Orthopraxy
We begin with orthopraxy. Simply put, orthopraxy is the propensity to find one’s “roots” in order to ascertain what is the “correct” way to act. In the context of pluralism of various kinds, orthopraxy is the propensity to retreat into enclaves or to reassert one’s own sense of self in contradistinction to others.
This had occurred at various times in India’s religious history as Saivites, for example, sought to distinguish themselves from Vaisnavas or Tantrics or Buddhists. Yet even in these movements toward reaffirmation one may borrow from “others” and/or be in proximity to “others.” Such was the case in this period when Islamization has become a part of the subcontinent.One form this took was in maintenance of polities, where Hindu dharma was upheld. By the twelfth century, in a number of courts, Sanskrit texts were appearing describing domains in which dharma was to be maintained in contradistinction to alternative cultural spaces.1 In these settings, a particular prince engaged in reciprocities with landowners and invited brahmans to be the court’s advisers in a manner similar to that found in earlier settings. Temple construction acted out these reciprocities between elites and also served to integrate folk or tribal people under the state’s umbrella. Sectarian leaders could be patronized. Mathas or monasteries served as centers for the propagation of sectarian learning (just as the madrasa served such a role in Islamic polities). Brahmanical hegemony increased in the state structure and the ritual life became more varied. Festivals, often patronized by the king, became more visible - they demonstrated the king’s status while incorporating commoners into the life of the realm. Mythologies of the deities were elaborated; pamphlets on various temple sites and on proper ritual behavior were produced. Folk traditions were accommodated into the religious life and were increasingly evident in the temples.
Vegetarianism, though borrowed from Jainism and Buddhism, could be seen as an ideal in certain circles (though not in such places as Bengal or Kashmir). In short, the tenor of the Hindu state was neo-classical.Hindu polities
There were at least three such major polities in this period: the Vijayanagara dynasty, the Marathas, and the Rajputs. The pattern can be illustrated aptly by sketching in the Vijayanagara context. The Vijayanagara dynasty was founded on the banks of the Tungabhadra river in 1336 by two brothers who had been fugitives from Warangal when that seat of Kakatiya power was captured by a Tughluq sultan. The brothers were taken captive, Islamicized, and commissioned to consolidate rule in Kampila; but the brothers renounced Islam and established a “Hindu” polity, which became a counterpart to the sultanate established at Badami in the Western Deccan.2
The Vijayanagara kings patronized the arts, philosophy, temple building, and other forms of “Hindu” expression (even though they also hired Muslims in their armies and courts and fought with other Hindu princes). In the area of philosophy three rival systems of Vedanta flourished with the writings of new works in the fourteenth century: by Vidyaranya (Advaita - Sankara’s tradition); Narayana (Dvaita - the tradition associated with Madhva), and by Venkatanatha (Visistadvaita - Ramanujan’s tradition). New epics were written - for example, the same Venkatanatha wrote a long narrative on the birth and rise of Krsna and the princess Gaiiga wrote an epic celebrating her husband’s victory over the “Turks.”3 Poets were patronized in the courts, not least of all the Dindima family (fifteenth century), including one who wrote a highly Sanskritized Tamil verse in praise of Murukan, the Tamil deity. Temples were constructed that were larger than those built before - these temples were now mini-cities accommodating various forms of folk ritual, providing halls for marriages and entertainment and space for bazaars in ritual paraphernalia.
The writing of dgamas was sponsored starting from handbooks purporting to describe the way certain rituals were to be done. Not least important, an elaborate festival known as the Navaratiri or Mahanavami was sponsored in September-October. This festival of nine nights was in honor of the goddess and culminated in celebrating Vijaya Dasami, the conquest of Rama over Ravana. While the Vijayanagara kings were patrons of Visnu, the festival for the goddess, nonetheless, served many purposes: it legitimated their reign, became an occasion to demonstrate to all the kingdom and to foreign dignitaries the status of the king, and to evoke the goddess’s patronage on the operations of the state. The festival was an enormous pageant complete with the performance of acrobatic women and parades of elephants and soldiers. Some scholars have suggested that the Navaratiri incorporated some of the features of the older asvamedha (horse sacrifice) thereby evoking “vaidika” sanction on the king’s regime.4 Even after the decline of the Vijayanagara dynasty in the sixteenth century, similar kinds of activities (e.g., festivals to the goddess, construction of large temples, the patronage of “Hindu” acts) were carried on in the courts of the nayakkas - those regional satraps who had paid homage to the Vijayanagara kings, but now maintained minikingdoms into the seventeenth century.The Vijayanagara kings were not creating a kingdom from “scratch.” They followed many of the precedents of the Colas and other dynasties before them. They do represent, nonetheless, a pocket in the south where Hindu dharma was preserved and where neo-classical expressions prevailed.
