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Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c4.s2: B. The Sources of Study

Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c4.s2

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English

Contents

B. The Sources of Study

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I shall confine myself to a brief survey of the sources of my study. A detailed examination is neither possible nor even desirable within the limits of this work. I may confess at the outset that I have barely explored a few directions, and I have succeeded in using only a part of the material. A more vigorous search, I am sure, would yield information of greater value and of more comprehensive character. However, a caution may be given here against making an uncritical use of such evidence. When a person wanders away from proper historical books into the illusive realm of imaginative fiction, poetry or folklore, there is every danger of his being seduced by the charms of fancy, which damages the scientific value of the results so obtained. I have taken as much care as possible to avoid this danger, by securing both corroborative and contradictory evidence for a fact before relying upon it. The material for the study of social history is scattered in a variety of books : the chronicles, the works of Amir Khusrau, folklore and fiction, poetry and songs, the works of mystics, Hindu and Muslim, books on practical arts, and compendiums of law and ethics, the accounts of foreign travellers, and some collections of official and private letters.

1. The Chronicles

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To begin with the chronicles : there is a more or less connected series of Persian chronicles compiled by a number of reliable contemporary historians. There are later compilations of a more general character based on these chronicles and other materials, dealing with past and contemporary events. Among others I have consulted the following :—

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The Tarikh-i-Fakhr-ud-din Mubarak Shah ; the Taj-ul-Ma'asir ; the Tabaqat-i-Nasiri ; the Tarikhi-i-Firuz Shahi of Ziya-ud-din Barani; the Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi of Shams-i-Siraj ‘Afif; the Tarikh-i-Mubarak Shahi; the Zafar-nama of ‘Ali Yazdi; the Waqi‘at-i-Mushtaqi (or the Tarikh-i-Mushtaqi); the Tarikh-i-Daudi; the Tarikh-i-Sher Shahi; the Memoirs of Timur, Babur, Jauhar, Gulbadan Begum, and Bayazid; the Humayunnama of Khvandmir; the Ain-i-Akbari, and the Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazal. Among general histories I have consulted the Tabaqat-i-Akbari; the Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh; and the Tarikh-i-Firishta (or the Gulshan-i-Ibrahim). This enumeration is by no means complete, and it is hoped that more histories will come to light in course of time. There was a certain lack of enthusiasm for letters among the later Turkish Sultans and their successors, which led to the disappearnce of many literary works of value, including historical works, which, if they were available, would supplement our information in material details.¹ For instance when Sir Denison Ross examined the Arabic history of Haji Dabir, he noticed the fact that Haji Dabir was the first historian to make use of Husain Khan’s Tarikh-i-Bahadur Shahi, although many others had made a false claim to it.² After an examination of those portions of Haji Dabir’s work which relate to our period, I am convinced that the writer makes important additions to our knowledge. In some cases he gives a new interpretation of facts, and in others additional information which was neither wise nor discreet for a contemporary court chronicler to disclose. We should not be surprised if historians like Bada’uni or Khafi Khan had their predecessors during our period, whose independent version of contemporary events will greatly help our knowledge of Indian history. Husain Khan, according to the learned editor of Haji Dabir, wrote his work in the sixteenth century. Now, if our new information from Haji Dabir is entirely based on Husain Khan’s work, even then the latter writer must have based his history, in part at least, on works of an earlier period of which we are at present totally ignorant. I have digressed for a moment to show that our knowledge of the contemporary historical literature is far from complete, and a good prospect awaits a patient collector of chronicles.

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¹ Compare Mirza, 203 for the disappearance of the works of Shihab-ud-din who was consulted on many occasions by Amir Khusrau. Badr-i-Chach is reported to have compiled a history of the reign of Muhammad Tughluq in verse and to have given it the ambitious title of Shah-nama after the monumental work of Firdausi. This book, as Nawwab Ziya-ud-din Khan of Loharu believed, has disappeared.

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² Ross II ,Int., XXVII-XXVIII.

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In this connection I shall briefly refer to some useful features of certain chronicles which are helpful for a better survey of social life. The *Taj-ul Ma'a'sir* of Hasan Nizami, in spite of its containing so much that is 'rhapsodical and trapological,' is not altogether useless besides its 'powers of fancy and invention'. For instance, it describes, in numerous places, festivals and amusements, and throws valuable side-lights on the spirit of civil administration. Additional, though meagre, information is contained in the British Museum MSS. of *Tabaqat-i-Nasiri* and *Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi* of Barani which is not available in the *Bibliotheca Indica* texts or in Major Raverty's translation of the *Tabaqat*. I may mention, in this connection, that the evidence of the *Masalik-ul-Absar-fi-mamalik-ul-Amsar* of Shihab-ud-din Abu'l 'Abbas Ahmad bin Yahya, though indirect, is not to be under-rated on that account. The author was a contemporary of Muhammad Tughlaq (1297-1348 A.D.), and although he did not visit India personally, he had excellent means of knowing about Hindustan from the frequent intercourse between India and Egypt at that time. His work stood high in Oriental estimation and was often quoted by later historians of no mean talents, for instance the author of *Nuzhat-ul-qulub*.¹ His method of collecting facts, though novel, is critical and strictly scientific.² Among the memoirs, the claims of Malfuzat-i-Timur to authenticity have been disputed on various grounds—the want of the original MS. and the whole circumstances surrounding its discovery at a later date, etc. After an examination of the whole case Professor Dowson was satisfied that the Malfuzat bore the impress of originality and authenticity, and that the whole tenor of the work seemed to point to Timur himself as the man by whom, or under whose immediate direction and superintendence, the book was written.¹ There are few references to Indian social life in the Malfuzat but they are all borne out by the Zafar-nama of ‘Ali Yazdi and the work of Nizam Shami. For the memoirs of Babur, I have mainly adhered to the Persian version of ‘Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan of the Court of Akbar, who presented his translation of the Waqi‘at-i-Baburi to the emperor in 1590. The translator was a versatile scholar in Turkish as well as in Persian and Hindi, and had exceptional opportunities of finding out the correct meaning of the royal author and of observing the social developments in Hindustan. On a comparison with the Turkish version (in the English rendering of A. S. Beveridge) I have noticed that the Persian version (British Museum MS.) gives a few additional facts regarding India. For Gulbadan’s Humayun-nama, I have adhered to A.S. Beveridge’s excellent edition of the text.

