About the
Book
The medieval, in history, not only refers to an age
but also to a set of beliefs that governed that age. It is usually seen as an
era dominated by 'great' wars, empires, rulers and religion. But that would be
only one side of the story. Ideas and Institutions in Medieval India begins with the question 'What is the medieval'? Is it an
age or a mentality or both? While the predominant mindset about the medieval in
India owes its origins mostly to colonial historiographers, the book goes
beyond that prism to examine in considerable detail the changes in the systems
of state and society during the medieval period. The author analyses not just
the political structures extant in the era but also various aspects like
kingship, administration of the state, society, judiciary, economy and the
ideas that they were built around. The volume has looked at political
philosophers of the time like Farabi, Ghazzali, Barani and others and
their concept of a state and contrasted it with the more modern idea of a
medieval state. It examines the state of flux in the country with the rise and
fall of kings and empires, changes in the nature of trade, and emergence of new
classes, castes and centres of power. It also an
analyses these changes in the south of India and looks at the trajectory that
the region
About the Author
Radhika Seshan is associate professor, department of History,
University of Pune.
Introduction
What is the 'medieval'? Is it
an age or a mentality, or both? Is it a mentality associated with an age, or
attributed to it? If it is an age, then when did it begin? Equally important,
when did it end? Did it end at all? The same question can be asked about
mentality also-did a particular kind of mentality emerge with the 'medieval'?
Is 'medieval' different from the 'middle ages', or are the two terms synonymous?
And finally, if there was a transition into and out of the medieval, what did
it involve? All these are questions that are asked, often without getting any
conclusive answers, because the answers invariably lead to more questions.
The medieval is generally
believed to be both an age and a mentality, i.e., it is believed that there is
a characteristic, or a set of characteristic beliefs about certain things,
which can be termed 'medieval'. When it is linked to the mindset of the time,
the word 'medievalism' is often attached to it, and in itself tends to carry a
great many connotations. This belief is both of and in the
period that is being talked about. So, there is an understanding that, in the
period considered the medieval, there were certain ideas, which, when carried
forward into another time, were labelled 'medieval'.
It is necessary to understand here that these beliefs are very often about the time, and are not
necessarily ones that were prevalent in
the time under consideration; after all in the period that we call the
medieval, people certainly believed they were living in a modern age. But
precisely because the belief is about the age, it becomes more difficult to
actually identify the 'medieval'. One therefore, has to look at three distinct,
but related themes, for answers. These are historiography, socio-economic
structures and political institutions. As stated above, these are inter-related
themes, but, to a certain extent, can also be studied separately from each other.
Depending on the audience one
is addressing medieval would mean castles, swords, horses and chivalry when one
is talking of medieval Europe; and for India, it would probably be the Mughals their pomp, luxury, decadence, architecture, the
size of their empire, and almost certainly their religious policies. Included
in the last two would have to be warfare. I have divided the ideas about the
medieval into three: As such
ideas have come to us through historiography, it is necessary to emphasise that it is an important consideration in
understanding how time has been divided in history and the hidden connotations
of the time that is under discussion and then to begin to define the term 'medieval'
through historiography.
The word medieval is of
comparatively recent usage. The term used earlier was 'Middle Ages'. It was
generally used in the sense of ' in the middle of' ancient and modern. When we
use words like ancient and modern, we are also attaching a particular
significance or meaning to the age to which these terms are not attributed. This sense of the 'middle
age' emerged not in the context of Indian history, but in Western European
writings of the Renaissance period. The spirit of enquiry and the emphasis on
science and rationality, along with the questioning of the Catholic Church and
the renewed interest in classical antiquity or the ancient civilisations
of Greece and Rome, all led to a new mindset that emphasised
the importance of rationality over faith, of questioning over belief, and of
nation as the greatest creation of human beings. Any period in which these
aspects were not given priority was seen as inferior, and therefore, unworthy
of sustained study. These ideas are most visible in the writings of Thomas
More, William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe (in English); Lope De Vega
(in Spanish); Desiderius Erasmus and Hugo Grotius (in
Latin); and Rene Descartes (in French).
