[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [General history and culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general) › [Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973) › c8 # Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c8: III. Total Population—Pre-1000 Position Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c8 - **Language:** English ### III. Total Population—Pre-1000 Position ### [c8.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.2) Let us start with the demographic position of India prior to the year A. D. 1,000. Although no data as such are available for the ancient times, there are statements of Greek writers which depict India as a country of large population. Apollodorus writes that there were between Hydaspes (Jhelum) and Hyphasis (Beas)—approximately the kingdom of Porus—1500 cities, none of which was less than a \*kos\*, which, adds Elphinstone, 'with every allowance for exaggeration, supposes a most flourishing territory.'¹ The army of Porus, one of the several kings who ruled in the Punjab, is said to have had 200 elephants, 300 chariots, 4,000 cavalry and 30,000 infantry.² This was the position in the western Punjab. In the East, Patliputra was eight miles long and one and a half broad and had 64 gates. The army of Chandragupta Maurya in camp, according to Magasthenes, was four hundred thousand and its total strength seven hundred thousand. ### [c8.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.3) ¹ Apollodorous in Strabo, cited in Elphinstone, \*op. cit.\*, (I, n 6), p. 460. ### [c8.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.4) ² \*Ibid.\*, p. 458. Elphinstone considers these figures to be too high. ### [c8.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.5) Since a detailed study of ancient Indian demography is out of the purview of the present study, it may be stated that on the basis of a careful examination of the evidence available on the subject, Dr. Pran Nath estimates the population of India around 300 B.C. as between 100 and 140 million.³ This figure might appear to be on the high side⁴. But Professor Kingsley Davis, who has made a thorough study of the population of India and Pakistan, agrees with the estimate of Pran Nath and adds that conditions in ancient India provided a good basis for a large population. What he says may be summarised thus. ### [c8.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.6) ³ Pran Nath, \*Study in the Economic Condition of Ancient India\*, Royal Asiatic Society (London, 1929), Chapter V. ### [c8.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.7) ⁴ More so when Colin Clark believes that the population of India (and Pakistan) was 70 million in A.D. 14. His estimates of poulation up to A.D. 1,000 which, as will be seen presently are certainly low, are as follows: ### [c8.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.8) Being near the centre of origin of Neolithic cultural traits (India received these earlier than most of Europe), India had thousands of years ago, the basis for a thickly settled population. The highly developed civilization of the Indus Valley people and the Aryans confirms this contention. The Harappa and Mohenjodaro excavations reveal that "as far back as the 3rd or 4th millennium B.C. and probably much earlier still, India was in possession of a highly developed civilization with large and populous cities, well built houses, temples and public buildings...and many other amenities. Both sites contain the ruins of five or six cities superimposed one on top of another, and disclose a well-developed artistic sense and business-like habits.....and a highly developed city life."⁵ "The inhabitants of these cities lived largely no doubt by agriculture".⁶ ### [c8.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.9) ⁵ Kingsley Davis, \*op. cit\*, (I, n. 9), p. 23. ### [c8.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.10) ⁶ \*Ibid\*, p. 23. ### [c8.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.11) The Aryans came from the north-west around 2,000 B.C. They were an agricultural and pastoral people who understood the principles of irrigation and manuring and used the animal-drawn plough. They exhibited a marked division of labour based on caste and birth (\*varna\*) and also on economic and occupational diversification, differentiating wood workers, metal workers, leather workers, weavers, soldiers, and priests. ### [c8.12](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.12) "So in India some three to seven thousand years ago there were peoples possessing a technology sufficiently advanced to support ### [c8.13](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.13) | A. D. | | | 14 | 70 million | | 35 | 75 ,, | | 600 | 75 ,, | | 800 | 75 ,, | | 1,000 | 70 ,, | ### [c8.14](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.14) Colin, Clark, \*Population Growth and Land Use\*, (Macmillan, New York, 1967), p. 64, Table. ### [c8.15](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.15) a dense population ; and they encountered in the soil of India favourable conditions for the application of this technology."