NCERT Class 12 History Part 2 PDF

CONTENTS PART II THEME FIVE THROUGH THE EYES OF TRAVELLERS 115 Perceptions of Society (c. tenth to seventeenth century) THEME SIX BHAKTI-SUFI TRADITIONS 140 Changes in Religious Beliefs and Devotional Texts (c. eighth to eighteenth century) THEME SEVEN AN...

CONTENTS PART II THEME FIVE THROUGH THE EYES OF TRAVELLERS 115 Perceptions of Society (c. tenth to seventeenth century) THEME SIX BHAKTI-SUFI TRADITIONS 140 Changes in Religious Beliefs and Devotional Texts (c. eighth to eighteenth century) THEME SEVEN AN IMPERIAL CAPITAL: VIJAYANAGARA 170 (c. fourteenth to sixteenth century) THEME EIGHT PEASANTS, ZAMINDARS AND THE STATE 196 Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire (c. sixteenth-seventeenth centuries) THEME NINE KINGS AND CHRONICLES 224 The Mughal Courts (c. sixteenth-seventeenth centuries) PART III* THEME T EN COLONIALISM AND THE COUNTRYSIDE Exploring Official Archives THEME E LEVEN REBELS AND THE RAJ 1857 Revolt and Its Representations * Part III will follow  xii THEME TWELVE COLONIAL CITIES Urbanisation, Planning and Architecture THEME THIRTEEN MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT Civil Disobedience and Beyond THEME FOURTEEN UNDERSTANDING PARTITION Politics, Memories, Experiences THEME FIFTEEN FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION The Beginning of a New Era PART I (Pages 1-114) THEME ONE BRICKS, BEADS AND BONES The Harappan Civilisation THEME TWO KINGS, FARMERS AND TOWNS Early States and Economies (c. 600 BCE - 600 CE) THEME THREE KINSHIP, CASTE AND CLASS Early Societies (c. 600 BCE - 600 CE) THEME FOUR THINKERS, BELIEFS AND BUILDINGS Cultural Developments (c. 600 BCE -600 CE) THEME Through the Eyes of Travellers FIVE erce o Perceptions erce o f Society of ci et ciet t h to ( c. tenth o seventeenth e nt nt century)nt ) Women and men have travelled in search of work, to escape from natural disasters, as traders, merchants, soldiers, priests, pilgrims, or driven by a sense of adventure. Those who visit or come to stay in a new land invariably encounter a world that is different: in terms of the landscape or physical environment as well as customs, languages, beliefs and practices of people. Many of them try to adapt to these differences; others, somewhat exceptional, note them carefully in Fig. 5.1a accounts, generally recording what they find Paan leaves unusual or remarkable. Unfortunately, we have practically no accounts of travel left by women, though we know that they travelled. The accounts that survive are often varied in terms of their subject matter. Some deal with affairs of the court, while others are mainly focused on religious issues, or architectural features and monuments. For example, one of the most important descriptions of the city of Vijayanagara (Chapter 7) in the fifteenth century comes from Abdur Razzaq Samarqandi, a diplomat who came visiting from Herat. In a few cases, travellers did not go to distant lands. For example, in the Mughal Empire (Chapters 8 and 9), administrators sometimes travelled within the empire and recorded their observations. Some of them were interested in looking at popular customs and the folklore and traditions of their own land. In this chapter we shall see how our knowledge of the past can be enriched through a consideration of descriptions of social life provided by travellers who visited the subcontinent, focusing on the accounts of three Fig. 5.1b men: Al-Biruni who came from Uzbekistan (eleventh A coconut century), Ibn Battuta who came from Morocco, in The coconut and the paan northwestern Africa (fourteenth century) and the were things that struck many travellers as unusual. Frenchman François Bernier (seventeenth century). 116 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II Source 1 As these authors came from vastly different social and cultural environments, they were often Al-Biruni’s objectives more attentive to everyday activities and practices which were taken for granted by indigenous Al-Biruni described his work as: writers, for whom these were routine matters, not a help to those who want to worthy of being recorded. It is this difference in discuss religious questions perspective that makes the accounts of travellers with them (the Hindus), and interesting. Who did these travellers write for? As as a repertory of information to those who want to we will see, the answers vary from one instance associate with them. to the next. Read the excerpt from 1. Al-Biruni and the Al-Biruni (Source 5) and discuss whether his work Kitab-ul-Hind met these objectives. 1.1 From Khwarizm to the Punjab Al-Biruni was born in 973, in Khwarizm in present- day Uzbekistan. Khwarizm was an important centre of learning, and Al-Biruni received the best education available at the time. He was well versed in several languages: Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and Sanskrit. Although he did not know Greek, he was familiar with the works of Plato and other Greek philosophers, having read them in Arabic translations. In 1017, when Sultan Mahmud invaded Khwarizm, he took several scholars and poets back to his capital, Ghazni; Al-Biruni was one of them. He arrived in Ghazni as a hostage, but gradually developed a liking for the city, where he spent the rest of his life until his death at the age of 70. It was in Ghazni that Al-Biruni developed an interest in India. This was not unusual. Sanskrit works on astronomy, mathematics and medicine had Translating texts, been translated into Arabic from the eighth century sharing ideas onwards. When the Punjab became a part of the Al-Biruni’s expertise in several Ghaznavid empire, contacts with the local population languages allowed him to helped create an environment of mutual trust and compare languages and understanding. Al-Biruni spent years in the company translate texts. He translated of Brahmana priests and scholars, learning Sanskrit, several Sanskrit works, including and studying religious and philosophical texts. While Patanjali’s work on grammar, his itinerary is not clear, it is likely that he travelled into Arabic. For his Brahmana widely in the Punjab and parts of northern India. friends, he translated the Travel literature was already an accepted part of works of Euclid (a Greek Arabic literature by the time he wrote. This literature mathematician) into Sanskrit. dealt with lands as far apart as the Sahara desert in the west to the River Volga in the north. So, while THROUGH THE EYES OF TRAVELLERS 117 few people in India would have read Al-Biruni before Metrology is the science of 1500, many others outside India may have done so. measurement. 1.2 The Kitab-ul- Hind Al-Biruni’s Kitab-ul-Hind, written in Arabic, is simple and lucid. It is a voluminous text, divided into Hindu 80 chapters on subjects such as religion and The term “Hindu” was derived philosophy, festivals, astronomy, alchemy, manners from an Old Persian word, and customs, social life, weights and measures, used c. sixth-fifth centuries iconography, laws and metrology. BCE , to refer to the region east Generally (though not always), Al-Biruni adopted of the river Sindhu (Indus). a distinctive structure in each chapter, beginning The Arabs continued the with a question, following this up with a description Persian usage and called this based on Sanskritic traditions, and concluding region “al-Hind” and its with a comparison with other cultures. Some people “Hindi”. L ater the present-day scholars have argued that this almost Turks referred to the people geometric structure, remarkable for its precision and east of the Indus as “Hindu”, predictability, owed much to his mathematical their land as “Hindustan”, and orientation. their language as “Hindavi”. Al-Biruni, who wrote in Arabic, probably intended None of these expressions his work for peoples living along the frontiers of the indicated the religious identity subcontinent. He was familiar with translations of the people. It was much and adaptations of Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit texts later that the term developed into Arabic – these ranged from fables to works on religious connotations. astronomy and medicine. However, he was also critical about the ways in which these texts were written, and clearly wanted to improve on them. Discuss... If Al-Biruni lived in the twenty-first century, which are the areas of the world where he could have been easily understood, if he still knew the same languages? Fig. 5.2 An illustration from a thirteenth- century Arabic manuscript showing the Athenian statesman and poet Solon, who lived in the sixth century BCE, addressing his students Notice the clothes they are shown in. ✁ Are these clothes Greek or Arabian? 