Themes in India 2

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PART II

THEME FIVE

THROUGH THE EYES OF TRAVELLERS 115Perceptions of Society(c. tenth to seventeenth century)

THEME SIX

BHAKTI-SUFI TRADITIONS 140Changes in Religious Beliefsand Devotional Texts(c. eighth to eighteenth century)

THEME SEVEN

AN IMPERIAL CAPITAL: VIJAYANAGARA 170(c. fourteenth to sixteenth century)

THEME EIGHT

PEASANTS, ZAMINDARS AND THE STATE 196Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire(c. sixteenth-seventeenth centuries)

THEME NINE

KINGS AND CHRONICLES 224The Mughal Courts(c. sixteenth-seventeenth centuries)

* Part III will follow

PART III*

THEME TENCOLONIALISM AND THE COUNTRYSIDEExploring Official Archives

THEME ELEVEN

REBELS AND THE RAJ1857 Revolt and Its Representations

CONTENTSCONTENTS

/book_publishing/NEW BOOK 2007/class12/History Part II/ch 5.pdf





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THEME TWELVE

COLONIAL CITIESUrbanisation, Planningand Architecture

THEME THIRTEEN

MAHATMA GANDHI AND THENATIONALIST MOVEMENTCivil Disobedience and Beyond

THEME FOURTEEN

UNDERSTANDING PARTITIONPolitics, Memories, Experiences

THEME FIFTEEN

FRAMING THE CONSTITUTIONThe Beginning of a New Era

PART I(Pages 1-114)

THEME ONE

BRICKS, BEADS AND BONESThe Harappan Civilisation

THEME TWO

KINGS, FARMERS AND TOWNSEarly States and Economies(c. 600 BCE -600 CE)

THEME THREE

KINSHIP, CASTE AND CLASSEarly Societies(c. 600 BCE-600 CE)

THEME FOUR

THINKERS, BELIEFS AND BUILDINGSCultural Developments(c. 600 BCE-600 CE)

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Women and men have travelled in search of work, to escapefrom natural disasters, as traders, merchants, soldiers,priests, pilgrims, or driven by a sense of adventure.Those who visit or come to stay in a new landinvariably encounter a world that is different:in terms of the landscape or physicalenvironment as well as customs, languages,beliefs and practices of people. Many of themtry to adapt to these differences; others,somewhat exceptional, note them carefully inaccounts, generally recording what they findunusual or remarkable. Unfortunately, we havepractically no accounts of travel left by women, thoughwe know that they travelled.

The accounts that survive are often varied in terms oftheir subject matter. Some deal with affairs of the court,while others are mainly focused on religious issues, orarchitectural features and monuments. For example, oneof the most important descriptions of the city ofVijayanagara (Chapter 7) in the fifteenth century comesfrom Abdur Razzaq Samarqandi, a diplomat who camevisiting from Herat.

In a few cases, travellers did not go to distant lands. Forexample, in the Mughal Empire (Chapters 8 and 9),administrators sometimes travelled within theempire and recorded their observations. Someof them were interested in looking at popularcustoms and the folklore and traditions oftheir own land.

In this chapter we shall see how ourknowledge of the past can be enrichedthrough a consideration of descriptions ofsocial life provided by travellers who visitedthe subcontinent, focusing on the accounts of threemen: Al-Biruni who came from Uzbekistan (eleventhcentury), Ibn Battuta who came from Morocco, innorthwestern Africa (fourteenth century) and theFrenchman François Bernier (seventeenth century).

Through the Eyes of TravellersPerceptions of SocietyPerceptions of SocietyPerceptions of SocietyPerceptions of SocietyPerceptions of Society

(((((ccccc. tenth to seventeenth century). tenth to seventeenth century). tenth to seventeenth century). tenth to seventeenth century). tenth to seventeenth century)

THEME

FIVE

Fig. 5.1bA coconutThe coconut and the paanwere things that struck manytravellers as unusual.

Fig. 5.1aPaan leaves

THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II116

As these authors came from vastly differentsocial and cultural environments, they were oftenmore attentive to everyday activities and practiceswhich were taken for granted by indigenouswriters, for whom these were routine matters, notworthy of being recorded. It is this difference inperspective that makes the accounts of travellersinteresting. Who did these travellers write for? Aswe will see, the answers vary from one instanceto the next.

1. Al-Biruni and theKitab-ul-Hind

1.1 From Khwarizm to the PunjabAl-Biruni was born in 973, in Khwarizm in present-day Uzbekistan. Khwarizm was an important centreof learning, and Al-Biruni received the besteducation available at the time. He was well versedin several languages: Syriac, Arabic, Persian,Hebrew and Sanskrit. Although he did not knowGreek, he was familiar with the works of Platoand other Greek philosophers, having readthem in Arabic translations. In 1017, when SultanMahmud invaded Khwarizm, he took severalscholars and poets back to his capital, Ghazni;Al-Biruni was one of them. He arrived in Ghazni asa hostage, but gradually developed a liking for thecity, where he spent the rest of his life until hisdeath at the age of 70.

It was in Ghazni that Al-Biruni developed aninterest in India. This was not unusual. Sanskritworks on astronomy, mathematics and medicine hadbeen translated into Arabic from the eighth centuryonwards. When the Punjab became a part of theGhaznavid empire, contacts with the local populationhelped create an environment of mutual trust andunderstanding. Al-Biruni spent years in the companyof Brahmana priests and scholars, learning Sanskrit,and studying religious and philosophical texts. Whilehis itinerary is not clear, it is likely that he travelledwidely in the Punjab and parts of northern India.

Travel literature was already an accepted part ofArabic literature by the time he wrote. This literaturedealt with lands as far apart as the Sahara desertin the west to the River Volga in the north. So, while

Translating texts,sharing ideas

Al-Biruni’s expertise in severallanguages al lowed him tocompare languages andtranslate texts. He translatedseveral Sanskrit works, includingPatanjali’s work on grammar,into Arabic. For his Brahmanafriends, he translated theworks of Euclid (a Greekmathematician) into Sanskrit.

Al-Biruni’s objectives

Al-Biruni described his work as:

a help to those who want todiscuss religious questionswith them (the Hindus), andas a repertory of informationto those who want toassociate with them.

Source 1

Read the excerpt fromAl-Biruni (Source 5) anddiscuss whether his workmet these objectives.

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few people in India would have read Al-Biruni before1500, many others outside India may have done so.

1.2 The Kitab-ul-HindAl-Biruni’s Kitab-ul-Hind, written in Arabic, is simpleand lucid. It is a voluminous text, divided into80 chapters on subjects such as religion andphilosophy, festivals, astronomy, alchemy, mannersand customs, social life, weights and measures,iconography, laws and metrology.

Generally (though not always), Al-Biruni adopteda distinctive structure in each chapter, beginningwith a question, following this up with a descriptionbased on Sanskritic traditions, and concludingwith a comparison with other cultures. Somepresent-day scholars have argued that this almostgeometric structure, remarkable for its precision andpredictability, owed much to his mathematicalorientation.

Al-Biruni, who wrote in Arabic, probably intendedhis work for peoples living along the frontiers of thesubcontinent. He was familiar with translationsand adaptations of Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit textsinto Arabic – these ranged from fables to works onastronomy and medicine. However, he was alsocritical about the ways in which these texts werewritten, and clearly wanted to improve on them.

THROUGH THE EYES OF TRAVELLERS

Metrology is the science ofmeasurement.

HinduThe term “Hindu” was derivedfrom an Old Persian word,used c. sixth-fifth centuriesBCE, to refer to the region eastof the river Sindhu (Indus).The Arabs continued thePersian usage and called thisregion “al-Hind” and itspeople “Hindi”. Later theTurks referred to the peopleeast of the Indus as “Hindu”,their land as “Hindustan”, andtheir language as “Hindavi”.None of these expressionsindicated the religious identityof the people. It was muchlater that the term developedreligious connotations.

Discuss...If Al-Biruni lived in thetwenty-first century, whichare the areas of the worldwhere he could have beeneasily understood, if he stillknew the same languages?

Fig. 5.2An illustration from a thirteenth-century Arabic manuscriptshowing the Athenianstatesman and poet Solon, wholived in the sixth century BCE,addressing his studentsNotice the clothes they areshown in.

Are these clothes Greekor Arabian?


2. Ibn Battuta’s Rihla2.1 An early globe-trotterIbn Battuta’s book of travels, called Rihla, written inArabic, provides extremely rich and interestingdetails about the social and cultural life in thesubcontinent in the fourteenth century. ThisMoroccan traveller was born in Tangier into one ofthe most respectable and educated families knownfor their expertise in Islamic religious law or shari‘a.True to the tradition of his family, Ibn Battutareceived literary and scholastic education when hewas quite young.

Unlike most other members of his class, IbnBattuta considered experience gained through travelsto be a more important source of knowledge thanbooks. He just loved travelling, and went to far-offplaces, exploring new worlds and peoples. Before heset off for India in 1332-33, he had made pilgrimagetrips to Mecca, and had already travelled extensivelyin Syria, Iraq, Persia, Yemen, Oman and a fewtrading ports on the coast of East Africa.

Travelling overland through Central Asia, IbnBattuta reached Sind in 1333. He had heardabout Muhammad bin Tughlaq, the Sultan of Delhi,and lured by his reputation as a generous patronof arts and letters, set off for Delhi, passing throughMultan and Uch. The Sultan was impressed byhis scholarship, and appointed him the qazi or judgeof Delhi. He remained in that position for severalyears, until he fell out of favour and was throwninto prison. Once the misunderstanding between

him and the Sultan was cleared, he wasrestored to imperial service, and wasordered in 1342 to proceed to China as theSultan’s envoy to the Mongol ruler.

With the new assignment, Ibn Battutaproceeded to the Malabar coast throughcentral India. From Malabar he went tothe Maldives, where he stayed for eighteenmonths as the qazi, but eventually decidedto proceed to Sri Lanka. He then went backonce more to the Malabar coast and theMaldives, and before resuming his missionto China, visited Bengal and Assam as well.He took a ship to Sumatra, and from thereanother ship for the Chinese port town of

Source 2

Fig. 5.3Robbers attacking travellers, asixteenth-century Mughal painting

How can you distinguish thetravellers from the robbers?

The bird leaves its nest

This is an excerpt from the Rihla:

My departure from Tangier,my birthplace, took place onThursday ... I set out alone,having neither fel low-traveller ... nor caravanwhose party I might join, butswayed by an overmasteringimpulse within me and adesire long-cherished in mybosom to vis i t theseillustrious sanctuaries. So Ibraced my resolution to quitall my dear ones, female andmale, and forsook my homeas birds forsake their nests ...My age at that time wastwenty-two years.

Ibn Battuta returned home in1354, about 30 years after hehad set out.

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Zaytun (now known as Quanzhou). He travelledextensively in China, going as far as Beijing, but didnot stay for long, deciding to return home in 1347.His account is often compared with that of MarcoPolo, who visited China (and also India) from hishome base in Venice in the late thirteenth century.

Ibn Battuta meticulously recorded his observationsabout new cultures, peoples, beliefs, values, etc.We need to bear in mind that this globe-trotter wastravelling in the fourteenth century, when it wasmuch more arduous and hazardous to travel than itis today. According to Ibn Battuta, it took forty daysto travel from Multan to Delhi and about fifty daysfrom Sind to Delhi. The distance from Daulatabadto Delhi was covered in forty days, while that fromGwalior to Delhi took ten days.

Fig. 5.4A boat carrying passengers,a terracotta sculpture froma temple in Bengal(c. seventeenth-eighteenth centuries)

Why do you think some ofthe passengers are carryingarms?


The lonely travellerRobbers were not the only hazard on long journeys: the traveller could feel homesick,or fall ill. Here is an excerpt from the Rihla:

I was attacked by the fever, and I actually tied myself on the saddle with a turban-cloth in case I should fall off by reason of my weakness ... So at last we reachedthe town of Tunis, and the townsfolk came out to welcome the shaikh ... and ...the son of the qazi ... On all sides they came forward with greetings and questionsto one another, but not a soul said a word of greeting to me, since there was noneof them I knew. I felt so sad at heart on account of my loneliness that I could notrestrain the tears that started to my eyes, and wept bitterly. But one of the pilgrims,realising the cause of my distress, came up to me with a greeting ...


Travelling was also more insecure: Ibn Battutawas attacked by bands of robbers several times.In fact he preferred travelling in a caravan alongwith companions, but this did not deter highwayrobbers. While travelling from Multan to Delhi,for instance, his caravan was attacked and manyof his fellow travellers lost their lives; thosetravellers who survived, including Ibn Battuta,were severely wounded.

2.2 The “enjoyment of curiosities”As we have seen, Ibn Battuta was an inveteratetraveller who spent several years travelling throughnorth Africa, West Asia and parts of Central Asia(he may even have visited Russia), the Indiansubcontinent and China, before returning to hisnative land, Morocco. When he returned, the localruler issued instructions that his stories be recorded.

Map 1Places visited byIbn Battuta inAfghanistan,Sind and PunjabMany of theplace-nameshave been spelt asIbn Battuta wouldhave known them.

Sketch map not to scale

ARABIAN SEA

Andkhoy

Tirmidh

BalkhQunduz

Parwan

Kabul

Ghazna

Qandahar

Ajudahan

Multan

Uja Hansi Dehli

Sarasati

AbuharIndus

Lahari

Sutlej

Use the scale on the map tocalculate the distance in milesbetween Multan and Delhi.

0 100 200 300

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Education and entertainment

This is what Ibn Juzayy, who was deputed to write whatIbn Battuta dictated, said in his introduction:

A gracious direction was transmitted (by the ruler)that he (Ibn Battuta) should dictate an account ofthe cities which he had seen in his travel, and ofthe interesting events which had clung to hismemory, and that he should speak of those whomhe had met of the rulers of countries, of theirdistinguished men of learning, and their pious saints.Accordingly, he dictated upon these subjects anarrative which gave entertainment to the mindand delight to the ears and eyes, with a variety ofcurious particulars by the exposition of which hegave edif ication and of marvellous things, byreferring to which he aroused interest.

In the footsteps of Ibn BattutaIn the centuries between 1400 and 1800 visitors to Indiawrote a number of travelogues in Persian. At the sametime, Indian visitors to Central Asia, Iran and the Ottomanempire also sometimes wrote about their experiences.These writers followed in the footsteps of Al-Biruni andIbn Battuta, and had sometimes read these earlier authors.

Among the best known of these writers were AbdurRazzaq Samarqandi, who visited south India in the 1440s,Mahmud Wali Balkhi, who travelled very widely in the1620s, and Shaikh Ali Hazin, who came to north India inthe 1740s. Some of these authors were fascinated by India,and one of them – Mahmud Balkhi – even became a sortof sanyasi for a time. Others such as Hazin weredisappointed and even disgusted with India, where theyexpected to receive a red carpet treatment. Most of themsaw India as a land of wonders.

Source 3


Fig. 5.5An eighteenth-century paintingdepicting travellers gatheredaround a campfire Discuss...

Compare the objectives of Al-Biruni andIbn Battuta in writing their accounts.


3. François BernierA Doctor with a Difference

Once the Portuguese arrived in India in about 1500,a number of them wrote detailed accounts regardingIndian social customs and religious practices. A fewof them, such as the Jesuit Roberto Nobili, eventranslated Indian texts into European languages.

Among the best known of the Portuguese writersis Duarte Barbosa, who wrote a detailed account oftrade and society in south India. Later, after 1600,we find growing numbers of Dutch, English andFrench travellers coming to India. One of the mostfamous was the French jeweller Jean-BaptisteTavernier, who travelled to India at least six times.He was particularly fascinated with the tradingconditions in India, and compared India to Iran andthe Ottoman empire. Some of these travellers, likethe Italian doctor Manucci, never returned to Europe,and settled down in India.

François Bernier, a Frenchman, was a doctor,political philosopher and historian. Like manyothers, he came to the Mughal Empire in search ofopportunities. He was in India for twelve years, from1656 to 1668, and was closely associated with theMughal court, as a physician to Prince Dara Shukoh,the eldest son of Emperor Shah Jahan, and later asan intellectual and scientist, with DanishmandKhan, an Armenian noble at the Mughal court.

3.1 Comparing “East” and “West”Bernier travelled to several parts of the country, andwrote accounts of what he saw, frequently comparingwhat he saw in India with the situation in Europe.He dedicated his major writing to Louis XIV, theking of France, and many of his other works werewritten in the form of letters to influential officialsand ministers. In virtually every instance Bernierdescribed what he saw in India as a bleak situationin comparison to developments in Europe. As wewill see, this assessment was not always accurate.However, when his works were published, Bernier’swritings became extremely popular.

Fig. 5.6A seventeenth-century paintingdepicting Bernier in Europeanclothes

Fig. 5.7A painting depicting Tavernier in Indian clothes

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Travelling with the Mughal army

Bernier often travelled with the army. This is an excerptfrom his description of the army’s march to Kashmir:

I am expected to keep two good Turkoman horses, andI also take with me a powerful Persian camel and driver,a groom for my horses, a cook and a servant to gobefore my horse with a flask of water in his hand,according to the custom of the country. I am alsoprovided with every useful article, such as a tent ofmoderate size, a carpet, a portable bed made of fourvery strong but light canes, a pillow, a mattress, roundleather table-cloths used at meals, some few napkins ofdyed cloth, three small bags with culinary utensils whichare all placed in a large bag, and this bag is again carriedin a very capacious and strong double sack or net madeof leather thongs. This double sack likewise containsthe provisions, linen and wearing apparel, both ofmaster and servants. I have taken care to lay in a stockof excellent rice for five or six days’ consumption, ofsweet biscuits flavoured with anise (a herb), of limesand sugar. Nor have I forgotten a linen bag with itssmall iron hook for the purpose of suspending anddraining dahi or curds; nothing being considered sorefreshing in this country as lemonade and dahi.

Bernier’s works were published in France in1670-71 and translated into English, Dutch, Germanand Italian within the next five years. Between 1670and 1725 his account was reprinted eight times inFrench, and by 1684 it had been reprinted threetimes in English. This was in marked contrast tothe accounts in Arabic and Persian, which circulatedas manuscripts and were generally not publishedbefore 1800.

The creation andcirculation of ideas

about IndiaThe wri t ings of Europeantravellers helped produce animage of India for Europeansthrough the pr int ing andcirculat ion of their books.Later, after 1750, when Indianslike Shaikh Itisamuddin andMirza Abu Talib visited Europeand confronted this imagethat Europeans had of theirsociety, they tried to influencei t by producing their ownversion of matters.

Discuss...There is a very rich travelliterature in Indianlanguages. Find out abouttravel writers in the languageyou use at home. Read onesuch account and describethe areas visited by thetraveller, what s/he saw, andwhy s/he wrote the account.

Source 4


What are the things from Bernier’s listthat you would take on a journey today?


4. Making Sense of an Alien WorldAl-Biruni and the SanskriticTradition

4.1 Overcoming barriers to understandingAs we have seen, travellers often compared whatthey saw in the subcontinent with practiceswith which they were familiar. Each travelleradopted distinct strategies to understand what theyobserved. Al-Biruni, for instance, was aware of theproblems inherent in the task he had set himself.He discussed several “barriers” that he feltobstructed understanding. The first amongst thesewas language. According to him, Sanskrit was sodifferent from Arabic and Persian that ideas andconcepts could not be easily translated from onelanguage into another.

The second barrier he identified was the differencein religious beliefs and practices. The self-absorptionand consequent insularity of the local populationaccording to him, constituted the third barrier.What is interesting is that even though he was awareof these problems, Al-Biruni depended almostexclusively on the works of Brahmanas, often citingpassages from the Vedas, the Puranas, the BhagavadGita, the works of Patanjali, the Manusmriti, etc., toprovide an understanding of Indian society.

4.2 Al-Biruni’s description of the caste systemAl-Biruni tried to explain the caste system by lookingfor parallels in other societies. He noted that inancient Persia, four social categories wererecognised: those of knights and princes; monks,fire-priests and lawyers; physicians, astronomersand other scientists; and finally, peasants andartisans. In other words, he attempted to suggestthat social divisions were not unique to India. Atthe same time he pointed out that within Islam allmen were considered equal, differing only in theirobservance of piety.

In spite of his acceptance of the Brahmanicaldescription of the caste system, Al-Biruni disapprovedof the notion of pollution. He remarked thateverything which falls into a state of impurity strivesand succeeds in regaining its original condition ofpurity. The sun cleanses the air, and the salt in thesea prevents the water from becoming polluted. If it

A language with anenormous range

Al-Biruni described Sanskrit asfollows:

If you want to conquer thisdif f iculty (i .e. to learnSanskrit), you will not findit easy, because thelanguage is of an enormousrange, both in words andinflections, something likethe Arabic, calling one andthe same thing by variousnames, both original andderivative, and using oneand the same word for avariety of subjects, which,in order to be properlyunderstood, must bedistinguished from eachother by various qualifyingepithets.

God knows best!Travellers did not always believewhat they were told. Whenfaced with the story of a woodenidol that supposedly lasted for216,432 years, Al-Biruni asks:

How, then, could woodhave lasted such a length oftime, and particularly in aplace where the air and thesoil are rather wet? Godknows best!

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were not so, insisted Al-Biruni, life on earth wouldhave been impossible. The conception of socialpollution, intrinsic to the caste system, wasaccording to him, contrary to the laws of nature.

The system of varnas

This is Al-Biruni’s account of the system of varnas:

The highest caste are the Brahmana, of whom thebooks of the Hindus tell us that they were created fromthe head of Brahman. And as the Brahman is onlyanother name for the force called nature, and the headis the highest part of the … body, the Brahmana are thechoice part of the whole genus. Therefore the Hindusconsider them as the very best of mankind.

The next caste are the Kshatriya, who were created,as they say, from the shoulders and hands of Brahman.Their degree is not much below that of the Brahmana.

After them follow the Vaishya, who were created fromthe thigh of Brahman.

The Shudra, who were created from his feet . . .

Between the latter two classes there is no verygreat distance. Much, however, as these classesdiffer from each other, they live together in thesame towns and villages, mixed together in the samehouses and lodgings.

As we have seen, Al-Biruni’s description of thecaste system was deeply influenced by his studyof normative Sanskrit texts which laid down the rulesgoverning the system from the point of view ofthe Brahmanas. However, in real life the systemwas not quite as rigid. For instance, the categoriesdefined as antyaja (literally, born outside the system)were often expected to provide inexpensive labour toboth peasants and zamindars (see also Chapter 8).In other words, while they were often subjected tosocial oppression, they were included withineconomic networks.

Discuss...How important is knowledgeof the language of the area fora traveller from a differentregion?

Source 5

Compare what Al-Biruniwrote with Source 6, Chapter 3.Do you notice any similaritiesand differences? Do you thinkAl-Biruni depended only onSanskrit texts for hisinformation and understandingof Indian society?



5. Ibn Battuta and the Excitementof the Unfamiliar

By the time Ibn Battuta arrived in Delhi in thefourteenth century, the subcontinent was part of aglobal network of communication that stretched fromChina in the east to north-west Africa and Europein the west. As we have seen, Ibn Battuta himselftravelled extensively through these lands, visitingsacred shrines, spending time with learned men andrulers, often officiating as qazi, and enjoying thecosmopolitan culture of urban centres where peoplewho spoke Arabic, Persian, Turkish and otherlanguages, shared ideas, information and anecdotes.These included stories about men noted for theirpiety, kings who could be both cruel and generous,and about the lives of ordinary men and women;anything that was unfamiliar was particularlyhighlighted in order to ensure that the listener orthe reader was suitably impressed by accounts ofdistant yet accessible worlds.

5.1 The coconut and the paanSome of the best examples of Ibn Battuta’s strategiesof representation are evident in the ways in whichhe described the coconut and the paan, two kinds ofplant produce that were completely unfamiliar tohis audience.

The paan

Read Ibn Battuta’s description of the paan:

The betel is a tree which is cultivated in the samemanner as the grape-vine; … The betel has no fruitand is grown only for the sake of its leaves … Themanner of its use is that before eating it one takesareca nut; this is like a nutmeg but is broken up until itis reduced to small pellets, and one places these in hismouth and chews them. Then he takes the leaves ofbetel, puts a little chalk on them, and masticates themalong with the betel.

Nuts like a man’s head

The following is how Ibn Battutadescribed the coconut:

These trees are among themost peculiar trees in kindand most astonishing inhabit. They look exactlylike date-palms, withoutany dif ference betweenthem except that the oneproduces nuts as its fruitsand the other producesdates. The nut of a coconuttree resembles a man’shead, for in it are what looklike two eyes and a mouth,and the inside of it when it isgreen looks like the brain,and attached to it is a fibrewhich looks like hair. Theymake from this cords withwhich they sew up shipsinstead of (using) iron nails,and they (also) make from itcables for vessels.

Source 6

What are thecomparisons that IbnBattuta makes to give hisreaders an idea aboutwhat coconuts lookedlike? Do you think theseare appropriate? Howdoes he convey a sensethat this fruit is unusual?How accurate is hisdescription?

Source 7

Why do you think this attracted IbnBattuta’s attention? Is there anything youwould like to add to this description?

127

5.2 Ibn Battuta and Indian citiesIbn Battuta found cities in the subcontinent full ofexciting opportunities for those who had thenecessary drive, resources and skills. They weredensely populated and prosperous, except for theoccasional disruptions caused by wars andinvasions. It appears from Ibn Battuta’s account thatmost cities had crowded streets and bright andcolourful markets that were stacked with a widevariety of goods. Ibn Battuta described Delhi as avast city, with a great population, the largest in India.Daulatabad (in Maharashtra) was no less, and easilyrivalled Delhi in size.

Source 8

Dehli

Here is an excerpt from Ibn Battuta’s account of Delhi, often spelt as Dehli in textsof the period:

The city of Dehli covers a wide area and has a large population ...The rampart round the city is without parallel. The breadth of its wallis eleven cubits; and inside it are houses for the night sentry and gate-keepers. Inside the ramparts, there are store-houses for storing edibles,magazines, ammunition, ballistas and siege machines. The grains thatare stored (in these ramparts) can last for a long time, without rotting... In the interior of the rampart, horsemen as well as infantrymenmove from one end of the city to another. The rampart is piercedthrough by windows which open on the side of the city, and it isthrough these windows that light enters inside. The lower part of therampart is built of stone; the upper part of bricks. It has many towersclose to one another. There are twenty eight gates of this city whichare called darwaza, and of these, the Budaun darwaza is the greatest;inside the Mandwi darwaza there is a grain market; adjacent to theGul darwaza there is an orchard ... It (the city of Dehli) has a fine cemetery in which graves havedomes over them, and those that do not have a dome, have an arch, for sure. In the cemetery

they sow flowers suchas tuberose, jasmine,wild rose, etc.; andflowers blossom therein all seasons.

What were the architecturalfeatures that Ibn Battutanoted?Compare this description withthe illustrations of the cityshown in Figs. 5.8 and 5.9.


Fig. 5.8 (top)An arch in Tughlakabad,Delhi

Fig. 5.9 (left)Part of the fortificationwall of the settlement


The bazaars were not only places of economictransactions, but also the hub of social and culturalactivities. Most bazaars had a mosque and a temple,and in some of them at least, spaces were marked forpublic performances by dancers, musicians and singers.

While Ibn Battuta was not particularly concernedwith explaining the prosperity of towns, historians haveused his account to suggest that towns derived asignificant portion of their wealth through theappropriation of surplus from villages. Ibn Battutafound Indian agriculture very productive because ofthe fertility of the soil, which allowed farmers tocultivate two crops a year. He also noted that thesubcontinent was well integrated with inter-Asiannetworks of trade and commerce, with Indianmanufactures being in great demand in both West Asiaand Southeast Asia, fetching huge profits for artisansand merchants. Indian textiles, particularly cottoncloth, fine muslins, silks, brocade and satin, were ingreat demand. Ibn Battuta informs us that certainvarieties of fine muslin were so expensive that theycould be worn only by the nobles and the very rich.

Music in the market

Read Ibn Battuta’s description of Daulatabad:

In Daulatabad there is a market place for male andfemale singers, which is known as Tarababad. It is oneof the greatest and most beautiful bazaars. It hasnumerous shops and every shop has a door whichleads into the house of the owner ... The shops aredecorated with carpets and at the centre of a shopthere is a swing on which sits the female singer. She isdecked with all kinds of finery and her female attendantsswing her. In the middle of the market place there standsa large cupola, which is carpeted and decorated andin which the chief of the musicians takes his place everyThursday after the dawn prayers, accompanied by hisservants and slaves. The female singers come insuccessive crowds, sing before him and dance untildusk after which he withdraws. In this bazaar there aremosques for offering prayers ... One of the Hindu rulers... alighted at the cupola every time he passed by thismarket place, and the female singers would sing beforehim. Even some Muslim rulers did the same.

Source 9

Fig. 5.10Ikat weaving patterns such as thiswere adopted and modified atseveral coastal production centresin the subcontinent and inSoutheast Asia.

Why do you think IbnBattuta highlighted theseactivities in his description?

129

5.3 A unique system of communicationThe state evidently took special measures toencourage merchants. Almost all trade routes werewell supplied with inns and guest houses. IbnBattuta was also amazed by the efficiency of thepostal system which allowed merchants to not onlysend information and remit credit across longdistances, but also to dispatch goods required atshort notice. The postal system was so efficient thatwhile it took fifty days to reach Delhi from Sind,the news reports of spies would reach the Sultanthrough the postal system in just five days.

On horse and on foot

This is how Ibn Battuta describes the postal system:

In India the postal system is of two kinds. The horse-post, called uluq, is run by royal horses stationed at adistance of every four miles. The foot-post has threestations per mile; it is called dawa, that is one-third of amile ... Now, at every third of a mile there is a well-populated village, outside which are three pavilions inwhich sit men with girded loins ready to start. Each ofthem carries a rod, two cubits in length, with copperbells at the top. When the courier starts from the cityhe holds the letter in one hand and the rod with itsbells on the other; and he runs as fast as he can. Whenthe men in the pavilion hear the ringing of the bell theyget ready. As soon as the courier reaches them, one ofthem takes the letter from his hand and runs at topspeed shaking the rod all the while until he reachesthe next dawa. And the same process continues till theletter reaches its destination. This foot-post is quickerthan the horse-post; and often it is used to transportthe fruits of Khurasan which are much desired in India.

Discuss...How did Ibn Battuta handle the problem ofdescribing things or situations to people whohad not seen or experienced them?

A strange nation?The travelogue of Abdur Razzaqwritten in the 1440s is aninteresting mixture of emotionsand perceptions. On the onehand, he did not appreciatewhat he saw in the port ofCalicut (present-day Kozhikode)in Kerala, which was populatedby “a people the likes of whom Ihad never imagined”, describingthem as “a strange nation”.

Later in his visit to India, hearrived in Mangalore, andcrossed the Western Ghats. Herehe saw a temple that filled himwith admiration:

Within three leagues (aboutnine miles of Mangalore, Isaw an idol-house the likesof which is not to be foundin all the world. It was asquare, approximately tenyards a side, five yards inheight, all covered with castbronze, with four porticos.In the entrance portico wasa statue in the likeness of ahuman being, full stature,made of gold. It had twored rubies for eyes, socunningly made that youwould say it could see.What craft and artisanship!

Source 10

Do you think the foot-post system couldhave operated throughout the subcontinent?



