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Channan Pir in antiquity
Ctesias tried to learn as much of India as was possible and quizzed every Indian visitor to the court about it.
The writer is author of Jhelum: City of the Vitasta (Sang-e-Meel, 2005) salman.rashid@tribune.com.pk
In the year 416 BCE, a young man of Greek descent left his native Cnidus on the mainland of what is now Turkey to take up employment with the Achaemenian king, Artaxerxes (Ardeshir). Ctesias, as the young man was named, was from the family of Hippocrates, known to us as the Father of Medicine, and himself a trained medical practitioner. For the next few decades, he served the Persian King of Kings as an archiater.
Now Ctesias was evidently a rather inquisitive individual. He appears to have been acquainted with The Histories, the magnum opus of Herodotus, published about forty years earlier, and was a trifle miffed by its disregard of Indian history. Ctesias therefore took it upon himself to learn as much of India as was possible. But his duties looking after royal health perhaps did not give him time enough to go wandering off to the Land of the Sindhu River, so he did the next best thing: He quizzed every Indian visitor to the court about their country.
Confronted by the doctor, notebook and pen in hand, our ancestors — traders, diplomats, scientists, artists, musicians, writers and craftsmen — at the Persian court came into their own as storytellers. They told Ctesias tales. Some of these were plain hogwash, invented when the teller with mischief in his mind tested the gullibility of the westerner. Ctesias faithfully noted everything down and years later, upon returning home, wrote a book titled Indika.
Among other fanciful tales, this book tells of dog-faced men who barked or others who had huge, flapping ears that they used a mattress and a coverlet (recall our Gog-Magog tradition of such a race). But it is not all twaddle. The discerning reader and one who knows this great and wonderful land can find in the pages of the Indika bits of historical truths as well.
Ctesias tells us of a “sacred spot in the midst of an uninhabited region which [the people] venerate in the name of the Sun and the Moon”. This sacred spot, he goes on, lies fifteen days’ journey from mountains that produce onyx and sardine stones — obviously the Himalayas and Hindu Kush. Here, for the thirty-five days of the festival, the sun cooled down so as not to scorch the worshippers. The uninhabited region, the thirty-five days of celebrations and the coolness of the sun are the Cholistan Desert where the festival still lasts forty days at a time when the sun is just sufficiently cool to be comfortable.
Remember, Ctesias was writing of a time when the Hakra River had been dead for fifteen hundred years and its great cities were smothered by sand dunes. When the Aryans arrived, the memory of those cities and of the worship of Dharti Mata by the banks of the river was still fresh in the minds of the aboriginal people. Even the exact spot where the goddess was worshipped would have been known. The Aryans therefore preserved the holiness of the spot. Only, they assigned to it their own gods: Surya and Chandra.
The collective memory of the earlier worship of the fertility goddess persisted, however. Over the centuries, the various deities, the pre-Aryan Mother Goddess, Surya and Chandra, separately or even together, were worshipped at the spot where the ugly dome now marks the burial of a saint who never was. The persistence of the Mother Goddess cult at some point led the Aryans to incorporate her into their own pantheon as Dharti Mata. Spring, the season favoured by the timeless Mother Goddess of the Sindhu valley, was retained as the time of worship of the new deities.
That was how things stood, until Muslim sensibilities dictated converting the cult to Islam. Dharti Mata, the giver of sons and wealth, retained her powers as Channan Pir. Even her shrine was ordained to remain open to the sky and her festival is observed in spring when the earth rejuvenates itself. The worship of Chandra took the name of the new saint and as before his festival continues for six weeks during spring. This was the time of year that Dharti Mata preferred for her festival and that Surya and Chandra did too, as Ctesias tells us.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 18th, 2011.
Reader Comments (15)
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Each one of your posts is a gem SirRecommend
Can you believe even todays India has not changed a little bit regarding Dharti Mata.For us –”Janani Janabhumishch Swargadipi Gariusi”.Means mother and motherland is more revered than heavenRecommend
“Janani Janmabhumisch Swargadipi Gariausi” Mother and Motherland more revered than Heaven.No doubt,Indians give so much importance to land.Recommend
nice article indeed!Recommend
Certainly after meeting people of various hues at the kings court, Ctesias must have thought that the piece of land called India must not be monotonous. However, his fabled narration, as you said have some historical significance as well is the only recorded history of that time. Your writing is nice.Recommend
The best article today and I am guessing will also be the least read by Pakistani readers.Recommend
Anoop Ji, Rest assured, if a Pakistani can write such scholarly article, millions of enlightened nationals are there to appreciate and enjoy it. Do not under-estimate your muslim cousins on the other side of great divide.Recommend
Great read, as always. Thank you.Recommend
A beautiful historical archive is to treasure it for ever.
