The Civilisational Role of Storytelling

The Civilisational Role of Storytelling: Why Bharat Remembers

Civilizations do not perish because their cities fall or their rulers die. They perish when they forget who they are.

In the world of Game of Thrones, the Three-Eyed Raven symbolizes this axiom. He sees all that has happened, all that is happening, and all that will. He does not wage wars or pass judgments—he remembers. His memory is civilization itself. That is why the Night King targets him first. Because when memory dies, identity dies. The boundary between the living and the dead collapses.

This allegory, though fictional, captures a very real truth—particularly relevant to Bharat, whose civilizational identity has survived precisely because it remembers.

Memory as Resistance

In the face of relentless invasions—first Arab, then Turkic, then Mughal—Bharat’s civilizational memory became its strongest armor. From the first Arab raids on Sindh in the 8th century by Muhammad bin Qasim, to the brutal campaigns of Ghazni and Ghor, to the imperial ambition of the Mughals, the Indian subcontinent witnessed over a millennium of assaults, not just on territory but on temples, traditions, and thought systems.

Where Persia collapsed within fifty years of the Islamic conquest—its Zoroastrian temples reduced to rubble and its native script replaced by Arabic—India refused to be erased.

Why?

Because Bharat did not outsource its memory to text alone. It embedded memory in story.

Story as Structure, Not Ornament

In the Indian civilizational worldview, stories (kathā) are not ornamental—they are foundational. Unlike the West, where history is linear and textual, India’s memory was cyclical and oral. It was encoded in the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Puranas, and Jatakas—not as factual reportage, but as lived narratives, laced with dharma, arthā, and rasa.

This was not “mythology” in the Western sense, which falsely equates the term with fiction. In Bharat, itihaasa (thus it happened) meant more than mere chronology. It was philosophy in narrative form—moral dilemmas in human skin.

And because it was transmitted orally, it was harder to destroy.

When Temples Fell, Memory Did Not

History remembers how Mahmud of Ghazni looted and demolished the Somnath temple in 1025 CE—not for its wealth alone, but for its symbolism. A temple was not just a religious structure—it was a civilizational archive. Its shilpa, its murti, its layout, its daily puja, all encoded a community’s metaphysics.

But even after Somnath was desecrated, its deity remained in the hearts of the people. The temple was rebuilt multiple times across centuries—culminating in its modern revival by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. This is not just resilience—it is civilizational assertion.

Consider the Krishna Janmabhoomi temple at Mathura, destroyed by Aurangzeb in 1670. A mosque was built atop it, but the deity was quietly moved to Rajasthan. Worship continued. Krishna never left.

In Varanasi, after Aurangzeb razed the Kashi Vishwanath temple, Ahilyabai Holkar rebuilt it next door. Even today, pilgrims offer prayers first at the temple and then glance at the mosque—acknowledging not just faith, but memory.

The Mughal Myth

The romanticization of Mughal rule in mainstream narratives obscures the true nature of its cultural impact. Akbar, often hailed as a syncretic visionary, did attempt a conciliatory path through Din-i-Ilahi. But this was a personal experiment, not state policy. His grandson Aurangzeb reversed it completely—destroying over a thousand temples, reimposing the jizya, and funding campaigns into the Deccan with temple wealth.

The idea that Mughal rule led to “composite culture” ignores the asymmetry: one culture tried to dominate; the other tried to preserve.

And preservation came through stories.

Milinda and the Indianization of the Foreigner

Contrast the Mughal approach with that of Menander I, the Indo-Greek king who engaged in dialogue—not domination. His philosophical encounter with Nagasena, recorded in the Milinda Pañha, is an early testament to how Bharat absorbed the foreigner without being uprooted. Menander was not imposed upon Bharat; Bharat absorbed him. That is why we remember him today not as a Greek, but as a dharmic ruler.

This is the Indian genius—assimilation without annihilation.

Cultural Assimilation vs Cultural Amnesia

Where Islam transformed Persia into an Arabized civilization, Bharat absorbed Islamic contributions without surrendering its core. Urdu poetry, Hindustani music, and Indo-Islamic architecture are examples of synthesis—not of a conquered mind, but of a resilient soul.

The reason Islam could not uproot Indian civilization, as it did in Central Asia or North Africa, lies in this: Bharatiya society did not centralize its memory. It decentralized it.

Stories were told in villages, sung in folk songs, enacted in local dramas, etched in temple walls, whispered in lullabies. They did not need state patronage—they needed community reverence.

The Village as Civilizational Unit

India’s decentralized economy and society also helped. The village did not rely on centralized state mechanisms for survival. Even when Delhi was conquered, Bharat was not. Each village remained a world unto itself—economically self-reliant and culturally self-remembering.

Our Duty: Become the Storyteller

This generation stands at a crossroads. In an era of algorithmic information and curated forgetting, the challenge is no longer just historical distortion—but cultural amnesia.

We must become the Three-Eyed Raven of our time.

Tell the stories of Rani Durgavati, who resisted Akbar’s armies. Speak of Banda Singh Bahadur, whose rebellion shook Mughal foundations. Recall the Marathas, who not only survived but reversed the tide of conquest. Remember the Bhakti poets and Sufi saints who carried the civilizational flame through language and lyric.

Because stories are not just about the past—they are about survival.

As long as Bharat tells her story, she lives. And when she forgets, she ceases to be.

So let us remember—not passively, but actively. Let us reclaim—not to hate, but to assert. Let us narrate—not to glorify the past, but to dignify the present.

Because when a civilization stops telling its story, others begin to write it for them.