6. Bernier and the “Degenerate”East

If Ibn Battuta chose to describe everything thatimpressed and excited him because of its novelty,François Bernier belonged to a different intellectualtradition. He was far more preoccupied withcomparing and contrasting what he saw in Indiawith the situation in Europe in general and Francein particular, focusing on situations which heconsidered depressing. His idea seems to have beento influence policy-makers and the intelligentsia toensure that they made what he considered to be the“right” decisions.

Bernier’s Travels in the Mughal Empire is markedby detailed observations, critical insights andreflection. His account contains discussions tryingto place the history of the Mughals within some sortof a universal framework. He constantly comparedMughal India with contemporary Europe, generallyemphasising the superiority of the latter. Hisrepresentation of India works on the model ofbinary opposition, where India is presented as theinverse of Europe. He also ordered the perceiveddifferences hierarchically, so that India appeared tobe inferior to the Western world.

6.1 The question of landownershipAccording to Bernier, one of the fundamentaldifferences between Mughal India and Europe wasthe lack of private property in land in the former.He was a firm believer in the virtues of privateproperty, and saw crown ownership of land asbeing harmful for both the state and its people. Hethought that in the Mughal Empire the emperorowned all the land and distributed it among hisnobles, and that this had disastrous consequencesfor the economy and society. This perception wasnot unique to Bernier, but is found in mosttravellers’ accounts of the sixteenth andseventeenth centuries.

Owing to crown ownership of land, argued Bernier,landholders could not pass on their land to theirchildren. So they were averse to any long-terminvestment in the sustenance and expansion ofproduction. The absence of private property in landhad, therefore, prevented the emergence of the classof “improving” landlords (as in Western Europe) with

Widespread povertyPelsaert, a Dutch traveller, visitedthe subcontinent during the earlydecades of the seventeenthcentury. Like Bernier, he wasshocked to see the widespreadpoverty, “poverty so great andmiserable that the life of thepeople can be depicted oraccurately described only as thehome of stark want and thedwelling place of bitter woe”.Holding the state responsible,he says: “So much is wrungfrom the peasants that even drybread is scarcely left to fil ltheir stomachs.”

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a concern to maintain or improve the land. It hadled to the uniform ruination of agriculture, excessiveoppression of the peasantry and a continuous declinein the living standards of all sections of society, exceptthe ruling aristocracy.

The poor peasant

An excerpt from Bernier’s description of the peasantry inthe countryside:

Of the vast tracts of country constituting the empire ofHindustan, many are little more than sand, or barrenmountains, badly cultivated, and thinly populated.Even a considerable portion of the good land remainsuntilled for want of labourers; many of whom perish inconsequence of the bad treatment they experiencefrom Governors. The poor people, when they becomeincapable of discharging the demands of theirrapacious lords, are not only often deprived of themeans of subsistence, but are also made to lose theirchildren, who are carried away as slaves. Thus, ithappens that the peasantry, driven to despair by soexcessive a tyranny, abandon the country.

In this instance, Bernier was participating incontemporary debates in Europe concerning the natureof state and society, and intended that his description ofMughal India would serve as a warning to those who didnot recognise the “merits” of private property.

As an extension of this, Bernier described Indiansociety as consisting of undifferentiated masses ofimpoverished people, subjugated by a small minorityof a very rich and powerful ruling class. Betweenthe poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich,there was no social group or class worth the name.Bernier confidently asserted: “There is no middlestate in India.”

Source 11

What, according to Bernier, were theproblems faced by peasants in thesubcontinent? Do you think his descriptionwould have served to strengthen his case?


Fig. 5.11Drawings such as thisnineteenth-century exampleoften reinforced the notion ofan unchanging rural society.


This, then, is how Bernier saw the Mughal Empire– its king was the king of “beggars and barbarians”;its cities and towns were ruined and contaminatedwith “ill air”; and its fields, “overspread with bushes”and full of “pestilential marishes”. And, all this wasbecause of one reason: crown ownership of land.

Curiously, none of the Mughal official documentssuggest that the state was the sole owner of land.For instance, Abu’l Fazl, the sixteenth-centuryofficial chronicler of Akbar’s reign, describes the landrevenue as “remunerations of sovereignty”, a claimmade by the ruler on his subjects for the protectionhe provided rather than as rent on land that heowned. It is possible that European travellersregarded such claims as rent because land revenuedemands were often very high. However, this wasactually not a rent or even a land tax, but a tax onthe crop (for more details, see Chapter 8).

Bernier’s descriptions influenced Westerntheorists from the eighteenth century onwards. TheFrench philosopher Montesquieu, for instance, usedthis account to develop the idea of oriental despotism,according to which rulers in Asia (the Orient or theEast) enjoyed absolute authority over their subjects,who were kept in conditions of subjugation andpoverty, arguing that all land belonged to the kingand that private property was non-existent.According to this view, everybody, except the emperorand his nobles, barely managed to survive.

This idea was further developed as the concept ofthe Asiatic mode of production by Karl Marx in thenineteenth century. He argued that in India (andother Asian countries), before colonialism, surpluswas appropriated by the state. This led to theemergence of a society that was composed of a largenumber of autonomous and (internally) egalitarianvillage communities. The imperial court presidedover these village communities, respecting theirautonomy as long as the flow of surplus wasunimpeded. This was regarded as a stagnant system.

However, as we will see (Chapter 8), this pictureof rural society was far from true. In fact, duringthe sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, ruralsociety was characterised by considerable social andeconomic differentiation. At one end of the spectrumwere the big zamindars, who enjoyed superior rightsin land and, at the other, the “untouchable” landless

A warning for Europe

Bernier warned that i fEuropean kings followed theMughal model:

Their kingdoms would bevery far from being well-cultivated and peopled,so well built, so rich, sopolite and flourishing aswe see them. Our kingsare otherwise rich andpowerful; and we mustavow that they are muchbetter and more royallyserved. They would soon bekings of deserts andsolitudes, of beggars andbarbarians, such as thoseare whom I have beenrepresenting (the Mughals)… We should f ind thegreat Cities and the greatBurroughs (boroughs)rendered uninhabitablebecause of ill air, and tofall to ruine (ruin) withoutany bodies (anybody) takingcare of repairing them;the hi l locks abandon’d,and the fields overspreadwith bushes, or f i l l ’dwith pestilential marishes(marshes), as hath beenalready intimated.

Source 12

How does Bernier depicta scenario of doom?Once you have readChapters 8 and 9, returnto this description andanalyse it again.

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labourers. In between was the big peasant, who usedhired labour and engaged in commodity production, andthe smaller peasant who could barely produce for hissubsistence.

6.2 A more complex social realityWhile Bernier’s preoccupation with projecting theMughal state as tyrannical is obvious, his descriptionsoccasionally hint at a more complex social reality. Forinstance, he felt that artisans had no incentive toimprove the quality of their manufactures, since profitswere appropriated by the state. Manufactures were,consequently, everywhere in decline. At the same time,he conceded that vast quantities of the world’s preciousmetals flowed into India, as manufactures were exportedin exchange for gold and silver. He also noticed theexistence of a prosperous merchant community,engaged in long-distance exchange.

Source 13

A different socio-economic scenario

Read this excerpt from Bernier’s description of bothagriculture and craft production:

It is important to observe, that of this vast tract of country,a large portion is extremely fertile; the large kingdom ofBengale (Bengal), for instance, surpassing Egypt itself, notonly in the production of rice, corn, and other necessariesof life, but of innumerable articles of commerce which arenot cultivated in Egypt; such as silks, cotton, and indigo.There are also many parts of the Indies, where thepopulation is sufficiently abundant, and the land pretty welltilled; and where the artisan, although naturally indolent,is yet compelled by necessity or otherwise to employ himselfin manufacturing carpets, brocades, embroideries, goldand silver cloths, and the various sorts of silk and cottongoods, which are used in the country or exported abroad.

It should not escape notice that gold and silver, aftercirculating in every other quarter of the globe, come atlength to be swallowed up, lost in some measure, inHindustan.

In what ways is the description in this excerptdifferent from that in Source 11?


Fig. 5.12A gold spoon studded withemeralds and rubies, anexample of the dexterity ofMughal artisans


In fact, during the seventeenth century about15 per cent of the population lived in towns. Thiswas, on average, higher than the proportion of urbanpopulation in Western Europe in the same period.In spite of this Bernier described Mughal cities as“camp towns”, by which he meant towns that owedtheir existence, and depended for their survival,on the imperial camp. He believed that these cameinto existence when the imperial court moved inand rapidly declined when it moved out. Hesuggested that they did not have viable social andeconomic foundations but were dependent onimperial patronage.

As in the case of the question of landownership,Bernier was drawing an oversimplified picture.There were all kinds of towns: manufacturingtowns, trading towns, port-towns, sacred centres,pilgrimage towns, etc. Their existence is an indexof the prosperity of merchant communities andprofessional classes.

Merchants often had strong community or kin ties,and were organised into their own caste-cum-occupational bodies. In western India these groupswere called mahajans, and their chief, the sheth. Inurban centres such as Ahmedabad the mahajanswere collectively represented by the chief of themerchant community who was called the nagarsheth.

Other urban groups included professionalclasses such as physicians (hakim or vaid), teachers(pundit or mulla ), lawyers (wakil ), painters,architects, musicians, calligraphers, etc. Whilesome depended on imperial patronage, many madetheir living by serving other patrons, while stillothers served ordinary people in crowded marketsor bazaars.

The imperial karkhanas

Bernier is perhaps the onlyhistorian who provides a detailedaccount of the working ofthe imperial karkhanas orworkshops:

Large hal ls are seenat many places, cal ledkarkhanas or workshopsfor the artisans. In one hall,embroiderers are busilyemployed, superintendedby a master. In another,you see the goldsmiths; in athird, painters; in a fourth,varnishers in lacquer-work;in a fifth, joiners, turners,tailors and shoe-makers; ina sixth, manufacturers of silk,brocade and fine muslins …

The artisans come everymorning to their karkhanaswhere they remainemployed the whole day;and in the evening return totheir homes. In this quietregular manner, their timeglides away; no one aspiringfor any improvement in thecondition of life wherein hehappens to be born.

How does Bernierconvey a sense thatalthough there was agreat deal of activity,there was little progress?

Source 14

Discuss...Why do you think scholars like Bernier chose tocompare India with Europe?

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Slave women

Ibn Battuta informs us:

It is the habit of the emperor ... tokeep with every noble, great orsmall, one of his slaves who spieson the nobles. He also appointsfemale scavengers who enter thehouses unannounced; and to themthe slave girls communicate all theinformation they possess.

Most female slaves were captured inraids and expeditions.

7. WomenSlaves, Sati and Labourers

Travellers who left written accounts weregenerally men who were interested in andsometimes intrigued by the condition ofwomen in the subcontinent. Sometimes theytook social inequities for granted as a“natural” state of affairs. For instance,slaves were openly sold in markets, like anyother commodity, and were regularlyexchanged as gifts. When Ibn Battutareached Sind he purchased “horses, camelsand slaves” as gifts for Sultan Muhammadbin Tughlaq. When he reached Multan, hepresented the governor with, “a slave andhorse together with raisins and almonds”.Muhammad bin Tughlaq, informs IbnBattuta, was so happy with the sermon of apreacher named Nasiruddin that he gave him“a hundred thousand tankas (coins) andtwo hundred slaves”.

It appears from Ibn Battuta’s account thatthere was considerable differentiation amongslaves. Some female slaves in the service ofthe Sultan were experts in music and dance,and Ibn Battuta enjoyed their performanceat the wedding of the Sultan’s sister. Femaleslaves were also employed by the Sultan tokeep a watch on his nobles.

Slaves were generally used for domesticlabour, and Ibn Battuta found their servicesparticularly indispensable for carryingwomen and men on palanquins or dola. Theprice of slaves, particularly female slavesrequired for domestic labour, was very low,and most families who could afford to do sokept at least one or two of them.

Contemporary European travellers andwriters often highlighted the treatment ofwomen as a crucial marker of differencebetween Western and Eastern societies. Notsurprisingly, Bernier chose the practice ofsati for detailed description. He noted thatwhile some women seemed to embrace deathcheerfully, others were forced to die.

Source 15


Source 16

The child sati

This is perhaps one of the mostpoignant descriptions by Bernier:

At Lahore I saw a most beautifulyoung widow sacri f iced, whocould not, I think, have been morethan twelve years of age. The poorlittle creature appeared more deadthan alive when she approachedthe dreadful pit: the agony of hermind cannot be described; shetrembled and wept bitterly; butthree or four of the Brahmanas,assisted by an old woman who heldher under the arm, forced theunwilling victim toward the fatalspot, seated her on the wood, tiedher hands and feet, lest she shouldrun away, and in that situation theinnocent creature was burnt alive.I found it difficult to repress myfeel ings and to prevent theirbursting forth into clamorous andunavailing rage …


However, women’s lives revolved around much elsebesides the practice of sati. Their labour was crucialin both agricultural and non-agricultural production.Women from merchant families participated incommercial activities, sometimes even takingmercantile disputes to the court of law. It thereforeseems unlikely that women were confined to theprivate spaces of their homes.

You may have noticed that travellers’ accountsprovide us with a tantalising glimpse of the lives ofmen and women during these centuries. However,their observations were often shaped by the contextsfrom which they came. At the same time, there weremany aspects of social life that these travellers didnot notice.

Also relatively unknown are the experiences andobservations of men (and possibly women) from thesubcontinent who crossed seas and mountains andventured into lands beyond the subcontinent. Whatdid they see and hear? How were their relations withpeoples of distant lands shaped? What were thelanguages they used? These and other questions willhopefully be systematically addressed by historiansin the years to come.

Discuss...Why do you think the lives ofordinary women workers didnot attract the attention oftravellers such as Ibn Battutaand Bernier?

Fig. 5.13A sculpted panel from Mathuradepicting travellers

What are the various modesof transport that are shown?

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TimelineSome Travellers who Left Accounts


Tenth-eleventh centuries

973-1048 Muhammad ibn Ahmad Abu Raihan al-Biruni(from Uzbekistan)

Thirteenth century

1254-1323 Marco Polo (from Italy)

Fourteenth century

1304-77 Ibn Battuta (from Morocco)

Fifteenth century

1413-82 Abd al-Razzaq Kamal al-Din ibn Ishaq al-Samarqandi(from Samarqand)

1466-72 Afanasii Nikitich Nikitin(years spent in India) (fifteenth century, from Russia)

Sixteenth century

1518 Duarte Barbosa, d.1521 (from Portugal)(visit to India)

1562 Seydi Ali Reis (from Turkey)(year of death)

1536-1600 Antonio Monserrate (from Spain)

Seventeenth century

1626-31 Mahmud Wali Balkhi (from Balkh)(years spent in India)

1600-67 Peter Mundy (from England)

1605-89 Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (from France)

1620-88 François Bernier (from France)

Note: Unless otherwise indicated, the dates mentioned are those of the lifespan of the traveller.


Answer in100-150 words

1. Write a note on the Kitab-ul-Hind.

2. Compare and contrast the perspectives from which IbnBattuta and Bernier wrote their accounts of their travelsin India.

3. Discuss the picture of urban centres that emerges fromBernier’s account.

4. Analyse the evidence for slavery provided by Ibn Battuta.

5. What were the elements of the practice of sati that drewthe attention of Bernier?

Write a short essay (about250-300 words) on the following:

6. Discuss Al-Biruni’s understanding of the caste system.

7. Do you think Ibn Battuta’s account is useful inarriving at an understanding of life in contemporaryurban centres? Give reasons for your answer.

8. Discuss the extent to which Bernier’s account enableshistorians to reconstruct contemporary rural society.

9. Read this excerpt from Bernier:

Numerous are the instances of handsome piecesof workmanship made by persons destitute oftools, and who can scarcely be said to have receivedinstruction from a master. Sometimes they imitateso perfectly articles of European manufacture thatthe difference between the original and copy canhardly be discerned. Among other things, theIndians make excellent muskets, and fowling-pieces, and such beautiful gold ornaments thatit may be doubted if the exquisite workmanshipof those articles can be exceeded by any Europeangoldsmith. I have often admired the beauty,softness, and delicacy of their paintings.

List the crafts mentioned in the passage. Comparethese with the descriptions of artisanal activity inthe chapter.

139

Muzaffar Alam andSanjay Subrahmanyam. 2006.Indo-Persian Travels in the Ageof Discoveries, 1400-1800.Cambridge University Press,Cambridge.

Catherine Asher and CynthiaTalbot. 2006.India Before Europe.Cambridge University Press,Cambridge.

François Bernier. nd.Travels in the Mogul EmpireAD 1656-1668.Low Price Publications,New Delhi.

H.A.R. Gibb (ed.). 1993.The Travels of Ibn Battuta.Munshiram Manoharlal, Delhi.

Mushirul Hasan (ed.). 2005.Westward Bound:Travels of Mirza Abu Talib.Oxford University Press,New Delhi.

H.K. Kaul (ed.). 1997.Travellers’ India – an Anthology.Oxford University Press,New Delhi.

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier. 1993.Travels in India.Munshiram Manoharlal, Delhi.

Map work

If you would like to knowmore, read:

For more information,you could visit:www.edumaritime.org


10. On an outline map of the world mark the countriesvisited by Ibn Battuta. What are the seas that hemay have crossed?

Projects (choose one)

11. Interview any one of your older relatives (mother/father/grandparents/uncles/aunts) who hastravelled outside your town or village. Find out(a) where they went, (b) how they travelled,(c) how long did it take, (d) why did they travel(e) and did they face any difficulties. List as manysimilarities and differences that they may havenoticed between their place of residence and theplace they visited, focusing on language, clothes,food, customs, buildings, roads, the lives of menand women. Write a report on your findings.

12. For any one of the travellers mentioned inthe chapter, find out more about his life andwritings. Prepare a report on his travels, notingin particular how he described society, andcomparing these descriptions with the excerptsincluded in the chapter.

Fig. 5.14A painting depicting travellers at rest


We saw in Chapter 4 that by the mid-firstmillennium CE the landscape of the subcontinentwas dotted with a variety of religious structures –stupas, monasteries, temples. If these typifiedcertain religious beliefs and practices, others havebeen reconstructed from textual traditions,including the Puranas, many of which receivedtheir present shape around the same time, and yetothers remain only faintly visible in textual andvisual records.

New textual sources available from this periodinclude compositions attributed to poet-saints,most of whom expressed themselves orally inregional languages used by ordinary people. Thesecompositions, which were often set to music, werecompiled by disciples or devotees, generally afterthe death of the poet-saint. What is more, thesetraditions were fluid – generations of devotees tendedto elaborate on the original message, and occasionallymodified or even abandoned some of the ideas thatappeared problematic or irrelevant in differentpolitical, social or cultural contexts. Using thesesources thus poses a challenge to historians.

Historians also draw on hagiographies orbiographies of saints written by their followers (ormembers of their religious sect). These may not beliterally accurate, but allow a glimpse into the waysin which devotees perceived the lives of these path-breaking women and men.

As we will see, these sources provide us withinsights into a scenario characterised by dynamismand diversity. Let us look at some elements of thesemore closely.

Bhakti - Sufi TraditionsChanges in Religious Beliefs andChanges in Religious Beliefs andChanges in Religious Beliefs andChanges in Religious Beliefs andChanges in Religious Beliefs and

DeDeDeDeDevvvvvoooootional Ttional Ttional Ttional Ttional Teeeeextsxtsxtsxtsxts(((((ccccc. eighth to eighteenth century). eighth to eighteenth century). eighth to eighteenth century). eighth to eighteenth century). eighth to eighteenth century)

Fig. 6.1A twelfth-century bronze sculpture ofManikkavachakar, a devotee of Shivawho composed beautiful devotional songs in Tamil

THEME

SIX

141

“Great” and “little”traditions

The terms great and l i t t letraditions were coined by asociologist named RobertRedf ield in the twentiethcentury to describe the culturalpractices of peasant societies.He found that peasantsobserved rituals and customsthat emanated from dominantsocial categories, includingpriests and rulers. These heclassified as part of a greattradition. At the same time,peasants also followed localpract ices that did notnecessarily correspond withthose of the great tradition.These he included within thecategory of little tradition. Healso noticed that both greatand little traditions changedover time, through a process ofinteraction.

While scholars accept thesignificance of these categoriesand processes, they areoften uncomfortable with thehierarchy suggested by theterms great and little. The useof quotation marks for “great”and “ l i t t le” is one way ofindicating this.

1. A Mosaic of Religious Beliefsand Practices

Perhaps the most striking feature of this phase isthe increasing visibility of a wide range of gods andgoddesses in sculpture as well as in texts. At onelevel, this indicates the continued and even extendedworship of the major deities – Vishnu, Shiva andthe goddess – each of whom was visualised in avariety of forms.

1.1 The integration of cultsHistorians who have tried to understand thesedevelopments suggest that there were at least twoprocesses at work. One was a process of disseminatingBrahmanical ideas. This is exemplified by thecomposition, compilation and preservation of Puranictexts in simple Sanskrit verse, explicitly meant tobe accessible to women and Shudras, who weregenerally excluded from Vedic learning. At the sametime, there was a second process at work – that ofthe Brahmanas accepting and reworking the beliefsand practices of these and other social categories. Infact, many beliefs and practices were shaped througha continuous dialogue between what sociologists havedescribed as “great” Sanskritic Puranic traditionsand “little” traditions throughout the land.

One of the most striking examples of this processis evident at Puri, Orissa, where the principal deitywas identified, by the twelfth century, as Jagannatha(literally, the lord of the world), a form of Vishnu.

Fig. 6.2Jagannatha (extreme right) with hissister Subhadra (centre) and hisbrother Balarama (left)

BHAKTI-SUFI TRADITIONS


If you compare Fig. 6.2 with Fig. 4.26 (Chapter 4)you will notice that the deity is represented in avery different way. In this instance, a local deity,whose image was and continues to be made of woodby local tribal specialists, was recognised as a formof Vishnu. At the same time, Vishnu was visualisedin a way that was very different from that in otherparts of the country.

Such instances of integration are evidentamongst goddess cults as well. Worship of thegoddess, often simply in the form of a stone smearedwith ochre, was evidently widespread. These localdeities were often incorporated within the Puranicframework by providing them with an identity as awife of the principal male deities – sometimes theywere equated with Lakshmi, the wife of Vishnu, inother instances, with Parvati, the wife of Shiva.

1.2 Difference and conflictOften associated with the goddess were formsof worship that were classified as Tantric. Tantricpractices were widespread in several parts of thesubcontinent – they were open to women andmen, and practitioners often ignored differencesof caste and class within the ritual context. Manyof these ideas influenced Shaivism as well asBuddhism, especially in the eastern, northern andsouthern parts of the subcontinent.

All of these somewhat divergent and even disparatebeliefs and practices would come to be classified asHindu over the course of the next millennium. Thedivergence is perhaps most stark if we compare Vedicand Puranic traditions. The principal deities of theVedic pantheon, Agni, Indra and Soma, becomemarginal figures, rarely visible in textual or visualrepresentations. And while we can catch a glimpseof Vishnu, Shiva and the goddess in Vedic mantras,these have little in common with the elaboratePuranic mythologies. However, in spite of theseobvious discrepancies, the Vedas continued to berevered as authoritative.

Not surprisingly, there were sometimes conflicts aswell – those who valued the Vedic tradition oftencondemned practices that went beyond the closelyregulated contact with the divine through theperformance of sacrifices or precisely chanted mantras.On the other hand those engaged in Tantric practices

Fig. 6.3Sculpture of a Buddhist goddess,Marichi (c. tenth century, Bihar),an example of the process ofintegration of different religiousbeliefs and practices

143

frequently ignored the authority of the Vedas. Also,devotees often tended to project their chosen deity,either Vishnu or Shiva, as supreme. Relations withother traditions, such as Buddhism or Jainism, werealso often fraught with tension if not open conflict.

The traditions of devotion or bhakti need to belocated within this context. Devotional worship hada long history of almost a thousand years beforethe period we are considering. During this time,expressions of devotion ranged from the routineworship of deities within temples to ecstaticadoration where devotees attained a trance-likestate. The singing and chanting of devotionalcompositions was often a part of such modes ofworship. This was particularly true of the Vaishnavaand Shaiva sects.

2. Poems of PrayerEarly Traditions of Bhakti

In the course of the evolution of these forms ofworship, in many instances, poet-saints emergedas leaders around whom there developed acommunity of devotees. Further, while Brahmanasremained important intermediaries between gods anddevotees in several forms of bhakti, these traditionsalso accommodated and acknowledged women andthe “lower castes”, categories considered ineligiblefor liberation within the orthodox Brahmanicalframework. What also characterised traditions ofbhakti was a remarkable diversity.

At a different level, historians of religion oftenclassify bhakti traditions into two broad categories:saguna (with attributes) and nirguna (withoutattributes). The former included traditions thatfocused on the worship of specific deities suchas Shiva, Vishnu and his avatars (incarnations) andforms of the goddess or Devi, all often conceptualisedin anthropomorphic forms. Nirguna bhakti on theother hand was worship of an abstract form of god.

2.1 The Alvars and Nayanars of Tamil NaduSome of the earliest bhakti movements (c. sixthcentury) were led by the Alvars (literally, those whoare “immersed” in devotion to Vishnu) and Nayanars(literally, leaders who were devotees of Shiva). Theytravelled from place to place singing hymns in Tamilin praise of their gods.

Discuss...Find out about gods andgoddesses worshipped in yourtown or village, noting theirnames and the ways in whichthey are depicted. Describethe rituals that areperformed.



During their travels the Alvars and Nayanarsidentified certain shrines as abodes of their chosendeities. Very often large temples were later built atthese sacred places. These developed as centres ofpilgrimage. Singing compositions of these poet-saintsbecame part of temple rituals in these shrines, asdid worship of the saints’ images.

2.2 Attitudes towards casteSome historians suggest that the Alvars andNayanars initiated a movement of protest againstthe caste system and the dominance of Brahmanasor at least attempted to reform the system. To someextent this is corroborated by the fact that bhaktashailed from diverse social backgrounds ranging fromBrahmanas to artisans and cultivators and evenfrom castes considered “untouchable”.

The importance of the traditions of the Alvarsand Nayanars was sometimes indicated by theclaim that their compositions were as importantas the Vedas. For instance, one of the majoranthologies of compositions by the Alvars, the NalayiraDivyaprabandham, was frequently described as theTamil Veda, thus claiming that the text was assignificant as the four Vedas in Sanskrit that werecherished by the Brahmanas.

2.3 Women devoteesPerhaps one of the most striking features of thesetraditions was the presence of women. For instance,the compositions of Andal, a woman Alvar, werewidely sung (and continue to be sung to date). Andalsaw herself as the beloved of Vishnu; her versesexpress her love for the deity. Another woman,Karaikkal Ammaiyar, a devotee of Shiva, adoptedthe path of extreme asceticism in order to attain

Compilations of devotional literatureBy the tenth century the compositions of the 12 Alvars werecompiled in an anthology known as the NalayiraDivyaprabandham (“Four Thousand Sacred Compositions”).

The poems of Appar, Sambandar and Sundarar formthe Tevaram, a collection that was compiled and classifiedin the tenth century on the basis of the music of the songs.

Source 1

Source 2

The chaturvedin (Brahmanaversed in the four Vedas)

and the “outcaste”

This is an excerpt from acomposition of an Alvar namedTondaradippodi, who was aBrahmana:

You (Vishnu) manifestly like

those “servants” who expresstheir love for your feet,

though they may be bornoutcastes, more than

the Chaturvedins who arestrangers and withoutallegiance to your service.

Do you thinkTondaradippodi wasopposed to the castesystem?

Shastras or devotion?

This is a verse composed byAppar, a Nayanar saint:

O rogues who quote the lawbooks,

Of what use are your gotra andkula?

Just bow to Marperu’s lord(Shiva who resides in Marperu,in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu) asyour sole refuge.

Are there anysimilarities or differencesin the attitudes ofTondaradippodi and Appartowards Brahmanas?

145

Source 3

Fig. 6.4A twelfth-century bronze imageof Karaikkal Ammaiyar


her goal. Her compositions were preserved withinthe Nayanar tradition. These women renounced theirsocial obligations, but did not join an alternativeorder or become nuns. Their very existence and theircompositions posed a challenge to patriarchal norms.

A demon?

This is an excerpt from a poem by Karaikkal Ammaiyar inwhich she describes herself:

The female Pey (demoness)

with . . . bulging veins,

protruding eyes, white teeth and shrunken stomach,

red haired and jutting teeth

lengthy shins extending till the ankles,

shouts and wails

while wandering in the forest.

This is the forest of Alankatu,

which is the home of our father (Shiva)

who dances … with his matted hair

thrown in all eight directions, and with cool limbs.

List the ways in which Karaikkal Ammaiyardepicts herself as presenting a contrast totraditional notions of feminine beauty.

2.4 Relations with the stateWe saw in Chapter 2 that there were severalimportant chiefdoms in the Tamil region in the earlyfirst millennium CE. From the second half of the firstmillennium there is evidence for states, includingthose of the Pallavas and Pandyas (c. sixth to ninthcenturies CE). While Buddhism and Jainism hadbeen prevalent in this region for several centuries,drawing support from merchant and artisancommunities, these religious traditions receivedoccasional royal patronage.

Interestingly, one of the major themes in Tamilbhakti hymns is the poets’ opposition to Buddhismand Jainism. This is particularly marked in the


compositions of the Nayanars. Historians haveattempted to explain this hostility by suggesting thatit was due to competition between members ofother religious traditions for royal patronage. Whatis evident is that the powerful Chola rulers (ninthto thirteenth centuries) supported Brahmanicaland bhakti traditions, making land grants andconstructing temples for Vishnu and Shiva.

In fact, some of the most magnificent Shivatemples, including those at Chidambaram, Thanjavurand Gangaikondacholapuram, were constructedunder the patronage of Chola rulers. This was alsothe period when some of the most spectacularrepresentations of Shiva in bronze sculpture wereproduced. Clearly, the visions of the Nayanarsinspired artists.

Both Nayanars and Alvars were revered by theVellala peasants. Not surprisingly, rulers tried towin their support as well. The Chola kings, forinstance, often attempted to claim divine supportand proclaim their own power and status by building

splendid temples that were adornedwith stone and metal sculpture torecreate the visions of these popularsaints who sang in the language ofthe people.

These kings also introduced thesinging of Tamil Shaiva hymns inthe temples under royal patronage,taking the initiative to collect andorganise them into a text (Tevaram).Further, inscriptional evidence fromaround 945 suggests that the Cholaruler Parantaka I had consecratedmetal images of Appar, Sambandarand Sundarar in a Shiva temple.These were carried in processionsduring the festivals of these saints.

Fig. 6.5An image of Shiva as Nataraja

Discuss...Why do you think kings wereinterested in proclaiming theirconnections with bhaktas?

147

Rituals and thereal world

Here is a vachana composedby Basavanna:

When they see a serpentcarved in stone they pourmilk on it.

If a real serpent comes theysay: “Kill. Kill.”

To the servant of the god whocould eat if served they say:“Go away! Go away!”

But to the image of the godwhich cannot eat they offerdishes of food.

Describe Basavanna’sattitude towards rituals.How does he attempt toconvince the listener?

Source 4


3. The Virashaiva Traditionin Karnataka

The twelfth century witnessed the emergence of anew movement in Karnataka, led by a Brahmananamed Basavanna (1106-68) who was initially aJaina and a minister in the court of a Chalukyaking. His followers were known as Virashaivas(heroes of Shiva) or Lingayats (wearers of the linga).

