By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers
The Dream Of A United South Asia
The greatest divide
in South Asia's physical and human geography is between north and south. The environment
of the north has been shaped by the Himalayas, a geologically young set of
mountains with extraordinarily high crests such as Mt. Everest (in Nepal), the
highest mountain in the world at 8,850 meters (29,028 feet), and Kanchenjunga
(in India) at 8,586 meters. The weight of this massive mountain system caused
the land lying to its south to sink and form a vast low plain. The melting
snows of the Himalayas feed numerous streams that have contributed a fertile
overlay of soil to this plain, named the Indo-Gangetic after the two major
river systems. The Indus river and its four tributaries lie at the western end
of the plain; the Ganges with its many tributaries such as the Yamuna, which
joins the Ganges river at the city of Allahabad, form the central portion. At
the eastern end, the panges is approached by the
Brahmaputra river originating in Tibet. Large sections of these perennial
rivers of north India are navigable and were major routes of transport in the
past. The Vindhya range and the adjacent Narmada river are the traditional
boundaries between the north and peninsular south India.
North and south are
also differentiated by language, although this cultural contour does not
correspond exactly with the geographic divide of the Vindhya range and Narmada
river. Linguistically, modern Maharashtra in the western Deccan is part of the
northern zone, reflecting its historic character as an area of transition
between the two. South of Maharashtra the languages belong to the Dravidian
family found only in India, whereas Maharashtra's Marathi language and all the
major languages to its north belong to the lndo-Aryan
family, a subset of the larger Indo-European group. While totally different in
their origins, the Dravidian and lndo-Aryan
languages have developed some common features through long interaction,
including a large body of joint vocabulary.
Most parts of both
north and south India share a climate dominated by the seasonal monsoon winds.
In the middle of the year, the prevailing southwest winds carry moisture from
the Indian Ocean and drench most of South Asia with heavy rains. The winds reverse
direction in the winter and blowout of the dry, cold interior of inner Asia.
This system of alternating monsoon winds produces three main seasons: the
rainy period of the southwest monsoon (mid June to
early October) when the weather is hot and wet; the cool, dry weather 'from
early October to February corresponding to winter; and the hot dry season, or
summer, from about March to mid June.
The coming of the
rains, which almost instantly transforms the parched brown landscape into a
lush expanse of green, is critical to Indian agriculture. Both the quantity and
timing of the southwest monsoon can vary considerably from year to year,
leading to large differences in crop yields and occasional flooding.
The heartland of
South Asia has long been the western and central portion of the Gangetic
plain, where the bulk of the Hindi-speaking population resides today. When we
refer to north India, this is the area we most often have in mind. Travel and
communication is easy in the Gangetic plain, with its large, open expanse of land,
as well as many navigable rivers. Perennial sources of water, adequate
rainfall, and good soils were a boon to settled agriculture, the economic
mainstay of the region. The greatest empires of ancient India were based in the
Gangetic plain which, along with the Indus plain, boasted the earliest urban
centers of the subcontinent. In south India, in contrast, settled agriculture
was confined to relatively small pockets, although it had a longer history
there than in western or eastern India. Because of its more difficult terrain,
dispersed agrarian zones, and localized social circles, the peninsula's
kingdoms were typically smaller than those of the Gangetic north prior to 1000
CE. The only states that had ever extended their power across the Vindhyas were
those based in the north. Eastern and western Indian states were even later to
develop than those in the south and were similarly restricted in size, for the
most part.
In contrast to China
1000 CE however, on S.Asia’s subcontinent's
territory instead, one finds the presence of numerous kingdoms at the time.
Covering such a vast area as we do here, a general overview at first, as we do
on this page is absolutely necessary. Like Europe, South Asia had a common
elite "civilization" that served to unify it culturally in a general
sense prior to 1200, although there were many different local practices and
beliefs. From 1200 onward, the pan-Indic civilization was increasingly eclipsed
in importance by regional cultures that had evolved their own distinctive
variations on the Indic theme. Just as in Europe, regionalization occurred at
the expense of a cosmopolitan language and culture, in South Asia's case,
Sanskrit, and was a sign of the growing relevance of more localized concerns
and identities among the elite populations. These regional cultures also
interacted with or were affected by aspects of the cosmopolitan culture of
Persia and the Middle East in differing ways in the centuries after 1200. It is
thus to a discussion of the unity and diversity of South Asia's internal
physical and cultural landscapes of this period that we now turn, as we will
cover the earlier Muslim invasion in an article to go on-line on tomorrow.