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¹ Compare Dowson in E.D. III, 574. Some portions of the work have been published by the Egyptian Government, but the portion relating to India is not yet available in print. A French version is printed in Tome XIII of the *Notices et Extraits de Mss*, etc. (for the English rendering of which I am indebted to a friend). Some extracts are given in E.D. III. Compare also, Qalqashandi's account in *Subh-al-A'sha*.

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² In the preface to his book the author tells us that whenever he met a party of Indian oversea visitors, he used to put to each one of them separately specific questions on which he sought information. Then from their answers, he took down only those points on which there was unanimous agreement. After abstaining from talking to them on those questions for a time, sufficiently long for them to have forgotten their remarks, he used to repeat his original questions. And if their replies again agreed with their earlier versions, only then, he transcribed the information which is given in his work. It is needless to add that his informants were, in most cases, men of learning and position who usually spoke of things at first hand.—Compare Notices etc. 165-166.

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¹ E.D. III, 563.

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For the study of the Afghans (Lodis and Surs) I have consulted the Tarikh-i-Sher Shahi, the Tarikh-i-Daudi and the Waqi‘at-i-Mushtaqi. The Tarikh-i-Sher Shahi is well-known for its careful compilation of numerous biographies of those who lived and moved among the scenes and afterwards related their experiences to the author, who incorporated them with due care and examination.² The other two chronicles, however, do not show the same discrimination or historical judgment. The Tarikh-i-Daudi is ‘fragmentary and disjointed, and amounts to little more than desultory memoirs.’ Similarly, the Waqi‘at-i-Mushtaqi is ill-arranged and contains long digressions. Both of them are further full of marvels and superstitions;

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² T.S.S. 3.

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in the Waqi‘at especially ‘anecdotes are interspersed, of the celebrated chiefs and saints of the time; silly stories of miracles, apparitions, demons, enchantment, and jugglery deform the work, exhibiting the extraordinary credulity of the author, as well as that of the age in which he lived.¹ It goes without saying that for a proper appreciation of religious life, if on no other account, knowledge of these alleged deformities is invaluable.

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¹ E.D. IV. 537. A more connected account of the Afghans is to be found in the Makhzan-i-Afghani of Ni’mat Ullah composed in 1613 A.D.

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Among the chronicles, another interesting document is the Hamayun-nama of Khvandamir. This is the last work of the celebrated historian, who wrote it about the beginning of 1534 A.D. (941 A.H.) at the special request of the Mughal emperor Humayun. Its special feature is the account of new devices and novel mechanisms introduced by the emperor.² A reference has already been made to the Arabic history of Gujarat of Haji Dabir, now available in an excellent edition.

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² K., 125.

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Finally some remarks may be made about the celebrated work of Abu’l Fazl, the Ain-i-Akbari so ably edited by Blochmann, and rendered into English by Blochmann and Jarrett. The learned author and the editors are warm in praising the great merits of the work. The author claims to have compiled a work of encyclopedic character, where useful information of all kinds is to be found and to which people in every walk of life resort for reference, instruction, and amusement.³ Blochmann correctly emphasised the unique position of the Ain among the Persian chronicles, inasmuch as it placed the life of the people in the foreground where ‘for the first time people live and move before us, and the great questions of the time, axioms then believed in and principles then followed, phantoms then chased after’, are placed before our eyes in truthful and vivid colours.⁴ As to the care with which he collected his materials, Abu'l Fazl tells us what unusual pains he took to gather his information. Instead of relying on verbal replies from his informants, he circulated among them a questionnaire and asked them to submit well-considered replies after due deliberation. For every topic with which he deals in his book he had twenty such carefully prepared memoranda, and incorporated the facts in his book only after a careful comparison and examination.¹ There is one aspect, however, in which the monumental work of Abu'l Fazl does not compare very favourably with a modern scientific work. He does not disclose to us very fully the actual sources of his information or of his informant who wrote the various memoranda for him. In one place he makes a casual remark that he came across certain 'old books' during the course of his investigations, but leaves us in complete ignorance as to the nature or content of these 'old books'.² Moreover, Abu'l Fazl betrays unbalanced judgement in illustrating the 'worldly side' of Akbar and his 'greatness as a king', by giving his patron all the credit of originality, and wisdom which leads him to ignore completely and deliberately the amount and value of the contribution of the Turkish, the Afghan and even the Mughal predecessors of Akbar. It was easier for him than it is now for us to trace the origin and development of various social phenomena of Hindustan. The Ain-i-Akbari is a monument of social history but its importance lies primarily in recording the various developmen's that had taken shape until the reign of Akbar, when the great Mughal emperor picked up the threads and carried the work of social progress one step forward. Otherwise, the Ain could as well have been compiled fifty years earlier, without suffering very much in contents and value. It would have been considered even then, an equally faithful record of contemporary social and political life.

