Flawed Narratives

History in the old NCERT Textbooks

A random survey of Satish Chandras Medieval India (NCERT 2000 _________

By

Meenakshi Jain

INTROD CTION
I would not care whether truth is pleasant or unpleasant, and in consonance with or opposed to current views. I would not mind in the least whether truth is, or is not, a blow to the glory of my country. If necessary, I shall bear in patience the ridicule and slander of friends and society for the sake of preaching truth. But still I shall seek truth, understand truth, and accept truth. This should be the firm resolve of a historian. - ir !adunath arkar
With hindsight, it must be conceded that the NCERTs decision to discontinue textbooks authored by stalwarts of the Marxist school of historiogra hy has triggered a !eritable shift in the countrys intellectual tem late" #nd it was robably a rehending recisely such a fallout that leftist scholars had mounted a cam aign of un recedented ferocity to stall the new textbooks, e!en going to the extent of ha!ing sym athi$ers file a case in the %u reme Court against NCERTs ro osed curriculum re!ision" %trangely, no one bothered to ask why scholars of hitherto un&uestionable eminence were so erturbed at being dislodged from schoolrooms, when their status, ex ertise and dominance remained unchallenged at the uni!ersity le!el, where they were also more likely to encounter students who could a reciate the finer oints of their scholarshi " 'erha s since these scholars were, abo!e all, ur!eyors of an ideology, the indoctrination of young minds from a rimary stage itself was crucial to their agenda" That is why they had in the first instance re ared history rimers, which were for decades rammed down the throats of hel less school children" The medie!al era of (ndian history was the s ecial focus of Marxist interest" Their contribution to the study and ro er a reciation of this eriod was not entirely a negati!e de!elo ment" To the extent that Marxist methodology lays s ecial stress on the role of material forces in the sha ing of history, they were able to make a significant contribution in highlighting the ex loitati!e nature of the state under %ultanate and Mughal rulers, who a ro riated the bulk of the agrarian roduce, lea!ing the easants in ab)ect o!erty" *ut Marxist methodology in (ndia is not recogni$ed for its em hasis on economic determinism alone" (t is associated with an acti!e hostility to (ndias nati!e ci!ili$ation and its achie!ements" (t is noted for its blatant bias towards the (slamic ad!ent that commenced in this eriod" Non+ artisan scholars describe the (slamic thrust into the sub+continent as one of the most rolonged instances of cultural encounter in world history, and acce t that notwithstanding the eaceful entry of #rab traders, a substantial art of Muslim settlement was achie!ed by con&uest" ,rom a erusal of standard secondary works alone, -" ," Richards has noted ./ instances of military conflict between the first #rab assault on %ind and the commencement of #lauddin 0hal)is 1eccan cam aigns" 2-" ," Richards,

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"ower, #dministration and $inance in %ughal India, 6ariorum, 7..89" :e concludes that an examination of rimary sources would re!eal many more such incidents" #nd yet, it has been an endea!our of (ndian Marxists to negate this history of sustained resistance of (ndians to (slamic incursions" ,urther, they ha!e sought to under lay the (slamic abhorrence of idolatry and olytheism and its assault on the sacred s aces of this land" Though the numerical su eriority of :indus com elled the in!aders to grant them the status of dhimmis, the issue was too com lex to be so resol!ed, and continued to exercise the Muslim mind throughout these centuries" ;ohanan ,riedmann has obser!ed that the conciliatory trend in (ndian (slam was always weaker than the orthodox one, and the few rulers who ado ted it failed to ins ire their successors 2<(slamic Thought in Relation to the (ndian Context=, in Richard M" Eaton ed", India&s Islamic Traditions, '((-(')*, >xford ?ni!ersity 'ress, 4//89" Effacing the harshness of (slamic rule in (ndia has been the rimary ob)ecti!e of (ndian Marxist historians" E!en rulers of the notoriety such as Mahmud of @ha$ni and #urang$eb ha!e been reci ients of their kind bene!olence" R" C" Ma)umdar has drawn attention to a ty ical, though not so well+known, case of Marxist intellectual )ugglery" # +omprehensive ,istory of India - !ol" !9, ublished under the aus ices of the (ndian :istory Congress, he says, eulogi$es the *engal ruler :usain %hah, for his atronage of *engali writers and 6aishna!a saints, and asserts that the creati!e genius of the eo le reached its $enith under him" The truth howe!er, Ma)umdar states, is that Chandidas, the greatest 6aishna!a oet, receded :usain %hah, and the two oets of distinction who li!ed in his reign, en)oyed no royal fa!ours" ,urther, the 6aishna!a leader, Chaitanya had no connection whatsoe!er with the *engal %ultan" (n fact after he became a sannyasi, Chaitanya s ent almost twenty years in exile in the :indu kingdom of >rissa" When he once !isited a locality near the residence of :usain %hah, many eo le in @auda feared for his safety and begged him to de art" Contem orary 6aishna!a literature attests to the hostility of the Aa$i of Na!ad!i who e!en rohibited kirtans" #nd yet in defiance of such damning e!idence, # +omprehensive ,istory of India has no &ualms in declaring that <it is almost im ossible to concei!e of the rise and rogress of 6aishna!ism or the de!elo ment of *engali literature at this eriod without recalling to mind the tolerant and enlightened rule of the Muslim lord of @aur=" %uch double s eak forms the leitmotif of Marxist literature on medie!al (ndia" The Turkish in!asions are glorified for effecting the olitical unification of (ndia, and ending her alleged isolation, while Mughal rule is resented as the countrys second classical age" Notwithstanding lofty declarations about free debate, (ndian Marxists ha!e, in classic %o!iet style, relied hea!ily on state atronage and control of state+ s onsored institutions to disseminate their !ersion of history" %atish Chandras

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%edieval India 2NCERT 4///97 was art of the Marxist offensi!e at the school le!el" # brief criti&ue of the work is hereby resented, with a !iew to ex lain to the general reader the ob)ections that non+Marxists ha!e to Marxist historiogra hy, and to share a larger concern for !eracity and ob)ecti!ity in the resentation of the ast, howsoe!er un alatable the ast may be" Merely labeling such endea!ors as <saffronisation= cannot wish away the aramount &uestion that confronts historians todayB %hould history be an honest record of the ast, or should it sacrifice truth to be <%ecularC= (t has been said that history is essentially the story of ci!ili$ational memory" That has certainly been the case in (ndia" *oth communities which constitute :indus and Muslims today, ha!e !arying memories of their historical )ourney" # Marxist dictate on inter+community amity in medie!al (ndia has ab)ectly failed to alter ci!ili$ational memories" The gulf between the two communities e!en at the !illage le!el has been oignantly brought out by a *engali writer who notesB
<The roud descendants of the #ryas, who ro ounded the six systems of hiloso hy, taught these to their u ils for se!en hundred years after the ad!ent of the Muslims, but ne!er cared to know anything of the wonderful hiloso hical systems taught by the Maula!is in the Madrasas of the neighbouring !illage" The Muslim Maulanas, who did not hesitate to teach with delight the non+(slamic doctrines of #ristotle all their li!es, ne!er cared to in&uire what was being taught in the neighbouring Chatus athis" What is still most strange is that while the Muslim doctors read the #rabic translations of the medical treatises of Charaka and %usruta, they ne!er knew that the original treatises were being taught in the tol of the neighbouring !illage" >n the other hand, the :indu authors of medical treatises, to the best of my knowledge, ne!er cared to know anything or take any ad!antage of the ;unani system" (t is often urged that Chaitanya sought to reconcile 2or harmonise9 the religious scri tures of the :indus and Muslims, but ( know nothing of it" %o far as ( know, the chief ob)ect of Chaitanya was to reform the :indu society" The Muslims rulers, articularly the Mughal Em erors, in!ited to their courts, oets, scholars, hiloso hers and religious men from (ran and Turan" *ut the :indus ne!er rofited in any way from these learned foreigners who had not established any contact with the :indus= 2&uoted in R" C" Ma)umdar, ,istory of %ediaeval Bengal, @" *haradwa) and Co" 7.D89"

Now that the Marxists no longer occu y the commanding heights of (ndian academia, they ha!e a uni&ue o ortunity to assess the actual le!el of acce tability their work en)oys" 'erha s its time to recogni$e that e!asion cannot bury the ast" (t is only by confronting it that it can be o!ercome" ! Note

.nlike the I,+&s Inde/ of 0rrors which drew on the collective wisdom of %ar/ist luminaries, this is an individual effort. #ny inadvertent misrepresentation may kindly be condoned. In view of the seriousness of the
7

Though this textbook was first published by NCERT in 1978, and reprinted until 1990 when it was revised and reprinted yearly after that, there continue to be small typographical and grammatical errors throughout. The first edition of Meenakshi Jains textbook also had a few typos which is understandable [Vishal Agarwal].

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debate, proof-reading oversights, spelling errors, minor discrepancies in definition of technical terms and other such trivialities have been overlooked so as not to derail the discussion. The emphasis is on substantive issues of interpretation and presentation, and even here, only samples of faulty reasoning and construction are enumerated. This in no way claims to be an e/haustive study.

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"#$ %&'ienti(i') History* (ndian Marxists take immense ride in resenting what they claim is a scientific analysis of the ast" %ome exam les of this Gmethodology are gi!en below" (t may be seen that Marxist narrati!e is bede!iled by a non-Indian ers ecti!e, which casts a shadow o!er its !ery !eracity and moti!ations" 7" Though ur orted to be a text on GMedie!al (ndia, %atish Chandras book begins with a discussion on Euro e in the aftermath of the breaku of the Roman em ire, followed by a descri tion of Euro ean feudalism, the #rab world from the Hth to the 7/th centuries, and last but not least, East and %outh+East #siaI That (ndia does not merit e!en a subsection in the o ening cha ter erha s best illustrates the Marxist alienation from the (ndic ers ecti!e and their utter reliance u on foreign categories and eriodi$ations for understanding e!ents in (ndia" E!en though the !ery first aragra h of the book admits that de!elo ments in Euro e and #sia only <had an indirect effect an (ndiaJ"=2'age 79, Marxists are unable to break away from im orted categories of thought, howsoe!er ill they fit the (ndian reality" They seem inca able of !iewing (ndia in terms of itself" ,or them, it must always mo!e in tandem with Euro e, the #rab world, e!en East and %outh+East #sia" 4" Cha ter 8, on the Chola Em ire, includes a discussion on the :oysales!ara tem le built by the :oysalas, the 0annada com ositions of the Rashtrakuta king #mogha!arsha, and the Chalukya atronage of Telugu writers like Nanniah" Cha ter F entitled <The #ge of KConflict 2circa 7///+74//9= commences with a brief account of Mahmud of @ha$nis cataclysmic in!asions of (ndia, and ro!ides no details of the :indu ruling houses with whom he clashed" @ha$nis in!asions are abru tly followed by a discussion of the Ra) ut clan system, which breaks the narrati!e and detracts from the conflicts of the era under discussion" The cha ter then mo!es on to the tem le+building tradition in north (ndia between the eighth and twelfth centuries, before returning to the subse&uent con&uests of Muhammad of @hur" # eculiar se&uence, to say the !ery least" Cha ter L is entitled <The 1elhi %ultanat 2circa 74//+7E//9, The Mameluk %ultans"= The cha ter begins with an account of the reigns of #ibak, (ltutmish, Ra$iya and *alban" (t then )um s back to (ltutmish and the rulers who succeeded him in a discussion on the Mongols, which e!en includes #lauddin 0hal)i 274.L+787L9 who was certainly not a Mamluk" #fter this detour, the narrati!e returns to (ltutmish and *alban, to discuss their eastern cam aigns" Thereafter, it again backtracks to #ibak, (ltutmish and *alban and their conflicts with the Ra) ut ra)as" >ne fails to understand how such mixed chronology &ualifies as Gscientific history"

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F"

Cha ter D tilted <The 1elhi %ultanat+(( 2circa 74//+7E//9=" %ince the eriod u to *alban has already been co!ered in the re!ious cha ter, the dating is u$$ling" # brief introduction of the 0hal)is and Tughla&s is followed in that order by an account of the ex ansion of the %ultanate in the north under #lauddin 0hal)i, the 1eccan cam aigns of the 0hal)is and Tughla&s, the market regulations and agrarian measures of #lauddin 0hal)i, the ex eriments of Muhammad bin Tughla& and the rebellions he faced, the nature of his nobility, the reign of ,iru$ and the in!asion of Timur" The constant back and forth mo!ement only ser!es to com letely confuse the student" The following Cha ter H discusses <@o!ernment, and economic and social life under the 1elhi %ultanat"= %ince the reigns of the %ayyids and Modis also fall in the %ultanate eriod, it is odd to find no mention of them before this discussion" The cha ter begins with an account of the office of the %ultan, the central administrati!e a aratus and local go!ernment, and then mo!es on to the economic and social life of the eriod" The condition of the easantry and rural gentry, the state of trade, industry and merchants are all described in some detail" ?nex ectedly, howe!er, the author then returns to the %ultan and his nobles" Mogically this section should ha!e been a ended to the o ening discussion on the %ultan" There follows a descri tion of town life, a section on caste, social manners and customs" Thereafter, the nature of the state and religious freedom in the %ultanate are enumerated, when this should ha!e formed art of the discussion on the %ultan, his go!ernment and nobility" There seems in all this a er!asi!e attern of fragmenting the narrati!e to re!ent the emergence of a coherent ers ecti!e on the nature of the state under the %ultanate rulers"

L"

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Cha ter 7/ <%truggle for Em ire in North (ndia+7 2circa 7E//+7F4F9= o ens with a reference to Timurs sack of 1elhi in 78.H" :ence it would be logical to follow this with the %ayyids, since the founder of this dynasty had been handed charge of 1elhi by Timur himself" This could ha!e been followed by an account of the successor Modi dynasty, and the !arious kingdoms struggling for hegemony" What we ha!e instead is an account of eastern (ndia, then western (ndia, in the course of which we come across (brahim Modi" The %har&i kingdom of -aun ur follows, wherein we encounter another Modi ruler, *ahlul" >nly after this extended digression do we come to the %ayyids and the Modis"

H"

Cha ter 77 is titled <Cultural 1e!elo ment in (ndia"= %ince the bhakti mo!ement redated %ufism in (ndia, it should ha!e been discussed first, rather than the other way round"

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Cha ter 74" %her %hahs Ra) ut olicy 2 7EF+7EL9 makes no mention of his treatment of the Ra) uts of Raisin" (nstead, in the subsection entitled <Contribution of %her %hah,= after listing his measures to im ro!e law and order, trade and commerce, his custom regulations, currency reforms, administrati!e restructuring, land re!enue measures, reorgani$ation of the army, )udicial reforms and architectural achie!ements, there is a brief reference to his treacherous murder of the Raisen Ra) uts with the ro!iso that %her %hah was <not a bigot in the religious s hereJ= 2 7F/9" This kind of whitewashing and obfuscation of the states dealings with nati!e rulers and sub)ects is the hallmark of Marxist historiogra hy"

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Cha ter 78 on #kbar is followed by cha ter 7E on the 1eccan olicy of the Mughals u to 7LFL, e!en though the reigns of -ahangir 27L/F+4D9 and %hah -ahan 27L4H+FH9 are dealt with in the subse&uent Cha ter 7F" Cha ter 7F commences with a resume of -ahangirs reign, which is followed by a discussion of the foreign olicy of the Mughals from the time of #kbar to the reign of #urang$ebI #fter this comes an account of the reforms introduced in the mansabdari system by -ahangir and %hah -ahan, and finally a discussion on the nature of the Mughal armyI %uch liberties with chronology are ob!iously art of a concerted attem t to re!ent an integrated !iew of the era emerging in the minds of young students"

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The following Cha ter 7L deals with <Economic and %ocial Mife ?nder The Mughals,= though #urang$eb who is !ery much a art of the dynasty comes u only in cha ter 7H" (t is also sur rising to find a discussion on the ethnic com osition of the Mughal nobility inserted in the middle of this cha ter, when it should surely ha!e formed art of the narrati!e of the state under the !arious rulers" *e that as it may be, this surre titious insertion also contradicts the assertions made in the main body of the text that the res ecti!e rulers ga!e generous re resentation to nati!e grou s in the nobility" Cha ter 7H discusses <Cultural and Religious 1e!elo ments= under the Mughals, again before a discussion on the reign of #urang$eb" (t is no sur rise if at the end of this, one is left unsure of e!en the basic chronology of the eriod" NNN

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+#$ Missin, - Exa./les o( &oviet style /0r,in, o( Indian history 1