For much of India's
ancient history, the earlier development, greater wealth, and larger population
of the Gangetic north gave it political and cultural dominance. This explains
why it was the Sanskrit language once spoken in the north that eventually developed
into the pan-Indic literary medium. For a period of approximately a thousand
years beginning in 300 CE, the prestige of classical Sanskrit was so great that
it eclipsed all other languages and literatures. It created what Sheldon
Pollock has called a Sanskrit cosmopolis, a far-flung realm of shared
aesthetics, political discourse, and religious knowledge. The Sanskrit
cosmopolis was chiefly embodied in the person of the learned Brahmin, who
occupied the preeminent position in the four-fold varna or caste system of
social classification. Traditionally priests and religious scholars, Brahmins
had for centuries also served as court poets, ministers of state, scribes, and
record-keepers. Brahmins were crucial propagators of the ideologies and rituals
of kingship and so were heavily patronized throughout the subcontinent, and
even in parts of Southeast Asia, by kings and warriors who belonged to the
class known as kshatriya.
Although the
religious beliefs and practices of India were never systematized by a central
institution or spiritual authority, the circulation of Sanskrit and Brahmins
throughout the subcontinent did produce some semblance of a unified religious
culture at the elite level by 1000 CE. Over the previous millennium, numerous
local gods and goddesses had been appropriated and subsumed into the three main
deities of classical Hinduism: Shiva, Vishnu, and the Goddess (Devi). Shiva,
often worshipped in the form of the cylindricallinga,
is an ascetic lord dwelling in the Himalayas whose dance of destruction brings
about the periodic end of all life so that the universe might be renewed. Shiva
is also depicted in sculpture in multiple forms, including as a happily married
husband and father. Vishnu is even more complex, for his personality includes
those of his ten incarnations among which are the well-known gods, Krishna and
Rama, to whom we will refer a number of times in this text. In general, Vishnu
is a rather more benevolent god than Shiva; medieval Indian kings particularly
liked him in his Boar incarnation, when he rescued the earth from the depths of
the ocean where she had been dragged by a fierce demon. The Goddess is
worshipped by many names and in many forms, both benevolent and wrathful,
sometimes in association with a male god, but often alone.
By 1000 CE, stone
temples for the elite worship of the major Hindu deities had been built in many
localities of the subcontinent. The rituals of worship followed the same
fundamental format regardless of location: the enshrined image of the god or
goddess was bathed, dressed, decorated with ornaments, and fed at least twice a
day. The layout of temple complexes also bore a rough resemblance to each
other, enough so that they would have been immediately recognizable as temples
to visitors from a different region. The most important deity dwelt in the
inner sanctum, over which a high superstructure known as a shikhara reached
toward the heavens. One or more pillared porches (mandapa) were adjoined to the
front of the main building that contained the inner sanctum. Devotees could
enter the porches and even the main building but not the inner sanctum itself,
for that was the domain of the deity and the Brahmin priests who served the
gods and goddesses.
Within this basic
template found all over India, there were significant regional divergences in
style. Just as the numerous scripts for the regional languages of India prior
to 1200 were all derived from the same ancient Brahmi script, so too regional
idioms in temple architecture increasingly deviated from classical prototypes.
Variation in temple styles is a manifestation of the growing regionalization ofIndian culture, a phenomenon that we have already stated
becomes more important after approximately 1200. As each regional society
developed, its political leaders who sponsored the creation of monuments and
its artisans who constructed them chose somewhat different ways of making their
vision of an abode for the gods into a physical reality. Architecture is only a
single aspect of culture, of course, and one that may not have affected the
lives of many people. However, temple styles are the most readily recognizable
marker of regional identity in the medieval era. A good way to illustrate the
cultural diversity that existed in the subcontinent within the larger overall
unity is by looking at two temples dating to around 1000 CE, one from south
India and the other from the north.
The largest temple in
eleventh-century India was located in Tanjavur, the
capital of the mighty Chola dynasty of the far south. Consecrated in 1010, the
temple housed a form of Shiva named Rajarajeshvara
after the Chola ruler Rajaraja, who was its main patron. As was standard in the
south Indian or Dravidian style of architecture, the temple was demarcated as a
sacred space by a walled enclosure. Entry into the enclosure was through a
large towered gate known as a gopura, which in the temple architecture of later
centuries would grow so large as to dwarf the temple itself. At this
eleventh-century site, however, the temple was still the dominant feature in
the complex. Made of carved granite, the exterior of the temple hosts a variety
of complex figural images and inscriptions intended to praise both the god
Shiva and the king who so ostentatiously made his piety known to the world. An
unusually large mandapa (porch) fronts the temple's inner sanctum which in turn
is topped by a shikhara (pyramidal superstructure) that soars to a height of 65
meters. Its tightly stepped pyramidal spire adorned with a smooth circular cap
is typical of superstructures on south Indian temples and provides an imposing
profile.
