The wonder that was india

The great-grandson of Akbar, Aurangzib (1658-1707), reversed the policy of toleration. Restrictions were placed on the free practice of Hindu rites, and preferment at court was confined to orthodox Muslims; later the tax on non-Muslims was neimposed. After nearly a century of equality this was bitterly resented by many Hindus, especially by the chiefs, many of whom had loyally served the earlier Mughals. The main resistance came from the Western Deccan, where, around Poona. 'the Maratha chief, Sivaji (1627-80) laid the foundations of a new Hindu empire. At about the same time the Sikhs of the Panjab, incensed at the new policy and the persecution of their leaders, reformed their faith, and were welded into a closely knit martial brotherhood. When the aged Aurangzib died, the Mughal Empire was virtually at an end.

Politically the eighteenth century was one of Hindu revival. Though the Msratha successors to Sivaji could not build up a large, closely knit empire, their horsemen ranged far and wide over India, levying tribute from local chiefs, Hindu and Muslim alike. In the Panjab towards the end of the century the Sikhs built an important kingdom, and almost everywhere Islam was on the defensive. But there was still no real cultural revival in Hinduism. Sivaji, a brilliant leader, a just ruler, and a statesman of consummate craft, was conservative in his outlook, and appeared to his contemporaries rather as a restorer of the old than as a builder of the new. Unlike Akbar, he had no fresh vision of a state

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transcending religious differences, though he learnt much from the. Mughals in statecraft and military science and respected the faith of his adversaries. The Marathas did not encourage reforms in Hindu society, and the India of the eighteenth century was if anything more conservative than it had been in the days of the first Muslim invasions.

It was through the influence of Europe that revival came. Early in the sixteenth century the Portuguese founded the first European trading stations and settlements. They were followed by the Dutch, British, Danes, and French, and throughout the seventeenth century the number of European 'factories' increased. In the eighteenth century, with the break-up of the Mughal Empire, the Europeans began to take a greater interest in local politics, and, by the early nineteenth century, the British East India Company had virtually pushed out its rivals and dominated most of the subcontinent. The comparative ease with which the British established their supremacy is a measure of the political decadence of India at the time. By the middle of the nineteenth century the whole of India was cither directly ruled by Britain, or governed indirectly through petty princes with local autonomy. A new conqueror had come, a conqueror far more alien to the Hindu than the Muslims had been, with an aggressive culture and immense technical superiority.*

The unique character of Muslim culture in India calls for separate treatment. The continuity it displays with the ancient culture discussed in The Wonder That Was India, Volume I, prompted us to name this work, The Wonder That Was India, Volume II.

This book concentrates mainly on the period between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries. The first three chapters, dealing with the political history of the Arabs, Turks, Afghans, and Mughals, do not comprise a catalogue of invasions, rebellions, and conquests, but analyse the currents and cross-currents of the social, economic, and cultural changes in the country. This was the period when India's contact with the vast, external, Muslim world deepened and urban society developed. Nevertheless, despite the introduction of the political and economic institutions which the Muslims in Iran and Central Asia had evolved, the dominance of the Hindu money-lender at the urban level, and the Rajput chieftains in rural areas, remained intact.

Although the struggle to regain political power was confined to the scions of former princely Rajput families, the Turkic ruling dynasties were also torn by internecine wars, to the extent that, in the fifteenth century, India was again fragmented into innumerable independent dynasties. It was Akbar who founded a strong Mughal empire, but the conceptual framework of his kingship was radically different. It was therefore important to analyse the theories of

*Ibid. pp. 479-81.

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kingship, together with the military and administrative institutions of both the sultans and the Mughals, and this is done in Chapter 4.

Chapter 5, on social and economic conditions, discusses the interaction between Hindus and Muslims and the forces that created Muslim social and economic groups equivalent to Hindu classes and castes. Nevertheless, both the Delhi sultans and the Mughals, in the interest of their own stability, did not concentrate solely on collecting taxes but paid due attention to agriculture and commerce. From the sixteenth century the introduction of European factories opened new trade opportunities and accelerated the growth of indigo and textile production. Although no improvement was made in manufacturing techniques, the individual skill of the artisans and craftsmen was refined.