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³ Compare A.A., III, 282 ‘It is a treasure of learning of every variety : the skilled and the experts can refer to it ; and even the buffoons and mountebanks can use it with profit ; to the youngsters it will be a source of amusement, and for those grown up and matured, a treasure of information ; elderly wisdom will find in it ripe wisdom of ages and the nobility and the virtuous a code of upright behaviour.’

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⁴ A.A. (Eng. Trans.), I, Int., V.

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¹ A.A. II, 255.

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² A.A. II, 252.

II. Amir Khusrau

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Before we take leave of historical literature, we wish to digres for a moment on the historical value of the books of Amir Khusrau and his estimate as a historian. We have derived a large part of our information from his work alone. He has composed at least three poems and one book of prose—the Qiran-us-Sa'dain, the Miftah-ul-futuh (or Fath-ul-futuh), the Nuh Sipahr, and the Khaza'in-ul-futuh respectively, of a professedly historical character, besides numerous other poems. If we add to these books his poem called Dewalrani Khizr Khan which, though a romantic story, is intermixed with contemporary historical events, and the Tughluq-nama which deals with the rise and fall of Khusrau Khan the usurper and the accession of Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq, the number of his historical books amounts to six, which give us a more or less connected account of an interesting period of about forty years (1285—1325) in which the author lived and personally witnessed most of the events related.¹

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¹ My friend Maulvi Hashmi of Hyderabad (Deccan) has recently brought to light a copy of the Tughluq-nama of Amir Khusrau which was originally discovered by the late Maulana Rashid Ahmad of the M.A.O. College (and later of the Jami'a Millia Islamia) Aligarh who helped the publication of Khusrau's works by the M.A.O. College authorities and made a long tour of India in search of original MSS. This manuscript, which I have examined only in part, bears the impress of being genuine. Its contents are further supported by occasional quotations in the Firishta and other histories.

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As to the nature of his treatment : Amir Khusrau tries to conceal nothing from his readers. For example, he tells us frankly that he undertook to write the Qiran-us-Sa'dain in obedience to a royal command. The Sultan flattered him by calling him 'the seal of authors' and promised to give him a big reward which would free him from all worldly cares ever afterwards. The plan of the book and the scope of its treatment was defined by the royal patron.² Under the next patron, Sultan Jalal-ud-din Khalji, when the author was asked to compose a book, he felt morally stronger. He frankly told the Sultan that whenever he was inclined to drift away from historical truth in accordance with the demands of poetical conventions and the accepted standards of eulogies, he was stung by the inward reproaches of conscience. So that, he told him, he had made up his mind to adhere to truthfulness, whatever his position demanded.³ However, Amir Khusrau served a continuous succession of monarchs, Sultan Muizz-ud-din Kaiqubad, Jalal-ud-din Khalji, Ala-ud-din Khalji, and Mubarak Shah Khalji respectively, and when any honest man lives too long in courtly environments, his standards of ethical judgment usually undergo a change.

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It was perhaps due to such a reflection that poet warned his son, some time later, against following in the footsteps of his father who, as he told him, had spent the whole of his life in ‘spinning a yarn.’¹ Thus it should be remembered that Amir Khusrau often plays a double character in his writings. He is a historian without completely renouncing the office of a court poet and a courtier; and amazing as it may appear, he meets the demands of all three positions in his writngs. The Kaza'in-ul-Futuh, in particular, has a value of its own. Here the author gives a systematic account of the first fifteen years of Sultan ‘Ala-ud-din Khalji and it appears from its topographical and other details that the author was a personal witness of some at least of the scenes, even of those in the distant South. It is the only contemporary history of the period and the facts are narrated with admirable accuracy and wealth of detail.² On the whole, we can agree in our estimate of Amir Khusrau with Professor Cowell, that although his style is full of exaggeration and metaphorical description, the facts of history are given with tolerable fidelity.³ I may add here in passing that many historians of a later date have followed his version of contemporary events, without however, always acknowledging the source of their information.⁴ I am, however, concerned with Amir Khusrau in an even wider sense. I consider him pre-eminently as a historian of contemporary social life.

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This has led me to examine not only his history and historical poems but also his complete Diwan, his Kulliyat (collected poems) particularly his Matl'a-ul-anwar exposing the manners and the morals of his day, and even his voluminous and rather abstruse book on epistolography, the I'jaz-i-Khusravi. As a 'high-brow' artist or chronicler, Khusrau could have confined himself to courtly environment and association with a few cultured men of letters ; even as a social historian he could have written with the detachment of an academician like Abu'l Fazl. But Khusrau came from the people and feels at his best only when he moves among the crowd. When behaving as a courtier or as a man of letters, he is conscious of playing a part : his ascetic and puritan moods are decidedly morbid and only temporary, and he avails himself of the first opportunity to throw away these masks and morbid gloom and to start laughing and pleasing himself like other people. Nay, to assure the crowd that no amount of intellectual attainments and secular elevation can stop him from being congenial to them, he even borrows sometimes the vulgarity of the undeveloped mind, and the unrefined taste of the illiterate. When he is among common people he takes a detached view of his previous stately environments and spiritual heights and gives an honest and frank opinion about men and things, not excluding himself.