While the far south
of India was thriving under the Chola dynasty, political power in the northern
half of the subcontinent continued to devolve to an increasing number of small
states. Despite their more limited resources, north Indian kings were also
vigorous patrons of temples and the artistic creativity of the region remained
high. A good example is the Kandariya Mahadeva temple
at the site of Khajuraho, on the southern edge of the Gangetic plain, in the
modern state of Madhya Pradesh. It is dedicated to Shiva but stands among a
group of more than twenty extant structures, constructed over three centuries,
which house Jain deities as well as other Hindu ones. Gains, like Hindus,
believe in continuous rebirth until the soul achieves perfection and are staunch
adherents of non-violence, but they reject the authority of Brahmins.) We have
no information on who built this largest and most elaborate monument at
Khajuraho, but given its size and scale it is generally assumed to have been
the reigning king of the Chandela dynasty that ruled this area during the ninth
through early twelfth centuries. Built at about the same time as Tanjavur's Rajarajeshvara temple,
the Kandariya Mahadeva is the most acclaimed temple
to survive from the eleventh century north and provides a striking contrast to
the southern style of architecture. Once again, as we noted previously in
relation to terrain and language, north and south India can be sharply
differentiated.
The Kandariya Mahadeva, richly covered with carved gods and goddesses,
sits on a high plinth and the inner sanctum is approached by three porches,
each increasingly larger than the previous one. The porches are surmounted by
elaborate corbelled roofs; what might be an otherwise dark interior is
illuminated by open balconies. Its superstructure, one of the most beautiful
examples of the north Indian style, is radically different from the south
Indian type exemplified at Tanjavur. The Kandariya Mahadeva's superstructure is composed not of a
series of separate stories that gradually recede as they ascend, as in the case
with the Rajarajeshvara temple, but rather of
reduplicated clusters of small spires that line a central core. This gives the
temple's roof line a jagged outline not unlike a great mountain range. Since it
can be considered a replica of Mt. Kailasa, the Himalayan abode of the god
Shiva, the temple's visual reference to mountains is highly appropriate. While
the Kandariya Mahadeva is only about half the height
of the Rajarajeshvara temple, the progressively
rising spires of the roof emphasize the vertical dimension and give the temple
a sense of considerable height. The temple's height is also emphasized by the
extremely steep stairs that lead from the ground level to the elevated entrance
and climbing them gives the devotee the sense of scaling Mt. Kailasa, an
intended reference to Shiva's home.
Eastern and western
India also had their own distinctive types of temple architecture by 1000 CE,
within the broader northern style. The four regions of India - south, north,
east, and west - thus each had their own separate interpretation oftemple architecture within a common template that
consisted of one or more porches in front of an inner sanctum surmounted by a
tall spire. The exterior of the temple was generally the most heavily decorated
portion, usually embellished with images of gods and demi-gods that could be
contemplated and worshipped as the devotee circumambulated the exterior,
before and after paying homage to the interior deity. To see the deity's image
was considered an especially auspicious act known as darshana
or darshan, that might be loosely translated as beholding.
The Indian focus on a
religious structure's exterior stands in contrast to Muslim practice in the
larger Islamic world, where it is not until the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries that magnificent exteriors become the norm. While Muslim prayer can
be performed anywhere as long as the believer faces in the direction of Mecca,
it is often done in the interior of a mosque - in the prayer chamber itself or
in the mosque's interior courtyard, which serves as an overflow area. Ritual at
Indian temples and Indian mosques would always remain specific to each
religion, but over time the different building styles of temples and mosques
merged to create structures that were Islamic in appearance but not in
function. In addition, by around 1600 the Indian practice of beholding a deity
was extended to royalty, both Hindu and Muslim.
By the year 1000, as
we have seen, the different regions of the subcontinent had begun to exhibit
distinctive elite cultures. Another notable trend was the rise of south India,
whose historical development had long lagged behind that of the north. The
soaring height of the superstructure of Tanjavur's Rajarajeshvara temple reflected the stature of the dynasty
that sponsored its construction, for under Rajaraja (r. 985-1014) and his son
Rajendra (r. 1014-1044), the Chola kingdom became the greatest Indian state of
its era. This was not due to any advance in political or military organization,
since the eleventh- and twelfth-century kingdoms of South Asia were all roughly
comparable in their decentralized political structures and small standing
armies supplemented with troops supplied by subordinate lords. However, the
Cholas had the advantage of being based in the richest agrarian zone of the
peninsula, the Kaveri river delta area, at a time when south India's economic
development had finally caught up with and even surpassed the level of the
north. This gave them the resources to extract tribute from the entire far
south and even send an army all the way to the Ganges in the north Indian
heartland.
The Cholas also had
the advantage of proximity to the most active sector of long-distance trade
within the Indian Ocean in this period, the eastern stretch extending from
southeastern India through Southeast Asia and into south China. Rajaraja most
likely desired more control over international trade when he annexed the
northern half of the neighboring island of Sri Lanka, on the sea route between
India and regions to its east. His successor Rajendra completed the conquest of
Sri Lanka and went on to dispatch a naval expedition against Shrivijaya, a maritime trading kingdom based on the
Indonesian island of Sumatra. The victory of the Chola fleet led to fifty years
of Indian dominance over the Strait of Malacca, the vital sea passage between
the Malayan peninsula and Indonesia through which all trade to and from China
was funneled. This was the apex of Indian influence in Southeast Asia, which
had assimilated many elements of Indian civilization over the past six or more
centuries, including the Sanskrit language, south Indian scripts, and the
religions of Hinduism and Buddhism.
