Indians have visualised India in many different ways. Often through the lens of outsiders. About 4,500 years ago, the kings of Mesopotamia referred to the coast of Gujarat as Meluhha from where they imported beads, cotton, chicken, dogs and buffaloes. About 2,500 years ago, the land east of the Sindhu river was referred to as Hind by Persians, and as India, by the Greeks. About 2,300 years ago,
Ashokan edicts referred to India as Jambu-dvipa, the land of the Indian blackberry. About 2100 years ago, Kharavela of Odisha, referred to the Gangetic plains as Bharat-varsha, or the expanse of Bharat kings, in his inscriptions. Dharma-shastra referred to India (mostly North India) as land of Aryas.
South was known by the tribes who inhabited the lands – Dravidas, Pulindas, Kalingas, Andhras – and by their kings – Cholas, Pandyas, Cheras. Linguists identified countries based on language spoken. Chanakya identified countries based on resources that could be obtained for his king.
The idea of nation or rashtra in India is an ancient one. But it applied to regional kingdoms. Jagannath was declared Rashtra-devata of Odisha by the Chodaganga and Gajapati kings nearly eight centuries ago. The idea of Mother India (Bharat Mata) as a goddess whose sons defend her is a recent one, emerging only in the nineteenth century.
Fatherland and Motherland
In ancient India, nomadic communities traced the ancestries to a Kula Devi, or a primal matriarch. Her temples are usually located atop hills. Settled communities traced their ancestry to a Grama Devi, whose worship was celebrated collectively and collaboratively by different village communities.
The idea of Mother India emerged in the Bengal region, where the East India Company had established itself. The idea began as Bongo Mata (mother of Bengal). This later extended to different parts of India. For example, there was the goddess of Odisha, Utkal Mata, and the goddess of the Telugu people, Telugu Thalli. This was perhaps in response to the idea of Britannia, the lion-riding woman embodying the British Empire, and Marianne, the lady embodying the spirit of the French Revolution.
The idea of Fatherland and Motherland itself came from Europe. In ancient Viking society, the land where the ancestors were buried came to be known as the Fatherland. The land where you were born came to be known as the Motherland. Different countries used these words differently. These ideas came into India with writers in the nineteenth century referring to India as Matrubhumi, mother land, and Pitri-bhumi, or land of ancestors.
In the novels written in colonial times, many Bengali writers described the land as a mother as being stripped of her jewellery and reduced to nakedness. Thus was the naked form of Kali explained to the curious. Such imagery and stories provoked Nationalism, and inspired people to fight for the land.
Beloved of the Fickle Goddess
Before the arrival of Muslim and the British rulers of India, the concept of nation was rather different. The kings of India did not see themselves as the sons of the land. Instead, they saw themselves as the guardians of the land. The oldest image of a king that we find in Gupta art is that of a wild boar. It is raising the earth from the bottom of the sea, rescuing her from tormentors. This image was created in the Gupta period. It is from when the Gupta kings fought various invaders like the Shakas and the Hunas to protect the land.
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