!hole dynasties and events have sim"ly disa""eared#
'urging history of its incon!enient moments ha!ing been a !enerable tradition in the communist world, it comes as no sur rise that (ndias ast too is considerably s ruced u " Whole kingdoms and dynasties that flourished between the death of :arsha in #1 LED and the establishment of the 1elhi %ultanate in #1 74/L find no mention in the text" This half millennium dominated by !igorous new ruling houses was an age of efflorescence, of monumental tem les, literary flowering and intense hiloso hical s eculation" #nd yet so much of that defining eriod of (ndian history is sim ly effaced" #mong rulers, dynasties and e!ents missingB+ 7" The @ahada!alas, a leading ruling house of North (ndia, in the forefront of the struggle against the Turkish in!asions" They are also credited with a massi!e rogramme of tem le construction in #yodhya" >ne of the most im ortant :indu law com endium, the 1ritya 1alpataru was written in their reign" *ut it is only the last ruler of this line, -ayachandra, who merits an unflattering mentionB <'erha s, he was not a !ery ca able warrior because he had already suffered a re!erse at the hands of the %ena king of *engal= 2 E89" 4" The Chandellas of *undelkhand are dismissed in one sentence on age 8." *elie!ed to be of @ond 2tribal9 origin, they embarked on a career of greatness under ;aso!arman, who finds no mention in the text" # re uted warrior, ;aso!arman is e!en said to ha!e allied with China to halt the onward march of the Turks" :is successors aided the %hahi kings in their endea!our to re ulse the Turks" 6idyadhar was the greatest of the Chandella kings" :e killed the last 'ratihara ruler of 0anau) for surrendering to Mahmud of @ha$ni without a fight" The Chandellas were atrons of the %anskrit littOrateur *ha!abhuti, as well as of 6ak ati and were also the builders of the magnificent 0ha)uraho tem les" 8" The 'aramaras of Malwa who included *ho)a, one of the greatest kings of medie!al (ndia" 1uring his reign of half a century, he thrice collaborated with other kings of north (ndia in the dri!e against the Turks" :e was also a formidable scholar and established a %anskrit college within the recincts of the %araswati tem le 2the resent dis uted *ho)ashala at 1har, M"'"9" E" Eminent Chauhan kings like #)ayara)a 2founder of the city of #)ayameru, #)mer9, #rnora)a and 6igrahara)a (6 6isalade!a, all of whom worsted the Turks" 6igrahara)a (6 6isalade!a, incidentally, established the -ain college at #)mer, which was subse&uently con!erted into the #rhai-din-ka!hompra mos&ue by Autbuddin #ibak" F" The 0alachuris of Tri uri, an ancient ruling house whose earlier seat of ower was Mahismati on the Narmada" The great kings of this dynasty included 0okalla, @angeyade!a and 0arna"

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L" -ayasimha %iddhara)a, regarded as the greatest of the kings of @u)arat" # renowned warrior and builder of the Rudra Mahakala tem le at %iddha ura , he was also the atron of the famous -ain scholar :emachandra" #lso missing are 0umara ala, renowned as the last great royal ro onent of -ainism, and Naiki 1e!i, &ueen regent who defeated the forces of Muhammad of @hur near Mt" #bu" D" The famous 0arkota dynasty of 0ashmir, which boasted of rulers like Malitaditya, who made the dynasty the most owerful in (ndia after the @u tas" #!anti!arman, the sagacious ruler of the ?t ala dynasty, who commissioned an engineering ro)ect for the drainage and irrigation of the !alley which ro!ided much relief from floods, besides increasing the land under culti!ation, also goes unsung" H" The %ena kings of *engal, 6i)ayasena and the famous *allalasena, are ignored" ." The %hailodbha!a dynasty of >rissa, the 0aras, renowned for ha!ing had at least fi!e female rulers" The 0esaris, the Eastern @angas and the later Eastern @angas, builders of the famous Mingara)a, -agannath and %un Tem le, also do not merit attention" The three tem les are merely mentioned in a sur!ey on tem le building in north (ndia" 7/" The Chalukyas of 0alyani, including their distinguished ruler 6ikramaditya 6(, atron of scholars like *ilhana and 6i)naneshwara, are also missing" 77" Rudramade!i of the 0akatiya dynasty, who ruled for almost 8F years, does not find e!en a listing" 74" The text ignores the sheer dynamism of (ndian society during the centuries" The mo!ement of tribal grou s from forest and astoral settings to settled agriculture, their contribution to state formation, the rise and integration of tribal and local deities to regional and all+(ndia status, the economic integration of the country through mobile communities of itinerant traders and merchants, are all o!erlooked in reference for a static and stereoty ed rigidity that has long been re)ected by modern scholarshi " The ersistent artici ation of :indu easants in warfare throughout this eriod is obliterated as art of the attem t to ro)ect :indu society as a closed unit in which multi le occu ations were ruled out and mo!ement im ossible" 78" The e!idence of the growth of urban centres and a flourishing economy in the kingdoms of the 'ratiharas, 'aramaras, Chahamanas, among others, are all su ressed with a !iew to !alidate the discredited thesis of the Marxist historian 'rof" R"%" %harma that trade and economy suffered a distinct decline in the three centuries after the death of :arsha" 7E" There is sim ly no discussion on the nature of the olity established by 'ro het Muhammad, and its de endence on the twin conce ts of 2ihad and

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ummah" The dhimmi system and status granted to non+Muslims re&uires honest discussion, gi!en that the bulk of the eriod gra les with the exclusi!ist nature of the state established by (slamic rulers in (ndia" 7F" The #rab in!asion of %ind is not only ecli sed from Marxist history, so too are four centuries of stiff :indu resistance in %ind, 0abul and Pabul" >nly the :indushahis from the time of -ay ala are mentioned" 7L" The iconoclasm of %ubuktigin, father of Mahmud of @ha$ni, as recorded by the chronicler, #bu Nasir ?tbi is o!erlooked" 7D" The sheer number of :indu !ictims of (slamic in!aders has been carefully excised" ,ifty thousand defenders lost their li!es in )ust one attack of Mahmud of @ha$ni on %omnath, which surely deser!es an acknowledgement" %omnath, it may be recalled, was ra$ed se!eral times thereafter" 7H" %ayyid %alar Masud, Mahmuds ne hew, who launched a fresh series of Turkish attacks on (ndia" 7." The highly refined system of racial discrimination racticed by the Turks in (ndia and the fact that the so+called egalitarian message of (slam did not win any con!erts in the twelfth century" 4/" (ltutmishs destruction of the Mahakala 1e!a tem le in ?))ain is ignored" (ndeed there is an unmistakable tendency to o!erlook acts of Muslim !andalism" Richard Eaton has admitted that at least H/ tem les were destroyed by Muslim iconoclasts" #lthough this is regarded as a ridiculously low figure in some &uarters, e!en the ma)or instances in his list are ski ed o!er in the textbook" 47" The text nowhere mentions that all 1elhi %ultans sought in!estiture from the Cali h as art of their commitment to the wider world of (slam" 44" #lauddin 0hal)is execution of three thousand mu3addams during the cam aign against Chittor" 48" ,iru$ Tughla&s attack on >rissa tem les is briefly referred to, but surely it should be s ecified that it was the famous -agannath tem le that was the !ictim of his iconoclastic fury" The killings of thousands of inhabitants of the region is similarly ex unged" 4E" The 6i)ayanagar kingdoms great scholar %ayana, whose commentaries on the 6edic texts are highly rated e!en today, finds no lace in the text" 4F" The de ortation of thousands of easants across the (ndus as acification of the countryside is ignored" art of the

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4L" #kbars massacre of 8/,/// easants who had taken shelter at Chittor ,ort, and his letting 8// ele hants loose on the besieged eo le there" The author merely says, <many easants from the surrounding area J were massacred=" ,urther, the giant statues of the Ra) ut warriors, -aimal and 'atta, the Em eror had erected outside #gra fort were intended as a mark of humiliation not honor, as the author would ha!e us belie!e" The olitical moti!ations that dictated #kbars Ra) ut and religious olicies are also under layed" 4D" The cha ter on #kbar is also remarkable for the absence of %heikh #hmad %irhindi, the leading re!i!alist thinker of the timeQ #kbars close links with the Chishti orderQ his attem ts to lacate orthodox Muslim o inion till as late as 7FD." 4H" ,urther, the discussion on #kbar fails to ex lain to students that the mansabdari system ga!e the Mughal state a strong military base" (t is surely significant that almost sixty ercent of the total -ama 2assessed state re!enue9 under #kbar was s ent on maintaining a military establishment in an era which saw no foreign in!asions" 4." The sheer magnitude of the re!enue demand under the Mughals is carefully concealed from students" (n 0ashmir for exam le, #kbar disco!ered that two+thirds of the cro was being extracted from the easants and reduced it to F/ ercent" The 1utch ,actor @eleynssen found in @u)arat in 7L4. that the culti!ators had to surrender three+fourth of their roduce" # farman dated 7LLF re!eals that some )agirdars in @u)arat were attem ting to extract from the easants more than the whole roduce in re!enue, by the sim le de!ice of declaring the yield to be two and a half times more than what it actually was" # art from the high re!enue demand, the easants had to ay a number of additional taxes and cesses" ?nder #urang$eb, the inhabitants of a !illage com lained that the additional illegal demands of the re!enue officials totaled nearly one+third of the )ama" (n many cases the total tax liability of the easants became so enormous that they were forced to sell their wi!es, children and cattle to meet the state demand" ;et the text is silent on all these matters" 8/" The cha ter on -ahangir makes no mention of his hostility to the %ikh @uru, #r)un, as he himself ex ressed it in his autobiogra hy and his execution of the latter" The reaction of the @urus son and successor :argobind in girding two swords, piri and miri, symboli$ing the com lementary of s iritual and tem oral authority, his construction of the #kal Takht at the @olden Tem le and his im risonment at @walior ,ort by -ahangir for two years, are also ignored" -ahangirs execution of the %ikh leader is dismissed in half a sentence two cha ters later, in a cha ter on Cultural and Religious 1e!elo ments, where it is statedB <Jdeath of @uru #r)un by -ahangirJ= 2 4449" 87" -ahangirs desecration of the sacred :indu site 'ushkar is glossed o!er"

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84" While mentioning -ahangirs dealings with %haikh #hmad %irhindi it is nowhere stated that after the release of the latter from rison, the Em eror conferred a robe of honour and a thousand ru ees on him and ga!e him ermission to stay on at the im erial cam , where in fact %irhindi stayed for three years, deli!ering sermons, some of which were heard by the em eror" 88" %hah -ahans destruction of the massi!e tem le *ir %ingh *undela had constructed near his alace and construction of a mos&ue on the site and his order of 7L88 rohibiting the re air of shrines, and destruction of new laces of worshi in *anaras" 8E" %hah -ahans harassment of the %ikh @uru :argobind is not art of the main narrati!e dealing with the Em eror, but is again hidden in a general cha ter on cultural and religious de!elo ments" 8F" The a ro riation of re!enues by a !ery small cli&ue" (n the year 7LED+EH a mere EEF mansabdars consumed more then three fourths of the re!enues of the state" 8L" The general unacce tability of 1aras !iews within his community, is inex licably ignored by the foremost ro onents of (ndias com osite cultureI 8D" The se!erity of the )i$ya tax, which had a determining role in lower caste con!ersion to (slam, finds no mention" (t has been estimated that as much as 7F ercent of the total income of the state during #urang$ebs time came from the )i$ya" 8H" #urang$ebs exclusi!e recruitment of Muslims nobles of the erstwhile states of *i)a ur and @olcunda into Mughal ser!ice and his dismissal of *rahmin and Telugu officials, are cons icuously e!aded" 8." The strong tradition of rebellion and agrarian resistance in Mughal (ndia finds little s ace in the text, which is truly sur rising gi!en that Marxists ha!e generally been obsessed with the role of economic forces in determining history" E/" The long+standing olicy of settling #fghans in areas of resurgence with a !iew to effecting their acification, is &uietly o!erlooked" E7" %ur risingly there is no mention of %hah)ahanabad and Mahore ,ort in the discussion on Mughal architecture, though hotogra hs of the former ha!e been ro!ided" NNN

3785

2#$ 3et Tr0th 4revail - &a./les o( 'on(0sion5 ob(0s'ation5 distortion

%l" No" 7 'age no" E Text 1uring the early eriod, the #rabs dis layed a remarkable ca acity of assimilating the scientific knowledge and administrati!e skills of the ancient ci!ili$ations they had o!errun" They had no hesitation in em loying non+Muslims, such as Christians and -ews, and also non+ #rabs, articularly the (ranians many of whom were Poroastrians and e!en *uddhists, for running the administration"

$%servation B The #rab em loyment of non+Muslims was dictated by circumstances" '"M" :olt, #nn 0"%" Mambton, *ernard Mewis, eds", The +ambridge ,istory of Islam, 2!ol+(#, Cambridge ?ni!ersity 'ress, 7.DH, " HH9 for exam le notes,
<The #rabs who had emigrated to the ro!inces from their eninsula retained, at all e!ents to begin with, their ri!ileges as well as the burdens deri!ing from military ser!ice, which was incumbent on them alone" The nati!es continued to de!ote themsel!es to agriculture or to the exercise of their crafts and rofession as builders, culti!ators, hysicians, and teachers, while they also obtained em loyment in the administrati!e offices, built shi s for the con&uerors, and offered their ser!ices as sailors" This was because the #rabs des ised work in the fields, and scorned certain crafts, for exam le the wea!ing of textiles, or lacked the necessary trainingQ because they were afraid of the sea, and in go!ernment ser!ice could occu ying only those osts which re&uired no re!ious ex erienceJ Muawiyas tolerance towards Christians can also be ex lained as due to his awareness of their strength"=

%l" No" 4

'age no" 7H

Text ?nfortunately, they 2the (ndian states9 weakened themsel!es by continually fighting against each other, sacking the towns and not e!en s aring the tem les" ?ltimately, they were destroyed by the %ultans of 1elhi in the beginning of the fourteenth century"

$%servation B Much has been made of attacks on images and tem les by :indu kings in times of war" The intention a ears to be to demonstrate that the Turks merely followed established ractices in the subcontinent" (nstances of desecration by :indu kings howe!er are rare, and ne!er backed by any <theory of iconoclasm=" (n most cases :indu rulers honoured the images they ac&uired from enemy kings, e!en building stately tem les for them" (n the :indu case then, ac&uisition of images from ri!al kings im lied only a change of ro rietorshi , unlike the (slamic case, which entailed the !ery <deconstruction= of the image" To cite a few exam les + (n .F/ #1, the Chandella ruler, ;aso!arman, built the Makshmana tem le at 0ha)uraho to house a gold image of 6ishnu he had ac&uired from the 'ratihara ruler" The 6i)aynagar king 0rishnade!araya, likewise constructed the 0rsnas!ami tem le for an image of *alkrishna rocured during a cam aign against the

37E5

@a)a atis of >rissa, and the 6ithalas!ami tem le for a 6itthala image brought from an ex edition to 'andhar ur 2for the details see R" :" 1a!is, 4ives 5f Indian Images, 'rinceton ?ni!ersity 'ress, 7..D9" # rare instance of !andalism by a :indu king comes from 0ashmir" 0ing Malitaditya once romised safe conduct to the ruler of @auda and offered as surety the image of 6ishnu 'arihasakesa!a" :e howe!er went back on his word and had the @auda ruler killed" #n outraged grou of the latters followers went to 0ashmir disguised as ilgrims, and made for the 'arihasakesa!a tem le which housed the image" They sei$ed a sil!er image of Ramas!ami which they mistook for 'arihasakesa!a and broke it to ieces, e!en as Malitadilyas soldiers ounced on them and killed them" :indu destruction of *uddhist and -ain laces of worshi too cannot be laced <on ar= with (slamic iconoclasm" The e!idence for such acts, according to #ndre Wink -#l-,ind. The lave 1ings and the Islamic +on3uest. 6ol. II. *rill Meiden, 7..., " 87/9, is <too !ague to be con!incing"= %hashanka, king of 0arnasu!arna in the se!enth century #1, described among the foremost ersecutors of *uddhism, for exam le, is said to ha!e cut down the *odhi Tree at *odh @aya" *ut it is also said that the tree was re!i!ed, and in the course of one night grew to a height of o!er 8 meters, which is surely an anomalous situation" %hankara!arman 2HH8+./49 of 0ashmir is another :indu ruler de icted as an iconoclast" *ut he ne!er !andali$ed a tem le or icon, contenting himself with tem le lands and treasures" :arsha of 0ashmir 27/H.+77/79 certainly defiled images, but in emulation of Muslim conduct, as is e!ident from the e ithet ,arshara2aturushka bestowed on him" (t is also significant that he em loyed a number of Turkish officers in his army" Moreo!er, #" *asham, the teacher of Romila Tha ar, credits the heretical #)i!ikas for moti!ating :arsha towards such iconoclasm" %l" No" 8 'age no" 4/+ 47 Text This is also called the Ra)ara)a tem le because the Cholas were in the habit of installing images of kings and &ueens in the tem les, in addition to the deityJ" # large number of tem les were also built at other laces in south (ndia" :owe!er, it may be well remember that the roceeds for some of the acti!ities were obtained from the lunder of the o ulation of the neighbouing areas by the Cholas rulers"

$%servation B The images of kings and &ueens in tem les only de icted them as worshi ers and were not intended to su lant the images of the gods" The royal cult centres that emerged in early medie!al (ndia re resented, as *" 1" Chatto adhyaya 2 tudying 0arly India, ermanent black, 4//89 has ointed out, the integration of local cults and their centres" The deity became the ruler of the

37F5

region and the monarch his re resentati!e" Well known exam les are the cult of 'urusottama K-agannath in >rissa, and the relationshi between the @uhila rulers of Mewar and the %ai!ite deity Ekalinga" Tem les were built from the legitimate rofits of trade and hence were often found on trade routes" *y linking their construction with lunder, the author seems to be attem ting to establish an artificial arity with the conduct of the Turks" %l" No" E 'age no" 47 Text Many others 2writers9 took their themes from the 7amayana and %ahabharata, thus bringing these classics nearer to the eo le""" many folk or o ular themes are also to be found in these literatures" o ular themes which were not deri!ed from %anskrit and which reflect o ular sentiments and emotions are called desi or rural in Telugu"

