History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c85.s6: § 8. Administrative decline and public disturbances in N. India.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c85.s6
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§ 8. Administrative decline and public disturbances in N. India.
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The inflated expenditure and incessant warfare in the Deccan adversely reacted on the situation in Northern India. The older, and more settled peaceful and prosperous provinces of the empire were drained of their manhood, wealth, and talent. The best soldiers, the highest officers, and all the collected revenue were sent to the Deccan, while the subahs of Hindustan were henceforth left to minor officers with small contingents and incomes quite inadequate for maintaining viceregal authority. All classes of lawless men began to raise their heads in the north as well as the south, though later and more fitfully in Hindustan than in the Deccan. The new class of subahdars and faujdars were too low in rank and armed strength to repress them. The proud zamindars, whose grand-fathers had been ruling princes before the coming of the Mughals, the Afghan families settled in various districts (especially Jaunpur, Malwa, Allahabad and North Orissa) and still dreaming of their lost empire in India, claimants to principalities dispossessed by order of Aurangzib, predatory tribes like the Jat peasantry west of Agra and the Mewatis south-west of Delhi, and turbulent Rajput peasantry like the Bais of Oudh and the Ujjainias of South Bihar,—all rose in defiance of the Government and began to lay hands on their weaker neighbours. The local viceroys could not cope with them with their normal contingents (zabita); they could hope to suppress the rebels only if they engaged troops in excess of the number for which their salary was fixed. And such extra retainers meant increased expenditure. [Dil. ii. 139a-140a.]
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§ 9. Poverty and powerlessness of governors.
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But, at the same time, their income, inadequate even on paper for their heavy duties, was actually dwindling very fast. The general unrest naturally caused a falling off in the rent collection from the peasants. Then, the frequent changes of officers and transfers of their jagirs prevented them from gaining knowledge of the tenantry, establishing relations with them, and spreading the inevitable arrears of a lean year gently over a number of fat years. It is difficult to imagine a system more ruinous to the peasants and therefore in the long run more harmful to the State also, than the actual administration of Mughal jagirs. It ended in a mad looting of the peasants by rival jagirdars' agents or successive agents of the same jagirdar. The former I have described a few pages back. As for the latter, Bhimsen gives a lurid picture of it: "There is no hope of a jagir being left with the same officer next year. When a jagirdar sends a collector to his jagir, he first takes an advance from the latter by way of loan. This collector, on arriving in the village, fearing lest a second man who had given a larger loan to the jagirdar was following (to supplant him), does not hesitate to collect the rent with every oppression.... The ryots have given up cultivation; the jagirdars do not get a penny." [Dil. ii. 139a-140a.] The same ruinous policy was followed in revenue-collection in the Crownlands, as we learn from the despatches of the subahdar of Orissa. [Studies in Mughal India, 223.]
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The result of this policy was that the imperial officers, whether holding jagirs in the older or the newly conquered provinces, all alike starved on account of the rent collection of their fiefs always falling into arrears. Thus, a vicious circle was formed: political disorder (to which we must add a wrong system of land administration) led to less and less money coming from the jagirs; this diminished income forced the governors to keep fewer and fewer men* in their pay; the decrease in their armed strength encouraged greater lawlessness among the people, from which followed a further impoverishment of the peasants and falling off in the land revenue. The evil was universal throughout the Deccan, and also very noticeable in Bundelkhand, Malwa, and parts of Allahabad and Oudh.
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∗ *Dil.* ii. 149b. "Except these three men who have ancestral estates, viz., Rao Dalpat, Ram Singh Hada, and Jai Singh
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War was the only occupation of the Rajputs and indeed of all the Hindus who claimed to belong to the Kshatriya caste. The Mughal peace established in northern India had left to them chances of employment only in the trans-frontier regions on the west or in the still unsubdued parts of the Deccan. Rajputs had fought under the imperial banner in Central Asia and Qandahar. But in Aurangzib's reign Mughal military activity was contracted within the frontiers, though Kabul was still a part of his empire. His annexation of the remaining Deccan principalities caused unemployment among the Rajputs in two ways,—first because he was under the necessity of giving employment to the masterless local troops of the subverted monarchies, and secondly because fewer territories were now left for him to conquer. In these circumstances aspiring scions of Rajput houses could only fight with their kinsfolk for their ancestral "homes," take to robbery,
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Kachhwah, I have not seen a single noble who kept even a thousand troopers in his contingent." The Akhbarat give reports of hazaris and 2-hazaris not keeping a single soldier under them.
