Land of Lime

Two brief updates:

First, watch this BBC slideshow/photoessay with commentary on the Mahamastakabhisheka at Sravanabelagola. My earlier posting on this theme has more details on the events and history of the place, including that cool virtual abhisheka.

Second, in response to a spirited debate on Carnatic music (see my review of Sandhyaraga) several weeks ago, I had promised Arun to do a genealogy of Carnatic and Karnatak. Arun, here is a brief note on the history of areas associated with this term.

Well, I didn’t know where to begin until Prof. Alam unexpectedly referred to Mughal characterization of non-Maratha South India as Karnatak. He also referred me to the memoirs of Bhimsen (b 1650), Tarikh-i-Dilkasha, which was translated into English by Jadunath Sarkar. Bhimsen Saksena is a Kayastha from present day Uttar Pradesh, whose father, Raghunandan worked as an accounts officer for the Mughal Emperors in Deccan. Bhimsen himself grew up in Burhanpur and Aurangabad, was trained by his father and even worked for him a while. From the late 1660s, he worked for many Mughal governers in Deccan and after his retirement in 1707, he wrote his memoirs in Persian.

Bhimsen was a witness to many critical events of the second half of thd 17th century, in particular to Aurangzeb’s campaigns in the Deccan and Shivaji’s ascendence to political prominence. He describes the battle of Purandar, meeting of Shivaji and Jai Singh (who was the Mughal commander), Shivaji’s visit to Agra and Aurangzeb’s arrival in Deccan in 1681. Bhimsen describes his campaigns against Marathas as well as the annexation of Golconda and Bijapur. Even a quick look confirms that Bhimsen’s work is not only usefulor historians but also is a nice, quick fun read too.

Our objective here is Bhimsen’s reference to Karantak, in particular to Bijapuri and Hyderabadi Karnatak. Bhimsen describes the people of this region, especially their prosperity evident in the number of temples and large tax revenue that accrues to the state. Well, what else would be an accountant notice? But what’s noteworthy is the completely natural way in which he refers to non-Kannada speaking regions as Karnatak. My point here is a simple one. In the 17th century, the non-Maratha South India seems to have been referred to by the Mughals as Karnatak and within that specific regions were qualified by their place names. Hence the usage of Hyderabadi Karnatak and Bijapuri Karnatak. Other Kannada speaking regions were under the rule of Maratha feudatories or the biggest Kannada kingdom of the period, Mysore. To my knowledge, none of these regions were called Karnatak nor was does Bhimsen refer to the Tamil speaking regions of the Coramandel coast, which came to be known as Carnatic within the next hundred years.

Prof. Alam also suggested that I look at Irfan Habib’s ‘Historical Atlas of Mughal India’ which this morning was missing from the Regenstein library. If there are any other Mughal era insights, I will add an addendum later.

For our story, what is pertinent is the new development that I referred to above, the naming of Coramandel coast as Carnatic in the 18th century, as both French and English East India companies enter the South Indian politics in a significant way. Carnatic here is surrounded by Mysore, Malabar and Travancore in the east, Northern Circars (which is the coastal Telugu speaking regions), Nizam and Marathas in the north. Major developments of Carnatic music in the 18th century occurred in this region, which is why Carnatic music acquired its name. Now, of course, Karnataka refers to the lingustic state of Kannada speaking regions but that wasn’t always the case.

One of these days, I will change my wordpress theme, if only to be able to link some photos and maps from my flickr account. I could insert a map here too but the display is often not satisfactory. Well, some changes are in the offing in the next two weeks.