It was in this context that
primacy began to be given to the idea of the medieval being dominated by
religion, and therefore, an essentially illogical time. In an age where science
and rationality were the new gods, belief in a dogmatic, universal faith, based
on faith alone" and not on reason, and therefore, incapable of being
verified logically and scientifically, was naturally looked down on. This,
however, gradually began to change. Over a period of time, the concept of the 'middle
age' itself began to give rise to a new and more detached sense of historical time,
and therefore of detachment from the period that one was studying. Thus, the
study of this middle age itself led to the development (in subsequent times) of
the idea of objectivity in history, to be achieved through the distance that
existed between oneself and the past that one was studying.
Along with all these
questions, there was also a general lack of consensus on the time frame of the
medieval. When actually was the period of the medieval? In Western Europe, did
the medieval period begin after the decline of Rome, in the Dark Ages, 2 or
later, with the Carolingian Empire," or still later, with the
re-establishment of the Holy Roman Empire" under Otto," or later
still, when feudalism had been firmly established? Linked to this would be
another question was the medieval period to be defined in social, political or
economic terms? Could/can these be separated? Periodisation
is necessarily relative and can never be fixed, but the tendency has always
been to search for a fixed starting or ending point; and in history, this has
to be a specific date. This is equally true of both medieval Europe and
medieval India. So, the starting point for medieval Europe has been variously
seen (in addition to those mentioned above) as Alaric's sack of Rome,"
Constantine's conversion to Christianity, the destruction of Carthage,"
the shift from Rome to Constantinople," the establishment of the
Merovingian monarchy," or the assumption of the title of Holy Roman
Emperor by Charlemagne. On the other hand, while the beginning of the medieval
age is still fairly nebulous, the date of the end of the period in Europe has
been much less debated, for, by what seems to be virtually unanimous consent,
it is dated to the fall of Constantinople; though how a single event in a single
year can be so drastically transforming is open to question.
It is necessary to repeat that
ideas about the medieval began to emerge in the context of the Renaissance,"
and that an important aspect of such ideas was the role of religion. The latter
can perhaps be seen to have two aspects to it. One is that of the role of the
Church which was seen as standing in the way of progress, and the other being
the presence of Islam. It should be remembered that one of the most important
features of the Renaissance was giving primacy to rationality over religion.
Under such circumstances, the Church, the controls that it exercised, and the
visible corruption in many aspects of its practice were all seen as standing in
the way of progress. Islam too was seen as problematic. More importantly it had
already been cast as the 'other';'!
The medieval European world
had seen the construction of several 'others', the most important of which were
Islam and Byzantium. The Christianity of Western Europe, the Christianity of
Byzantium and Islam did share a certain common heritage, and in the process of shap illg itself, the first of
those listed above did tend to treat the other two as heresies. The Crusades'? were one
manifestation of this attitude. There were also many other aspects-e-political,
social and economic. But the idea of 'rooting out' heresies undoubtedly played
its part. Byzantium" ceased to be a political and economic threat fairly
early in the age defined as medieval, in fact in precisely the same period that
Islam garnered strength. All of this contributed to the ways in which the 'medieval'
was conceptualised in European historiography.
When studying medieval India,
one faces all these problems, along with a few more. It is now well known that
modern methods of writing history came to India along with colonial rule. In
the twentieth century, historiography itself began to be classified into
primarily 'colonial' and 'nationalist' and later, 'right-wing', 'subaltern',
and 'Marxist' were added to these divisions. Colonial historiography was the
first and very often the most dogmatic, even though path-breaking. Colonial
administrators including the famous William Jones and the rather less known
Colin Mackenzie" contributed substantially to the collection of Indian
literary texts which could be used for Indian history writing. But this
historiography was also influenced by some of the needs of colonial rule.