118 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II Source 2 2. Ibn Battuta’s Rihla The bird leaves its nest 2.1 An early globe-trotter Ibn Battuta’s book of travels, called Rihla, written in This is an excerpt from the Rihla: Arabic, provides extremely rich and interesting My departure from Tangier, details about the social and cultural life in the my birthplace, took place on subcontinent in the fourteenth century. This Thursday... I set out alone, Moroccan traveller was born in Tangier into one of having neither fellow- the most respectable and educated families known traveller... nor caravan for their expertise in Islamic religious law or shari‘a. whose party I might join, but True to the tradition of his family, Ibn Battuta swayed by an overmastering received literary and scholastic education when he impulse within me and a was quite young. desire long-cherished in my Unlike most other members of his class, Ibn bosom to visit these illustrious sanctuaries. So I Battuta considered experience gained through travels braced my resolution to quit to be a more important source of knowledge than all my dear ones, female and books. He just loved travelling, and went to far-off male, and forsook my home places, exploring new worlds and peoples. Before he as birds forsake their nests... set off for India in 1332-33, he had made pilgrimage My age at that time was trips to Mecca, and had already travelled extensively twenty-two years. in Syria, Iraq, Persia, Yemen, Oman and a few Ibn Battuta returned home in trading ports on the coast of East Africa. 1354, about 30 years after he Travelling overland through Central Asia, Ibn had set out. Battuta reached Sind in 1333. He had heard about Muhammad bin Tughlaq, the Sultan of Delhi, and lured by his reputation as a generous patron of arts and letters, set off for Delhi, passing through Fig. 5.3 Multan and Uch. The Sultan was impressed by Robbers attacking travellers, a his scholarship, and appointed him the qazi or judge sixteenth-century Mughal painting of Delhi. He remained in that position for several How can you distinguish the years, until he fell out of favour and was thrown travellers from the robbers? into prison. Once the misunderstanding between him and the Sultan was cleared, he was restored to imperial service, and was ordered in 1342 to proceed to China as the Sultan’s envoy to the Mongol ruler. With the new assignment, Ibn Battuta proceeded to the Malabar coast through central India. From Malabar he went to the Maldives, where he stayed for eighteen months as the qazi, but eventually decided to proceed to Sri Lanka. He then went back once more to the Malabar coast and the Maldives, and before resuming his mission to China, visited Bengal and Assam as well. He took a ship to Sumatra, and from there another ship for the Chinese port town of THROUGH THE EYES OF TRAVELLERS 119 Zaytun (now known as Quanzhou). He travelled Fig. 5.4 extensively in China, going as far as Beijing, but did A boat carrying passengers, not stay for long, deciding to return home in 1347. a terracotta sculpture from a temple in Bengal His account is often compared with that of Marco (c. seventeenth-eighteenth centuries) Polo, who visited China (and also India) from his home base in Venice in the late thirteenth century. Why do you think some of Ibn Battuta meticulously recorded his observations the passengers are carrying about new cultures, peoples, beliefs, values, etc. arms? We need to bear in mind that this globe-trotter was travelling in the fourteenth century, when it was much more arduous and hazardous to travel than it is today. According to Ibn Battuta, it took forty days to travel from Multan to Delhi and about fifty days from Sind to Delhi. The distance from Daulatabad to Delhi was covered in forty days, while that from Gwalior to Delhi took ten days. The lonely traveller Robbers were not the only hazard on long journeys: the traveller could feel homesick, or fall ill. Here is an excerpt from the Rihla: I was attacked by the fever, and I actually tied myself on the saddle with a turban- cloth in case I should fall off by reason of my weakness... So at last we reached the town of Tunis, and the townsfolk came out to welcome the shaikh... and... the son of the qazi... On all sides they came forward with greetings and questions to one another, but not a soul said a word of greeting to me, since there was none of them I knew. I felt so sad at heart on account of my loneliness that I could not restrain the tears that started to my eyes, and wept bitterly. But one of the pilgrims, realising the cause of my distress, came up to me with a greeting... 120 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II Map 1 Places visited by Tirmidh Ibn Battuta in Andkhoy Qunduz Afghanistan, Balkh Sind and Punjab Many of the Parwan place-names have been spelt as Kabul Ibn Battuta would have known them. Ghazna Qandahar lej Sut Ajudahan Abuhar Multan Sarasati Use the scale on the map to Uja Hansi Dehli calculate the distance in miles between Multan and Delhi. Ind us 0 100 200 300 ARABIAN SEA Lahari Sketch map not to scale Travelling was also more insecure: Ibn Battuta was attacked by bands of robbers several times. In fact he preferred travelling in a caravan along with companions, but this did not deter highway robbers. While travelling from Multan to Delhi, for instance, his caravan was attacked and many of his fellow travellers lost their lives; those travellers who survived, including Ibn Battuta, were severely wounded. 2.2 The “enjoyment of curiosities” As we have seen, Ibn Battuta was an inveterate traveller who spent several years travelling through north Africa, West Asia and parts of Central Asia (he may even have visited Russia), the Indian subcontinent and China, before returning to his native land, Morocco. When he returned, the local ruler issued instructions that his stories be recorded. THROUGH THE EYES OF TRAVELLERS 121 Source 3 Education and entertainment This is what Ibn Juzayy, who was deputed to write what Ibn Battuta dictated, said in his introduction: A gracious direction was transmitted (by the ruler) that he (Ibn Battuta) should dictate an account of the cities which he had seen in his travel, and of the interesting events which had clung to his memory, and that he should speak of those whom he had met of the rulers of countries, of their distinguished men of learning, and their pious saints. Accordingly, he dictated upon these subjects a narrative which gave entertainment to the mind and delight to the ears and eyes, with a variety of curious particulars by the exposition of which he gave edification and of marvellous things, by referring to which he aroused interest. In the footsteps of Ibn Battuta In the centuries between 1400 and 1800 visitors to India wrote a number of travelogues in Persian. At the same time, Indian visitors to Central Asia, Iran and the Ottoman empire also sometimes wrote about their experiences. These writers followed in the footsteps of Al-Biruni and Ibn Battuta, and had sometimes read these earlier authors. Among the best known of these writers were Abdur Razzaq Samarqandi, who visited south India in the 1440s, Mahmud Wali Balkhi, who travelled very widely in the 1620s, and Shaikh Ali Hazin, who came to north India in the 1740s. Some of these authors were fascinated by India, and one of them – Mahmud Balkhi – even became a sort of sanyasi for a time. Others such as Hazin were disappointed and even disgusted with India, where they expected to receive a red carpet treatment. Most of them saw India as a land of wonders. Fig. 5.5 An eighteenth-century painting depicting travellers gathered around a campfire Discuss... Compare the objectives of Al-Biruni and Ibn Battuta in writing their accounts. 