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or apostatize in order to get grants of estates from Aurangzib.
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This situation was changed by the huge waste of life through pestilence and famine, even more than by actual slaughter, in the last years of the Emperor's reign. The Hindu manhood of the North therefore continued to be drained for the Deccan war, but without any corresponding gain to Aurangzib; because the Rajputs with all their bravery were proverbially unfit for siege operations and hill-fighting, and at the same time his Deccani auxiliaries were untrustworthy. [Dil. ii. 146b.]
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§ 10. Decay of Indian civilisation under Aurangzib, its causes and signs.
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The retrogression of mediæval Indian civilisation under Aurangzib is noticeable not only in the fine arts,—the decay of which was only the outward manifestation of it,—but still more in the low intellectual type of the new generation. As the 17th century wore on, the older nobility nourished on the manly traditions of Akbar and Shah Jahan, gifted with greater independence of spirit, and trained with greater resources and responsibility,—gradually died out, and their places in camp and Court were taken by smaller men, supplied with poorer resources by the suspicious Aurangzib, afraid to exercise responsibility and initiative, and seeking to advance themselves by sycophancy. [Dil. ii. 150b.] The exceptionally prolonged life of Aurangzib with its ever increasing store of experience and information made him intellectually dwarf the younger generation. His self-sufficiency and obstinacy increased with age; till at last none dared to contradict him, none could give him honest advice or impart unpleasant truth. With the lack of leisure amidst the incessant warfare and rough camp-life in the far-off South, the culture of the aristocracy decayed, and, as the nobles set the tone to society, the whole of the intellectual classes of India slowly fell back to a lower level. A Jafar Jattali took the place of Faizi for their delectation.
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§ 11. Gloomy outlook for India in the 18th century.
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The growing pessimism of the older men, which we find reflected in the letters and anecdotes of the time and even in the works of thoughtful historians, bears witness to the moral decay of the governing classes. It was too deep and too sincere to be passed off as an example of the familiar oriental habit of imagining a golden age in the past and looking down upon the present generation as the degenerate successors of their glorious ancestors. It finds utterance as early as the latter years of Shah Jahan, as we learn from the sayings of that monarch quoted in Aurangzib's letters. [Ruqaat, Nos. 41, 55; Irvine MS. 350, No. 218.]
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The historians Bhimsen and Khafi Khan were struck by the hopeless change for the worse that had seized the Indian world and looked wistfully back at the virtues and glories of the men of the times of Akbar and Shah Jahan. [*Dil.* ii. 139a, 146a, esp. 157a; *K.K.* ii. 550.] We find the aged Aurangzib himself dolefully shaking his head over the prospect of the future and predicting a deluge after his death. [*Anecdotes* § 11.] It is true, as Sadullah remarked in reply to a pessimist, "No age is without men of ability. What is needed is a wise master to find them out, cherish them, get his work done by them, and never lend his ears to the whispers of selfish men against such officers." [*Ruq.* No. 46.] But this wise principle was not followed in Aurangzib's latter years, and it was altogether discarded by his successors. Career was not freely opened to talent. The public service was not looked upon as a sacred trust, but as a means of gratifying the apostate, the sycophant, the well-groomed dandy, the great man's kinsmen, and sons of old official families. Bigotry and narrowness of outlook under Aurangzib and vice and sloth under the later Mughals, ruined the administration of the empire and dragged down the Indian people along with the falling empire.
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§ 12. Moral degeneration of the Mughal aristocracy.
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The moral decay was most noticeable among the nobility and it produced the greatest mischief. The character of the older nobility in the late 17th century was deplorable. In a mean spirit of jealousy they insulted and thwarted "new men" drawn from the ranks* and ennobled for the most brilliant public services, and yet they themselves had grown utterly worthless. Aurangzib himself remarked in 1701, "My nobles had opposed me in giving suitable rewards to Shaikh Nizam for the capture of Shambhu. So, too, they are now belittling the achievements of Md. Murad." [K.K. ii, 489.]
