The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate (54 page)

The Portuguese then considered the Indian Ocean as their sovereign territory, and controlled all the traffic there by laying down the rule that the ships of all other nations sailing there, particularly in the Arabian Sea, should do so only by calling at a Portuguese port in the region, to pay duty on their cargo and to obtain a pass for their safe journey. And they decreed that no ship plying in the Arabian Sea should carry certain items, especially spices and ammunitions, which they considered as their monopoly. They also required that merchantmen should sail in small convoys, and under the escort of Portuguese warships. This hegemony of the Portuguese in the Indian seas lasted for about a century, but they were eventually, in the early decades of
the seventeenth century, displaced by other European powers, particularly the British.

BY THE SIXTEENTH century the port cities of peninsular India emerged as the most prominent foreign trade centres in the subcontinent, displacing the cities in north-western India which had dominated this trade for many centuries. This change was because foreign trade, which had been mostly by land route previously, was now mostly by sea route, and the peninsular ports were ideally situated to serve both eastern and western sea traders.

There is a good amount of information about the trade activities in peninsular India at this time, because the region was then visited by very many foreign traders and travellers, and several of them maintained records of what they observed. In particular, the Kerala coast, which was studded with several natural harbours, was abuzz with commercial activity at this time. Kozhikode (Calicut, in north Kerala) and Kollam (Quilon, in south Kerala), according to Battuta, were among the best ports he had seen anywhere in the world, and were equal to Alexandria. ‘It has fine bazaars, and its merchants … are immensely wealthy,’ writes Battuta about Kollam. ‘A single merchant will buy a vessel with all that is in it and load it with goods from his own house. There is a colony of Muslim merchants there; the cathedral mosque there is a magnificent building. This city is the nearest of the Mulaybar (Malabar: Kerala) towns to China, and it is to it that most of the merchants [from China] come.’ Kollam was the main centre for the transhipment of East Asian goods to the West, and of European goods to the East.

This trade prominence of Kollam was rivalled by Kozhikode, but the town seems to have gained importance only around the fourteenth century, for Marco Polo, who visited Kerala in the thirteenth century, does not mention it at all. But by the next century the town emerged into great prominence, and became renowned as the City of Spices. Battuta, who was in Kerala in the mid-fourteenth century, found the town flourishing. ‘Qaliqut,’ he writes, ‘is one of the chief ports in Mulaybar and one of the largest harbours in the world. It is visited by men from China, Sumatra, Ceylon, the Maldives, Yemen and Fars (Persia), and in it gather merchants from all quarters.’

Razzak also is all praise for the prosperity of Kozhikode, and its good government. The city, he reports, ‘brings together merchants of every city and every country … It is the practice at other ports, that if any vessel be consigned to any particular port, and unfortunately by the decree of the Almighty it is driven to any other [port] than that to which it is destined, the people plunder it, on the plea that it is sent [to them] by the winds. But at Kozhikode every vessel, wherever it comes from, and whichever way it arrives, is treated like any other, and no sort of trouble is experienced by it.’

Several other Indian towns engaged in foreign trade are also mentioned in medieval texts. Khambhat (Cambay) in Gujarat is one such town, where, according to Varthema, ‘about three hundred ships of different countries come and go.’ The town was also renowned for the excellent jewellery made there. Daulatabad in Maharashtra was another famed centre for jewellery—‘the infidels of this town are merchants, dealing principally in jewels, and their wealth is enormous,’ states Battuta. The entire stretch of the Coromandel Coast was also involved in overseas trade in medieval times.

SPICES WERE WHAT medieval foreign traders mainly sought for export from India, and that gave Kerala exceptional prominence in the world trade of that age, for it was, as Battuta describes it, ‘the pepper country’. The main items exported from India in medieval times were pepper, cloves, ginger, cardamom and cinnamon; India also exported saffron, indigo, sugar, rice, tamarind, coconut and rhubarb, as well as sandalwood, brazilwood, musk, ambergris and myrobalan. Incense, precious stones, beads, and seed pearls were the other common items exported from India. Another product of India that was keenly sought by foreigners was fine cotton fabrics, manufactured in many parts of India, but which was a speciality of Bengal. Elegant leather shoes made in Sind were yet another prized item of export from India.