Lingayats continue to be an important communityin the region to date. They worship Shiva in hismanifestation as a linga, and men usually wear asmall linga in a silver case on a loop strung over theleft shoulder. Those who are revered include thejangama or wandering monks. Lingayats believethat on death the devotee will be united with Shivaand will not return to this world. Therefore they donot practise funerary rites such as cremation,prescribed in the Dharmashastras. Instead, theyceremonially bury their dead.

The Lingayats challenged the idea of caste andthe “pollution” attributed to certain groups byBrahmanas. They also questioned the theory ofrebirth. These won them followers amongst thosewho were marginalised within the Brahmanicalsocial order. The Lingayats also encouraged certainpractices disapproved in the Dharmashastras,such as post-puberty marriage and the remarriageof widows. Our understanding of the Virashaivatradition is derived from vachanas (literally, sayings)composed in Kannada by women and men whojoined the movement.

New religious developmentsThis period also witnessed two major developments.On the one hand, many ideas of the Tamil bhaktas(especially the Vaishnavas) were incorporated withinthe Sanskritic tradition, culminating in the compositionof one of the best-known Puranas, the BhagavataPurana. Second, we find the development of traditionsof bhakti in Maharashtra in the thirteenth century.


4. Religious Ferment inNorth India

During the same period, in north India deities such asVishnu and Shiva were worshipped in temples, often builtwith the support of rulers. However, historians have notfound evidence of anything resembling the compositionsof the Alvars and Nayanars till the fourteenth century.How do we account for this difference?

Some historians point out that in north India thiswas the period when several Rajput states emerged. Inmost of these states Brahmanas occupied positions ofimportance, performing a range of secular and ritualfunctions. There seems to have been little or no attemptto challenge their position directly.

At the same time otherreligious leaders, who did notfunction within the orthodoxBrahmanical framework, weregaining ground. These includedthe Naths, Jogis and Siddhas.Many of them came fromartisanal groups, includingweavers, who were becomingincreasingly important with thedevelopment of organised craftproduction. Demand for suchproduction grew with theemergence of new urban centres,and long-distance trade withCentral Asia and West Asia.

Many of these new religiousleaders questioned theauthority of the Vedas, and

expressed themselves in languages spoken by ordinarypeople, which developed over centuries into the onesused today. However, in spite of their popularity thesereligious leaders were not in a position to win thesupport of the ruling elites.

A new element in this situation was the coming ofthe Turks which culminated in the establishment of theDelhi Sultanate (thirteenth century). This underminedthe power of many of the Rajput states and theBrahmanas who were associated with these kingdoms.This was accompanied by marked changes in the realmof culture and religion. The coming of the sufis(Section 6) was a significant part of these developments.

Fig. 6.6Fragment of a page from theQur’an, belonging to amanuscript dating to theeighth or ninth century

149

Ulama (plural of alim, or onewho knows) are scholars ofIslamic studies. As preservers ofthis tradition they performvarious religious, juridical andteaching functions.

5. New Strands in the FabricIslamic Traditions

Just as the regions within the subcontinent werenot isolated from one another, so too, contact withlands beyond the seas and mountains had existedfor millennia. Arab merchants, for instance,frequented ports along the western coast in the firstmillennium CE, while Central Asian peoples settledin the north-western parts of the subcontinentduring the same period. From the seventh century,with the advent of Islam, these regions became partof what is often termed the Islamic world.

5.1 Faiths of rulers and subjectsOne axis of understanding the significance of theseconnections that is frequently adopted is to focus onthe religions of ruling elites. In 711 an Arab generalnamed Muhammad Qasim conquered Sind, whichbecame part of the Caliph’s domain. Later (c. thirteenthcentury) the Turks and Afghans established theDelhi Sultanate. This was followed by the formationof Sultanates in the Deccan and other parts of thesubcontinent; Islam was an acknowledged religion ofrulers in several areas. This continued with theestablishment of the Mughal Empire in the sixteenthcentury as well as in many of the regional states thatemerged in the eighteenth century.

Theoretically, Muslim rulers were to be guided bythe ulama, who were expected to ensure that theyruled according to the shari‘a. Clearly, the situationwas complicated in the subcontinent, where therewere populations that did not subscribe to Islam.

It is in this context that the category of the zimmi,meaning protected (derived from the Arabic wordzimma, protection) developed for peoples who followedrevealed scriptures, such as the Jews and Christians,and lived under Muslim rulership. They paid a taxcalled jizya and gained the right to be protected byMuslims. In India this status was extended to Hindusas well. As you will see (Chapter 9), rulers such asthe Mughals came to regard themselves as emperorsof not just Muslims but of all peoples.

In effect, rulers often adopted a fairly flexible policytowards their subjects. For instance, several rulersgave land endowments and granted tax exemptionsto Hindu, Jaina, Zoroastrian, Christian and Jewishreligious institutions and also expressed respect and

Shari‘aThe shari‘a is the law governingthe Muslim community. It isbased on the Qur’an and thehadis, traditions of the Prophetincluding a record of hisremembered words and deeds.

With the expansion of Islamicrule outside Arabia, in areaswhere customs and traditionswere different, qiyas (reasoningby analogy) and i jma(consensus of the community)were recognised as two othersources of legislation. Thus, theshari‘a evolved from theQur’an, hadis, qiyas and ijma.



Fig. 6.7A Mughal painting depictingEmperor Jahangir with a Jogi

Source 5

Source 6

Who were the people from whom Akbaranticipated opposition to his order?

Identify the deity worshipped by the Jogi.Describe the attitude of the emperor towardsthe Jogi.

devotion towards non-Muslim religious leaders.These grants were made by several Mughal rulers,including Akbar and Aurangzeb.

A church in Khambat

This is an excerpt from a farman (imperial order) issuedby Akbar in 1598:

Whereas it reached our eminent and holy notice thatthe padris (fathers) of the Holy Society of Jesus wishto build a house of prayer (church) in the city ofKambayat (Khambat, in Gujarat); therefore an exaltedmandate … is being issued, … that the dignitaries ofthe city of Kambayat should in no case stand in theirway but should allow them to build a church so thatthey may engage themselves in their own worship. Itis necessary that the order of the Emperor should beobeyed in every way.

Reverence for the Jogi

Here is an excerpt from a letter written by Aurangzeb toa Jogi in 1661-62:

The possessor of the sublime station, Shiv Murat, GuruAnand Nath Jio!

May your Reverence remain in peace and happinessever under the protection of Sri Shiv Jio!

… A piece of cloth for the cloak and a sum of twentyfive rupees which have been sent as an offering willreach (Your Reverence) … Your Reverence may writeto us whenever there is any service which can berendered by us.

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5.2 The popular practice of IslamThe developments that followed the coming of Islamwere not confined to ruling elites; in fact theypermeated far and wide, through the subcontinent,amongst different social strata – peasants, artisans,warriors, merchants, to name a few. All those whoadopted Islam accepted, in principle, the five “pillars”of the faith: that there is one God, Allah, and ProphetMuhammad is his messenger (shahada); offeringprayers five times a day (namaz/salat ); giving alms(zakat ); fasting during the month of Ramzan (sawm );and performing the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj ).

However, these universal features were oftenoverlaid with diversities in practice derived fromsectarian affiliations (Sunni, Shi‘a), and the influenceof local customary practices of converts from differentsocial milieus. For example, the Khojahs, a branchof the Ismailis (a Shi‘a sect), developed new modesof communication, disseminating ideas derived fromthe Qur’an through indigenous literary genres. Theseincluded the ginan (derived from the Sanskrit jnana,meaning “knowledge”), devotional poems in Punjabi,Multani, Sindhi, Kachchi, Hindi and Gujarati, sungin special ragas during daily prayer meetings.

Elsewhere, Arab Muslim traders who settledalong the Malabar coast (Kerala) adopted thelocal language, Malayalam. They also adoptedlocal customs such as matriliny (Chapter 3) andmatrilocal residence.

The complex blend of a universal faith with localtraditions is perhaps best exemplified in thearchitecture of mosques. Some architectural features

Fig. 6.8A Khojaki manuscriptThe ginan were transmittedorally before being recorded in theKhojaki script that was derivedfrom the local landa (“clipped”mercantile script) used by thelinguistically diverse communityof Khojahs in the Punjab, Sindand Gujarat.

Matrilocal residence is apractice where women aftermarriage remain in their natalhome with their children andthe husbands may come to staywith them.

Fig. 6.9A mosque in Kerala,c. thirteenth centuryNote the shikhara-like roof.



of mosques are universal – such astheir orientation towards Mecca,evident in the placement of the mihrab(prayer niche) and the minbar (pulpit).However, there are several featuresthat show variations – such as roofsand building materials (see Figs. 6.9,6.10 and 6.11).

5.3 Names for communitiesWe often take the terms Hindu andMuslim for granted, as labels forreligious communities. Yet, theseterms did not gain currency for a verylong time. Historians who have studiedSanskrit texts and inscriptions datingbetween the eighth and fourteenthcenturies point out that the termmusalman or Muslim was virtuallynever used. Instead, people wereoccasionally identified in terms ofthe region from which they came.So, the Turkish rulers were designatedas Turushka, Tajika were people fromTajikistan and Parashika were peoplefrom Persia. Sometimes, terms usedfor other peoples were applied to thenew migrants. For instance, theTurks and Afghans were referred toas Shakas (Chapters 2 and 3) andYavanas (a term used for Greeks).

A more general term for these migrantcommunities was mlechchha, indicating that they didnot observe the norms of caste society and spokelanguages that were not derived from Sanskrit. Suchterms sometimes had a derogatory connotation, but theyrarely denoted a distinct religious community of Muslimsin opposition to Hindus. And as we saw (Chapter 5),the term “Hindu” was used in a variety of ways, notnecessarily restricted to a religious connotation.

Discuss...Find out more about the architecture of mosques inyour village or town. What are the materials used tobuild mosques? Are these locally available?Are there any distinctive architectural features?

Fig. 6.11The Shah Hamadan mosque inSrinagar, on the banks of theJhelum, is often regarded as the“jewel in the crown” of all theexisting mosques of Kashmir.Built in 1395, it is one of the bestexamples of Kashmiri woodenarchitecture. Notice the spire andthe beautifully carved eaves. It isdecorated with papier mache.

Fig. 6.10Atiya mosque, Mymensingh district,Bangladesh, built with brick, 1609

153

6. The Growth of SufismIn the early centuries of Islam a group of religious-minded people called sufis turned to asceticism andmysticism in protest against the growing materialismof the Caliphate as a religious and political institution.They were critical of the dogmatic definitions andscholastic methods of interpreting the Qur’an and sunna(traditions of the Prophet) adopted by theologians.Instead, they laid emphasis on seeking salvationthrough intense devotion and love for God by followingHis commands, and by following the example of theProphet Muhammad whom they regarded as a perfecthuman being. The sufis thus sought an interpretationof the Qur’an on the basis of their personal experience.

6.1 Khanqahs and silsilasBy the eleventh century Sufism evolved into a well-developed movement with a body of literature onQuranic studies and sufi practices. Institutionally,the sufis began to organise communities around thehospice or khanqah (Persian) controlled by a teachingmaster known as shaikh (in Arabic), pir or murshid (inPersian). He enrolled disciples (murids) and appointeda successor (khalifa). He established rules for spiritualconduct and interaction between inmates as well asbetween laypersons and the master.

Sufi silsilas began to crystallise in different parts ofthe Islamic world around the twelfth century. The wordsilsila literally means a chain, signifying a continuouslink between master and disciple, stretching as anunbroken spiritual genealogy to the Prophet Muhammad.It was through this channel that spiritual power andblessings were transmitted to devotees. Special ritualsof initiation were developed in which initiates took anoath of allegiance, wore a patched garment, and shavedtheir hair.

When the shaikh died, his tomb-shrine (dargah, aPersian term meaning court) became the centre ofdevotion for his followers. This encouraged the practiceof pilgrimage or ziyarat to his grave, particularly onhis death anniversary or urs (or marriage, signifyingthe union of his soul with God). This was becausepeople believed that in death saints were united withGod, and were thus closer to Him than when living.People sought their blessings to attain material andspiritual benefits. Thus evolved the cult of the shaikhrevered as wali.

Sufism and tasawwufSufism is an English wordcoined in the nineteenthcentury. The word used forSufism in Islamic texts istasawwuf. Historians haveunderstood this term inseveral ways. According tosome scholars, it is derivedfrom suf, meaning wool,referring to the coarsewoollen clothes worn bysufis. Others derive it fromsafa, meaning purity. It mayalso have been derived fromsuffa, the platform outsidethe Prophet’s mosque,where a group of closefollowers assembled to learnabout the faith.

Names of silsilasMost suf i l ineages werenamed after a foundingfigure. For example, theQadiri order was namedafter Shaikh Abd’ul QadirJilani. However, some likethe Chisht i order, werenamed after their placeof origin, in this case thetown of Chisht in centralAfghanistan.



6.2 Outside the khanqahSome mystics initiated movements based on aradical interpretation of sufi ideals. Many scornedthe khanqah and took to mendicancy and observedcelibacy. They ignored rituals and observed extremeforms of asceticism. They were known by differentnames – Qalandars, Madaris, Malangs, Haidaris,etc. Because of their deliberate defiance of the shari‘athey were often referred to as be-shari‘a, in contrastto the ba-shari‘a sufis who complied with it.

7. The Chishtis in theSubcontinent

Of the groups of sufis who migrated to India inthe late twelfth century, the Chishtis were themost influential. This was because they adaptedsuccessfully to the local environment and adoptedseveral features of Indian devotional traditions.

7.1 Life in the Chishti khanqahThe khanqah was the centre of social life. We knowabout Shaikh Nizamuddin’s hospice (c. fourteenthcentury) on the banks of the river Yamuna inGhiyaspur, on the outskirts of what was then thecity of Delhi. It comprised several small rooms anda big hall ( jama’at khana) where the inmates andvisitors lived and prayed. The inmates included familymembers of the Shaikh, his attendants and disciples.The Shaikh lived in a small room on the roof of thehall where he met visitors in the morning and evening.A veranda surrounded the courtyard, and a boundarywall ran around the complex. On one occasion, fearinga Mongol invasion, people from the neighbouring areasflocked into the khanqah to seek refuge.

Wali (plural auliya) or friend ofGod was a sufi who claimedproximity to Allah, acquiringHis Grace (barakat) to performmiracles (karamat).

MAJOR TEACHERS OF THE CHISHTI SILSILA

SUFI TEACHERS YEAR OF DEATH LOCATION OF DARGAH

Shaikh Muinuddin Sijzi 1235 Ajmer (Rajasthan)

Khwaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki 1235 Delhi

Shaikh Fariduddin Ganj-i Shakar 1265 Ajodhan (Pakistan)

Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya 1325 Delhi

Shaikh Nasiruddin Chiragh-i Dehli 1356 Delhi

Discuss...Are there any khanqahs ordargahs in your town orvillage? Find out when thesewere built, and what are theactivities associated withthem. Are there other placeswhere religious men andwomen meet or live?

155

There was an open kitchen (langar), run on futuh(unasked-for charity). From morning till late nightpeople from all walks of life – soldiers, slaves,singers, merchants, poets, travellers, rich andpoor, Hindu jogis (yogi) and qalandars – cameseeking discipleship, amulets for healing, and theintercession of the Shaikh in various matters. Othervisitors included poets such as Amir Hasan Sijziand Amir Khusrau and the court historian ZiyauddinBarani, all of whom wrote about the Shaikh.Practices that were adopted, including bowing beforethe Shaikh, offering water to visitors, shaving theheads of initiates, and yogic exercises, representedattempts to assimilate local traditions.

Shaikh Nizamuddin appointed several spiritualsuccessors and deputed them to set up hospices invarious parts of the subcontinent. As a result theteachings, practices and organisation of the Chishtisas well as the fame of the Shaikh spread rapidly.This in turn drew pilgrims to his shrine, and also tothe shrines of his spiritual ancestors.

7.2 Chishti devotionalism: ziyarat and qawwaliPilgrimage, called ziyarat, to tombs of sufi saints isprevalent all over the Muslim world. This practiceis an occasion for seeking the sufi’s spiritual grace(barakat). For more than seven centuries people ofvarious creeds, classes and social backgrounds haveexpressed their devotion at the dargahs of the fivegreat Chishti saints (see chart on p.154). Amongstthese, the most revered shrine is that of KhwajaMuinuddin, popularly known as “Gharib Nawaz”(comforter of the poor).

The earliest textual references to KhwajaMuinuddin’s dargah date to the fourteenth century.It was evidently popular because of the austerityand piety of its Shaikh, the greatness of his spiritualsuccessors, and the patronage of royal visitors.Muhammad bin Tughlaq (ruled, 1324-51) was the

The story ofData Ganj Bakhsh

In 1039 Abu’l Hasan al Hujwiri,a native of Hujwir near Ghazniin Afghanistan, was forced tocross the Indus as a captive ofthe invading Turkish army. Hesettled in Lahore and wrote abook in Persian called the Kashf-ul-Mahjub (Unveiling of theVeiled) to explain the meaningof tasawwuf, and those whopractised it, that is, the sufi.

Hujwiri died in 1073 and wasburied in Lahore. The grandsonof Sultan Mahmud of Ghazniconstructed a tomb over hisgrave, and this tomb-shrinebecame a site of pilgrimage forhis devotees, especially on hisdeath anniversary.

Even today Hujwiri is reveredas Data Ganj Bakhsh or “Giverwho bestows treasures” and hismausoleum is cal led DataDarbar or “Court of the Giver”.

Fig. 6.12A seventeenth-century painting ofShaikh Nizamuddin Auliya andhis disciple Amir Khusrau

Describe how the artist differentiates between theShaikh and his disciple.



first Sultan to visit the shrine, but the earliestconstruction to house the tomb was funded in thelate fifteenth century by Sultan Ghiyasuddin Khaljiof Malwa. Since the shrine was located on the traderoute linking Delhi and Gujarat, it attracted a lotof travellers.

By the sixteenth century the shrine had becomevery popular; in fact it was the spirited singing ofpilgrims bound for Ajmer that inspired Akbarto visit the tomb. He went there fourteen times,sometimes two or three times a year, to seekblessings for new conquests, fulfilment of vows, andthe birth of sons. He maintained this tradition until1580. Each of these visits was celebrated bygenerous gifts, which were recorded in imperialdocuments. For example, in 1568 he offered a hugecauldron (degh) to facilitate cooking for pilgrims.He also had a mosque constructed within thecompound of the dargah.

Fig. 6.13Shaikhs greeting the Mughalemperor Jahangir on his pilgrimageto Ajmer, painting by an artistnamed Manohar, c.1615

Find his signature on thepainting.

157

The pilgrimage of the Mughal princessJahanara, 1643

The following is an excerpt from Jahanara’s biographyof Shaikh Muinuddin Chishti, titled Munis al Arwah(The Confidant of Spirits):

After praising the one God … this lowly faqira(humble soul) Jahanara ... went from the capitalAgra in the company of my great father (EmperorShah Jahan) towards the pure reg ion o fincomparable Ajmer … I was committed to this idea,that every day in every station I would perform twocycles of optional prayer …

For several days ... I did not sleep on a leopard skinat night, I did not extend my feet in the direction of theblessed sanctuary of the revered saving master, and Idid not turn my back towards him. I passed the daysbeneath the trees.

On Thursday, the fourth of the blessed month ofRamzan, I attained the happiness of pilgrimage to theilluminated and the perfumed tomb … With an hour ofdaylight remaining, I went to the holy sanctuary andrubbed my pale face with the dust of that threshold.From the doorway to the blessed tomb I went barefoot,kissing the ground. Having entered the dome, I wentaround the light-filled tomb of my master seven times… Finally, with my own hand I put the finest quality ofitar on the perfumed tomb of the revered one, andhaving taken off the rose scarf that I had on my head, Iplaced it on the top of the blessed tomb ...

Also part of ziyarat is the use of music and danceincluding mystical chants performed by speciallytrained musicians or qawwals to evoke divineecstasy. The sufis remember God either by recitingthe zikr (the Divine Names) or evoking His Presencethrough sama‘ (literally, “audition”) or performanceof mystical music. Sama‘ was integral to the Chishtis,and exemplified interaction with indigenousdevotional traditions.

What are the gestures that Jahanararecords to indicate her devotion to the Shaikh?How does she suggest that the dargah was aspecial place?

The lamp of theentire land

Each sufi shrine was associatedwith distinctive features. This iswhat an eighteenth-centuryvisitor from the Deccan, DargahQuli Khan, wrote about theshrine of Nasiruddin Chiragh-iDehli in his Muraqqa-i Dehli(Album of Delhi):

The Shaikh (in the grave)is not the lamp of Delhibut of the entire country.People turn up there incrowds, particularly onSunday. In the monthof Diwali the entirepopulation of Delhi visitsi t and stays in tentsaround the spring tank fordays. They take baths toobtain cures from chronicdiseases. Muslims andHindus pay visits in thesame spirit. From morningtill evening people comeand also make themselvesbusy in merrymaking inthe shade of the trees.

Source 7



7.3 Languages and communicationIt was not just in sama‘ that the Chishtis adoptedlocal languages. In Delhi, those associated withthe Chishti silsila conversed in Hindavi, the languageof the people. Other sufis such as Baba Faridcomposed verses in the local language, which wereincorporated in the Guru Granth Sahib. Yet otherscomposed long poems or masnavis to express ideasof divine love using human love as an allegory. Forexample, the prem-akhyan (love story) Padmavatcomposed by Malik Muhammad Jayasi revolvedaround the romance of Padmini and Ratansen, theking of Chittor. Their trials were symbolic of the soul’sjourney to the divine. Such poetic compositions wereoften recited in hospices, usually during sama‘.

A different genre of sufi poetry was composed inand around the town of Bijapur, Karnataka. Thesewere short poems in Dakhani (a variant of Urdu)attributed to Chishti sufis who lived in this regionduring the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.These poems were probably sung by women whileperforming household chores like grinding grain andspinning. Other compositions were in the form oflurinama or lullabies and shadinama or weddingsongs. It is likely that the sufis of this region wereinspired by the pre-existing bhakti tradition of theKannada vachanas of the Lingayats and the Marathiabhangs of the sants of Pandharpur. It is throughthis medium that Islam gradually gained a place inthe villages of the Deccan.

Amir Khusrau andthe qaul

Amir Khusrau (1253-1325), thegreat poet, musician and discipleof Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya,gave a unique form to the Chishtisama‘ by introducing the qaul(Arabic word meaning “saying”),a hymn sung at the opening orclosing of qawwali. This wasfollowed by sufi poetry in Persian,Hindavi or Urdu, and sometimesusing words from all of theselanguages. Qawwals (those whosing these songs) at the shrine ofShaikh Nizamuddin Auliya alwaysstart their recital with the qaul.Today qawwali is performed inshrines all over the subcontinent.

Fig. 6.14Qawwali at the dargah ofNizamuddin Auliya

Charkhanama

A song set to the rhythm of the spinning wheel:

As you take the cotton, you do zikr-i jaliAs you separate the cotton you should do zikr-i qalbiAnd as you spool the thread you should do zikr-i ainiZikr should be uttered from the stomach through thechest,And threaded through the throat.The threads of breath should be counted one by one,oh sister.Up to twenty four thousand.Do this day and night,And offer this to your pir as a gift.

Source 8

In what ways are the ideasand modes of expression usedin this song similar to ordifferent from those used byJahanara to describe herziyarat (Source 7)?

159

7.4 Sufis and the stateA major feature of the Chishti tradition was austerity,including maintaining a distance from worldlypower. However, this was by no means a situation ofabsolute isolation from political power. The sufisaccepted unsolicited grants and donations from thepolitical elites. The Sultans in turn set up charitabletrusts (auqaf ) as endowments for hospices andgranted tax-free land (inam).

The Chishtis accepted donations in cash and kind.Rather than accumulate donations, they preferredto use these fully on immediate requirementssuch as food, clothes, living quarters and ritualnecessities (such as sama‘ ). All this enhanced themoral authority of the shaikhs, which in turnattracted people from all walks of life. Further, theirpiety and scholarship, and people’s belief in theirmiraculous powers made sufis popular among themasses, whose support kings wished to secure.

Kings did not simply need to demonstrate theirassociation with sufis; they also required legitimationfrom them. When the Turks set up the DelhiSultanate, they resisted the insistence of the ulamaon imposing shari‘a as state law because theyanticipated opposition from their subjects, themajority of whom were non-Muslims. The Sultansthen sought out the sufis – who derived theirauthority directly from God – and did not depend onjurists to interpret the shari‘a.

Besides, it was believed that the auliya couldintercede with God in order to improve the materialand spiritual conditions of ordinary human beings.This explains why kings often wanted their tombs tobe in the vicinity of sufi shrines and hospices.

However, there were instances of conflict betweenthe Sultans and the sufis. To assert their authority,both expected that certain rituals be performed suchas prostration and kissing of the feet. Occasionallythe sufi shaikh was addressed with high-soundingtitles. For example, the disciples of NizamuddinAuliya addressed him as sultan-ul-mashaikh (literally,Sultan amongst shaikhs).

Sufis and the stateOther su f i s such as theSuhrawardi under the DelhiSultans and the Naqshbandiunder the Mughals were alsoassoc ia ted wi th the s ta te .However, the modes of theirassociation were not the sameas those of the Chishtis. Insome cases, sufis acceptedcourtly offices.



Declining a royal gift

This excerpt from a sufi text describes the proceedings atShaikh Nizamuddin Auliya’s hospice in 1313:

I (the author, Amir Hasan Sijzi) had the goodfortune of kissing his (Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya’s)feet … At this time a local ruler had sent him thedeed of ownership to two gardens and much land,along with the provis ions and tools for theirmaintenance. The ruler had also made it clear thathe was relinquishing all his rights to both thegardens and land. The master … had not acceptedthat gift. Instead, he had lamented: “What have I todo with gardens and fields and lands? … None of …our spiritual masters had engaged in such activity.”

Then he told an appropriate story: “… SultanGhiyasuddin, who at that time was still known asUlugh Khan, came to visit Shaikh Fariduddin (and)offered some money and ownership deeds for fourvillages to the Shaikh, the money being for the benefitof the dervishes (sufis), and the land for his use.Smiling, Shaikh al Islam (Fariduddin) said: ‘Give methe money. I will dispense it to the dervishes. But asfor those land deeds, keep them. There are many wholong for them. Give them away to such persons.’”

Source 9

What aspects of therelationship between the sufisand the state do you think arebest illustrated in this account?What does the account tell usabout the modes ofcommunication between theShaikh and his disciples?

Fig. 6.15The dargah of Shaikh Salim Chishti(a direct descendant of Baba Farid)constructed in Fatehpur Sikri,Akbar’s capital, symbolised thebond between the Chishtis and theMughal state.

Discuss...What are the potentialsources of conflict in therelationship between religiousand political leaders?

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8. New Devotional PathsDialogue and Dissent inNorthern India

Many poet-saints engaged in explicit and implicitdialogue with these new social situations, ideas andinstitutions. Let us now see how this dialogue foundexpression. We focus here on three of the mostinfluential figures of the time.

8.1 Weaving a divine fabric: KabirKabir (c. fourteenth-fifteenth centuries) is perhapsone of the most outstanding examples of a poet-saintwho emerged within this context. Historians havepainstakingly tried to reconstruct his life and timesthrough a study of compositions attributed to himas well as later hagiographies. Such exercises haveproved to be challenging on a number of counts.

Verses ascribed to Kabir have been compiled inthree distinct but overlapping traditions. The KabirBijak is preserved by the Kabirpanth (the path orsect of Kabir) in Varanasi and elsewhere in UttarPradesh; the Kabir Granthavali is associated withthe Dadupanth in Rajasthan, and many of hiscompositions are found in the Adi Granth Sahib (seeSection 8.2). All these manuscript compilationswere made long after the death of Kabir. By thenineteenth century, anthologies of verses attributedto him circulated in print in regions as far apart asBengal, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

Kabir’s poems have survived in several languagesand dialects; and some are composed in the speciallanguage of nirguna poets, the sant bhasha. Others,known as ulatbansi (upside-down sayings), arewritten in a form in which everyday meaningsare inverted. These hint at the difficulties ofcapturing the nature of the Ultimate Reality inwords: expressions such as “the lotus which bloomswithout flower” or the “fire raging in the ocean” conveya sense of Kabir’s mystical experiences.

Also striking is the range of traditions Kabir drewon to describe the Ultimate Reality. These includeIslam: he described the Ultimate Reality as Allah,Khuda, Hazrat and Pir. He also used terms drawnfrom Vedantic traditions, alakh (the unseen), nirakar(formless), Brahman, Atman, etc. Other terms withmystical connotations such as shabda (sound) orshunya (emptiness) were drawn from yogic traditions.

The One Lord

Here is a composition attributedto Kabir:

Tell me, brother, how canthere be

No one lord of the worldbut two?

Who led you so astray?

God is called by many names:

Names like Allah, Ram, Karim,Keshav, Hari, and Hazrat.

Gold may be shaped intorings and bangles.

Isn’t it gold all the same?

Distinctions are only wordswe invent …

Kabir says they are bothmistaken.

Neither can find the onlyRam. One kills the goat, theother cows.

They waste their lives indisputation.

What is Kabir’sargument against thedistinction madebetween gods ofdifferent communities?

Source 10



Diverse and sometimes conflicting ideas areexpressed in these poems. Some poems draw onIslamic ideas and use monotheism and iconoclasmto attack Hindu polytheism and idol worship; othersuse the sufi concept of zikr and ishq (love) to expressthe Hindu practice of nam-simaran (remembranceof God’s name).

Were all these composed by Kabir? We may neverbe able to tell with certainty, although scholars havetried to analyse the language, style and content toestablish which verses could be Kabir’s. What thisrich corpus of verses also signifies is that Kabir wasand is to the present a source of inspiration forthose who questioned entrenched religious andsocial institutions, ideas and practices in theirsearch for the Divine.

Just as Kabir’s ideas probablycrystallised through dialogueand debate (explicit or implicit)with the traditions of sufis andyogis in the region of Awadh (partof present-day Uttar Pradesh),his legacy was claimed by severalgroups, who remembered himand continue to do so.

This is most evident in laterdebates about whether he wasa Hindu or a Muslim by birth,debates that are reflected inhagiographies. Many of thesewere composed from theseventeenth century onwards,about 200 years after Kabir’slifetime.

Hagiographies within theVaishnava tradition attemptedto suggest that he was born aHindu, Kabirdas (Kabir itself isan Arabic word meaning “great”),but was raised by a poorMuslim family belonging tothe community of weavers orjulahas, who were relativelyrecent converts to Islam. Theyalso suggested that he wasinitiated into bhakti by a guru,perhaps Ramananda.

Fig. 6.16Roadside musicians, a seventeenth-century Mughal paintingIt is likely that the compositionsof the sants were sung bysuch musicians.

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However, the verses attributed to Kabir use thewords guru and satguru, but do not mention the nameof any specific preceptor. Historians have pointedout that it is very difficult to establish thatRamananda and Kabir were contemporaries, withoutassigning improbably long lives to either or both.So, while traditions linking the two cannot beaccepted at face value, they show how importantthe legacy of Kabir was for later generations.

8.2 Baba Guru Nanak and the Sacred WordBaba Guru Nanak (1469-1539) was born in a Hindumerchant family in a village called Nankana Sahibnear the river Ravi in the predominantly MuslimPunjab. He trained to be an accountant and studiedPersian. He was married at a young age but he spentmost of his time among sufis and bhaktas. He alsotravelled widely.

