E. Y. VANINA. MEDIEVAL THINKING: THE INDIAN VERSION, Moscow: Vostochnaya literatura Publ., 2007, 375 p.

A significant contribution has been made to the discussion of the nature of the social system in the East in the Middle Ages. This discussion smouldered, occasionally flaring up, and did not move for many years, because the participants spoke different languages and because they were all somehow "tied" to the topic production method. Marxism, which placed a heavy burden on this concept to define the whole face of society, at the same time did not give a clear definition of what it is. Some agreed to the fact that distribution method - this is the production method. Proponents of the special path of development of the East insisted that private property prevailed in the West, and state property in the East. But at the same time, disputes continued about what it is. - property. There were arguments about feudalism, but at the same time, under feudalism, everyone understood something different, known only to him, and as a result, the dialogue between the blind and the deaf continued.

In recent years, this debate has flared up with renewed vigor. Several books were published abroad questioning the concept of feudalism, and some Russian medievalists also saw that their previous ideas were sketchy and did not reflect medieval reality1 But the argument goes in the same circles: each disputant proceeds from his own system of categories. The time has come to turn back to the East and look at it not from the standpoint of Procrustean "classical feudalism" (which, it turns out, did not exist!), but from the standpoint of concrete manifestations of the traditional thinking of the people who lived then.

Of course, the problem of classifying the social system in the Middle Ages in each of the Eastern countries stands separately. Medieval India may be different from medieval Western Europe in some ways, and China in others. In particular, this is why medieval Indologists have always been unanimous in recognizing medieval India as a feudal society, while among Sinologists, the greatest number of supporters of the deceptive concept of the "Asian mode of production"was observed2. However, until now, we indologists have used vague concepts - "property", " rent "(which had to be somehow separated from "rent-tax"), "mode of production", "way of life" (another unknown) - and therefore could not be convinced of anything "Asiatic people".

The publication of E. Y. Vanina's book should change the situation, although, frankly, there is little hope that it will be read by those who have already "proved everything to themselves". The author decided to take a different path than her teachers and predecessors. She began to compare with the European ones not the forms of land ownership, forms of exploitation and forms of state power, but the worldview of residents, their horizons, knowledge and prejudices. It refers not to the idea of European feudalism that was formed in the XVI-XVII centuries and was fixed in the minds of many Medievalists, but to the picture of everyday life in Europe in the Middle Ages, which emerges from the research of recent years. In our country, these are primarily the works of A. Y. Gurevich.

E. Y. Vanina gives her vision of medieval society (as she believes, feudal). It is not a set of institutions ("extra-economic coercion", exploitation, vassalage system-

1 A discussion on this issue is published in [Odysseus..., 2006].

2 It is deceptive because it creates the illusion of some explanation, while it simply renames one unknown to another. By indologists and Sinologists, I mean those who have worked directly with medieval sources, not all those who have written about China or India.

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theta, state fragmentation), namely, a society different from antiquity and the society of Modern times. It lists the" necessary but insufficient " features of medieval society: the predominance of manual labor, the agrarian nature of the economy, the low status of physical labor, the close relationship between property and power, land grants as a key type of remuneration for service, the exchange of gifts/services as the main principle of social ties, the corporate-communal principle of social structure, the dominance of the military or official elite. The author states that she "does not consider this characteristic of feudalism exhaustive and original" and compiled it "taking into account" the works of L. B. Alaev, K. Z. Ashrafyan, E. M. Medvedev, G. G. Kotovsky, R. S. Sharma, H. Mukhiya, D. N. Jha, E. V. Gutnova, Z. V. Udaltsova, A. Ya. Gurevich, J. Duby and J. Le Goff. I think that many of these authors would not have accepted such a model, and I would also have drawn it up differently. You can add and develop this list of attributes. The main thing is different: the conversation should be conducted about society as a whole, in all its manifestations; in the end - about a person of a special type. What do you call this society - feudal, "traditional", "peasant" (in recent years, this designation is increasingly common) - a completely secondary issue. And there is no point in arguing with those who understand "feudalism" either as serfdom, or as a vassal system, or as a form of statehood.

As far as I know, the author for the first time in Indology made a fairly thorough comparison of the way of thinking of a medieval Indian and a medieval European. The book consists of four chapters, each of which is devoted to one of the aspects of looking at the world: understanding space, understanding time, understanding your society, and your attitude to yourself and other people. These parameters really characterize the mentality of a society or its "civilizational features". However, there are still a few problems missing, for example: "Man-Nature-God" or simply "Man-God", the differences in the mentality of Hindus and Muslims. But you can't ask one job to explain everything,everything. In the conditions of our country, where the Marxist approach to history has long dominated, the appeal to the spiritual and psychological factors of society's vital activity is especially unexpected and important.