Because of this flourishing overseas trade a great amount of gold flowed into India in medieval times, and it remained there. ‘I have calculated that for the last 3000 years that country has not exported gold to other countries, and whatever has entered it has never come out again,’ Syrian chronicler Shahab-ud-din was once told by one of his informers. China also had an adverse trade balance with India. Consequently there was a drain of gold from China into India, and this so bothered the Chinese government that it at one time banned imports from India.

But it was not all a one-way trade for India. Just as India exported a wide variety of goods, it also imported a wide variety of goods. But the total value of its imports seems to have been far less than that of its exports. The most notable item imported into India in early medieval times was horses, several thousands of which were brought into the country every year. It was also the most expensive item that India imported, a single horse costing as much as 220 dinars! Horses were brought into North India by land through the northwestern mountain passes, and by sea into the peninsula. India also imported perfumes, coral, quicksilver, vermilion, lead, gold, silver, alum, madder, and saffron from the Middle East; and from China it imported silks, taffetas and satins, blue and white porcelain, gold, silver, copper, vermilion, quicksilver, and so on. Various spices were also imported into India from South-east Asia. The opulent lifestyle of Muslim kings and nobles in medieval India led
to an exponential growth in India’s demand for imported luxury products like silks, velvets, damasks, camlets and satins. India also imported dates. In time India’s export of manufactured goods declined, while its import of such goods increased.

A wide variety of ships from different nations were engaged in trade with India in medieval times. The largest of these were the Chinese junks, but the Chinese also plied medium and small ships in the Indian seas. Indian ships were smaller than the junks, but larger than the European ships, according to Nicolo Conti. But European ships, despite their relatively small size, had a decisive advantage over Asian ships, as they were more robustly built. While the Indian, Arab and Chinese ships were not strong enough to sail in the open seas in rough weather, European ships could do that. European ships also carried superior artillery. These were the key factors that enabled Europeans to eventually dominate the Asian seas.

Medieval sea transport was slow, averaging only around sixty kilometres a day, and was often further delayed on the way for various reasons—a delegation sent by a Chola king to China in the early eleventh century, for instance, took as many as three years to reach the Chinese capital. Not surprisingly, it took ships around fifteen days to reach Colombo from Kozhikode.

Sea travel was also hazardous, because of violent storms in the Indian Ocean, and also because the sea was infested with pirates at this time. These pirates belonged to different nations, but many of them operated from the west peninsular coast of India, no doubt with the connivance of the local rulers, who received a share of the booty. According to Marco Polo, these pirates were ‘the most arrant corsairs of the world.’ Because of the ever present menace of pirates in the Indian seas, merchantmen usually sailed in fleets, just as trade caravans in India travelled in large groups for protection against brigands. For the same reason, Chinese junks in the Indian seas usually carried a good number of soldiers in them. According to Battuta, a large Chinese ship carried a crew of 1,000, of whom 600 were sailors and 400 warriors: ‘archers, shield-bearers and crossbow archers … who shoot naphtha missiles.’

‘Seldom in the history of mankind has the spectacle been witnessed of two civilisations, so vast and so strongly developed, yet so radically dissimilar as the Muhammadan and Hindu, meeting and mingling together,’ observes John Marshall, distinguished early twentieth century British archaeologist-historian. ‘The very contrasts which existed between them, the wide divergences in their culture and their religions, make the history of their impact peculiarly instructive …’

Such civilisational confrontations have indeed been very rare in world history. But what is even more curious is that though Hindu and Muslim civilisations coexisted in India for very many centuries, there was hardly any creative interaction between them, no significant change in either, in response to the challenge by the other. The two coexisted, but did not interact. They were like water and oil in the same pot.

