B.A.Honours, History IInd Year Course III

HISTORY OF INDIA, circa A.D. 750-1550(A Bibliographic Guideline for Preparation)

(Please do not let yourself be overwhelmed by the ostensibly lengthy bibliography. If you look carefully, there is in fact very little material. If it appears more lengthy, it is because the references are detailed and at the end of the long titles of books and names of specific chapters you will often discover that actually you are expected to read very little. In fact the bibliography below is by no means comprehensive and you are welcome to explore the library on your own.)

UNIT: I

I. Interpreting Early Medieval India, circa 750-1200

One can disaggregate this topic into three parts: [a] The discussion of sources would involve a general survey of available evidence most frequently used by historians viz., epigraphic, numismatic and literary works; [b] Divergent ways in which modern history writing for the period 750-1200 has developed and issues at stake in respective traditions of historiography; and [c] Various perspectives on [non]existence of a feudal phase in Indian history, especially with reference to early medieval India.

Sources and Historiography

Chattopadhyaya, B.D. 2003. The Study of Early India. In Studying Early India by B.D.Chattopadhyaya, 3-25. Delhi: Permanent Black.

The essay discusses the relevance of the period designated ‘early India’ as well as ‘early medieval India’. In the process, it also surveys the available sources and the varied directions in which historiography for the period has developed.

Jha, D.N. 2000. Introduction to The Feudal Order: State, Society and Ideology in Early Medieval India, ed., D.N.Jha, 1-60. Delhi: Manohar.

D.N.Jha discusses the pros and cons of using the ‘feudalism hypothesis’ for the early medieval period. The essay also carries valuable references to the most commonly used sources for the period.

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Singh, Upinder. 2008. A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century. New Delhi: Pearson Education.

As the title suggests, this work is written in a textbook format covering very wide time span. The last (tenth) section of the book titled ‘Emerging Regional Configurations c. 600-1200 C.E.’ deals with the major historical trends of early medieval India. The chapter makes for a good general survey for the whole of unit I in our syllabus. Relevant for the topic under consideration here is the first section of this chapter. Entitled, ‘Sources: literary and archaeological’, this section provides a rare and critical survey of sources available for the early medieval period.

Sahu, B.P. 1997. Introduction to Land System and Rural Society in Early India, ed. B.P.Sahu, 1-58. Delhi: Manohar.

This is by far the most comprehensive treatment of the historiography of early Indian rural society (including that of early medieval). Varied approaches to the sources of early Indian history are discussed at length in the essay.

Recent Debates (The Question of Feudalism)

Kosambi, D.D. 1956. An Introduction to the Study of Indian History. Bombay. 2nd edition, 1975. Bombay. Especially relevant are, 275-76.

Here, Kosambi, one of the first historians to apply the feudalism hypothesis in the Indian context, discussed the idea of feudalism from above and feudalism from below.

Sharma, R.S. 1958. Origins of Feudalism in India. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 1: 297-328.

This was Sharma’s first attempt to apply the framework of ‘feudalism’ to understand the early medieval agrarian relations in India. It was later elaborated as a full-fledged thesis (see below).

Sharma, R.S. 1965. Indian Feudalism, c.300-1200. 2nd edition, 1980. Delhi: Macmillan.

Sharma’s seminal book, as is well known, was the first rigorous and comprehensive application of the notion of Indian feudalism in the context of early medieval period particularly where land rights, economy and polity are concerned.

Sharma, R.S. 1974. Problem of Transition from Ancient to Medieval in Indian History. Indian Historical Review, 1: 1-10.

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This is primarily focussed on the problem of transition of Indian history from ancient to medieval period with reference to the character of change noticeable from 6th – 7th centuries in the subcontinent.

Sharma, R.S. 1985. How Feudal was Indian Feudalism. The Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 12, no. 2/3: 19-43. A revised and updated version of this article is to be found in, The State in India, 1000-1700, ed., H.Kulke, 48-85. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995. Paperback edition, 1997. The same essay is also reproduced in The Feudalism Debate, ed., H.Mukhia, 82-111. Delhi: Manohar, 1999.

In this essay, Sharma responds to some of those who critique the use of the term ‘feudalism’ in the Indian context. Mukhia’s essay, mentioned below, is taken up for particularly detailed response.