The message of Baba Guru Nanak is spelt out inhis hymns and teachings. These suggest that headvocated a form of nirguna bhakti. He firmlyrepudiated the external practices of the religions hesaw around him. He rejected sacrifices, ritual baths,image worship, austerities and the scriptures of bothHindus and Muslims. For Baba Guru Nanak,the Absolute or “rab” had no gender or form. Heproposed a simple way to connect to the Divine byremembering and repeating the Divine Name,expressing his ideas through hymns called “shabad”in Punjabi, the language of the region. Baba GuruNanak would sing these compositions in variousragas while his attendant Mardana played the rabab.

Baba Guru Nanak organised his followers into acommunity. He set up rules for congregationalworship (sangat ) involving collective recitation. Heappointed one of his disciples, Angad, to succeedhim as the preceptor (guru), and this practice wasfollowed for nearly 200 years.

It appears that Baba Guru Nanak did notwish to establish a new religion, but after his deathhis followers consolidated their own practicesand distinguished themselves from both Hindusand Muslims. The fifth preceptor, Guru Arjan,compiled Baba Guru Nanak’s hymns along withthose of his four successors and other religiouspoets like Baba Farid, Ravidas (also known asRaidas) and Kabir in the Adi Granth Sahib. Thesehymns, called “gurbani”, are composed in various



languages. In the late seventeenth century the tenthpreceptor, Guru Gobind Singh, included thecompositions of the ninth guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur,and this scripture was called the Guru Granth Sahib.Guru Gobind Singh also laid the foundation of theKhalsa Panth (army of the pure) and defined its fivesymbols: uncut hair, a dagger, a pair of shorts, a comband a steel bangle. Under him the community gotconsolidated as a socio-religious and military force.

8.3 Mirabai, the devotee princessMirabai (c. fifteenth-sixteenth centuries) is perhapsthe best-known woman poet within the bhaktitradition. Biographies have been reconstructedprimarily from the bhajans attributed to her, whichwere transmitted orally for centuries. According tothese, she was a Rajput princess from Merta inMarwar who was married against her wishes to aprince of the Sisodia clan of Mewar, Rajasthan. Shedefied her husband and did not submit to thetraditional role of wife and mother, insteadrecognising Krishna, the avatar of Vishnu, as herlover. Her in-laws tried to poison her, but she escapedfrom the palace to live as a wandering singercomposing songs that are characterised by intenseexpressions of emotion.

Love for the Lord

This is part of a song attributed to Mirabai:I will build a funeral pyre of sandalwood and aloe;Light it by your own handWhen I am burned away to cinders;Smear this ash upon your limbs.… let flame be lost in flame.

In another verse, she sings:What can Mewar’s ruler do to me?If God is angry, all is lost,But what can the Rana do?

Source 11

What does this indicate about Mirabai’sattitude towards the king?

Fig. 6.17A fifteenth-century stone sculpture(Tamil Nadu) depicting Krishnaplaying the flute, a form of thedeity worshipped by Mirabai

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According to some traditions, her preceptor wasRaidas, a leather worker. This would indicate herdefiance of the norms of caste society. Afterrejecting the comforts of her husband’s palace, sheis supposed to have donned the white robes of awidow or the saffron robe of the renouncer.

Although Mirabai did not attract a sect orgroup of followers, she has been recognised as asource of inspiration for centuries. Her songscontinue to be sung by women and men, especiallythose who are poor and considered “low caste” inGujarat and Rajasthan.

Discuss...Why do you think the traditions of Kabir, BabaGuru Nanak and Mirabai remain significant inthe twenty-first century?

9. Reconstructing Histories ofReligious Traditions

We have seen that historians draw on a varietyof sources to reconstruct histories of religioustraditions – these include sculpture, architecture,stories about religious preceptors, compositionsattributed to women and men engaged in the questof understanding the nature of the Divine.

As we have seen in Chapters 1 and 4, sculptureand architecture can only be understood if wehave a grasp of the context – the ideas, beliefs andpractices of those who produced and used theseimages and buildings. What about textual traditionsregarding religious beliefs? If you return to thesources in this chapter, you will notice that theyinclude a wide variety, written in several differentlanguages and styles. They range from theapparently simple, direct language of the vachanasof Basavanna to the ornate Persian of the farman ofthe Mughal emperors. Understanding each type oftext requires different skills: apart from a familiaritywith several languages, the historian has to be awareof the subtle variations in style that characteriseeach genre.

ShankaradevaIn the late fifteenth century,Shankaradeva emerged as oneof the leading proponents ofVaishnavism in Assam. Histeachings, often known as theBhagavati dharma because theywere based on the BhagavadGita and the Bhagavata Purana,focused on absolute surrenderto the supreme deity, in this caseVishnu. He emphasised theneed for naam kirtan, recitationof the names of the lord in satsanga or congregations of piousdevotees. He also encouragedthe establishment of satra ormonasteries for the transmissionof spiritual knowledge, andnaam ghar or prayer halls.Many of these institutions andpractices continue to flourishin the region. His majorcomposit ions include theKirtana-ghosha.



Varieties of sources used to reconstructthe history of sufi traditions

A wide range of texts were produced in and around sufi khanqahs.These included:

1.Treatises or manuals dealing with sufi thought andpractices – The Kashf-ul-Mahjub of Ali bin Usman Hujwiri (diedc. 1071) is an example of this genre. It enables historians to seehow traditions outside the subcontinent influenced sufi thoughtin India.

2. Malfuzat (literally, “uttered”; conversations of sufi saints) –An early text on malfuzat is the Fawa’id-al-Fu’ad, a collection ofconversations of Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya, compiled by AmirHasan Sijzi Dehlavi, a noted Persian poet. Source 9 contains anexcerpt from this text. Malfuzats were compiled by different sufisilsilas with the permission of the shaikhs; these had obviousdidactic purposes. Several examples have been found fromdifferent parts of the subcontinent, including the Deccan. Theywere compiled over several centuries.

3. Maktubat (literally, “written” collections of letters); letterswritten by sufi masters, addressed to their disciples andassociates – While these tell us about the shaikh’s experienceof religious truth that he wanted to share with others, theyalso reflect the life conditions of the recipients and are responsesto their aspirations and difficulties, both spiritual and mundane.The letters, known as Maktubat-i Imam Rabbani, of the notedseventeenth-century Naqshbandi Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi(d.1624), whose ideology is often contrasted with the liberaland non-sectarian views of Akbar, are amongst those mostfrequently discussed by scholars.

4. Tazkiras (literally, “to mention and memorialise”; biographicalaccounts of saints) – The fourteenth-centurySiyar-ul-Auliya ofMir Khwurd Kirmani was the first sufi tazkira written in India.It dealt principally with the Chishti saints. The most famous tazkirais the Akhbar-ul-Akhyar of Abdul Haqq Muhaddis Dehlavi(d. 1642). The authors of the tazkiras often sought to establishthe precedence of their own orders and glorify their spiritualgenealogies. Many details are often implausible, full of elementsof the fantastic. Still they are of great value for historians andhelp them to understand more fully the nature of the tradition.

Remember that each of the traditions we have been consideringin this chapter generated a wide range of textual and oral modesof communication, some of which have been preserved, manyof which have been modified in the process of transmission, andothers are probably lost forever.

167

Virtually all these religious traditions continue toflourish to date. This continuity has certainadvantages for historians as it allows them to comparecontemporary practices with those described in textualtraditions or shown in old paintings and to tracechanges. At the same time, because these traditionsare part of peoples’ lived beliefs and practices, thereis often a lack of acceptance of the possibility thatthese may have changed over time. The challenge forhistorians is to undertake such investigations withsensitivity, while at the same time recognising thatreligious traditions, like other traditions, are dynamicand change over time.

TimelineSome Major Religious Teachers in the Subcontinent

c. 500-800 CE Appar, Sambandar, Sundaramurti in Tamil Nadu

c. 800-900 Nammalvar, Manikkavachakar, Andal, Tondaradippodiin Tamil Nadu

c.1000-1100 Al Hujwiri, Data Ganj Bakhsh in the Punjab; Ramanujacharyain Tamil Nadu

c.1100-1200 Basavanna in Karnataka

c.1200-1300 Jnanadeva, Muktabai in Maharashtra; Khwaja MuinuddinChishti in Rajasthan; Bahauddin Zakariyya and FariduddinGanj- i Shakar in the Punjab; Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki in Delhi

c.1300-1400 Lal Ded in Kashmir; Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sind;Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi; Ramananda in Uttar Pradesh;Chokhamela in Maharashtra; Sharafuddin Yahya Maneri in Bihar

c.1400-1500 Kabir, Raidas, Surdas in Uttar Pradesh; Baba Guru Nanak in thePunjab; Vallabhacharya in Gujarat; Abdullah Shattari in Gwalior;Muhammad Shah Alam in Gujarat; Mir Sayyid Muhammad GesuDaraz in Gulbarga, Shankaradeva in Assam; Tukaram inMaharashtra

c.1500-1600 Sri Chaitanya in Bengal; Mirabai in Rajasthan;Shaikh AbdulQuddus Gangohi, Malik Muhammad Jaisi, Tulsidas inUttar Pradesh

c.1600-1700 Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi in Haryana; Miyan Mir in the Punjab

Note: These time frames indicate the approximate period during which these teachers lived.




1. Explain with examples what historians mean by theintegration of cults.

2. To what extent do you think the architecture ofmosques in the subcontinent reflects a combinationof universal ideals and local traditions?

3. What were the similarities and differences betweenthe be-shari‘a and ba-shari‘a sufi traditions?

4. Discuss the ways in which the Alvars, Nayanars andVirashaivas expressed critiques of the caste system.

5. Describe the major teachings of either Kabir orBaba Guru Nanak, and the ways in which thesehave been transmitted.


6. Discuss the major beliefs and practices thatcharacterised Sufism.

7. Examine how and why rulers tried to establishconnections with the traditions of the Nayanars andthe sufis.

8. Analyse, with illustrations, why bhakti and sufithinkers adopted a variety of languages in whichto express their opinions.

9. Read any five of the sources included in this chapterand discuss the social and religious ideas that areexpressed in them.

Map work

10. On an outline map of India, plot three major sufishrines, and three places associated with temples(one each of a form of Vishnu, Shiva and thegoddess).

169

Richard M. Eaton (ed). 2003.India’s Islamic Traditions.Oxford University Press,New Delhi.

John Stratton Hawley. 2005.Three Bhakti VoicesMirabai, Surdas and Kabirin their times and ours.Oxford University Press,New Delhi.

David N. Lorenzen (ed.). 2004.Religious Movements inSouth Asia 600-1800.Oxford University Press,New Delhi,

A.K. Ramanujan. 1981.Hymns for the Drowning.Penguin, New Delhi.

Annemarie Schimmel. 1975.Mystical Dimensions of Islam.Univesity of North CarolinaPress, Chapel Hill.

David Smith. 1998.The Dance of Siva: ReligionArt and Poetry in South India.Cambridge Univesity Press,New Delhi.

Charlotte Vaudeville. 1997.A Weaver Named Kabir.Oxford University Press,New Delhi.

Projects (choose one)

11. Choose any two of the religious teachers/thinkers/saints mentioned in this chapter, and find out moreabout their lives and teachings. Prepare a reportabout the area and the times in which they lived,their major ideas, how we know about them, andwhy you think they are important.

12. Find out more about practices of pilgrimageassociated with the shrines mentioned in thischapter. Are these pilgrimages still undertaken?When are these shrines visited? Who visits theseshrines? Why do they do so? What are the activitiesassociated with these pilgrimages?


For more information,you could visit:http://www.alif-india.com

Fig. 6.18The dargah of Shaikh Bahauddin Zakariya,Multan (Pakistan)



An Imperial CapitalVijayanagara

(((((ccccc. fourteenth to sixteenth century). fourteenth to sixteenth century). fourteenth to sixteenth century). fourteenth to sixteenth century). fourteenth to sixteenth century)

Vijayanagara or “city of victory” was the name ofboth a city and an empire. The empire was foundedin the fourteenth century. In its heyday it stretchedfrom the river Krishna in the north to the extremesouth of the peninsula. In 1565 the city was sackedand subsequently deserted. Although it fell intoruin in the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries, itlived on in the memories of people living in theKrishna-Tungabhadra doab. They remembered itas Hampi, a name derived from that of the localmother goddess, Pampadevi. These oral traditionscombined with archaeological finds, monumentsand inscriptions and other records helped scholarsto rediscover the Vijayanagara Empire.

1. The Discovery of HampiThe ruins at Hampi were brought to light in 1800 byan engineer and antiquarian named Colonel ColinMackenzie. An employee of the English East IndiaCompany, he prepared the first survey map of thesite. Much of the initial information he received wasbased on the memories of priests of the Virupakshatemple and the shrine of Pampadevi. Subsequently,from 1856, photographers began to record themonuments which enabled scholars to study them.As early as 1836 epigraphists began collectingseveral dozen inscriptions found at this and othertemples at Hampi. In an effort to reconstruct thehistory of the city and the empire, historians collatedinformation from these sources with accounts offoreign travellers and other literature written inTelugu, Kannada, Tamil and Sanskrit.

Fig. 7.1A part of the stone wall that wasbuilt around the city of Vijayanagara

THEME

SEVEN

171

Colin Mackenzie

Born in 1754, Colin Mackenzie became famous as anengineer, surveyor and cartographer. In 1815 he wasappointed the first Surveyor General of India, a posthe held till his death in 1821. He embarked on collectinglocal histories and surveying historic sites in order tobetter understand India’s past and make governance ofthe colony easier. He says that “it struggled long underthe miseries of bad management … before the Southcame under the benign influence of the Brit ishgovernment”. By studying Vijayanagara, Mackenziebelieved that the East India Company could gain “muchuseful information on many of these institutions, lawsand customs whose influence still prevails among thevarious Tribes of Natives forming the general mass ofthe population to this day”.

2. Rayas, Nayakas and SultansAccording to tradition and epigraphic evidence twobrothers, Harihara and Bukka, founded theVijayanagara Empire in 1336. This empire includedwithin its fluctuating frontiers peoples who spokedifferent languages and followed different religioustraditions.

On their northern frontier, the Vijayanagara kingscompeted with contemporary rulers – including theSultans of the Deccan and the Gajapati rulers ofOrissa – for control of the fertile river valleys andthe resources generated by lucrative overseas trade.At the same time, interaction between these statesled to sharing of ideas, especially in the field ofarchitecture. The rulers of Vijayanagara borrowedconcepts and building techniques which they thendeveloped further.

Fig. 7.2Mackenzie and his assistantsThis is a copy by anunknown artist of an oilpainting by the portraitpainter Thomas Hickey.It dates to c.1825 and belongsto the collection of the RoyalAsiatic Society of Britain andIreland. On Mackenzie’s leftis his peon Kistnaji holdinga telescope, on his right areBrahmana assistants –a Jaina pandit (right) andbehind him the TeluguBrahmana CauvelleryVentak Letchmiah.

Karnataka samrajyamuWhile historians use the term Vijayanagara Empire,contemporaries described it as the karnataka samrajyamu.

How has the artistportrayed Mackenzieand his indigenousinformers? What ideasabout him and hisinformants are sought tobe impressed upon theviewers?

AN IMPERIAL CAPITAL: VIJAYANAGARA

Source 1


Some of the areas that were incorporated withinthe empire had witnessed the development ofpowerful states such as those of the Cholas in TamilNadu and the Hoysalas in Karnataka. Ruling elitesin these areas had extended patronage to elaboratetemples such as the Brihadishvara temple atThanjavur and the Chennakeshava temple at Belur.The rulers of Vijayanagara, who called themselvesrayas, built on these traditions and carried them,as we will see, literally to new heights.

2.1 Kings and tradersAs warfare during these times depended uponeffective cavalry, the import of horses from Arabiaand Central Asia was very important for rivalkingdoms. This trade was initially controlled by Arabtraders. Local communities of merchants known askudirai chettis or horse merchants also participatedin these exchanges. From 1498 other actors appearedon the scene. These were the Portuguese, who arrivedon the west coast of the subcontinent and attemptedto establish trading and military stations. Theirsuperior military technology, especially the use ofmuskets, enabled them to become important playersin the tangled politics of the period.

In fact, Vijayanagara was also noted for itsmarkets dealing in spices, textiles and preciousstones. Trade was often regarded as a status symbolfor such cities, which boasted of a wealthy populationthat demanded high-value exotic goods, especiallyprecious stones and jewellery. The revenue derived

Fig. 7.3The gopuram or gateway of theBrihadishvara temple at Thanjavur

Elephants, horsesand men

Gajapati literally means lordof elephants. This was the nameof a ruling lineage that wasvery powerful in Orissa in thefifteenth century. In the populartraditions of Vijayanagara theDeccan Sultans are termed asashvapati or lord of horses andthe rayas are called narapati orlord of men.

173

Kings and traders

Krishnadeva Raya (ruled 1509-29),the most famous ruler ofVijayanagara, composed a workon statecraft in Telugu knownas the Amuktamalyada. Abouttraders he wrote:

A king should improve theharbours of his countryand so encourage i tscommerce that horses,elephants, precious gems,sandalwood, pearls andother articles are freelyimported … He shouldarrange that the foreignsai lors who land inhis country on accountof s torms, i l lness andexhaustion are looked afterin a suitable manner …Make the merchants ofdistant foreign countrieswho import elephants andgood horses be attachedto yourself by providingthem with daily audience,presents and al lowingdecent profits. Then thosearticles will never go toyour enemies.

from trade in turn contributed significantly to theprosperity of the state.

2.2 The apogee and decline of the empireWithin the polity, claimants to power includedmembers of the ruling lineage as well as militarycommanders. The first dynasty, known as theSangama dynasty, exercised control till 1485.They were supplanted by the Saluvas, militarycommanders, who remained in power till 1503when they were replaced by the Tuluvas.Krishnadeva Raya belonged to the Tuluva dynasty.

Krishnadeva Raya’s rule was characterised byexpansion and consolidation. This was the timewhen the land between the Tungabhadra andKrishna rivers (the Raichur doab) was acquired(1512), the rulers of Orissa were subdued (1514) andsevere defeats were inflicted on the Sultan of Bijapur(1520). Although the kingdom remained in a constantstate of military preparedness, it flourished underconditions of unparalleled peace and prosperity.Krishnadeva Raya is credited with building somefine temples and adding impressive gopurams tomany important south Indian temples. He alsofounded a suburban township near Vijayanagaracalled Nagalapuram after his mother. Some of themost detailed descriptions of Vijayanagara come fromhis time or just after.

Strain began to show within the imperial structurefollowing Krishnadeva Raya’s death in 1529. Hissuccessors were troubled by rebellious nayakas ormilitary chiefs. By 1542 control at the centre hadshifted to another ruling lineage, that of the Aravidu,which remained in power till the end of theseventeenth century. During this period, as indeedearlier, the military ambitions of the rulersof Vijayanagara as well as those of the DeccanSultanates resulted in shifting alignments.Eventually this led to an alliance of the Sultanatesagainst Vijayanagara. In 1565 Rama Raya, the chiefminister of Vijayanagara, led the army into battleat Rakshasi-Tangadi (also known as Talikota), wherehis forces were routed by the combined armiesof Bijapur, Ahmadnagar and Golconda. The victoriousarmies sacked the city of Vijayanagara. The city wastotally abandoned within a few years. Now the focusof the empire shifted to the east where the Aravidu

Why do you thinkthe king was interestedin encouraging trade?Which groups of peoplewould have benefitedfrom thesetransactions?

Source 2



BidarGulbarga

Golconda

Warangal

Bijapur

Ikkeri

Quilon Tirunelveli

Vijayanagara

Chitradurga

Kolar

Kanchipuram

Gingee

Chidambaram

Thanjavur

Madurai

Ramanathapuram

Chandragiri

Mysore

Bay of Bengal

Indian Ocean

Arabian Sea

Sri Lanka

Bhima

Krishna

Tungabhadra

Pennar

Kaveri

Vaigai


dynasty ruled from Penukonda and later fromChandragiri (near Tirupati).

Although the armies of the Sultans were responsiblefor the destruction of the city of Vijayanagara, relationsbetween the Sultans and the rayas were not alwaysor inevitably hostile, in spite of religious differences.Krishnadeva Raya, for example, supported someclaimants to power in the Sultanates and took pridein the title “establisher of the Yavana kingdom”.Similarly, the Sultan of Bijapur intervened to resolvesuccession disputes in Vijayanagara following thedeath of Krishnadeva Raya. In fact the Vijayanagarakings were keen to ensure the stability of theSultanates and vice versa. It was the adventurouspolicy of Rama Raya who tried to play off one Sultanagainst another that led the Sultans to combinetogether and decisively defeat him.

Map 1South India,c. fourteenth-eighteenth century

Yavana is a Sanskrit word usedfor the Greeks and other peopleswho entered the subcontinentfrom the north west.

Identify the present-day statesthat formed part of the empire.

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2.3 The rayas and the nayakasAmong those who exercised power in the empire weremilitary chiefs who usually controlled forts and hadarmed supporters. These chiefs often moved fromone area to another, and in many cases wereaccompanied by peasants looking for fertile land onwhich to settle. These chiefs were known as nayakasand they usually spoke Telugu or Kannada. Manynayakas submitted to the authority of the kings ofVijayanagara but they often rebelled and had to besubdued by military action.

The amara-nayaka system was a major politicalinnovation of the Vijayanagara Empire. It is likelythat many features of this system were derived fromthe iqta system of the Delhi Sultanate.

The amara-nayakas were military commanderswho were given territories to govern by the raya.They collected taxes and other dues from peasants,craftspersons and traders in the area. They retainedpart of the revenue for personal use and formaintaining a stipulated contingent of horsesand elephants. These contingents provided theVijayanagara kings with an effective fighting forcewith which they brought the entire southernpeninsula under their control. Some of the revenuewas also used for the maintenance of temples andirrigation works.

The amara-nayakas sent tribute to the kingannually and personally appeared in the royal courtwith gifts to express their loyalty. Kings occasionallyasserted their control over them by transferring themfrom one place to another. However, during the courseof the seventeenth century, many of these nayakasestablished independent kingdoms. This hastenedthe collapse of the central imperial structure.

Discuss...Locate Chandragiri, Madurai, Ikkeri, Thanjavurand Mysore, all centres of nayaka power, onMap 1. Discuss the ways in which rivers and hillsmay have facilitated or hindered communicationwith Vijayanagara in each case.

Amara is believed to be derivedfrom the Sanskrit word samara,meaning battle or war. It alsoresembles the Persian termamir, meaning a high noble.



3. VijayanagaraThe Capital and its Environs

Like most capitals, Vijayanagara, was characterisedby a distinctive physical layout and building style.

Identify three major zones onthe plan. Look at the central part.Can you see channels connectingup with the river? See how manyfortification walls you can trace.Was the sacred centre fortified?

Fig. 7.4Plan of Vijayanagara

Would you find these featuresin a city today? Why do youthink the gardens and waterbodies were selected for specialmention by Paes?

A sprawling city

This is an excerpt from Domingo Paes’s description ofVijayanagara:

The size of this city I do not write here, because itcannot all be seen from any one spot, but I climbed ahill whence I could see a great part of it; I could not seeit all because it lies between several ranges of hills. WhatI saw from thence seemed to me as large as Rome, andvery beautiful to the sight; there are many groves oftrees within it, in the gardens of the houses, and manyconduits of water which flow into the midst of it, and inplaces there are lakes; and the king has close to hispalace a palm-grove and other rich fruit-bearing trees.

Source 3

Finding out aboutthe city

A large number of inscriptionsof the kings of Vijayanagaraand their nayakas recordingdonations to temples as well asdescribing important eventshave been recovered. Severaltravellers visited the city andwrote about it. Notable amongtheir accounts are those of anItalian trader named Nicolo deConti, an ambassador namedAbdur Razzaq sent by the rulerof Persia, a merchant namedAfanasii Nikitin from Russia,all of whom visited the city inthe fifteenth century, and thoseof Duarte Barbosa, DomingoPaes and Fernao Nuniz fromPortugal, who came in thesixteenth century.

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3.1 Water resourcesThe most striking feature about the location ofVijayanagara is the natural basin formed by theriver Tungabhadra which flows in a north-easterlydirection. The surrounding landscape is characterisedby stunning granite hills that seem to form a girdlearound the city. A number of streams flow down tothe river from these rocky outcrops.

In almost all cases embankments were built alongthese streams to create reservoirs of varying sizes.As this is one of the most arid zones of the peninsula,elaborate arrangements had to be made to storerainwater and conduct it to the city. The mostimportant such tank was built in the early yearsof the fifteenth century and is now calledKamalapuram tank. Water from this tank not onlyirrigated fields nearby but was also conductedthrough a channel to the “royal centre”.

One of the most prominent waterworks to be seenamong the ruins is the Hiriya canal. This canal drewwater from a dam across the Tungabhadra andirrigated the cultivated valley that separated the“sacred centre” from the “urban core”. This wasapparently built by kings of the Sangama dynasty.

3.2 Fortifications and roadsBefore we examine the different parts of the city indetail let us look at what enclosed them all – thegreat fortress walls. Abdur Razzaq, an ambassadorsent by the ruler of Persia to Calicut (present-dayKozhikode) in the fifteenth century, was greatlyimpressed by the fortifications, and mentionedseven lines of forts. These encircled not only thecity but also its agricultural hinterland and forests.The outermost wall linked the hills surroundingthe city. The massive masonry construction wasslightly tapered. No mortar or cementing agent wasemployed anywhere in the construction. The stoneblocks were wedge shaped, which held them inplace, and the inner portion of the walls was ofearth packed with rubble. Square or rectangularbastions projected outwards.

What was most significant about this fortificationis that it enclosed agricultural tracts. Abdur Razzaqnoted that “ between the first, second and the thirdwalls there are cultivated fields, gardens and houses”.And Paes observed: “From this first circuit until you

Fig. 7.5An aqueduct leading into the royalcentre

How tanks were built

About a tank constructed byKrishnadeva Raya, Paes wrote:

The king made a tank … atthe mouth of two hi l lsso that al l the waterwhich comes from eitherone side or the othercollects there; and, besidesthis, water comes to i tfrom more than threeleagues (approximately 15kilometres) by pipes whichrun along the lower parts ofthe range outside. Thiswater is brought from a lakewhich itself overflows into alittle river. The tank has threelarge pillars handsomelycarved with figures; theseconnect above with certainpipes by which they getwater when they have toirrigate their gardens andrice-fields. In order to makethis tank the said king brokedown a hill … In the tank Isaw so many people at workthat there must have beenfifteen or twenty thousandmen, looking like ants …

Source 4



enter the city there is a great distance, in which arefields in which they sow rice and have many gardensand much water, in which water comes from twolakes.” These statements have been corroborated bypresent-day archaeologists, who have also foundevidence of an agricultural tract between the sacredcentre and the urban core. This tract was servicedby an elaborate canal system drawing water fromthe Tungabhadra.

Why do you think agricultural tracts wereincorporated within the fortified area? Often, theobjective of medieval sieges was to starve thedefenders into submission. These sieges could lastfor several months and sometimes even years.Normally rulers tried to be prepared for suchsituations by building large granaries withinfortified areas. The rulers of Vijayanagara adopteda more expensive and elaborate strategy of protectingthe agricultural belt itself.

A second line of fortification went round theinner core of the urban complex, and a third linesurrounded the royal centre, within which each setof major buildings was surrounded by its ownhigh walls.

The fort was entered through well-guarded gates,which linked the city to the major roads. Gatewayswere distinctive architectural features that oftendefined the structures to which they regulatedaccess. The arch on the gateway leading into thefortified settlement as well as the dome over thegate (Fig. 7.6) are regarded as typical features of thearchitecture introduced by the Turkish Sultans. Arthistorians refer to this style as Indo-Islamic, as itgrew continually through interaction with localbuilding practices in different regions.

Archaeologists have studied roads within the cityand those leading out from it. These have beenidentified by tracing paths through gateways, as wellas by finds of pavements. Roads generally woundaround through the valleys, avoiding rocky terrain.Some of the most important roads extended fromtemple gateways, and were lined by bazaars.

3.3 The urban coreMoving along the roads leading into the urban core,there is relatively little archaeological evidence ofthe houses of ordinary people. Archaeologists have

Fig. 7.6A gateway in the fortification wall

Fig. 7.7A gopuram

Describe the similaritiesand differences betweenthese two entrances.Why do you think the rulersof Vijayanagara adoptedelements of Indo-Islamicarchitecture?

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found fine Chinese porcelain in some areas,including in the north-eastern corner of the urbancore and suggest that these areas may have beenoccupied by rich traders. This was also the Muslimresidential quarter. Tombs and mosques locatedhere have distinctive functions, yet their architectureresembles that of the mandapas found in the templesof Hampi.

This is how the sixteenth-century Portuguesetraveller Barbosa described the houses of ordinarypeople, which have not survived: “The other housesof the people are thatched, but nonetheless well builtand arranged according to occupations, in longstreets with many open places.”

Field surveys indicate that the entire area wasdotted with numerous shrines and small temples,pointing to the prevalence of a variety of cults,perhaps supported by different communities. Thesurveys also indicate that wells, rainwater tanks aswell as temple tanks may have served as sources ofwater to the ordinary town dwellers.

4. The Royal CentreThe royal centre was located in the south-westernpart of the settlement. Although designated as a royalcentre, it included over 60 temples. Clearly, thepatronage of temples and cults was important forrulers who were trying to establish and legitimisetheir authority through association with thedivinities housed in the shrines.

About thirty building complexes have beenidentified as palaces. These are relatively largestructures that do not seem to have been associated

Fig. 7.8Part of an excavated pavement

Fig. 7.9Shards of Chinese porcelain

Fig. 7.10A mosque in Vijayanagara

What kinds of vesselsdo you think these shardswere originally parts of?

Does the mosque havethe typical features ofIndo-Islamic architecture?


Discuss...Compare the layout ofVijayanagara with that ofyour town or village.


with ritual functions. One difference betweenthese structures and temples is that the latterwere constructed entirely of masonry, while thesuperstructure of the secular buildings was madeof perishable materials.

4.1 The mahanavami dibbaSome of the more distinctive structures in the areahave been assigned names based on the form ofthe buildings as well as their functions. The “king’spalace” is the largest of the enclosures but has notyielded definitive evidence of being a royal residence.It has two of the most impressive platforms, usuallycalled the “audience hall” and the “mahanavamidibba”. The entire complex is surrounded by highdouble walls with a street running between them.The audience hall is a high platform with slots forwooden pillars at close and regular intervals. It hada staircase going up to the second floor, which restedon these pillars. The pillars being closely spaced,would have left little free space and thus it is notclear what the hall was used for.

Located on one of the highest points in the city,the “mahanavami dibba” is a massive platform risingfrom a base of about 11,000 sq. ft to a height of40 ft. There is evidence that it supported a woodenstructure. The base of the platform is covered withrelief carvings (Fig. 7.12).

Rituals associated with the structure probablycoincided with Mahanavami (literally, the great ninthday) of the ten-day Hindu festival during the autumnmonths of September and October, known variouslyas Dusehra (northern India), Durga Puja (in Bengal)Fig. 7.11

The mahanavami dibba

A House of Victory?This is what Paes had to sayabout the audience hall andthe mahanavami dibba, whichtogether he called the “Houseof Victory”:

These buildings havetwo platforms one abovethe other, beautifullysculpted … On the upperplatform … in this Houseof Victory the king has aroom made of cloth …where the idol has a shrine... and in the other in themiddle is placed a dais onwhich stands a throne ofstate, (the crown and theroyal anklet) …

Fig. 7.12Carvings on the mahanavamidibba

Can you identify the themesof the carvings?