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In trying to express himself with this attitude of mind, however, he finds sometimes that plain and easily intelligible language is not altogether discreet and may involve him in trouble. This shrewdness drives him to subterfuge. He now deliberately takes to grandiloquent style, to florid and bombastic language, and to puns and puzzles ; but he must speak out his mind, as it were, to relieve his agitated and indignant soul. Thus, he takes good care to conceal his meaning in a mass of words, but is still as clear as possible if one knows his feelings and his surroundings. This is my reading of the I'jaz-i-khusravi, professedly written to demonstrate his powers of rhetoric (Balaghat), and his skill in the use of words, and to add to the existing nine styles of epistolography a tenth of his own.¹ Superficially read, ‘the documents it contains are, as usual, written in the most grandiloquent style, a very small amount of information being wrapped up in a bewildering maze of words’. But if these documents are carefully examined they yield interesting and instructive information of a varied character, besides many graphic descriptions of various social phenomena and references to manners and morals. It might be said that it is hardly proper to read into apparently disjointed phrases and uncertain epigrams meanings of social import, in any case, it does not appear scientific to draw historical references from them.

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It is true that the author is reluctant to admit anyone into his secrets but the reluctance is only apparent. The I’jaz-i-khusravi was not written at the command of a monarch, or for the benefit of a noble or those in power. It is a private document in which the spirit of the author has a free and unfettered play. The only fetters he has put upon himself are those of style, and these self-imposed restrictions are justified by the political conditions of the age. To appreciate the I’jaz-i-khusravi of Amir Khusrau, the reader will be well advised to make a detailed study of comparative literature.²

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² Q.S., 169-70.

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³ K.K., 890.

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¹ Compare K.K., 245 and 674.

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² Professor Muhammad Habib of Aligarh has recently published an English version of this history in the Journal of Indian History.

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³ J.A.S.B., 1860, p. 227.

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⁴ Compare among others the Tarikh-i-Mubarak Shahi for the events leading to the succession of Mu'izu-ddin Kaiqubad : the attempt of his father Bughra Khan to dispute the succession, so that it was only after his renouncing a claim to the throne of Delhi that a potential battle was turned into a happy meeting between the father and the son. This is borrowed from the Qiran-us-Sa‘dain. Similarly, the version of the Dewalrani Khizr Khani is followed for the events of the closing years of Sultan ‘Ala-ud-din Khalji. The famous elegy of Amir Khusrau on the death of Prince Muhammad the ‘Khan-i-Shahid’ is extensively quoted by men of letters and historians, for instance, Buda'uni and Nizam-ud-din. (Vide T.M.S., 359-60 and 374-375).

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¹ Compare I.K., 53.

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² Compare E.D., III, 566. Curiously enough the only extract of the book made for Sir H.M. Elliot by ‘a munshi’ and incorporated by him in his work (Volume III, 566-7) is the one which least deserved to be incorporated. It purports to be a despatch from a State official designated as Badr Hajib and addressed to the Crown Prince, announcing a victory over the Mongols and the occupation of Ghazni by the royal armies. This relates, as the editor remarks, to ‘a matter upon which the historians are silent’. The original passage occurs in Vol. IV, pp. 144—156 (Lucknow text). Sir H.M. Elliot and his munshi both overlooked the fact that it was never meant to be treated as a genuine royal document but only a model for epistolography. On page 18 of Vol. IV, Amir Khusrau makes it plain that he has ‘coined’ the letter herein inserted and again repeats, on page 22 of the same volume, that he made ample use of his own fruitful imagination in writing fictitious letters and that of others who had done the same before him and thus had given shape to a book of charm and originality by skilfully editing these ‘single and compound words, short and long phrases and brief and lengthy documents purporting to be official’. The mention of this paricular fact—the occupation of Ghazni and the defeat of the Mongols as well as the style of the letter may have been borrowed from an earlier date when Sher Khan occupied Ghazni on behalf of Sultan Nasir-ud-din Mahmud, to which a reference has been made in an earlier footnote.

III. Literature

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Thanks to the efforts of the Orientalists we have a number of books on various subjects : folklore and fiction ; poetry and songs; practical arts; and a few compendiums of legal and political precepts, besides other books of Hindu and Muslim mystics and religious reformers.

