Advanced Study in the History of Medieval India Volume III: Medieval Indian Society and Culture

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About the Author J.L. Mehta, a specialist in medieval and modern Indian history, and a prolific writer, with proficiency in Urdu, Persian and Tibetan, besides Hindi, Punjabi and Sanskrit, has published a number of books, articles and monographs.

At present he is Reader in the Postgraduate Department of History, Panjab University Evening College, Chandigarh.

Preface Preface to the Second Edition The three-volume publication entitled Advanced Study in the History of Medieval India has caught the imagination of the readers. The growing popularity of these books among the post-graduate students and researchers in the history of medieval India is evidenced by the ever increasing correspondence of the author with them as also by the challenge of press reviews and constructive criticism from scholars from various parts of the country. The author highly appreciates comments on and critical evaluation of his books by those interested in the subject; he always bears in mind their valuable suggestions for qualitative improvement of the material, wherever necessary.

The author has been told by the publishers that his books have been put on the export list and that these have started earning foreign exchange. It is really encouraging to note that a reconstruction and interpretatxon of Indian history by a son of the soil should measure up to the international academic standards and find favour with the scholars of advanced countries, albeit this success may be attributed equally to the resourcefulness and enterprise of Sterling Publishers but for whose dedication and professional expertise it would not have been possible to bring out the books in the shape in which these have been placed in the hands of the scholars.

We are passing through a very serious socio-cultural and national crisis today. The rising tide of fundamentalism, regional and parochial outlook, and the racial and linguistic controversies threaten the very fabric of composite Indian culture and the concept of secular nation- state, evolved laboriously by one of our ancestors-Akbar the Great, and so fondly cherished by the modern Indian leadership This book does not have a direct bearing on all these aspects; nevertheless, it may provide, in historical perspective, an insight into the causes and remedies of some of these problems to the readers.

Preface Preface to the First Edition With a sense of fulfilment and great satisfaction, the author presents to his readers the third and concluding part of his Advanced Study in the History of Medieval India, the first two volumes of which were brought out in 1979 and 1981 respectively. It gives 3 glimpse of the medieval Indian society and culture during the period 1000 to 1707 A.D., the political and military history of which has been given in the preceding volume. The subject-matter of this book emerges, like the flowering of a plant, from the political background provided by the first two volumes of the series.

Socio-cultural development is a continuous phenomenon, a slow and steady process, for the study of which periodisation on the basis of political and military episodes or upheavals is not always feasible. No military action or political change, however sudden or violent. can mark either the abrupt ending of a cultural state or pinpoint the transplantation of new socio-cultural trends among the people affected by it. The author is, therefore, conscious of the fact that the arab conquest of Sind or invasions of Mahmud of Ghazni or Muhammad Ghori signal neither the beginning nor ultimate outcome of the multifarious social forces at work in the life of the Indians, these events or political developments can, nevertheless, be earmarked as important milestones in the long and chequered course of the Indian social stream like that of the Ganges from Kailash to the bosom of the Indian Ocean. In his attempt to understand the socio-cultural development of medieval Indian society in its historical perspective, the author was actually confronted with the intriguing problems of the forceful and continuous temporal dynamics of socio-religious and cultural change in India. Sometimes these political developments gave birth to or accelerated the forces of social change while the others were themselves the outcome of such forces at work in the preceding period. The state does play an important role in shaping the character and life of its people, and the author has taken pains, in the first chapter of this study, to explain how the socio-cultural development of a people can be understood better within the framework of a political system to which they belong. It is in this context that he strives to point out the social content in the state policies, military campaigns and administrative set-up of the mamluk sultans, the khaljis, the tughluks, the rulers of Bahmani and Vijayanagar kingdoms, and the imperial mughal respectively. An appreciation of this line of approach may make the unconventional chapter-plan of this volume intelligible to the readers and enable them to find out the explicit and implicit elements of the medieval Indian society and culture as it finally assumed the shape during the age of Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan.

Introduction 1: MEDIEVAL INDIA-THE MEETING GROUND OF TWO CULTURES Advent of Islam The advent of Islam was an epoch-making event in the history of the world, it exercised a profound effect on the political, religious and socio-cultural life of India as well. The invasions of Muhammad bin Qasim (711-12), Mahmud of Ghazni (1000-1027) and Muhammad Ghori (1175-1205) marked not only the clash of arms between the rajputs the sword-arm of India', and the muslim invaders but also the violent contact between the two strong religious thoughts and streams of cultural forces From confrontation to cooperation, followed by interaction and synthesis between the two forces, constitute the various stages in the long and chequered socio-cultural history of medieval India which forms the theme of this volume. The period under review exhibits the slow and steady decay of ancient hindu society, with its 'glorious' rajput culture, giving place to the Indo-Muslim Society and Culture which was neither hindu nor muslim but Indo-Muslim, to be very precise.

Political Background Ancient India presented a very dismal picture on the eve of the muslim invasions. Its political disintegration had set in with the death of Skanda Gupta (555-67); the exit of Harsha Vardhana (606- 47) and Pulakesin II (c. 610-42) closed the era of national unity as also of ancient Indian civilisation and culture. Abortive attempts were made by a number of individuals, backed by their respective clans and communities, to revive imperial traditions at Kanauj or elsewhere. On the ruins of Harsha's empire, one Yasovarman (c. 700- 70) tried to reunite northern India under one government with head quarters at Kanauj; he was a contemporary of king Dahir of Sind. After the conquest of Sind by the arabs. Yasovarman and king Lalitaditya of Kashmir (725-55) stemmed the tide of their advance in northern India. It seems that, soon afterwards, the two princes fell out with each other and Yasovarman was killed in a battle by his adversary. With his death, there started a triangular contest for the occupation of Kanauj among the rashtrakutas of Deccan, the gurjara-pratiharas of Malwa and the palas of Bengal. Ultimately, a gurjara-pratihara chief, Nagabhatta (725-40) conquered Kanauj and laid the foundation of the imperial dynasty of his clan; his successors revived the imperial glory of Kanauj to a limited extent. Rajyapala, the last ruler of this dynasty succumbed before Mahmud of Ghazni (1018-19) and was put to death by the princes of Gwalior and Kalinjar for having shown cowardice in acknowledging the overlordship of the invader.