At the same time that
King Rajaraja I of the Chola dynasty was making plans to build his enormous
temple at Tanjavur, another great king had emerged in
far-off Afghanistan. Known to posterity simply as Mahmud of Ghazni
(r. 998-1030) after the Afghan city that was his capital, he is usually
regarded as the first Muslim king to have a major impact on the subcontinent.
Muslim rule had in fact been introduced centuries earlier, when Arab forces
seized control of the Sind region of the southern Indus plain (now in Pakistan)
in 711. Muslims continued to rule over Sind for centuries but the presence of
the great Thar desert to their east made further penetration into the
subcontinent difficult. Developments in Sind had little effect on the rest of
South Asia, and Muslim influence was confined primarily to this backwater
region. Even Indo-Muslim chronicles of a later time ignore the Arabs of Sind
and begin their narrative of Muslim rule in India with Mahmud of Ghazni.
Mahmud lived about
350 years after the inception of Islam, at a time when many in the Islamic
world feared that their centuries of political supremacy might be at an end. In
the years immediately after the death of the Prophet Muhammad (d. 632), Muslims
had given their allegiance to a single caliph or head of state. Under the
Umayyad dynasty of caliphs (661-750) based in Damascus and then the Abbasids of
Baghdad, much of the Islamic world had been politically unified, at least in
theory. This unity had fragmented by the tenth century, with three different
rulers one in Umayyad Spain, another in Abbasid Baghdad, and yet another in
Fatimid Cairo - each claiming to be the sole caliph. While all Muslims would
never again be brought together in one state, the tenth-century fear that
Muslim dominance was on an irreversible decline proved to be wrong. Instead,
the influx of a new group of people, the Turks, would politically reinvigorate
much territory ruled under the banner of Islam. From the ninth century onward,
Muslim rulers had increasingly relied on personal troops composed of enslaved
Turks from the Central Asian steppes. These military slaves or mamluks were
considered more loyal than other soldiers because they were taken captive at a
young age and owed loyalty only to their master. Many mamluks went on to become
prominent generals and leaders in the Islamic world in this era; at the same
time, various tribes of Turks were gradually migrating into Muslim lands and
becoming Islamicized. Due to their nomadic background,
the Turkic peoples were skilled at cavalry warfare.
Mahmud of Ghazni's ascendance occurred in this context of rising
Turkic military and political power. His grandfather, Alptigin,
was a Turk who began as a military slave and ended his career as governor of Ghazni, a city in the center of what is now Afghanistan. Sebuktigin, Mahmud's father, was also a slave at one time,
before he married Alptigin's daughter and succeeded
to Alptigin's position as governor. He eventually
declared his independence and annexed much of modern Afghanistan, becoming the
first in the Ghaznavid line of Turkic rulers. After Mahmud, the Ghaznavids lost
their base in Afghanistan to the Seljuq Turks, a group of nomadic tribes who
went on to conquer a huge swath of territory encompassing modern Turkey, Iraq,
Iran, and much of Central Asia. The Ghaznavids and Seljuqs were conscious of
their status as newcomers to Islam and so never sought symbolic leadership over
the entire Islamic world. Instead of claiming the ultimate authority as
caliphs, Mahmud and other Turkic rulers were called sultans, a title for Muslim
kings that spread widely in later centuries. After several centuries during
which the Islamic frontiers had hardly advanced, the Turkic sultans of the
eleventh century initiated major expansions of the Islamic realm, the Ghaznavids
toward the east and the Seljuqs toward the west.
Mahmud of Ghazni started making frequent campaigns into the Indian
subcontinent in 1001. Keen on building up his prestige within the international
Muslim community, Mahmud portrayed his entry into the subcontinent as an
instance of jihad, in this case a war against infidels. Making this claim also
allowed him to legitimately take booty, which Mahmud did in great quantities.
Mahmud commenced by taking territory around the Indus river in what is today
Pakistan and eventually made his way large majority of Muslims are Sunni, the
sense of an ummah was almost readymade. Also significant in creating unity
among Muslims was the existence of a common language, Arabic, for religious
purposes, as well as common cultural practices and constructs.
Islam requires that
Muslims adhere to a certain set of beliefs and practices. Among these are the
five messages of the Quran, the divinely revealed Muslim holy book. These
include the beliefs in god's monotheistic nature, his creation of the entire
world, the need for all people to be good and generous, the coming of a Day ofJudgment, and the fact that Muhammad was the final
prophet. In addition, there are a set of practices that all Muslims should
engage in: the profession offaith in a single god,
paying of a tithe, fasting during the month of Ramadan, a pilgrimage to Mecca
if at all possible, and prayer five times a day. It is the act of praying that
most immediately binds the ummah. While praying can be done individually, the
Friday noon prayer should be done as a congregation. For this reason, each town
has a mosque or in some cases multiple mosques, where Muslims can gather
together in a visible reminder that they form part of a single community of
faith. The brotherhood of all Muslims is further affirmed by the lack of a
religious hierarchy in comparison to Hinduism. Islam has a class of religious
scholars called ulama whose status is based solely on their knowledge of
religious texts and practice. They give informed advice and are held in great
esteem but do not hold any formal religious institutional office.