122 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II 3. François Bernier A Doctor with a Difference Once the Portuguese arrived in India in about 1500, a number of them wrote detailed accounts regarding Indian social customs and religious practices. A few of them, such as the Jesuit Roberto Nobili, even translated Indian texts into European languages. Among the best known of the Portuguese writers is Duarte Barbosa, who wrote a detailed account of trade and society in south India. Later, after 1600, we find growing numbers of Dutch, English and French travellers coming to India. One of the most famous was the French jeweller Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, who travelled to India at least six times. He was particularly fascinated with the trading conditions in India, and compared India to Iran and the Ottoman empire. Some of these travellers, like the Italian doctor Manucci, never returned to Europe, and settled down in India. François Bernier, a Frenchman, was a doctor, political philosopher and historian. Like many Fig. 5.6 others, he came to the Mughal Empire in search of A seventeenth-century painting opportunities. He was in India for twelve years, from depicting Bernier in European 1656 to 1668, and was closely associated with the clothes Mughal court, as a physician to Prince Dara Shukoh, the eldest son of Emperor Shah Jahan, and later as an intellectual and scientist, with Danishmand Khan, an Armenian noble at the Mughal court. 3.1 Comparing “East” and “West” Bernier travelled to several parts of the country, and wrote accounts of what he saw, frequently comparing what he saw in India with the situation in Europe. He dedicated his major writing to Louis XIV, the king of France, and many of his other works were written in the form of letters to influential officials and ministers. In virtually every instance Bernier described what he saw in India as a bleak situation in comparison to developments in Europe. As we will see, this assessment was not always accurate. However, when his works were published, Bernier’s writings became extremely popular. Fig. 5.7 A painting depicting Tavernier in Indian clothes THROUGH THE EYES OF TRAVELLERS 123 Source 4 Travelling with the Mughal army Bernier often travelled with the army. This is an excerpt from his description of the army’s march to Kashmir: I am expected to keep two good Turkoman horses, and I also take with me a powerful Persian camel and driver, a groom for my horses, a cook and a servant to go before my horse with a flask of water in his hand, The creation and according to the custom of the country. I am also provided with every useful article, such as a tent of circulation of ideas moderate size, a carpet, a portable bed made of four about India very strong but light canes, a pillow, a mattress, round The writings of European leather table-cloths used at meals, some few napkins of travellers helped produce an dyed cloth, three small bags with culinary utensils which image of India for Europeans are all placed in a large bag, and this bag is again carried through the printing and in a very capacious and strong double sack or net made circulation of their books. of leather thongs. This double sack likewise contains Later, after 1750, when Indians the provisions, linen and wearing apparel, both of master and servants. I have taken care to lay in a stock like Shaikh Itisamuddin and of excellent rice for five or six days’ consumption, of Mirza Abu Talib visited Europe sweet biscuits flavoured with anise (a herb), of limes and confront e d t his image and sugar. Nor have I forgotten a linen bag with its that Europeans had of their small iron hook for the purpose of suspending and society, they tried to influence draining dahi or curds; nothing being considered so it by producing their own refreshing in this country as lemonade and dahi. version of matters. ✁ What are the things from Bernier’s list that you would take on a journey today? Bernier’s works were published in France in 1670-71 and translated into English, Dutch, German and Italian within the next five years. Between 1670 and 1725 his account was reprinted eight times in French, and by 1684 it had been reprinted three Discuss... times in English. This was in marked contrast to There is a very rich travel the accounts in Arabic and Persian, which circulated literature in Indian as manuscripts and were generally not published languages. Find out about before 1800. travel writers in the language you use at home. Read one such account and describe the areas visited by the traveller, what s/he saw, and why s/he wrote the account. 124 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II 4. Making Sense of an Alien World A language with an Al- Biruni and the Sanskritic enormous range Tradition Al-Biruni described Sanskrit as follows: 4.1 Overcoming barriers to understanding As we have seen, travellers often compared what If you want to conquer this they saw in the subcontinent with practices difficulty (i.e. to learn with which they were familiar. Each traveller Sanskrit), you will not find adopted distinct strategies to understand what they it easy, because the language is of an enormous observed. Al-Biruni, for instance, was aware of the range, both in words and problems inherent in the task he had set himself. inflections, something like He discussed several “barriers” that he felt the Arabic, calling one and obstructed understanding. The first amongst these the same thing by various was language. According to him, Sanskrit was so names, both original and different from Arabic and Persian that ideas and derivative, and using one concepts could not be easily translated from one and the same word for a language into another. variety of subjects, which, The second barrier he identified was the difference in order to be properly in religious beliefs and practices. The self-absorption understood, must be and consequent insularity of the local population distinguished from each according to him, constituted the third barrier. other by various qualifying What is interesting is that even though he was aware epithets. of these problems, Al-Biruni depended almost exclusively on the works of Brahmanas, often citing passages from the Vedas, the Puranas, the Bhagavad Gita, the works of Patanjali, the Manusmriti, etc., to provide an understanding of Indian society. 4.2 Al-Biruni’s description of the caste system Al-Biruni tried to explain the caste system by looking for parallels in other societies. He noted that in ancient Persia, four social categories were recognised: those of knights and princes; monks, fire-priests and lawyers; physicians, astronomers God knows best! and other scientists; and finally, peasants and Travellers did not always believe artisans. In other words, he attempted to suggest what they were told. When that social divisions were not unique to India. At faced with the story of a wooden the same time he pointed out that within Islam all idol that supposedly lasted for men were considered equal, differing only in their 216,432 years, Al-Biruni asks: observance of piety. How, then, could wood In spite of his acceptance of the Brahmanical have lasted such a length of description of the caste system, Al-Biruni disapproved time, and particularly in a of the notion of pollution. He remarked that place where the air and the everything which falls into a state of impurity strives soil are rather wet? God and succeeds in regaining its original condition of knows best! purity. The sun cleanses the air, and the salt in the sea prevents the water from becoming polluted. If it THROUGH THE EYES OF TRAVELLERS 125 were not so, insisted Al-Biruni, life on earth would have been impossible. The conception of social pollution, intrinsic to the caste system, was according to him, contrary to the laws of nature. Source 5 The system of varnas This is Al-Biruni’s account of the system of varnas: The highest caste are the Brahmana, of whom the books of the Hindus tell us that they were created from the head of Brahman. And as the Brahman is only another name for the force called nature, and the head is the highest part of the … body, the Brahmana are the choice part of the whole genus. Therefore the Hindus consider them as the very best of mankind. The next caste are the Kshatriya, who were created, ✁ Compare what Al-Biruni as they say, from the shoulders and hands of Brahman. wrote with Source 6, Chapter 3. Their degree is not much below that of the Brahmana. Do you notice any similarities and differences? Do you think After them follow the Vaishya, who were created from Al-Biruni depended only on the thigh of Brahman. Sanskrit texts for his The Shudra, who were created from his feet... information and understanding Between the latter two classes there is no very of Indian society? great distance. Much, however, as these classes differ from each other, they live together in the same towns and villages, mixed together in the same houses and lodgings. As we have seen, Al-Biruni’s description of the caste system was deeply influenced by his study of normative Sanskrit texts which laid down the rules governing the system from the point of view of the Brahmanas. However, in real life the system was not quite as rigid. For instance, the categories defined as antyaja (literally, born outside the system) were often expected to provide inexpensive labour to both peasants and zamindars (see also Chapter 8). In other words, while they were often subjected to social oppression, they were included within Discuss... economic networks. How important is knowledge of the language of the area for a traveller from a different region? 