Thanks Saman Saheb for your arduous discovery.
Let historians of the Suncontinent see the truth, forgetting sectarian views and prejudice.
My salaam to you.Recommend
God always bless you SirRecommend
@Arif: I don’t think Anoop was trying to denigrate the Pakistani readership. An article on history, unless it is of freedom struggle / partition / 20th century wars; unfortunately doesn’t get as many views and as much consideration. This is true not just of Pakistan, but India too. Except, here is a difference. Whereas Indian readers are numerous, more active online, and are frequently engaged in debate on these and other threads, the Pakistani readers, are quite few and limited in their participation. The Indians have a comprehensive presence online but also output a comprehensive and exhaustive spectrum of ideas. The Pakistani responses I see most often, are either defensive or abusive. What we lack is a widening and deepening of Pakistani engagement with their Indian counterparts. Where is it? Why is it lacking? Why is it near absent? That said, I am glad that these threads have not degenerated into a mirror of the YouTube threads where abusive language and vile sentiments rule from both sides. Thankfully, these threads thus far have not attracted that kind of lumpen elements. It is best that it be a magnet for educated and thinking minds. This lack of engagement is a loss to us in Pakistan, because we do not benefit from the ideas that are often aired here. I too, for all my interest in history, let loose a half-in-zest volley at Mr. Rasheed for his article of April 10, 2011. This is likely his fourth article on the exploration of the concept of Dharti Mata. And his articles are incredibly informative. It is not an accident, that it gets the readership from Indians, who have other online watering holes to frequent. His writing and research are of a very high calibre. But they don’t get the genuine appreciation he deserves. With Mr. Rasheed, credit must also be given to the Tribune Express editorial team, for providing him a wonderful platform. Mr. Rasheed will need all the help he needs, to undo the layers of indoctrination that has been piled thick in the minds of the ordinary (even college educated) Pakistanis. He is surely doing his bit, but if more Pakistanis do not take his lead, then the fault is entirely ours. I have mentioned elsewhere in these threads, that the Tribune Express needs to create an outreach programme in schools, colleges and corporations to get people to visit, read and contribute in these threads with speaking arrangements and tours by their respected columnists. Don’t know if anyone there is listening.Recommend
@Agonised Uncle and some of the other participants of the discussion here (both indian and pakistani), I have been following Salman’s work since atleast 2003 when the first of his 5 books were published. The series of articles being published by the Tribune are more-or-less chapters from his books. They were published the same way for many years in another local pakistani daily newspaper called “Daily Times” (interestingly, that paper was owned by ex gov Salman Taseer). I am in no way berating Salman’s work as i think he is one of the best researchers in the sub-continent and his local knowledge of seemingly obscure facts, stories, sites is unmatched. However, one of the many reasons why the pakistani responses/readership of his articles does not match the Indians’ is because we have read these very articles continuously in both book and newspaper format since 2003. Now if Salman moves to another paper, I for one will read these articles again for the 4th time, but my participation levels will not be the same as a first time reader. An apt comparison would be the different ways Indians and Pakistanis approach Mughal History. The study of Mughal History is so intense and detailed in pakistan (even though the heart of the empire was in present day india) that in the pakistani education system Mughal History is a separate subject for middle school children (grades 5-8). Its not forced down anyones throat, it happens to be one of the highest ranked subjects in the otherwise dismal education system.Recommend
@Arif,
–> I said this Article is going to be the least read. Comparing the comments with other Articles, I think I am right.
I never attacked Pakistani Intelligence. It is the kind of Article which might not appeal to a brain fed a steady diet of thinking which talks of Muslim Superiority and non-Muslim Inferiority and other such ideas.Recommend
@JS:
Dear Uncle,
Let us not forget that for all what you say is true for India, we do not have someone like Salman on our side of the border. And so if there is one Salman there, there are many more latent ones from who comes up a gem like him. Do we have anyone similar?Recommend
Maybe Salman Rasheed should contact Geo / PTV and get on the television.
With a show that tells of Pakistan’s ancient roots.
Visual imagery and evidence, when presented well with good story telling,
can undo the confused conscience and concepts of many addled and idle brains.
A person who is genuinely interested in sharing this rare treasure of knowledge,
is the first requisite to present the case for reconsidering and valuing history.
Who better than Mr. Salman Rasheed himself.Recommend