The entire early medieval period in India was culturally quite barren, in sharp contrast to the lush cultural efflorescence of the preceding classical period or the succeeding Mughal period. Except for the patronage of Indian culture by a few provincial sultans, the explorations into Indian heritage by a couple of Persian scholars and writers like al-Biruni and Amir Khusrav, the conservation of some ancient Indian monuments by a few sultans like Firuz Tughluq, and the construction of a few grand monuments like Qutb Minar, there was nothing notably positive in the cultural history of the Delhi Sultanate and its provincial offshoots.

Nor was there any notable creative response by Hindu civilisation to the challenge of Islam, except the superficial adoption of a few Persian cultural modes and lifestyle by some rajas. For many centuries, roughly from the
sixth to the eleventh century, Indians had lived hermetically sealed within the subcontinent, with virtually no contact with the outside world. There were no major invasions or racial migrations into India during this period, unlike in the previous periods. The only exception to this was the Arab conquest of Sind in the early eighth century, but that was a peripheral event, more important in what it portended than in what it achieved. As for Indian kings, they had never-ever, in the entire long history of India, ventured outside the subcontinent for conquest.

Because of all this, Indians of the late classical period had hardly any knowledge of the outside world. And they in their ignorance viewed all foreign civilisations as contemptibly inferior to their own civilisation, and held that any contact with foreign people would be degrading.

THE CULTURAL INSULARITY and torpor of medieval India was appalling. ‘I can only compare their mathematical and astronomical literature, as far as I know it, to a mixture … of pearls and dung, or of costly crystals and common pebbles,’ comments al-Biruni, an exceptionally liberal-minded and perceptive early medieval Iranian intellectual, who was a keen student of Indian civilisation. ‘Both kinds of things are equal in their eyes, since they cannot raise themselves to the methods of a strictly scientific deduction.’ This lack of discrimination, the blind acceptance of whatever ancient knowledge had come down to them, often in a corrupt form, and disdaining even to look at the achievements of other civilisations, characterised the Indian cultural elite of the early medieval period. Equally, Indians were averse to share their knowledge with the people of other lands, scorning them as unworthy of such knowledge. And even among Indians themselves caste rules restricted the dissemination of particular fields of knowledge to particular castes.

‘Hindus believe that there is no country like theirs, no nation like theirs, no kings like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs,’ continues al-Biruni. ‘They are haughty, foolishly vain, self-conceited, and stolid. They are by nature niggardly in communicating that which they know, and they take the greatest possible care to withhold it from men of another caste among their own people, still much more, of course, from any foreigner. According to their belief … [no people] besides them have any knowledge or science whatsoever … [And if you tell them of the achievements of other civilisations] they will consider you to be both an ignoramus and a liar.’ All these were fatal flaws in the Indian civilisation of the early medieval period. With no challenge to stimulate creativity, Indian civilisation had over many centuries become comatose, while most of the rest of the world woke up from their medieval slumber and surged ahead.

According to al-Masudi, a tenth-century Arab scholar, ‘India was the portion of the earth in which order and wisdom prevailed in distant ages.’ True indeed. But the scene in medieval India was entirely different from that. India at this time had hardly any creative vitality in any field of culture. Not surprisingly, India’s primary response to the Turkish invasion and the challenge of Islam was to defensively curl up tighter into itself. In the Sanskrit literature of the age there is virtually no mention of the establishment of the Turkish rule in India, and no indication of any socio-cultural response by Indians to the challenge of Islam.