⁷ Contemporary accounts of the times bear out the belief that the country was well peopled in a remote age. Although the Rig Veda talks of small villages only, the Brahmana literature, around 800-600 B.C., reveals that some of the villages had grown into towns and capitals with an urban mode of life. The caste system was crystallizing and the division of labour becoming more and more complex. Rice and other crops were being harvested, almost on a large scale. "The plough was large and heavy: we hear of as many as twenty-four oxen being harnessed to one..."⁸ ### [c8.16](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.16) ⁷ \*Ibid.\*, pp. 23-24 ### [c8.17](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.17) ⁸ \*Cambridge History of India\* (hereafter C.H.I.), I, (Cambridge University Press, 1922), p. 118, also pp. 130, 135-37. ### [c8.18](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.18) "The Buddhist literature indicates that between the 7th and 4th centuries B.C. the economy of nothern India was comparable to that of the later middle ages in Europe."⁹ Crafts and commerce were flourishing, and were highly organised. Money and credit were everyday instruments. The ordinary town seemed to embrace anywhere from 30 to 1,000 families, and approximately 20 cities existed in northern India alone. One tribal area, that of the Sakiyans, is supposed to have contained half a million people. Sea commerce extended to places as far away as Babylon.¹⁰ At the time of Alexander's invasion (327-26 B.C.), the population seems to have been really large. One small kingdom (of Glaucanica or Glausae) was said to have 37 towns of over 5,000 inhabitants each".¹¹ Later, India's first real empire under the sway of Chandragupta Maurya (c. 321-297 B. C.) left records indicating a standing army of approximately 700,000 men, the maintenance of which must have required a substantial population. His engagement with Selucus and defeat of Selucus shows how vast his resources and strong his army and administration were. The administrative set up of Patliputra alone indicates a large and thickly populated and urbanized capital. "Under Ashoka (c. 274-236 B.C.) this empire achieved one of the highest points of Indian civilization, based on efficient administration, the use of written commands, abundant commerce, extensive agriculture, and the use of metals.”\[’^12\] ### [c8.19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.19) ⁹ Davis, \*op. cit.\*, (1, n. 9), p. 24. ### [c8.20](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.20) ¹⁰ C.H.I., I, \*op. cit.\*, (n. 8), pp. 175-6, 200-201, 212,219. ### [c8.21](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.21) ¹¹ Elphinstone, \*op. cit.\*, (1, n. 6). pp. 458-59 n, writing on the authority of Arrian. ### [c8.22](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.22) “So putting the evidence from archaeology, literature, and history together, we reach the conclusion that before the Christian era India had a substantial population, first because of its advanced technology and second because of the fertile environment of the application of this technology.”\[’^13\] Though great sections remained sparsely settled, some of the plains must have had a dense population. ### [c8.23](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.23) To resume, Dr. Pran Nath thinks that the population of India around 300 B.C. was 100 to 140 million. The next estimate that we have is by W. H. Moreland for the year A.D. 1600. According to him the population of India in 1600 was a hundred million.¹⁴ Between these two dates, covering a period of about 2,000 years, we are almost in the dark about the demographic position of our country. ### [c8.24](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.24) ¹⁴ Moreland, \*op. cit.\*, (I, n. 8), p 22. ### [c8.25](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.25) Dr. Nath believes “that the population of the country as a whole did not greatly vary between the early Hindu period and the first advent of Muhammadans, and it may be supposed to have lain roughly between the above limit (100—140 million).”¹⁵ Strangely enough the estimates of Colin Clark also suggest more or less a stationary population for more than 1,300 years (although for a later, period, between A.D. 35 and 1340).¹⁶ If these estimates are accepted we have to admit that right from 300 B.C. to A.D. 1600, for full 1,900 years (or almost two thousand years), the demographic picture hardly registered any charge. Such a situation is remarkable only if it is true. There are, no doubt, certain features of ancient India’s social and economic life which hint at the country’s having a stationary population. A stationary population tends to make society traditional and even static, and the ancient Indian society has almost earned a name for being traditional. But the more important fact is that a rising population necessitates changes in production techniques and invention of more effective tools of production. But the implements of agricultural production, like the wooden plough with metal point, the toothed harrow, the sowing drill, pick and hoe, the smoothing board, the levelling beam, mattocks, spades and rakes and various contrivances for raising water did not substantially change in the ancient period. Nor did the production technique register any substantial alteration. Obviously the produce sufficed for a stationary population, and there being no need for increased production, there was no attempt made to improve agricultural implements. ### [c8.26](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.26) ¹² Davis, \*op. cit.