Upon hearing the call
to prayer from a tall minaret on Fridays around noon, the devout Muslims of
Mahmud of Ghazni's realm would have flocked to the
mosque for congregational prayer. Leaving their shoes at the mosque's austere
brick exterior, the devout would enter into the courtyard. In its middle would
be an ablution tank where ritual cleansing was performed. The courtyard's
interior perimeters were lined with arched galleries used for multiple
purposes, including teaching. The gallery on the side of the compound that
faced the direction of Mecca, known as the qibla, was deeper than the other
galleries, for here was the prayer chamber. Pointed arched entrances led into
the prayer chamber's interior while arched niches called mihrabs, symbolic
reminders of the Prophet Muhammad's role in teaching the messages of Islam,
would mark the qibla wall. Although mihrabs might be inscribed with verses from
the Quran or abstract floral or geometric forms, they would never bear human or
animal imagery as you would find in a Hindu temple, for such figural representation
is very strongly discouraged in the Muslim religious context. The prayer
chamber would be surmounted by domes and/or vaults.
Very little intact
architecture from the Ghaznavid period survives, but we do have existing
examples from their Seljuq successors that are quite similar to the Ghaznavid
style. The most notable example of a Seljuq monument is the Great Mosque of
Isfahan in Iran, which adheres closely to the hypothetical model described in
the previous paragraph (Figure 1. 3). Adapting earlier pre- Islamic Iranian
techniques, Muslim architecture in Iran and Afghanistan was arcuated - that is,
employing arches, vaults, and domes - regardless of whether the building was a
tomb, palace, fort, or mosque. Due to a lack of stone quarries, almost all of
this building was done in brick. While this figure shows the mosque's original
brick facade, much of it was later covered with elaborate blue tile. This use
of brick contrasts to the largely stone-built architecture found in India which
is trabeated, based on the principle of stacking or corbelling where height is
achieved by piling one stone on top of another. Another difference is that the
only surviving building type in India from this era is the temple. Secular
buildings must have been largely built in wood, and tombs were not required,
since Indian religions prescribe cremation of the dead rather than the Islamic
practice of burial. The merger of the eastern Islamic and indigenous Indic
building techniques and traditions would create highly original and creative
forms after 1200.
Although Mahmud could
claim to belong to a worldwide Muslim community, the Ghaznavid Turks had
adopted an ideology and style of kingship that originated in just one part of
the Islamic world, its eastern segment. This mode of kingship drew heavily on
the pre-Islamic traditions of Persia and cast the king as an all powerful autocrat deemed superior to other mortals. The
elevated position of a ruler in later PersoIslamic
society was a far cry from the egalitarian ethos of the early days of Islam,
when the ruler was simply an esteemed man who was elected from a body of equals
just as an Arab chief had been chosen from the elders of the tribe. The
Perso-Islamic king had great responsibilities, including the execution of
justice and the maintenance of Islam. Rulers such as Mahmud of Ghazni were considered shadows of god on earth and, as
such, merited great respect and awe.
The fact that Mahmud
of Ghazni used Persian as a court language also
differentiated him and other contemporary rulers in Iran and Central Asia from
their counterparts in Spain, Egypt, and Baghdad who spoke Arabic. Persian
increasingly came into its own during the eleventh century. One example is
provided by the famous Shahnama (Book of Kings)
written by the poet Ferdowsi and dedicated to Mahmud of Ghazni.
This lengthy epic, composed of some 60,000 verses, is not only written in
Persian but also deals with a subject, the rise and fall of pre-Islamic Iranian
kings, that would only have interested those who felt they were heirs to a longstanding
Persian culture. In spite ofthe increasing importance
of Persian, Arabic remained an important language, especially for scholars and
religious specialists. Al-Biruni, the famous scientist and scholar who lived
for some time in Ghazni and served at Mahmud's court,
wrote much of his voluminous scholarship in Arabic, including his Kitab al-Hind
(Book of India) which was then translated into Persian. This work was based on
research he did in India when he accompanied Mahmud there in the 1020s, and was
considered one of the most important books on India even into the sixteenth
century.