The Muslims strictly adhered to their religious doctrines, but the analysis of the philosophical movements, sufi ideologies, and sectarian divisions discussed in Chapter 6, highlights their distinctive features and characteristics. Chapter 7, devoted to the arts, goes a long way to show that Muslim symbols in architecture, painting, and music were predominantly influenced by ancient Indian motifs. Indeed, the lacunae in literary sources regarding the life and culture of this period may be filled by a study of its monuments and paintings.

SOURCES

The sources used for this volume are varied and enormous. Broadly they can be divided into four categories: archaeological, artistic, numismatic, and literary.

At one time Indian archaeology was confined mainly to unearthing India's remote past: prehistory and proto-history. In recent decades, however, archaeologists have diverted their attention to discovering the sites of medieval towns, villages, caravanserais, and roads. The scientific restoration of dilapidated monuments has highlighted previously unknown engineering and artistic techniques in this period. The archaeological survey departments in New Delhi and the states publish survey reports and journals. These are very useful sources of information for our study of the monuments of medieval times. Some universities and individual scholars have also published reports on surveys of different sites.

Not only do medieval paintings and artefacts reveal the artistic talents of the medieval painters and craftsmen, but they illuminate

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the" social and economic history of the times. Museums in London, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, New York, Boston, Washington, Calcutta, New Delhi, Lahore, Karachi, and Dacca, the Khuda Bakhsh Library of Patna, the Raza Library of Rampur, and the Sir Salar Jang Museum of Hyderabad comprise some of the important art repositories. Many of these institutions have published catalogues describing their rare exhibits.

The coins preserved in the museums in the Indian subcontinent, Europe, and North America are a most important source for the study of currency systems, trade, and commerce. They are also helpful in correcting dates of political events. Many museums have published catalogues listing their collections. The Journal of the Numismatic Society of India and journals published by other numismatic societies in the subcontinent also contain articles on the hoards of coins discovered from time to time. A unique treatise on medieval Indian coins was written by Thakkura Pheru, son of Chandra, the Master of the Mint during 'Ala'u'd-Din Khalji's reign (1296-1316). Entitled Drarya-Pariksha (An Examination of Coins), it is written in Apabhramsa and deals with the technique of purifying gold, silver, mixed metals, and alloys. The work also discusses the weight and value of coins struck in different parts of India, including those minted under Sultan 'Ala'u'd-Din Khalji and his successor, Qutbu'd-Din Mubarak Shah.

Literary sources remain the most important source of information, however. Original farmans (imperial decrees), notes, orders, and the correspondence of some rulers and their dignitaries have been discovered. Various manuals on polity, administration, law, and warfare, and diplomatic letters written from the reign of the Ghaznavids to the end of Mughal rule have survived; but the political chronicles are the most significant category of source material for our study. They are usually in Persian, but some are written in Arabic or in the local Indian dialects. They are generally compiled under the patronage of the central or provincial governments, but independent scholars also wrote a considerable number. Although the official chroniclers had access to their patrons' archives, some of the scholars who compiled historical works independently could draw upon documents in the possession of state dignitaries and other scholars.

British Interest in Muslim History

Some valuable bibliographical works were written in Arabic, but no such attempts were made in the realm of Persian scholarship.

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Their economic and political interests led the British to discover and translate Muslim histories of India, in a process which went through three phases. The first was analysis of the principal features of Muslim rule to discover the reasons for its decline. The pioneer in this field was James Fraser (1713-54). He resided in Surat in India from 1730 to 1740 and from 1742 to 1748. He wrote a history of Nadir Shah of Iran, who had invaded India in 1739, and collected Persian, Sanskrit, and Zend manuscripts, taking them to England when he retired. After his death they were bought for the Radcliffe Library at Oxford and are now in the Bodleian Library. At Fraser's instigation, his teacher, Shaykh Muhammad Murad, compiled a history of Aurangzib and his successors up to 1738, to serve as a background study for Fraser's history of Nadir Shah. The only copy of Shaykh Muhammad Murad's history appears to be an autograph in the Bodleian Library. It examines the history of the period objectively and critically.