Colonial historiography became part of the colonial project, and was an
important component for justifying colonial rule. It is necessary to remember
that like colonialism itself, colonial historiography was always a
project-in-process. While this aspect may be taken into account by some, what
is more often ignored Is the legacy of both, the ideas about medieval Europe
and the immediate pre-colonial past of the colony, and the role of these in
shaping mlonial historiography. It is these that I
would like to focus on briefly.
In the course of the eighteenth century, the British acquired more
possessions and political muscle. At the same time the power of the Mughals was declining. While it is true that the British
did not enter into any direct conflict with the Mughals
in the eighteenth century, it is equally true that the Mughal
Empire had by now begun to be accepted as the dispenser of legitimacy. This
could be seen in the states that arose with the fragmentation of the Mughal Empire, where almost all the new rulers claimed to
be ruling in the name of the Mughal Emperor. Crucial
to the basis of British power in India was the grant of the Diwani
or the right to collect taxes, which they got by the Treaty of Allahabad in
1765. It is noteworthy that in this, the only treaty signed with the Mughal Emperor, the British designated themselves the 'Company
Bahadur', and in the process, staked a claim to a
share in the structure of the Empire. Not surprisingly, they then set about
denying that legitimacy, to justify their own position and power.
Some of the writings that
became part of colonial historiography need to be seen in this light as well.
For example, when rule of law was emphasised as the
cornerstone of British policy, and when the judicial structure was revised (in
Bengal to start off with), implicit in both the idea and the re-organisation was the belief that, first, British systems 'were
intrinsically superior, and second, in the absence of such a system earlier,
the British system was revolutionary and therefore change-inducing. The question
of the theocratic state will be dealt with later, but what is being emphasised here is that there was, from the beginning, an
association of religion with the nature of rule. As the belief in the
essentially irrational foundation of religion had already gained wide currency,
any state based on religion had necessarily to be condemned on the grounds of
irrationality, and of religion being discriminatory. Such beliefs would have
added to the prejudice that had begun to gain currency about bloodshed and
rapine supposedly being characteristic of Islamic political power in India. The
second is a question that has not yet been asked. If religion is the criterion
that defines the beginning of a period, should that criterion not be applied to
the time when Islam first made its (political) appearance in India? This would
mean that the 'Muslim period' would have to be pushed back a few centuries, to
the eighth century, CE when the Arabs conquered Sind. Alternatively, it may
also be identified as beginning at the time when Islam became much more visible
in India, and so, perhaps
following Mulla Abdul Qadir
Badauni's framework laid
down in the sixteenth century, one would have to agree that the Muslim period
began with the Ghurid and Ghaznavid
invasions. When such ideas became part of colonial historiography, they added
to the perception of the essentially political and warlike nature of the Muslim
period, which began with conquest and retained throughout the emphasis on
warfare.
If the start of the medieval
period is problematic, then equally important is the question of when the
medieval came to an end. As said earlier, 1757 has traditionally been seen as
the end of the medieval and the date when the British began to establish their
dominance over India, but what precisely the British gained at this time is
rather uncertain. They did interfere in the local politics of a kingdom, and
were successful in replacing the existing ruler with one (supposedly) more
amenable to their demands. On the other hand, they did not get control over the
entire region, nor did they assume any administrative duties. If one must
assign a date, then 1765 is much more defensible, for it was then that, with
the grant of the Diwani of Bengal, they got the right
to collect the revenue of the province. For the English, this marked the
beginning of the transformation of the company itself, for they now actually
began to rule the country rather than just conduct commercial activities.
From the point of view of the Mughal Empire, this was the first time that control over a
province had gone to a group that was not indigenous; more importantly to one
that had, not so long ago, been supplicants rather than the dictator of terms.
But the symbolic authority of the Mughals remained
till 1857, when the mutinying troops rallied around the ageing and ineffective
Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar.
The Mughal rule over India officially came to an end
only in 1858. Therefore, if the medieval period is to be linked to political
rule, especially that of the Mughals, then the
medieval came to an end only in 1858, when India passed officially into the
hands of the British Crown. Other possible dates for the end of the medieval
could be the traditional 1707 (death of Aurangzeb), at which time Mughal power visibly begin to decline, or 1739, when Nadir
Shah's invasion made the weakness of the Mughal
Empire explicit. Yet another possible date is 1761, the year of the Third
Battle of Panipat.