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We have a significant example of the moral degeneration of the Mughal peerage. The prime-minister's grandson, Mirza Tafakhkhur used to sally forth from his mansion in Delhi with his ruffians, plunder the shops in the bazar, kidnap Hindu women passing through the public streets in litters or going to the river, and dishonour them; and yet there was no judge to punish him, no police to prevent such crimes. "Everytime such an occurrence was brought to the Emperor's notice by the news-letters or official reports, he referred to the prime-minister, and did nothing more." At last after a Hindu artillery-man's wife had been forcibly abducted and his comrades threatened to mutiny, Aurangzib merely ordered the licentious youth to be prevented from coming out of his mansion. [Hamid-ud-din's Ahkam § 48; another in M. U. i. 320.]
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All the surplus produce of a fertile land under a most bounteous Providence was swept into the coffers of the Mughal nobility and pampered them in a degree of luxury not dreamt of even by kings in Persia or Central Asia ; as the Court historian of Shah Jahan scornfully remarks, the revenue of the king of Balkh was less than the income of a third-grade peer of the Mughal empire. [Abd. Hamid, ii. 542.]
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∗ Similarly the old effete French nobility of birth objected to the victor of Fontenoy being raised to the peerage by his grateful master.
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§ 13. Evil education of the children of nobles.
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Hence, in the houses of the Delhi nobility luxury was carried to an excess. The harems of many of them were filled with immense numbers* of women, of an infinite variety of races intellect and character. Under Muslim law the sons of concubines are entitled to their patrimony equally with sons born in wedlock, and they occupy no inferior position in society. Even the sons of lawfully married wives became, at a precocious age, familiar with vice from what they saw and heard in the harem, while their mothers were insulted by the higher splendour and influence enjoyed in the same household by younger and fairer rivals of servile origin or easier virtue. The proud spirit and majestic dignity of a Cornelia is impossible in the crowded harem of a polygamist ; and without Cornelias among the mothers there cannot be Gracchi among the sons.
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∗ Hindu nobles and rich men were often as licentious, but they kept their mistresses in a separate establishment and not in their homes. Moreover, the children of such irregular unions among the Hindus formed a lower caste (golak), occupying a depressed rank in society.
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There was no good education, no practical training, of the sons of the nobility. They were too much petted by eunuchs and maid-servants and passed through a sheltered life from birth to manhood, every thorn being removed from their path by attendants. Early familiarised with vice, softened in their fibres by pleasure, they were yet taught to have an inordinately high opinion of their own wealth and importance in the scale of creation. Their domestic tutors were an unhappy class, powerless to do any good except by leave of their pupils, browbeaten by the eunuchs (with the support of the ladies of the harem), disobeyed by the lads themselves, and forced to cultivate the arts of the courtier or the sneak, unless they were prepared to throw up their thankless office. The free give and take life in a public school (which hardens character and at the same time removes its angularities), the salutary discipline of training as subalterns in an orderly army, were unknown to the sons of the Mughal aristocracy. Hence, their moral decline was startingly rapid and unchecked. Most of them, and even sons of Aurangzib like Shah Alam and Kam Bakhsh, were beyond correction. As Aurangzib, worn out with giving them unheeded counsels, cries out in despair, "I have become garrulous by talking and talking ; but none of you have taken heed from my words." [Ruqaat No. 2.]
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§ 14. Vices of Society.
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In addition to unbridled sexual license and secret drinking, many members of the nobility and the middle class were tainted by pederasty. This vice was most prevalent among the Mongoloids of Central Asia, and there is reason to believe that even some of the so-called saints were not free from it. All Aurangzib's prohibitions and all the activity of his Censors of Public Morals failed to hold the Mughal aristocracy back from drink. Manucci notices it [Storia, ii. 6, 157, 393 ; iv. 131.] The news-letters of Aurangzib's Court contain many reports of wine-selling and wine-drinking in the camp-bazars and houses of his nobles, and among the garrisons of forts. On 22 Sep. 1698 the English governor of Madras presented one hundred bottles of Canary to Nusrat Jang. [Madras Diary.] A similar present was made to his successor Daud Khan in Nov. 1706. The drunken frolics of this Daud Khan are described in Wilkes's Mysoor, [2nd ed., i. 133 and 140n.] The freak pleasures and queer fancies of some of the nobles are noticed in the contemporary accounts. [E.g., Storia, iv. 254-6, 262.]
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§ 15. Popular superstitions.