TURKS WERE ORIGINALLY a wild nomadic people of mixed racial and tribal origin, spread over a vast area in Central Asia. But gradually, from around the eighth century, they became Islamised in religion and Persianised in culture. And by the time they invaded India, they had become an urbane, sophisticated people, though some of their old feral nature still persisted in them. Several of their sultans, in Delhi as well as elsewhere in India, were ardent patrons of culture, and some—Firuz Tughluq, for instance—were themselves respected writers. According to Afif, a fourteenth-century chronicler, Firuz Tughluq spent a vast sum of money on allowances to scholars; further, according to Mughal chronicler Ferishta, the sultan encouraged scholars to fan out in his empire and spread learning. There were said to have been as many as a thousand educational institutions flourishing in Delhi during the Tughluq period.

Intellectuals and creative people from many regions of the Muslim world migrated to India at this time, for the Delhi Sultanate was one of the most powerful Muslim kingdoms of the age, and most of the sultans were generous patrons of scholars and writers. A notable exception to this was Ala-ud-din Khalji, who considered cultural pursuits a waste of time and resources. But even during his reign, Delhi continued to attract cultural leaders from around the Muslim world, drawn by the great prosperity of the sultanate at this time. ‘During the time of Sultan Ala-ud-din, Delhi was the great rendezvous for all the most learned and erudite personages,’ writes Abdul Hakk Dehlawi, a chronicler of the Mughal age. ‘For, notwithstanding the pride and hauteur, the neglect and superciliousness, and the want of kindness and cordiality, with which that monarch treated this class of people, the spirit of the age remained the same.’

The benefaction of Delhi sultans, as had to be expected, was primarily for Muslim scholars and writers, but some of the sultans also extended their favour to Hindu scholars and to the promotion of the traditional knowledge of India, particularly to the study of secular subjects. And they took the initiative to get several ancient Indian texts on scientific subjects, such as medicine, translated
into Persian. Thus when Firuz Tughluq found a vast collection of manuscripts in the temple of Jvalamukhi at Nagarkot (Kangra) in Himachal Pradesh, he took care to have several of them translated into Persian. ‘In this temple was a fine library of Hindu books, consisting of 13,000 volumes,’ records Ferishta. ‘Firuz sent for some of the wise men of that religion and ordered some of the books to be translated, and especially directed one of those books, which dealt with philosophy, astrology and divination, to be translated [into Persian] … It is in truth a book replete with various kinds of knowledge, both practical and theoretical.’ According to Mughal historian Badauni, some ‘unprofitable and trivial works on prosody, music and dancing’ were also translated under the sultan’s patronage.

The patronage of culture by kings was an ancient tradition in India, and even in medieval times, despite the general decline of Hindu political power, there were several rajas who had serious cultural interests and accomplishments. Particularly noteworthy among them was Rana Kumbha of Mewar, who, notwithstanding his many military engagements, found time and interest not only to earnestly promote culture, but also to turn himself into a distinguished scholar in several fields, from ancient Hindu scriptures to political theory, grammar, literature, and music. He also wrote four plays, three texts on music, and had to his credit the writing a highly regarded commentary on Jayadeva’s
Gita-Govinda
. Unfortunately he went insane towards the end of his life, and was murdered by his son.

SUCH EARNEST SCHOLARSHIP and creativity as that of Rana Kumbha were relatively rare in Hindu society in medieval times, compared to its marvellous cultural luxuriance in the earlier age. Even the study of the ancient Indian systems of knowledge was in a dismal state of decay at this time, particularly in North India, though there were some lingering sparks of vitality in them in South India. Generally speaking, the purpose of scholarly pursuits by Indians in this age was not for advancing knowledge, but almost entirely for learning old texts by rote. And since many of the old texts had become hopelessly corrupt over the centuries, this mode of learning meant the perpetuation of flawed, decayed knowledge.