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1. Folklore and Fiction.—Few words are needed to recommend to a student of social history the examination of folklore. Folklore lacks the flourish and glamour of a court chronicle, and the accuracy and lucidity of other books of history or historical documents. But in its own way it professes ‘to reconstruct a spiritual history of Man, not as exemplified by the outstanding works of poets and thinkers, but as represented by the more or less inarticulate voices of the ‘folk.’¹ The claims of Folklore to the status of a scientific study are being slowly recognized. The period under review begins with the voluminous collection of stories, namely, the *Jawami‘-ul-Hikayat* of Muhammad ‘Awfi. The author lived in the reign of Sultan Iltutmish and dedicated his great work to his minister, Nizam-ul-mulk Junaidi. It is a neatly compiled book, carefully classified into chapters and sections according to its contents.² It was too early to expect from a Muslim writer an intimate touch with the social life of the country of his domicile. Thus the *Jawami‘-ul-Hikayat* speaks more of foreign Muslim centres, like Ghazni and Bagdad, and very little of Multan or Delhi. It does not forget, however, to give some interesting side-lights on the life of the Sultans. As a whole, its value is meagre. *Purush-Pariksha* of Vidyapati Thakur, though written in the conventional style of the contemporary books of ethics, is very useful for our purpose.³ It starts with an examination of Hindu ethical ideals, and illustrates its moral from illustrations with examples from the ancient as well as from the contemporary social life; the range of choice of historical examples does not exclude the Muslims or the lower Hindu classes. As a whole, our period is marked by the decay of Sanskrit literature, and we can turn with profit to the rising Prakrits or provincial dialects for information of value.

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¹ Krappe, Int., XV.

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² A list of contents of the book with a valuable introduction was recently published on behalf of the Gibb Memorial Fund Series, by M. Nizam-ud-din in 1929.

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³ The date of Vidyapati Thakur is not yet fixed with certainty. B.K. Chatterji holds that he was definitely alive from 1400 A.D. to 1438 A.D. (vide *J.D.L.*, 1927, 36). I have used an old English translation published in Bombay presumably for school or college purposes.

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Under Sher Shah flourished the famous poet of Oudh, Malik Muhammad Jaisi, who wrote and sang in his sweet native Awadhi, and was proud of the fact. In some ways, he was greater even than Amir Khusrau, for while the latter was more or less confined in his treatment to Muslim society and adhered to the orthodox view of Islam, the former had drunk deep at the springs of both Hinduism and Islam, and was, as a matter of fact, more Hindu than Muslim in his outlook on life. He is the oldest vernacular poet of Hindustan of whose works we have any uncontested remains.¹ In his well-known book *Padumavati*, Malik Muhammad Jaisi deals with the events of the popular story of Raja Ratansen of Chitor : the marriage of the Raja with Padumavat, a princess of the distant Simhala ; his battle against ‘Ala-ud-din Khalji and imprisonment in Delhi ; and finally, his thrilling escape from the royal prison through the device of his queen and the valour of his two loyal adherents. The Simhala of the story (popularly believed to be Ceylon) is no other than an average Hindu capital in Northern India. The descriptions of the seas and the southern countries (given in the book to meet the requirements of Hindu dramatic conventions) are so fanciful that it may be doubted if the author ever ventured to go beyond the limits of the Doab and Oudh. Another book of fiction is the story of Baz Bahadur and Rupamati of Malwa which was composed by Ahmad-al-Umrei, and is now available in Crump’s rendering published under the title ‘Lady of the Lotus.’ It is an interesting though a sad poem and gives valuable side-lights on social life in Malwa.

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¹ Compare Grierson, *Padumavat Int.*, 2. Two of the poems of Malik Muhammad Jaisi are now available—the *Padumavat* and the *Akhrawat*. The *Padumavat* was edited in part by Grierson and Dvivedi in 1869 and was stopped on the death of the Hindu scholar. The *Akhrawat* was published by the Nagari pracharini Sabha of Benares in 1904.

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2. *Poetry and Songs.*—Besides Amir Khusrau and Amir Hasan there were numerous other Persian poets whose works have disappeared, as was mentioned earlier. The poems of Badr-i-chach are available, and slight references to other poets are made by Bada'uni in his history. But the value of these poems is meagre for our immediate purpose. They are composed in a foreign language and their style is highly conventional. The Persian poets on the whole are very different from the poets of the land, who sang in their own language. To name only two of them, Mukand Ram and Chandi Das of Bengal are famous, and no student of social history can fail to turn to them without pleasure and profit.¹ The more important poetic activity was, however, shown in composing devotional religious songs (the Bhakti songs) which are an extremely valuable source for the study of social conditions. Their tone, in general, is gloomy, and their criticism of social life somewhat unbalanced; but they disclose a wealth of information and reveal the deep emotions which moved the people of that age. There are rich collections of these songs from all parts of Hindustan.

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To enumerate but a few representative names: Lalla in Kashmir, Nanak in the Punjab, Kabir in the Upper Gangetic plains, Vidyapati Thakur in Bihar and Orissa, and Chaitanya in Bengal, are the great prophets of the popular religion of Hindustan during our time.² The songs of numerous others are given in the sixth volume of Macauliffe's work, while some new poems are being slowly brought to light by the Visva-Bharati and other Indian periodicals. I have deliberately excluded from the present study a more detailed examination of the writings of Muslim Sufis in Hindustan. The Sufis in general are so conventional in their treatment, that they show a more or less complete detachment from the life of common people and their spiritual wants. They fight shy of recognizing the social changes which a closer association and mutual interaction of Hindus and Muslims were bringing about in Muslim society. As a matter of fact, the Sufis lived in more intimate touch with the social currents of life than any other class among the Muslims, but they found themselves between two stools, facing danger from opposite directions. They were dissatisfied with the whole of orthodox Muslim life, but they did not dare to question the power of the theologians who led the people, covering themselves with the rigid interpretation of the Muslim dogma.