After the establishment of East India Company rule in Bengal, the need to increase European competence in Persian became paramount. William Jones (1746-94) published a Persian grammar in order to promote the study of Persian among the servants of the East India Company. In addition, 150 copies of John Richardson's Dictionary of Persian, Arabic and English, published in 1777, were subscribed by the Company. Similar encouragement was given to Major Davy, the Persian secretary to the Governor-General, Warren Hastings (1774-85), who translated into English Institutes, Political and Military written . . . by the great Timour . . . first translated into Persian by Abu Taulib Alkusseini, and thence into English with notes ... A preface and indices were compiled by J. White, and the work was published at Oxford in 1783. Although modern research questions the authenticity of the original by Timur, who invaded India in 1398-9, British authorities relied heavily upon it for their analysis of the institutions of the great conqueror.

The most popular general history of the Muslim rulers of India was written by Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah Astarabadi, known as Firishta (d. after 1609-10). He held senior positions under the Deccan sultans of Ahmadnagar and Bijapur. In 1606-7 he wrote a history of the Delhi sultans, the Mughals, and the provincial kingdoms of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century India, entitled Gulshan-i Ibrahimi, popularly known as Tarikh-i Firishta. The importance of this work stimulated Alexander Dow (d. 1779), who had entered the service of the East India Company in 1760, to translate extracts into English. These were published in London in "1768, in two volumes, and a second edition came out in 1770-1. Dow also translated extracts from other Persian chronicles dealing

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with the reigns of Aurangzib and his successors. John Briggs (d. 1875) published his new translation of the Tarikh-i Firishta in London in 1829. Although Briggs's translation is also inaccurate, scholars who cannot read Persian still draw heavily upon it.

The Siyaru 'l-muta 'akhkhirin, by Nawwab Ghulam Husayn Khan Tabataba'i (d. after 1815), was translated into English by Raymond, or Hajji Mustafa (d. 1791). Tabataba'i had served both the Mughals and the British. His Siyaru'l-muta'akhkhirin was completed in 1781. It is a detailed history of eighteenth-century India and deals at great length with the fall of the Mughal empire and the conquests of the East India Company.

Warren Hastings encouraged Francis Gladwin (d. 1813), of the Bengal army, to study oriental literature, and Gladwin produced an abridged translation of the first three volumes of the A 'in-i Akbari, or The Institutes of Akbar's Reign, by Akbar's secretary, Abu'1-Fazl (d. 1602). Hastings instigated the translation of the Muslim law book, the Hiddya, into English. Charles Hamilton (d. 1792) completed it in 1791. It became the basis of the East India Company's judicial system for Muslims.

In 1782 Robert Orme (d. 1801), an official historian of the East India Company and the author of the British military transactions in India, published Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire, of the Morattoes, and of the English Concerns in Indostan from the year 1659. His knowledge of Persian was not perfect; nevertheless his work is of value in that it examines the Mughal and Maratha institutions from a British point of view.

The growing preoccupation of the East India Company with conquering and consolidating its rule all over India prompted British intellectuals to examine and analyse the history and institutions of the Marathas and other independent princes of India. In 1784 Jonathon Scott (d. 1829), Persian secretary to Warren Hastings, helped his master to found the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Two years later he published a general history of the Deccan and the fall of the Mughal empire, comprising abridged translations of the Tarikh-i Firishta, the Siyaru 'l-muta'akhkhirin, and other contemporary eighteenth-century works.

By the nineteenth century the establishment of British rule over the entire subcontinent was a foregone conclusion, and the East India Company had embarked upon a policy of Anglicizing the Indian administration. The need to understand Mughal institutions as such no longer remained. The interest of European intellectuals in Indian history deepened, and they entered the second epoch of scholarship, characterized by the authentic translation of texts. John Leyden (d. 1811) and William Erskine (d.