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All classes alike were sunk in the densest superstition. Astrology governed every act of life, among rich and poor alike. Every king and nobleman maintained and always carried with himself a staff of star-gazers to point out the auspicious and evil days for his marches, entrance into cities or houses, receiving or making visits, besides domestic ceremonies. The planets hung like a lowering cloud over all men's lives. Relic worship was universal among Hindus and Muhammadans alike. Even the orthodox Aurangzib adored and walked devoutly round the pretended footprints and hair of the Prophet Muhammad (*asar-i-sharif*), as if these were representations of the Deity. It is difficult to distinguish between his attitude towards them and a Hindu's worship of Vishnu's footmarks on stone. The universal and tumultuous exultation of the Muslim population of Srinagar when these bogus relics went to Kashmir, has been described in Ch. 61 § 31. Trade in false relics was very brisk and highly profitable.
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Man-worship of the grossest form degraded the character of the masses. Besides the adoration of *gurus* and *mohants* by Hindus and Sikhs, the Muslims, equally with the members of those two creeds, venerated saints and religious mendicants, and besought them to work miracles, and give them amulets spells or marvellous medicines. * Pre-tended magicians did a roaring trade in these things, as well as in the philosopher's stone,—being patronised by the nobles as well as the common people. Alchemy was believd to be a science and men of the highest status and education supported and encouraged the professors of this art, even undertaking to introduce them to the Emperor.
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∗ E.g., the religious delusion of Sahibji's son-in-law, as described in *Siyar-ul-mutakhkharin*.
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The darker aspect of the subject was not wanting, and we read of human sacrifice being performed to aid the quest for gold and the *elixir vitæ*, though it was criminal in law and punished whenever detected. [K.K. ii. 542.] A lurid light is thrown on the medical art and beliefs of the age by Manucci's evidence that some Muhammadan doctors used human fat to cure their patients. [Storia, ii. 210.] Hindu superstition is further illustrated by the worship of long-armed men as incarnations of the monkey-god Hanuman. There was a Portuguese of St. Thome whose hands reached below his knees, and whenever any Hindus met him they prostrated themselves, worshipping him like an idol. When another long-armed Portuguese visited Jagannath-Puri in Orissa, "the Hindu priests and the people of the town conducted him to the temple with great veneration and made over to him the idols and all the wealth of the temple. He led a joyous life, regaling himself with delicate dishes and requisitioning young girls whenever he pleased, they imagining he did them a great honour." He afterwards departed secretly, with the wealth of the temple. [Storia, iii. 140.]
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As a natural consequence of their ignorance and pride, all classes felt contempt for foreigners. European gun-founders, artilleryists and doctors (a few) were no doubt patronised by the wealthy, because their superior efficiency had been demonstrated before their eyes; and European objects of luxury were eagerly bought. But no attempt was made by any Indian noble or scholar to learn European languages,* arts or military system. A modern Indian nationalist will best realise how blindly selfish and autocratic the Mughal Emperors and the Indian aristocracy of the 16th and 17th centuries were, if he considers that while they spent lakhs every year in buying European objects of luxury or art, not a single printing press, not even a lithographic stone was imported, either for popular education or public business.
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The moral and intellectual tone of Indian society was greatly lowered by the abundance of slaves. In addition to captives of war and vanquished families reduced to bondage, men and women were sold by their parents for money in famine times, or in discharge of debts. A defaulting debtor could himself be sold with his family at the demand of his creditor.
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∗ At the Mughal Court interpretation was done for European visitors by Armenians or by Europeans who knew Persian. Only one Muhammadan (Mutamad Khan, c. 1703) is spoken of in Aurangzib's letters as knowing the English language. A few Shenvi Brahmans of Goa territory, who knew Portuguese, translated Marathi documents into the former language for the benefit of the English at Bombay. In Madras, the English and French factories employed Brahman interpreters who knew these languages besides "Moor" (i.e., Persian.)
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This was an ancient legal practice of the Hindus and Muhammadans alike. [*Cf.* story of Harishchandra.] One way of punishing criminals of certain classes was to turn them into slaves and sell them to the public; the sale of female-slaves of this class is noticed in the "Peshwas' Diaries." Slavery lingered down to the first quarter of the 19th century even in the British district of Purnia. [Martin's *Eastern India.*] People often made eunuchs of children and sold them; Orissa and Sylhet were notorious for this offence, which was strongly condemned by Aurangzib. [Ch. 38 § 4; esp. ref. in footnote.]