126 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II 5. Ibn Battuta and the Excitement of the Unfamiliar By the time Ibn Battuta arrived in Delhi in the fourteenth century, the subcontinent was part of a global network of communication that stretched from China in the east to north-west Africa and Europe in the west. As we have seen, Ibn Battuta himself travelled extensively through these lands, visiting Source 6 sacred shrines, spending time with learned men and Nuts like a man’s head rulers, often officiating as qazi, and enjoying the cosmopolitan culture of urban centres where people The following is how Ibn Battuta who spoke Arabic, Persian, Turkish and other described the coconut: languages, shared ideas, information and anecdotes. These included stories about men noted for their These trees are among the piety, kings who could be both cruel and generous, most peculiar trees in kind and about the lives of ordinary men and women; and most astonishing in habit. They look exactly anything that was unfamiliar was particularly like date-palms, without highlighted in order to ensure that the listener or any difference between the reader was suitably impressed by accounts of them except that the one distant yet accessible worlds. produces nuts as its fruits 5.1 The coconut and the paan and the other produces dates. The nut of a coconut Some of the best examples of Ibn Battuta’s strategies tree resembles a man’s of representation are evident in the ways in which head, for in it are what look he described the coconut and the paan, two kinds of like two eyes and a mouth, plant produce that were completely unfamiliar to and the inside of it when it is his audience. green looks like the brain, and attached to it is a fibre which looks like hair. They Source 7 make from this cords with which they sew up ships The paan instead of (using) iron nails, and they (also) make from it Read Ibn Battuta’s description of the paan: cables for vessels. The betel is a tree which is cultivated in the same manner as the grape-vine; … The betel has no fruit What are the and is grown only for the sake of its leaves … The comparisons that Ibn manner of its use is that before eating it one takes Battuta makes to give his areca nut; this is like a nutmeg but is broken up until it readers an idea about is reduced to small pellets, and one places these in his what coconuts looked mouth and chews them. Then he takes the leaves of like? Do you think these betel, puts a little chalk on them, and masticates them are appropriate? How along with the betel. does he convey a sense that this fruit is unusual? Why do you think this attracted Ibn How accurate is his Battuta’s attention? Is there anything you description? would like to add to this description? THROUGH THE EYES OF TRAVELLERS 127 5.2 Ibn Battuta and Indian cities Ibn Battuta found cities in the subcontinent full of exciting opportunities for those who had the necessary drive, resources and skills. They were densely populated and prosperous, except for the occasional disruptions caused by wars and invasions. It appears from Ibn Battuta’s account that most cities had crowded streets and bright and colourful markets that were stacked with a wide What were the architectural variety of goods. Ibn Battuta described Delhi as a features that Ibn Battuta vast city, with a great population, the largest in India. noted? Daulatabad (in Maharashtra) was no less, and easily Compare this description with rivalled Delhi in size. the illustrations of the city shown in Figs. 5.8 and 5.9. Source 8 Dehli Here is an excerpt from Ibn Battuta’s account of Delhi, often spelt as Dehli in texts of the period: The city of Dehli covers a wide area and has a large population... The rampart round the city is without parallel. The breadth of its wall is eleven cubits; and inside it are houses for the night sentry and gate- keepers. Inside the ramparts, there are store-houses for storing edibles, magazines, ammunition, ballistas and siege machines. The grains that are stored (in these ramparts) can last for a long time, without rotting... In the interior of the rampart, horsemen as well as infantrymen move from one end of the city to another. The rampart is pierced through by windows which open on the side of the city, and it is through these windows that light enters inside. The lower part of the rampart is built of stone; the upper part of bricks. It has many towers close to one another. There are twenty eight gates of this city which are called darwaza, and of these, the Budaun darwaza is the greatest; inside the Mandwi darwaza there is a grain market; adjacent to the Gul darwaza there is an orchard... It (the city of Dehli) has a fine cemetery in which graves have domes over them, and those that do not have a dome, have an arch, for sure. In the cemetery they sow flowers such as tuberose, jasmine, wild rose, etc.; and flowers blossom there in all seasons. Fig. 5.8 (top) An arch in Tughlakabad, Delhi Fig. 5.9 (left) Part of the fortification wall of the settlement 128 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II The bazaars were not only places of economic transactions, but also the hub of social and cultural activities. Most bazaars had a mosque and a temple, and in some of them at least, spaces were marked for public performances by dancers, musicians and singers. While Ibn Battuta was not particularly concerned with explaining the prosperity of towns, historians have used his account to suggest that towns derived a significant portion of their wealth through the appropriation of surplus from villages. Ibn Battuta found Indian agriculture very productive because of the fertility of the soil, which allowed farmers to cultivate two crops a year. He also noted that the subcontinent was well integrated with inter-Asian networks of trade and commerce, with Indian manufactures being in great demand in both West Asia and Southeast Asia, fetching huge profits for artisans and merchants. Indian textiles, particularly cotton cloth, fine muslins, silks, brocade and satin, were in great demand. Ibn Battuta informs us that certain varieties of fine muslin were so expensive that they could be worn only by the nobles and the very rich. Source 9 Music in the market Read Ibn Battuta’s description of Daulatabad: In Daulatabad there is a market place for male and female singers, which is known as Tarababad. It is one of the greatest and most beautiful bazaars. It has numerous shops and every shop has a door which leads into the house of the owner... The shops are decorated with carpets and at the centre of a shop Fig. 5.10 there is a swing on which sits the female singer. She is Ikat weaving patterns such as this decked with all kinds of finery and her female attendants were adopted and modified at swing her. In the middle of the market place there stands several coastal production centres a large cupola, which is carpeted and decorated and in the subcontinent and in in which the chief of the musicians takes his place every Southeast Asia. Thursday after the dawn prayers, accompanied by his servants and slaves. The female singers come in successive crowds, sing before him and dance until dusk after which he withdraws. In this bazaar there are mosques for offering prayers... One of the Hindu rulers... alighted at the cupola every time he passed by this Why do you think Ibn market place, and the female singers would sing before Battuta highlighted these him. Even some Muslim rulers did the same. activities in his description? THROUGH THE EYES OF TRAVELLERS 129 5.3 A unique system of communication The state evidently took special measures to encourage merchants. Almost all trade routes were A strange nation? well supplied with inns and guest houses. Ibn The travelogue of Abdur Razzaq Battuta was also amazed by the efficiency of the written in the 1440s is an postal system which allowed merchants to not only interesting mixture of emotions send information and remit credit across long and perceptions. On the one distances, but also to dispatch goods required at hand, he did not appreciate short notice. The postal system was so efficient that what he saw in the port of while it took fifty days to reach Delhi from Sind, Calicut (present-day Kozhikode) in