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1852) translated the Persian translation of Babur's memoirs into English. Major C. Stewart (d. 1837) translated the memoirs of Humayun's reign (1530-40, 1555) by Mihtar Jauhar, a ewer-bearer to the Emperor. Erskine's deep study of the sources on the reigns of Babur and Humayun enabled him to write authoritatively his History of India under Babur and Humayun. After his death this work was edited and published by his son in London in 1854.

Henry George Raverty (b. 1825) joined the East India Company's 3rd Bombay Infantry in 1843 and retired in 1864. He took part in the siege of Multan, in the Panjab campaign of 1849-50, and in the first North-West Frontier expedition in 1850 against tribes on the Swat border; and he served as assistant commissioner in the Panjab from 1852 to 1859. Raverty had achieved a very high degree of competence in Pashto and Persian. His knowledge of the history and problems of the Panjab, North-West Frontier Provinces, Afghanistan, and eastern Iran was profound. He wrote a number of historical works and brought his vast understanding of the region to bear on the footnotes to the Tabaqat-i Nasiri, a general history of the Muslim ruling dynasties of the world written by Minhaj Abu 'Umar 'Usman bin Siraj Juzjani (b. 1193). This work deals at length with the rise of the Turkic dynasties, gives an authoritative account of the Turkic conquest of India, and brings the history of the Delhi sultans down to 1260. Major Raverty collated all the available manuscripts of the Tabaqat-i Nasiri before undertaking the translation.

In 1841 Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779-1859), who played an important role in liquidating Maratha power, published The History of India. It examines the Persian sources intensively and marshals facts to substantiate the liberality of the Muslim rulers in India.

The most comprehensive collection of Persian and Arabic sources was, however, made by Henry Miers Elliot (d. 1853). His principle objective was to remind Hindus of the atrocity of the Muslim rulers as contrasted with the blessings of the rule of the East India Company. In 1849 he brought out the first volume of his Bibliographical Index to the Historians of Muhammedan India; the remaining three volumes that he wrote were never published. The first volume listed 231 works, of which 31 general histories were discussed. Translations of short extracts from each of these works were also given. Some short Persian excerpts were included.

In 1853 Elliot died, leaving behind a massive collection of manuscripts and translations of extracts from the sources. These were later acquired by the British Museum. Elliot's official position had enabled him to obtain manuscripts easily from the Indian landlords, and Indian scholars collaborated with him in explaining

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and translating the texts. Before his death Elliot had changed his earlier plan and had decided to publish a thirteen-volume history of India under Muslim rule. After his death, John Dowson (d. 1881), a professor of Hindustani at University College, London, edited Elliot's papers and, adding new material and notes to them, published The History of India as Told by its Own Historians (the Muhammadan Period) in eight volumes. Beginning with accounts of India in Arab geographical works and travelogues, Dowson's work gives extracts from 154 historical works to the end of the eighteenth century. Each of these excerpts is preceded by a note on the author and the salient features of the work. Despite inaccuracies in the translation, Elliot and Dowson's History of India was, and is still, drawn upon by scholars who do not know Persian or have no access to original works. Finding modern scholars misled by the inaccurate translations of Elliot and Dowson, S. H. Hodivala published a critical commentary on their History of India, in two massive volumes, correcting their mistakes on the basis of more authentic manuscripts and printed works.