These intertwined
traditions of Turkic military prowess, Islamic religion, and Persian culture
were introduced into the Indian subcontinent by Mahmud of Ghazni
and his successors. Mahmud's son had to yield most of the Ghaznavid realm to
the much larger and more powerful Se1juq Turks, but the dynasty managed to
retain a small stronghold around Lahore, today in Pakistan. There the
Ghaznavids survived for almost two hundred years, until they were dislodged by
another upstart dynasty from Afghanistan, the Ghurids, who further spread
Perso-Is1amic culture in South Asia. Although Arab sailors and merchants, as
well as the early Muslim Arabs who conquered Sind, were no strangers to South
Asia, the Muslims who became politically dominant in the subcontinent would typically
be Turco-Mongo1 in ethnic background, horse-riding warriors in occupation, and
Persian in cultural heritage.
In the year 1000, two
kings at the extremities of the greater South Asian world region had been
poised for expansion. There was Rajaraja Cho1a of Tanjavur,
on the one hand, who envisioned an extension of power into Southeast Asia that
would be realized by his son Rajendra. At the same time, Mahmud of Ghazni, situated in the borderland between the Middle East,
Central Asia, and South Asia, was setting his sights on the area of
northwestern India. By 1200, however, the Cho1a dynasty had withered away along
with Indian influence in Southeast Asia, whereas a second wave of Turkic
warriors following in Mahmud of Ghazni's footsteps
was overrunning much of north India. The Cho1as flourished toward the end of
one long phase, a period of roughly a thousand years when Indian culture had
spread far beyond the confines of the modern region not only into Southeast
Asia but also into central and eastern Asia. Mahmud of Ghazni,
on the other hand, stood at the inception of a second phase, during which
Islamic religion and culture were transmitted as far east as the southern
Philippine islands. What happened subsequently in India was not so much a clash
of civilizations as a revitalization of its politics and an enrichment of its
already diverse culture. That is the story to which we now turn our attention.
Birth of the Delhi Sultanate
The origins of the
Delhi Sultanate can be traced to the career of Muhammad Ghuri,
so-called after the mountainous region in Afghanistan where his family was
based. His full name was Shihab al-Din Muhammad bin Sam, but he is also known
in the historical sources as Muizz alDin. Muhammad Ghuri was based in Ghazni, the
former capital of the renowned Mahmud, and from there he turned his attention
eastward toward India beginning in 1175. Like Mahmud, Muhammad Ghuri spent years campaigning in the Indian subcontinent
and won victory after victory. Unlike Mahmud, however, Muhammad's goal was to
annex territory and not merely to carry out profitable raids. Muhammad's first
conquest in South Asia was the region of Punjab, held by the Muslim descendants
of Mahmud of Ghazni. For two decades from 1186, the
main city in the Punjab, Lahore, served as the primary Ghurid base in South
Asia for a series of successful attacks on north India proper.
Muhammad's two chief
targets in north India were the powerful Hindu kings Prithviraj Chauhan of
Ajmer and Jayachandra Gahadavala of Kanauj. After their victory in 1192 against Prithviraj
Chauhan at the battlefield of Tarain, about 120
kilometers northwest of modern Delhi, the Ghurid armies immediately set off
toward Prithviraj's capital at Ajmer, seizing forts along the way. In the
following year, Ghurid forces under Qutb aI-Din Aibak
set up a permanent garrison in Delhi, which would become the future center of
Muslim power in north India but was then a town of minor military and political
significance. The Ghurid forces next moved into the Gangetic valley and
defeated King Jayachandra by 1194. While Muhammad Ghuri
directed these major battles himself, most of the other campaigns in the
heartland of north India were directed by his Turkic slave-general, Qutb al-Din
Aibak. Bengal and Bihar in the east, on the other hand, were acquired by a
military adventurer, Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji.
Muhammad Ghuri, Qutb aI-Din Aibak, and
Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji amply illustrate the ethnic diversity found among
the warriors in the victorious Ghurid armies. Muhammad Ghuri
was an aristocrat from a people who were culturally and linguistically Persian;
he was a member of the urbane, civilized world. Other elite men from Ghur served as commanders for Muhammad Ghuri
in his early years of expansion, but they were replaced almost entirely by
military slaves ofTurkic origin like Qutb aI-Din Aibak after the Battle of Tarain
in 1192. Military slaves were more reliable in their loyalties than
aristocratic warriors because they had no family allegiances. They were
typically non-Muslims enslaved as young boys and converted to Islam. Muhammad
bin Bakhtiyar Khalji, on the other hand, was a member of a nomadic people who
lived to the east of the Ghur region of Afghanistan
and were considered of humble social status by others. Turks who were not
slaves also fought for Muhammad Ghuri and his
successors in India, as did a number of mounted warriors from Khurasan, a
Persian-speaking region encompassing modern eastern Iran, western Afghanistan,
and Uzbekistan. The men fighting under Muhammad Ghuri's
banner in India were a highly eclectic group: they came from a variety of
ethnic communities, spoke several different languages, were sometimes but not
always of nomadic background, and could be either enslaved or free. The
multiplicity of their origins reflects the turbulent recent history of the
lands to the west of the subcontinent, which served as a crossroads for peoples
converging from all over Asia and the Middle East.