Kerala, which was populated the news reports of spies would reach the Sultan by “a people the likes of whom I through the postal system in just five days. had never imagined”, describing them as “a strange nation”. Source 10 Later in his visit to India, he arrived in Mangalore, and On horse and on foot crossed the Western Ghats. Here he saw a temple that filled him with admiration: This is how Ibn Battuta describes the postal system: Within three leagues (about In India the postal system is of two kinds. The horse- nine miles of Mangalore, I post, called uluq, is run by royal horses stationed at a saw an idol-house the likes distance of every four miles. The foot-post has three of which is not to be found stations per mile; it is called dawa, that is one-third of a in all the world. It was a mile... Now, at every third of a mile there is a well- square, approximately ten populated village, outside which are three pavilions in yards a side, five yards in which sit men with girded loins ready to start. Each of height, all covered with cast them carries a rod, two cubits in length, with copper bronze, with four porticos. bells at the top. When the courier starts from the city In the entrance portico was he holds the letter in one hand and the rod with its a statue in the likeness of a bells on the other; and he runs as fast as he can. When human being, full stature, the men in the pavilion hear the ringing of the bell they made of gold. It had two get ready. As soon as the courier reaches them, one of red rubies for eyes, so them takes the letter from his hand and runs at top cunningly made that you speed shaking the rod all the while until he reaches the next dawa. And the same process continues till the would say it could see. letter reaches its destination. This foot-post is quicker What craft and artisanship! than the horse-post; and often it is used to transport the fruits of Khurasan which are much desired in India. ✁ Do you think the foot-post system could have operated throughout the subcontinent? Discuss... How did Ibn Battuta handle the problem of describing things or situations to people who had not seen or experienced them? 130 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II 6. Bernier and the “Degenerate” East If Ibn Battuta chose to describe everything that impressed and excited him because of its novelty, François Bernier belonged to a different intellectual tradition. He was far more preoccupied with comparing and contrasting what he saw in India with the situation in Europe in general and France in particular, focusing on situations which he considered depressing. His idea seems to have been to influence policy-makers and the intelligentsia to ensure that they made what he considered to be the “right” decisions. Bernier’s Travels in the Mughal Empire is marked by detailed observations, critical insights and reflection. His account contains discussions trying to place the history of the Mughals within some sort of a universal framework. He constantly compared Mughal India with contemporary Europe, generally emphasising the superiority of the latter. His representation of India works on the model of binary opposition, where India is presented as the inverse of Europe. He also ordered the perceived differences hierarchically, so that India appeared to be inferior to the Western world. 6.1 The question of landownership According to Bernier, one of the fundamental differences between Mughal India and Europe was Widespread poverty the lack of private property in land in the former. He was a firm believer in the virtues of private Pelsaert, a Dutch traveller, visited property, and saw crown ownership of land as the subcontinent during the early decades of the seventeenth being harmful for both the state and its people. He century. Like Bernier, he was thought that in the Mughal Empire the emperor shocked to see the widespread owned all the land and distributed it among his poverty, “poverty so great and nobles, and that this had disastrous consequences miserable that the life of the for the economy and society. This perception was people can be depicted or not unique to Bernier, but is found in most accurately described only as the travellers’ accounts of the sixteenth and home of stark want and the seventeenth centuries. dwelling place of bitter woe”. Owing to crown ownership of land, argued Bernier, Holding the state responsible, landholders could not pass on their land to their he says: “So much is wrung children. So they were averse to any long-term from the peasants that even dry investment in the sustenance and expansion of bread is scarcely left to fill production. The absence of private property in land their stomachs.” had, therefore, prevented the emergence of the class of “improving” landlords (as in Western Europe) with THROUGH THE EYES OF TRAVELLERS 131 a concern to maintain or improve the land. It had led to the uniform ruination of agriculture, excessive oppression of the peasantry and a continuous decline in the living standards of all sections of society, except the ruling aristocracy. Source 11 The poor peasant An excerpt from Bernier’s description of the peasantry in the countryside: Of the vast tracts of country constituting the empire of Hindustan, many are little more than sand, or barren mountains, badly cultivated, and thinly populated. Even a considerable portion of the good land remains untilled for want of labourers; many of whom perish in consequence of the bad treatment they experience from Governors. The poor people, when they become incapable of discharging the demands of their rapacious lords, are not only often deprived of the means of subsistence, but are also made to lose their children, who are carried away as slaves. Thus, it happens that the peasantry, driven to despair by so excessive a tyranny, abandon the country. In this instance, Bernier was participating in contemporary debates in Europe concerning the nature of state and society, and intended that his description of Mughal India would serve as a warning to those who did not recognise the “merits” of private property. Fig. 5.11 Drawings such as this nineteenth-century example What, according to Bernier, were the often reinforced the notion of problems faced by peasants in the an unchanging rural society. subcontinent? Do you think his description would have served to strengthen his case? As an extension of this, Bernier described Indian society as consisting of undifferentiated masses of impoverished people, subjugated by a small minority of a very rich and powerful ruling class. Between the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich, there was no social group or class worth the name. Bernier confidently asserted: “There is no middle state in India.” 132 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II Source 12 This, then, is how Bernier saw the Mughal Empire – its king was the king of “beggars and barbarians”; A warning for Europe its cities and towns were ruined and contaminated with “ill air”; and its fields, “overspread with bushes” and full of “pestilential marishes”. And, all this was Be r ni e r w a r ne d t ha t i f European kings followed the because of one reason: crown ownership of land. Mughal model: Curiously, none of the Mughal official documents suggest that the state was the sole owner of land. Their kingdoms would be For instance, Abu’l Fazl, the sixteenth-century very far from being well- cultivated and peopled, official chronicler of Akbar’s reign, describes the land so well built, so rich, so revenue as “remunerations of sovereignty”, a claim polite and flourishing as made by the ruler on his subjects for the protection we see them. Our kings he provided rather than as rent on land that he are otherwise rich and owned. It is possible that European travellers powerful; and we must regarded such claims as rent because land revenue avow that they are much demands were often very high. However, this was better and more royally actually not a rent or even a land tax, but a tax on served. They would soon be the crop (for more details, see Chapter 8). kings of deserts and Bernier’s descriptions influenced Western solitudes, of beggars and barbarians, such as those theorists from the eighteenth century onwards. The are whom I have been French philosopher Montesquieu, for instance, used representing (the Mughals) this account to develop the idea of oriental despotism, … We should find the according to which rulers in Asia (the Orient or the great Cities and the great East) enjoyed absolute authority over their subjects, Burroughs (boroughs) who were