At the same time, I would not reproach the former Soviet indologists for not paying attention to the issues raised in this work. The focus of indologists on the study of economic relations and property relations was explained by the fact that this approach was demanded of them. According to the vulgar Marxism that prevailed at that time, only and exclusively basis defined everything. If Ashrafyan, Alaev, and Medvedev had dealt with the problems of mentality, the role of the individual, etc., they would not have been understood at best (just as they did not understand A. Y. Gurevich when he took up these subjects on the material of Western Europe).

The author rightly notes: "Paradoxically, in the works of many Mediaeval Indologists, and materialists at that, the socio-economic and political categories of medieval society were likened to" idea "and" spirit" in idealistic philosophy and are considered in isolation, in isolation from their main creators and bearers - people " (p.12). That's it! But this applies not only to medievalists and not only to Indologists, but to the entire Marxist paradigm. Hegel's" development of the spirit "was simply replaced by" development of the productive forces", which develop for an unknown reason, by themselves, without a person. In this case, we should criticize Marxism, not the Marxists.

A brief outline of the vulgar Soviet so-called Marxist approach as a whole would be very useful. Then many of the gaps in Indological historiography would be properly highlighted and put into a certain context. It would also be possible to treat teachers more carefully. It should be noted that V. I. Pavlov began to use "superstructure" factors to characterize the formation state of pre-colonial societies of the East in the 1970s, becoming in this respect a direct forerunner of E. Yu. Vanina [see: Pavlov, 1979]. R. S. Sharma, an outstanding Indian historian and head of the Marxist school of Indian historiography, says that he "could not go beyond the typical Orientalist stereotypes" (p. 32). Another equally prominent historian, Irfan Habib, also a Marxist, also wrote that the Indian peasant was characterized by a " comparatively backward level of class consciousness." This means that there were no peasant wars in medieval India. Vanina claims that "such an interpretation... it does not take into account the specifics of the social and ethno-cultural development of medieval Indian society" (p. 233). This key is similar to how Soviet scientists cracked down on

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bourgeois colleagues who, as is well known, "did not understand...", "did not reach..." and "stopped before...". What exactly does Khabib "not take into account"? That the Indian peasants, it turns out, simply had nothing to fight for - they had both the "will" and the land. This is an amazing statement. However, I can't complain about E. Y. Vanina's inattention to my work. Our differences in understanding a number of issues will be discussed below.

The fact that medieval Western Europe and the Medieval East show many similarities is widely recognized. This similarity is not denied even by L. S. Vasiliev, a well-known author of the concept of a complete confrontation between the West and the East3 In the reviewed work, these similarities are shown specifically, using examples of similar phenomena in culture and art, life ideals, for example, Rajput and Western feudal lords, merchants of the West and East, the situation of priority of what is due over what is, expressed in the representation of a person not as he is, but as he should be according to social norms. The concept of individual " dharma "(in the sense of class duty), so vivid in India, can be applied to the inhabitants of Western Europe at the appropriate time. Even the relations to time and space are close, although it would be nice to point out the deep differences in these issues as well. The author has worked on many works of various genres: chronicles, religious and philosophical treatises, fiction. Most of them were not previously used as historical sources - these were not the questions that Soviet historians were interested in!

The innovative nature of the work, the volume of problems raised in it and the proposed explanations inevitably lead to a high degree of discussion of almost the entire text, which was generally compiled in a polemical style. E. Yu. Vanina set herself a grandiose task, did a lot, but could not embrace the vast. Most of the claims that could be made against the book stem precisely from its pioneering nature. E. Yu. Vanina herself points out such shortcomings: the lack of comparisons with other civilizations, except for Western Europe (p. 17); operating with the material of "all" India, while this is a whole subcontinent consisting of different cultures. "countries" (p. 28-29); broad chronological framework of the work, covering "all" the Middle Ages without taking into account internal stages of development (p.30-31). The last of these shortcomings is particularly annoying, since the author promises to "trace the evolution of a particular mental process throughout the Middle Ages" (p. 31), but she does not succeed in fulfilling this promise with this construction of the book. movements almost none in the text. Meanwhile, great changes took place in Europe during the Middle Ages. The comparisons used in this book mostly relate to the time period early access the European Middle Ages.

