The Quotidian Practices

About the Speaker

Suchandra Ghosh is presently Professor in the department of Ancient Indian History & Culture, University of Calcutta with specialization in Epigraphy and Numismatics. She broadly takes interest in Politico-Cultural History of North-West India, Early India’s linkages with Early Southeast Asia, Indian Ocean Buddhist and Trade Network and every day life. She is a recipient of the Charles Wallace Visiting Fellowship, Nehru Trust UK Travel Award, ENITAS Scholarship, Chulalongkarn University, Bangkok, Lowick Memorial Grant, Royal Numismatic Society, London. She also received visiting Professorship in Paris in the Indo-French Exchange programme and recently in Director de Etudes Associe programme from the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’homme, Paris. Her recent publications are From the Oxus to the Indus: A Political and Cultural Study (300BCE-100BCE)(2017), a short monograph entitled Exploring Connectivity: South Eastern Bengal and Beyond (2014). She is one of the editors of Inscriptions and Agrarian Issues in Indian History, Essays in Memory of D.C.Sircar (2017), Subversive Sovereigns Across the Seas, Indian Ocean Ports –of-Trade From Early Historic Times to Late Colonialism (2017), Early Indian History and Beyond: Essays in honour of B.D.Chattopadhyaya (2019), Area Editor, The Encyclopedia of Ancient History: Asia and Africa, Wiley (2017--.

Abstract

Gordon W. Hewes once lamented the absence of the daily life component in civilizational analysis. He showed how historians are pre-occupied with “grand” achievements such as philosophical systems, the fine arts, relation between states and the dramatic march of great events. Thus topics like houses, clothing or costume, cooking or cuisine, funerals and feasts are hardly represented in historical writings. He felt that though the addition of daily life information would not be a magic key to understand civilizational system, but its incorporation would make the historical writings much more exciting, meaningful and lively. It is a part of social history which explores the values, feelings and belief of the people and gave them a degree of agency whether in the circumstances of the everyday or the extraordinaire. It needs to be reiterated that the study on the quotidian practices, though a component of the history of society, is not of a residual category. In fact social reality was grounded in the quotidian which of course evolved with passage of time, albeit very slowly. While social scientists and historians, following Fernand Braudel, tend to agree that the quotidian is usually embedded in a structure and presents an impression of invariance over a long range of time, the study of everyday life in the past cannot be appreciated merely in terms of immutability. The question that also confronts us is, whose life gains visibility in our sources; life of the elites or the common man? There is a necessity to focus on the ways people actually lived their ordinary day to day lives, but in most of the cases we are limited by our sources. In this presentation, I would focus on a few aspects of life of people in the visual and material culture of regions in early north-west and north India. Here the source seem to direct us to the lives of the upper echelons of the society. Recently Prasanta Ray argued, studies on everyday must not be exhausted by an exclusive attention to the people in the ‘lower depth’. Every day in the ‘upper sphere’ deserves as much attention considering the fact that our written sources mostly relate to and emanate from the elite circle. I have chosen the Buddhist art of Gandhara to suggest that the Gandharan image can provide self representation of contemporary society. Sanghol, near Chandigarh is another Buddhist stupa site which will receive attention for its vivid portrayal of urban life. Along with visual culture, material culture can also provide some window to the life of the people. I shall pay attention to the sites of Ai Khanum and Taxila for appreciating the kind of life the elites led. Thus this presentation will talk about exercise of cultural practices in the quotidian life which is laced by refined Hellenized environment characterized by musical performances, bacchanalian scenes, festivities and many more.

Report

This lecture focused on everyday life and quotidian perspectives of the Indo-Greece population in the Northwestern Frontier Province.

The lecture focused on the everyday lives of people in the Gandhara region, the heart of which was centred around Peshawar. As Professor Ghosh pointed out, the information available will be on the daily lives of the elite, as their material culture is the one that survived. This lecture featured a time period from the third century BCE to the second century CE. The intervention made in the lecture focused both on the visual and material culture of the period, and into the Hellenistic societal practices in Gandhara. There is a strong negotiation made in these practices, for which elements of the Greco-Roman cultures are adopted, and how are they integrated with the local culture. The lecture first focused on the general elements that were found across several different sites, and then finally went on to certain specific sites.

The general elements that are found in multiple sites of the Gandhara region, including Peshawar, Taxila and Al Khanum, were large banquets with provisions for parties and wine drinking. The other interesting thing that Professor Ghosh studies from this area were toilet trays. Many of these trays had sexual imagery engraved on then. The myths from Ancient Greco-Roman culture were represented in many surfaces in the homes found in these regions. They were not only displayed as murals or paintings but found their place within the items of daily use like the toilet trays. There are several Indian elements displayed as well, which include the King Siddhartha or the Buddha, not in a ascetic form but as a king playing a musical instrument. This depiction of the Buddha raises an interesting question on what elements from Indian culture are being taken within this Hellenistic practice and how they are being used. Another common element between many of the sites found in the region, especially in Taxila and Al Khanum are the large, big Greek style mansions that have survived. These houses have rich elements of material culture surviving, including the jewellery and box settings clearly indicating that these houses were occupied by the elite. The houses were quite different from Mauryan houses, with no direct access to the courtyard from the street. The writing found has largely been in Kharosthi.

The final section of the lecture focused on the completely Hellenistic settlement of Al Khanum in the northern part of the region. Through her work, Professor Ghosh showed how elements in Al Khanum mirrored those of Greek cities. There was a Gymnasium similar to the ones that were found in ancient Greece, and also a Greek style theatre. This theatre was larger than the one found in Babylon. Equipment for wrestling and other such activities have also been found. Thus Al Khanum becomes a unique sight even within the Gandhara region.

Therefore through this talk, Professor Ghosh explored different material cultures of the Gandhara region, to reconstruct the everyday life of the people.

By Pratiti, Undergraduate Batch of 2020