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and Navaratri or Mahanavami (in peninsular India).The Vijayanagara kings displayed their prestige, powerand suzerainty on this occasion.

The ceremonies performed on the occasion includedworship of the image, worship of the state horse, andthe sacrifice of buffaloes and other animals. Dances,wrestling matches, and processions of caparisonedhorses, elephants and chariots and soldiers, as wellas ritual presentations before the king and hisguests by the chief nayakas and subordinate kingsmarked the occasion. These ceremonies were imbuedwith deep symbolic meanings. On the last day of thefestival the king inspected his army and the armiesof the nayakas in a grand ceremony in an open field.On this occasion the nayakas brought rich gifts forthe king as well as the stipulated tribute.

Was the “mahanavami dibba” that stands todaythe centre of this elaborate ritual? Scholars havepointed out that the space surrounding the structuredoes not seem to have been adequate for elaborateprocessions of armed men, women, and largenumbers of animals. Like some of the otherstructures in the royal centre, it remains an enigma.

4.2 Other buildings in the royal centreOne of the most beautiful buildings in the royalcentre is the Lotus Mahal, so named by Britishtravellers in the nineteenth century. While the nameis certainly romantic, historians are not quite sure

Fig. 7.13An elevation drawing of theLotus MahalAn elevation is a vertical view ofany object or structure. It givesyou an idea of features thatcannot be seen in a photograph.Notice the arches. These wereprobably inspired by Indo-Islamictechniques.

Compare Figs. 7.13 and7.15, and make a list of thefeatures that are common toboth, as well as those that canbe seen in only one. Alsocompare the arch in Fig. 7.14with the arch in Fig. 7.6. TheLotus Mahal had nine towers –a high central one, and eightalong the sides. How many canyou see in the photograph andhow many in the elevation?If you had to rename the LotusMahal, what would you call it?

Fig. 7.14Detail of an arch ofthe Lotus Mahal



Fig. 7.15A photograph of the Lotus Mahal

Compare Figs. 7.16 aand 7.16 b with Fig. 7.17,making a list of featuresvisible in each one.Do you think these wereactually elephant stables?

Fig. 7.17 “Elephant stables” located close to the Lotus Mahal

Fig. 7.16 a Elevation of the “elephant stables”

Fig. 7.16 b Plan of the “elephant stables”. A plan gives a horizontal view of a structure.

what the building was used for. One suggestion,found in a map drawn by Mackenzie, is that itmay have been a council chamber, a place wherethe king met his advisers.

While most temples were located in the sacredcentre, there were several in the royal centre as well.

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One of the most spectacular of these is one known asthe Hazara Rama temple. This was probably meantto be used only by the king and his family. The imagesin the central shrine are missing; however, sculptedpanels on the walls survive. These include scenesfrom the Ramayana sculpted on the inner walls ofthe shrine.

While many of the structures at Vijayanagarawere destroyed when the city was sacked, traditionsof building palatial structures were continued bythe nayakas. Many of these buildings have survived.

Fig. 7.19Interior of the audience hallat MaduraiNote the arches.

Discuss...Why did the nayakas continue with the buildingtraditions of the rulers of Vijayanagara?

Fig. 7.18Sculpture from the Hazara Rama temple

Can you identify scenes of dancing?Why do you think elephants and horseswere depicted on the panels?



5. The Sacred Centre5.1 Choosing a capitalWe now move to the rocky northern end of the cityon the banks of the Tungabhadra. According to localtradition, these hills sheltered the monkey kingdomof Vali and Sugriva mentioned in the Ramayana.Other traditions suggest that Pampadevi, the localmother goddess, did penance in these hills in orderto marry Virupaksha, the guardian deity of thekingdom, also recognised as a form of Shiva. To thisday this marriage is celebrated annually in theVirupaksha temple. Among these hills are foundJaina temples of the pre-Vijayanagara period as well.In other words, this area was associated with severalsacred traditions.

Temple building in the region had a long history,going back to dynasties such as the Pallavas,Chalukyas, Hoysalas and Cholas. Rulers very oftenencouraged temple building as a means ofassociating themselves with the divine – often, thedeity was explicitly or implicitly identified with theking. Temples also functioned as centres of learning.Besides, rulers and others often granted land andother resources for the maintenance of temples.Consequently, temples developed as significantreligious, social, cultural and economic centres. Fromthe point of view of the rulers, constructing, repairingand maintaining temples were important meansof winning support and recognition for their power,wealth and piety.

It is likely that the very choice of the site ofVijayanagara was inspired by the existence of theshrines of Virupaksha and Pampadevi. In fact theVijayanagara kings claimed to rule on behalf ofthe god Virupaksha. All royal orders were signed“Shri Virupaksha”, usually in the Kannada script.Rulers also indicated their close links with the godsby using the title “Hindu Suratrana”. This was aSanskritisation of the Arabic term Sultan, meaningking, so it literally meant Hindu Sultan.

Even as they drew on earlier traditions, the rulersof Vijayanagara innovated and developed these.Royal portrait sculpture was now displayed intemples, and the king’s visits to temples were treatedas important state occasions on which he wasaccompanied by the important nayakas of the empire.

185

5.2. Gopurams and mandapasIn terms of temple architecture, by this periodcertain new features were in evidence. Theseincluded structures of immense scale that must havebeen a mark of imperial authority, best exemplifiedby the raya gopurams (Fig. 7.7) or royal gatewaysthat often dwarfed the towers on the central shrines,and signalled the presence of the temple from a great

Fig. 7.20An aerial view of theVirupaksha temple

Fig. 7.21A plan of the VirupakshatempleMost of the squarestructures are shrines.The two major gatewaysare shaded in black.Each tiny dot representsa pillar. Rows of pillarsarranged in lineswithin a square orrectangular frame appearto demarcate major halls,pavilions and corridors.

Using the scale inthe plan, measure thedistance from the maingopuram to the centralshrine. What wouldhave been the easiestaccess from the tank tothe shrine?

Tank

Shrine

30m



distance. They were also probably meant asreminders of the power of kings, able to commandthe resources, techniques and skills needed toconstruct these towering gateways. Other distinctivefeatures include mandapas or pavilions andlong, pillared corridors that often ran around theshrines within the temple complex. Let us look attwo temples more closely – the Virupaksha templeand the Vitthala temple.

The Virupaksha temple was built over centuries.While inscriptions suggest that the earliestshrine dated to the ninth-tenth centuries, it wassubstantially enlarged with the establishmentof the Vijayanagara Empire. The hall in front ofthe main shrine was built by Krishnadeva Raya tomark his accession. This was decorated withdelicately carved pillars. He is also credited with

Fig. 7.23A line drawing of a sculpted pillar

Describe what you see onthe pillar.

Fig. 7.22A kalyana mandapa, meant tocelebrate divine weddings

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the construction of the eastern gopuram. Theseadditions meant that the central shrine came tooccupy a relatively small part of the complex.

The halls in the temple were used for a variety ofpurposes. Some were spaces in which the images ofgods were placed to witness special programmes ofmusic, dance, drama, etc. Others were used tocelebrate the marriages of deities, and yet otherswere meant for the deities to swing in. Special images,distinct from those kept in the small central shrine,were used on these occasions.

Fig. 7.24The chariot of the Vitthala temple

Do you think chariotswould have actually been builtlike this?

Fig. 7.25Swing pavilion from Gingee



Another shrine, the Vitthala temple, is alsointeresting. Here, the principal deity was Vitthala, aform of Vishnu generally worshipped in Maharashtra.The introduction of the worship of the deity inKarnataka is another indication of the ways in whichthe rulers of Vijayanagara drew on different traditionsto create an imperial culture. As in the case of othertemples, this temple too has several halls and aunique shrine designed as a chariot (Fig. 7.24).

A characteristic feature of the temple complexesis the chariot streets that extended from the templegopuram in a straight line. These streets were pavedwith stone slabs and lined with pillared pavilions inwhich merchants set up their shops.

Just as the nayakas continued with and elaboratedon traditions of fortification, so they did withtraditions of temple building. In fact, some of themost spectacular gopurams were also built by thelocal nayakas.

Discuss...How and why did the rulers of Vijayanagara adoptand adapt earlier traditions of ritual architecture?

6. Plotting Palaces, Templesand Bazaars

We have been examining a wealth of information onVijayanagara – photographs, plans, elevations ofstructures and sculpture. How was all of thisproduced? After the initial surveys by Mackenzie,information was pieced together from travellers’accounts and inscriptions. Through the twentiethcentury, the site was preserved by the ArchaeologicalSurvey of India and the Karnataka Department ofArchaeology and Museums. In 1976, Hampi wasrecognised as a site of national importance. Then,in the early 1980s, an important project waslaunched to document the material remains atVijayanagara in detail, through extensive andintensive surveys, using a variety of recordingtechniques. Over nearly twenty years, dozens of

Fig. 7.26A gopuram built by the nayakasof Madurai

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scholars from all over theworld worked to compile andpreserve this information.

Let us look at just onepart of this enormousexercise – mapping – inmore detail. The first stepwas to divide the entirearea into a set of 25squares, each designated bya letter of the alphabet. Then,each of the small squareswas subdivided into a setof even smaller squares. Butthis was not all: each ofthese smaller squares wasfurther subdivided into yetsmaller units.

As you can see, thesedetailed surveys havebeen extremely painstaking,and have recovered anddocumented traces ofthousands of structures –from tiny shrines andresidences to elaboratetemples. They have also ledto the recovery of traces ofroads, paths, bazaars, etc.

Fig. 7.27A detailed map of the site(top right)

Which is the letter of thealphabet that was not used?Using the scale in the map,measure the length of anyone of the small squares.

What is the scale usedon this map?

Fig. 7.28Square N of Fig. 7.27 (right)



The latter have been locatedthrough finds of pillar basesand platforms – all that remainof thriving markets.

It is worth rememberingsomething that John M. Fritz,George Michell and M.S. NagarajaRao, who worked for years at thesite, wrote: “In our study of thesemonuments of Vijayanagara wehave to imagine a whole seriesof vanished wooden elements –columns, brackets, beams,ceilings, overhanging eaves, andtowers – decorated with plasterand painted, perhaps brightly.”

Although wooden structures arelost, and only stone structuressurvive, the descriptions left bytravellers allow us to reconstructsome aspects of the vibrant life ofthe times.

Fig. 7.29Square NM of Fig. 7.28

Identify a temple.Look for walls, a central shrine,and traces of paths leading to thetemple. Name the squares onthe map which contain the planof the temple.

Identify the gopuram, halls,colonnades and central shrine.Which areas would you passthrough to reach the centralshrine from the outer entrance?

Fig. 7.30Plan of the temple in Fig 7.29

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The bazaar

Paes gives a vivid description of the bazaar:

Going forward, you have a broad and beautiful street… In this street live many merchants, and there youwill find all sorts of rubies, and diamonds, and emeralds,and pearls, and seed-pearls, and cloths, and every othersort of thing there is on earth and that you may wish tobuy. Then you have there every evening a fair wherethey sell many common horses and nags, and also manycitrons, and limes, and oranges, and grapes, and everyother kind of garden stuff, and wood; you have all inthis street.

More generally, he described the city as being “the best-provided city in the world” with the markets “stocked withprovisions such as rice, wheat, grains, India corn and acertain amount of barley and beans, moong, pulsesand horse-gram” all of which were cheaply and abundantlyavailable. According to Fernao Nuniz, the Vijayanagaramarkets were “overflowing with abundance of fruits,grapes and oranges, limes, pomegranates, jackfruit andmangoes and all very cheap”. Meat too was sold inabundance in the marketplaces. Nuniz describes “mutton,pork, venison, partridges, hares, doves, quail and all kindsof birds, sparrows, rats and cats and lizards” as beingsold in the market of Bisnaga (Vijayanagara).

7. Questions in Searchof Answers

Buildings that survive tell us about the way spaceswere organised and used, how they were built, withwhat materials and techniques. For example, wecan assess the defence requirements and militarypreparedness of a city by studying its fortifications.Buildings also tell us about the spread of ideas andcultural influences if we compare them withbuildings in other places. They convey ideas whichthe builders or their patrons wished to project. Theyare often suffused with symbols which are a productof their cultural context. These we can understandwhen we combine information from other sourceslike literature, inscriptions and popular traditions.

Source 5



Investigations of architectural features do nottell us what ordinary men, women and children,comprising the vast majority of the people who livedin the city and its outskirts, thought about theseimpressive buildings. Would they have had accessto any of the areas within the royal centre or thesacred centre? Would they hurry past the sculpture,or would they pause to see, reflect and try andunderstand its complicated symbolism? And whatdid the people who worked on these colossalconstruction projects think of the enterprises towhich they had contributed their labour?

While rulers took all important decisions about thebuildings to be constructed, the site, the material tobe used and the style to be followed, who possessedthe specialised knowledge required for suchenormous enterprises? Who drew up the plans forthe buildings? Where did the masons, stonecutters,sculptors who did the actual building come from?Were they captured during war from neighbouringregions? What kind of wages did they get? Whosupervised the building activity? How was buildingmaterial transported and where did it come from?These are some of the questions that we cannotanswer by merely looking at the buildings or theirremains. Continuing research using other sourcesmight provide some further clues.

Krishnadeva RayaTo recapitulate about some ofthe problems of perspective,look at this beautiful statueof Krishnadeva Raya placedon the gopuram of the templeat Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu.This is obviously the way inwhich the ruler wanted toproject himself.

And this is how Paesdescribes the king:

Of medium height, and offair complexion and goodfigure, rather fat than thin;he has on his face signs ofsmallpox.

Fig. 7.31

193AN IMPERIAL CAPITAL: VIJAYANAGARA

Fig. 7.32Part of a structure knownas the queen’s bath

Timeline 1Major Political Developments

c .1200-1300 Establishment of the Delhi Sultanate (1206)

c .1300-1400 Establishment of the Vijayanagara Empire (1336?);establishment of the Bahmani kingdom (1347);Sultanates in Jaunpur, Kashmir and Madura

c .1400-1500 Establishment of the Gajapati kingdom of Orissa (1435);Establishment of the Sultanates of Gujarat and Malwa;Emergence of the Sultanates of Ahmadnagar, Bijapurand Berar (1490)

c .1500-1600 Conquest of Goa by the Portuguese (1510);Collapse of the Bahmani kingdom,emergence of the Sultanate of Golconda (1518);Establishment of the Mughal empire by Babur (1526)

Timeline 2Landmarks in the Discovery and Conservation

of Vijayanagara

1800 Colin Mackenzie visits Vijayanagara

1856 Alexander Greenlaw takes the first detailed photographsof archaeological remains at Hampi

1876 J.F. Fleet begins documenting the inscriptions on thetemple walls at the site

1902 Conservation begins under John Marshall

1986 Hampi declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO

Note: Question mark indicates uncertain date.


Fig. 7.33


1. What have been the methods used to study the ruinsof Hampi over the last two centuries? In whatway do you think they would have complementedthe information provided by the priests of theVirupaksha temple?

2. How were the water requirements of Vijayanagaramet?

3. What do you think were the advantages anddisadvantages of enclosing agricultural land withinthe fortified area of the city?

4. What do you think was the significance of the ritualsassociated with the mahanavami dibba?

5. Fig. 7.33 is an illustration of another pillar from theVirupaksha temple. Do you notice any floral motifs?What are the animals shown? Why do you think theyare depicted? Describe the human figures shown.


6. Discuss whether the term “royal centre” is anappropriate description for the part of the city for whichit is used.

7. What does the architecture of buildings like the LotusMahal and elephant stables tell us about the rulerswho commissioned them?

8. What are the architectural traditions that inspired thearchitects of Vijayanagara? How did they transformthese traditions?

9. What impression of the lives of the ordinary people ofVijayanagara can you cull from the variousdescriptions in the chapter?

195

For more information,you could visit:http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/research/Exp_Rese_Disc/Asia/vrp/HTML/Vijay_Hist.shtml


Map work

10. On an outline map of the world, markapproximately Italy, Portugal, Iran and Russia.Trace the routes the travellers mentioned on p.176would have taken to reach Vijayanagara.

Project (choose one)

11. Find out more about any one of the major citieswhich flourished in the subcontinent duringc. fourteenth-seventeenth centuries. Describe thearchitecture of the city. Are there any features tosuggest that these were political centres? Are therebuildings that were ritually significant? Is therean area for commercial activities? What are thefeatures that distinguish the urban layout from thatof surrounding areas?

12. Visit a religious building in your neighbourhood.Describe, with sketches, its roof, pillars andarches if any, corridors, passages, halls, entrance,water supply, etc. Compare these features withthose of the Virupaksha temple. Describe whateach part of the building is used for. Find outabout its history.

Vasundhara Filliozat. 2006 (rpt).Vijayanagara.National Book Trust,New Delhi.

George Michell. 1995.Architecture and Art ofSouthern India.Cambridge University Press,Cambridge.

K.A. Nilakanta Sastri. 1955.A History of South India.Oxford University Press,New Delhi.

Burton Stein. 1989.Vijayanagara (The NewCambridge History of IndiaVol.1, Part 2).Foundation Books, New Delhi.



During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuriesabout 85 per cent of the population of India lived inits villages. Both peasants and landed elites wereinvolved in agricultural production and claimedrights to a share of the produce. This createdrelationships of cooperation, competition andconflict among them. The sum of these agrarianrelationships made up rural society.

At the same time agencies from outside alsoentered into the rural world. Most important amongthese was the Mughal state, which derived thebulk of its income from agricultural production.Agents of the state – revenue assessors, collectors,record keepers – sought to control rural society soas to ensure that cultivation took place and thestate got its regular share of taxes from theproduce. Since many crops were grown for sale,trade, money and markets entered the villages andlinked the agricultural areas with the towns.

1. Peasants and AgriculturalProduction

The basic unit of agricultural society was the village,inhabited by peasants who performed the manifoldseasonal tasks that made up agricultural productionthroughout the year – tilling the soil, sowing seeds,harvesting the crop when it was ripe. Further, theycontributed their labour to the production ofagro-based goods such as sugar and oil.

But rural India was not characterised by settledpeasant production alone. Several kinds of areassuch as large tracts of dry land or hilly regions werenot cultivable in the same way as the more fertile

Fig. 8.1A rural sceneDetail from a seventeenth-centuryMughal painting

Peasants, Zamindarsand the State

AAAAAgggggrrrrrarararararian Socieian Socieian Socieian Socieian Society and tty and tty and tty and tty and the Mughal Emhe Mughal Emhe Mughal Emhe Mughal Emhe Mughal Empirpirpirpirpireeeee(((((ccccc. sixteent. sixteent. sixteent. sixteent. sixteenthhhhh ----- seventeenth centuries)seventeenth centuries)seventeenth centuries)seventeenth centuries)seventeenth centuries)

THEME

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expanses of land. In addition, forest areas made upa substantial proportion of territory. We need to keepthis varied topography in mind when discussingagrarian society.

1.1 Looking for sourcesOur understanding of the workings of rural society doesnot come from those who worked the land, as peasantsdid not write about themselves. Our major source forthe agrarian history of the sixteenth and earlyseventeenth centuries are chronicles and documentsfrom the Mughal court (see also Chapter 9).

One of the most important chronicles was theAin-i Akbari (in short the Ain, see also Section 8)authored by Akbar’s court historian Abu’l Fazl. Thistext meticulously recorded the arrangements madeby the state to ensure cultivation, to enable thecollection of revenue by the agencies of the stateand to regulate the relationship between the stateand rural magnates, the zamindars.

The central purpose of the Ain was to present avision of Akbar’s empire where social harmony wasprovided by a strong ruling class. Any revolt or assertionof autonomous power against the Mughal state was,in the eyes of the author of the Ain, predestined to fail.In other words, whatever we learn from the Ain aboutpeasants remains a view from the top.

Fortunately, however, the account of the Ain canbe supplemented by descriptions contained in sourcesemanating from regions away from the Mughalcapital. These include detailed revenue records fromGujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan dating fromthe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Further,the extensive records of the East India Company (seealso Chapter 10) provide us with useful descriptionsof agrarian relations in eastern India. All thesesources record instances of conflicts betweenpeasants, zamindars and the state. In the processthey give us an insight into peasants’ perception ofand their expectations of fairness from the state.

1.2 Peasants and their landsThe term which Indo-Persian sources of the Mughalperiod most frequently used to denote a peasant wasraiyat (plural, riaya) or muzarian. In addition, wealso encounter the terms kisan or asami. Sources ofthe seventeenth century refer to two kinds ofpeasants – khud-kashta and pahi-kashta. The former

PEASANTS, ZAMINDARS AND THE STATE


were residents of the village in which they held theirlands. The latter were non-resident cultivators whobelonged to some other village, but cultivated landselsewhere on a contractual basis. People becamepahi-kashta either out of choice – for example, whenterms of revenue in a distant village were morefavourable – or out of compulsion – for example,forced by economic distress after a famine.

Seldom did the average peasant of north Indiapossess more than a pair of bullocks and twoploughs; most possessed even less. In Gujaratpeasants possessing about six acres of land wereconsidered to be affluent; in Bengal, on the otherhand, five acres was the upper limit of an averagepeasant farm; 10 acres would make one a rich asami.Cultivation was based on the principle of individualownership. Peasant lands were bought and sold inthe same way as the lands of other property owners.

This nineteenth-century description of peasantholdings in the Delhi-Agra region would apply equallyto the seventeenth century:

The cultivating peasants (asamis), who ploughup the fields, mark the limits of each field, foridentification and demarcation, with borders of(raised) earth, brick and thorn so that thousandsof such fields may be counted in a village.

1.3 Irrigation and technologyThe abundance of land, available labour and themobility of peasants were three factors thataccounted for the constant expansion of agriculture.Since the primary purpose of agriculture is to feedpeople, basic staples such as rice, wheat or milletswere the most frequently cultivated crops. Areaswhich received 40 inches or more of rainfall a yearwere generally rice-producing zones, followed bywheat and millets, corresponding to a descendingscale of precipitation.

Monsoons remained the backbone of Indianagriculture, as they are even today. But there werecrops which required additional water. Artificialsystems of irrigation had to be devised for this.

Peasants on the move

This was a feature of agrariansociety which struck a keenobserver like Babur, the firstMughal emperor, forcefullyenough for him to write about itin the Babur Nama, his memoirs:

In Hindustan hamlets andvillages, towns indeed, aredepopulated and set up ina moment! If the people of alarge town, one inhabitedfor years even, flee from it,they do it in such a way thatnot a sign or trace of themremains in a day and a half.On the other hand, if theyfix their eyes on a place tosettle, they need not digwater courses because theircrops are all rain-grown,and as the population ofHindustan is unlimited itswarms in. They make a tankor a well; they need not buildhouses or set up walls …khas-grass abounds, woodis unlimited, huts are made,and straightaway there is avillage or a town!

Source 1

Describe the aspectsof agricultural life thatstruck Babur asparticular to regions innorthern India.

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Irrigating trees and fields

This is an excerpt from the Babur Nama that describes theirrigation devices the emperor observed in northern India:

The greater part of Hindustan country is situated on level land.Many though its towns and cultivated lands are, it nowherehas running waters … For … water is not at all a necessity incultivating crops and orchards. Autumn crops grow by thedownpour of the rains themselves; and strange it is that springcrops grow even when no rains fall. (However) to young treeswater is made to flow by means of buckets or wheels …

In Lahore, Dipalpur (both in present-day Pakistan) and thoseother parts, people water by means of a wheel. They make twocircles of rope long enough to suit the depths of the well, fixstrips of wood between them, and on these fasten pitchers.The ropes with the wood and attached pitchers are put overthe wheel-well. At one end of the wheel-axle a second wheel isfixed, and close to it another on an upright axle. The last wheelthe bullock turns; its teeth catch in the teeth of the second(wheel), and thus the wheel with the pitchers is turned. Atrough is set where the water empties from the pitchers andfrom this the water is conveyed everywhere.

In Agra, Chandwar, Bayana (all in present-day Uttar Pradesh)and those parts again, people water with a bucket … At thewell-edge they set up a fork of wood, having a roller adjustedbetween the forks, tie a rope to a large bucket, put the ropeover a roller, and tie its other end to the bullock. One personmust drive the bullock, another empty the bucket.

Compare theirrigation devicesobserved by Babur withwhat you have learntabout irrigation inVijayanagara(Chapter 7). What kindof resources would eachof these systemsrequire? Which systemscould ensure theparticipation of peasantsin improvingagricultural technology?

Fig. 8.2A reconstructed Persianwheel, described here

Source 2



Irrigation projects received state support as well.For example, in northern India the state undertookdigging of new canals (nahr, nala) and also repairedold ones like the shahnahr in the Punjab during ShahJahan’s reign.

Though agriculture was labour intensive, peasantsdid use technologies that often harnessed cattleenergy. One example was the wooden plough, whichwas light and easily assembled with an iron tip orcoulter. It therefore did not make deep furrows, whichpreserved the moisture better during the intenselyhot months. A drill, pulled by a pair of giant oxen,was used to plant seeds, but broadcasting ofseed was the most prevalent method. Hoeing andweeding were done simultaneously using a narrowiron blade with a small wooden handle.

1.4 An abundance of cropsAgriculture was organised around two majorseasonal cycles, the kharif (autumn) and the rabi(spring). This would mean that most regions, exceptthose terrains that were the most arid orinhospitable, produced a minimum of two crops ayear (do-fasla), whereas some, where rainfall orirrigation assured a continuous supply of water, evengave three crops. This ensured an enormous varietyof produce. For instance, we are told in the Ain thatthe Mughal provinces of Agra produced 39 varietiesof crops and Delhi produced 43 over the two seasons.Bengal produced 50 varieties of rice alone.

However, the focus on the cultivation of basicstaples did not mean that agriculture in medievalIndia was only for subsistence. We often come acrossthe term jins-i kamil (literally, perfect crops) in oursources. The Mughal state also encouraged peasantsto cultivate such crops as they brought in morerevenue. Crops such as cotton and sugarcane werejins-i kamil par excellence. Cotton was grown over agreat swathe of territory spread over central Indiaand the Deccan plateau, whereas Bengal was famousfor its sugar. Such cash crops would also includevarious sorts of oilseeds (for example, mustard) andlentils. This shows how subsistence and commercialproduction were closely intertwined in an averagepeasant’s holding.

During the seventeenth century several new cropsfrom different parts of the world reached the Indian

The spread of tobaccoThis plant, which arrived firstin the Deccan, spread tonorthern India in the early yearsof the seventeenth century. TheAin does not mention tobaccoin the lists of crops in northernIndia. Akbar and his nobles cameacross tobacco for the first timein 1604. At this time smokingtobacco (in hookahs or chillums)seems to have caught on ina big way. Jahangir was soconcerned about its addictionthat he banned it. This was totallyineffective because by theend of the seventeenth century,tobacco had become a majorarticle of consumption, cultivationand trade all over India.

Agricultural prosperityand population growthOne important outcome of suchvaried and flexible forms ofagricultural production wasa slow demographic growth.Despite periodic disruptionscaused by famines andepidemics, India’s populationincreased, according tocalculations by economichistorians, by about 50 millionpeople between 1600 and 1800,which is an increase of about33 per cent over 200 years.

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subcontinent. Maize (makka), for example, wasintroduced into India via Africa and Spain and bythe seventeenth century it was being listed as oneof the major crops of western India. Vegetables liketomatoes, potatoes and chillies were introduced fromthe New World at this time, as were fruits like thepineapple and the papaya.

2. The Village CommunityThe above account makes it clear that agriculturalproduction involved the intensive participation andinitiative of the peasantry. How did this affect thestructure of agrarian relations in Mughal society?To find out, let us look at the social groups involvedin agricultural expansion, and at their relationshipsand conflicts.

We have seen that peasants held their lands inindividual ownership. At the same time they belongedto a collective village community as far as manyaspects of their social existence were concerned.There were three constituents of this community –the cultivators, the panchayat, and the villageheadman (muqaddam or mandal).

2.1 Caste and the rural milieuDeep inequities on the basis of caste and other caste-like distinctions meant that the cultivators were ahighly heterogeneous group. Among those who tilledthe land, there was a sizeable number who workedas menials or agriculturallabourers (majur).

Despite the abundance ofcultivable land, certain castegroups were assigned menialtasks and thus relegated topoverty. Though there wasno census at that time, thelittle data that we havesuggest that such groupscomprised a large section ofthe village population, hadthe least resources and wereconstrained by their positionin the caste hierarchy, muchlike the Dalits of modernIndia. Such distinctions hadbegun permeating into other

Discuss...Identify the technologiesand agricultural practicesdescribed in this section thatappear similar to or differentfrom those described inChapter 2.


Fig. 8.3An early nineteenth-centurypainting depicting a village inthe Punjab

Describe what women andmen are shown doing in theillustration as well as thearchitecture of the village.


communities too. In Muslim communities menials likethe halalkhoran (scavengers) were housed outside theboundaries of the village; similarly the mallahzadas(literally, sons of boatmen) in Bihar were comparableto slaves.

There was a direct correlation between caste,poverty and social status at the lower strata ofsociety. Such correlations were not so marked atintermediate levels. In a manual from seventeenth-century Marwar, Rajputs are mentioned as peasants,sharing the same space with Jats, who were accordeda lower status in the caste hierarchy. The Gauravas,who cultivated land around Vrindavan (UttarPradesh), sought Rajput status in the seventeenthcentury. Castes such as the Ahirs, Gujars and Malisrose in the hierarchy because of the profitability ofcattle rearing and horticulture. In the easternregions, intermediate pastoral and fishing casteslike the Sadgops and Kaivartas acquired the statusof peasants.

2.2 Panchayats and headmenThe village panchayat was an assembly of elders,usually important people of the village with hereditaryrights over their property. In mixed-caste villages,the panchayat was usually a heterogeneous body. Anoligarchy, the panchayat represented various castesand communities in the village, though the villagemenial-cum-agricultural worker was unlikely to berepresented there. The decisions made by thesepanchayats were binding on the members.

The panchayat was headed by a headman knownas muqaddam or mandal. Some sources suggest thatthe headman was chosen through the consensus ofthe village elders, and that this choice had to beratified by the zamindar. Headmen held office as longas they enjoyed the confidence of the village elders,failing which they could be dismissed by them. Thechief function of the headman was to supervise thepreparation of village accounts, assisted by theaccountant or patwari of the panchayat.

The panchayat derived its funds fromcontributions made by individuals to a commonfinancial pool. These funds were used for defrayingthe costs of entertaining revenue officials whovisited the village from time to time. Expenses forcommunity welfare activities such as tiding over

Corrupt mandalsThe mandals often misused theirpositions. They were principallyaccused of defrauding villageaccounts in connivance with thepatwari, and for underassessingthe revenue they owed fromtheir own lands in order to passthe additional burden on to thesmaller cultivator.

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Fig. 8.4An early nineteenth-centurypainting depicting a meeting ofvillage elders and tax collectors

natural calamities (likefloods), were also met fromthese funds. Often thesefunds were also deployed inconstruction of a bund ordigging a canal whichpeasants usually could notafford to do on their own.

One important function ofthe panchayat was to ensurethat caste boundaries amongthe various communitiesinhabiting the village wereupheld. In eastern India allmarriages were held in thepresence of the mandal. In other words one of theduties of the village headman was to oversee theconduct of the members of the village community“chiefly to prevent any offence against their caste”.