$%servation B The Ramayana and Mahabharata were ne!er inaccessible to the o ulace" (ndeed the e ics were a medium through which hiloso hic thoughts and insights were routinely ex ressed at the o ular le!el" #s :" Pimmer has ointed out, 2"hilosophies 5f India, ed", -ose h Cam bell *ollingen %eries RR6 (, 'antheon *ooks, 7.F8, 4L9 the erfectly a ro riate ictorial scri t of mythology reser!ed the hiloso hical ideas without in any way damaging their sense" (n the symbolic form, ideas did not ha!e to be diluted to be o ulari$ed" %l" No" F 'age no" 48 Text (n northern (ndia, this eriod is considered a eriod of stagnation and e!en of decline" The main reason for this was the setback to trade and commerce between the se!enth and the tenth century" This, in turn, led to a decline of towns and town life in the region" The setback to trade and commerce was, in art, due to the colla se in the West of the Roman em ire with which (ndia had flourishing and rofitable tradeJ" #s a result, there was remarkable aucity of new gold coins in north (ndia between the eighth and the tenth century" The situation gradually changed with the emergence of a owerful and extensi!e #rab em ire in West #sia and North #fricaJ" ,oreign trade and commerce in northern (ndia began to re!i!e gradually from the tenth century onwards"

$%servation BThis !iew of the ost+@u ta eriod has been seriously &uestioned and seems art of the Marxist rocli!ity to de!alue (ndian accom lishments and to link the so+called (ndian economic reco!ery in the tenth century to the (slamic ad!ent" #ndre Wink 2#l-,ind, The %aking of The Indo-Islamic 8orld , >xford ?ni!ersity 'ress, 7../, !ol" (, " 44/ +4449, for exam le notes,

37L5

<J R" %" %harma, whose Indian $eudalism has misguided !irtually all historians of the eriod, not only because it is entirely written from the a riori assum tion of the Gdark age, doggedly searching for oint by oint arallels with Euro e, but also, more accidentally, because there has ne!er been anything to challenge it" ,ollowing %harma, historians ha!e looked for an (ndian arallel to Euro ean Gfeudalism, a ty e of social organi$ation characteri$ed by general economic and cultural decline which in Euro e was once ex lained, similarly, with reference to barbarian in!asions and the rise of (slam" %harma has re eated his !iew innumerable times+ almost !erbatim often, and hardly de!elo ing them" They can be summari$ed as follows" The (ndian economy in the se!enth to tenth centuries, according to %harma, became almost exclusi!ely rural or agrarian+oriented, with trade and urbanism suffering a distinct decline, internally, but also externally as the (ndia trade fell off because the *y$antines sto ed im orting silk from (ndia 2ha!ing introduced the silkworm from China themsel!es9, and because of Gthe ex ansion of the #rabs under the banner of (slam" %harma says that this can be deduced from the absence of finds of (ndian gold coins in these centuries and the a arent aucity of coins in general, e!en though texts refer to the abundant use of coined money and land charters s eak of taxes in gold and there remains e!idence of commercial acti!ity on the coasts" Trade and commerce were Gfeudali$ed, and (ndia ac&uired Ga closed economy" The ma)or ositi!e e!idence from which %harma claims to deri!e his thesis 2a art from the negati!e e!idence relating to the absence or aucity of coins9 are charters of grants of land or !illages to brahmans, tem les Gand others which a ear in significant numbers in many arts of the sub+continent towards the end of the rule of the im erial @u tas" These charters are e!idence of the agrarian reorientation of the age, and of the Gdecentrali$ation or Gfragmentation of olitical ower+the arallel of Euro ean Ginfeudation" The origin and de!elo ment of the (ndian form of G olitical feudalism %harma thus finds in Gland grants made to brahmans" (n the Gfeudal economy the (ndian !illage became Gnearly self+ contained 2with Glocal needs locally satisfied9 while at the same time G a class of landlords arose, with hierarchic control o!er land being created Gby large+scale sub+infeudation, es ecially from the eighth century onwards, and with !assals and sub+!assals who had to su ly troo s to and fight for their lord" G# class of sub)ect easantry, i"e" Gserfdom, with easants being forcefully attached to the soil, also arose in many arts of (ndia" There was e!en Ga significant link between the breakdown of sla!ery and enter rise of serfdom" #nd finally, the rocess of Gfeudali$ation is accom anied by the formation of Gregional cultural units, the roliferation of castes, the beginnings of the de!elo ment of regional and local languages 2Gthe local element in language was strengthened by the insulation of these areas9, regional scri ts too, and Gregional styles in scul ture and construction of tem les" (t is clear that %harma, loyal to a Gmaterialist ex lanation, feels that these latter tendencies are the cultural su erstructure of the Gfeudal economy, the increasing insularity of (ndias economy which was not re!ersed before the ele!enth century, when G(ndia witnessed an ex ansion of commercial acti!ities" This should be enough to show that %harmas thesis essentially in!ol!es an obstinate attem t to find Gelements which fit a reconcei!ed icture of what should ha!e ha ened in (ndia because it ha ened in Euro e 2or is alleged to ha!e ha ened in Euro e by %harma and his school of historians whose knowledge of Euro ean history is rudimentary and com letely outdated9 or because of the anti&uated Marxist scheme of a Gnecessary de!elo ment of Gfeudalism out of Gsla!ery" The methodological under innings of %harmas work are in fact so thin that one wonders why, for so long, %harmas colleagues ha!e called his work G ioneering"=

37D5

%l" No" L

'age no" 4E

Text (n some of the 1harmashastras which were written during this eriod, a ban is ut on tra!el beyond the areas where the mun2a grass does not grow or where the black ga$elle does not roam, that is, outside (ndiaJ >f course, not e!erybody took these bans seriouslyJ 'erha s, the ban was meant for brahmanas only or was meant to discourage too many (ndians going to the areas dominated by (slam in the West and *uddhism in the East for fear of their bringing back heretical religious ideas which may be embarrassing and unacce table to the brahmanas and to the ruling grou s"

$%servation B There is e!idence of (ndian contacts with the wider world from the time of the (ndus ci!ili$ation" #s *urton %tein 2# ,istory of India, *lackwell, 7..H"9 has erce ti!ely ointed out, it was only when the Muslims came to dominate the (ndian >cean that sea+faring became a taboo for :indus" #s for the threat from the heretical ideas of (slam, the Rashtrakuta rulers had ermitted Muslim traders to reach (slam in their domains" %e!eral centuries later *arbosa records that the 6i)ayanagar kings allowed e!ery man to <li!e according to his own creed, without suffering any annoyance, and without en&uiry whether he is a Christian, -ew, Moor or heathen"= The bhakti mo!ement, noted for its egalitarian teachings, long receded the (slamic ad!ent in (ndia and se!eral of its leaders were brahmins" Moreo!er the much !aunted <heretical religious ideas= of (slam were not in e!idence in (ndia, where the foreign Muslims always accorded a secondary status to (ndian con!erts" %l" No" D 'age no" 4H Text The caste system which had been established much earlier formed the basis of the society" The smriti writers of the eriod exalt the ri!ileges of the brahmanas, and e!en sur ass the re!ious writers in em hasi$ing the social and religious disabilities of the sudrasJ" (t is difficult to say how far the ideas of the smriti writers were racticed in daily life" *ut there is no doubt that the disabilities from which the Glower castes suffered increased during the eriod"

$%servation B Most of the (ndian kingdoms were founded by the so+called Glower castes and tribes, who were gi!en kshatriya status after they assumed olitical ower" #eons ago the Mahabharata, reflecting this reality, had obser!ed that the source of ri!ers and kshatriyas are difficult to trace" The eriod between the se!enth and the twelfth centuries witnessed the rise of a number of new royal lineages in Ra)asthan, @u)arat, Madhya 'radesh and ?ttar 'radesh, which came to constitute a social+ olitical category known as GRa) ut" %ome of the ma)or royal lineages were the 'ratiharas of Ra)asthan, ?ttar 'radesh and ad)acent areas, the @uhilas and the Cahamanas of Ra)asthan, the Caulukyas or %olankis of @u)arat and Ra)asthan and the 'aramaras of Madhya

37H5

'radesh and Ra)asthan" #mong others who also claimed to be Ra) uts were the Chandellas of *undelkhand and the @ahada!alas" The Ra) ut category remained the means by which an u wardly mobile social grou could enhance its status" (t is well recogni$ed that hierarchical ranking was not clearly defined and o erational o!er large arts of the subcontinent e!en as late as colonial times" The status of the same caste often !aried from locality to locality" #t the !illage le!el, the agricultural castes, the so+called sudras, were numerically re onderant and economically and olitically owerful 2see, for exam le, M"N" %rini!as, ocial +hange in %odern India, #llied 'ublishers, 7.LL9" Many Englishmen themsel!es commented on the flexibility of the system" The ethnogra her Thurston, for exam le, came across a Tamil ro!erb to the effect that <a 0allan may come to be a Mara!an, by res ectability he may de!elo ed into an #gamudaiyan, and by slow degrees, become a 6ellala, from which he may rise to be a Mudaliar= 2&uoted in 'amela @" 'rice, 1ingship and "olitical "ractice in +olonial India, Cambridge ?ni!ersity 'ress, 7..L9" 'rior to the census o erations of the nineteenth century, %hudra rank was not an embarrassment to culti!ating castes like the 6ellalas, who o enly roclaimed their status in tem le inscri tions" %l" No" H 'age no" 4H+ 4. Text (t seems that originally eo le from different castes, including brahmanas and sudras, who worked in the royal establishments, were called kayastha" (n course of time, they emerged as a distinct caste" :induism was ex anding ra idly during the eriod" (t not only absorbed large numbers of *uddhists and -ains within its fold but many indigenous tribes and foreigners were also :indusi$ed" These new sections formed new castes and sub+castes, and often continued their own customs, rituals of marriage ceremonies and e!en their own tribal gods and goddesses" Thus, society and religion became more and more com lex"

$%servation B #n entirely no!el thesis on the origin of the 0ayasthasI *" 1" Chatto adhyaya 2 tudying 0arly India, ermanent black , 4//8, 7L/9 howe!er says, <one distinct social grou which makes itself noticeable in the records from the @u ta eriod onward was that of the 0ayastha, drawn from the ranks of scribes, accountants and so onQ the 0ayasthas crystalli$ed into distinct north (ndian subcastes and were closely associated with new royal courts"= The so+called :indui$ation of the tribes is also misleading, for it o!erlooks the fact tribal gods and goddesses were ele!ated to high status in the :indu antheon" The -agannath cult of >rissa is the most well known exam le of this trend" 2,or details of this henomenon see #" Eschmann et" al., The +ult of !agannath and the 7egional Tradition of 5rissa, Manohar, 7.DH9"

37.5

%l" No" .

'age no" 4.

Text The %atsya "urana authori$es the husband to beat his erring wife 2though not on the head or the breasts9 with the ro e or a s lit bamboo" Women continued to be denied the right to study the 6edas" ,urthermore, the marriageable age for girls was lowered, thereby destroying their o ortunities for higher education" The omission of all reference to women teachers in the dictionaries written during the eriod shows the oor state of higher education among women" :owe!er, from some of the dramatic works of the eriod, we find that the court ladies and e!en the &ueens maids+in+ waiting were ca able of com osing excellent %anskrit and 'rakrit !erses" 6arious stories oint to the skill of rincesses in the fine arts, es ecially in ainting and music" 1aughters of high officials, courtesans and concubines were also su osed to be highly skilled in !arious arts, including oetryJ" (t a ears that with the growth of the ractice of large number of women being maintained by the feudal chiefs, and with the resultant dis utes about ro erty, there was a tendency for the rite of sati to s read"

$%servation B # classic case of doubles eak" The author first laments the decline in the education of women and then goes on to say that e!en the &ueens maids+in+ waiting were ca able of com osing excellent %anskrit and 'rakrit !erses" 1aughters of high officers are also described as skilled in !arious arts" There are se!eral exam les of women artici ating in the olitical rocess in the :indu kingdoms of this eriod" # Rashtrakuta rincess, Chandrobalabbe, daughter of #mogha!arsha (, for exam le, administered Raichur doab for some time" The 0ara dynasty boasted of at least fi!e female rulers" Muhammad of @hur was defeated near Mount #bu by a force led by the regent &ueen, Naiki 1e!i in #177DH+." 0ashmir in the mid+tenth century was ruled by the famous &ueen 1idda" The 0akatiyas had a woman ruler, Rudramade!i, for almost thirty+fi!e years 2#174L7+74.F9" @anga 1e!i, wife of 'rince 0am ana of 6i)ayanagar, com osed the %adurai vi2aya, described as one of the finest e ics of resistance in medie!al literature" The henomenon of sati was noted e!en by the @reeks who accom anied #lexander and can hardly be attributed to ro erty dis utes among wi!es" %urely Marx did not ha!e this in mind when he talked of economic forces sha ing history" %l" No" 7/ 'age no" 84 Text The belief grew 2among :indus9 that a worshi er could attain what he desired by uttering magical words 2mantra9 and making !arious kinds of mystic gestures" They also belie!ed that by these ractices, and by !arious kinds of austerities and secret rites, they could attain su ernatural owers, such as the ower to fly in the air, to become

34/5

in!isible, to see things at a distance, etc" Man has always yearned for control o!er nature in this manner" (t is only with the growth of modern science that many of these yearnings ha!e been fulfilled" Many :indu yogis also ado ted these ractices" $%servationsB Ty ical of Marxist alienation from the s iritual ethos of this land" <?ttering magical words 2mantra9= is a !enerable tradition dating to 6edic times" The caricature of the beliefs and ractices of the :indus is a constant refrain in Marxist writings" %l" No" 77 'age no" 84+ 88 Text (n course of time, the growing rigidity of -ainism and loss of royal atronage led to the decline of -ainism" The re!i!al and ex ansion of :induism took many forms" %hi!a and 6ishnu became the chief gods and magnificent tem le were built to roclaim their su remacy" (n the rocess, many local gods and goddesses including the gods and goddesses of tribals who became :indui$ed became subordinate to their consorts" (n eastern (ndia, the consorts+Tara, the consort of *uddha, 1urga the consort of %hi!a, 0ali, etc", became themsel!es the chief ob)ects of worshi " Ne!ertheless, the rise of the worshi of %hi!a and 6ishnu signified the growth of a rocess of cultural synthesis" Thus, in an era of disintegration, religious layed a ositi!e art" *ut the religious re!i!al also increased the ower and arrogance of the *rahmanas" This resulted in a series of o ular mo!ements which em hasi$ed the element of human e&uality and freedom"

$%servation & The <growing rigidity= of -ainism is difficult to substantiate and forms art of the Marxist calumny to associate <rigidity= with (ndic traditions" #gain, %hi!a and 6ishnu, in their <:igh :indu= form, were not the only gods instated in the magnificent tem les built in these times" (t was often local and tribal gods and goddesses, who were the chief deities" Nor were they <subordinate to their consort of *uddha, 1urgaJ=, as e!ident for exam le, at the Minakshi tem le" 2,or details of Minakshis dominant osition see C" ,uller, ervants of the 9oddess: The "riests of a outh Indian Temple " Cambridge ?ni!ersity 'ress, 7.HE9" %l" No" 74 'age no" 8F Text Meanwhile, the break+u of the @ur)ara+'ratihara em ire led to a hase of olitical uncertainly in north (ndia, and a new hase of struggle for domination" #s a result, little attention was aid to the emergence of an aggressi!e, ex ansionist Turkish state on the north+ western border of (ndia"

$%servation B The frontier states of #l+:ind, %ind, 0abul and Pabul resisted the #rab and Turkish in!aders for almost four centuries" 'redictably, this resistance

3475

finds little mention in the text" %ind held out for o!er se!en decades" The Turkshahi and later :indushahi dynasties offered a similar fight in 0abul and Pabul" The Ra) ut states of North (ndia fre&uently combined against the in!aders" # Ra) ut confederacy aided both -ai al and #nand al" The Chandellas, 'aramaras, Chahamanas, 0alachuris and Chalukyas all consistently confronted the in!aders" %l" No" 78 'age no" 8D Text Mahumds raids into (ndia alternated with battles in Central #sia" ,or his lundering raids into (ndia the gha;is came handy to him" Mahmud also osed as a great but shikan or <destroyer of the images= for the glory of (slamJ" :e was able to do all this with im unity due to the fact that no strong state existed in north (ndia at that timeJ" (t is not correct to dismiss Mahmud as )ust a raider and lunderer"

$%servation B (conoclasm in (slam dates to the 'ro het himself, who according to (bn (sha&, ordered the destruction of all idols around the 0aba" #ndre Wink 2#l-,ind. The lave 1ings and the Islamic +on3uest " 6ol. II" *rill Meiden, 7..., 847+H9 has ointed out that Mahmuds re utation in the (slamic world rested on the two inter+related accom lishments of <breaking the idols= and <de+hoarding the tem le treasures of al+:ind"= :e says +
<The idol of %omnath was belie!ed by some to ha!e been brought from Mecca before the time of the 'ro het" (ts destruction was hailed, by contem orary and later authors, as the crowning glory of (slam o!er idolatry, and ele!ated Mahmud to the status of a hero="

