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Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c4.s1: A. The Scope of Treatment

Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c4.s1

Language
English

Contents

A. The Scope of Treatment

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An attempt has been made in the following pages to present a sketch of social life in Hindustan under the Muslim Sultans of Delhi before the establishment of the Mughal Empire under Akbar. The choice of territory and of the period requires a word of explanation.

The Territory--Hindustan

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In spite of their fairly good knowledge of the Indian and the Chinese sea coast, the Arab geographers of the eighth century were very vague in dealing with the lands of India and China (Hind and Chin). The land beyond the Indus (or the Sind of the Arabs) was little explored and China was believed to be situated in an undefined region to the north and the north-east of Sind, without, however, calculating the impenetrable walls of the Himalayas. In fact, many centuries afterwards, the attack of Sultan Muhammad Tughluq on the hills of Kamaon (called Qarajal) was supposed to encroach upon some region of the Chinese Peninsula. Similarly, when Muhammad Bakhtyar Khalji invaded northern Bengal or Assam, he actually imagined he was leading an invasion into Turkistan. The western world roughly divided India into three regions : one up to the Indus, second between the Indus and the Ganges, and the third beyond these two regions. Even so late as the reign of Queen Elizabeth, John Frampton had no better idea of the country beyond the west coast of India and to the north of Deccan than that this ‘third India’ which is the hygh India is surnamed Malabar and dothe extend unto Cauch, which is the river Gange’,¹ that there grew plenty of ‘sinamon and pearle’, and that the king and the people of this country worshipped the ‘oxe’. ² The one clear fact, however, which one gathers even from these observations is that the Indo-Gangetic plains were believed to form a separate geographical unit, distinguishable from the rest of the peninsula by a distinct type of culture.

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¹ Compare Frampton, 136.

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² Frampton, 7.

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Strong physical barriers have divided the north of India from the south; and the points of contact between the two regions have been very few in history and too feeble to effect a cultural fusion between the two peoples. Now and then, ambitious monarchs have attempted to unite the whole of India under one crown to immortalise themselves as a ‘chakravartin’; but the difficulties of communication and administrative control have uniformly thwarted their cherished desires. The well-known experiment of Sultan Muhammad Tughluq, namely the attempt to establish a centrally situated capital for the whole of the Indian Empire, met with complete failure. A few centuries later, the Mughal emperor Aurangzib again attempted to hold the Deccan and spent half his life in camp fighting in a vain attempt to achieve the impossible. In the end his successors, as those of Muhammad Tughluq, wisely contented themselves with their northern possessions. For the Hindu and the Muslim period it may be laid down almost as a historical law that the establishment of a kingdom within the confines of Hindustan signified its vigour and compactness, and an extension into the Deccan its dismemberment and ruin. This moral, of course, does not apply to the modern conditions of administration. Of these two divisions, the neighbouring parts resemble one another to a slight degree, but as one moves towards the extremities one notices the growing contrast, until at last the language, the religious sects, the architecture, the dress, the appearance, the diet—in fact, every aspect of social life appears to differ completely from the other.¹ It is not to be wondered at then, if these two regions (which Vincent Smith aptly describes as ‘geographical compartments’) developed a distinct and a highly complex story of their own.² In the light of these considerations, therefore, it is more convenient to study the social developments of Hindustan as a separate cultural region of the Indian peninsula.

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¹ Compare Elphinstone, 187.

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² Compare Smith iii; compare also Slater, Chap. I, 13—41 for the origin of the Dravidian Culture of the Deccan.