The sophisticated
military system of their native Afghanistan was the principal reason for the
success of the Ghurid armies in India. The ease of the Ghurid conquest has
puzzled historians in the past, given the far greater agrarian wealth and
population of the conquered Indian kingdoms that should have provided them
with ample resources for military defense. Hence, early twentieth-century
scholars often pointed to the lack of unity among Indians as the chief
explanation for their defeat. Since the concept of India as a nation was still
centuries away, Prithviraj Chauhan and Jayachandra Gahadavala
- Muhammad Ghuri's opponents - had no incentive to
forge a united front and indeed are depicted as mortal enemies in a later
ballad that champions Prithviraj. Similarly, there was no sense of a common
religious identity among Indian warriors at the time, for the notion of a
unified Hinduism is a modern one. In the premodern period a variety of distinct
sects, many of them focusing on a single deity rather than multiple ones,
comprised what we group together today under the rubric of Hinduism. Recent
historical scholarship instead attributes the victory of the Ghurid armies to a
number of concrete advantages that gave them a distinct military edge.
The Ghurids were in a
better position than Indian rulers in this age of cavalry warfare both in terms
of the supply of horses and of trained manpower. Coming from Afghanistan, the
Ghurids had easy access to the high-quality horses of Central Asia, Persia, and
the Arabian Peninsula. The Indian subcontinent was, in contrast, ill suited for the breeding of horses. Since indigenous
horses were inferior, Indian rulers had long imported horses from the regions
to its west by various overland and maritime routes. Imported horses soon
deteriorated in quality, however, because most of the subcontinent lacked good
fodder and pasture lands. The Ghurids (and the later sultans of Delhi) were
highly skilled in deploying horses in warfare. Employing a classic nomadic
tactic of the Central Asian steppes, their light cavalry could fan out and
flank the enemy from all sides, but still retreat quickly out of range of the
enemy's heavy cavalry charge. The damage inflicted by the mounted archers of
the Ghurid light cavalry was considerable, whereas Indian armies had few men
accomplished enough to wield a bow while riding, according to the recent work
of Andre Wink. Indian armies instead generally engaged in mass frontal attacks
and employed rows of war-elephants to break enemy lines. Slow and cumbersome,
the elephant, if panicked, might also inflict serious damage on its own troops.
Other factors also
worked to the benefit of the Ghurid forces. Foremost among these was the highly
centralized organization of their armies, for the Ghurids had a permanent core
of professional soldiers who were accustomed to fighting together. Indian armies,
on the other hand, were coalitions composed of the separate fighting forces
under individual lords who were called for duty when required. As a
consequence, they often failed to coordinate on the battlefield. All of these
elements in conjunction resulted in a superior military system or complex that
enabled the Ghurid armies to extend the political and cultural frontiers of the
crossroads zone of Afghanistan, eastern Iran, and Uzbekistan well beyond the
Punjab, where it had remained stationary for nearly two centuries.
Their intention to
stay permanently in South Asia is indicated by the building of numerous
monuments. Islamic texts on statecraft that would have been well known to the
Ghurids required that kings establish large fortified palaces to display their
power and wealth to the populace. In addition, mosques are essential for
congregational prayer during which all Muslim men gather together around noon
on Friday, the Muslim holy day. For a new ruler to achieve legitimate status,
he needed to have his name proclaimed during the Friday prayer as well as on
coins. Inscriptional and textual evidence indicates that Aibak constructed
many structures on behalf of his Ghurid lord including fine palace complexes,
but the two most important surviving structures are the J ami
(congregational) mosques in Delhi and Ajmer. The names by which these mosques
are known today are not their original ones. The popular name of the Delhi Jami
mosque, the one on which we focus our discussion since it was built first, is
the Quwwat aI-Islam,
meaning the Might of Islam (Figure 2.1). If this name is accepted as its
original one then there is an implicit suggestion that the mosque was intended
as a victory statement over indigenous Indian religious traditions. However, as
Sunil Kumar indicates, Quwwat aI-Islam
is simply a corruption of Qubbat aI-Islam
(Sanctuary of Islam), the title given to Delhi later in the thirteenth century
and then subsequently applied to the Jami mosque and a nearby dargah
(tomb-shrine) of an important Muslim saint.
The first phase of
both the Delhi and Ajmer mosques used recycled materials, predominantly temple
pillars, following building patterns used elsewhere in the Muslim world when
Islam was initially introduced in a new region. These mosques had to be quickly
built for practical and political reasons, especially in order to promote new
dynastic authority. The most expedient method was to use precut materials taken
from local temples. But all the same, a mosque that appeared as a rearranged
temple must have seemed like an affront to those who had previously worshipped
in those buildings. And perhaps a mosque built from pre-existing religious
structures caused discomfiture to the mosque's patrons. This may be why a large
five-arched free-standing screen was placed before the prayer chamber of the
Delhi mosque in 1198, just a few years after its initial construction. Not
using any spolia, that is, recycled material, this exquisitely carved work
employing indigenous vegetal motifs combined with passages in Arabic from the
Quran was clearly intended to evoke the arched appearance of the prayer
chambers of contemporary mosques in the Ghurid homeland.