,urther Wink oints out that (slamic iconoclasm was almost always directed against non+(slamic ob)ects" When Mahmud attacked the (smailis of Multan, he did not destroy their mos&ue, but left it to decay" (t may be noted here that (smailis were regarded as a ostates and heretics by de!out %unni Muslims such as Mahmud" Much has been made of Mahmuds Central #sian ambitions" #s 0ulke and Rothermund obser!e, <he regarded it 2the Central #sian Em ire9 with as much indifference as he did (ndia and only aid it attention at times of unrest= 2 # ,istory of India, 1orset 'ress, 7.HL, 7LE9" (n making these claims (ndian Marxists seem moti!ated by the desire to su ress the indelible link between (slam and iconoclasm" %l" No" 7E 'age no" 8H Text *ut their 2the Ra) uts9 basic weakness was their tendency to form exclusi!e grou s, each claming su eriority o!er the others" They were not re ared to extend the sense of brotherhood to non+Ra) uts"

3445

This led to a growing ga between the Ra) ut ruling grou s and the eo le most of whom were non+Ra) uts" $%servation B The o en nature of the Ra) ut category has been acknowledged by se!eral historians" 1irk 0olff 2<aukar, 7a2put and epoy. The ethnohistory of a military labour market in ,industan, (=)*-(>)*, Cambridge ?ni!ersity 'ress, 7../9, for exam le, notes the inclusion of many categories of easants amongst them" :e cites the exam le of 'asis, se!eral of whom became Ra) uts by gi!ing their daughters to 'anwars and other Ra) ut families 2 77H+.9" %l" No" 7F 'age no" E7 Text The %ufis reached the gos el of lo!e, faith and dedication to the one @od" They directed their reachings mainly towards the Muslim settlers but they influenced some :indus also" Thus, a rocess of interaction between (slam and :indu religion and society was started" Mahore became a centre of #rabic and 'ersian languages and literature" :indu generals, such as Tilak, commanded the @ha$na!id armies in which :indu soldiers also were recruited"

$%servation B Most %ufis at one time or another regarded con!ersion as one of their rimary ob)ecti!es in (ndia" The establishment of the Chishti hos ice at #)mer and the %uhrawardi khan&ah in Multan in the thirteenth century were as much a missionary as a religio+mystical acti!ity" #)mer, it has been ointed out, was the heartland of the :indu military aristocracy" %ufis are also known to ha!e artici ated in warfare" <Warriors %ufis= were acti!e in the 1eccan during the years 74.L+78ED" *engal was also said to ha!e been won not by Muslim ca!alrymen, but by the bara auliyas, the twel!e legendary Muslim militant saints" The %ufis were not indifferent to the success of the (slamic enter rise in (ndia" The Chishtis, for exam le, closely identified with the olitical fortunes of (ndo+Muslim states" #s Richard Eaton has ointed out, by effecti!ely in)ecting a legitimi$ing <substance= into a new body olitic at the moment of its birth, the Chishti %haikhs contributed ositi!ely to the rocess of (ndo+Muslim state+ building 20ssays on Islam and Indian ,istory, >xford ?ni!ersity 'ress, 4//4, 7/E9" #s for the enlistment of :indu soldiers in @ha$na!id armies, is it being argued that the Turkish con&uest was a )oint (ndo+Muslim enter riseC :indu soldiers were recruited in the colonial army as well" 1id that make the *ritish con&uest an (ndo+*ritish !entureC %l" No" 7L 'age no" E. Text %he 2Ra$iya9 sent an ex edition against Ranthambhor to control the

3485

Ra) uts, and successfully established law and order in the length and breadth of her kingdom" $%servation B The Ranthambor ex edition and the one against @walior were the only two cam aigns undertaken in Ra$iyas reign and both ended in failure" :er reign was so turbulent that there was no &uestion of her successfully establishing law and order" This is art of the Marxist tendency to glorify e!en the failures of the Turkish rulers" %l" No" 7D 'age no" E. Text *ut there is no doubt that with his 2*albans9 accession to the throne there began an era of strong, centrali$ed go!ernment"

$%servation B *alban has been erroneously resented as a strong monarch" M" :abib, and 0"#" Ni$ami, 2eds", The ?elhi ultanate, 6ol.) of, # +omprehensive ,istory of India, 'eo les 'ublishing :ouse,7.D/, " 4.49 ha!e highlighted many instances of his military weakness and concluded that, <*alban, his officers and his army,J, ro!ed themsel!es extraordinarily inefficient and clumsy"= They oint out for exam le, that it took *alban more than six years to crush the rebellion of Tughril 0han in *engal" *alban also dared not challenge any of the great :indu rais, and failed to check the raids of frontier Mongol officers" <*oth in the ci!il and the military field=, they conclude, <*alban and his go!erning class had been tried and found wanting= 2(bid, " 8/89" %l" No" 7H 'age no" E. Text (n order to ro!e his claim to noble blood, *alban stood forth as the cham ion of the Turkish nobility"

$%servation B *alban has in fact been accused of weakening Turkish ower in (ndia by eliminating se!eral members of the sla!e aristocracy" %ome scholars oint out that his ob)ecti!e in !an&uishing the %hamsi nobles was to romote his own sla!es 2'eter -ackson, The ?elhi ultanate, Cambridge ?ni!ersity 'ress, 7...9" %l" No" 7. 'age no" FD Text -alaluddin 0hal)i ruled only for a brief eriod of six years" :e tried to mitigate some of the harsh as ects of *albans rule" :e was the first ruler of the 1elhi %ultanat to clearly ut forward the !iew that the state should be based on the willing su ort of the go!erned, and that since the large ma)ority of the eo le in (ndia were :indus, the state in (ndia could not be a truly (slamic state"

$%servation B This is a er!erse distortion of -alaluddins osition" :e in fact, had a strong desire to be recogni$ed as the %u2ahid fi sabilillah 2fighter in the ath of

34E5

@od9 and dee ly regretted his inability to enforce the full gamut of (slamic laws and regulations in the country" :e lamented to his relati!e, Malik #hmad Cha ,
<We cannot com are oursel!es with %ultan Mahmud and %ultan %an)ar that we should do the same what they had doneJ1ont you see that the :indus, who are the greatest enemies of @od and (slam, ass below by alace e!ery day, beating their drums and trum ets, and go to ri!er -umna for idol worshi ing" They ractice olytheism and infidelity before our !ery eyes and we, who lack religions $eal and yet claim to be the king of the Musalmans, they are not afraid of our dignity and royal strength" :ad ( been 0ing of (slam 2meaning a Cali h9, righteous king or a born rince, and a owerful refuge of true faith, (, for the honour of religion, would not ha!e s ared the enemies of (slam, articularly the :indusJ=

%l" No" 4/

'age no" FH

Text #lthough the historians of the time accuse 0husrau of being anti+ (slamic and of committing all ty es of crimes the fact is that 0husrau was no worse than any of the receding monarchs" Nor was there any o en resentment !oiced against him by the Muslim nobles or by the o ulation of 1elhi" E!en Ni$amuddin #uliya, the famous %ufi saint of the 1elhi, acknowledged 0husrau by acce ting his gifts" This had a ositi!e as ect, too" (t showed that the Muslims of 1elhi and the neighbouring areas were no longer swayed by racist considerations and were re ared to obey anyone irres ecti!e of his family or racial background" This hel ed in broadening the social bas of the nobilities still further"

$%servation B #gain, half+truths, untruths, no truths" #$i$ #hmad 2 tudies In Islamic +ulture In The Indian 0nvironment, >xford, Clarendon 'ress, 7.LE" .L9 for exam le says,
<The contem orary Muslim historians record that there was general re)oicing in the :indu o ulation that 1elhi had once more come under :indu rule and that the Muslims had been su erseded and dis ersed="

,urther
<:is a ostasy, in any case, continued to retain an element of syncretism, if one may )udge by the la!ish grant of money he resented to Ni$am+al+din #wliya to ray for him" :is rule, which lasted only four months, was much too short to assess what the real reactions of the Muslim go!ernors would ha!e been when most of them, like @ha$i Malik, became fully aware of the danger of Muslim sur!i!al in (ndia=2 .D9" <The declared ob)ecti!es of @ha$i Maliks 2ihad were threeB Gto urify the light of the True ,aith from the dust of aganism in this dangerous land and to re+establish the glory of (slamQ secondly to recon&uer this Em ire from the :indu to restore it to its true heir, a 0hal)i rince if one still sur!i!edQ thirdly to unish the traitors for their treachery 2 .H9"

%l" No" 47

'age no" L7

Text #lauddin also o!erran -alor which lay on the route to @u)arat" #lmost all the other ma)or states in Ra)asthan were forced to submit

34F5

to him" :owe!er, it seems that he did not try to establish direct administration o!er the Ra) ut states" The Ra) ut rulers were allowed to rule but had to ay regular tribute, and to obey the orders of the %ultan" Muslim Ggarrisons were osted in some of the im ortant towns, such as #)mer, Nagaur, etc" Thus, Ra)asthan was thoroughly subdued" $%servations & :abib and Ni$ami 2ibid", 8.D9 say that <the lan of annexing Ra)asthan was attem ted in art and then gi!en u as im racticable"= Clearly this does not match the authors erce tion" %l" No" 44 'age no" LF Text #lthough *arani writes as if all the measures mentioned abo!e were directed solely against the :indus, it is clear that they were, in the main, directed against the ri!ileged sections in the countryside" #lauddins agrarian olicy was certainly harsh and must ha!e affected the ordinary culti!ators also" *ut it was not so burdensome as to dri!e them into rebellion, or flightJ" The land re!enue reforms of #lauddin marked an im ortant ste towards closer relationshi with the rural areas"

$%servation B # classic case of being too cle!er by half" The < ri!ileged sections in the countryside=, alluded to here all ha ened to be :indus" The o!erall effect of #lauddins olicies was to transfer a significantly larger share of the agricultural sur lus from the :indu chiefs to the Muslim go!erning class" The land re!enue reforms uniformly recogni$ed as extremely se!ere, can hardly be described as an im ortant ste in bringing the sultan closer to the countryside"

%l" No" 48

'age no" LL

Text (t a ears that the sultan wanted to make 1eogir a second ca ital so that he might be able to control south (ndia betterJ Though the attem t to make 1eogir a second ca ital failed, the exodus did ha!e a number of long+range benefits" (t hel ed in bringing north and south (ndia closer together by im ro!ing communications" Many eo le, including religious di!ines who had gone to 1aulatabad settled down there" They became the means of s reading in the 1eccan the cultural, religious and social ideas which the Turks had brought with them to north (ndia" This resulted in a new rocess of cultural interaction between north and south (ndia, as well as in south (ndia itself"

$%servation B #ccording to some modern historians, the ro)ect was dictated by the aucity of Muslims in the 1eccan and the %ultans desire to make 1aulatabad a centre of (slamic culture"

34L5

%l" No" 4E

'age no" LH

Text Muhammad Tughla& undertook a number of measures to im ro!e agriculture" Most of these were tried out in the doab region" Muhammad Tughla& did not belie!e in #lauddin 0hal)is olicy of trying to reduce the khuts and mu3addams 2headmen in the !illages9 to the osition of ordinary culti!ators" *ut he did want an ade&uate share of the land re!enue for the state" The measures he ad!ocated had a long term im act, but they failed disastrously during his reignJ :istorians are of the o inion that the trouble started due to o!er+assessment" #lthough the share of state remained half as in the time of #lauddin, it was fixed arbitrarily, not on the basis of actual roduce 'rices were also fixed artificially for con!erting the roduce into money"

$%servation B Muhammad bin Tughla& in fact resorted to e!en more stringent measures than #lauddin 0hal)i" To begin with, the o ressi!e taxation system, hitherto confined to the 1oab, was extended to other territories, including @u)arat, Malwa, the 1eccan, and *engal" %econdly, the rate of taxation was greatly enhanced" Whether the %ultan im osed additional taxes or recalculated existing ones in a manner detrimental to the easantry, it is indis utable that the extraordinarily harsh exactions ro!oked wides read easant re!olts" (t is not clear what the author means by saying that <The measures he ad!ocated had a long term im act, but they failed disastrously during his reignJ= 1oes it im ly that subse&uent (slamic rulers were more effecti!e in im lementing Muhammad bin Tughla&s harsh economic agendaC :is father @hiyasuddin Tughla& had reduced the ressure on the khots and mu&addams only because he reali$ed that they were indis ensable for re!enue collection" :e howe!er was clear that they should be ke t <in such a condition that 2they9 should not become obli!ious 2of the authority of the go!ernment9 and rebellious and refractory from excessi!e affluence"= %l" No" 4F 'age no" D/ Text ,iru$ led a cam aign against the ruler of -a)nagar 2>rissa9" :e desecrated the tem les there and gathered a rich lunder, but made no attem t to annex >rissa" :e also led a cam aign against 0angra in the 'un)ab hills"

$%servation B (t should ha!e been clarified that the tem le attacked in >rissa was the great -agannath tem le" #lso the annexation of >rissa was beyond ,iru$s ca acity" (t can hardly be cited as an exam le of his magnanimity" %l" 'age Text

34D5

No" 4L

no" D7

These narrow !iews of ,iru$ Tughla& were certainly harmful" #t the same time, ,iru$ Tughla& was the first ruler who took ste s to ha!e :indu religious works translated from %anskrit into 'ersian, so that there may be a better understanding of :indu ideas and ractices" Many books on music, medicine and mathematics were also translated from %anskrit into 'ersian during his reign"

$%servation B (t was mainly medical works that ,iru$ ordered to be translated from %anskrit into 'ersian" >ther works translated were also for their ractical knowledge, as for exam le, a treatise on :indu astronomy and astrology and works on music and wrestling" %l" No" 4D 'age no" D7 Text ,iru$ also took a number of humanitarian measures" :e banned inhuman unishments such as cutting of hands, feet, nose, etc", for theft and other offences" :e set u hos itals for free treatment of the oor, and ordered the kotwals to make lists of unem loyed ersons, and ro!ided dowries for the daughters of the oor" :owe!er, it is likely that these measures were basically designed to hel Muslims of good families who had fallen into bad times" This, again, shows the limited nature of the state in (ndia during the medie!al times" :owe!er, ,iru$ did em hasi$e that the state was not meant merely for awarding unishments and collecting taxes, but was a bene!olent institution as well" (n the context of the medie!al times, the assertion of this rinci le of bene!olence was a !aluable one, and ,iru$ deser!es credit for it"

$%servation B This is a deliberate attem t at obfuscation" The author himself admits that ,iru$s acts of bene!olence were confined to Muslims" To then raise him for asserting the rinci le of bene!olence can only be described as misleading" ,iru$ was known for his harsh treatment of his :indu sub)ects and his fanaticism"

%l" No" 4H

'age no" D8

Text The raid into (ndia 2by Timur9 was a lundering raid, and its moti!e was to sei$e the wealth accumulated by the sultans of 1elhi o!er the last 4// yearsJ Timur then entered 1elhi and sacked it without mercy, large number of eo le, both :indu and Muslim, as well as women and children losing their li!es"

$%servation B Timur re eatedly states in his memoirs, the Tu;uk-i-Timuri, that he had a two+fold ob)ecti!e in in!ading :industan" <The first was to war with the

34H5

infidels,= and thereby ac&uire, <some claim to reward in the life to come"= The second moti!e was <that the army of (slam might gain something by lundering the wealth and !aluables of the infidels"= :e further says <Exce ting the &uarter of the saiyids, the ulema and other Musulmans, the whole city was sacked"=

%l" No" 4.

