral
traditions as a way of evolving a histori-
cal understanding of popular culture. A
history of medieval Indian mindscape
could well have focused on a rich body
of oral traditions already being uncov-
ered through the works of historians, lit-
terateurs and anthropologists.
Nevertheless, Medieval Indian Mind-
scapes is an important contribution to the
growing tradition in historiography of
medieval India which rather than depend-
ing only upon Persian court literature
makes use of extensive non-Persian
Books Received
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literature produced in this period.
Vaninas use of vernacular historio-
graphical traditions like the carita, kavya,
prabandha, rasau, khyat, vigat, vacanika,
bakhars, etc, to reconstruct a cultural
landscape of this period makes an
important point about multiple ways in
which histories were recorded, without
adhering to a singular notion of linearity
of time, narrative or form. Countering
the overwhelming perceptions about in-
sularity and ahistoricity in medieval
India, her analysis of texts reveals in fas-
cinating detail the existence of powerful
historical awareness in pre-modern India.
Tanuja Kothiyal (tanuja@aud.ac.in) is with
the history department, Ambedkar University,
Delhi.
Sarkar, Swatahsiddha (2013); Gorkhaland Move-
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Wijesinha, Rajiva (2013); Twentieth Century Classics:
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Wolff, Richard D and Stephen A Resnick (2012);
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