James C. Scott , ‘Against the Grain: A Deep History of the
Earliest States ‘, 2017:
“...That states would have come to dominate the
archaeological and historical record is no mystery. For us—that is to say Homo
sapiens—accustomed to thinking in units of one or a few lifetimes, the
permanence of the state and its administered space seems an inescapable
constant of our condition. Aside from the utter hegemony of the state form
today, a great deal of archaeology and history throughout the world is
state-sponsored and often amounts to a narcissistic exercise in
self-portraiture. Compounding this institutional bias is the archaeological
tradition, until quite recently, of excavation and analysis of major historical
ruins. Thus if you built, monumentally, in stone and left your debris
conveniently in a single place, you were likely to be “discovered” and to
dominate the pages of ancient history. If, on the other hand, you built with
wood, bamboo, or reeds, you were much less likely to appear in the
archaeological record. And if you were hunter-gatherers or nomads, however
numerous, spreading your biodegradable trash thinly across the landscape, you
were likely to vanish entirely from the archaeological record.
Once written documents—say, hieroglyphics or
cuneiform—appear in the historical record, the bias becomes even more
pronounced. These are invariably state-centric texts: taxes, work units,
tribute lists, royal genealogies, founding myths, laws. There are no contending
voices, and efforts to read such texts against the grain are both heroic and
exceptionally difficult.The larger the state archives left behind, generally
speaking, the more pages devoted to that historical kingdom and its
self-portrait....”
ह्या प्रतिपादनाला (argument) एखादीच गोष्ट अपवाद असेल. सुदैवाने ती महाराष्ट्राची आहे.....
सातवाहन काळात (इ.स.पू. २३० ते इ.स. २२०) दगडांची अनेक सुंदर कामे घडली जी अजून जिवंत आहेत... पण स्कॉट म्हणतात तसे सामान्यांनी स्वतः साठी बांधलेले काहीच शिल्लक नाही. पण लेखनामुळे bias pronounce न होता उलट गाहा सत्तसई सारखे लेखन होऊन सामान्यांचे जीवन, त्यांची भाषा, त्यांची कला अजून जिवंत आहे.
स. आ. जोगळेकर
ह्यांनी संपादिलेल्या गाहा सत्तसईत (हाल सातवाहनाची
गाथा सप्तशती, १९५६)
गाथांचा मराठी अनुवादही दिला
आहे.
सौजन्य : वाङ्मय शोभा , मार्च १९६३
courtesy: Penguin Classics and the artist(s)