'age no" DH

Text #ll the easants did not li!e at the le!el of subsistence" The !illage headmen 2mu3addams9 and smaller landlords 2khuts9 en)oyed a higher standard of life" (n addition to their own holdings, they held lands for which they aid re!enue at concessional rates" %ometimes, they misused their offices to force the ordinary easants to ay their share of the land re!enue also" These eo le were ros erous enough to ride on costly #rabi and (ra&i horses, wear fine clothes, and beha!e like members of the u er classes" #s we ha!e seen, #lauddin 0hal)i took stern action against them and curtailed many of their ri!ileges" E!en then they continued to en)oy a higher standard of li!ing than the ordinary easants" (t seems that after the death of #lauddin, they were able to resume their old ways"

$%servation B #gain an attem t at dece tion" The situation did not im ro!e under the successors of #lauddin" @hiyasuddin Tughla& le!ied land re!enue on the basis of the actual roduce and not on the basis of estimated yields" Muhammad bin Tughla& resorted to e!en harsher measures than #lauddin 0hal)i" :e extended the o ressi!e taxation system, hitherto confined to the 1oab, to other territories, including @u)arat, Malwa, the 1eccan, and *engal" *esides, he greatly enhanced the rate of taxation" The extraordinarily harsh exactions ro!oked wides read easant re!olts" %l" No" 8/ 'age no" D. Text These wealthy merchants and the skilled craftsmen li!ed a luxurious life, and were accustomed to good food and clothing" The merchants, :indu and Muslims, were attended by ages bearing swords with sil!er and gold work" (n 1elhi, the :indu merchants rode horses, with costly tra ings, li!ed in fine houses, and celebrated their festi!als with great om and show"

$%servation B The se!ere olicies of the 0hal)is and Tughla&s are well+known" Which eriod is the author referring toC The conditions described seem to be a figment of his imagination" %l" No" 'age no" Text

34.5

87

H4

%la!ery had existed in (ndia as well as in West #sia and Euro e for a long time" The ositions of different ty es of sla!es Kone born in the household, one urchased, one ac&uired and one inherited is discussed in the :indu hastras. %la!ery had been ado ted by the #rabs and, later, by the Turks also" The most usual method of ac&uiring a sla!e was ca ture in war" E!en the %ahabharata considered it normal to ensla!e a risoner of war" The Turks racticed this on a large scale in their wars, in and outside (ndiaJ (t can be argued that the condition of sla!e was better than that of a domestic ser!ant because the master of the former was obliged to ro!ide him food and shelter, while a free erson may star!e to death"

$%servation B #ndre Winks study indicates that the sla!e trade in the #rab world cannot rightly be com ared with ractices mentioned in the Mahabharata" :e notes that +
<the number of black sla!es which was ex orted by #rabs across the trans+%aharan trade route reached a total of 7,DE/,/// in the eriod .//+77// #1" (n the eriod HF/+7/// #1, the number of black sla!es ex orted across the Red %ea and the (ndian >cean to (slamic #sia and to (ndia was near to 7/,/// er year" 'erha s the conclusion is )ustified that the im ortation of black sla!es to (slamic countries from % ain to (ndia o!er a eriod of twel!e centuries sur assed in numbers the #frican sla!e trade to the New World" *ut (slam by no means restricted ensla!ement to #fricansJ The main source of military and elite sla!es were the Turks of the Eurasian ste es= 2#l-,ind. The %aking of The Indo-Islamic 8orld, >xford ?ni!ersity 'ress, 7../, !ol" (" 7E9"

%l" No" 84

'age no" H8

Text 1uring this eriod, the ractice of kee ing women in seclusion and asking them to !eil their faces in the resence of outsiders, that is, the ractice of purdah became wides read among the u er class women" The ractice of secluding women from the !ulgar ga$e was racticed among the u er class :indus, and was also in !ogue in ancient (ran, @reece, etc" The #rabs and the Turks ado ted this custom and brought it to (ndia with them" 1ue to their exam le, it became wides read in (ndia, articularly in north (ndia" The growth of purdah has been attributed to the fear of the :indu women being ca tured by the in!aders" (n an age of !iolence, women were liable to be treated as ri$es of war" 'erha s, the most im ortant factor for the growth of purdah was social+it became a symbol of the higher classes in society and all those who wanted to be considered res ectable tried to co y it" #lso, religious )ustification was found for it" Whate!er the reasons, it affected women ad!ersely, and made them e!en more de endent on men"

$%servation B#ll this obfuscation to under lay the fact that urdarh was the direct conse&uence of the (slamic ad!ent in North (ndia"

38/5

%l" No" 88

'age no" HE+ HF

Text #s for the :indu sub)ects, from the time of the #rab in!asion of %indh, they had been gi!en the status of ;immis or rotected eo le who acce ted the Muslim rule and agreed to ay tax called 2i;yah" This was really a tax in lieu of military ser!ice, and was aid on a graduated scale according to means, women, children and the indigent, who had insufficient means, being exem t from it" The brahmanas also remained exem t, though this was not ro!ided for in the Muslims law" #t first, 2i;yah was collected along with land re!enue" (n fact it was difficult to distinguish 2i;yah from land re!enue since all the culti!ators were :indus" Mater, ,iru$ while abolishing many illegal cesses, made 2i;yah a se arate tax" :e le!ied it on the brahmana also" %ometimes, the theologians who were in charge of collecting it tried to use it to humiliate and harass the :indus" :owe!er, 2i;yah by itself could not be a means to force the :indus to con!ert to (slam" (n general, it might be said that medie!al states were not based on the idea of e&uality, but on the notion of ri!ileges" *efore the Turks, the Ra) uts and, to some extendQ the brahmanas formed the ri!ileged sections" They were re laced by the Turks"

$%servation B The rinci al reason that the )i$yah was not continually le!ied on :indus throughout the %ultanate eriod was that the state did not ha!e the administrati!e a aratus re&uired for this enormous exercise" The Muslim hold on ower was also tenuous and s oradic beyond the rinci al centres of their authority" (n the countryside, )i$ya was subsumed within the land tax and not collected se arately" (n urban areas, howe!er, where :indus were in more direct contact with Muslim authorities, )i$ya was charged on an indi!idual basis and was a true oll tax" -i$ya symboli$ed discrimination on religious grounds since it was im osed only on non+Muslims" Medie!al chronicles attest that it was used to con!ert oorer sections of society" ,iru$ Tughla& confessed in his autobiogra hy,
<( encouraged my infidel sub)ects to embrace the religion of the 'ro het, and ( roclaimed that e!ery one who re eated the creed and became a Musalman should be exem t from 2i;iya or oll+tax" (nformation of this came to the ears of the eo le at large, and great numbers of :indus resented themsel!es and were admitted to the honour of (slam"=

To see no difference between Ra) uts, *rahmins and Turks only reiterates the non+(ndia ers ecti!e of the Marxists"

%l" No"

'age no"

Text

3875

8E

HF

*ut as soon as the Turks were settled, they started building their own mos&ues" Their olicy towards tem les and laces of worshi of the :indus, -ains, etc", rested on the Muslim law 2sharia9 which forbade new laces of worshi being built <in o osition to (slam=" *ut it allowed the re air of old tem les <since buildings cannot last for e!er=" This meant that there was no ban on erecting tem les in the !illages, since there were no ractices of (slam there" %imilarly tem les could be built within the ri!acy of homes" *ut this liberal olicy was not followed in times of war" Then the enemies of (slam, whether human beings or gods, were to be fought and destroyed"

$%servationB :ow does one counter such blatant dishonestyC :indu tem les, the author says, could be built in homes and !illages" %urely it would be difficult to accommodate the grandiose structures of :indu tem les within the recincts of homes" ,urther, to ermit tem le construction in !illages because Muslims were not resent there cannot be hailed as a roof of liberalism" (f tem le construction did indeed take lace in the !illages, where are those tem lesC #s #ndre Wink has ointed out, the Muslim in!asions, a art from destroying tem les, interru ted the e!olution of :indu tem le architecture" Nowhere in the north, he says, did the :indu tem le building tradition er etuate itself without hindrance" 2#l-,ind. The lave 1ings and the Islamic +on3uest. 6ol" ((" *rill Meiden, 7..., 84F+D9 %l" No" 8F 'age no" 7/F+ 7/L Text # brilliant eriod began under the enlightened rule of #lauddin :ussain" The sultan restored law and order, and ado ted a liberal olicy by offering high officers to the :indus" Thus, his wa;ir was a talented :indu" The chief hysician, the chief of the bodyguard, the master of the mint were also :indus" The two famous brothers who were celebrated as ious 6aishna!as, Ru a and %anatan, held high osts, one of them being the sultans ri!ate secretary" The sultan is also said to ha!e shown great res ect to the famous 6aishna!ite saint, Chaitanya"

$%servation B This is a com lete distortion of facts" When :usain %hah asked %anatana to accom any him on the >rissa ex edition, the latter refused saying <you are going to desecrate :indu tem les and break images of :indu godsQ ( cannot accom any you=" The furious king thereu on im risoned %anatana who howe!er managed to esca e by bribing the rison guards" *oth brothers thereafter renounced the world and went to 6rindaban, where they wrote treatises on @audiya 6aishana!ism" #s for Chaitanya, R" C" Ma)umdar has ointed out that :usain %hah had no association with him" (n fact when Chaitanya !isited a locality near the residence of :usain %hah, the eo le begged him to lea!e as early as ossible, and described :usain

3845

%hah as a sworn enemy of :induism" ,urther, after becoming a sannayasi Chaitanya s ent 4/ years in the :indu kingdom of >rissa, which is surely a comment on :usain %hahs <res ect= for him" 6aishna!a literature of the time also refers to the orders of the Aa$i of Na!ad!i rohibiting kirtans and maltreating 6aishna!a singers of kirtans 2R" C" Ma)umdar, ,istory of %ediaeval Bengal, @" *haradwa) and Co" 7.D89" %l" No" 8L 'age no" 74. Text The basic conce ts of the 2bhakti9 saint+ oets were reci rocated to a remarkable degree by the %ufi oets and saints of the eriod" 1uring the fifteenth century, the monistic ideas of the great #rab hiloso her, (bn+i+#rabi, became o ular among broad sections in (ndia" #rabi had been !ehemently denounced by the orthodox elements and his followers ersecuted because he held that all being is essentially one, and e!erything is a manifestation of the di!ine substance" Thus, in his o inion, the different religions were identical" #rabis doctrine of ?nity of *eing is known as Tauhid-i-8a2udi 2unity of being9" This doctrine ke t on gaining in o ularity in (ndia and became the main basis of the %ufi thought before the time of #kbar" Contact with yogis and :indu saints went a long way in o ulari$ing the conce t of antheism" The (ndian %ufis started taking more interest in %anskrit and :indi and a few of them, such as Malik Muhammad -aisi, com osed their works in :indi" The *hakti songs of the 6aishna!ite saints written in :indi and other languages touched the hearts of the %ufis more than 'ersian oetry did" The use of :indi songs became so o ular that an eminent %ufi, #bdul Wahid *elgrami, wrote a treatise ,a3ai3-I ,indi in which he tried to ex lain such words as <0rishna=, <Muli=, <@o is=, <Radha=, <;amuna=, etc", in %ufi mystic terms"

$%servation B #$i$ #hmad 2 tudies In Islamic +ulture In The Indian 0nvironment, Clarendon 'ress, 7.LE, 78E9 notes that,
<1ue to what *utterfield would describe as the Gwhig conce tion of history, the role of %ufis in (ndia has been o!er+estimated and o!er+ideali$ed as eclectic and as a bridge between :induism and (slam" Ma)umdar is much nearer the truth in ointing out that the role of both :indu mysticism and %ufism and their interaction in the culture of medie!al (ndia ha!e often been exaggerated beyond all ro ortion" (n fact the relationshi between %ufism and :indu mysticism is multi+ ositional and ranges from olemical hostility through missionary $eal to tolerant co+ existence"=

:e further adds that %ufis layed an acti!e role in con!ersion +

<Mo lahs of the south coast were con!erted to (slam by the disci les of Malik ibn 1inar 2d" DEE9, the 1udwalas and 'in)aras of @u)arat by al+:alla) 2d" .479, Mabbes of Trichino ally by Nithar %hah 2d" 7/8.9, Memons of Cutch by ;usuf al+din %indi, the 1aud otas of %ind and *aluchistan by the Aaramite missionaries of %ind,

3885

*ohras of @u)arat by G#bdullah 0harra$i, tribes of Wakhan and the #fridi 'athans by Nasir+i 0husrau, and the 0ho)as of @u)arat by (smaili missionaries like Nur %atgar" (n the @ha$nawi Mahore organi$ed roselyti$ion was begun by %haykh (smail *ukhari 2c" 7//F9Q and al+:u)wiri is re orted in hagiological tradition to ha!e con!erted Rai Ra)u a :indu general of the @ha$nawids to (slam" The foundation of the Chishti hos ice at #)mer and the %uhrawardi hos ice at Multan in the thirteenth century was as much a missionary as a religio+mystical acti!ity" The choice of #)mer by Mu Gin al+din Chishti in the !ery heartland of :indu military aristocracy is es ecially significant" %haykh ,arid al+din @an)+i %hakar and #bu G#li Aalandar 2d" 784E9 among Chishti mystics are s ecially noted in hagiogra hies for their missionary achie!ements" The Chishti missionaries resumed their work, after two generations of inacti!ity under Ni$am al+din #wliya and his immediate successors, under ressure from Muhammad bin Tughlu&" (n the Aadiri order missionary work was undertaken by 1aud 0irmani in the sixteenth century and was later taken u as a common ractice by that order" The 0ubrawiya order a lied itself to con!ersion on a large scale and %ayyid G#li :amadani is credited to ha!e taken with him an entourage of D// masha&ikh to undertake the roselyti$ation of 0ashmir= 2 " HE9"

-ayasis 'adma!at was recogni$ed as an (ndian fable 2afsana+:indi9 and not a work on (slamic mysticism in :indi" %l" No" 8D 'age no" 74. Text %anskrit continued to be a !ehicle for higher thought and a medium for literature during the eriod under re!iew" (n fact, the roduction of works in %anskrit in different branches was immense and erha s greater than in the receding eriod" ,ollowing the great %ankara, works in the field of #d!aita hiloso hy by Ramanu)a, Madh!a, 6allabha, etc", continued to be written in %anskrit" The s eed with which their ideas were widely disseminated and discussed in different arts of the country showed the im ortant role which %anskrit continued to lay during the eriod" There was a network of s eciali$ed schools and academies in different arts of the country" (ncluding areas under Muslim domination" These schools and academies were not interfered with and continued to flourish" (n fact, many of them took ad!antage of the introduction of a er to re roduce and disseminate older texts"

$%servation B #" #hmad, 2 tudies in Islamic +ulture In The Indian 0nvironment, >xford, Clarendon 'ress, 7.LE, 47H9 says,
<The main stream of :indu religious and intellectual consciousness continued to flow through %anskrit literature, which almost ignored the Muslims resence" (t was written for the most art in the :indu states of south (ndia and in >rissa under the atronage of Ra) ut ra)as" (t continued to de!elo traditions and genres which were urely :indu in religious and secular writing alikeJTo this essentially :indu creati!e acti!ity Muslim contribution in the way of artici ation was nil, and in the way of atronage insignificant"=

%atish Chandra is erha s trying to credit Muslim rulers with whate!er !itality and creati!ity was shown by :indu hiloso hers in this eriod" :owe!er, it goes

38E5

without saying that while %ankara largely receded the (slamic reign in (ndia, Ramanu)a and Madh!acharya were basically outside (slams s here of influence" %l" No" 8H 'age no" 74.+ 78/ Text # large number of commentaries and digests on the :indu law 21harmashastras9 were re ared between the twelfth and the sixteenth century" The great %itakshara of 6i)naneshwar, which forms one of the two rinci al :indu schools of law, cannot be laced earlier than the twelfth century" #nother famous commentator was Chandeswar of *ihar who li!ed in the fourteenth century" Most of the works were roduced in the south, followed by *engal, Mithila and western (ndia under the atronage of :indu rulers" The -ains, too, contributed to the growth of %anskrit" :emachandra %uri was the most eminent of these" >ddly enough, these works largely ignored the resence of the Muslims in the country" Mittle attem t was made to translate (slamic works or 'ersian literature into %anskrit" 'ossibly, the only exce tion was the translation of the lo!e story of ;usuf and Pulaikha written by the famous 'ersian oet, -ami" This might be taken to be an index of the insularity of outlook which had been mentioned by #lbiruni earlier" Refusal to face the existing reality may be one reason why much of the writing of the eriod is re etiti!e and lacks fresh insight or originality"

$%servation B %heldon 'ollock 2<1ee >rientalismC Notes on %anskrit and 'ower beyond the Ra)=, in Carol #" *reckenridge and 'eter !an der 6eer eds", 5rientalism and the "ostcolonial "redicament, ?ni!ersity of 'ennsyl!ania 'ress, 7..89 has noted the <luxurious efflorescence= of dharmasastra works in the courts of :indu kings" :e asks why these treatises which define what may be !iewed as the total society 2!arnasramadharma9 were com osed at this time" Was it because,
<for the first time since the de!elo ment of the dharmasastras that way of life confronted, in the Central #sian Turks, something radically different, a resolutely un+assimilating social and religious formationC The fact that the roduction of dharmanibandha discourse, J, almost erfectly follows the ath of ad!ance of the %ultanate from the 1oab to 1e!agiri to the 1eccan suggests, on the one hand, that totali$ing conce tions of society became ossible only by )uxta osition with alternati!e lifeworlds, and on the other, that they became necessary only at the Gmoment when the total form of the society was for the first time belie!ed, by the ri!ileged theorists of society, to be threatened"=

To describe such works as re etiti!e, lacking in originality and reflecti!e of an insular attitude, is but another instance of the Marxist lack of sync with this land"

%l" No" 8.