Panchayats also had the authority to levy finesand inflict more serious forms of punishment likeexpulsion from the community. The latter was adrastic step and was in most cases meted out for alimited period. It meant that a person forced to leavethe village became an outcaste and lost his rightto practise his profession. Such a measure wasintended as a deterrent to violation of caste norms.

In addition to the village panchayat each casteor jati in the village had its own jati panchayat.These panchayats wielded considerable powerin rural society. In Rajasthan jati panchayatsarbitrated civil disputes between members ofdifferent castes. They mediated in contested claimson land, decided whether marriages were performedaccording to the norms laid down by a particularcaste group, determined who had ritual precedencein village functions, and so on. In most cases,except in matters of criminal justice, the staterespected the decisions of jati panchayats.

Archival records from western India – notablyRajasthan and Maharashtra – contain petitionspresented to the panchayat complaining aboutextortionate taxation or the demand for unpaidlabour (begar) imposed by the “superior” castes orofficials of the state. These petitions were usuallymade by villagers, from the lowest rungs of ruralsociety. Often petitions were made collectively as


How has the artistdifferentiated between thevillage elders and thetax collectors?


well, by a caste group or a community protestingagainst what they considered were morallyillegitimate demands on the part of elite groups.These included excessive tax demands which,especially in times of drought or other disasters,endangered the peasants’ subsistence. In the eyesof the petitioners the right to the basic minimum forsurvival was sanctioned by custom. They regardedthe village panchayat as the court of appeal thatwould ensure that the state carried out its moralobligations and guaranteed justice.

The decision of the panchayat inconflicts between “lower -caste”peasants and state officials or thelocal zamindar could vary fromcase to case. In cases of excessiverevenue demands, the panchayatoften suggested compromise. Incases where reconciliation failed,peasants took recourse to moredrastic forms of resistance, such asdeserting the village. The relativelyeasy availability of uncultivated landand the competition over labourresources made this an effectiveweapon in the hands of cultivators.

2.3 Village artisansAnother interesting aspect ofthe village was the elaboraterelationship of exchange betweendifferent producers. Marathidocuments and village surveysmade in the early years of Britishrule have revealed the existence ofsubstantial numbers of artisans,sometimes as high as 25 per cent ofthe total households in the villages.

At times, however, the distinctionbetween artisans and peasants invillage society was a fluid one, asmany groups performed the tasksof both. Cultivators and theirfamilies would also participate incraft production – such as dyeing,textile printing, baking and firingof pottery, making and repairing

Fig. 8.5A seventeenth-century paintingdepicting textile production

Describe the activities thatare shown in the illustration.

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agricultural implements. Phases in the agriculturalcalendar when there was a relative lull in activity,as between sowing and weeding or between weedingand harvesting, were a time when cultivators couldengage in artisanal production.

Village artisans – potters, blacksmiths, carpenters,barbers, even goldsmiths – provided specialisedservices in return for which they were compensatedby villagers by a variety of means. The most commonway of doing so was by giving them a share of theharvest, or an allotment of land, perhaps cultivablewastes, which was likely to be decided by thepanchayat. In Maharashtra such lands became theartisans’ miras or watan – their hereditary holding.

Another variant of this was a system whereartisans and individual peasant households enteredinto a mutually negotiated system of remuneration,most of the time goods for services. For example,eighteenth-century records tell us of zamindars inBengal who remunerated blacksmiths, carpenters,even goldsmiths for their work by paying them “asmall daily allowance and diet money”. This latercame to be described as the jajmani system,though the term was not in vogue in the sixteenthand seventeenth centuries. Such evidence isinteresting because it indicates the intricate waysin which exchange networks operated at themicro-level of the village. Cash remuneration wasnot entirely unknown either.

2.4 A “little republic”?How does one understand the significance of thevillage community? Some British officials in thenineteenth century saw the village as a “littlerepublic” made up of fraternal partners sharingresources and labour in a collective. However, thiswas not a sign of rural egalitarianism. There wasindividual ownership of assets and deep inequitiesbased on caste and gender distinctions. A groupof powerful individuals decided the affairs of thevillage, exploited the weaker sections and had theauthority to dispense justice.

More importantly, a cash nexus had alreadydeveloped through trade between villages and towns.In the Mughal heartland too, revenue was assessedand collected in cash. Artisans producing for theexport market (for example, weavers) received their



advances or wages in cash, as did producers ofcommercial products like cotton, silk or indigo.

Discuss...In what ways do you think the panchayatsdescribed in this section were similar to ordifferent from present-day gram panchayats?

3. Women in Agrarian SocietyAs you may have observed in many different societies,the production process often involves men andwomen performing certain specified roles. In thecontexts that we are exploring, women and men hadto work shoulder to shoulder in the fields. Mentilled and ploughed, while women sowed, weeded,threshed and winnowed the harvest. With the growthof nucleated villages and expansion in individuatedpeasant farming, which characterised medievalIndian agriculture, the basis of production was thelabour and resources of the entire household.Naturally, a gendered segregation between the home(for women) and the world (for men) was not possiblein this context. Nonetheless biases related to women’sbiological functions did continue. Menstruatingwomen, for instance, were not allowed to touch theplough or the potter’s wheel in western India, orenter the groves where betel-leaves (paan) weregrown in Bengal.

Artisanal tasks such as spinning yarn, sifting andkneading clay for pottery, and embroidery were amongthe many aspects of production dependent on femalelabour. The more commercialised the product, thegreater the demand on women’s labour to produce it.In fact, peasant and artisan women worked not onlyin the fields, but even went to the houses of theiremployers or to the markets if necessary.

Women were considered an important resource inagrarian society also because they were child bearersin a society dependent on labour. At the same time,high mortality rates among women – owing tomalnutrition, frequent pregnancies, death duringchildbirth – often meant a shortage of wives. Thisled to the emergence of social customs in peasantand artisan communities that were distinct from

Money in the villageThe seventeenth-century Frenchtraveller Jean-Baptiste Tavernierfound it remarkable that in“India a village must be very smallindeed if it has not a money-changer called a Shroff. (They)act as bankers to makeremittances of money (andwho) enhance the rupee asthey please for paisa and thepaisa for these (cowrie) shells”.

Fig. 8.7A woman spinning thread

Fig. 8.6A shroff at work

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those prevalent among elite groups. Marriages inmany rural communities required the payment ofbride-price rather than dowry to the bride’s family.Remarriage was considered legitimate both amongdivorced and widowed women.

The importance attached to women as areproductive force also meant that the fear of losingcontrol over them was great. According to establishedsocial norms, the household was headed by a male.Thus women were kept under strict control by themale members of the family and the community.They could inflict draconian punishments if theysuspected infidelity on the part of women.

Documents from Western India – Rajasthan, Gujaratand Maharashtra – record petitions sent by women tothe village panchayat, seeking redress and justice.Wives protested against the infidelity of theirhusbands or the neglect of the wife and children bythe male head of the household, the grihasthi. Whilemale infidelity was not always punished, the stateand “superior” caste groups did intervene when it cameto ensuring that the family was adequately providedfor. In most cases when women petitioned to thepanchayat, their names were excluded from therecord: the petitioner was referred to as the mother,sister or wife of the male head of the household.

Amongst the landed gentry, women had the rightto inherit property. Instances from the Punjab showthat women, including widows, actively participatedin the rural land market as sellers of property inheritedby them. Hindu and Muslim women inheritedzamindaris which they were free to sell or mortgage.Women zamindars were known in eighteenth-centuryBengal. In fact, one of the biggest and most famous ofthe eighteenth-century zamindaris, that of Rajshahi,had a woman at the helm.

Fig. 8.8 bWomen carrying loadsMigrant women from neighbouringvillages often worked at suchconstruction sites.


Fig. 8.8 aThe construction of Fatehpur Sikri –women crushing stones

Discuss...Are there any differences in the access men andwomen have to agricultural land in your state?


4. Forests and Tribes4.1 Beyond settled villagesThere was more to rural India than sedentaryagriculture. Apart from the intensively cultivatedprovinces in northern and north-western India,huge swathes of forests – dense forest (jangal) orscrubland (kharbandi) – existed all over easternIndia, central India, northern India (including theTerai on the Indo-Nepal border), Jharkhand, and inpeninsular India down the Western Ghats and theDeccan plateau. Though it is nearly impossible toset an all-India average of the forest cover for thisperiod, informed conjectures based on contemporarysources suggest an average of 40 per cent.

Forest dwellers were termed jangli incontemporary texts. Being jangli, however, did

not mean an absence of “civilisation”,as popular usage of the term todayseems to connote. Rather, the termdescribed those whose livelihoodcame from the gathering of forestproduce, hunting and shiftingagriculture. These activities werelargely season specific. Among theBhils, for example, spring was reservedfor collecting forest produce, summerfor fishing, the monsoon monthsfor cultivation, and autumn andwinter for hunting. Such a sequencepresumed and perpetuated mobility,which was a distinctive feature oftribes inhabiting these forests.

For the state, the forest was asubversive place – a place of refuge(mawas) for troublemakers. Onceagain, we turn to Babur who says thatjungles provided a good defence “behindwhich the people of the parganabecome stubbornly rebellious andpay no taxes”.

4.2 Inroads into forestsExternal forces entered the forest indifferent ways. For instance, the staterequired elephants for the army. Sothe peshkash levied from forest peopleoften included a supply of elephants.

Fig. 8.9Painting of Shah Jahan huntingnilgais ( from the Badshah Nama)

Describe what you seein this painting. What is thesymbolic element that helpsestablish the connectionbetween the hunt andideal justice?

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In the Mughal political ideology, the huntsymbolised the overwhelming concern of the stateto ensure justice to all its subjects, rich and poor.Regular hunting expeditions, so court historians tellus, enabled the emperor to travel across the extensiveterritories of his empire and personally attend to thegrievances of its inhabitants. The hunt was a subjectfrequently painted by court artists. The painterresorted to the device of inserting a small scenesomewhere in the picture that functioned as a symbolof a harmonious reign.

Clearance of forests foragricultural settlements

This is an excerpt from a sixteenth-century Bengali poem,Chandimangala, composed by Mukundaram Chakrabarti.The hero of the poem, Kalaketu, set up a kingdom byclearing forests:

Hearing the news, outsiders came from various lands.

Kalaketu then bought and distributed among them

Heavy knives, axes, battle-axes and pikes.

From the north came the Das (people)

One hundred of them advanced.

They were struck with wonder on seeing Kalaketu

Who distributed betel-nut to each of them.

From the south came the harvesters

Five hundred of them under one organiser.

From the west came Zafar Mian,

Together with twenty-two thousand men.

Sulaimani beads in their hands

They chanted the names of their pir and paighambar(Prophet).

Having cleared the forest

They established markets.

Hundreds and hundreds of foreigners

Ate and entered the forest.

Hearing the sound of the axe,

Tigers became apprehensive and ran away, roaring.

Pargana was an administrativesubdivision of a Mughal province.

Source 3

What forms of intrusion intothe forest does the text evoke?Compare its message with thatof the miniature painting inFig. 8.9. Who are the peopleidentified as “foreigners” from theperspective of the forest dwellers?


Peshkash was a form of tributecollected by the Mughal state.


Trade between the hill tribesand the plains, c. 1595

This is how Abu’l Fazl describes the transactions betweenthe hill tribes and the plains in the suba of Awadh (partof present-day Uttar Pradesh):

From the northern mountains quantities of goods arecarried on the backs of men, of stout ponies and ofgoats, such as gold, copper, lead, musk, tails of thekutas cow (the yak), honey, chuk (an acid composedof orange juice and lemon boi led together) ,pomegranate seed, ginger, long pepper, majith (a plantproducing a red dye) root, borax, zedoary (a rootresembling turmeric), wax, woollen stuffs, woodenware, hawks, falcons, black falcons, merlins (a kind ofbird), and other articles. In exchange they carry backwhite and coloured cloths, amber, salt, asafoetida,ornaments, glass and earthen ware.

The spread of commercial agriculture was animportant external factor that impinged on the livesof those who lived in the forests. Forest products –like honey, beeswax and gum lac – were in greatdemand. Some, such as gum lac, became major itemsof overseas export from India in the seventeenthcentury. Elephants were also captured and sold.Trade involved an exchange of commodities throughbarter as well. Some tribes, like the Lohanis in thePunjab, were engaged in overland trade, betweenIndia and Afghanistan, and in the town-countrytrade in the Punjab itself.

Social factors too wrought changes in the lives offorest dwellers. Like the “big men” of the villagecommunity, tribes also had their chieftains. Manytribal chiefs had become zamindars, some evenbecame kings. For this they required to build up anarmy. They recruited people from their lineagegroups or demanded that their fraternity providemilitary service. Tribes in the Sind region had armiescomprising 6,000 cavalry and 7,000 infantry. InAssam, the Ahom kings had their paiks, people whowere obliged to render military service in exchangefor land. The capture of wild elephants was declareda royal monopoly by the Ahom kings.

Fig. 8.10A peasant and a hunter listeningto a sufi singer

Source 4

What are the modes oftransport described in thispassage? Why do you thinkthey were used? Explain whateach of the articles brought fromthe plains to the hills may havebeen used for.

211

Though the transition from a tribal to amonarchical system had started much earlier, theprocess seems to have become fully developed onlyby the sixteenth century. This can be seen fromthe Ain’s observations on the existence of tribalkingdoms in the north-east. War was a commonoccurrence. For instance, the Koch kings foughtand subjugated a number of neighbouring tribes ina long sequence of wars through the sixteenth andseventeenth centuries.

New cultural influences also began to penetrateinto forested zones. Some historians have indeedsuggested that sufi saints (pirs) played a major rolein the slow acceptance of Islam among agriculturalcommunities emerging in newly colonised places(see also Chapter 6).

5. The ZamindarsOur story of agrarian relations in Mughal India willnot be complete without referring to a class ofpeople in the countryside that lived off agriculturebut did not participate directly in the processes ofagricultural production. These were the zamindarswho were landed proprietors who also enjoyed certainsocial and economic privileges by virtue of theirsuperior status in rural society. Caste was one factorthat accounted for the elevated status of zamindars;another factor was that they performed certainservices (khidmat) for the state.

The zamindars held extensive personal landstermed milkiyat, meaning property. Milkiyat landswere cultivated for the private use of zamindars,often with the help of hired or servile labour. Thezamindars could sell, bequeath or mortgage theselands at will.

Zamindars also derived their power from the factthat they could often collect revenue on behalf ofthe state, a service for which they were compensatedfinancially. Control over military resources wasanother source of power. Most zamindars hadfortresses (qilachas) as well as an armed contingentcomprising units of cavalry, artillery and infantry.

Thus if we visualise social relations in theMughal countryside as a pyramid, zamindars clearlyconstituted its very narrow apex. Abu’l Fazl’s accountindicates that an “upper-caste”, Brahmana-Rajput

Discuss...Find out which areas arecurrently identified as forestzones in your state. Is life inthese areas changing today?Are the factors responsible forthese changes different fromor identical to thosementioned in this section?



combine had already established firm controlover rural society. It also reflects a fairly largerepresentation from the so-called intermediate castes,as we saw earlier, as well as a liberal sprinkling ofMuslim zamindaris.

Contemporary documents give an impression thatconquest may have been the source of the origin ofsome zamindaris. The dispossession of weaker peopleby a powerful military chieftain was quite often away of expanding a zamindari. It is, however, unlikelythat the state would have allowed such a show ofaggression by a zamindar unless he had beenconfirmed by an imperial order (sanad ).

More important were the slow processes ofzamindari consolidation, which are also documentedin sources. These involved colonisation of new lands,by transfer of rights, by order of the state and bypurchase. These were the processes which perhapspermitted people belonging to the relatively “lower”castes to enter the rank of zamindars as zamindariswere bought and sold quite briskly in this period.

A combination of factors also allowed theconsolidation of clan- or lineage-based zamindaris.For example, the Rajputs and Jats adopted thesestrategies to consolidate their control over vastswathes of territory in northern India. Likewise,peasant-pastoralists (like the Sadgops) carved outpowerful zamindaris in areas of central and south-western Bengal.

Zamindars spearheaded the colonisation ofagricultural land, and helped in settling cultivatorsby providing them with the means of cultivation,including cash loans. The buying and selling ofzamindaris accelerated the process of monetisationin the countryside. In addition, zamindars sold theproduce from their milkiyat lands. There is evidenceto show that zamindars often established markets (haats)to which peasants also came to sell their produce.

Although there can be little doubt that zamindarswere an exploitative class, their relationship with thepeasantry had an element of reciprocity, paternalismand patronage. Two aspects reinforce this view. First,the bhakti saints, who eloquently condemnedcaste-based and other forms of oppression (see alsoChapter 6), did not portray the zamindars (or,interestingly, the moneylender) as exploiters oroppressors of the peasantry. Usually it was the

A parallel army!According to the Ain, thecombined military strength ofthe zamindars in Mughal Indiawas 384,558 cavalry, 4,277,057infantry, 1,863 elephants, 4,260cannons, and 4,500 boats.

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revenue official of the state who was the object of theirire. Second, in a large number of agrarian uprisingswhich erupted in north India in the seventeenthcentury, zamindars often received the support of thepeasantry in their struggle against the state.

6. Land Revenue SystemRevenue from the land was the economic mainstayof the Mughal Empire. It was therefore vital for thestate to create an administrative apparatus to ensurecontrol over agricultural production, and to fix andcollect revenue from across the length and breadthof the rapidly expanding empire. This apparatusincluded the office (daftar) of the diwan who wasresponsible for supervising the fiscal system of theempire. Thus revenue officials and record keeperspenetrated the agricultural domain and became adecisive agent in shaping agrarian relations.

The Mughal state tried to first acquire specificinformation about the extent of the agriculturallands in the empire and what these lands producedbefore fixing the burden of taxes on people. Theland revenue arrangements consisted of twostages – first, assessment and then actual collection.The jama was the amount assessed, as opposed tohasil, the amount collected. In his list of duties ofthe amil-guzar or revenue collector, Akbar decreedthat while he should strive to make cultivators payin cash, the option of payment in kind was also tobe kept open. While fixing revenue, the attempt ofthe state was to maximise its claims. The scope ofactually realising these claims was, however,sometimes thwarted by local conditions.

Both cultivated and cultivable lands were measuredin each province. The Ain compiled the aggregates ofsuch lands during Akbar’s rule. Efforts to measurelands continued under subsequent emperors. Forinstance, in 1665, Aurangzeb expressly instructed hisrevenue officials to prepare annual records of thenumber of cultivators in each village (Source 7). Yetnot all areas were measured successfully. As we haveseen, forests covered huge areas of the subcontinentand thus remained unmeasured.

Discuss...The zamindari system wasabolished in India afterIndependence. Read throughthis section and identifyreasons why this was done.



Amin was an official responsiblefor ensuring that imperialregulations were carried out inthe provinces.

Classification of lands under Akbar

The following is a listing of criteria of classification excerptedfrom the Ain:

The Emperor Akbar in his profound sagacity classifiedthe lands and fixed a different revenue to be paid byeach. Polaj is land which is annually cultivated for eachcrop in succession and is never allowed to lie fallow.Parauti is land left out of cultivation for a time that itmay recover its strength. Chachar is land that haslain fallow for three or four years. Banjar is landuncultivated for five years and more. Of the first twokinds of land, there are three classes, good, middling,and bad. They add together the produce of each sort,and the third of this represents the medium produce,one-third part of which is exacted as the Royal dues.

The mansabdari systemThe Mughal administrativesystem had at its apex a military-cum-bureaucratic apparatus(mansabdari) which wasresponsible for looking after thecivil and military affairs of thestate. Some mansabdars werepaid in cash (naqdi), while themajority of them were paidthrough assignments of revenue(jagirs) in different regions of theempire. They were transferredperiodically. See also Chapter 9.

Source 5

What principles did theMughal state follow whileclassifying lands in its territories?How was revenue assessed?

Map 1The expansion of the Mughal Empire

What impact do you thinkthe expansion of the empirewould have had on land revenuecollection?

Samarqand

Balkh

Kabul

QandaharLahore

Panipat

DelhiAgra

Amber

Ajmer PatnaRohtas

Goa

Babur’s reign, 1530

Akbar’s reign, 1605

Aurangzeb’s reign, 1707

Arabian Sea Bay of Bengal


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The jama

This is an excerpt fromAurangzeb’s order to hisrevenue official, 1665:

He should direct the amins ofthe parganas that they shoulddiscover the actual conditionsof cultivation (maujudat),village by village, peasant-wise(asamiwar), and after minutescrutiny, assess the jama,keeping in view the financialinterests (kifayat) of thegovernment, and the welfareof the peasantry.

Source 6

The Ain on land revenue collection:

Let him (the amil-guzar) not make it a practice oftaking only in cash but also in kind. The latter iseffected in several ways. First, kankut : in the Hindilanguage kan signifies grain, and kut, estimates … Ifany doubts arise, the crops should be cut andestimated in three lots, the good, the middling, andthe inferior, and the hesitation removed. Often, too,the land taken by appraisement, gives a sufficientlyaccurate return. Secondly, batai, also called bhaoli,the crops are reaped and stacked and divided byagreement in the presence of the parties. But in thiscase several intelligent inspectors are required;otherwise, the evil-minded and false are given todeception. Thirdly, khet-batai, when they divide thefields after they are sown. Fourthly, lang batai , aftercutting the grain, they form it in heaps and divide itamong themselves, and each takes his share homeand turns it to profit.

Discuss...Would you consider the land revenue system ofthe Mughals as a flexible one?

7. The Flow of SilverThe Mughal Empire was among the large territorialempires in Asia that had managed to consolidate powerand resources during the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies. These empires were the Ming (China),Safavid (Iran) and Ottoman (Turkey). The politicalstability achieved by all these empires helped createvibrant networks of overland trade from China to theMediterranean Sea. Voyages of discovery and theopening up of the New World resulted in a massiveexpansion of Asia’s (particularly India’s) trade withEurope. This resulted in a greater geographicaldiversity of India’s overseas trade as well as an

What difference would each of the systemsof assessment and collection of revenue havemade to the cultivator?

Source 7

Why do you thinkthe emperor insistedon a detailed survey?


Cash or kind?

Fig. 8.11A silver rupya issued by Akbar(obverse and reverse)


expansion in the commodity composition of this trade.An expanding trade brought in huge amounts of silverbullion into Asia to pay for goods procured from India,and a large part of that bullion gravitated towardsIndia. This was good for India as it did not havenatural resources of silver. As a result, the periodbetween the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries wasalso marked by a remarkable stability in theavailability of metal currency, particularly the silverrupya in India. This facilitated an unprecedentedexpansion of minting of coins and the circulation ofmoney in the economy as well as the ability of theMughal state to extract taxes and revenue in cash.

The testimony of an Italian traveller, GiovanniCareri, who passed through India c. 1690, providesa graphic account about the way silver travelledacross the globe to reach India. It also gives us an ideaof the phenomenal amounts of cash and commoditytransactions in seventeenth-century India.

Discuss...Find out whether there areany taxes on agriculturalproduction at present inyour state. Explain thesimilarities and differencesbetween Mughal fiscalpolicies and those adoptedby present-day stategovernments.

Fig. 8.12A silver rupya issued by Aurangzeb

Fig. 8.13An example of textiles produced inthe subcontinent to meet thedemands of European markets

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How silver came to India

This excerpt from Giovanni Careri’s account (based on Bernier’s account) gives anidea of the enormous amount of wealth that found its way into the Mughal Empire:

That the Reader may form some idea of the Wealth of this (Mughal) Empire, he is toobserve that all the Gold and Silver, which circulates throughout the World at lastCentres here. It is well known that as much of it comes out of America, after runningthrough several Kingdoms of Europe, goes partly into Turky (Turkey), for severalsorts of Commodities; and part into Persia, by the way of Smirna for Silk. Now theTurks not being able to abstain from Coffee, which comes from Hyeman (Oman),and Arabia … nor Persia, Arabia, and the Turks themselves to go without thecommodities of India, send vast quantities of Mony (money) to Moka (Mocha) onthe Red Sea, near Babel Mandel; to Bassora (Basra) at the bottom of the PersianGulgh (Gulf); … which is afterwards sent over in Ships to Indostan (Hindustan).Besides the Indian, Dutch, English, and Portuguese Ships, that every Year carry theCommodities of Indostan, to Pegu, Tanasserri (parts of Myanmar), Siam (Thailand),Ceylon (Sri Lanka) … the Maldive Islands, Mozambique and other Places, must ofnecessity convey much Gold and Silver thither, from those Countries. All that theDutch fetch from the Mines in Japan, sooner or later, goes to Indostan; and thegoods carry’d hence into Europe, whether to France, England, or Portugal, are allpurchas’d for ready Mony, which remains there.

Source 8

8. The Ain-i Akbari of Abu’lFazl Allami

The Ain-i Akbari was the culmination of a largehistorical, administrative project of classificationundertaken by Abu’l Fazl at the order of EmperorAkbar. It was completed in 1598, the forty-secondregnal year of the emperor, after having gone throughfive revisions. The Ain was part of a larger projectof history writing commissioned by Akbar. Thishistory, known as the Akbar Nama, comprised threebooks. The first two provided a historical narrative.We will look at these parts more closely in Chapter9. The Ain-i Akbari, the third book, was organisedas a compendium of imperial regulations and agazetteer of the empire.

The Ain gives detailed accounts of the organisationof the court, administration and army, the sourcesof revenue and the physical layout of the provincesof Akbar’s empire and the literary, cultural andreligious traditions of the people. Along with adescription of the various departments of Akbar’sgovernment and elaborate descriptions of the



various provinces (subas) of the empire, the Aingives us intricate quantitative information ofthose provinces.

Collecting and compiling this informationsystematically was an important imperial exercise.It informed the emperor about the varied and diversecustoms and practices prevailing across hisextensive territories. The Ain is therefore a mine ofinformation for us about the Mughal Empire duringAkbar’s reign. It is important, however, to keep inmind that this is a view of the regions from thecentre, a view of society from its apex.

The Ain is made up of five books (daftars), of whichthe first three books describe the administration.The first book, called manzil-abadi, concerns theimperial household and its maintenance. The secondbook, sipah-abadi, covers the military and civiladministration and the establishment of servants.This book includes notices and short biographicalsketches of imperial officials (mansabdars), learnedmen, poets and artists.

The third book, mulk-abadi, is the one which dealswith the fiscal side of the empire and provides richquantitative information on revenue rates, followedby the “Account of the Twelve Provinces”. This sectionhas detailed statistical information, which includesthe geographic, topographic and economic profile ofall subas and their administrative and fiscaldivisions (sarkars, parganas and mahals), totalmeasured area, and assessed revenue ( jama ).

After setting out details at the suba level, the Aingoes on to give a detailed picture of the sarkars belowthe suba. This it does in the form of tables, whichhave eight columns giving the following information:(1) parganat/mahal; (2) qila (forts); (3) arazi andzamin-i paimuda (measured area); (4) naqdi, revenueassessed in cash; (5) suyurghal, grants of revenue incharity; (6) zamindars; columns 7 and 8 containdetails of the castes of these zamindars, and theirtroops including their horsemen (sawar), foot-soldiers(piyada) and elephants (fil ). The mulk-abadi gives afascinating, detailed and highly complex view ofagrarian society in northern India. The fourth andfifth books (daftars) deal with the religious, literaryand cultural traditions of the people of India and alsocontain a collection of Akbar’s “auspicious sayings”.

Fig. 8.14Abu’l Fazl presenting themanuscript of the completedAkbar Nama to his patron

219

Source 9

“Moistening the rose garden of fortune”

In this extract Abu’l Fazl gives a vivid account of how and from whom hecollected his information:

... to Abu’l Fazl, son of Mubarak … this sublime mandate was given.“Write with the pen of sincerity the account of the glorious eventsand of our dominion-conquering victories … Assuredly, I spent muchlabour and research in collecting the records and narratives of HisMajesty’s actions and I was a long time interrogating the servants ofthe State and the old members of the illustrious family. I examinedboth prudent, truth-speaking old men and active-minded, right-actioned young ones and reduced their statements to writing. TheRoyal commands were issued to the provinces, that those who fromold service remembered, with certainty or with adminicle of doubt,the events of the past, should copy out the notes and memorandaand transit them to the court. (Then) a second command shone forthfrom the holy Presence-chamber; to wit – that the materials whichhad been collected should be ... recited in the royal hearing, andwhatever might have to be written down afterwards, should beintroduced into the noble volume as a supplement, and that suchdetails as on account of the minuteness of the inquiries and theminutae of affairs, (which) could not then be brought to an end,should be inserted afterwards at my leisure.

Being relieved by this royal order – the interpreter of the Divineordinance – from the secret anxiety of my heart, I proceeded toreduce into writing the rough draughts (drafts)which were void ofthe grace of arrangement and style. I obtained the chronicle ofevents beginning at the Nineteenth Year of the Divine Era, whenthe Record Office was established by the enlightened intellect ofHis Majesty, and from its rich pages, I gathered the accounts ofmany events. Great pains too, were taken to procure the originalsor copies of most of the orders which had been issued to theprovinces from the Accession up to the present-day … I also tookmuch trouble to incorporate many of the reports which ministersand high officials had submitted, about the affairs of the empireand the events of foreign countries. And my labour-loving soulwas satiated by the apparatus of inquiry and research. I also exertedmyself energetically to collect the rough notes and memoranda ofsagacious and well-informed men. By these means, I constructed areservoir for irrigating and moistening the rose garden of fortune(the Akbar Nama).

List all the sources that Abu’l Fazl used to compile hiswork. Which of these sources would have been most usefulfor arriving at an understanding of agrarian relations?To what extent do you think his work would have beeninfluenced by his relationship with Akbar?



Although the Ain was officially sponsored to recorddetailed information to facilitate Emperor Akbargovern his empire, it was much more than areproduction of official papers. That the manuscriptwas revised five times by the author would suggesta high degree of caution on the part of Abu’l Fazland a search for authenticity. For instance, oraltestimonies were cross-checked and verified beforebeing incorporated as “facts” in the chronicle. Inthe quantitative sections, all numeric data werereproduced in words so as to minimise the chancesof subsequent transcriptional errors.

Historians who have carefully studied the Ain pointout that it is not without its problems. Numerouserrors in totalling have been detected. These areascribed to simple slips of arithmetic or oftranscription by Abu’l Fazl’s assistants. These aregenerally minor and do not detract from the overallquantitative veracity of the manuals.

Another limitation of the Ain is the somewhatskewed nature of the quantitative data. Data werenot collected uniformly from all provinces. Forinstance, while for many subas detailed informationwas compiled about the caste composition of thezamindars, such information is not available forBengal and Orissa. Further, while the fiscal datafrom the subas is remarkable for its richness, someequally vital parameters such as prices and wagesfrom these same areas are not as well documented.The detailed list of prices and wages that the Aindoes provide is mainly derived from data pertainingto areas in or around the imperial capital of Agra,and is therefore of limited relevance for the rest ofthe country.

These limitations notwithstanding, the Ain remainsan extraordinary document of its times. By providingfascinating glimpses into the structure andorganisation of the Mughal Empire and by giving usquantitative information about its products andpeople, Abu’l Fazl achieved a major breakthroughin the tradition of medieval chroniclers who wrotemostly about remarkable political events – wars,conquests, political machinations, and dynasticturmoil. Information about the country, its people

Translating the AinGiven the importance of the Ain,it has been translated for use bya number of scholars. HenryBlochmann edited it and theAsiatic Society of Bengal,Calcutta (present-day Kolkata),published it in its BibliothecaIndica series. The book hasalso been translated into Englishin three volumes. The standardtranslation of Volume 1 is thatof Henry Blochmann (Calcutta1873). The other two volumeswere translated by H.S. Jarrett(Calcutta 1891 and 1894).