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§ 16. *Official bribery, its forms and causes.*
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The educated middle class was composed entirely of officials, if we except the handful of physicians and superior priestly families. Among the traders and lesser land-owners there were many who ranked with the middle class in wealth, but not in education, nor did they ever cultivate literature. The Mughal administration, both civil and military, could be carried on only with the help of a vast army of clerks and accountants. Every department, every Government store or factory, every subah and even faujdari, every field-army, had a complete set of them. Their official pay was very low (like that of the East India Company's factory 'writers' in the early 17th century.)*
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∗ For examples, Mirat-i-Ahmadi, ii. 116.
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But the exaction of official perquisites or gratuities from men who had to get business pushed through the public offices, was the universal and admitted practice, as in Tudor and Stuart England. In addition, many officials from the highest to the lowest took bribes for doing undeserved favours, or deflecting the course of justice. Official corruption was, however, admitted in society to be immoral, and was practised only in secrecy. There were many officers above corruption even in Aurangzib's reign [K.K. ii. 261, 374-82.] But the receiving and even demanding of presents by men in power was the universal rule and publicly acknowledged.* Even the Emperor was not exempt from it. Aurangzib asked an aspirant to a title, "Your father gave to Shah Jahan one lakh of Rupees for adding alif to his name and making him Amir Khan. How much will you pay me for the title I am giving you?" [M.A. 489.] Manohar-das (qiladar of Sholapur) gave him Rs. 50,000 in return for the title of Rajah. Officers weary of the life in the Deccan, used to present him with large sums to induce him to transfer them to Northern India, especially Delhi.
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∗ Nur Jahan's father, when prime-minister under Jahangir was shameless in demanding presents. So also was Jafar Khan, one of the early wazirs of Aurangzib. Jai Singh offered a purse of Rs. 30,000 to the wazir for inducing the Emperor to retain him in the Deccan command. [Haft Anjuman, Ben. MS. 195b.] Bhimsen's disgust at having to pay everybody at Court in order to get or retain a common civil office [Dil. i. 194.] On official bribery, see my Mughal Administration, 2nd ed. p. 84.
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The ministers and influential courtiers round the Emperor's person had the opportunity of reaping a golden harvest, by selling to suitors their good offices in speaking for them to the sovereign when in private attendance on him (*taqarrub*). Thus, Qabil in 2½ years of personal attendance on Aurangzib amassed 12 lakhs of Rupees in cash, besides articles of value and a new house [*M.A.* 191.]* They were besought and bribed with presents and money to yield their protection to officers, to conceal the shortcomings (*ghaib-pushi*) of the latter, to intercede for them with the Emperor (*wasila*), and in general to watch over their interests at Court during their absence.
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This pressure was passed from the Emperor downwards to the peasant; each social grade trying to squeeze out of the class below itself what it had to pay to the rank above it, the cultivator of the soil and the trader being the victim in the last resort.
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∗ Abdun Nabi, faujdar of Mathura, left a fortune of 13 lakhs of Rupees, 93,000 mohars (worth Rs. 14 each), and articles jewels, etc. worth 4½ lakhs more; Azam Khan Kokah (Fidai Kh.), governor of Bengal, 22 lakhs in Rupees and 1,12,000 mohars; Hafiz Md. Amin Kh., subahdar of Gujrat, 70 lakhs of Rs., 1,35,000 mohars, 76 elephants, 432 horses, 117 camels, and 10 chests of China-ware; Abdul Wahhab, Chief Qazi for 16 years, 33 lakhs of Rs. besides jewellery. [*M. A.* 83, 169, 226; *M. U.* i. 235-41.]
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§ 17. Lower official world, its life and character.
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The drink habit was widely prevalent among the clerks, both of the Kayastha* and Khatri castes,—as well as among the Rajput soldiers. In spite of the prohibition of the Quran, the Muslim nobles and officers, both military and civil, were in many cases addicted to it. The Turks were specially notorious for their disobedience to this precept of their religion.
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The lower official class, on account of their having to do their work far away from their homes, kept small harems of local concubines. This was the case with the Hindus no less than with the Muslims. The evil lingered on in British India till the middle of the 19th century. It was only the annihilation of distance by railways and the moral reform effected by English education and theistic religious movements in the sixties of the last century, that put an end to this general immorality.