\*, (I, n 9), p. 24. ### [c8.27](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.27) ¹³ \*Ibid\*, p 24. ### [c8.28](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.28) ¹⁵ Pran Nath. \*op. cit.\* (n. 3) p. 122. Davis, \*op. cit.\*, (I, n. 9), p. 24. ### [c8.29](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.29) ¹⁶ According to Clark \*op, cit.\*, (n. 4), p. 64, the population of India in A.D. 35 was 75 million, and continued to remain so till 1340 A.D. ### [c8.30](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.30) But this analysis contains many fallacies. To us ancient society might look traditional or static as "when we pass a much slow-moving auto on the road... it seems to be standing still." Social change in ancient times was no doubt slow, and yet ancient Indian society was not so static or traditional after all. For the implements of agricultural production have remained the same right up to our own times, but the population has gone on increasing so as to touch the 500 million mark now. Therefore, the points referred to above, while needing our attention, should not lead us to believe that the population remained stationary for two thousand years after 300 B.C. There is no evidence to show that the conditions discussed earlier, conducive to the growth of population, had ceased to exist after 300 B.C. There were invasions of the Sakas, Scythians and Hunas no doubt, and the cruel deeds of Mihirikula were long remembered, but the absorption of the conquering hordes in the country's population should not have vitally affected the demographic position. Besides, any loss would have been made up in a few centuries if not decades. Thus, in spite of some periods of decline, the population did naturally grow. ### [c8.31](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.31) Fa-hien in the fifth century and Hieuen Tsang in the seventh seem to have been impressed with India's population. Fa-hien travelled in the Gupta Empire from A.D. 405 to 411, and stayed at Patliputra for a year and a half. He speaks of Magadh as a prosperous region with large towns and wealthy population. Between the Indus and Mathura he saw many monasteries. In Mathura alone there were 20 monasteries with 3,000 monks. Hieuen Tsang travelled the whole of India between A.D. 630 and 644. He says that Purshapura (Peshawar) and Taxila were almost in ruins because of the atrocities of Mihirikula. But the crowds of pilgrims at Prayag impressed him greatly. He saw about 5000 monasteries and these contained about 200,000 monks "Both Fa-hien and Hieuen Tsang refer to a large number of towns and the latter gives their area as 20, 30, or 40 \*li\* in circuit, one \*li\* being about one-sixth of an English mile "¹⁸ ### [c8.32](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.32) ¹⁷ Wilbert E. Moore, \*Social Change\*, Prentice Hall, India (New Delhi, 1965), p. 1. ### [c8.33](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.33) ¹⁸ \*The Classical Age\*, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Second impression, (Bombay, 1962), p. 583 n. 1. ### [c8.34](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.34) Similarly, the evidence of the Arab-geographers shows that India was a thickly populated country in the ninth and tenth centuries. Al Masudi, writing about A.D. 941-42, speaks of Kanauj as a very great kingdom. It had four armies. "Each of them numbers 700,000 to 900,000 men",¹⁹ and is assigned to repulse an attack in any of the four directions. About Multan Masudi says, "it is one of the strongest frontier places of the Musalmans, and around it there are one hundred and twenty thousand towns and villages".²⁰ Ibn Hauqal, who finished his work in A.D. 976, also calls Multan a city with a strong fort, "but Mansura is more fertile and prosperous".²¹ Debal "is a large mart, and the port not only of this but neighbouring regions".²² These geographers were interested only in Islamic countries, and stopped their narratives when they reached the extreme eastern border of the dominions of Islam',²³ namely Sind, where Muslims ruled, and Gujarat, with which they had commercial intercourse. Even so, their general impression was that India was a large and populous country. ### [c8.35](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.35) ¹⁹ \*Muruj-ul-Zuhab, op. cit.\*, (II, n. 1), p. 23. ### [c8.36](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.36) ²⁰ \*Ibid\*, p. 20. Also Idrisi, \*Nuzhat-ul-Mushtaq\*, trs. in E and D, I, p. 82. ### [c8.37](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.37) ²¹ \*Ashkal-ul-Bilad, op. cit.\*, (II, n. 36), p. 36. ### [c8.38](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.38) ²² \*Ibid.\*, p. 37. ### [c8.39](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.39) ²³ \*Ibid\*, p. 40. ### [c8.40](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.40) Another fact which should not be lost sight of is that from the time of Ashoka, Buddhist missionaries used to go abroad, and with time their number would have become commensurate with their influence as "both Buddhist and Brahmanical religions were widely prevalent in several countries of western Asia before the advent of Islam".