The following comments are mainly reflections on the issues raised by the author, and not reproaches, although there are also reproaches. So, I don't think the general lawyer tone of the work is appropriate. Ramkrishna Gopal Bhandarkar, one of the first great Indian historians, once wrote that a historian should be a judge, but not a prosecutor. Vanina in this work, and in a number of previous works, all the time "protects" India from "attacks".

Comments on individual chapters are most often related to the fact that E. Y. Vanina looks exclusively for similarities (sometimes exaggerating them) and carefully avoids differences. So, the chapter "Space" contains a lot of interesting material, valuable observations and conclusions, but the question of the unity and diversity of India is not clearly stated. It is persistently argued that literary works "have always described more than one thing." country, but countries, a conglomerate of regions and states" (p. 61, highlighted by E. Yu. Vanina); that India "was a single whole only in the opinion of foreigners" (ibid.); that sources "did not reflect at least a vague idea of India as a kind of integral space, delimited from an alien territory" (p. 62, see also p. 74, 327). It is true that India consists of many countries. But it is also true that the idea of the unity of India, Jambudvipa, has long existed. And incorrect,

3 Although his explanations for this phenomenon are quite exotic. He believes that in the Middle Ages Europe deviated from the "European" path, being "orientalized" by barbarian nomads who came from the East (?! - L. A.), and that feudalism is a kind of" eastern structure " [Vasiliev, 2007, II, p.24 et seq.].

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that the Indians did not distinguish" their " peoples from others. There were "friends" - Marathas, Kashmiris, Bengalis, etc. - and "barbarians" - mleccha or turushka. The "separation from foreign territory" is not really fixed, but not because there is no idea of unity, but because Jambudvipa is an island. What are the possible boundaries?

Political unity is not necessary to realize unity over a large territory. The best example is the same medieval Europe: there is France, England, etc. - and there is Europe. There is a mobility of the population and ideas throughout this space. Of course, the geographical views of the ancient Indians were not very clear, but this is not to say that they did not know that they were Indians. Polish tsar (one might say emperor) Rajendra Chola I (1012-1044) went North for some reason to bring water from the Ganges to the South. And he brought it-poured it into various reservoirs so that the Tamils would have "their own Ganges". Some kings in Karnataka describe their kingdom as follows:"... in the country of Jambudvipa there is a beautiful country of Kuntala (which this king rules)...". If a certain ruler wanted to claim that he was an all-Indian king, he ordered to write in his inscription that his domain"extends to the Himalayas". He knew that this was the boundary of the Earth. In the chapter" Time", the author mentions that Ujjain was the reference point for all longitudes and latitudes in India. Isn't this evidence that there is a certain idea of the unity of India?!

In the section "India and the outside world" of the first chapter, the author avoids the question that Indians were not interested in other countries. This was clearly recorded by al-Biruni. The few Europeans who have visited India have left their notes, but the Indians who have visited England have not written anything. There were many Indians in Russia - whole colonies of merchants in Astrakhan and Moscow. But there are no Indian records of Muscovy. Afanasy Nikitin wrote about his journey, but the Indians did not write about Muscovy. Without any doubt, they also traveled to Southeast Asia, with which they had long maintained close trade and cultural ties. But they did not write about it - it was not interesting for either travelers or potential readers. The author recognizes this peculiarity of the Indian view of the world: "The Indians, even in the face of their enlightened elite, also had very vague ideas about foreign lands" (p. 77, see also p. 83, 86). But then it makes incredible efforts to prove that all other peoples of the Middle Ages knew their neighbors poorly. This is an example of fighting the obvious. Chinese pilgrims (Fa Hsien, Xuan Tsang, and Ching) left their notes on India. European Travelers (Marco Polo, Nicolo Conti and others (not to mention dozens of visitors after the 15th century) felt obliged to tell their compatriots about a distant mysterious country. In Arabic literature, there was a special genre of travel notes (richlya), very popular among literate people. And there was nothing like this in India. Apparently, it was necessary to note as an Indian civilizational trait the deepest indifference towards other peoples.

The chapter "Time" contains a lot of interesting material and a solid analysis of it. For example, there is a long overdue need to explain the meaning of cyclical understanding of time in the East, including in India. E. Yu. Vanina convincingly showed that there is no reason to attribute exclusively cyclical understanding of time to the Eastern peoples, and it was not alien to European peoples either. We remind you of this with a link to Mark Blok. (I will add that V. I. Pavlov also speaks about this in the above-mentioned work.)