There were however still a few major centres of traditional learning in India at this time. Varanasi (Benares) was one such centre. The city specialised in the
gurukula
system of education, of eminent scholars taking under their care a few chosen students. ‘The town of Benares situated on the Ganges … in the midst of an extremely rich and fertile country may be considered the general school of gentiles,’ writes Bernier, a late seventeenth century French physician in India. ‘It is the Athens of India, whither resort Brahmins and other devotees … The town contains no colleges or regular classes as in our universities, but
resembles rather the schools of the ancients, the masters being dispersed over different parts of the town in private houses, principally in the gardens of the suburbs, which the rich merchants permit them to occupy. Some of these masters have four disciples, others six or seven and the most eminent may have twelve, but this is the greatest number.’

Varanasi was a Hindu centre of learning, but there were also a few major Buddhist and Jain centres of learning in early medieval India. These, unlike the guru-centred Hindu educational system, provided institutionalised education, in large university-like campuses, which had a good number of teachers in diverse subjects. The most renowned of the Buddhist educational centres of the age was the University of Nalanda in Bihar, which, because it was a walled campus, was mistaken for a fort and was destroyed by Turkish commander Bakhtiyar Khalji in the early thirteenth century, during the reign of Qutb-ud-din Aibak. ‘Most of the inhabitants of the place were Brahmins with shaven heads,’ writes Siraj, an early medieval chronicler, mistaking Buddhist monks for Brahmins. ‘They were all put to death. A large numbers of books were found there, and when the Mohammedans saw them, they called for some persons to explain their contents, but all the men had been killed. It was then discovered that the whole fort and city was a place of study.’ There were several other such instances of wanton destruction of Indian cultural and religious centres by Turks.

ON THE POSITIVE side, one of the major cultural developments of the early medieval period was the spread of Persian language and literature in India. Persian was the favoured language of the sultans and the Muslim elite in India, for official business as well as for cultural pursuits. The language was also increasingly cultivated by upper class Hindus—especially by those who were in any way connected with the administration of Muslim kingdoms—somewhat in the same manner in which many Indians would later take to the study of English during the British rule. And, along with the use of Persian language, the adoption of Persian dress and lifestyle became the mark of high culture among the political elite—among Muslims as well as Hindus—in most regions of India, except in the deep south, which was outside the pale of Muslim rule and direct Muslim cultural influence.

A number of books on India were written by Muslim scholars in the early medieval period, and they provide invaluable information on many aspects of life in India in that age. One of the earliest and finest of these works is al-Biruni’s
Ta’rikh al-Hind
: Chronicles of India. Hardly anything is known about al-Biruni’s family background or about his early life, except that he was a Persian by birth, and spent his early life in Khwarazm. He was a contemporary and one-time colleague of Avicenna, the renowned intellectual and physician
of the age. When Mahmud Ghazni conquered Khwarazm, he induced or forced al-Biruni (along with several other scholars) to move to Ghazni, and there the young scholar immersed himself in his studies under the patronage of Mahmud and his successors.

Al-Biruni, according his medieval biographer Shams-ud-din Muhammad Shahrazuri, was so dedicated to his studies that ‘he never had a pen out of his hand, nor his eye off a book, and his thoughts were always directed to his studies … [He had no interest in temporal acquisitions, and was content with] procuring the necessaries of life on such a moderate scale as to afford him bare sustenance and clothing.’ Once when sultan Masud rewarded him with an elephant load of silver, he politely declined to accept the gift and returned it to the treasury. This indifference to temporal gains was a major factor that enabled al-Biruni to be totally unbiased in his works—he did not write to please anyone but himself. He had ‘a most rigid regard for truth,’ comments Baihaqi, who lived half a century after al-Biruni.

Al-Biruni does not seem to have had a family of his own—he probably never married—and his single-minded devotion to scholarship, and indifference to wealth, were probably in part because he did not have to provide for a family. The absence of family also enabled him to travel freely, wherever the pursuit of his studies took him. He spent several years in India, in Punjab, interacting with Brahmin pundits there and translating into Persian or Arabic some Indian books, such as on Samkhya and Yoga, the principal Indian philosophical schools of the age. A facile linguist, he knew several languages, including Sanskrit and Greek, but wrote mostly in Arabic.