There are other problems about
the medieval, which are mainly to do with India's own regional variations. Was
the medieval period the same in both north and south India? In some ways the
answer would have to be yes, for in both the beginning of the medieval period
can be traced to the eighth century or thereabouts. While these centuries saw
the emergence of regional kingdoms in the north, the south saw a move to larger
and more centralised ones. There are differences even
in the sources. The ancient period in north India saw a predominance of
epigraphic sources and in the course of the medieval these began to be
gradually replaced by literary sources. South India, on the contrary, has an
abundance of literary sources for the ancient period (Sangam
literature) and a wealth of epigraphic ones in the medieval. Inscriptions in
fact, constitute the major source of information for medieval south India.
Some of the questions that
have been raised about dates would apply to the south as well. When did the
medieval begin in south India? With the Pallava rule
which came to an end in the sixth century (approximately 560 CE), with the
ascending of Vijayaiaya Chola
to the throne in 848 CE, from 907 CE when Chola power
began to expand or with the establishment in 1336 of the Vijayanagar
Empire? Or do we begin with the coming of new religions into the south: the
Vedic or Christianity or Islam? When did the medieval end? In 1505 with the
establishment of Portuguese power on the Indian coast, in 1565 with the famous
Battle of Rakshas-Tangadi (Talikota),
when the combined forces of the Deccani sultans
defeated the Vijayanagar Emperor, in the seventeenth
century with the end of the Vijayanagar Empire, or in
1687 when with the seizure of the Golconda Sultanate by the Mughals,
the independent regional kingdoms of the south finally vanished?
Dates, thus, become a very
problematic way of identifying a period. Does this then mean that the periodisation of history is itself meaningless? The answer
to this would be in the negative, for while periodisation
through dates may not make much sense, there are
necessarily some elements of difference between one age and another. Thus, the
ancient, medieval and modern periods need to be studied more through ideas and
institutions than through dates and political events. Changes in society and
economy, forms of exploitation and the nature of access to power change over
time. These then form the basis of different periods of history, rather than
political events. There is a need to study history as a whole, and in this
case, the medieval in particular, from the perspective of ideas and
institutions rather than a rigidly structured timeline corresponding only to
political events. Institutions are obviously easier to identity than ideas, for
the institutions and their functioning would have generated some amount of
writing. But in the writings, the ideas. That shaped the functioning of these
institutions can also, to some extent be identified. Thus, we have statements
about taxes being the wages of sovereignty or of the king being the
representative of his age if not the 'reason' of his age. What is unspoken in such phrases are both the reality and the
ideal of kingship, as well as a clear understanding of the functions of king
and administration. Institutions obviously do not change overnight; but over
the period of the medieval one can see changes in the different institutions,
and so one would have to look for the ideas that led to both the changes and
the continuities. It is these factors which define a period.
I have argued here that while
there may not be a clear identification of the medieval as so far outlined,
there was undoubtedly a medieval
period. The characteristics of this period need to be understood both in the
context of time and place and in relation to other periods. All descriptions of
an age are necessarily relative and comparative, but each age also has its own
defining characteristics. This work is an attempt to understand the medieval,
to try and locate it in its own contexts of time and place in India.