As for the main question in this paragraph (and one of the main ones for understanding Indian civilization in general) - the question of the lack of historical consciousness among Indians and therefore historiography or historiography, I can only state that there are two points of view. One of them is based on the indisputable facts of the lack of historical writings before the arrival of Muslims and the amazing amnesia of Indians about their history, the other is based on emotions and the desire to prove that "everything exists in India". Some argued that itihasi and the puranas - this is the most reliable story. Others (even a sensible man like Surendranath Banerjee) told themselves that the historical writings could not have been absent, they simply disappeared during the political turmoil. Recently, in connection with the search for new sources, something like historical notes, usually quite late, began to be discovered, and the thesis about the non-historical thinking of Indians was at least tried to weaken.

E. Y. Vanina follows this path. "The Open door" (the absence of Hindu historiography before the appearance of Persian-language chronicles) she doesn't notice and keeps banging against the wall, trying to get a hold of herself.-

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expecting that a lot of historical works have been found. Is it possible to use these sources to write the history of India or the history of one of its regions? It hasn't worked out yet.

The author is, of course, right in claiming that literary works such as heroic poems and even so-called "framed stories", as well as traditions preserved in popular memory, or in the records of temple scribes, contain historical information. But "it takes a lot of effort to separate the real facts reflected in them from fiction" (p. 123). If we had miraculously found out, how exactly If events took place, then we would be able to determine what is historical in these sources, and what is legendary or mythological. But the point is that we often don't have any other sources at our disposal. Therefore, we cannot determine what exactly was "reflected" in the poems. These crooked mirrors of history are useless. We are not allowed to know the "angle of curvature" of mirrors.

No one will deny the mythological nature of Indian consciousness (see Vanina's confession on page 112). To this day, the Mahabharata and Ramayana are more authoritative sources for the general public and even for the intellectual elite than any other scientific works. It would seem that the question is clear. However, the general conclusion from the chapter on time is quite different: "The thinking of medieval Indians was no more' anti-historical 'than that of other peoples of that era" (p.147). Another "revolt" against the obvious.

I agree with E. Y. Vanina that to a certain extent the same attitude to time and history was characteristic of other peoples in the Middle Ages (probably with the exception of the Chinese) (p. 146). But then we must add that the attitude of the Indians to history was the most "medieval"in comparison with other peoples. Hindus did not consider it necessary to record historical events. The mythological was real to them, the historical uninteresting. This is a stunning, unique feature of the Indian (Hindu) civilization.

The chapter "Society" contains very valuable observations of the author. For example, it seems very productive to compare the" universal connection of people", characteristic, according to A. Ya. Gurevich (I will add - and K. Marx), for European feudalism, and Indian feudalism. dharmas in the sense of "social duty", law, "code of regulations". It is quite convincing to compare the two societies on the basis of community or corporate identity. "A medieval man... it was not a separate entity" (Gurevich, cit. on page 150). It is also certain that neither in medieval Europe nor in India did there exist "people in general", people were perceived in accordance with their class images (p.141). But even in this chapter, the author is not looking for similarity, but for identity. And this is already an inflection. A very typical example: "What is the basis of the "universal connection of people"? This is nothing more than right, that is, correct (from the point of view of reasonableness, the common good), the righteous (according to religious regulations) the behavior of each individual, groups of people and society as a whole" (p.149, highlighted by E. Yu. Vanina). You can't just play on words ("right - right - righteous") identify right and dharma. And if in India the role of " law " was played by the dharma (which still requires proof, since customary law played an important role, and it did not coincide at all with the law dharmashastra), that is, there was a completely different structure of society. Vanina's main thesis about the" medieval thinking " of the Indians requires serious justification.

Perhaps it is at this point that the "feudalism" of Europe and India could be most clearly shown. The "universal connection of people" that is considered a feudal trait is precisely an informal connection based on oral agreements or unwritten rules. And just such forms of interdependence are very typical for both societies.

I will focus specifically on the problem of the caste system, since E. Y. Vanina has twice challenged my opinion on this issue. For example, I write: "... the caste belonging of persons mentioned in the sources is usually unknown. "E. Yu. Vanina believes that my "conclusion" "needs to be clarified" (p. 152). But this is not my conclusion. I refer to Burton Stein, who, in turn, relies on the" Concordance of Names " found in all published Chola inscriptions, compiled by N. Karashima, Y. Subbarayala, and Toru Matsui (Alaev, 1985, p. 220). Out of 1,800 names, only 20 have a caste designation. (By the way, this article is not included in the list of references.) My statement that "the caste has no history as such, it has always remained on the margins of official life and in the shadow of historical events", Vanina refutes with this: "This idea does not quite agree with common sense: how could such an important, structure-forming element of the social structure

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stay "in the background and in the shadows"?" (p. 154). At the same time, she fully agrees with the theses of Sindiya Talbot ("caste in the sense of a large limited community consisting of interconnected podcasts is more a theoretical construct (especially for the pre-colonial period) than a visible reality", p. 154) and Susan Bailey ("caste is not and never has been a fixed fact of Indian life",p. 154). p. 155). The question is, what does she argue with and what does she assert? That caste is a "structural element" or that it "was not a visible reality"?