The Marathas followed a century after the fall of Vijayanagara. Founded by Sivaji in 1667, the Maratha “empire” stretched across much of western Central India.5 Sivaji took power by assassinating a Muslim general after having escaped captivity at the hands of the Mughals. Sivaji reorganized the territory in what is now Maharashtra and administered the realm according to Vijayanagara principles, organizing the army along principles borrowed from the Portuguese.
He was noted for the sacking of Surat (by then a small enclave of the British East India Company) and for fighting and plundering the lands of Deccan kings (many of them Hindu) and of the Mughals. It is interesting that by the late nineteenth century, thanks to the rhetoric of another native of Maharashtra, B. G. Tilak, Sivaji is extolled as a brave Hindu hero and vanquisher of Muslims. The historical record is not so clear; he was known to have a number of Muslims in top positions in his administration and in his army. His battles were against Hindu as well as Muslim political figures and seemed to have been more political than religious in nature. In any case, Maratha “country” came to be seen as a place where Hindu dharma was preserved.The same was true under the Rajputs for a number of centuries. As described earlier, the Rajputs employed brahman ministers and patronized a particular form of orthodox “Hindu” culture. It is believed that sati (the immolation of widows), for example, was performed under Rajput aegis for the first time in 1382, and that it was especially continued under such ruling families as the Sisodiyas wherein, on at least one occasion, an entire harem of up to twenty women was immolated on the funeral pyre of their dead husband.6 Yet by the time of the Mughals, the Rajputs were closely allied to them, thanks to intermarriage even in Akbar’s time, and it became increasingly difficult to distinguish Rajput “culture” from that of the Mughals.
Hindu orthopraxy, in short, was the practice of “retaining” what was perceived to be proper “Hindu” practice. Whether these polities were created in explicit contradistinction to Islamic forms of orthopraxy has been debated. What is evident, nonetheless, is that in some Islamic courts, forms of Islamic orthodoxy prevailed. In these courts, the emperor was huzur (omnipotent representative of Allah),7 and the ‘ulama‘ or Sufis were usually the court advisers. The building of mosques and other monuments served both religious and political purposes.
Madrasas - schools of Islamic (and especially sunni) learning - were the counterpart of the mathas. In these madrasas Arabic was taught, and the Qu‘ran was memorized and recited; in addition, pilgrimages to the tombs of pirs increased, and women were encouraged to live in purdah (seclusion), increasingly used as a symbol of purity and Islamic identity.Does orthopraxy sometimes give way to fundamentalism, even xenophobia and militancy? There is little doubt that it did, but it is difficult to sort out the historical reality from post-facto rhetoric and chauvinism. For example, by at least the thirteenth century, there was clearly a rhetoric of xenophobia in some Sanskrit sources addressed against Afghans. In these sources, Afghans were described as ugly, white persons with broad foreheads on which their various atrocities could be inscribed. They were described as “horrible of speech,” “impure of complexion,” and the slaughterers of cows.8 By at least the seventeenth century, there was a rhetoric accusing Muslim rulers of destroying temples and pillaging the countryside. To be sure, there were instances of sacking of mosques as well as of Buddhist and Hindu shrines. Sanjay Subrahmanyan reports, for example, on the destruction of a mosque in Khambayat, Gujarat, in the 1220s and of another instance some 500 years later in Ahmadabad, Gujarat.9 Similarly, there was pillaging at temples, especially during “foreign” incursions (e.g., Afghans, the Mongols, Timur of Samarkand). Yet, as Subrahmanyan and others remind us, there were instances of inter-sectarian violence well before the coming of Islam.10 The destruction of Buddhist institutions was occasionally done by “Hindu” rulers as at Nagarjunakonda; even the looting of Hindu temples occurred in such places as Kashmir by “Hindu” rulers seeking to avenge brahmans who were perceived to be too wealthy, corrupt, and powerful.11 Conversely, there were Hindu temples constructed or renovated during periods of Islamic governance12 or by individual Muslims who believed themselves to have been cured by a resident deity.