Contents
List of Maps and Photographs |
vi |
|
Acknowledgements |
vii |
|
Introduction: Defining Medieval India |
ix |
|
1. |
Sources for the study of medieval India |
1 |
2. |
The State |
22 |
3. |
Modern perceptions of the medieval state |
50 |
4. |
Kingship |
71 |
5. |
Administrative Systems |
87 |
6. |
Society and social change: Social stratification Social Mobility, Religion |
122 |
7. |
Economy |
146 |
8. |
The Transition out of the Medieval |
174 |
Glossary |
187 |
|
Bibliography |
191 |
|
Index |
203 |
About the
Book
The medieval, in history, not only refers to an age
but also to a set of beliefs that governed that age. It is usually seen as an
era dominated by 'great' wars, empires, rulers and religion. But that would be
only one side of the story. Ideas and Institutions in Medieval India begins with the question 'What is the medieval'? Is it an
age or a mentality or both? While the predominant mindset about the medieval in
India owes its origins mostly to colonial historiographers, the book goes
beyond that prism to examine in considerable detail the changes in the systems
of state and society during the medieval period. The author analyses not just
the political structures extant in the era but also various aspects like
kingship, administration of the state, society, judiciary, economy and the
ideas that they were built around. The volume has looked at political
philosophers of the time like Farabi, Ghazzali, Barani and others and
their concept of a state and contrasted it with the more modern idea of a
medieval state. It examines the state of flux in the country with the rise and
fall of kings and empires, changes in the nature of trade, and emergence of new
classes, castes and centres of power. It also an
analyses these changes in the south of India and looks at the trajectory that
the region
About the Author
Radhika Seshan is associate professor, department of History,
University of Pune.
Introduction
What is the 'medieval'? Is it
an age or a mentality, or both? Is it a mentality associated with an age, or
attributed to it? If it is an age, then when did it begin? Equally important,
when did it end? Did it end at all? The same question can be asked about
mentality also-did a particular kind of mentality emerge with the 'medieval'?
Is 'medieval' different from the 'middle ages', or are the two terms synonymous?
And finally, if there was a transition into and out of the medieval, what did
it involve? All these are questions that are asked, often without getting any
conclusive answers, because the answers invariably lead to more questions.
The medieval is generally
believed to be both an age and a mentality, i.e., it is believed that there is
a characteristic, or a set of characteristic beliefs about certain things,
which can be termed 'medieval'. When it is linked to the mindset of the time,
the word 'medievalism' is often attached to it, and in itself tends to carry a
great many connotations. This belief is both of and in the
period that is being talked about. So, there is an understanding that, in the
period considered the medieval, there were certain ideas, which, when carried
forward into another time, were labelled 'medieval'.
It is necessary to understand here that these beliefs are very often about the time, and are not
necessarily ones that were prevalent in
the time under consideration; after all in the period that we call the
medieval, people certainly believed they were living in a modern age. But
precisely because the belief is about the age, it becomes more difficult to
actually identify the 'medieval'. One therefore, has to look at three distinct,
but related themes, for answers. These are historiography, socio-economic
structures and political institutions. As stated above, these are inter-related
themes, but, to a certain extent, can also be studied separately from each other.
Depending on the audience one
is addressing medieval would mean castles, swords, horses and chivalry when one
is talking of medieval Europe; and for India, it would probably be the Mughals their pomp, luxury, decadence, architecture, the
size of their empire, and almost certainly their religious policies. Included
in the last two would have to be warfare. I have divided the ideas about the
medieval into three: As such
ideas have come to us through historiography, it is necessary to emphasise that it is an important consideration in
understanding how time has been divided in history and the hidden connotations
of the time that is under discussion and then to begin to define the term 'medieval'
through historiography.
The word medieval is of
comparatively recent usage. The term used earlier was 'Middle Ages'. It was
generally used in the sense of ' in the middle of' ancient and modern. When we
use words like ancient and modern, we are also attaching a particular
significance or meaning to the age to which these terms are not attributed. This sense of the 'middle
age' emerged not in the context of Indian history, but in Western European
writings of the Renaissance period. The spirit of enquiry and the emphasis on
science and rationality, along with the questioning of the Catholic Church and
the renewed interest in classical antiquity or the ancient civilisations
of Greece and Rome, all led to a new mindset that emphasised
the importance of rationality over faith, of questioning over belief, and of
nation as the greatest creation of human beings. Any period in which these
aspects were not given priority was seen as inferior, and therefore, unworthy
of sustained study. These ideas are most visible in the writings of Thomas
More, William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe (in English); Lope De Vega
(in Spanish); Desiderius Erasmus and Hugo Grotius (in
Latin); and Rene Descartes (in French).