221

and its products was mentioned only incidentallyand as embellishments to the essentially politicalthrust of the narrative.

The Ain completely departed from this tradition asit recorded information about the empire and the peopleof India, and thus constitutes a benchmark forstudying India at the turn of the seventeenth century.The value of the Ain’s quantitative evidence isuncontested where the study of agrarian relationsis concerned. But it is the information it contains onpeople, their professions and trades and on theimperial establishment and the grandees of the empirewhich enables historians to reconstruct the socialfabric of India at that time.


TimelineLandmarks in the History of the Mughal Empire

1526 Babur defeats Ibrahim Lodi, the Delhi Sultan,at Panipat, becomes the first Mughal emperor

1530-40 First phase of Humayun’s reign

1540-55 Humayun defeated by Sher Shah,in exile at the Safavid court

1555-56 Humayun regains lost territories

1556-1605 Reign of Akbar

1605-27 Reign of Jahangir

1628-58 Reign of Shah Jahan

1658-1707 Reign of Aurangzeb

1739 Nadir Shah invades India and sacks Delhi

1761 Ahmad Shah Abdali defeats the Marathasin the third battle of Panipat

1765 The diwani of Bengal transferred to theEast India Company

1857 Last Mughal ruler, Bahadur Shah II,deposed by the British and exiled to Rangoon(present day Yangon, Myanmar)



1. What are the problems in using the Ain as a source forreconstructing agrarian history? How do historians dealwith this situation?

2. To what extent is it possible to characterise agriculturalproduction in the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries assubsistence agriculture? Give reasons for your answer.

3. Describe the role played by women in agriculturalproduction.

4. Discuss, with examples, the significance of monetarytransactions during the period under consideration.

5. Examine the evidence that suggests that land revenuewas important for the Mughal fiscal system.


6. To what extent do you think caste was a factor ininfluencing social and economic relations in agrariansociety?

7. How were the lives of forest dwellers transformed in thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries?

8. Examine the role played by zamindars in Mughal India.

9. Discuss the ways in which panchayats and villageheadmen regulated rural society.

Fig. 8.15A seventeenth-century paintingdepicting jewellers

223

Sumit Guha. 1999.Environment and Ethnicityin India.Cambridge University Press,Cambridge.

Irfan Habib. 1999.The Agrarian System of MughalIndia 1556-1707 (Second edition).Oxford University Press,New Delhi.

W.H. Moreland. 1983 (rpt).India at the Death of Akbar:An Economic Study.Oriental, New Delhi.

Tapan Raychaudhuri andIrfan Habib (eds). 2004.The Cambridge EconomicHistory of India. Vol.1.Orient Longman, New Delhi.

Dietmar Rothermund. 1993.An Economic History of India –from Pre-colonial Times to 1991.Routledge, London.

Sanjay Subrahmanyam (ed.).1994.Money and the Market in India,1100-1700.Oxford University Press,New Delhi.

Map work

10. On an outline map of the world, mark the areaswhich had economic links with the Mughal Empire,and trace out possible routes of communication.


11. Visit a neighbouring village. Find out how manypeople live there, which crops are grown, whichanimals are raised, which artisanal groups residethere, whether women own land, how the localpanchayat functions. Compare this informationwith what you have learnt about the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries, noting similarities anddifferences. Explain both the changes and thecontinuities that you find.

12. Select a small section of the Ain (10-12 pages,available online at the website indicated below).Read it carefully and prepare a report on how itcan be used by a historian.


For more information,you could visit:http://persian.packhum.orgpersianindex.jsp?serv=pf&file=00702053&ct=0


Fig. 8.16A painting depicting a woman selling sweets

223PEASANTS, ZAMINDARS AND THE STATE


Kings and ChroniclesThe Mughal CourtsThe Mughal CourtsThe Mughal CourtsThe Mughal CourtsThe Mughal Courts

(((((ccccc. sixteent. sixteent. sixteent. sixteent. sixteenthhhhh ----- seventeenth centuries)seventeenth centuries)seventeenth centuries)seventeenth centuries)seventeenth centuries)

THEME

NINE

The rulers of the Mughal Empire saw themselvesas appointed by Divine Will to rule over a largeand heterogeneous populace. Although thisgrand vision was often circumscribed by actual

political circumstances, it remainedimportant. One way of transmittingthis vision was through thewriting of dynastic histories. TheMughal kings commissioned courthistorians to write accounts. Theseaccounts recorded the events of theemperor’s time. In addition, theirwriters collected vast amounts ofinformation from the regions of thesubcontinent to help the rulersgovern their domain.

Modern historians writing inEnglish have termed this genreof texts chronicles, as theypresent a continuous chronologicalrecord of events. Chronicles arean indispensable source for anyscholar wishing to write a historyof the Mughals. At one levelthey were a repository of factualinformation about the institutionsof the Mughal state, painstakinglycollected and classified by

individuals closely connected with the court. Atthe same time these texts were intended asconveyors of meanings that the Mughal rulerssought to impose on their domain. They thereforegive us a glimpse into how imperial ideologieswere created and disseminated. This chapter willlook at the workings of this rich and fascinatingdimension of the Mughal Empire.

Fig. 9.1The mausoleum of Timur atSamarqand, 1404

225

1. The Mughals and Their EmpireThe name Mughal derives from Mongol. Though todaythe term evokes the grandeur of an empire, it wasnot the name the rulers of the dynasty chose forthemselves. They referred to themselves as Timurids,as descendants of the Turkish ruler Timur on thepaternal side. Babur, the first Mughal ruler, wasrelated to Ghenghiz Khan from his mother’s side.He spoke Turkish and referred derisively to theMongols as barbaric hordes.

During the sixteenth century, Europeans used theterm Mughal to describe the Indian rulers of thisbranch of the family. Over the past centuries theword has been frequently used – even the nameMowgli, the young hero of Rudyard Kipling’s JungleBook, is derived from it.

The empire was carved out of a number of regionalstates of India through conquests and politicalalliances between the Mughals and local chieftains.The founder of the empire, Zahiruddin Babur, wasdriven from his Central Asian homeland, Farghana,by the warring Uzbeks. He first established himselfat Kabul and then in 1526 pushed further intothe Indian subcontinent in search of territories andresources to satisfy the needs of the members ofhis clan.

His successor, Nasiruddin Humayun (1530-40,1555-56) expanded the frontiers of the empire, butlost it to the Afghan leader Sher Shah Sur, who drovehim into exile. Humayun took refuge in the court ofthe Safavid ruler of Iran. In 1555 Humayun defeatedthe Surs, but died a year later.

Many consider Jalaluddin Akbar (1556-1605) thegreatest of all the Mughal emperors, for he not onlyexpanded but also consolidated his empire, makingit the largest, strongest and richest kingdom ofhis time. Akbar succeeded in extending the frontiersof the empire to the Hindukush mountains, andchecked the expansionist designs of the Uzbeks ofTuran (Central Asia) and the Safavids of Iran.Akbar had three fairly able successors in Jahangir(1605-27), Shah Jahan (1628-58) and Aurangzeb(1658-1707), much as their characters varied. Underthem the territorial expansion continued, though ata much reduced pace. The three rulers maintained andconsolidated the various instruments of governance.

KINGS AND CHRONICLES

Fig. 9.2An eighteenth-century depiction ofHumayun’s wife Nadira crossingthe desert of Rajasthan


During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuriesthe institutions of an imperial structure were created.These included effective methods of administrationand taxation. The visible centre of Mughal power wasthe court. Here political alliances and relationshipswere forged, status and hierarchies defined. Thepolitical system devised by the Mughals was basedon a combination of military power and consciouspolicy to accommodate the different traditions theyencountered in the subcontinent.

After 1707, following the death of Aurangzeb, thepower of the dynasty diminished. In place of the vastapparatus of empire controlled from Delhi, Agra orLahore – the different capital cities – regional powersacquired greater autonomy. Yet symbolically theprestige of the Mughal ruler did not lose its aura. In1857 the last scion of this dynasty, Bahadur ShahZafar II, was overthrown by the British.

2. The Production of ChroniclesChronicles commissioned by the Mughal emperorsare an important source for studying the empire andits court. They were written in order to project avision of an enlightened kingdom to all those whocame under its umbrella. At the same time they weremeant to convey to those who resisted the rule ofthe Mughals that all resistance was destined to fail.Also, the rulers wanted to ensure that there was anaccount of their rule for posterity.

The authors of Mughal chronicles were invariablycourtiers. The histories they wrote focused on eventscentred on the ruler, his family, the court and nobles,wars and administrative arrangements. Their titles,such as the Akbar Nama , Shahjahan Nama, AlamgirNama, that is, the story of Akbar, Shah Jahan andAlamgir (a title of the Mughal ruler Aurangzeb),suggest that in the eyes of their authors the historyof the empire and the court was synonymous withthat of the emperor.

2.1 From Turkish to PersianMughal court chronicles were written in Persian.Under the Sultans of Delhi it flourished as alanguage of the court and of literary writings,alongside north Indian languages, especially Hindaviand its regional variants. As the Mughals wereChaghtai Turks by origin, Turkish was their mother

Discuss...Find out whether the state inwhich you live formed partof the Mughal Empire.Were there any changes inthe area as a result of theestablishment of the empire?If your state was not part ofthe empire, find out moreabout contemporary regionalrulers – their origins andpolicies. What kind of recordsdid they maintain?

Chaghtai Turks traced descentfrom the eldest son of GhengizKhan.

227

tongue. Their first ruler Babur wrote poetry and hismemoirs in this language.

It was Akbar who consciously set out to makePersian the leading language of the Mughal court.Cultural and intellectual contacts with Iran, as wellas a regular stream of Iranian and Central Asianmigrants seeking positions at the Mughal court,might have motivated the emperor to adopt thelanguage. Persian was elevated to a language ofempire, conferring power and prestige on those whohad a command of it. It was spoken by the king, theroyal household and the elite at court. Further, itbecame the language of administration at all levelsso that accountants, clerks and other functionariesalso learnt it.

Even when Persian was not directly used, itsvocabulary and idiom heavily influenced the languageof official records in Rajasthani and Marathi andeven Tamil. Since the people using Persian in thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries came frommany different regions of the subcontinent andspoke other Indian languages, Persian too becameIndianised by absorbing local idioms. A newlanguage, Urdu, sprang from the interaction ofPersian with Hindavi.

Mughal chronicles such as the Akbar Nama werewritten in Persian, others, like Babur’s memoirs,were translated from the Turkish into the PersianBabur Nama. Translations of Sanskrit texts such asthe Mahabharata and the Ramayana into Persianwere commissioned by the Mughal emperors. TheMahabharata was translated as the Razmnama(Book of Wars).

2.2 The making of manuscriptsAll books in Mughal India were manuscripts, thatis, they were handwritten. The centre of manuscriptproduction was the imperial kitabkhana. Althoughkitabkhana can be translated as library, it was ascriptorium, that is, a place where the emperor’scollection of manuscripts was kept and newmanuscripts were produced.

The creation of a manuscript involved a numberof people performing a variety of tasks. Paper makerswere needed to prepare the folios of the manuscript,scribes or calligraphers to copy the text, gilders toilluminate the pages, painters to illustrate scenes

The flight of thewritten word

In Abu’l Fazl’s words:

The written word mayembody the wisdom ofbygone ages and maybecome a means tointellectual progress. Thespoken word goes to theheart of those who arepresent to hear it. The writtenword gives wisdom to thosewho are near and far. If it wasnot for the written word, thespoken word would soondie, and no keepsake wouldbe left us from those who arepassed away. Superficialobservers see in the letter adark figure, but the deep-sighted see in it a lamp ofwisdom (chirag-i shinasai ).The written word looks black,notwithstanding the thousandrays within it, or it is a lightwith a mole on it that wardsoff the evil eye. A letter(khat ) is the portrait ofwisdom; a rough sketch fromthe realm of ideas; a darklight ushering in day; ablack cloud pregnant withknowledge; speaking thoughdumb; stationary yettravelling; stretched on thesheet, and yet soaringupwards.



from the text, bookbinders to gather the individualfolios and set them within ornamental covers. Thefinished manuscript was seen as a precious object,a work of intellectual wealth and beauty. Itexemplified the power of its patron, the Mughalemperor, to bring such beauty into being.

At the same time some of the people involved inthe actual production of the manuscript also gotrecognition in the form of titles and awards. Of these,calligraphers and painters held a high socialstanding while others, such as paper makers orbookbinders, have remained anonymous artisans.

Calligraphy, the art of handwriting, was considereda skill of great importance. It was practised usingdifferent styles. Akbar’s favourite was the nastaliq, afluid style with long horizontal strokes. It is writtenusing a piece of trimmed reed with a tip of five to 10mm called qalam, dipped in carbon ink (siyahi). Thenib of the qalam is usually split in the middle tofacilitate the absorption of ink.

Discuss...In what ways do you think the production of bookstoday is similar to or different from the ways inwhich Mughal chronicles were produced?

3. The Painted ImageAs we read in the previous section, painters too wereinvolved in the production of Mughal manuscripts.Chronicles narrating the events of a Mughal emperor’sreign contained, alongside the written text, imagesthat described an event in visual form. When scenesor themes in a book were to be given visual expression,the scribe left blank spaces on nearby pages;paintings, executed separately by artists, wereinserted to accompany what was described in words.These paintings were miniatures, and could thereforebe passed around for viewing and mounting on thepages of manuscripts.

Paintings served not only to enhance the beauty ofa book, but were believed to possess special powersof communicating ideas about the kingdom and thepower of kings in ways that the written medium couldnot. The historian Abu’l Fazl described painting asa “magical art”: in his view it had the power to makeinanimate objects look as if they possessed life.

Fig. 9.3A folio in nastaliq, the work ofMuhammad Husayn of Kashmir(c.1575-1605), one of the finestcalligraphers at Akbar’s court, whowas honoured with the title “zarrinqalam” (golden pen) in recognitionof the perfectly proportionedcurvature of his lettersThe calligrapher has signed hisname on the lower section ofthe page, taking up almostone-fourth of its space.

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The production of paintings portraying theemperor, his court and the people who were part ofit, was a source of constant tension between rulersand representatives of the Muslim orthodoxy, theulama. The latter did not fail to invoke the Islamicprohibition of the portrayal of human beingsenshrined in the Qur’an as well as the hadis, whichdescribed an incident from the life of the ProphetMuhammad. Here the Prophet is cited as havingforbidden the depiction of living beings in anaturalistic manner as it would suggest that theartist was seeking to appropriate the power ofcreation. This was a function that was believed tobelong exclusively to God.

Source 1

In praise of taswir

Abu’l Fazl held the art of paintingin high esteem:

Drawing the likeness ofanything is called taswir. HisMajesty from his earliest youth,has shown a great predilectionfor this art, and gives it everyencouragement, as he looksupon it as a means both of studyand amusement. A very largenumber of painters have beenset to work. Each week, severalsupervisors and clerks of theimperial workshop submitbefore the emperor the workdone by each artist, and HisMajesty gives a reward andincreases the monthly salariesof the artists according to theexcellence displayed. … Mostexcellent painters are now tobe found, and masterpieces,worthy of a Bihzad, may beplaced at the side of thewonderful works of theEuropean painters who haveattained worldwide fame. Theminuteness in detail, thegeneral finish and the boldnessof execution now observed inpictures are incomparable;even inanimate objects look asif they have life. More than ahundred painters have becomefamous masters of the art. Thisis especially true of the Hinduartists. Their pictures surpassour conception of things. Few,indeed, in the whole world arefound equal to them.

Why did Abu’l Fazlconsider the art ofpainting important?How did he seek tolegitimise this art?


Fig. 9.4A Mughal kitabkhana

Identify the different tasks involved in the productionof a Mughal manuscript depicted in this miniature.


Yet interpretations of the shari‘a changed withtime. The body of Islamic tradition was interpretedin different ways by various social groups. Frequentlyeach group put forward an understanding of traditionthat would best suit their political needs. Muslimrulers in many Asian regions during centuries ofempire building regularly commissioned artists topaint their portraits and scenes of life in theirkingdoms. The Safavid kings of Iran, for example,patronised the finest artists, who were trained inworkshops set up at court. The names of painters –such as that of Bihzad – contributed to spreadingthe cultural fame of the Safavid court far and wide.

Artists from Iran also made their way to MughalIndia. Some were brought to the Mughal court, as inthe case of Mir Sayyid Ali and Abdus Samad, whowere made to accompany Emperor Humayun toDelhi. Others migrated in search of opportunities towin patronage and prestige. A conflict between theemperor and the spokesmen of orthodox Muslimopinion on the question of visual representations ofliving beings was a source of tension at the Mughalcourt. Akbar’s court historian Abu’l Fazl cites theemperor as saying: “There are many that hatepainting, but such men I dislike. It appears to methat an artist has a unique way of recognising Godwhen he must come to feel that he cannot bestowlife on his work ...”

4. The Akbar Nama and theBadshah Nama

Among the important illustrated Mughal chroniclesthe Akbar Nama and Badshah Nama (The Chronicleof a King) are the most well known. Eachmanuscript contained an average of 150 full- ordouble-page paintings of battles, sieges, hunts,building construction, court scenes, etc.

The author of the Akbar Nama, Abu’l Fazl grew upin the Mughal capital of Agra. He was widely read inArabic, Persian, Greek philosophy and Sufism.Moreover, he was a forceful debater and independentthinker who consistently opposed the views of theconservative ulama. These qualities impressed Akbar,who found Abu’l Fazl ideally suited as an adviserand a spokesperson for his policies. One major

Discuss...Compare the painter’srepresentation (Fig. 9.4) ofliterary and artisticproduction with that ofAbu’l Fazl (Source 1).

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objective of the emperor was to free the state fromthe control of religious orthodoxy. In his role as courthistorian, Abu’l Fazl both shaped and articulatedthe ideas associated with the reign of Akbar.

Beginning in 1589, Abu’l Fazl worked on the AkbarNama for thirteen years, repeatedly revising the draft.The chronicle is based on a range of sources, includingactual records of events (waqai ), official documentsand oral testimonies of knowledgeable persons.

The Akbar Nama is divided into three books ofwhich the first two are chronicles. The third book isthe Ain-i Akbari. The first volume contains the historyof mankind from Adam to one celestial cycle of Akbar’slife (30 years). The second volume closes in the forty-sixth regnal year (1601) of Akbar. The very next yearAbu’l Fazl fell victim to a conspiracy hatched byPrince Salim, and was murdered by his accomplice,Bir Singh Bundela.

The Akbar Nama was written to provide a detaileddescription of Akbar’s reign in the traditionaldiachronic sense of recording politically significantevents across time, as well as in the more novel senseof giving a synchronic picture of all aspects of Akbar’sempire – geographic, social, administrative andcultural – without reference to chronology. In theAin-i Akbari the Mughal Empire is presented as havinga diverse population consisting of Hindus, Jainas,Buddhists and Muslims and a composite culture.

Abu’l Fazl wrote in a language that was ornateand which attached importance to diction andrhythm, as texts were often read aloud. This Indo-Persian style was patronised at court, and therewere a large number of writers who wanted to writelike Abu’l Fazl.

A pupil of Abu’l Fazl, Abdul Hamid Lahori isknown as the author of the Badshah Nama. EmperorShah Jahan, hearing of his talents, commissionedhim to write a history of his reign modelled on theAkbar Nama. The Badshah Nama is this officialhistory in three volumes (daftars) of ten lunar yearseach. Lahori wrote the first and second daftarscomprising the first two decades of the emperor’srule (1627-47); these volumes were later revised bySadullah Khan, Shah Jahan’s wazir. Infirmities ofold age prevented Lahori from proceeding with thethird decade which was then chronicled by thehistorian Waris.

A diachronic account tracesdevelopments over time,whereas a synchronic accountdepicts one or several situationsat one particular moment orpoint of time.

Travels of theBadshah Nama

Gifting of precious manuscriptswas an established diplomaticcustom under the Mughals.In emulat ion of th i s , theNawab of Awadh gifted theillustrated Badshah Nama toKing George III in 1799. Sincethen it has been preserved inthe English Royal Collections,now at Windsor Castle.

In 1994, conservation workrequired the bound manuscriptto be taken apart. This madeit possible to exhibit thepaintings, and in 1997 for thefirst time, the Badshah Namapaintings were shown inexhibit ions in New Delhi,London and Washington.



During the colonial period, British administratorsbegan to study Indian history and to create anarchive of knowledge about the subcontinent tohelp them better understand the people and thecultures of the empire they sought to rule. TheAsiatic Society of Bengal, founded by Sir WilliamJones in 1784, undertook the editing, printing andtranslation of many Indian manuscripts.

Edited versions of the Akbar Nama and BadshahNama were first published by the Asiatic Societyin the nineteenth century. In the early twentiethcentury the Akbar Nama was translated into Englishby Henry Beveridge after years of hard labour. Onlyexcerpts of the Badshah Nama have been translatedinto English to date; the text in its entirety stillawaits translation.

Discuss...Find out whether there was a tradition ofillustrating manuscripts in your town or village.Who prepared these manuscripts? What were thesubjects that they dealt with? How were thesemanuscripts preserved?

5. The Ideal Kingdom5.1 A divine lightCourt chroniclers drew upon many sources to showthat the power of the Mughal kings came directlyfrom God. One of the legends they narrated was thatof the Mongol queen Alanqua, who was impregnatedby a ray of sunshine while resting in her tent. Theoffspring she bore carried this Divine Light andpassed it on from generation to generation.

Abu’l Fazl placed Mughal kingship as the higheststation in the hierarchy of objects receiving lightemanating from God (farr-i izadi ). Here he wasinspired by a famous Iranian sufi, ShihabuddinSuhrawardi (d. 1191) who first developed this idea.According to this idea, there was a hierarchy inwhich the Divine Light was transmitted to the kingwho then became the source of spiritual guidancefor his subjects.

Paintings that accompanied the narrative of thechronicles transmitted these ideas in a way that

The transmission ofnotions of luminosity

The origins of Suhrawardi’sphilosophy went back toPlato’s Republic, where God isrepresented by the symbol ofthe sun. Suhrawardi’s writingswere universally read in theIslamic world. They werestudied by Shaikh Mubarak,who transmitted their ideas tohis sons, Faizi and Abu’l Fazl,who were trained under him.

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left a lasting impression on the minds of viewers.Mughal artists, from the seventeenth centuryonwards, began to portray emperors wearing the halo,which they saw on European paintings of Christ andthe Virgin Mary to symbolise the light of God.

5.2 A unifying forceMughal chronicles present the empire as comprisingmany different ethnic and religious communities –Hindus, Jainas, Zoroastrians and Muslims. As thesource of all peace and stability the emperor stoodabove all religious and ethnic groups, mediatedamong them, and ensured that justice and peaceprevailed. Abu’l Fazl describes the ideal of sulh-i kul(absolute peace) as the cornerstone of enlightenedrule. In sulh-i kul all religions and schools of thoughthad freedom of expression but on condition that theydid not undermine the authority of the state or fightamong themselves.

The ideal of sulh-i kul was implemented throughstate policies – the nobility under the Mughals wasa composite one comprising Iranis, Turanis, Afghans,Rajputs, Deccanis – all of whom were given positionsand awards purely on the basis of their service and

Fig. 9.5This painting by Abu’l Hasan shows Jahangirdressed in resplendent clothes and jewels, holdingup a portrait of his father Akbar.Akbar is dressed in white, associated in sufitraditions with the enlightened soul. He proffersa globe, symbolic of dynastic authority.In the Mughal empire there was no law layingdown which of the emperor’s sons would succeedto the throne. This meant that every dynasticchange was accompanied and decided by afratricidal war. Towards the end of Akbar’s reign,Prince Salim revolted against his father, seizedpower and assumed the title of Jahangir.

How does this painting describe therelationship between father and son?Why do you think Mughal artists frequentlyportrayed emperors against dark or dullbackgrounds? What are the sources oflight in this painting?



loyalty to the king. Further,Akbar abolished the tax onpilgrimage in 1563 and jizyain 1564 as the two were basedon religious discrimination.Instructions were sent toofficers of the empire tofollow the precept of sulh-i kulin administration.

All Mughal emperors gavegrants to support thebuilding and maintenance ofplaces of worship. Even whentemples were destroyedduring war, grants were laterissued for their repair – aswe know from the reigns ofShah Jahan and Aurangzeb.However, during the reign ofthe latter, the jizya was re-imposed on non-Muslimsubjects.

5.3 Just sovereignty associal contractAbu’l Fazl defined sovereigntyas a social contract: theemperor protects the fouressences of his subjects,namely, life (jan), property(mal), honour (namus) andfaith (din), and in returndemands obedience and ashare of resources. Only justsovereigns were thoughtto be able to honour thecontract with power andDivine guidance.

Fig. 9.6Jahangir presenting PrinceKhurram with a turban jewelScene from the Badshah Namapainted by the artist Payag,c.1640.

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A number of symbols were created for visualrepresentation of the idea of justice which came tostand for the highest virtue of Mughal monarchy.One of the favourite symbols used by artists wasthe motif of the lion and the lamb (or goat) peacefullynestling next to each other. This was meant to signifya realm where both the strong and the weak couldexist in harmony. Court scenes from the illustratedBadshah Nama place such motifs in a niche directlybelow the emperor’s throne (see Fig. 9.6).

Fig. 9.7Jahangir shooting the figure ofpoverty, painting by the artistAbu’l HasanThe artist has enveloped thetarget in a dark cloud to suggestthat this is not a real person, buta human form used to symbolisean abstract quality. Such amode of personification in artand literature is termed allegory.The Chain of Justice is showndescending from heaven.This is how Jahangir describedthe Chain of Justice inhis memoirs:

After my accession, the firstorder that I gave was for thefastening up of the Chainof Justice, so that if thoseengaged in the administrationof justice should delay orpractise hypocrisy in thematter of those seeking justice,the oppressed might come tothis chain and shake it sothat its noise might attractattention. The chain was madeof pure gold, 30 gaz in lengthand containing 60 bells.


Discuss...Why was justice regarded assuch an important virtue ofmonarchy in the MughalEmpire?

Identify and interpret thesymbols in the painting.Summarise the message ofthis painting.


6. Capitals and Courts6.1 Capital citiesThe heart of the Mughal Empire was its capital city,where the court assembled. The capital cities of theMughals frequently shifted during the sixteenthand seventeenth centuries. Babur took over the Lodicapital of Agra, though during the four years of hisreign the court was frequently on the move. Duringthe 1560s Akbar had the fort of Agra constructedwith red sandstone quarried from the adjoining regions.

In the 1570s he decided to build a new capital,Fatehpur Sikri. One of the reasons promptingthis may have been that Sikri was located on thedirect road to Ajmer, where the dargah of ShaikhMuinuddin Chishti had become an importantpilgrimage centre. The Mughal emperors enteredinto a close relationship with sufis of the Chishti

silsila. Akbar commissioned theconstruction of a white marble tombfor Shaikh Salim Chishti next to themajestic Friday mosque at Sikri.The enormous arched gateway(Buland Darwaza) was meant toremind visitors of the Mughal victoryin Gujarat. In 1585 the capital wastransferred to Lahore to bring thenorth-west under greater controland Akbar closely watched thefrontier for thirteen years.

Shah Jahan pursued sound fiscalpolicies and accumulated enoughmoney to indulge his passion forbuilding. Building activity inmonarchical cultures, as you haveseen in the case of earlier rulers, wasthe most visible and tangible signof dynastic power, wealth andprestige. In the case of Muslim rulersit was also considered an act of piety.

In 1648 the court, army andhousehold moved from Agra to thenewly completed imperial capital,Shahjahanabad. It was a newaddition to the old residential city ofDelhi, with the Red Fort, the JamaMasjid, a tree-lined esplanade with

Fig. 9.8The Buland Darwaza,Fatehpur Sikri

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bazaars (Chandni Chowk) and spacious homes forthe nobility. Shah Jahan’s new city was appropriateto a more formal vision of a grand monarchy.

6.2 The Mughal courtThe physical arrangement of the court, focusedon the sovereign, mirrored his status as the heartof society. Its centrepiece was therefore the throne,the takht, which gave physical form to the functionof the sovereign as axis mundi. The canopy, asymbol of kingship in India for a millennium, wasbelieved to separate the radiance of the sun fromthat of the sovereign.

Chronicles lay down with great precision the rulesdefining status amongst the Mughal elites. In court,status was determined by spatial proximity to theking. The place accorded to a courtier by the rulerwas a sign of his importance in the eyes of theemperor. Once the emperor sat on the throne, noone was permitted to move from his position or toleave without permission. Social control in courtsociety was exercised through carefully defining in

Describe the main activities taking placein the darbar.

Kornish was a form ofceremonial salutation in whichthe courtier placed the palm ofhis right hand against hisforehead and bent his head. Itsuggested that the subjectplaced his head – the seat of thesenses and the mind – into thehand of humility, presenting itto the royal assembly

Axis mundi is a Latin phrase fora pillar or pole that is visualisedas the support of the earth.


Darbar-i Akbari

Abu’l Fazl gives a vivid account of Akbar’s darbar:

Whenever His Majesty (Akbar) holds court (darbar)a large drum is beaten, the sounds of which areaccompanied by Divine praise. In this manner, peopleof all classes receive notice. His Majesty’s sons andgrandchildren, the grandees of the Court, and allother men who have admittance, attend to make thekornish, and remain standing in their proper places.Learned men of renown and skilful mechanics paytheir respects; and the officers of justice present theirreports. His Majesty, with his usual insights, givesorders, and settles everything in a satisfactorymanner. During the whole time, skilful gladiators andwrestlers from all countries hold themselves inreadiness, and singers, male and female, are inwaiting. Clever jugglers and funny tumblers also areanxious to exhibit their dexterity and agility.

Source 2


Shab-i barat is the full moonnight on the 14 Shaban, theeighth month of the hijricalendar, and is celebrated withprayers and fireworks in thesubcontinent. It is the nightwhen the destinies of theMuslims for the coming yearare said to be determined andsins forgiven.

full detail the forms of address, courtesies andspeech which were acceptable in court. The slightestinfringement of etiquette was noticed and punishedon the spot.

The forms of salutation to the ruler indicated theperson’s status in the hierarchy: deeper prostrationrepresented higher status. The highest form ofsubmission was sijda or complete prostration. UnderShah Jahan these rituals were replaced with chahartaslim and zaminbos (kissing the ground).

The protocols governing diplomatic envoys at theMughal court were equally explicit. An ambassadorpresented to the Mughal emperor was expected tooffer an acceptable form of greeting – either by bowingdeeply or kissing the ground, or else to follow thePersian custom of clasping one’s hands in front ofthe chest. Thomas Roe, the English envoy of James I,simply bowed before Jahangir according toEuropean custom, and further shocked the court bydemanding a chair.

The emperor began his day at sunrise withpersonal religious devotions or prayers, and thenappeared on a small balcony, the jharoka, facing theeast. Below, a crowd of people (soldiers, merchants,craftspersons, peasants, women with sick children)waited for a view, darshan, of the emperor. Jharokadarshan was introduced by Akbar with the objectiveof broadening the acceptance of the imperialauthority as part of popular faith.