By the end of the nineteenth century the third epoch of British scholarship in Indian history had commenced. It was marked by more accurate translations, and the stage was set for the production of analytical and scholarly monographs by both British and Indian scholars. Henry Ferdinand Blochmann (d. 1878), philological secretary to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, translated the first volume of the A 'in-i Akbari, with extensive notes on Akbar's dignitaries. H. S. Jarrett, an assistant secretary to the Legislative Department of the Government of India from 1870 to 1894, translated the second and third volumes of the A in-i Akbari. All the volumes were published in Calcutta between 1860 and 1894. The translation of the official history of Akbar's reign, the Akbar-nama of Abu'1-Fazl, by H. Beveridge, was published in Calcutta between 1897 and 1921. The first volume of the Muntakhabu't-tawarikh by Mulla 'Abdu'l-Qadir Bada'uni, an inveterate enemy of Akbar's. reforms, was translated by G. S. A. Ranking and was published in Calcutta during 1895-9; the second volume, translated by W. H. Lowe, was published in Calcutta in 1884-8, and the third, translated by T. W. Haig, saw the light of day at Calcutta between 1899 and 1925. Between 1909 and 1914 the Tuzuk-i Jahdngiri (the memoirs of the Emperor Jahangir, 1605-27) was translated by A. Rogers and edited by H. Beveridge. It was published in London during 1909-14. In 1905 the Bdbur-nama (the memoirs of Babur, b. 1483, d. 1530), written in Chaghatay Turki and reproduced in facsimile from a manuscript belonging to Sir Salar Jang of Hyderabad, was published in the Gibb Memorial Series at Leyden and

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London. The English translation, by A. S. Beveridge, was published in London in 1921.

In the twentieth century more Persian chronicles were critically edited, and some were translated into English. Persian Literature, A Bio-Bibliographical Survey, Volume I, Part I, by C. A. Storey, first published in London between 1927 and 1939, comprises a detailed description of the manuscripts, editions, and translations of Persian historical works. The second part of Volume I discusses biographical works. Volume II deals with works on mathematics, weights and measures, astronomy, astrology, geography, encyclopaedias, arts, crafts, and science. Volume III, which is not yet complete, discusses lexicography, grammar, prosody, and poetics.

Muslim Travellers and Ambassadors

The Muslim travellers, geographers, merchants, adventurers, pilgrims, fortune-hunters, and ambassadors who visited India from the eighth century onwards have left very valuable accounts of items the political historian did not consider worth describing. Some are a mixture of cultural, social, and economic information. They were generally written in Arabic but some were in Persian.

Arab merchants had traded with India before the rise of Islam, but their accounts, if any, do not survive. After the conquest of Syria, Egypt, and Iran, the Arabs opened a sea route through their newly founded port of Basra, and the old route via Egypt was abandoned. Some travellers kept their own diaries, while others provided information to geographers who wrote valuable accounts of India. The first travel diary to attract attention was written by Sulayman Tajir (the merchant), who flourished around 851. It is entitled Akhbaru's-Sind wa'l-Hind.

The most important travelogue on India was written by the Moorish traveller Ibn Batutta, who was born in Tangier in 1304 and left his country in 1325 to embark on his ambitious travel project. Journeying through Egypt, Syria, Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Transoxiana, he arrived in the Indus Valley on 12 September 1333. He left Delhi in 1342 as an ambassador of Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq (1325-51) and, travelling by the western coast of India, the Maldives (twice), Ceylon, Bengal, Assam, and Sumatra, he reached the Chinese port of Zaytun. It is not certain that he visited Peking. He returned to his homeland via Sumatra, Malabar, the Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Syria, completing his travels in December 1353. He finished dictating his Rihla (The Travelogue) in December 1357. The European edition of the work, with French

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translation by C. Defremery and B. R. Sanguinetti, published in Paris in four volumes between 1853 and 1859, is still regarded as the most authentic edition, although many new ones have come out since then. Subsequently it was translated into many languages. The English version by H. A. R. Gibb, entitled The Travels of Ibn Battuta, is the best.

The geographer and historian al-Mas'udi (d. 956) spent his whole life travelling and wrote two works in several volumes. Of these only two volumes survive, but their substance, as given by him in Muruju'z-zahab, reveals them to be monumental works. In the Muruju'z-zahab he surpasses his predecessors' perspicacity concerning the Islamic world and gives a most accurate account of India. The text, with French translation by Barbier de Maynard and Pavet de Courtielle, was published in Paris in nine volumes. Sharif al-Idrisi (d. 1165) wrote his Kitab Nuzhat al-mushtaq on the orders of Roger II, the Norman king of Sicily; consequently it is also known as Kitab Rujar (The Book of Roger). It is based both on Greek works and on those of Arab geographers and astronomers, but provides many new insights into the manners and customs of India.