"It is hardly possible, following L. B. Alaev, to assert that' the communal-caste system is governed by itself according to rules and laws established as if from time immemorial '" (p. 238). But this statement is based on the simple fact that Hindu kings did not make laws. There are no state laws, no codes of law. My statement, based on my knowledge of the practice of Hindu states, is contrasted with the opinion of the sage Yajnavalkya. Sorry, he's not an authority for me. I know medieval India better than the sage Yajnavalkya, who probably never existed. Especially since Vanina supports me: "The sovereign was obliged to preserve public order in the form inherited from his ancestors and enshrined in sacred texts, but he had no right, at least formally, to make any changes to this order." (p. 238, my italics). It even goes to the other extreme. It is not true that the king "could not overrule the decisions of the caste council "(ibid.). I really could have.

The book considers societies in the categories of "people of the sword", "people of the pen", "people of the bazaar", and" silent majority " as an interesting approach. It is only confusing that this division is taken from the word usage in the Middle East, most likely from the Ottoman Empire. Especially confusing are the "pen people". This category includes both bureaucracy and intellectuals. But in India, it is difficult to separate the military from civilian officials, but it is quite easy to separate intellectuals from civilian and military officials. Combining the Muslim military, Rajputs, and Marathas into the category of "swordsmen" is productive, allowing for a fresh look at the "feudal class". Especially convincing are stories about the role of such feudal values as fame, generosity, service and loyalty. It is said that Mughals, Marathas, and nayaks "they tried to imitate the Rajputs, copy their way of life and ethical values" (p. 168). It refers to the" code of honor " of the Rajputs. Where and how is it reflected? How exactly are the rules expressed? If it is similar to the code of chivalry, then what exactly is it? Here, for the sake of persuasiveness, the most detailed comparisons would be very useful.

The author compares his " four-part "model of medieval Indian society with the" three-part " Western European one - oratores, bellatores, aratores, that is, those who pray, fight, and work. But this comparison creates discrepancies. The analogy between the" military "and" working " strata can still be drawn (some nuances can be left aside). But in India there was no clergy as a social stratum (brahmins are not priests), and in early medieval Europe there was no bureaucracy as a social stratum. The book does not address the issue of citizen's rights at all. What about the self-governance of cities in Europe and India? The problem of similarities and differences between caste and workshop is also not considered.

The conclusion from this chapter is based on the same scheme as the conclusions from the previous chapters: "Comparison of both class-hierarchical structures, with all the natural differences (emphasis added. - L. A.), It allows us to identify many similarities between Western European and Indian ideas about the structure and hierarchy of social structure in the Middle Ages " (p. 230). The differences are simply ignored.

In the chapter "Man" we would like to see the development of the question of the religiosity of people in India and medieval Europe. The fact that Indians are extremely religious is a commonplace. A truism is also the expression: "Hinduism is not just a religion, it is a way of life." Is it possible to make a similar judgment about Christianity in the early Middle Ages in Western Europe? Christianity at a certain stage was also more than a religion-a way of life. Only in Modern times has religion been understood as a private matter of man. Can we assume that the fusion of religion and social customs is not a civilizational, but a stadium feature? In this context, it would be especially important to talk about different Europeans-before the 12th century and after the 12th century, when very much in Europe ceased to be "analogous" to medieval India.

So, the author of the book can be presented with quite a lot of complaints and questions. But all those who are inclined to talk about the juxtaposition of West and East are obliged to read this book.-

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the thief. It might not convince them of anything. After reaching a certain age, a person does not tend to change their opinions. But without reading this book, any judgment on the subject is worthless.

list of literature

Alaev L. B. Functioning of the caste system // India 1983. Yearbook.
Vasiliev L. S. Universal history. In 6 vols. Vol. 2. East and West in the Middle Ages. Uchebnoe posobie [Textbook], Moscow: Vyssh. shk., 2007.

Odysseus: A man in history. 2006. Feudalism before the court of historians. Moscow: Nauka Publ., 2006.

Pavlov V. I. K stadial'no-formatsionnoi kharakteristike vostochnykh obshchestv v Novoe vremya [On the stadium-formation characteristics of Eastern societies in Modern times]. Theoretical problems of the world-historical process.

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