Chahar taslim is a mode ofsalutation which begins withplacing the back of the righthand on the ground, andraising it gently till the personstands erect, when he puts thepalm of his hand upon thecrown of his head. It is donefour (chahar) times. Taslimliterally means submission.

The jewelled throneThis is how Shah Jahan’s jewelled throne (takht-i murassa) in the hall of public audience inthe Agra palace is described in the Badshah Nama:

This gorgeous structure has a canopy supported by twelve-sided pillars and measuresfive cubits in height from the flight of steps to the overhanging dome. On His Majesty’scoronation, he had commanded that 86 lakh worth of gems and precious stones, andone lakh tolas of gold worth another 14 lakh, should be used in decorating it. … Thethrone was completed in the course of seven years, and among the precious stones usedupon it was a ruby worth one lakh of rupees that Shah Abbas Safavi had sent to the lateemperor Jahangir. And on this ruby were inscribed the names of the great emperorTimur Sahib-i qiran, Mirza Shahrukh, Mirza Ulugh Beg, and Shah Abbas as well as thenames of the emperors Akbar, Jahangir, and that of His Majesty himself.

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After spending an hour at the jharoka, the emperorwalked to the public hall of audience (diwan-i am) toconduct the primary business of his government.State officials presented reports and made requests.Two hours later, the emperor was in the diwan-i khasto hold private audiences and discuss confidentialmatters. High ministers of state placed their petitionsbefore him and tax officials presented their accounts.Occasionally, the emperor viewed the works of highlyreputed artists or building plans of architects (mimar).

On special occasions such as the anniversary ofaccession to the throne, Id, Shab-i barat and Holi,the court was full of life. Perfumed candles set inrich holders and palace walls festooned withcolourful hangings made a tremendous impressionon visitors. The Mughal kings celebrated three major

Fig. 9.9Shah Jahan honouring PrinceAurangzeb at Agra before hiswedding, painting by Payagin the Badshah Nama

Identify the emperor.Aurangzeb is shown dressedin a yellow jama (uppergarment) and green jacketwith little blossoms. How is heplaced and what does hisgesture to his father suggest?How are the courtiers shown?Can you locate figures withbig turbans to the left? Theseare depictions of scholars.

Fig. 9.10Prince Khurram being weighed inprecious metals in a ceremonycalled jashn-i wazn or tula dan(from Jahangir’s memoirs)



Fig. 9.11aDara Shukoh’s weddingWeddings were celebrated lavishly in the imperialhousehold. In 1633 the wedding of Dara Shukohand Nadira, the daughter of Prince Parwez, wasarranged by Princess Jahanara and Sati un NisaKhanum, the chief maid of the late empress,Mumtaz Mahal. An exhibition of the wedding giftswas arranged in the diwan-i am. In the afternoonthe emperor and the ladies of the harem paid avisit to it, and in the evening nobles were allowedaccess. The bride’s mother similarly arranged herpresents in the same hall and Shah Jahan went tosee them. The hinabandi (application of henna dye)ceremony was performed in the diwan-i khas.Betel leaf (paan), cardamom and dry fruit weredistributed among the attendants of the court.The total cost of the wedding was Rs 32 lakh, of which Rs six lakhwas contributed by the imperial treasury, Rs 16 lakh by Jahanara(including the amount earlier set aside by Mumtaz Mahal) and therest by the bride’s mother. These paintings from the Badshah Namadepict some of the activities associated with the occasion.

Describe what yousee in the pictures.

Fig. 9.11b

Fig. 9.11c

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festivals a year: the solar and lunar birthdays of themonarch and Nauroz, the Iranian New Year on the vernalequinox. On his birthdays, the monarch was weighed againstvarious commodities which were then distributed in charity.

6.3 Titles and giftsGrand titles were adopted by the Mughal emperors at thetime of coronation or after a victory over an enemy. High-sounding and rhythmic, they created an atmosphere ofawe in the audience when announced by ushers (naqib).Mughal coins carried the full title of the reigning emperorwith regal protocol.

The granting of titles to men of merit was an importantaspect of Mughal polity. A man’s ascent in the courthierarchy could be traced through the titles he held. Thetitle Asaf Khan for one of the highest ministers originatedwith Asaf, the legendary minister of the prophet kingSulaiman (Solomon). The title Mirza Raja was accorded byAurangzeb to his two highest-ranking nobles, Jai Singh andJaswant Singh. Titles could be earned or paid for. Mir Khanoffered Rs one lakh to Aurangzeb for the letter alif, that isA, to be added to his name to make it Amir Khan.

Other awards included the robe of honour (khilat), agarment once worn by the emperor and imbued with hisbenediction. One gift, the sarapa (“head to foot”), consistedof a tunic, a turban and a sash (patka). Jewelled ornamentswere often given as gifts by the emperor. The lotus blossomset with jewels (padma murassa) was given only inexceptional circumstances.

A courtier never approached the emperor empty handed:he offered either a small sum of money (nazr ) or a largeamount (peshkash ). In diplomatic relations, giftswere regarded as a sign of honour and respect.Ambassadors performed the important function ofnegotiating treaties and relationships betweencompeting political powers. In such a context giftshad an important symbolic role. Thomas Roe wasdisappointed when a ring he had presented to AsafKhan was returned to him for the reason that it wasworth merely 400 rupees.


Discuss...Are some of the rituals and practicesassociated with the Mughals followed bypresent-day political leaders?

Fig. 9.12A Mughal turban box


7. The Imperial HouseholdThe term “harem” is frequently used to refer to thedomestic world of the Mughals. It originates in thePersian word haram, meaning a sacred place. TheMughal household consisted of the emperor’s wivesand concubines, his near and distant relatives(mother, step- and foster-mothers, sisters, daughters,daughters-in-law, aunts, children, etc.), and femaleservants and slaves. Polygamy was practised widelyin the Indian subcontinent, especially among theruling groups.

Both for the Rajput clans as well as the Mughalsmarriage was a way of cementing politicalrelationships and forging alliances. The gift ofterritory was often accompanied by the gift of adaughter in marriage. This ensured a continuinghierarchical relationship between ruling groups. Itwas through the link of marriage and therelationships that developed as a result that theMughals were able to form a vast kinship networkthat linked them to important groups and helped tohold a vast empire together.

In the Mughal household a distinction wasmaintained between wives who came from royalfamilies (begams), and other wives (aghas) who werenot of noble birth. The begams, married afterreceiving huge amounts of cash and valuables asdower (mahr ), naturally received a higher statusand greater attention from their husbands than didaghas. The concubines (aghacha or the lesser agha)occupied the lowest position in the hierarchy offemales intimately related to royalty. They allreceived monthly allowances in cash, supplementedwith gifts according to their status. The lineage-based family structure was not entirely static. Theagha and the aghacha could rise to the positionof a begam depending on the husband’s will, andprovided that he did not already have four wives.Love and motherhood played important roles inelevating such women to the status of legallywedded wives.

Apart from wives, numerous male and female slavespopulated the Mughal household. The tasks theyperformed varied from the most mundane to thoserequiring skill, tact and intelligence. Slave eunuchs(khwajasara ) moved between the external and

Fig. 9.13Part of the inner apartments inFatehpur Sikri

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internal life of the household as guards, servants,and also as agents for women dabbling in commerce.

After Nur Jahan, Mughal queens and princessesbegan to control significant financial resources. ShahJahan’s daughters Jahanara and Roshanara enjoyedan annual income often equal to that of high imperialmansabdars. Jahanara, in addition, received revenuesfrom the port city of Surat, which was a lucrative centreof overseas trade.

Control over resources enabled important womenof the Mughal household to commission buildings andgardens. Jahanara participated in many architecturalprojects of Shah Jahan’s new capital,Shahjahanabad (Delhi). Among thesewas an imposing double-storeyedcaravanserai with a courtyard andgarden. The bazaar of Chandni Chowk,the throbbing centre of Shahjahanabad,was designed by Jahanara.

An interesting book giving usa glimpse into the domestic worldof the Mughals is the HumayunNama written by Gulbadan Begum.Gulbadan was the daughter of Babur,Humayun’s sister and Akbar’s aunt.Gulbadan could write fluently inTurkish and Persian. When Akbarcommissioned Abu’l Fazl to write ahistory of his reign, he requested hisaunt to record her memoirs of earliertimes under Babur and Humayun,for Abu’l Fazl to draw upon.

What Gulbadan wrote was noeulogy of the Mughal emperors.Rather she described in great detailthe conflicts and tensions among theprinces and kings and the importantmediating role elderly women of thefamily played in resolving some ofthese conflicts.

Describe the activities thatthe artist has depicted in eachof the sections of the painting.On the basis of the tasks beingperformed by different people,identify the members of theimperial establishment thatmake up the scene.


Fig. 9.14Birth of Prince Salim at Fatehpur Sikri,painted by Ramdas, Akbar Nama


8. The Imperial Officials8.1 Recruitment and rankMughal chronicles, especially the Akbar Nama, havebequeathed a vision of empire in which agency restsalmost solely with the emperor, while the rest of thekingdom has been portrayed as following his orders.Yet if we look more closely at the rich informationthese histories provide about the apparatus of theMughal state, we may be able to understand theways in which the imperial organisation wasdependent on several different institutions to be ableto function effectively. One important pillar of theMughal state was its corps of officers, also referredto by historians collectively as the nobility.

The nobility was recruited from diverse ethnic andreligious groups. This ensured that no faction waslarge enough to challenge the authority of the state.The officer corps of the Mughals was described as abouquet of flowers (guldasta ) held together by loyaltyto the emperor. In Akbar’s imperial service, Turaniand Iranian nobles were present from the earliestphase of carving out a political dominion. Many hadaccompanied Humayun; others migrated later to theMughal court.

The Mughal nobilityThis is how Chandrabhan Barahman described the Mughal nobility in his bookChar Chaman (Four Gardens), written during the reign of Shah Jahan:

People from many races (Arabs, Iranians, Turks, Tajiks, Kurds, Tatars, Russians,Abyssinians, and so on) and from many countries (Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Iraq,Arabia, Iran, Khurasan, Turan) – in fact, different groups and classes of peoplefrom all societies – have sought refuge in the imperial court, as well as differentgroups from India, men with knowledge and skills as well as warriors, forexample, Bukharis and Bhakkaris, Saiyyads of genuine lineage, Shaikhzadas withnoble ancestry, Afghan tribes such as the Lodis, Rohillas, Yusufzai, and castes ofRajputs, who were to be addressed as rana, raja, rao and rayan – i.e. Rathor,Sisodia, Kachhwaha, Hada, Gaur, Chauhan, Panwar, Bhaduriya, Solanki,Bundela, Shekhawat, and all the other Indian tribes, such as Ghakkar, Khokar,Baluchi, and others who wielded the sword, and mansabs from 100 to 7000zat, likewise landowners from the steppes and mountains, from the regionsof Karnataka, Bengal, Assam, Udaipur, Srinagar, Kumaon, Tibet and Kishtwarand so on – whole tribes and groups of them have been privileged to kiss thethreshold of the imperial court (i.e. attend the court or find employment).

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Two ruling groups of Indian origin entered theimperial service from 1560 onwards: the Rajputs andthe Indian Muslims (Shaikhzadas). The first to joinwas a Rajput chief, Raja Bharmal Kachhwaha ofAmber, to whose daughter Akbar got married.Members of Hindu castes inclined towards educationand accountancy were also promoted, a famousexample being Akbar’s finance minister, Raja TodarMal, who belonged to the Khatri caste.

Iranians gained high offices under Jahangir, whosepolitically influential queen, Nur Jahan (d. 1645),was an Iranian. Aurangzeb appointed Rajputs to highpositions, and under him the Marathas accountedfor a sizeable number within the body of officers.

All holders of government offices held ranks(mansabs) comprising two numerical designations:zat which was an indicator of position in theimperial hierarchy and the salary of the official(mansabdar), and sawar which indicated thenumber of horsemen he was required to maintainin service. In the seventeenth century, mansabdarsof 1,000 zat or above ranked as nobles (umara,which is the plural of amir ).

The nobles participated in military campaigns withtheir armies and also served as officers of the empirein the provinces. Each military commander recruited,equipped and trained the main striking arm ofthe Mughal army, the cavalry. The troopersmaintained superior horses branded on the flank bythe imperial mark (dagh). The emperor personallyreviewed changes in rank, titles and official postingsfor all except the lowest-ranked officers. Akbar,who designed the mansab system, also establishedspiritual relationships with a select band of hisnobility by treating them as his disciples (murid ).

For members of the nobility, imperial service wasa way of acquiring power, wealth and the highestpossible reputation. A person wishing to join theservice petitioned through a noble, who presented atajwiz to the emperor. If the applicant was foundsuitable a mansab was granted to him. The mirbakhshi (paymaster general) stood in open court onthe right of the emperor and presented all candidatesfor appointment or promotion, while his officeprepared orders bearing his seal and signature aswell as those of the emperor. There were two otherimportant ministers at the centre: the diwan-i ala


Tajwiz was a petitionpresented by a nobleman tothe emperor, recommendingthat an applicant be recruitedas mansabdar.

Nobles at court

The Jesuit priest Father AntonioMonserrate, resident at thecourt of Akbar, noticed:

In order to prevent the greatnobles becoming insolentthrough the unchallengedenjoyment of power, theKing summons them tocourt and gives themimperious commands, asthough they were his slaves.The obedience to thesecommands ill suits theirexalted rank and dignity.

Source 3

What does FatherMonserrate’s observationsuggest about therelationship between theMughal emperor andhis officials?


(finance minister) and sadr-us sudur (minister ofgrants or madad-i maash, and in charge of appointinglocal judges or qazis). The three ministersoccasionally came together as an advisory body,but were independent of each other. Akbar withthese and other advisers shaped the administrative,fiscal and monetary institutions of the empire.

Nobles stationed at the court (tainat-i rakab) werea reserve force to be deputed to a province or militarycampaign. They were duty-bound to appear twicedaily, morning and evening, to express submissionto the emperor in the public audience hall. Theyshared the responsibility for guarding the emperorand his household round the clock.

8.2 Information and empireThe keeping of exact and detailed records was a majorconcern of the Mughal administration. The mirbakhshi supervised the corps of court writers (waqianawis) who recorded all applications and documentspresented to the court, and all imperial orders(farman). In addition, agents (wakil ) of nobles andregional rulers recorded the entire proceedings of thecourt under the heading “News from the ExaltedCourt” (Akhbarat-i Darbar-i Mualla) with the dateand time of the court session (pahar ). The akhbaratcontained all kinds of information such as attendanceat the court, grant of offices and titles, diplomaticmissions, presents received, or the enquiries madeby the emperor about the health of an officer. Thisinformation is valuable for writing the history of thepublic and private lives of kings and nobles.

News reports and important official documentstravelled across the length and breadth of the regionsunder Mughal rule by imperial post. Round-the-clockrelays of foot-runners (qasid or pathmar ) carriedpapers rolled up in bamboo containers. The emperorreceived reports from even distant provincial capitalswithin a few days. Agents of nobles posted outsidethe capital and Rajput princes and tributary rulersall assiduously copied these announcements and senttheir contents by messenger back to their masters.The empire was connected by a surprisingly rapidinformation loop for public news.

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8.3 Beyond the centre: provincialadministration

The division of functions established at the centrewas replicated in the provinces (subas) where theministers had their corresponding subordinates(diwan, bakhshi and sadr). The head of the provincialadministration was the governor (subadar) whoreported directly to the emperor.

The sarkars, into which each suba was divided,often overlapped with the jurisdiction of faujdars(commandants) who were deployed with contingentsof heavy cavalry and musketeers in districts. Thelocal administration was looked after at the levelof the pargana (sub-district) by three semi-hereditaryofficers, the qanungo (keeper of revenue records),the chaudhuri (in charge of revenue collection) andthe qazi.

Each department of administration maintaineda large support staff of clerks, accountants,auditors, messengers, and other functionaries whowere technically qualified officials, functioning inaccordance with standardised rules and procedures,and generating copious written orders and records.Persian was made the language of administrationthroughout, but local languages were used forvillage accounts.

The Mughal chroniclers usually portrayed theemperor and his court as controlling the entireadministrative apparatus down to the village level.Yet, as you have seen (Chapter 8), this could hardlyhave been a process free of tension. The relationshipbetween local landed magnates, the zamindars, andthe representatives of the Mughal emperor wassometimes marked by conflicts over authority and ashare of the resources. The zamindars often succeededin mobilising peasant support against the state.


Discuss...Read Section 2, Chapter 8 once more and discussthe extent to which the emperor’s presence mayhave been felt in villages.


9. Beyond the FrontiersWriters of chronicles list many high-sounding titlesassumed by the Mughal emperors. These includedgeneral titles such as Shahenshah (King of Kings)or specific titles assumed by individual kingsupon ascending the throne, such as Jahangir(World-Seizer), or Shah Jahan (King of the World).The chroniclers often drew on these titles and theirmeanings to reiterate the claims of the Mughalemperors to uncontested territorial and politicalcontrol. Yet the same contemporary historiesprovide accounts of diplomatic relationships andconflicts with neighbouring political powers.

These reflect some tensionand political rivalry arisingfrom competing regionalinterests.

9.1 The Safavids andQandaharThe political and diplomaticrelations between theMughal kings and theneighbouring countries ofIran and Turan hinged onthe control of the frontierdefined by the Hindukushmountains that separatedAfghanistan from theregions of Iran and CentralAsia. All conquerors whosought to make theirway into the Indiansubcontinent had to crossthe Hindukush to haveaccess to north India. Aconstant aim of Mughalpolicy was to ward offthis potential dangerby controlling strategicoutposts – notably Kabuland Qandahar.

Qandahar was a bone ofcontention between theSafavids and the Mughals.The fortress-town had initiallybeen in the possession of

Fig. 9.15The siege of Qandahar

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Humayun, reconquered in 1595 by Akbar. While theSafavid court retained diplomatic relations with theMughals, it continued to stake claims to Qandahar. In1613 Jahangir sent a diplomatic envoy to the court ofShah Abbas to plead the Mughal case for retainingQandahar, but the mission failed. In the winter of 1622a Persian army besieged Qandahar. The ill-preparedMughal garrison was defeated and had to surrender thefortress and the city to the Safavids.

9.2 The Ottomans: pilgrimage and tradeThe relationship between the Mughals and theOttomans was marked by the concern to ensurefree movement for merchants and pilgrims in theterritories under Ottoman control. This wasespecially true for the Hijaz, that part of OttomanArabia where the important pilgrim centres of Meccaand Medina were located. The Mughal emperorusually combined religion and commerce byexporting valuable merchandise to Aden and Mokha,both Red Sea ports, and distributing the proceeds


Fig. 9.16Jahangir’s dreamAn inscription on this miniature recordsthat Jahangir commissioned Abu’l Hasanto render in painting a dream the emperorhad had recently. Abu’l Hasan painted thisscene portraying the two rulers – Jahangirand the Safavid Shah Abbas – in friendlyembrace. Both kings are depicted in theirtraditional costumes. The figure of theShah is based upon portraits made byBishandas who accompanied the Mughalembassy to Iran in 1613. This gave a senseof authenticity to a scene which isfictional, as the two rulers had never met.

Look at the painting carefully. How is therelationship between Jahangir and ShahAbbas shown? Compare their physique andpostures. What do the animals stand for?What does the map suggest?


of the sales in charity to the keepers of shrinesand religious men there. However, when Aurangzebdiscovered cases of misappropriation of fundssent to Arabia, he favoured their distribution inIndia which, he thought, “was as much a house ofGod as Mecca”.

9.3 Jesuits at the Mughal courtEurope received knowledge of India through theaccounts of Jesuit missionaries, travellers,merchants and diplomats. The Jesuit accounts arethe earliest impressions of the Mughal court everrecorded by European writers.

Following the discovery of a direct sea routeto India at the end of the fifteenth century,Portuguese merchants established a network oftrading stations in coastal cities. The Portugueseking was also interested in the propagation ofChristianity with the help of the missionaries ofthe Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). The Christianmissions to India during the sixteenth century werepart of this process of trade and empire building.

Akbar was curious about Christianity anddispatched an embassy to Goa to invite Jesuitpriests. The first Jesuit mission reached the Mughalcourt at Fatehpur Sikri in 1580 and stayed for abouttwo years. The Jesuits spoke to Akbar aboutChristianity and debated its virtues with the ulama.Two more missions were sent to the Mughal courtat Lahore, in 1591 and 1595.

The Jesuit accounts are based on personalobservation and shed light on the character andmind of the emperor. At public assemblies the Jesuitswere assigned places in close proximity to Akbar’sthrone. They accompanied him on his campaigns,tutored his children, and were often companions ofhis leisure hours. The Jesuit accounts corroboratethe information given in Persian chronicles aboutstate officials and the general conditions of life inMughal times.

Discuss...What were the considerations that shaped therelations of the Mughal rulers with theircontemporaries?

The accessible emperor

In the account of hisexperiences, Monserrate, whowas a member of the f irstJesuit mission, says:

It is hard to exaggerate howaccessible he (Akbar) makeshimself to al l who wishaudience of him. For hecreates an opportunityalmost every day for any ofthe common people or ofthe nobles to see him andto converse with him; andhe endeavours to showhimself pleasant-spokenand affable rather thansevere towards al l whocome to speak with him. Itis very remarkable howgreat an effect this courtesyand af fabi l i ty has inattaching him to the mindsof his subjects.

Source 4

Compare thisaccount with Source 2.

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10. Questioning FormalReligion

The high respect shown by Akbar towardsthe members of the Jesuit missionimpressed them deeply. They interpretedthe emperor’s open interest in thedoctrines of Christianity as a sign ofhis acceptance of their faith. This canbe understood in the light of theprevailing climate of religious intolerancein Western Europe. Monserrate remarkedthat “the king cared little that in allowingeveryone to follow his religion he wasin reality violating all”.

Akbar’s quest for religious knowledgeled to interfaith debates in the ibadatkhana at Fatehpur Sikri between learnedMuslims, Hindus, Jainas, Parsis andChristians. Akbar’s religious viewsmatured as he queried scholars ofdifferent religions and sects and gatheredknowledge about their doctrines.Increasingly, he moved away from theorthodox Islamic ways of understandingreligions towards a self-conceived eclecticform of divine worship focused on lightand the sun. We have seen that Akbarand Abu’l Fazl created a philosophy oflight and used it to shape the image ofthe king and ideology of the state. In this,a divinely inspired individual hassupreme sovereignty over his people andcomplete control over his enemies.


Fig. 9.17Religious debatesin the courtPadre RudolfAcquaviva was theleader of the firstJesuit mission.His name iswritten on top ofthe painting.

Hom in the haramThis is an excerpt from Abdul Qadir Badauni’s Muntakhab-ut Tawarikh.A theologian and a courtier, Badauni was critical of his employer’s policiesand did not wish to make the contents of his book public.

From early youth, in compliment to his wives, the daughters ofRajas of Hind, His Majesty had been performing hom in the haram,which is a ceremony derived from fire-worship (atish-parasti ). Buton the New Year of the twenty-fifth regnal year (1578) heprostrated publicly before the sun and the fire. In the evening thewhole Court had to rise up respectfully when the lamps and candleswere lighted.


These ideas were in harmony with the perspectiveof the court chroniclers who give us a sense of theprocesses by which the Mughal rulers couldeffectively assimilate such a heterogeneous populacewithin an imperial edifice. The name of the dynastycontinued to enjoy legitimacy in the subcontinentfor a century and a half, even after its geographicalextent and the political control it exercised haddiminished considerably.

TimelineTimelineTimelineTimelineTimeline

Some Major Mughal Chronicles and Memoirs

c. 1530 Manuscript of Babur’s memoirs in Turkish – savedfrom a storm – becomes part of the family collectionof the Timurids

c. 1587 Gulbadan Begum begins to write the Humayun Nama

1589 Babur’s memoirs translated into Persian as Babur Nama

1589-1602 Abu’l Fazl works on the Akbar Nama

1605-22 Jahangir writes his memoirs, the Jahangir Nama

1639-47 Lahori composes the first two daftars of the Badshah Nama

c. 1650 Muhammad Waris begins to chronicle the third decade ofShah Jahan’s reign

1668 Alamgir Nama, a history of the first ten years of Aurangzeb’sreign compiled by Muhammmad Kazim

Fig. 9.18Blue tiles from a shrine in Multan,brought by migrant artisansfrom Iran

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1. Describe the process of manuscriptproduction in the Mughal court.

2. In what ways would the daily routine andspecial festivities associated with theMughal court have conveyed a sense of thepower of the emperor?

3. Assess the role played by women of theimperial household in the Mughal Empire.

4. What were the concerns that shapedMughal policies and attitudes towardsregions outside the subcontinent?

5. Discuss the major features of Mughalprovincial administration. How did thecentre control the provinces?

Write a short essay(about 250-300 words)on the following:

6. Discuss, with examples, the distinctivefeatures of Mughal chronicles.

7. To what extent do you think the visualmaterial presented in this chaptercorresponds with Abu’l Fazl’s descriptionof the taswir (Source 1)?

8. What were the distinctive features ofthe Mughal nobility? How was theirrelationship with the emperor shaped?

9. Identify the elements that went into themaking of the Mughal ideal of kingship.


Fig. 9.19Many Mughal manuscripts containeddrawings of birds


Map work

10. On an outline map of the world, plot the areaswith which the Mughals had political and culturalrelations.


11. Find out more about any one Mughal chronicle.Prepare a report describing the author, and thelanguage, style and content of the text. Describe atleast two visuals used to illustrate the chronicleof your choice, focusing on the symbols used toindicate the power of the emperor.

12. Prepare a report comparing the present-day systemof government with the Mughal court andadministration, focusing on ideals of rulership,court rituals, and means of recruitment into theimperial service, highlighting the similaritiesand differences that you notice.


For more information,you could visit:www.mughalgardens.org

Bamber Gascoigne. 1971.The Great Moghuls.Jonathan Cape Ltd., London.

Shireen Moosvi. 2006 (rpt).Episodes in the Life of Akbar.National Book Trust,New Delhi.

Harbans Mukhia. 2004.The Mughals of India. Blackwell,Oxford.

John F. Richards. 1996.The Mughal Empire(The New Cambridge Historyof India, Vol.1).Cambridge University Press,Cambridge.

Annemarie Schimmel. 2005.The Empire of the Great Mughals:History, Art and Culture.Oxford University Press,New Delhi.

Fig. 9.20A Mughal painting depictingsquirrels on a tree

255KINGS AND CHRONICLES

Credits for Illustrations

Theme 5Fig. 5.1: Ritu Topa.Fig. 5.2: Henri Stierlin, The Cultural History of the Arabs,

Aurum Press, London, 1981.Fig. 5.4, 5.13: FICCI, Footprints of Enterprise: Indian Business

Through the Ages, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1999.Fig. 5.5: Calcutta Art Gallery, printed in E.B. Havell,

The Art Heritage of India, D.B. Taraporevala Sons & Co., Bombay, 1964.Fig. 5.6, 5.7, 5.12: Bamber Gascoigne, The Great Moghuls,

Jonathan Cape Ltd., London, 1971.Fig. 5.8, 5.9: Sunil Kumar.Fig. 5.10: Rosemary Crill, Indian Ikat Textiles, Weatherhill, London, 1998.Fig. 5.11, 5.14: C.A. Bayly (ed). An Illustrated History of Modern India,

1600-1947, Oxford University Press, Bombay, 1991.

Theme 6Fig. 6.1: Susan L. Huntington, The Art of Ancient India,

Weatherhill, New York, 1993.Fig. 6.3, 6.17: Jim Masselos, Jackie Menzies and Pratapaditya Pal,

Dancing to the Flute: Music and Dance in Indian Art,The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, 1997.

Fig. 6.4, 6.5: Benjamin Rowland, The Art and Architecture of India,Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1970.

Fig. 6.6: Henri Stierlin, The Cultural History of the Arabs,Aurum Press, London, 1981.

Fig. 6.8: http://www.us.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp/ContentID=104228Fig. 6.9: http://www.thekkepuram.ourfamily.com/miskal.htmFig. 6.10: http://a-bangladesh.com/banglapedia/Images/A_0350A.JPGFig. 6.11: [email protected]. 6.12: Stuart Cary Welch, Indian Art and Culture 1300-1900,

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1985.Fig. 6.13: Bamber Gascoigne, The Great Moghuls,

Jonathan Cape Ltd., London, 1971.Fig. 6.15: CCRT.Fig. 6.16: C. A. Bayly (ed). An Illustrated History of Modern India,

1600-1947, Oxford University Press, Bombay, 1991.Fig. 6.18: Ahmad Nabi Khan, Islamic Architecture in Pakistan,

National Hijra Council, Islamabad, 1990.

Theme 7Fig. 7.1, 7.11, 7.12, 7.14, 7.15, 7.16, 7.18: Vasundhara Filliozat and

George Michell (eds), The Splendours of Vijayanagara,Marg Publications, Bombay, 1981.

Fig. 7.2: C.A. Bayly (ed). An Illustrated History of Modern India,1600-1947, Oxford University Press, Bombay, 1991.


Fig. 7.3: Susan L. Huntington, The Art of Ancient India, Weatherhill,New York, 1993.

Fig. 7.4, 7.6, 7.7, 7.20, 7. 23, 7.26, 7.27, 7.32: George Michell,Architecture and Art of South India, Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, 1995.

Fig. 7.5, 7.8, 7.9, 7.21 http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/research/Exp_Rese_Disc/Asia/vrp/HTML/Vijay_Hist.shtml

Fig 7.10: Catherine B. Asher and Cynthia Talbot.India Before Europe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006.

Fig. 7.17, 7.22, 7.24, 7.28, 7.29, 7.30, 7.31, 7.33: George Michell andM.B.Wagoner, Vijayanagara: Architectural Inventory of theSacred Centre, Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi.

Fig. 7.25: CCRT.

Theme 8Fig. 8.1, 8.9: Milo Cleveland Beach and Ebba Koch, King of the World,

Sackler Gallery, New York, 1997. Fig. 8.3: India Office Library, printed in C.A. Bailey (ed). An Illustrated

History of Modern India, 1600-1947, Oxford University Press,Bombay, 1991.

Fig. 8.4: Harvard University Art Museum, printed in Stuart Cary Welch,Indian Art and Culture 1300-1900, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,New York, 1985.

Fig. 8.6, 8.11, 8.12, 8.14: C.A. Bayly (ed). An Illustrated History of ModernIndia, 1600-1947, Oxford University Press, Bombay, 1991.

Fig. 8.13, 8.15: Bamber Gascoigne, The Great Moghuls,Jonathan Cape Ltd., London, 1971.

Theme 9Fig. 9.1, 9.2, 9.12, 9.13, 9.19: Bamber Gascoigne, The Great Moghuls,

Jonathan Cape, London, 1971.Fig. 9.3, 9.4, 9.17: Michael Brand and Glenn D. Lowry, Akbar’s India,

New York, 1986.Fig. 9.5, 9.15: Amina Okada, Indian Miniatures of the Mughal Court.Fig. 9.6, 9.7: The Jahangirnama (tr. Wheeler Thackston)Fig. 9.8: Photograph Friedrich Huneke.Fig. 9.9, 9.11 a, b, c : Milo Cleveland Beach and Ebba Koch,

King of the World, Sackler Gallery, New York, 1997.Fig. 9.10, 9.16, 9.20: Stuart Carey Welch, Imperial Mughal Painting,

George Braziller, New York, 1978.Fig. 9.14: Geeti Sen, Paintings from the Akbarnama.Fig. 9.18: Hermann Forkl et al. (eds), Die Gärten des Islam.