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They similarly disapproved of the life and manners of the Muslim aristocracy, but they were too much afraid of the power of the ruling classes to offend them by strong opposition or even by honest criticism. They had very little to give to the common people which was not inconsistent with the accepted version of the orthodox Islam, and thus exposed them to the charge of heresy or heterodoxy. So the Sufi works have little use for our present purposes. I have, however, used the Zakhirat-ul-muluk of Hamadani (died 1384 A.D.) and the Saha, if of Shaikh Sadr-ud-din (died 1536 A.D.) to represent the Sufi viewpoint. An orthodox Muslim is, however, somewhat different. Even if he is not interested in the life of 'the infidels', he is interested in keeping the Muslims pure from their taint; he is not a little interested in securing the reward of the next world by converting an infidel to Islam. It is somewhat difficult to draw a line between a Sufi and an orthodox Muslim in practical religion except in extreme cases when a Sufi superimposes some mystic and occult doctrine on Islam and stretches the sense and meaning of both Qur'an and the Tradition to meet his ends, and the orthodox refuses to go beyond the literal interpretation of the Muslim dogma. Composed on the orthodox lines are two books, the *Matla-ul-Anwar* of Amir Khusrau and the *Tuhfa-i-Nasa'ih* of Yusuf Gada. The book of Khusrau, which I have already mentioned, is a bitter exposition of the heterodox manners of his age.

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He deals with all classes of Muslims and with every phase of moral life. The *Tuhfa-i-Nasa'ih* is expository rather than critical. In this didactic poem, addressed to his son in the form of advice, the author gives a general survey of Muslim life in India from an orthodox standpoint. Its particular interest lies in showing how far Hindu beliefs and practices and other common superstitions were being incorporated into the scheme of orthodox Muslim life in Hindustan.¹

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¹ Mukand Ram has been put in the later part of the 16th century. Some interesting extracts of his poems are given in J.N. Das Gupta's 'Bengal in the Sixteenth Century'. T. D. Gupta has recently published his 'Aspects of Bengali Society' in J.D.I., Calcutta (1927-29), using mainly literary data from the Bengali language for a study of social history of Bengal which includes the examination of Bengali poetry, ballads, and folk-songs.

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² The songs of Lalla have been rendered into English by R. C. Temple. The text with translation was published by Grierson and Barnett. Nanak's songs and hymns have been incorporated in the Granth Sahib, the sacred book of the Sikhs, and are to be found in an English rendering in the first volume of Macauliffe's 'The Sikh Religion;. The Bijak of Kabir is now available in a careful English translation by Rev Ahmad Shah. The songs of Vidyapati—the Padavali Bangiya (which, as opposed to his Sanskrit book referred to earlier, is composed in his native Maithili)—were translated and published by Coomaraswami and Arun Sen. His peculiarity lies in being a Krishnite and in singing of the loves of Radha and Krishna. Chaitanya was not so fortunate as to have left a collection of songs but the contemporary biography of Das Kaviraj, completed in 1582 after many years of devoted labour, is a document of great historical value. The second part of this biography which deals with six years of Chaitanya's pilgrimages is available in the English translation of J. N. Sircar. The account of his wanderings introduces us to the hopes and fears of the common people and to the gradual assimilation by Muslims of Hindu ideas.

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¹ Yusuf Gada was a pupil of the celebrated Shaikh Nasir-ud-din Chiragh of Delhi and composed the book in 1393 (Ethe, 732). The book contains only 776 verses, but the author claims to have given a complete exposition of the orthodox beliefs and practices to the reader (compare T., 29).

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3. Practical arts and Compendiums.—There are a few books on practical arts which are quite useful for a study of contemporary social life. For example, the *Kitab-i-Nimat Khana-i-Nasir Shahi*, a compendium of culinary art, gives numerous recipes for making scents, cosmetics, ottos, and for preparing a variety of foods and delicacies². Another, named *Hidayat ur-rami*, gives a comprehensive guidance to archers and those interested in the use of bow and arrow³. The most important book, however, of this nature is the *Fiqh-i-Firuz Shahi*. It is a compendium of civil and ecclesiastical law and has an interesting history. It was originally compiled by one Ya'qub Karrani who died without finishing the book. The posthumous work was brought to the notice of Firuz Shah Tughluq who ordered its revision and enlargement and thus the book took its present shape. It gives legal precepts which were probably meant for the guidance of the Judiciary, but this is by no means certain. It may be safely said, however, that these semi-judicial compilations, even though they may not be compared with modern legal codes, do not on that account lose their historical value. They reflect the social conditions in a more lucid manner than other books and are to be valued accordingly.¹ Another book, not exactly a compilation of ‘ecclesiastical decisions, advices, and admonitions’ (vide Ethe) but rather a kind of political guide to a prince and a code of political ethics, is the Fatawa-i-jahandari of Ziya-ud-din Barani. Together with another earlier compilation of a similar nature the Adab-ul-muluk of Fakhr ud-din Mubarak Shah, it throws some light on the political ideas of the times. But the tone of these compilations is theoretical rather than practical. In any case, their value in elucidating social developments is very little. We are not required to go into a closer examination of their contents for our present purposes.²

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² The only copy of the MS. in the India Office collection (copied between 1634-1535 A.D.) is without a date of composition or the name of the author and Ethe does not assign any date for its composition (*vide* Ethe, 1499). Considering the evidence of its contents and after examining the MS. I am inclined to believe that it was composed in Malwa before 1500 A.D. under the Khalji Sultans of Malwa. It is an official guide for the royal kitchen which obviates the necessity of mentioning the name of the author.