kept in conditions of subjugation and rendered uninhabitable poverty, arguing that all land belonged to the king because of ill air, and to and that private property was non-existent. fall to ruine (ruin) without According to this view, everybody, except the emperor any bodies (anybody) taking and his nobles, barely managed to survive. care of repairing them; the hillocks abandon’d, This idea was further developed as the concept of and the fields overspread the Asiatic mode of production by Karl Marx in the with bushes, or fill’d nineteenth century. He argued that in India (and with pestilential marishes other Asian countries), before colonialism, surplus (marshes), as hath been was appropriated by the state. This led to the already intimated. emergence of a society that was composed of a large number of autonomous and (internally) egalitarian village communities. The imperial court presided How does Bernier depict over these village communities, respecting their a scenario of doom? Once you have read autonomy as long as the flow of surplus was Chapters 8 and 9, return unimpeded. This was regarded as a stagnant system. to this description and However, as we will see (Chapter 8), this picture analyse it again. of rural society was far from true. In fact, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, rural society was characterised by considerable social and economic differentiation. At one end of the spectrum were the big zamindars, who enjoyed superior rights in land and, at the other, the “untouchable” landless THROUGH THE EYES OF TRAVELLERS 133 labourers. In between was the big peasant, who used hired labour and engaged in commodity production, and the smaller peasant who could barely produce for his subsistence. 6.2 A more complex social reality While Bernier’s preoccupation with projecting the Mughal state as tyrannical is obvious, his descriptions occasionally hint at a more complex social reality. For instance, he felt that artisans had no incentive to improve the quality of their manufactures, since profits were appropriated by the state. Manufactures were, consequently, everywhere in decline. At the same time, he conceded that vast quantities of the world’s precious metals flowed into India, as manufactures were exported in exchange for gold and silver. He also noticed the existence of a prosperous merchant community, engaged in long-distance exchange. Source 13 A different socio-economic scenario Read this excerpt from Bernier’s description of both agriculture and craft production: It is important to observe, that of this vast tract of country, a large portion is extremely fertile; the large kingdom of Bengale (Bengal), for instance, surpassing Egypt itself, not only in the production of rice, corn, and other necessaries of life, but of innumerable articles of commerce which are not cultivated in Egypt; such as silks, cotton, and indigo. There are also many parts of the Indies, where the population is sufficiently abundant, and the land pretty well tilled; and where the artisan, although naturally indolent, is yet compelled by necessity or otherwise to employ himself in manufacturing carpets, brocades, embroideries, gold and silver cloths, and the various sorts of silk and cotton goods, which are used in the country or exported abroad. Fig. 5.12 It should not escape notice that gold and silver, after A gold spoon studded with circulating in every other quarter of the globe, come at emeralds and rubies, an example of the dexterity of length to be swallowed up, lost in some measure, in Mughal artisans Hindustan. In what ways is the description in this excerpt different from that in Source 11? 134 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II Source 14 In fact, during the seventeenth century about 15 per cent of the population lived in towns. This The imperial karkhanas was, on average, higher than the proportion of urban population in Western Europe in the same period. Bernier is perhaps the only In spite of this Bernier described Mughal cities as historian who provides a detailed “camp towns”, by which he meant towns that owed account of the working of their existence, and depended for their survival, the imperial karkhanas or on the imperial camp. He believed that these came workshops: into existence when the imperial court moved in Large halls are seen and rapidly declined when it moved out. He at many places, called suggested that they did not have viable social and karkhanas or workshops economic foundations but were dependent on for the artisans. In one hall, imperial patronage. embroiderers are busily As in the case of the question of landownership, employed, superintended Bernier was drawing an oversimplified picture. by a master. In another, There were all kinds of towns: manufacturing you see the goldsmiths; in a towns, trading towns, port-towns, sacred centres, third, painters; in a fourth, varnishers in lacquer-work; pilgrimage towns, etc. Their existence is an index in a fifth, joiners, turners, of the prosperity of merchant communities and tailors and shoe-makers; in professional classes. a sixth, manufacturers of silk, Merchants often had strong community or kin ties, brocade and fine muslins … and were organised into their own caste-cum- The artisans come every occupational bodies. In western India these groups morning to their karkhanas were called mahajans, and their chief, the sheth. In where they remain urban centres such as Ahmedabad the mahajans employed the whole day; were collectively represented by the chief of the and in the evening return to merchant community who was called the nagarsheth. their homes. In this quiet Other urban groups included professional regular manner, their time classes such as physicians (hakim or vaid), teachers glides away; no one aspiring (pundit or mulla ), lawyers (w akil ), painters, for any improvement in the condition of life wherein he architects, musicians, calligraphers, etc. While happens to be born. some depended on imperial patronage, many made their living by serving other patrons, while still others served ordinary people in crowded markets How does Bernier or bazaars. convey a sense that although there was a great deal of activity, there was little progress? ✁ Discuss... Why do you think scholars like Bernier chose to compare India with Europe? THROUGH THE EYES OF TRAVELLERS 135 7. Women Source 15 Slaves, Sati and Labourers Slave women Travellers who left written accounts were generally men who were interested in and Ibn Battuta informs us: sometimes intrigued by the condition of women in the subcontinent. Sometimes they It is the habit of the emperor... to took social inequities for granted as a keep with every noble, great or small, one of his slaves who spies “natural” state of affairs. For instance, on the nobles. He also appoints slaves were openly sold in markets, like any female scavengers who enter the other commodity, and were regularly houses unannounced; and to them exchanged as gifts. When Ibn Battuta the slave girls communicate all the reached Sind he purchased “horses, camels information they possess. and slaves” as gifts for Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq. When he reached Multan, he Most female slaves were captured in presented the governor with, “a slave and raids and expeditions. horse together with raisins and almonds”. Muhammad bin Tughlaq, informs Ibn Battuta, was so happy with the sermon of a preacher named Nasiruddin that he gave him Source 16 “a hundred thousand tankas (coins) and two hundred slaves”. The child sati It appears from Ibn Battuta’s account that there was considerable differentiation among This is perhaps one of the most slaves. Some female slaves in the service of poignant descriptions by Bernier: the Sultan were experts in music and dance, and Ibn Battuta enjoyed their performance At Lahore I saw a most beautiful at the wedding of the Sultan’s sister. Female y oung w i d ow s a c r i f i c e d , w ho could not, I think, have been more slaves were also employed by the Sultan to than twelve years of age. The poor keep a watch on his nobles. little creature appeared more dead Slaves were generally used for domestic than alive when she approached labour, and Ibn Battuta found their services the dreadful pit: the agony of her particularly indispensable for carrying mind cannot be described; she women and men on palanquins or dola. The trembled and wept bitterly; but price of slaves, particularly female slaves three or four of the Brahmanas, required for domestic labour, was very low, assisted by an old woman who held and most families who