It was in this context that
primacy began to be given to the idea of the medieval being dominated by
religion, and therefore, an essentially illogical time. In an age where science
and rationality were the new gods, belief in a dogmatic, universal faith, based
on faith alone" and not on reason, and therefore, incapable of being
verified logically and scientifically, was naturally looked down on. This,
however, gradually began to change. Over a period of time, the concept of the 'middle
age' itself began to give rise to a new and more detached sense of historical time,
and therefore of detachment from the period that one was studying. Thus, the
study of this middle age itself led to the development (in subsequent times) of
the idea of objectivity in history, to be achieved through the distance that
existed between oneself and the past that one was studying.
Along with all these
questions, there was also a general lack of consensus on the time frame of the
medieval. When actually was the period of the medieval? In Western Europe, did
the medieval period begin after the decline of Rome, in the Dark Ages, 2 or
later, with the Carolingian Empire," or still later, with the
re-establishment of the Holy Roman Empire" under Otto," or later
still, when feudalism had been firmly established? Linked to this would be
another question was the medieval period to be defined in social, political or
economic terms? Could/can these be separated? Periodisation
is necessarily relative and can never be fixed, but the tendency has always
been to search for a fixed starting or ending point; and in history, this has
to be a specific date. This is equally true of both medieval Europe and
medieval India. So, the starting point for medieval Europe has been variously
seen (in addition to those mentioned above) as Alaric's sack of Rome,"
Constantine's conversion to Christianity, the destruction of Carthage,"
the shift from Rome to Constantinople," the establishment of the
Merovingian monarchy," or the assumption of the title of Holy Roman
Emperor by Charlemagne. On the other hand, while the beginning of the medieval
age is still fairly nebulous, the date of the end of the period in Europe has
been much less debated, for, by what seems to be virtually unanimous consent,
it is dated to the fall of Constantinople; though how a single event in a single
year can be so drastically transforming is open to question.
It is necessary to repeat that
ideas about the medieval began to emerge in the context of the Renaissance,"
and that an important aspect of such ideas was the role of religion. The latter
can perhaps be seen to have two aspects to it. One is that of the role of the
Church which was seen as standing in the way of progress, and the other being
the presence of Islam. It should be remembered that one of the most important
features of the Renaissance was giving primacy to rationality over religion.
Under such circumstances, the Church, the controls that it exercised, and the
visible corruption in many aspects of its practice were all seen as standing in
the way of progress. Islam too was seen as problematic. More importantly it had
already been cast as the 'other';'!
The medieval European world
had seen the construction of several 'others', the most important of which were
Islam and Byzantium. The Christianity of Western Europe, the Christianity of
Byzantium and Islam did share a certain common heritage, and in the process of shap illg itself, the first of
those listed above did tend to treat the other two as heresies. The Crusades'? were one
manifestation of this attitude. There were also many other aspects-e-political,
social and economic. But the idea of 'rooting out' heresies undoubtedly played
its part. Byzantium" ceased to be a political and economic threat fairly
early in the age defined as medieval, in fact in precisely the same period that
Islam garnered strength. All of this contributed to the ways in which the 'medieval'
was conceptualised in European historiography.
When studying medieval India,
one faces all these problems, along with a few more. It is now well known that
modern methods of writing history came to India along with colonial rule. In
the twentieth century, historiography itself began to be classified into
primarily 'colonial' and 'nationalist' and later, 'right-wing', 'subaltern',
and 'Marxist' were added to these divisions. Colonial historiography was the
first and very often the most dogmatic, even though path-breaking. Colonial
administrators including the famous William Jones and the rather less known
Colin Mackenzie" contributed substantially to the collection of Indian
literary texts which could be used for Indian history writing. But this
historiography was also influenced by some of the needs of colonial rule.