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However, when we come to fix the territorial and cultural limits of Hindustan we are faced with many difficulties. The central administration, usually established at Delhi, was practically the only unifying force in the country, and its territorial area differed from dynasty to dynasty, even from sovereign to sovereign. To put it negatively, we might say that strictly speaking, the land to the west of the Indus was not included in Hindustan, for the Sultans of Delhi had no effective political control over it, although isolated attempts may have been made to reduce some parts to subjection.¹ Kashmir was similarly shut off from the rest of India, and thus closed to the operation of direct influences from outside.² Again, inaccessibility kept the regions of Rajputana, Gondwana, and Assam more or less immune from effective interference of the Sultans of Delhi. It has been remarked that the kingdom of Delhi varied in its territorial extent from time to time. For example, when Bahlul Lodi was invited to take the throne some time after the invasion of Timur, almost every town had its own ruler, and the titular Sayyid monarch ruled only over the city of Delhi and a few neighbouring villages. So that the humorous people of Delhi used to remark that the dominions of the ‘Lord of the World’ extend from Delhi to Palam (a neighbouring village).³ On the other hand the kingdom of Sultan Muhammad Tughluq penetrated far into the Deccan, and a more central capital was found in Deogir in south. Between these two extremes lay varying types of monarchies, the extent of whose dominions was determined according to the rule of despotism, by the length of their swords. Roughly speaking, we may say that the territory of Hindustan, which was subject to more or less uniform political influences, comprised the Punjab, the valleys of the Indus, the Jumna and the Ganges as far as Gaur or Lakhnauti, and the fertile province of Oudh, with various strongholds such as Ajmer, Bayana, Ranthambhor, Gwalior, and Kalinjar to the West. It did not include the Himalayas, where Hindu princes ruled undisturbed; and a wide tract at the foot of the mountains, including the greater part of Katehr, the modern Rohilkhand, and the sub-montane tracts of Oudh were left unexplored.¹ The political territory, however, is hardly an adequate measure of the spheres of cultural influences, for in the course of time, even the inaccessible regions of Rajputana assimilated the culture of their neighbours so well that it became difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between a Rajput and a Mughal.

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¹ Compare T. F. I. 125 for the capture of Ghazni by a general of Sultan Nasir-ud-din Mahmud.

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² Compare A. N. I., 169 for the interesting observations of the Mughals on Kashmir as a place of refuge against the advance of Sher Shah.

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³ Compare T. D., 6.

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¹ Compare Sir Wolseley Haig in H. U. H. 3168; compare T. S. S. 74-75 for a hundred and thirteen thousand parganas (an administrative unit) of Sher Shah.

The Period Under Review (1200-1550 A.D.)

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The period under review is equally important for a study of social developments in Hindustan, and, to a certain degree, for the whole of India. Opinions do not agree as to the division of the various periods—ancient, mediæval, and modern—of Indian history. Some historians choose to close the mediæval period of Indian history with the battle of Panipat in 1526 A.D.; others with the coming of Akbar; and still others with the establishment of British rule. A similar want of agreement is shown in fixing the limits of the ancient period. We have no desire to dispute any opinion, still less to accept a particular division. In most cases these divisions lack a basis for differentiation and appear purely arbitrary. An application of these terms to a social system which has not undergone any substantial material change for thousands of years, is more likely to confuse than to clear the historical perspective. It is not quite safe to borrow them from European history, which finds a clear line of demarcation in the industrial Revolution, which revolutionised the whole basis of European society. The periods of Indian social development on the other hand—by whatever name we choose to call them—have a more or less uniform character, as far as historical records can help us to judge.

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INTRODUCTION

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Even at the present day, when the bases of society have undergone a radical change, the old order survives to a considerable degree.

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Under Muslim rule, therefore, we do not enter upon a new era in Indian history, but only on a stage in the great social development which has been going on since the first dawn of Indian history and still remains to be completed. This, however, does not detract from the importance of the period or the value of its contribution to the stock of Indian culture. No remarks are required to show that the Hindu social system is one of the strongest and most endurable in the world. It happened by a strange chance that the first power with which Hindus were brought into permanent contact was one which differed from them as widely as possible in almost everything, and if we might say so, was a complete antithesis of their whole system. As a result of the Muslim impact, the ancient Hindu order was almost completely destroyed. Political and social divisions were levelled; caste was modified; religious tendencies took a new direction and force; and finally, the conception of India as a whole was made possible. It is in the light of these developments that Muslim rule becomes, if very imperfectly, intelligible.¹ A study of the early Muslim period becomes particularly important in view of the fact that these formative forces of Indian culture came into play at that time. And though they operated somewhat rudely and imperfectly, they succeeded in laying foundations which proved strong enough for the later Mughals in raising their glorious edifice. By the time of Akbar, as the following pages will endeavour to trace in outline, the ground-work was completed, and the Emperor Akbar as well as his successors followed the pattern their Turkish and Afghan predecessors had shaped for them. This period, in view of these considerations, becomes especially important for a correct appreciation of the Mughal contribution to Indian society, as well as for a proper estimate of the present social developments.