could afford to do so her under the arm, forced the kept at least one or two of them. unwilling victim toward the fatal spot, seated her on the wood, tied Contemporary European travellers and her hands and feet, lest she should writers often highlighted the treatment of run away, and in that situation the women as a crucial marker of difference innocent creature was burnt alive. between Western and Eastern societies. Not I found it difficult to repress my surprisingly, Bernier chose the practice of feelings and to prevent their sati for detailed description. He noted that bursting forth into clamorous and while some women seemed to embrace death unavailing rage … cheerfully, others were forced to die. 136 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II However, women’s lives revolved around much else Discuss... besides the practice of sati. Their labour was crucial Why do you think the lives of in both agricultural and non-agricultural production. ordinary women workers did Women from merchant families participated in not attract the attention of commercial activities, sometimes even taking travellers such as Ibn Battuta mercantile disputes to the court of law. It therefore and Bernier? seems unlikely that women were confined to the private spaces of their homes. You may have noticed that travellers’ accounts provide us with a tantalising glimpse of the lives of men and women during these centuries. However, their observations were often shaped by the contexts from which they came. At the same time, there were many aspects of social life that these travellers did not notice. Also relatively unknown are the experiences and observations of men (and possibly women) from the subcontinent who crossed seas and mountains and ventured into lands beyond the subcontinent. What did they see and hear? How were their relations with peoples of distant lands shaped? What were the languages they used? These and other questions will hopefully be systematically addressed by historians in the years to come. Fig. 5.13 A sculpted panel from Mathura depicting travellers ✁ What are the various modes of transport that are shown? THROUGH THE EYES OF TRAVELLERS 137 Timeline Some Travellers who Left Accounts Tenth- eleventh centuries 973 -1048 Muhammad ibn Ahmad Abu Raihan al-Biruni (from Uzbekistan) Thirteenth century 1254-1323 Marco Polo (from Italy) Fourteenth century 1304-77 Ibn Battuta (from Morocco) Fifteenth century 1413-82 Abd al-Razzaq Kamal al-Din ibn Ishaq al-Samarqandi (from Samarqand) 1466-72 Afanasii Nikitich Nikitin (years spent in India) (fifteenth century, from Russia) Sixteenth century 1518 Duarte Barbosa, d.1521 (from Portugal) (visit to India) 1562 Seydi Ali Reis (from Turkey) (year of death) 1536-1600 Antonio Monserrate (from Spain) Seventeenth century 1626-31 Mahmud Wali Balkhi (from Balkh) (years spent in India) 1600-67 Peter Mundy (from England) 1605-89 Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (from France) 1620-88 François Bernier (from France) Note: Unless otherwise indicated, the dates mentioned are those of the lifespan of the traveller. 138 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II Answer in100 -150 words 1. Write a note on the Kitab-ul-Hind. 2. Compare and contrast the perspectives from which Ibn Battuta and Bernier wrote their accounts of their travels in India. 3. Discuss the picture of urban centres that emerges from Bernier’s account. 4. Analyse the evidence for slavery provided by Ibn Battuta. 5. What were the elements of the practice of sati that drew the attention of Bernier? Write a short essay (about 250 -300 words) on the following: 6. Discuss Al-Biruni’s understanding of the caste system. 7. Do you think Ibn Battuta’s account is useful in arriving at an understanding of life in contemporary urban centres? Give reasons for your answer. 8. Discuss the extent to which Bernier’s account enables historians to reconstruct contemporary rural society. 9. Read this excerpt from Bernier: Numerous are the instances of handsome pieces of workmanship made by persons destitute of tools, and who can scarcely be said to have received instruction from a master. Sometimes they imitate so perfectly articles of European manufacture that the difference between the original and copy can hardly be discerned. Among other things, the Indians make excellent muskets, and fowling- pieces, and such beautiful gold ornaments that it may be doubted if the exquisite workmanship of those articles can be exceeded by any European goldsmith. I have often admired the beauty, softness, and delicacy of their paintings. List the crafts mentioned in the passage. Compare these with the descriptions of artisanal activity in the chapter. THROUGH THE EYES OF TRAVELLERS 139 Map work If you would like to know 10. On an outline map of the world mark the countries more, read: visited by Ibn Battuta. What are the seas that he may have crossed? Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam. 2006. Indo-Persian Travels in the Age of Discoveries, 1400-1800. Projects (choose one) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 11. Interview any one of your older relatives (mother/ Catherine Asher and Cynthia father/grandparents/uncles/aunts) who has Talbot. 2006. travelled outside your town or village. Find out India Before Europe. Cambridge University Press, (a) where they went, (b) how they travelled, Cambridge. (c) how long did it take, (d) why did they travel (e) and did they face any difficulties. List as many François Bernier. nd. similarities and differences that they may have Travels in the Mogul Empire noticed between their place of residence and the AD 1656-1668. place they visited, focusing on language, clothes, Low Price Publications, food, customs, buildings, roads, the lives of men New Delhi. and women. Write a report on your findings. H.A.R. Gibb (ed.). 1993. 12. For any one of the travellers mentioned in The Travels of Ibn Battuta. the chapter, find out more about his life and Munshiram Manoharlal, Delhi. writings. Prepare a report on his travels, noting in particular how he described society, and Mushirul Hasan (ed.). 2005. comparing these descriptions with the excerpts Westward Bound: included in the chapter. Travels of Mirza Abu Talib. Oxford University Press, New Delhi. Fig. 5.14 H.K. Kaul (ed.). 1997. A painting depicting travellers at rest Travellers’ India – an Anthology. Oxford University Press, New Delhi. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier. 1993. Travels in India. Munshiram Manoharlal, Delhi. For more information, you could visit: www.edumaritime.org  Bhakti - Sufi Traditions THEME C a g Changes es in ges i Religious R el i u Beliefs Rel i fs and a SIX De vo tional Dev t na l T nal Te s e xts ( c. eighth ei t to o eighteenth t h century) e t r ) We saw in Chapter 4 that by the mid-first millennium CE the landscape of the subcontinent was dotted with a variety of religious structures – stupas, monasteries, temples. If these typified certain religious beliefs and practices, others have been reconstructed from textual traditions, including the Puranas, many of which received their present shape around the same time, and yet others remain only faintly visible in textual and visual records. New textual sources available from this period include compositions attributed to poet-saints, most of whom expressed themselves orally in regional languages used by ordinary people. These compositions, which were often set to music, were compiled by disciples or devotees, generally after the death of the poet-saint. What is more, these traditions were fluid – generations of devotees tended to elaborate on the original message, and occasionally modified or even abandoned some of the ideas that appeared problematic or irrelevant in different political, social or cultural contexts. Using these sources thus poses a challenge to historians. Historians also draw on hagiographies or biographies of saints written by their followers (or members of their religious sect). These may not be literally accurate, but allow a glimpse into the ways in which devotees perceived the lives of these path- breaking women and men. As we will see, these sources provide us with insights into a scenario characterised by dynamism and diversity. Let us look at some elements of these more closely. Fig. 6.1 A twelfth-century bronze sculpture of Manikkavachakar, a devotee of Shiva who composed beautiful devotional songs in Tamil BHAKTI -SUFI TRADITIONS 141 1. A Mosaic of Religious Beliefs and Practices “Great” and “little” Perhaps the most striking feature of this phase is traditions