The second addition
to the Delhi congregational mosque was commenced in 1199. Known today as the
Qutb Minar, it is modeled on and intended to surpass freestanding Iranian and
Afghan minarets, in particular one built by the brother of Muhammad bin Sam in
the Ghurid capital of Firuz Kot (today Jam) shortly before the construction of
the Delhi minaret. By the time of its completion in the thirteenth century, the
Qutb Minar was about 83 meters high, making it the tallest minaret in the
world, and it served multiple purposes. Too tall for the call to prayer, its
practical function was as a watch tower from whose top any approaching army
could be seen for miles. Second, it may have been intended as a warning to
those who did not convert to Islam, for the Arabic inscriptional bands that
embellish its facade tell of the doom that awaits disbelievers on the day of
judgment. But the fact that the script was alien in a land where only Brahmins
were literate suggests its message went largely unnoticed.
The remaining
inscriptions in Persian which proclaim the Ghurid overlord as the king of the
Arabs and Persians, coupled with its vast scale, suggest that this minaret was
less a religious symbol than one of political import. It was intended not only
to legitimize Ghurid rule locally but also in the larger Islamic world. Through
the establishment of religious sites, the alien territory of India was
gradually assimilated into the farflung Islamic
civilization, and the diverse Muslim warriors of the Ghurid armies were
provided a sacred space in common. This marked a radical break with the
practice of Mahmud of Ghazni, who had no desire to
absorb into his empire the localities of western and northern India that he
repeatedly plundered for their wealth. And as home to numerous warriors from
Afghanistan and its vicinity, India's course of historical development was now
inextricably interwoven with that of its western neighbors.
The seemingly
strident tone expressed in this state-sponsored mosque was not the only voice
of Islam in the subcontinent. Sufis, Muslim mystics dedicated to seeking an
immediate and personal relationship with god, had arrived in India even prior
to the Ghurids. Sufis often served as a bridge between the new Muslim overlords
and the large Indic population. The most important of these mystics, Muin aI-Din Chishti (d. 1236), still generally regarded as
India's supreme Sufi, came from Chisht in Afghanistan
around the time of Prithviraj Chauhan's defeat by the Ghurids, and settled in
the Chauhan capital, Ajmer. Hagiographies claim Muin aI-Din,
who achieved the status of a saint, attracted scores of followers charmed by
his message of remembering and experiencing god through intense love. Because
there are no contemporary sources or writings surviving from the time of Muin aI-Din, early Chishti practice is unknown. During the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Chishtis
perfected an approach to spiritual union with god through a combination of
zikr (recollection of god's ninety-nine names) and sama
(music and song). Their extensive use of music in a religious context must have
been appealing in the Indian setting, where poem-songs were often part of
religious ceremony.
Carl Ernst and Bruce
Lawrence have pointed out that, contrary to much popular belief, Sufism is not
at odds with orthodox Islam but is rather part of it. The early Chishti mystics
had to negotiate a difficult course of following orthodox Islamic practice,
such as marrying and praying five times a day, while maintaining a vow of
poverty and practicing an ecstatic form of Islam. Over the course of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Chishti order became a uniquely South
Asian one, producing four significant spiritual heirs to Muin aI-Din, among whom only Nizam aI-Din
Auliya (d. 1325) has earned the title Beloved of God. The early Chishtis, in particular Nizam aI-Din,
made a conscious effort to avoid the patronage of rulers; therefore, this
mystic order can be seen as an alternative voice to the state, but not
necessarily to orthodoxy. Prominent Sufis were buried in their humble abodes,
which were then transformed into dargahs, that is, shrines replete with
teaching facilities and kitchens for feeding the poor. Thus, the power of these
saintly mystics to transform the lives of ordinary people endured even after
death.
But Muhammad Ghuri's sudden death in 1206 precipitated an intense contest
for power among the leading Turkic military slaves upon whom Muhammad had so
heavily relied. In that year Qutb aI-Din Aibak, a
slave of Turkic origin, seized control of the armies from Afghanistan that were
occupying numerous forts in the heartland of north India. Qutb aI-Din Aibak's act was but the first in a series of
struggles for dominance among the leading members of the Turkic forces in
India. This event easily could have been relegated to the status of a footnote
in history had the occupying Turkic armies eventually retreated back to their
area of origin, as had Mahmud of Ghazni two hundred
years earlier, or had the fledgling Islamic state torn itself apart in internal
conflict. Instead, Qutb al-Din's political successors were able to entrench
themselves in India for centuries thereafter and, in doing so, ushered in
momentous changes not only in the political makeup of the subcontinent but also
in its culture. The importance of the date 1206, when the first of a series of
dynasties collectively known as the Delhi Sultanate was founded, is thus clear.
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