'age no" 78/

Text #mir 0husrau took ride in being an (ndian" J 0husraus lo!e for

38F5

(ndia shows that the Turkish ruling class was no longer re ared to beha!e as a foreign ruling class and that the ground had been re ared for a cultural ra rochement between them and the (ndians" $%servation B #mir 0husrau ioneered a genre of writing called Ge ic of con&uest, which laid <thematic em hasis on the glorification of the Turk against the :indu= and highlighted the destiny of the Turk <to hold the :indu in sub)ugation"= #mir 0husrans works, like the %iftah al-futuh, the 1ha;ain alfutuh, the <uh ipihr, and Tughlu3 <ama are all <full of religo+ olitical fer!our"= :e writes for exam le, <:a y :industan, the s lendour of Religion, where the 2Muslim holy9 Maw finds erfect honour and securityJ The strong men of :ind ha!e been trodden underfoot and are ready to ay tribute" (slam is trium hant and idolatry is subdued"= 2#$i$ #hmad, <E ic and Counter+E ic in Medie!al (ndia=, in Richard M" Eaton, ed" India&s Islamic Traditions, '((-(')*. >xford ?ni!ersity 'ress, 4//8, 8H+ 8.9" :is <asserti!e ride= in his (ndian origins has been linked to the tensions between the foreign and (ndian Muslims nobles in the %ultanate eriod" %l" No" E/ 'age no" 7F/ Text %her %hah also atroni$ed the learned men" %ome of the finest works in :indi, such as the "admavat of Malik Muhammad -aisi, were com leted during his reign" %her %hah was not a bigot in the religious s here, as is e!ident from his social and economic olicy"

$%servation B Malik Muhammad -aisi li!ed in the %har&i kingdom and recei!ed no atronage from %her %hah, though he did write in a reciation of the %ur ruler" %her %hah im osed the 2i;ya, fa!oured #fghans in a ointments, and was ruthless in his dealings with the Ra) uts of Raisin, who were either ut to sword or tram led to death by ele hants" *adauni laces the number of such !ictims at ten thousand" %l" No" E7 'age no" 7L8 Text #kbars Ra) ut olicy was combined with a olicy of broad religious toleration" (n 7FLE, he abolished the 2i;yah which was sometimes used by the ulama to humiliate non+Muslims" :e had earlier abolished the ilgrim tax, and the ractice of forcible con!ersion of risoners of war"

$%servation B #kbar made efforts to lacate orthodox Muslim sentiment at least till around 7FH/" The fathnama issued after the fall of Chittor ex ress the intolerant attitude of the em eror" #bul+&asim Namakins, Munsha at+i Namakin &uotes #kbar as saying,

38L5

<#s directed by the word of @od, we, as far as it is within our ower, remain busy in )ihad and owing to the kindness of the %u reme Mord, who is the romoter of our !ictories, we ha!e succeeded in occu ying a number of forts and towns belonging to the infidels and ha!e established (slam there" With the hel of our bloodthirsty sword we ha!e rased the signs of infidelity from their minds and ha!e destroyed tem les in those laces and also all o!er :industan"=

>ther e!idence of orthodoxy includes a farman of #kbar, robably of this eriod to Aa$i #bd al+%amad, the muhtasib of *ilgram, and other officials of the town
<to re!ent the :indus of that argana from racticing idol+worshi and take such other ste s as might hel in eradicating the manifestations of heresy and de!iation from that argana"=

The re+organi$ation of the 1e artment of %adarat the 7FD/s was also dictated by the desire to increase #kbars acce tance among greater sections of Muslims, by extending state atronage to (ndian Muslims and disregarding the distinction between <the learned and <the illiterate=" The Mah$ar of 7FD. was likewise an ex ression of #kbars desire to be recogni$ed as the sole head of orthodox Muslims in (ndia" #kbars hostility to the Mahada!is, attem ts to deli!er the ,riday sermon, relations with %alim Chishti, were all reflecti!e of the same mindset" This olicy changed around 7FH/, after the massi!e re!olt in which Turani and 'ersian nobles artici ated" ,or details see (&tidar #lam 0han, < The Nobility ?nder #kbar and the 1e!elo ment of :is Religious 'olicy, 7FL/+H/,= in R" M" Eaton, ed", India&s Islamic traditions, '((-(')*, >xford ?ni!ersity 'ress, 4//8" # number of scholars ha!e recogni$ed that the date 7FLE ro!ided by #bul ,a$l for the abolition of the )i$ya is incorrect, and *adaunis claim that the tax was re!oked in 7FD. is closer to the truth" #bul ,a$ls date does not match the conditions re!alent in 7FLE" The @u)arat cam aign, for exam le, had not taken lace, nor the siege of Chittor, or the su ression of the #fghan rebels in *engal" This was also the eriod when the Em eror maintained close ties with the Chishtis" %l" No" E4 'age no" 7LF Text #kbars Ra) ut olicy was continued by his successors, -ahangir and %hah -ahan"

$%servation B #gain misleading" #fter recalling Man %ingh from the go!ernorshi of *engal, -ahangir did not a oint any Ra) ut as subedar" %hah -ahan a ointed only two Ra) uts as go!ernors from a total of 7F4 such a ointments made by him" # study of 7D4 a ointments to the ost of fau)dars made by %hah -ahan re!eals that the Ra) ut share was a altry E" %imilarly, only 7E of HL a ointees to the ost of &iladars examined by scholars, were Ra) uts"

38D5

The osition of Ra) uts declined further under #urang$eb" (n 7LD7 -aswant %ingh was a ointed to the low ost of thanedar of -amrud, while Ram %ingh of #mber was dis atched to the east" *oth were made to languish in these out osts for considerable eriods" 2%ee ,irdos #nwar, <obility under the %ughals -(@A>(@)>B Manohar, 4//7" and #f$al :usain, The <obility under #kbar and !ahangir. # study of $amily 9roups, Manohar, 7...9 #urang$eb also began to clam down on romotions of Ra) uts early in his reign" %l" No" E8 'age no" 7LH Text >ne of the first actions which #kbar took, after he had taken ower in his own hands, was to abolish the oll tax or 2i;yah which the non+ Muslims were re&uired to ay in a Muslim state" #lthough it was not a hea!y tax, it was disliked because it made a distinction between sub)ect and sub)ect" #t the same time, #kbar abolished the ilgrim tax on bathing at holy laces such as 'rayag, *anaras, etc" :e also abolished the ractice of forcibly con!erting risoners of war to (slam" This laid the essential foundation of an em ire based on e&ual rights to all citi$ens, irres ecti!e of their religious beliers"

$%servation : -i$ya cannot be described as a light tax" (t has been calculated that it amounted to one months wages of an unskilled urban labourer" (rfan :abib has described the tax as <extremely regressi!e= and one that <bore the hardest on the oorest=" 2The #grarian ystem of %ughal India, ())@-('*', >xford ?ni!ersity 'ress, 7...9"

%l" No" EE

'age no" 7L.+ 7D/

Text The 1eclaration which was signed by the leading ulamas has been wrongly called a <1ecree of (nfallibility=" #kbar claimed the right to choose only when there was a difference of o inion among those &ualified to inter ret the Curan" #t a time when there were bloody conflicts between the %hias, the %unnis and the Mahdawis in different arts of the country, #kbar wanted the widest toleration" There is little doubt that the mah;ar had a salutary effect in stabilising the religious situation in the em ire"

$%servation B The Mah$ar was intended to strengthen #kbars osition among orthodox Muslims" (t cannot be described as an attem t at <the widest toleration=" (f it <had a salutary effect in stabilising the religious situation in the em ire=, why was it abandoned and why did #bul ,a$l not e!en refer to itC

%l"

'age

Text

38H5

No" EF

no" 7D7

#kbar also re!ised the educational syllabus, laying more em hasis on moral education and mathematics, and on secular sub)ects such as agriculture, geometry, astronomy, rules of go!ernment, logic, history, etc" :e also ga!e atronage to artists, oets, ainters and musicians so much so, that his court became famous for the galaxy of famous eo le there or the navaratna"

$%servation B >nly 'ersian oets were atroni$ed by #kbar" *adauni uts their number at 7LH" #kbar was also the first (ndo+(slamic king of north (ndia to formally declare 'ersian as the sole language of administration 2in 7FH49" @hulam :usain Tabatabai records,
<Earlier in (ndia, the go!ernment accounts were written in :indi according to the :indu rule" Ra)a Todar Mal ac&uired new regulations 2$awabit9 from the clerks 2nawisindagan9 of (ran, and the go!ernment offices then were reorgani$ed as they were there in Wilayat"=

(ranian clerks were recruited in large numbers and remained in <noticeable control= of accounts in the Mughal Em ire" #kbar modified the re!ailing curriculum in the madarsas with a !iew to o ulari$ing 'ersian language and culture among the :indus" (n his reign a large number of :indus a!ailed of madarsa education to ac&uire roficiency in 'ersian which was the means of obtaining go!ernment ser!ice" #ttem ts were also made to cleanse 'ersian of (ndian usages, words, hrases, and ideas" 2,or details see Mu$affar #lam, <The 'ursuit of 'ersianQ Manguage in Mughal 'olitics=, %odern #sian tudies 84, 4, 7..H9"

%l" No" EL

'age no" 4/7

Text #lthough the state dues were hea!y, sometimes amounting to nearly half of his roduce, there is no reason to belie!e that the easant was left only with enough to kee body and soul together, and was in no osition to in!est anything for the im ro!ement of land or extension of culti!ation" #lthough the life of the easant was hard, he had enough to eat and to meet his sim le re&uirements, i"e" roduction and re roduction"

$%servation B >ften neither roduction nor re roduction was ossibleI (rfan :abib has ro!ided the most gra hic account of the light of the easants in Mughal (ndia, their flight from the land and the sale of their wi!es, children and cattle in order to meet their re!enue obligations" %l" No" 'age no" Text

38.5

ED

4/4

Thus, during medie!al times as during earlier times, (ndia continued to ro!ide a home to many eo le who came from outside" *ut these immigrants ra idly assimilated themsel!es into the (ndian society and culture, while at the same time, retaining some of their s ecial traits" This accounts for the richness and di!ersity which has been a s ecial feature of (ndian culture" ?nder -ahangir and %hah -ahan, the bulk of the nobles already consisted of those who had been born in (ndia" %imultaneously, the ro ortion of #fghans, (ndian Muslims 2:industanis9, and :indus in the nobility continued to rise"

$%servation B The (slamic in!asions differed from the in!asions of anti&uity in that while the early foreigners embraced the s iritual ethos of this land, (slam sought to im ose its faith, scri t, language, laws and customs" (t faced resistance from an e!ol!ed nati!e faith that resisted being su lanted in its ancestral home" #s for the misleading statement on the nobility, it has been dealt with elsewhere in this sur!ey"

%l" No" EH

'age no" 4/8

Text #lthough s ending, not hoarding was the dominant characteristic of the ruling class of the time, with only a few nobles remaining out of debt and be&ueathing large sums of money to their children, the nobility did, directly or indirectly, contribute to the de!elo ment of the economy"

$%servation B (rfan :abib has totally re udiated this !iew oint" :e has described the Mughal nobility as contributing little to economic growth" 2%ee <The %ocial 1istribution of Manded 'ro erty in 're+*ritish (ndia= in R"%" %harma and 6" -ha eds", Indian ociety : ,istorical "robings, 'eo les 'ublishing :ouse, 7.DE9"

%l" No" E.

'age no" 447

Text *y the time of #kbar, knowledge of 'ersian had become so wides read in north (ndia that he dis ensed with the tradition of kee ing re!enue records in the local language 2,indawi9 in addition to 'ersian"

$%servation B (t was #kbar who declared 'ersian the sole language of administration" 'ersian does not seem to ha!e en)oyed a s ecial osition under the #fghans, most #fghan chiefs being unable to s eak the language" The Modis are said to ha!e introduced the ractice of ro!iding transcri tions in devanagari of their 'ersian chancellery rescri ts" The %urs continued this ractice" %l" 'age Text

3E/5

No" F/

no" 447

Medie!al :indi in the *ri) form, that is the dialect s oken in the neighbourhood of #gra, was also atroni$ed by the Mughal em erors and :indu rulers" ,rom the time of #kbar, :indi oets began to be attached to the Mughal court" # leading Mughal noble, #bdur Rahim 0han+i+0hanan, roduced a fine blend of *hakti oetry with 'ersian ideas of life and human relations" Thus, the 'ersian and the :indi literary traditions began to influence each other" *ut the most influential :indi oet was Tulsidas whose hero was Rama and who used a dialect of :indi s oken in the eastern arts of ?ttar 'radesh" 'leading for a modified caste system based not on birth but on indi!idual &ualities, Tulsi was essentially a humanistic oet who u held family ideals and com lete de!otion to Rama as a way of sal!ation o en to all, irres ecti!e of caste"

$%servation B #$i$ #hmad has drawn attention to the fact that arallel :indu and Muslim intellectual traditions de!elo ed at #bkars court" 'ersian literature of this eriod was uninfluenced by %anskrit e!en as %anskrit and :indi remained immune to 'ersian cultural traditions" :e says
<remarkable in the 'ersian oetry written in (ndia, exce t for a few s ecimens by #mir 0husrau, is the com lete re)ection of (ndian life and landsca e as !alid oetical materialJ This foreign imagery wo!en into com lex and multi le atters became the acce ted stock+in+trade of (ndo+'ersian and later, ?rdu con!entional oetic diction= 2 tudies In Islamic +ulture In The Indian 0nvironment, >xford, Clarendon 'ress, 7.LE, 4849"

Tulsidas moreo!er recei!ed no atronage whatsoe!er from #kbar" %l" No" F7 'age no" 448 Text Thus, there was no atmos here of confrontation between the %ikhs and the Mughal rulers during this eriod" Nor was there any systematic ersecution of the :indus, and hence, no occasion for the %ikhs or any grou or sect to stand forth as the cham ion of the :indus against religious ersecution" The occasional conflict between the @urus and the Mughal rulers was ersonal and olitical rather than religious" 1es ite some dis lay of orthodoxy by %hah -ahan at the beginning of his reign and a few acts of intolerance, such as the demolition of <new= tem les, he was not narrow in his outlook which was further tem ered towards the end of his reign by the influence of his liberal son, 1ara" 1ara, the eldest son of %hah -ahan, was by tem erament a scholar and a %ufi who lo!ed to discourse with religious di!ines" With the hel of brahmanas of 0ashi, he got the 9ita translated into 'ersian" *ut his most significant work was an anthology of the 6edas in the introduction to which 1ara declared the 6edas to be <hea!enly books in oint of time= and <in conformity with the holy Auran=, thus underlining the

3E75

belief that there were no fundamental differences between :induism and (slam" $%servation B -ahangir clearly stated in his autobiogra hy that his hostility to @uru #r)un had a religious dimension" <(n @oindwal, which is on the ri!er *iyah 2*eas9 ,= he wrote, <there was a :indu named #r)un, in the garments of sainthood and sanctity, so much so
that he had ca ti!ated many of the sim le+hearted of the :indus, and e!en of the ignorant and foolish followers of (slam, by his ways and manners, and they had loudly sounded the drum of his holiness" They called him @uru and from all sides stu id eo le crowded to worshi and manifest com lete faith in him" ,or three or four generations 2of s iritual successors9 they had ke t this sho warm" Many times it had occurred to me to ut a sto to this !ain affair or to bring him into the assembly of the eo le of (slam"=

#fter the execution of the @uru by -ahangir, his son and successor, @uru :argobind, took to martial acti!ities" :e girded two swords, 'iri and Miri, to symboli$e the com lementarily of s iritual and tem oral authority" :e encouraged his followers to engage in martial acti!ity and built the fort of Mohgarh for defensi!e ur oses" :e was im risoned by -ahangir for two years and harassed by %hah -ahan as well" :e left the ro!ince of Mahore to reside in the territory of a Ra) ut !assal of the Mughals due to this ersecution" 1aras !iews on the @ita and the 6edas elicited little su ort among the olitical and religious elites in his community" :is anthology ertained to the ? anishads, not to 6edas ro er" %l" No" F4 'age no" 448+ 44E Text #mong the Muslims, too, while the trend of tauhid continued a ace, and was su orted by many learning %ufi saints, a small grou of the orthodox ulama reacted against it and the liberal olicies of #kbar" The most renowned figure in the Muslim orthodox and re!i!alist mo!ement of the time was %haikh #hmad %irhindiJ (t will thus be seen that the influence of the orthodox thinkers and reachers was limited, being necessarily confined to narrow circlesJ The recurrent cycles of liberalism and orthodoxy in (ndian history should be seen against the situation which was rooted in the structure of (ndian society" (t was one as ect of the struggle between entrenched ri!ilege and ower on the one hand, and the egalitarian and humanistic as irations of the mass of the eo le on the other"

$%servation B The dominant trend among the %ufis and ulama was in fact towards orthodoxy" #fter %irhindi, %hah Waliullah began a mo!ement to urge (slam of all agan 2:indu9 influence and ractice" The Wahhabi mo!ement has been described as <the ractical culmination of the religio+ olitical thought= of %hah Walliullah" To describe this dominant trend in (ndian (slam as a conflict between ri!ilege and egalitarianism is ty ical of Marxist doubles eak" ;ohanan ,riedmann in 2<(slamic thought in Relation to the (ndian context,= in R" M" Eaton, ed", o " cit, " F79 has noted that the

3E45

<conciliatory trend 2in (ndian (slam9 was always weaker than the orthodox one" The few rulers who ado ted it failed to ins ire their successors, and the religious thinkers who de!elo ed it had few disci les who continued to walk on the ath of inter+religious harmony and com romise="

%l" No" F8

'age no" 44D

Text #fter 1harmat, 1ara made frantic efforts to seek allies" :e sent re eated letters to -aswant %ingh who had retired to -odh ur" The Rana of ?dai ur was also a roached" -aswant %ingh mo!ed out tardily to 'ushkar near #)mer" #fter raising an army with the money ro!ided by 1ara, he waited there for the Rana to )oin him" *ut the Rana had already been won o!er by #urang$eb with a romise of a rank of D/// and the return of the parganas sei$ed by %hah -ahan and 1ara from him in 7LFE following a dis ute o!er the re+ fortification of Chittor" #urang$eb also held out to the Rana a romise of religious freedom and <fa!ours e&ual to those of Rana %anga=" Thus, 1ara failed to win o!er e!en the im ortant Ra) ut ra)as to his side"

$%servation B #$i$ #hmad 2 tudies In Islamic +ulture In The Indian 0nvironment , >xford, Clarendon 'ress, 7.LE, 7.F9, states,
<,rom the !ery beginning in the war of succession, #urang$ebs line of challenge against 1ara %hikoh was the latters alleged a ostasy and his association with :indu theologians and mystics" The di!ision of the loyalties of the :indu generals during this ci!il war does not alter the situation of the challenge" (n any case the most owerful of :indu nobles, -aswant %ingh, who changed sides more than once was rimarily a artisan of 1ara %hikoh, and first of the Mughal generals to fight a itched battle against #urang$eb" Many of -aswant %inghs Muslims officers were secretly in league with #urang$eb, and it was the fear of their desertion that im elled him to change sides" (n fact 1ara %hikoh could rely only on the absolute loyalty of Ra) ut elements of his army and his ersonal retainers in his struggle against #urang$eb" E!en -ai %ingh whose loyalty to #urang$eb remained unswer!ing, was sus ected on one occasion of ha!ing let 1ara %hikoh esca e to %iwistan"=

%l" No" FE

'age no" 44.