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³ The *Hidayat-ur-rami* was composed under Husain Shah of Bengal (904—927 A.D.) (*vide* Rieu, 489).

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¹ The plan of the Fiqh-i-Firuz Shahi follows the orthodox lines of Muslim law-books. It gives the Arabic text and the Persian paraphrasing of the precepts and a summary of the view of other Sunnite legal authorities on the question.

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² This title is given to the MS. in the India Office collection. An abridged form of the same book is named Adab-ul-Herb in the British Museum collection.

IV. The Foreign Travellers

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In some respects, the most valuable source for the contemporary social history of India is to be found in the accounts of the foreign travellers. They come from different countries at different periods and move about with an admirable detachment and with intellectual curiosity. Unfortunately, with a few exceptions their sphere of movement was confined to a few coastal towns and a little belt of inland territory adjoining the sea-costs, and perhaps with the single exception of Varthema they were all totally ignorant of the language of the country. Within these limitations their accounts are extremely valuable, especially in one respect, namely, that the foreign travellers alone expose what are commonly considered as ugly social institutions of India¹. It is a curious fact, but none the less true, that some of the most inhuman social practices of the land have never appeared to the Indian writers, poets, and religious reformers, either Hindu or Muslim, as worthy of their notice and comment. If one wishes to gather the records of slavery, widow burning, untouchability, child-marriage, extreme sexual indulgence and sexual perversion, one would search for these facts in Indian books almost in vain.

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Great social reformers like Nanak, and saints and prophets like Kabir, Chaitanya or Nizam-ud-din Awliya, pass over them without much comment, and though rebelling against priesthood in no uncertain terms, they do not strive against these graver evils in the same characteristic and militant manner. The Muslims who could perhaps have taken a healthier and more detached view of the situation found no particular cause for complaint in the suppression of human personality through these glaring social evils, for it was not uncongenial to the whole of their outlook on life, as will be explained later. In other words, these social evils had become the normal features of their social organism in the eyes of both the Hindus and Muslims. There is a continuous series of these travellers from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. In the 13th century came the famous Marco Polo who started about 1273 on his long tour in Eastern Countries. In the 14th century followed the equally famous and for us the most important traveller, the famous Ibn Batuta who spent his whole life (1325-1354) in travelling throughout the Muslim world of that day. In the 15th century came at least five travellers whose accounts have come down to us. The century opens with a Chinese naval mission in 1405, the Muslim secretary of which, named Mahuan, recorded his observations on Bengal and Malabar. Sometime later followed Nicolo Conti (1419-1444).

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About the middle of the century, in 1662, the learned Persian ambassador, ‘Abd-ur-Razzaq, came to the court of Vijayanagar. Nikitin and Stephano followed at the close of the century. During the early part of the 16th century came Varthema (1503-1508); Barbosa came about 1518, and the Turkish Admiral Sidi ‘Ali Reis at the close of our period (1553-1556). It would not be surprising if indefatigable search brings to light some fresh accounts of travellers to India.¹ By far the most learned of these travellers were Ibn Batuta ‘Abd-ur-Razzaq, and Sidi ‘Ali Reis.² The account of ‘Abd-ur-Razzaq is more or less confined to Vijayanagar and thus does not concern us directly. By far the best and the most complete account comes from Ibn Batuta. Before him, and even after him, nobody ventured so far island, stayed for such a long period, or gave an account of so many and varied social phenomena. His evidence is direct and personal; his experiences are so close and intimate; his opportunities of association are so wide and frequent; and finally, he dictates his observations thousands of miles away from the scene, in the security of his own native land, so that there is little likelihood of his concealing facts or misrepresenting them. His account is thus a life-like picture of the Hindustan of his day, where the traveller moves about as one of the Indians themselves. He marries in the country (as he did in so many others) and has children; he is in the employment of the State;

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he is even appointed as the accredited envoy of the Sultan of Delhi to the court of the Chinese Emperor; he even leads the life of an acsetic, the popular rage of the times, and also goes about as a refugee in hiding. However, Ibn Batuta, as every body else, has his intellectual limits. He is sometimes over-anxious as a true Berber to believe in the marvels and miracles of saints. The fact that he never kept any record or notes of his long travels, or made a careful and systematic study of the broad facts of Indian political life, leads him into many errors of observation and sometimes into amusing mis-statements of facts¹. The account of Sidi ‘Ali Reis, though brief, is full of interest. He brought a more cultivated brain to understand the facts of national and international politics and to appreciate the culture of a people. Unfortunately, the unsettled political conditions of India, no less than his devotion to and love of the Ottoman Empire, persuaded him to return too soon.

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¹ T. D. Gupta’s valuable contributions to the study of Bengali Society, based as they are on the evidence of Bengali literature alone, are naturally incomplete in this respect in the presentation of social facts.

