Yesterday, the proverbial curiosity caught the cat of my imagination. We were actually watching the Navrathri program on TV. Srimad Shankaracharya Swami (the young pontiff) of Sharada Peetam of Sringeri was holding darbar at the completion of days' pooja. As the events happened, my mind wandered off. The history of Sri Sharada Peetam commences in 8th century. It was established by Adi Shankara himself. The twelve hundred years of its existence saw tumultuous events unfolding in the subcontinent.
To start with, between the 7th and 12th centuries, Chalukyas, Pallavas, Pandavas, Badami and Rashtrakutas dominated the southern peninsula, not to mention Kakatiyas, Kalachuris and Kadambas. Their empires rose and shrank with time till about the advent of Moghuls in India. Then came the Bhamani Sultans (Birar, Bidar, Golconda and Gulbarga) and the Vijaynagar empire. These were followed by Maratha, Nizam of Hyderabad, Nawab of Arcot, Tipu Sultan and the East India Company.
The question that rankled my mind was "Is it possible that Sri Mutt of Sringeri remained unaffected by these ebbs and flows that rocked the country?" It is then, I started looking first into the history of the Mutt as published in its own website https://www.sringeri.net/jagadgurus
I can only invite with all humility any and all lovers of history to visit the website for it contains, though not in the strict historical pedagogy, the events of this country played at different times in curious and interesting narratives. We find equally compelling stories of great kings and sultans paying homage to the Sri Mutt as well as reprehensible acts of Pindaris of Maharashtra pillaging the sanctity of it. These instances give us the political-social-economic perspectives necessary to understand the parts of subcontinental history that remain hidden from academic texts.
As I read through this website, another thought preys at my mind. We appear to be content with knowing as little (if at all) of the history of our own race (if we consider Indians as one race?) and happily accept correct or controversial versions that mostly western scholars have constructed for us. When the rising tenor Right Wing historians' narratives (like for example the Aryan Invasion Theory) strikes at us, we take refuge in consolatory gestures. History has neither Right or Left Wing narratives. It is a narrative that is by itself. I do hope that readers of this blog will help me access sources that would shed "as it were" perspectives on the history of this subcontinent.