Text Thus, a art from being an orthodox Muslim, #urang$eb was also a ruler" :e could hardly forget the olitical reality that the o!erwhelming o ulation of (ndia was :indu, and that they were dee ly attached to their faith" #ny olicy which meant the com lete alienation of the :indus and of the owerful :indu ra)as and $amindars was ob!iously unworkable""" Mater, in the ele!enth year of his reign 27LL.9 #urang$eb took a number of measures which ha!e been called uritanical, but many of which were really of an economic and social character, and against su erstitious beliefs" Thus, he forbade singing in the court and the official musicians were

3E85

ensioned off" (nstrumental music and naubat 2the royal band9 were, howe!er, continued" %inging also continued to be atroni$ed by the ladies in the harem, and by indi!idual nobles" (t is of some interest to note, as has been mentioned before, that the largest number of 'ersian works on classical (ndian music were written in #urang$ebs reign and that #urang$eb himself was roficient in laying the veena" $%servation B (s the author trying to a laud #urang$eb for his sensiti!ity to :indusC The fact is that the Em eror alienated e!ery section of :indu society, e!en Ra) ut royal families which had ser!ed the Mughals for centuries" The :indu $amindars mentioned here, re!olted continually in his reign" The in!ocation of an economic dimension to the uritanical olices of the Em eror is comical" #s for the 'ersian works in (ndian classical music, since they were not the result of the em erors atronage, they cannot be cited as an achie!ement of #urang$ebs reign" %l" No" FF 'age no" 48/ Text To romote trade among the Muslims who de ended almost exclusi!ely on state su ort, #urang$eb at first largely exem ted Muslim traders from the ayment of cess" *ut he soon found that the Muslim traders were abusing it, e!en assing off the goods of :indu merchants as their own to cheat the state" %o #urang$eb re+im osed the cess on Muslim traders, but, ke t it at half of what was charged from othersJ %imilarly, he tried to reser!e the osts of peshkars and karoris 2 etty re!enue officials9 for Muslims but soon had to modify it in the face of o osition from the nobles and lack of &ualified Muslims"

$%servation B The discriminatory treatment of :indu traders and the artiality towards Muslims was moti!ated by communal considerations" The osts of peshkars and karoris were reser!ed for Muslims in order to encourage con!ersions" (n an article in 0ssays on %edieval Indian ,istory, ->xford ?ni!ersity 'ress, 4//8, 888+E9, %atish Chandra himself notes that the bulk of the recorded cases of con!ersions in!ol!ed either small $amindars or etty state em loyees or their wards+
<%uch con!erts either ex ected confirmation or grants of $amindari, or referential treatment after their con!ersion, com eting with the Muslims for official osts which were in short su ly"=

The limited success of #urang$ebs communal o!ertones"

artisan

olicies cannot eliminate their

The fact that e!en @uru Tegh *ahadur was asked to acce t (slam in return for his life, shows that con!ersion was an ideal cherished by the Em eror"

3EE5

%l" No" FL

'age no" 48/+ 487

Text #urang$ebs order regarding tem les was not a new one" (t reaffirmed the osition which had existed during the %ultanat eriod and which had been reiterated by %hah -ahan early in his reign" (n ractice, it left wide latitude to the local officials as to the inter retation of the words <long standing tem les=" The ri!ate o inion and sentiment of the ruler in the matter was also bound to weigh with the officials" ,or exam le, after the rise of the liberal+ minded 1ara as %hah -ahans fa!ourite, few tem les had been demolished in ursuance of his order regarding tem les" #urang$eb, as go!ernor of @u)arat, ordered a number of tem les in @u)arat to be destroyed, which often meant merely breaking the images and closing down the tem les" #t the outset of his reign, #urang$eb found that images in these tem les had been restored and idol worshi had been resumed" #urang$eb, therefore, ordered again in 7LLF that these tem les be destroyed" The famous tem le of %omnath which he ordered to be destroyed earlier in his reign was a arently one of the tem les mentioned abo!e"

$%servation B What does the author mean by saying local officials had <wide latitude= regarding tem les and then claiming that <the ri!ate o inion and sentiment of the ruler= was also bound to influence themC %hah -ahan des ite his fondness for 1ara, was orthodox in his religious beliefs" 1aras !iews on the ? anishads had no adherents in his community" #nd as the author himself admits, #urang$eb as go!ernor under %hah -ahan, destroyed tem les in @u)arat"

%l" No" FD

'age no" 487

Text :owe!er, it does not seem that #urang$ebs order regarding ban on new tem les led to a large+scale destruction of tem les at the outset of the reign" #s #urang$eb encountered olitical o osition from a number of &uarters, such as the Marathas, -ats, etc", he seems to ha!e ado ted a new stance" (n case of conflict with local elements, he now considered it legitimate to destroy e!en long standing :indu tem les as a measure of unishment and as a warning" ,urther, he began to look u on tem les as centres of s reading sub!ersi!e ideas, that is, ideas which were not acce table to the orthodox elements" Thus, he took strict action when he learnt in 7LL. that in some of the tem les in Thatta, Multan and es ecially at *anaras, both :indus and Muslims used to come from great distances to learn from the brahmanas" #urang$eb issued orders to the go!ernors of all ro!inces to ut down such ractices and to destroy the tem les where such ractices took laceJ(t was in this context that many

3EF5

tem les built in >rissa during the last ten to twel!e years were also destroyed" *ut it is wrong to think that there were any orders for the general destruction of tem les" :owe!er, the situation was different during eriods of hostilities" Thus, during 7LD.+H/ when there was a state of war with the Rathors of Marwar and the Rana of ?dai ur, many tem les of old standing were destroyed at -odh ur and its arganas, and at ?dai ur" $%servationB Exce t for attem ting to exonerate #urang$eb, it is difficult to com rehend %atish Chandras analyses of the Em erors olicy on tem les" The fact remains that the destruction of tem les was a recurring feature of #urang$ebs reign" -"%" @rewal, 2The ikhs of the "un2ab. The New Cambridge :istory >f (ndia, 7../, LD9 for exam le notes,
<(n the first half of his reign #urang$eb ado ted an aggressi!e social and olitical olicy" :e destroyed some im ortant :indu tem les e!en in times of eace"=

#fter 7LD/ iconoclasm was ordered in a general manner, and many old tem les desecrated" There are instances of !andalism in the south e!en in the last years of #urang$eb reign" (n 7L.H, for exam le, a tem le in *i)a ur was destroyed and a mos&ue built in its lace on im erial orders" %ome time after 7D//, #urang$eb a ointed hatchet men to dig u the foundations and destroy the stone tem les in Maharashtra, including the famous shrine of 'andhar ur" There is no e!idence that tem les ser!ed as centres of sub!ersion" The !ery fact that the Em eror ob)ected to Muslims learning from *rahmins re!eals his narrow outlook" %l" No" FH 'age no" 484 Text There has been a considerable discussion among historians regarding #urang$ebs moti!es for the ste 2reim osition of the )i$yah9" Met us first see what it was not" (t was not meant to be an economic ressure for forcing the :indus to con!ert to (slam for its incidence was too light+women, children, the disabled and the indigent, that is those whose income was less than the means of subsistence were exem ted, as were those in go!ernment ser!ice" Nor, in fact, did any significant section of :indus change their religion due to this tax" %econdly, it was not a means of meeting a difficult financial situation" #lthough the income from 2i;yah is said to ha!e been considerable, #urang$eb sacrificed a considerable sum of money by gi!ing u a large number of cesses called abwabs which were not sanctioned by the shara and were hence considered illegal" The re+ im osition of 2i;yah was, in fact, both olitical and ideological in nature" (t was meant to rally the Muslims for the defence of the state against the Marathas and the Ra) uts who were u in arms, and ossibly against the Muslims states of the 1eccan, es ecially @olconda which was in alliance with the infldels" %econdly, 2i;yah

3EL5

was to be collected by honest, @od+fearing Muslims, who were es ecially a ointed for the ur ose, and its roceeds were reser!ed for the ulama" (t was thus a big bribe for the theologians among whom there was a lot of unem loyment" *ut the disad!antages out weighted the ossible ad!antages of the ste " $%servation B The roceeds from the )i$ya ha!e been estimated to constitute about 7F ercent of the total state income towards the end of #urang$ebs reign" (n the !illages )i$ya was le!ied at a flat rate of E er cent in the khalisa and )agirs lands" (ncome from the towns under this head was also considerable" Com laints against the high rate of the )i$ya tax came from se!eral arts of the country" (n *urhan ur, for exam le, while Rs" 4L,/// was collected as )i$ya in one year, the following year the amount was raised to Rs" 7/H,/// for half the city wards" -i$ya always had a religious dimension which is why it could rally Muslim o inion" *y stating that the )i$ya was to be collected by @od+fearing Muslims, is the author im lying that the :indus therefore had no ob)ection to aying the taxC ,urther, what is the e!idence of unem loyment among the theologiansC The fact that the Em eror was solicitous of their welfare surely has some im lications"

%l" No" F.

'age no" 484+ 488

Text #lthough #urang$eb considered it legitimate to encourage con!ersion to (slam, e!idence of systematic or large+scale attem ts at forced con!ersion is lacking" Nor were :indu nobles discriminated against" # recent study has shown that the number of :indus in the nobility during the second half of #urang$ebs reign steadily increased, till the :indus including Marathas formed about one+third of the nobility as against one+fourth under %hah -ahan"

$%servation B %ince the mis+re resentation of facts is so blatant, it would be in order to &uote #thar #li 2The %ughal <obility .nder #urang;eb, #sia 'ublishing :ouse, 7.D/, "7D9" :e says,
<(t is clear from these figures that there had been a distinct decline in the number of nobles directly coming from foreign countries since the time of #kbar, and in the course of #urang$ebs long reign, direct recruitment of foreigners declined e!en more shar ly as is a arent from the ro ortionately lower number of foreign+born nobles in the second eriod as com ared to the firstJ"=

(t is ossible to oint out !arious reasons for this decline" The ?$bek and %afa!id 0ingdoms were no longer as owerful as they had been earlier and conse&uently the same number of nobles of administrati!e ex erience and status no longer came to (ndia from those lands for recruitment to the Mughal nobility" Moreo!er, #urang$ebs attention was concentrated for the most art of his reign on the 1eccan and he ne!er as ired to follow a forward or militaristic olicy in the

3ED5

North+West like his father or great grand+father" :e was, therefore, not likely to go out of his way to offer exce tional inducements to Turani and (rani nobles to desert their masters for Mughal ser!ice" >n the the hand, there is no e!idence that #urang$eb e!er consciously set out to G(ndianise the nobility" %uch G(ndianisation as occurred was urely the result of historical circumstances, and not of a deliberate olicy"=
2(bid", "84 9 <(t will be noticed that in the first art of #urang$ebs reign, the osition of :indu nobles decline slightly, but in the last twenty+nine years it im ro!ed a reciably with the result that during this time there were more :indus in ser!ice ro ortionately than under %hah)ahan or, indeed, at any former eriod" These tables, would therefore, ro!ide a fine lawyers answer to any charge that #urang$eb discriminated against :indu mansabdars. ;et the matter is not really so sim le" The number of :indus in the eriod is inflated because of the influx of the Marathas, who began to outnumber the Ra) uts in the nobility" They were not recruited to the ser!ice on account of a olicy of religious tolerance, but had ractically forced their way in" *efore #urang$ebs fatal in!ol!ement in the 1eccan had com elled him to begin admitting Marathas wholesale in order to secure their submission, he had in fact tried to reduce the number of :indu nobles" This is clear from the figures for 7LFH+DH" #s we ha!e seen, the number of the Ra) uts began to decline towards the end of this eriod, and continued to go down in the next" :owe!er, not much can be built either way exclusi!ely on these figures, and the fact remains that des ite #urang$ebs a!owed olicy of religious discrimination, the :indus continued to form a large section of his nobility" ,rom the foregoing account it should be clear that a marked ex ansion of the nobility did not take lace till #urang$eb embarked on the olicy of annexing the entire 1eccan" #s a result of fresh recruitment made during this eriod, the internal com osition of the nobility changed in some material res ects" The 1eccanis, including the Marathas, came to form a high ro ortion of the nobility, a articularly in the higher ranks" There was a corres onding decline in the osition of some of the older elements, such as the Ra) uts, %aiyids of *arha, and others" The Turanis and (ranis also lost a little of their re!ious eminence" The #fghans im ro!ed their ositions owing to the influx of the #fghan officers who had been re!iously in the ser!ice of *i)a ur"=

%l" No" L/

'age no" 488

Text Thus, #urang$eb did not try to change the nature of the state, but re+ asserted its fundamentally (slamic character" #urang$ebs religious beliefs cannot be considered the basis of his olitical olices" While an orthodox Muslim and desirous of u holding the strict letter of the law, as a ruler he was keen to strengthen and ex and the em ire" :ence, he did not want to lose the su ort of the :indus to the extent ossible" :owe!er, his religious ideas and beliefs on the one hand, and his olitical or ublic olicies on the other, clashed on many occasions and #urang$eb was faced with difficult choices"

3EH5

%ometimes this led him to ado t contradictory olices which harmed the em ire" $%servation B The state, the author concedes, was <fundamentally (slamic 2in9 character"= ;et he argues that religious beliefs were not the basis of #urang$ebs olicies" Whether #urang$eb ado ted contradictory olices or not, the author is certainly contradictory"

%l" No" L7

'age no" 48D

Text The official ex lanation for this as gi!en in some later 'ersian sources is that after his return from #ssam, the @uru, in association with one :afi$ #dam, a follower of %haikh #hmad %irhindi, had resorted to lunder and ra ine, laying waste the whole ro!ince of the 'un)ab" #ccording to %ikh tradition, the execution was due to the intrigues of some members of his family who dis uted his succession, and by others who had )oined themJ,or #urang$eb the execution of the @uru was only a law and order &uestionJ

$%servation B The u roar this inter retation created and the unreliability of the 'ersian sources &uoted is well+known and forms art of the Marxist endea!our to under lay the se!erity of Muslim rule" @uru Tegh *ahadur was dee ly concerned about the religious ersecution of :indus in his time and decided to court martyrdom to u hold his beliefs" :e was arrested by the Mughals and ke t in custody for four months before being brought to 1elhi in 7LDF where he was asked to erform a miracle as roof of his closeness to @od" The @uru refused and was then asked to acce t (slam" Three of his com anions were executed in his resence in a bid to intimidate him" ? on his failure to embrace (slam, he was beheaded in Chandni Chowk on im erial orders" To say that #urang$eb !iewed the execution of the @uru as only a law and order &uestion flies in the face of all a!ailable e!idence"

%l" No" L4

'age no" 48H

Text #lthough @uru @o!ind %ingh was not able to withstand Mughal might for long, or to establish a se arate %ikh state, he created a tradition and also forged a wea on for its reali$ation later on" (t also showed how an egalitarian religious mo!ement could, under certain circumstance, turn into a olitical and militaristic mo!ement, and subtly mo!e towards regional inde endence"

$%servation B #fter de!aluing the %ikh resistance to Mughal rule throughout the text, the author here ominously talks of regional inde endence, by im lication casting a shadow on the mo!ement" ,urther the circumstances in which <an

3E.5

egalitarian religious mo!ement= turned into <a mo!ement,= should be clarified"

olitical and militaristic

%l" No" L8

'age no" 4E7

Text The breach with Marwar and Mewar weakened the Mughal alliance with the Ra) uts at a crucial eriod" #bo!e all, it created doubts about the firmness of Mughal su ort to old and trusted allies and trusted allies and the ulterior moti!es of #urang$eb" While it showed the rigid and obstinate nature of #urang$eb, it did not, howe!er, show a determination to sub!ert :induism as has been alleged, because during the eriod after 7LD., large numbers of Marathas were allowed entry into the nobility"

$%servation B (t is surely well known that the recruitment of Marathas was art of Mughal strategy and in no way im lied cessation of conflict with them" ,urther, Marathas were not a ointed to to osts" They mostly ser!ed as troo ca tains for Mughal generals in the 1eccan" No matter how strenuous the Marxist exertions in fa!our of #urang$eb, they cannot succeed in resenting him as a cham ion of :induism" D