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¹ Among the published accounts of these travellers, Sir Henry Yuse's edition of Marco Polo is well known. A new version of Marco Polo was rendered into English by John Frampton in the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1579 A.D.) and is now available in Penzer's edition. This edition also includes a new and in some ways a more complete version of Nicolo Conti which considerably improves upon the one contained in Major's ‘India in the fifteenth century.’ Another summary of Conti's conversation with Pero Tefur about India appears in the latter's travels published under the ‘Broadways Travellers Series’. The account of Mahuan was translated by George Phillip and published in J.R.A.S. 1895-1896. The accounts of ‘Abd-u-Razzaq, Stephano, and Nikitin are contained in Major's book referred to above and published by the Hakluyt Society. A complete English translation of Ibn Batuta is not yet available and I have based my study on the Arabic text published from Cairo in 1870-1 A.D. The English translations of Varthema and Barbosa have already been published by the Hakluyt Society, London. By account of Sidi ‘Ali Reis is available in the English rendering of Vambery. A new and better translation is, however, in the course of publication.

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² Compare Frampton, Int., IX for criticism of Marco Polo's account. The observations of the European travellers are more or less confined to the South and are limited to a few facts of social life which are sometimes repeated as if one was borrowing them from the other.

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¹ Compare, for instance, K. R., II, 17, 21, 30, 31, for some amusing mis-statements : that Sultan Mu'izz-ud-din Kaiqubad built the Qutab Minar of Delhi and that the passage leading to the top was wide enough to admit an elephant; that Ghiyas-ud-din Balban ascended the throne after killing the Sultan Nasir-ud-din Mahmud : that there was a dispute between the father and the son for succession when Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq came to the throne; and finally when the former became the Sultan, Juna Khan (later known as Muhammad Tughluq) revolted against his father in the Deccan under the excuse of leading an invasion into the Telingana.

V. Minor Sources : Correspondence

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Among minor sources of information may be mentioned some collections of official and private letters : the Riaz-ul-Insha of Mahmud Gawan, the Insha-nama of Tahir-ul-Husaini, and the letters of Bayazid I and Mahmud II of Turkey, all of which make slight references to Indian conditions. This is all the evidence I can offer at present for the study of social life of Hindustan during the period under review.

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An objection is sometimes made, not without reason, that a picture of social life coming more or less exclusively from Muslim and other sources will fail to do justice to Hindu society or paint it in sympathetic and vivid colours. I have found no occasion to agree with the observation inasmuch as it implies that the Muslim historian or man of letters purposely misrepresented the facts of Hindu social life. There was no cultural conflict between the Muslims and the Hindus. In fact the cultural forces were rapidly leading to a complete fusion between the two, so that there was hardly any room for such discrimination. The development of historical literature had a very long and healthy tradition among the Muslims and the examples of intellectual honesty are to be found even among conspicuously dogmatic persons, for instance, Ziya-ud-din Barani and Abdul Qadir Buda'uni. With Amir Khusrau and Malik Muhammad Jaisi we enter on a very different and a more or less national outlook. On the other hand, if there were any Hindu scholars, they lived in the seclusion of a few intellectual centres like Kashmir or Benares and were completely isolated from the main currents of social life. It is further to be doubted if they inherited proper cultural traditions or even right attitudes of mind to make good historians.

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However, though Muslim sources cannot perhaps be accused of a bias, other limitations are equally serious. The social content of Muslim histories is meagre. Life is unattractive for them outside court and cities, or a few religious and literary circles. They are not, as a rule, directly interested in knowing about the Hindu society, or even the life of the lower classes of Muslims who were not very different from the Hindu masses. This, obviously, is an insufficient basis for the study of Hindu society. Unfortunately, the records of Rajputana, the solitary home of Hindu culture and polity, have not yet been worked out. The brilliant but old work of James Tod still remains the main source of our information. We hope that a critical study of Rajput records and other sources of information will some day add to our knowledge of the contemporary Hindu society.

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With such materials as are enumerated above it is obviously impossible to give a complete picture of the society in Hindustan. A consoling thought under such conditions suggests itself, that in the more or less static condition of Indian society a student of social history can always check his facts and conclusions by comparing them with present-day survivals, and thus succeed in giving a more complete picture of the past in the light of the present observations. Though generally helpful, such a view of Indian history is subject to two reservations. The intervening period in our case covers the social developments of about four centuries and includes the operation of a new social force from the industrialized West. It is not unlikely that the events of the intervening period have succeeded in giving a new social meaning and content to the growing complexity of social phenomena in India. Secondly, except for the Imperial Gazetteer of India, a few writers like Crooke and Grierson and a few government reports, no systematic and scientific social survey of India has been undertaken. This work awaits the attention of experienced folklorists and of sociologists in general. I have given references to present-day survivals from the modern works in footnotes where necessary.

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As to the plan of the work, I have included the study of a number of political and economic factors which appear to me helpful in giving a proper perspective of social developments in Hindustan. In dealing with economic conditions, my object is only to give some economic data for a better appreciation of social life.¹ As regards the original texts, I have made a free rather than a literal translation; in some cases I have contented myself only with a summary of a longer passage. Abbreviations are used to indicate most of the original and published texts. These are noted against the text in the bibliography. Two appendices are added at the close of the thesis for a better appreciation of some general data, as the measurements of time and space, the coins, etc., and for the chronology of the reigns of the Sultans of Delhi.

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¹ Compare J.I.H., 1929, p. 167, for Moreland's views on the composition of a definitive treatise on the economic conditions of the period.

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