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¹ Compare F. W. Thomas, 23.

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A word may be added here as to the nature and value of a study such as the present one. It may be freely admitted that after the Industrial Revolution the life of the western people has become very rich in certain ways. It exhibits everywhere a new urge to strive, to change, to go forward, all of which makes a study of Modern European society so instructive and stimulating. The life of people in India, on the other hand, is still governed, to a considerable degree, by conditions not unlike those of Europe in mediaeval times. This has led some observers to believe that since the people of India show no development, they have no history; apparently they are the same—yesterday, today, and for ever¹. This observation gains additional force from the fact that the Indian chronicles and histories deal almost exclusively with kings and battles. Let us examine these important observations. The fact that people do not change in the East is only true with certain reservations. It should not be forgotten that in comparison with an industrial system, the rate of progress in an agricultural society is necessarily slow. The course of development of an agricultural civilization spreads over centuries and though its advancement is almost imperceptible, it is by no means uncertain. It becomes quicker by the impact of a new social force. At a certain stage, when civilization attains maturity, it exhausts the possibilities of development within the social framework and then begins to stagnate and to decay, or else enters on a new stage of progress. But meanwhile, it has elaborated all the social institutions as far as such elaboration is possible within the frame work of a social structure; in any case, it has carried the people to an advanced stage of culture. In India, an apparent want of change does not signify the poverty of Indian culture but only an advanced stage of maturity, and is worth a careful study on that account. During the period under review the Indian culture was pushed forward by just such a force as quickens the pace of an agricultural society. The other reflection, however, is of a very different import. Until lately history has suffered, at the hands of historians, old and new, both in Asia and Europe, from a rather isolated and narrow conception of its scope. The old eastern court chroniclers, in particular, confined themselves to kings and their battles, and thus turned history into ‘a mere record of butchery of men by their fellow men.’ But these barriers which restricted historical investigation are being slowly broken down. It is now coming to be universally recognised that nothing is ‘beneath the dignity’ of history's notice or outside the scope of its ken, and that all the doings and sufferings of mankind in every walk of life are proper subjects for a historian to investigate. Nay more; it is being asserted that unless historians do, as a matter of fact, take this extended and all comprehensive view of their functions, they are bound to present a distorted picture of whatever age they may profess to portray. ‘In short,’ observes Hearnshaw, ‘it is perceived that history is not an isolated subject of study, but is one of a group of kindred studies which together make up the general science of society.’¹ We can be indulgent to a court chronicler of an earlier date, who made his living by singing the praise of his patron, for not living up to the expectations of the science in the twentieth century.

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¹ Lane-Poole Int., V.

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¹ Art : ‘Science of History’, Outline of Modern Knowledge, 809.

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Before dealing, however, with the sources of the present study, I may state here the limitation I have set to the scope and treatment of this subject. I have used mainly, almost exclusively, the evidence from literature, and very little, if any, from inscriptions or from epigraphical, numismatic or architectural data. My use of the Sanskrit texts is limited to the available translations into English; and I claim no responsibility for examining the originals. With such exceptions my material, though not exhaustive, is copious enough to warrant a study of the culture of Hindustan during this period. The following pages are a sketch rather than a definitive treatise of social life under the early Sultans of Delhi. They exclude all references to the civil administration, the system of land revenue, the army, the system of transport, the ideas on education, and the development of literature, or even to the religious life of the people. It is not possible to deal within the limits of this work with any but a very few aspects of social life. The treatment within these limits is further subject to the qualification that the account of these few aspects in these pages can only claim to be true in outline and may be falsified by local and provincial details which varied infinitely from place to place.