²⁴ Between the second and fifth centuries A.D. Indian colonial kingdoms were established in the Malay Peninsula, Cambodia, Annam and the islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali and Borneo. ### [c8.41](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.41) ²⁴ R. C. Majumdar, C. Raychaudhuri and K. K. Datta, \*An Advanced History of India\*, Macmillan & Co. (London, 1958), p. 212. ### [c8.42](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.42) In all these places Hindu manners and customs became widely prevalent. This shows that the number of Indians who migrated to them was large. Shrivijaya. Shailendra and Chola rule was established in South-East Asia from the eighth to the eleventh centuries. Al Masudi talks of the 'innumerable armies of the Maharaja' of Zabag ('isles of the eastern sea'). In the Hindu kingdom of Kambuja, a Chinese author writes : "More than a thousand Brahmans from India reside there...(and) read their books day and night".²⁵ In the temples of Borobudur and Angkor Vat. 'the style of sculpture follows the classic models of Gupta India'.²⁶ The causes of Indian cultural and colonial expansion in South-East Asia are not easy to assess, but Mysoreans, other South Indians, North Indians, Bengalis and many others went there.²⁷ The emigration was not due to any population pressure in India. But the migration of princes, soldiers, scholars, priests, sculptors etc., and that too in good numbers, indicates that India had a large population—enough and to spare. ### [c8.43](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.43) ²⁵ \*Ibid.\*, p. 216. ### [c8.44](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.44) ²⁶ D. G. E. Hall, \*A History of South-East Asia\*, Macmillan & Co. (London. 1955), p. 43. ### [c8.45](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.45) ²⁷ \*Ibid.\*, p. 21. ### [c8.46](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.46) Now the main problem is : what could be the population of India in A.D. 1000 ? This gives rise to another question : what were the territorial boundaries of India whose population we are going to estimate ? The India of A.D. 1000 was much bigger than what it (India and Pakistan) is today. The Hindu Shahiya kings ruled upto Hindu Kush mountains including Kabul and Lamghan and their coins used to be struck at Qandhar.²⁸ In the east the Kamrup country bordered on China.²⁹ According to some Arab geographers even Tibet (or at least a part of it) was included within the Indian frontiers.³⁰ The India of A.D. 1000 was thus a very vast country indeed. No wonder that Sulaiman the Merchant, who had visited India and China several times, writes (A.D. 851) that 'the country of India is larger than that of China...Its rulers are also larger in number'.³¹ ### [c8.47](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.47) ²⁸ Ibn Hauqal, \*op. cit.\*, (II, n, 36), p. 35. ### [c8.48](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.48) ²⁹ Al Idrisi, \*op. cit.\*, (n 20), p. 76. ### [c8.49](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.49) ³⁰ Rashiduddin, on the authority of Alberuni, \*op. cit.\*, (II, n. 2), pp. 57, 63. ### [c8.50](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.50) ³¹ \*Sulaiman Saudagar\*, trs. from Arabic into Hindi by Munshi Mahesh Prasad, Nagri Pracharni Sabha (Kashi, sam. 1978, A.D. 1921), p. 83. ### [c8.51](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.51) Jatindra Mohan Datta writes: "Farishtah...states that the population of India at the beginning of the Muhammadan conquest was six hundred million (60 crors)".³² I have not been able to locate this figure in Ferishtah's text, but the whole narrative of Ferishtah does give the impression that India, on the'eve of Muslim conquest, was a very large and populous country.³³ Datta, however, rightly remarks that a population of 200 to 300 million would be a better estimate, and if 100 to 140 million is estimated for 300 B.C., a population of 200 million is certainly not a high figure for A.D. 1,000. J.M. Datta adds: "the population was very much greater (on the eve of Turkish invasions) than at the death of Akbar. During centuries of invasions, constant oppression and misrule, the wholesale massacres during the Pathan period, the population of India dwindled...This broad fact emerges from the two estimates (Ferishtah's and Moreland's), howsoever erroneous or full of fallacies the individual estimates may be."³⁴ ### [c8.52](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.52) ³² Jatindra Mohan Datta, "Proportion of Muhammadans in India Through Centuries", \*Modern Review\*, Calcutta, January, 1948, p. 32. ### [c8.53](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.53) ³³ Ferishtah, \*op. cit.\*, (II, n. 6), I, pp. 17-28. ### [c8.54](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8.54) ³⁴ J. M. Datta, \*op. cit.\*, (n. 32), p. 32 ## Cites (4) - [Harappā](https://indike.org/pramana/inp.site.harappa) - [Mohenjo-daro](https://indike.org/pramana/inp.site.mohenjo-daro) - [Ἰνδικά](https://indike.org/pramana/inf.gr.hellenistic.megasthenes) — Μεγασθένης, Ancient Greek - [Ṛgvedasaṃhitā](https://indike.org/pramana/in.veda.samhita.rg) — Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.lal-1973.c8) · Pramāṇa