the increasing visibility of a wide range of gods and The terms great and little goddesses in sculpture as well as in texts. At one traditions were coined by a level, this indicates the continued and even extended s o c i o l o g i s t n a me d Ro be r t worship of the major deities – Vishnu, Shiva and Re d f i e l d i n t h e t w e n t i e t h the goddess – each of whom was visualised in a century to describe the cultural variety of forms. practices of peasant societies. He found that peasants 1.1 The integration of cults observed rituals and customs Historians who have tried to understand these that emanated from dominant developments suggest that there were at least two social categories, including processes at work. One was a process of disseminating priests and rulers. These he Brahmanical ideas. This is exemplified by the classified as part of a great composition, compilation and preservation of Puranic tradition. At the same time, texts in simple Sanskrit verse, explicitly meant to peasants also followed local be accessible to women and Shudras, who were practices that did not generally excluded from Vedic learning. At the same necessarily correspond with time, there was a second process at work – that of those of the great tradition. the Brahmanas accepting and reworking the beliefs These he included within the and practices of these and other social categories. In category of little tradition. He fact, many beliefs and practices were shaped through also noticed that both great a continuous dialogue between what sociologists have and little traditions changed described as “great” Sanskritic Puranic traditions over time, through a process of and “little” traditions throughout the land. interaction. One of the most striking examples of this process While scholars accept the significance of these categories is evident at Puri, Orissa, where the principal deity and proce sse s, t he y are was identified, by the twelfth century, as Jagannatha often uncomfortable with the (literally, the lord of the world), a form of Vishnu. hierarchy suggested by the terms great and little. The use of quotation marks for “great” and “lit t le ” is one w ay of indicating this. Fig. 6.2 Jagannatha (extreme right) with his sister Subhadra (centre) and his brother Balarama (left) 142 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II If you compare Fig. 6.2 with Fig. 4.26 (Chapter 4) you will notice that the deity is represented in a very different way. In this instance, a local deity, whose image was and continues to be made of wood by local tribal specialists, was recognised as a form of Vishnu. At the same time, Vishnu was visualised in a way that was very different from that in other parts of the country. Such instances of integration are evident amongst goddess cults as well. Worship of the goddess, often simply in the form of a stone smeared with ochre, was evidently widespread. These local deities were often incorporated within the Puranic framework by providing them with an identity as a wife of the principal male deities – sometimes they were equated with Lakshmi, the wife of Vishnu, in other instances, with Parvati, the wife of Shiva. Fig. 6.3 Sculpture of a Buddhist goddess, 1.2 Difference and conflict Marichi (c. tenth century, Bihar), Often associated with the goddess were forms an example of the process of of worship that were classified as Tantric. Tantric integration of different religious practices were widespread in several parts of the beliefs and practices subcontinent – they were open to women and men, and practitioners often ignored differences of caste and class within the ritual context. Many of these ideas influenced Shaivism as well as Buddhism, especially in the eastern, northern and southern parts of the subcontinent. All of these somewhat divergent and even disparate beliefs and practices would come to be classified as Hindu over the course of the next millennium. The divergence is perhaps most stark if we compare Vedic and Puranic traditions. The principal deities of the Vedic pantheon, Agni, Indra and Soma, become marginal figures, rarely visible in textual or visual representations. And while we can catch a glimpse of Vishnu, Shiva and the goddess in Vedic mantras, these have little in common with the elaborate Puranic mythologies. However, in spite of these obvious discrepancies, the Vedas continued to be revered as authoritative. Not surprisingly, there were sometimes conflicts as well – those who valued the Vedic tradition often condemned practices that went beyond the closely regulated contact with the divine through the performance of sacrifices or precisely chanted mantras. On the other hand those engaged in Tantric practices BHAKTI -SUFI TRADITIONS 143 frequently ignored the authority of the Vedas. Also, devotees often tended to project their chosen deity, either Vishnu or Shiva, as supreme. Relations with other traditions, such as Buddhism or Jainism, were also often fraught with tension if not open conflict. The traditions of devotion or bhakti need to be located within this context. Devotional worship had a long history of almost a thousand years before Discuss... the period we are considering. During this time, Find out about gods and expressions of devotion ranged from the routine goddesses worshipped in your worship of deities within temples to ecstatic town or village, noting their adoration where devotees attained a trance-like names and the ways in which state. The singing and chanting of devotional they are depicted. Describe compositions was often a part of such modes of the rituals that are worship. This was particularly true of the Vaishnava performed. and Shaiva sects. 2. Poems of Prayer Early Traditions of Bhakti In the course of the evolution of these forms of worship, in many instances, poet-saints emerged as leaders around whom there developed a community of devotees. Further, while Brahmanas remained important intermediaries between gods and devotees in several forms of bhakti, these traditions also accommodated and acknowledged women and the “lower castes”, categories considered ineligible for liberation within the orthodox Brahmanical framework. What also characterised traditions of bhakti was a remarkable diversity. At a different level, historians of religion often classify bhakti traditions into two broad categories: saguna (with attributes) and nirguna (without attributes). The former included traditions that focused on the worship of specific deities such as Shiva, Vishnu and his avatars (incarnations) and forms of the goddess or Devi, all often conceptualised in anthropomorphic forms. Nirguna bhakti on the other hand was worship of an abstract form of god. 2.1 The Alvars and Nayanars of Tamil Nadu Some of the earliest bhakti movements (c. sixth century) were led by the Alvars (literally, those who are “immersed” in devotion to Vishnu) and Nayanars (literally, leaders who were devotees of Shiva). They travelled from place to place singing hymns in Tamil in praise of their gods. 144 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II Source 1 During their travels the Alvars and Nayanars The chaturvedin (Brahmana identified certain shrines as abodes of their chosen versed in the four Vedas) deities. Very often large temples were later built at and the “outcaste” these sacred places. These developed as centres of pilgrimage. Singing compositions of these poet-saints This is an excerpt from a became part of temple rituals in these shrines, as composition of an Alvar named did worship of the saints’ images. Tondaradippodi, who was a 2.2 Attitudes towards caste Brahmana: Some historians suggest that the Alvars and You (Vishnu) manifestly like Nayanars initiated a movement of protest against those “servants” who express the caste system and the dominance of Brahmanas their love for your feet, or at least attempted to reform the system. To some though they may be born extent this is corroborated by the fact that bhaktas outcastes, more than hailed from diverse social backgrounds ranging from the Chaturvedins who are Brahmanas to artisans and cultivators and even strangers and without from castes considered “untouchable”. allegiance to your service. The importance of the traditions of the Alvars and Nayanars was sometimes indicated by the claim that their compositions were as important Do you think as the Vedas. For instance, one of the major Tondaradippodi was opposed to the caste anthologies of compositions by the Alvars, the Nalayira system? Divyaprabandham, was frequently described as the Tamil Veda, thus claiming that the text was as si