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The clerks, both Hindus and Muhammadans, formed a brotherhood bound together by community of duties and interests, education and ideals, social life and even vices. We find in the memoirs of one of them, Bhimsen of Burhanpur, a pleasing picture of the clerkly world, with its mutual dancing parties, dinners, aid in trouble, consolation in sorrow, and union at sittings of Sufi devotional exuberance. The official world was marked by its hatred and contempt for intruders into its preserves. Offices were expected to be reserved for old families of clerks and accountants. Any official who was not a ‘hereditary servant’ (*khanahzad*) of State but had sprung from the ranks, was despised as a *novum homo* was in the official world of the dying republic of Rome. The speedy ruin of the State from the employment of such interlopers and upstarts was predicted. [*Dil.* ii. 140*b*.] This attitude was universal, from the higher nobility to the petty clerks.
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∗ Several of Bhimsen's relatives, civil officers in the imperial army, died of drink.
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§ 18. The purity and delights of the life of the masses.
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The above picture of social life in Mughal India appears very dark, and must be declared incomplete and therefore untrue if we do not consider certain other aspects of it. When we turn our gaze from the crowded harems of the rich and the lax virtues of the Mongoloid and some other frontier tribes,—we are bound to admit that among the teeming millions of the Indian people domestic life was pure and not without its simple colour and joy. This virtue alone saved the people from the doom of extinction which overtook the degenerate Romans of the later empire. We had many popular songs, ballads and stories, which assuaged the stricken human soul, taught heroic patience, and infused tenderness into the most unlettered hearts. The epic of Tulsidas, which is even now acted annually in every centre of population and recited in every Hindu home in the Hindi-speaking provinces, filled millions of people with love of duty, manliness, the spirit of self-sacrifice, and taught them wisdom in public and private life.
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In Bengal, Tirhut, Orissa and Assam and certain other parts, the Vaishnavism taught by Shankardev and Chaitanya introduced an unknown gentleness and fervour, and tamed the rude if manly savagery of the Tantric worship and animism that used to prevail there before. The 17th century was the great period of the expansion of this new Vaishnavism—which was marked by enthusiastic personal devotion (as in the Christian revival movement), tenderness to children and the weak, the cultivation of literature (both Sanskrit and the current speech of the people), and the infusion of song and dance and a delicate romantic sentiment into the everyday life even of the poorest. It also bridged social gulfs and established a democracy of the spirit. Apart from this new popular religious literature, the masses* in different parts had their folk-songs, like the ballad of Ranjha and Hir (in the Panjab), which went to their very hearts and relieved for a time the dead weight of labour and political tyranny which pressed them down. The *kirtan* or chanting of religious narratives in verse (interspersed with songs and frequent improvisation) was the popular substitute for the sermon, the lecture, and literature throughout India—in the south as much as in the north,—e.g., Shivaji doted on the *kirtan* and once risked his life and liberty in his passion to attend one. The common people were equally fond of these. [For a graphic description of such popular recitation among the Maratha villagers, see Acworth's *Ballads*, xxvii.]
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∗ I have spoken of popular romance and religious poetry in the vernacular. But a vernacular literature for the upper classes was just missed by Aurangzib. It came into being under Wali of Aurangabad only ten years after his death.
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The Muhammadans of that age (except the Hindi-speaking portion) had no vernacular religious poetry for the masses. But they had the annual celebrations of different saints (*urs*) at their tombs, which were attended by tens of thousands of pilgrims from distances, and where fairs were held which attracted men and women of all creeds. In addition, both sexes dwelling in cities, had their usual weekly outing to the garden-tombs of saints in the suburbs. The opportunity was utilised for pleasure rather than piety, and the spread of immorality that it caused led Aurangzib to issue an order for stopping the practice. But it was too popular to be put down. [*Storia*, iv. 205; ante Ch. 28 § 3.]
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Visits to these periodical fairs and seats of pilgrimage were the sole joy of the Indian village population, and men and women were passionately eager to undertake them. Pilgrim-centres like Ajmir, Kulbarga, Nizam-ud-din Auliya, and Burhanpur for the Muslims, and Mathura, Allahabad, Benares, Nasik, Madura and Tanjore for the Hindus, served also to diffuse culture and to break down provincial isolation and narrowness of mental horizon.