3F/5

6#$ &i'7
This is a random, brief selection of bloo ers in %atish Chandras textbook" The intention is merely to highlight the genuine roblems of com rehension faced by the student reader" &l# No# "# 4" 8" 4a,e 80otation (ro. text no# 7 These tribes came in may wa!es, and indulged in a great deal of ra!aging and lundering in the territories of the old Roman em ire" 7 The *y$antine em ire was a large and flourishing em ire which continued to trade with #sia after the colla se of the Roman em ire in the West" 8 No king could ho e to maintain out of his own resources the large body of ca!alry needed and to ro!ide them with armour and e&ui ment" :ence, the army was decentrali$ed, assigning to the fief+holders the res onsibility of maintaining a fixed force of ca!alry and infantry for the ser!ice of the king" 8 (t also made ossible a ca!alry charge with lances held tightly to the body, without the rider being thrown off by the shock of the im act" The earlier de!ice was either a wooden stirru or a iece of ro e which only ro!ided a toe+hold" 8 The 'o e, who was the head of the Catholic Church, became not only a religious head, but one who exercised a great deal of olitical and moral authority as well" 8 :owe!er, some of the monasteries which became exceedingly wealthy began to beha!e like feudal lords" E #lthough the #bbasid Cali hs were orthodox Muslims, they o ened wide the gate of learning from all &uarters as long as it did not challenge the fundamental tenets of (slam" F Chinas society and culture had attained a climax in the eighth and ninth centuries under Tang rule" F The Mongols wrought great death and destruction in China" *ut to their highly disci lined and mobile ca!alry forces, the Mongol rulers were able to unify North and %outh China under one control for the first time" L #ccording to a ninth century #rab writer, the em ire was so large that e!en the fastest !essel could not com lete a round tri of it in two years" D Make a chart showing the hierarchy of the authority of the feudal system of Euro e" H Each of these em ires, although they fought among themsel!es, ro!ided stable conditions of life o!er large areas, and ga!e atronage to arts and letters" 7/ 1uring the eighth and ninth centuries, many (ndian scholars went with embassies to the court of the Cali h at *aghdad" 7/+ The kingdom was founded by 1antidurga who fixed his ca ital at Manyakhet 77 or Malkhed near modern %hola ur" 74 :e 2the king9 sat in a magnificent darbar" The infantry and ca!alry were stationed in the courtyard" 74 The court was not only a centre of olitical affairs and of )ustice, but of

E"

F" L" D" H" ." 7/" 77" 74" 78" 7E" 7F" 7L"

3F75

7D" 74 7H" 74 7." 78 4/" 78 47" 78 44" 78 48" 78 4E" 7E 4F" 7E 4L" 7L 4D" 7L 4H" 7H

cultural life as well" 1ancing girls and skilled musicians attended the court" Thinkers of the time em hasi$ed absolute loyalty and obedience to the king because of the insecurity of the times" While kings stro!e to maintain law and order within their kingdoms, their arms rarely extended far enough" Ele hants were su osed to be elements of strength and were greatly ri$ed" The regular troo s were often hereditary and sometimes drawn from different regions all o!er (ndia" When called u on sometimes, a son of the !assal chiefs was re&uired to stay in attendance of the o!erlord to guard against rebellion" The visayapatis and these smaller chiefs tended to merge with each other, and, later on, the word samanta began to be used indiscriminately for both of them" (t seems that their main ur ose was the reali$ation of land re!enue and some attention to law and order" *ut he did ha!e the general duty of rotecting brahmanas and the di!ision of society into four states or !arnas" This really meant that olitics and religion were in essence, ke t a art, religion being essentially a ersonal duty of the king" *y the end of the .th century, the Cholas had defeated both the 'alla!as of 0anchi and weakened the 'andyans, brining the southern Tamil country 2Tondamandala9 under their control" (n the north, Ra)ara)a annexed the north+western arts of the @anga region in north+west 0arnataka, and o!erran 6engi" The 6enetian tra!eller, Marco 'olo, who !isited 0erala in the thirteenth century, says that all the soldiers in the body+guard burnt themsel!es in the funeral yre of the monarch when he died+a statement which may well be an exaggeration" @enerally s eaking, new elements as well as elements of continuity are found in e!ery historical eriod but the extent and direction of change !aries" Much of the trade to China was carried in (ndian shi , the teak+wood of Malabar, *engal and *urma ro!iding the base of a strong tradition of shi building" Thus, growth of (ndias foreign trade in the area was based on a strong na!al tradition, including shi building and a strong na!y, and the skill and enter rise of its traders" #n im ortant factor in the growth of the Chinese shi s was the use of a rimiti!e Mariners com ass+an in!ention which later tra!eled from China to the West" #s in the earlier eriod, women were generally considered to be mentally inferior" The Ra) ut organi$ation of society had both ad!antages and disad!antage" >ne ad!antage was the sense of brotherhood and egalitarianism which re!ailed among the Ra) uts" *ut the same trait made it difficult to maintain disci line among them" #fter the @ha$na!id con&uest of the 'un)ab, two distinct atterns of relations

4." 48 8/" 4F 87" 4F 84" 4F 88" 4. 8E" 8H

8F" E/

3F45

8L" E7

8D" E8

8H" E8 8." EE E/" EE E7" ED E4" EH E8" E. EE" F/ EF" F/ EL" F/ ED" F7 EH" L4

E." D4 F/" D8 F7" H/

between the Muslims and the :indus were at work" >ne was the lure for lunder which resulted in raids into the @angetic !alley and Ra) utana by the successors of Mahmud" Meanwhile, e!ents had not been standing still in north (ndia" The Chauhan ower had been steadily growing" The Chauhan rulers had defeated and killed a large number of Turks who had tried to in!ade Ra)asthan, most robably from the 'un)ab side, and had ca tured 1elhi 2called 1hillika9 from the Tomars around the middle of the century" Thus, the battles of Tarain and Chandawar laid the foundations of the Turkish rule in north (ndia" The task of consolidating the con&uest thus won ro!ed, howe!er, to be an onerous task which occu ied the Turks for almost F/ years" Mo!ing !ery stealthily, the 0hal)i chief disguised himself as a horse+ merchant, and a arty of 7H ersons entered the %ena ca ital" 1ue to the large number and si$e of the ri!ers, *akhtiyar 0hal)i found it difficult to kee hold of Nadia" Tired and weakened by hunger and illness, the Turkish army had to face a battle in which there was a wide ri!er in front and the #ssamese army at the back" :e was succeeded by (ltutmish who was the son+in+law of #ibak" *ut before he could do so, he had to fight and defeat the son of #ibak" While he made raids on the territory of his neighbours, the %ena rulers of East *engal, and the :indu rulers of >rissa and 0amru 2#ssam9 continued their sway" *alban constantly sought to increase the restige and ower of the monarchy, because he was con!inced that, that was the only way to face the internal and external dangers facing him" The historian, *arani, who was himself a great cham ion of the Turkish nobles, ut the following words in *albans mouthsB J (n order to im ress the eo le with the strength and awe of his go!ernment, *alban maintained a magnificent court" *alban died in 74HL" :e was undoubtedly one of the main architects of the %ultanat of 1elhi , articularly of its form of go!ernment and institutions" 1ue to the fluid situation in West #sia, the 1elhi %ultanat was not able to attain these frontiers, osing a ersistent danger to (ndia" This emboldened the sultans to undertake a series of internal reforms and ex eriments, aimed at im ro!ing the administration, strengthening the army, to gear u the machinery of land re!enue administration, and to take ste s to ex and and im ro!e culti!ation and to ro!ide for the welfare of the citi$ens in the ra idly ex anding towns" The local $amindars and ra)as took ad!antage of the situation to assume airs of inde endence" 1isintegration of the olitical fabric was, thus, )ust beneath the surface and any weakness in the central administration set off a chain of e!ents leading to olitical disintegration" The runner continually clanged a bell as he ran so that the man on the next relay may be able to see him from the tower and get ready to take his burden"

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F8" H7 FE" H7 FF" H8 FL" HD FD" .L FH" .L F." .L L/" .D L7" 747 L4" 744 L8" 787

Not all these crafts were new, but their ex ansion and im ro!ement, based on the legendary skill of the (ndian craftsman, and agricultural growth were two of the most im ortant factors which made the second half of the fourteenth century a eriod of growth and relati!e affluence" These robes generally consisted of im orted cloth !el!et, damask or wool on which brocade, !el!et and costly materials were used" #lauddin sternly re ressed the nobles, but the gay mode of life re!i!ed under his successors" Regarding ro erty, the commentators u hold the widows right to the ro erty of a sonless husband, ro!ided the ro erty was not )oint, i"e", had been di!ided" 1escribe the conditions during the %ultanat eriod of women in society" :e cherished his sub)ects, and his solicitude for their welfare became ro!erbial" :is reign marked a new era in Telugu literature when imitation of %anskrit works ga!e lace to inde endent works" (n a series of wars he com letely defeated the *i)a ur ruler to inflict humiliating defeats on @olconda and #hmadnagar" The conce t of kingshi among the 6i)ayanagara rulers was high" The tomb of @hiyasuddin marks a new trend in architecture" To ha!e a good skyline, the building was ut u on a high latform" #nother de!ice used by the Modis was lacing their buildings, es ecially tombs, on a high latform, thus gi!ing the building a feeling of si$e as well as a better skyline" (n course of time, 'ersian became not only the language of administration and di lomacy, but also the language of the u er classes and their de endents, at first in north (ndia and later of the entire country with the ex ansion of the 1elhi %ultanat to the south and the establishment of Muslim kingdoms in different arts of the country" The rise to maturity of many of these languages and their use as means for literary works may be considered a striking feature of the medie!al eriod" Ex lain how the cultural features of 'ersia and (ndia got assimilated into the culture of the %ultanat eriod" *abur had crossed the (ndus with a force of 74,///, but this had been swelled by his army in (ndia, and the large number of :industani nobles and soldiers who )oined *abur in the 'un)ab" E!en then, *aburs army was numerically inferior" *abur strengthened his osition by resting one wing of his army in the city of 'ani at which had a large number of houses, and rotected the other by means of a ditch filled with branches of trees" %ince artillery was ex ansi!e it fa!oured those rulers who had large resources at their command" :ence the era of large kingdoms began" *abur introduced a new conce t of the state which was to be based on the strength and restige of the Crown, absence of religious and sectarian bigotry, and the careful fostering of culture and the fine arts" *ahadur %hah did not dare face the Mughals" :e abandoned Chittor which he

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had ca tured, and his fortified cam , and fled to Mandu after s iking his guns, but lea!ing behind all his rich e&ui age" No one was allowed to le!y customs at roads, ferries or towns any where else" %her %hah directed his go!ernors and amils to com el the eo le to treat merchants and tra!elers well in e!ery way, and not to harm them at all" (f a merchant died, they were not to sei$e his goods as if they were unowned" :is attem t to fix standard weights and measures all o!er the em ire were also hel ful for trade and commerce" %her %hahs excessi!e centrali$ation of authority in his hands was a source of weakness, and its harmful effects became a arent when a masterful so!ereign like him ceased to sit on the throne" %her %hah was not a bigot in the religious s here, as is e!ident from his social and economic olicy" The leaderless #fghan army was defeated, :emu, was ca tured and executed" Thus, #kbar had !irtually to recon&uer his em ire" # art from #)mer, im ortant con&uests during this eriod ca tured earlier were that of Malwa and @arh+0atanga" *ut it was soon found that the fixing of central schedule of rices often led to considerable delays, and resulted in great hardshi s to the easantry" %ince the rices fixed were generally those re!ailing at the (m erial Court, and thus were higher than in the countryside, the easants had to art with a larger share of their roduce" The horses were classified into six categories, and the ele hants into fi!e according to &uality, the number and &uality of horses and ele hants being carefully rescribed" Therefore, Rana 'rata s refusal to bow before the Mughals had little effect on most of the other Ra) ut states which reali$ed that in the existing situation, it was im ossible for small states to stand out for long in fa!our of com lete inde endence" Moreo!er, by allowing a large measure of autonomy to the Ra) ut ra)as, #kbar established an em ire which those Ra) ut ra)as did not consider harmful to their best interests" The younger son of Maldeo, Chandrasen, who was the son of the fa!ourite &ueen of Maldeo, succeeded to the gaddi. # true ruler was distinguished by a aternal lo!e towards his sub)ects without distinction of sect or creed, a large heart so that the wishes of great and small are attended to, rayer and de!otion and a daily increasing trust in @od who is considered as the real ruler" We are told that that he s ent whole nights in thoughts of @od, continually ronounced his name, and for a feeling of thankfulness for his success, he would sit many a morning alone in rayer and contem lation on a large flat stone of an old building near his alace in #gra" #t first, #bdun Nabi was sheared of his ower, and sardrs were a ointed in e!ery ro!ince for distributing charitable lands" *adayuni says that the members had four grades of de!otion, !i$", sacrifice of ro erty, life, honour and religion" *adayuni ascribed to #kbars head being turned by many unworthy flatterers

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HL" 7D.

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and anegyrists who suggested to him that he was the insan-i-kamil or the <'erfect Man= of the age" (t was at their instance that #kbar initiated the ceremony of pabos or kissing the floor before the so!ereign, a ceremony which was re!iously reser!ed for @od" :owe!er, the long+range benefits to #hmadnagar for reo ening the dis ute with the Mughals may be considered doubtful" (t led to the situation in which %hah -ahan decided that he had no alternati!e but to extinguish #hmadnagar as an inde endent state" :a!ing commanded two ex editions to the 1eccan as a rince and s ent a considerable eriod in the 1eccan during his rebellion against his father, %hah -ahan had a great deal to ex erience and ersonal knowledge of the 1eccan and its olitics" Mike #kbar, -ahangir reali$ed that con&uest could be lasting on the basis not of force but of securing the goodwill of the eo le" %ome modern historians are of the o inion that along with her father and brother, and in alliance with 0hurram, Nur -ahan formed a grou or <)unta= which <managed= -ahangir so that without its backing and su ort no one could ad!ance in his career, and that this led to the di!ision of the court into two factions+the Nur -ahan <)unta= and its o onents" %hah -ahans reign 27L4H+FH9 was full of many+sided acti!ity" The rise of a %hiite ower in (ran made the >ttoman %ultans conscious of the danger to their eastern flank, that the rise of the %afa!ids would encourage %hiism in their own territories" #s it was, the Mughals were chary of a closer relationshi with Turkey since they were not re ared to countenance the claim to su eriority made by the Turkish sultan as successor to the Cali h" #bul ,a$l says that the 0hyber 'ass was made fit for wheeled traffic, and that due to fear of the Mughals, the gates of *alkh were usually ke t closed" The dread of ?$bek ower was the most otent factor which brought the %afa!ids and the Mughals together, des ite the ?$bek attem t to raise anti+ %hia sentiments against (ran and the Mughal dislike of the intolerant olicies ado ted by the %afa!id rulers" The only trouble s ot between the two was Aandhar the ossession of which was claimed by both on strategic and economic grounds, as well as for considerations of sentiment and restige" The trade from Central #sia to Multan !ia Aandhar, and thence down the ri!er (ndus to the sea steadily gained in im ortance, because the roads across (ran were fre&uently disturbed due to wars and internal commotions" *y de!ising a careful scale of gradations and laying down meticulous rules of business, the Mughals bureaucrati$ed the nobility" *ut they could not take away their feudal attachment to land" This, as we shall see, was one of the dilemmas facing the Mughal nobility" The ca!alry, as we ha!e noted, was rinci al arm of the Mughal army and the mansabdars ro!ided the o!erwhelming ro ortion of it" (n addition to the mansabdars, the Mughal em erors used to entertain indi!idual troo ers, called ahadis. (n addition to the ahadis, the em erors maintained a cor s of royal

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bodyguards 2walashahis9 and armed alace guards" They were ca!alrymen but ser!ed on foot in the citadel and the alace" The footmen 2piyadgan9 formed a numerous but miscellaneous body" Many of them consisted of matchlock+bearers 2bandu3chi9 and recei!ed salaries ranging between three and se!en ru ees a months" This was the infantry ro er" The artillery consisted of two sections+hea!y guns which were used for defending or assaulting fortsQ these were often clumsy and difficult to mo!e" The second was the light artillery which was highly mobile and mo!ed with the em eror whene!er he wanted" The Mughals were solicitous of im ro!ing their artillery and, at first, many >ttomans and 'ortuguese were em loyed in the artillery de artment" The de!elo ment of the infantry had taken a different road in Euro e" The success of the Mughals against the ?$beks who could match themsel!es with the 'ersians at the time of the *alkh cam aigns suggests that the Mughal army was not inferior to the Central #sian and 'ersian armies in an o en contest" (ts ma)or weakness was in the na!al s here, articularly in the field of sea+warfare" The easant not only shifted his culti!ation from one cro to the other de ending on rices, but was also willing to ado t new cro s, if he found it rofitable to do so" Though essentially feudal in character, since land was its main source of income, it had de!elo ed many characteristics of bureaucracy" (t was also becoming more commerce and money+minded" (n the 'anch Mahal built for taking the air, all the ty es of illars used in !arious tem les were em loyed to su ort flat roofs" They created a li!ing tradition of ainting which continued to work in different arts of the country long after the glory of the Mughals had disa eared" Tukaram, who states that he was born a sudra used to do pu2a to the god with his own hand" Thus, indi!idual failure and the breakdown of the system reacted on each other" NNN

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