Colonial historiography became part of the colonial project, and was an
important component for justifying colonial rule. It is necessary to remember
that like colonialism itself, colonial historiography was always a
project-in-process. While this aspect may be taken into account by some, what
is more often ignored Is the legacy of both, the ideas about medieval Europe
and the immediate pre-colonial past of the colony, and the role of these in
shaping mlonial historiography. It is these that I
would like to focus on briefly.
In the course of the eighteenth century, the British acquired more
possessions and political muscle. At the same time the power of the Mughals was declining. While it is true that the British
did not enter into any direct conflict with the Mughals
in the eighteenth century, it is equally true that the Mughal
Empire had by now begun to be accepted as the dispenser of legitimacy. This
could be seen in the states that arose with the fragmentation of the Mughal Empire, where almost all the new rulers claimed to
be ruling in the name of the Mughal Emperor. Crucial
to the basis of British power in India was the grant of the Diwani
or the right to collect taxes, which they got by the Treaty of Allahabad in
1765. It is noteworthy that in this, the only treaty signed with the Mughal Emperor, the British designated themselves the 'Company
Bahadur', and in the process, staked a claim to a
share in the structure of the Empire. Not surprisingly, they then set about
denying that legitimacy, to justify their own position and power.
Some of the writings that
became part of colonial historiography need to be seen in this light as well.
For example, when rule of law was emphasised as the
cornerstone of British policy, and when the judicial structure was revised (in
Bengal to start off with), implicit in both the idea and the re-organisation was the belief that, first, British systems 'were
intrinsically superior, and second, in the absence of such a system earlier,
the British system was revolutionary and therefore change-inducing. The question
of the theocratic state will be dealt with later, but what is being emphasised here is that there was, from the beginning, an
association of religion with the nature of rule. As the belief in the
essentially irrational foundation of religion had already gained wide currency,
any state based on religion had necessarily to be condemned on the grounds of
irrationality, and of religion being discriminatory. Such beliefs would have
added to the prejudice that had begun to gain currency about bloodshed and
rapine supposedly being characteristic of Islamic political power in India. The
second is a question that has not yet been asked. If religion is the criterion
that defines the beginning of a period, should that criterion not be applied to
the time when Islam first made its (political) appearance in India? This would
mean that the 'Muslim period' would have to be pushed back a few centuries, to
the eighth century, CE when the Arabs conquered Sind. Alternatively, it may
also be identified as beginning at the time when Islam became much more visible
in India, and so, perhaps
following Mulla Abdul Qadir
Badauni's framework laid
down in the sixteenth century, one would have to agree that the Muslim period
began with the Ghurid and Ghaznavid
invasions. When such ideas became part of colonial historiography, they added
to the perception of the essentially political and warlike nature of the Muslim
period, which began with conquest and retained throughout the emphasis on
warfare.
If the start of the medieval
period is problematic, then equally important is the question of when the
medieval came to an end. As said earlier, 1757 has traditionally been seen as
the end of the medieval and the date when the British began to establish their
dominance over India, but what precisely the British gained at this time is
rather uncertain. They did interfere in the local politics of a kingdom, and
were successful in replacing the existing ruler with one (supposedly) more
amenable to their demands. On the other hand, they did not get control over the
entire region, nor did they assume any administrative duties. If one must
assign a date, then 1765 is much more defensible, for it was then that, with
the grant of the Diwani of Bengal, they got the right
to collect the revenue of the province. For the English, this marked the
beginning of the transformation of the company itself, for they now actually
began to rule the country rather than just conduct commercial activities.
From the point of view of the Mughal Empire, this was the first time that control over a
province had gone to a group that was not indigenous; more importantly to one
that had, not so long ago, been supplicants rather than the dictator of terms.
But the symbolic authority of the Mughals remained
till 1857, when the mutinying troops rallied around the ageing and ineffective
Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar.
The Mughal rule over India officially came to an end
only in 1858. Therefore, if the medieval period is to be linked to political
rule, especially that of the Mughals, then the
medieval came to an end only in 1858, when India passed officially into the
hands of the British Crown. Other possible dates for the end of the medieval
could be the traditional 1707 (death of Aurangzeb), at which time Mughal power visibly begin to decline, or 1739, when Nadir
Shah's invasion made the weakness of the Mughal
Empire explicit. Yet another possible date is 1761, the year of the Third
Battle of Panipat.
There are other problems about
the medieval, which are mainly to do with India's own regional variations. Was
the medieval period the same in both north and south India? In some ways the
answer would have to be yes, for in both the beginning of the medieval period
can be traced to the eighth century or thereabouts. While these centuries saw
the emergence of regional kingdoms in the north, the south saw a move to larger
and more centralised ones. There are differences even
in the sources. The ancient period in north India saw a predominance of
epigraphic sources and in the course of the medieval these began to be
gradually replaced by literary sources. South India, on the contrary, has an
abundance of literary sources for the ancient period (Sangam
literature) and a wealth of epigraphic ones in the medieval. Inscriptions in
fact, constitute the major source of information for medieval south India.
Some of the questions that
have been raised about dates would apply to the south as well. When did the
medieval begin in south India? With the Pallava rule
which came to an end in the sixth century (approximately 560 CE), with the
ascending of Vijayaiaya Chola
to the throne in 848 CE, from 907 CE when Chola power
began to expand or with the establishment in 1336 of the Vijayanagar
Empire? Or do we begin with the coming of new religions into the south: the
Vedic or Christianity or Islam? When did the medieval end? In 1505 with the
establishment of Portuguese power on the Indian coast, in 1565 with the famous
Battle of Rakshas-Tangadi (Talikota),
when the combined forces of the Deccani sultans
defeated the Vijayanagar Emperor, in the seventeenth
century with the end of the Vijayanagar Empire, or in
1687 when with the seizure of the Golconda Sultanate by the Mughals,
the independent regional kingdoms of the south finally vanished?
Dates, thus, become a very
problematic way of identifying a period. Does this then mean that the periodisation of history is itself meaningless? The answer
to this would be in the negative, for while periodisation
through dates may not make much sense, there are
necessarily some elements of difference between one age and another. Thus, the
ancient, medieval and modern periods need to be studied more through ideas and
institutions than through dates and political events. Changes in society and
economy, forms of exploitation and the nature of access to power change over
time. These then form the basis of different periods of history, rather than
political events. There is a need to study history as a whole, and in this
case, the medieval in particular, from the perspective of ideas and
institutions rather than a rigidly structured timeline corresponding only to
political events. Institutions are obviously easier to identity than ideas, for
the institutions and their functioning would have generated some amount of
writing. But in the writings, the ideas. That shaped the functioning of these
institutions can also, to some extent be identified. Thus, we have statements
about taxes being the wages of sovereignty or of the king being the
representative of his age if not the 'reason' of his age. What is unspoken in such phrases are both the reality and the
ideal of kingship, as well as a clear understanding of the functions of king
and administration. Institutions obviously do not change overnight; but over
the period of the medieval one can see changes in the different institutions,
and so one would have to look for the ideas that led to both the changes and
the continuities. It is these factors which define a period.
I have argued here that while
there may not be a clear identification of the medieval as so far outlined,
there was undoubtedly a medieval
period. The characteristics of this period need to be understood both in the
context of time and place and in relation to other periods. All descriptions of
an age are necessarily relative and comparative, but each age also has its own
defining characteristics. This work is an attempt to understand the medieval,
to try and locate it in its own contexts of time and place in India.
Contents
List of Maps and Photographs |
vi |
|
Acknowledgements |
vii |
|
Introduction: Defining Medieval India |
ix |
|
1. |
Sources for the study of medieval India |
1 |
2. |
The State |
22 |
3. |
Modern perceptions of the medieval state |
50 |
4. |
Kingship |
71 |
5. |
Administrative Systems |
87 |
6. |
Society and social change: Social stratification Social Mobility, Religion |
122 |
7. |
Economy |
146 |
8. |
The Transition out of the Medieval |
174 |
Glossary |
187 |
|
Bibliography |
191 |
|
Index |
203 |