Mukhia, H. 1981. Was There Feudalism in Indian History? The Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 8: 273-310. Also reproduced in The State in India, 1000-1700, ed., H.Kulke, 86-133. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995. Paperback edition, 1997.

This essay examines the (ir)relevance of the feudalism paradigm to study early medieval Indian social formation. It carries elaborate comparison of some elements early medieval Indian history with those of medieval European feudalism.

Sharma, R.S. 1982. The Kali Age: A Period of Social Crisis. In The Feudal Order: State, Society and Ideology in Early Medieval India, ed., D.N.Jha, 61-77. Delhi: Manohar, 2000. Originally published in S.N.Mukherjea, ed., India: History and Thought. Essays in Honour of Professor A.L.Basham. 1982.

This essay attempts to place the emergence of feudalism in early medieval India in the context of a social crisis represented as Kali Age crisis in the sources.

Chattopadhyaya, B.D. 1983. Political Processes and the Structure of Polity in Early Medieval India: Problems of Perspective. Presidential Address, Ancient India Section, Indian History Congress, 44th Session. This is also reproduced in The State in India, 1000-1700, ed., H.Kulke, 195-232. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Paperback edition, 1997.

As the title of the essay suggests, it examines various approaches to the study of early medieval India. This is a path breaking and very dense article that offers a rich variety of insights into problems of different paradigms deployed to understand aspects of the early middle ages in India. As such, the essay is useful for several topics listed under this unit in the syllabus.

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o Shrimali, K.M. 1993. Reflections on Recent Perceptions of Early Medieval India. Social Scientist, 21, no. 12: 25-39.

The essay carries some interesting reflection of the application of feudalism hypothesis as well as alternative constructs in the early medieval Indian context. The essay is particularly marked in its critique of the ‘integrative polity’ paradigm.

o Jha, D.N. 2000. Introduction to The Feudal Order: State, Society and Ideology in Early Medieval India, ed. D.N. Jha, 1-58. New Delhi: Manohar.

Jha provides a very good summary of the so-called ‘feudalism debate’ as it stood at the turn of the millennium, primarily from the point of view of someone in broad agreement with the applicability of feudalism to early medieval India.

II. Structure of Polities

Evolution of Political Structures

Sharma, R.S. 1965. Indian Feudalism, c.300-1200. 2nd edition, 1980, 63-90. Delhi: Macmillan.

(See above for comments)

Chattopadhyaya, B.D. 1983. Political Processes and the Structure of Polity in Early Medieval India: Problems of Perspective. Presidential Address, Ancient India Section, Indian History Congress, 44th Session. This is also reproduced in The State in India, 1000-1700, ed., H.Kulke, 195-232.

(See above for comments on the article.)

Kulke, Hermann. 1995. The Early and the Imperial Kingdom: A Processural Model of Integrative State Formation in Early Medieval India. In The State in India, 1000-1700, ed., Kulke, 233-262. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Paperback edition, 1997.

Working close to the perspective offered by B.D.Chattopadhyaya, Kulke in this essay provides a framework (‘Integrative state formation’) to understand the political changes taking place during the period.

Chattopadhyay, B.D. 1976. Origin of the Rajputs: The Political, Economic and Social Processes in Early Medieval Rajasthan. Indian Historical Review, vol. 3, no. 1. Also reproduced in

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B.D.Chattopadhyay, The Making of Early Medieval India, 1-37. Delhi: Oxford University Press. 1994. Paperback editon, 1997.

Chattopadhyaya discusses the contentious problem of the origin of Rajputs in a way that helps open up the whole issue of understanding political changes in the period in rewarding ways. The essay also examines the structure of Rajput polities.

Stein, Burton. 1977. The Segmentary State in South Indian History. In Realm and Region in Traditional India, ed., Richard Fox, 3-51. New Delhi: Vikas.

This is one of the earliest attempts by Stein to apply the theory of Segmentary State in the context of medieval Indian political and fiscal history. Some of the arguments offered in the essay were later revised by the author (see below).

Stein, Burton. 1980. Peasant, State and Society in Medieval South India, 254-365. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reprint, 1994. Delhi: Oxford University Press (Paperback edition).

This is the milestone monograph by the leading scholar of medieval south India. It is a remarkable and controversial work that is sweeping in its theoretical and chronological expanse as well as rich in empirical detail. The chapter most relevant for a study of the relevant Chola period is indicated above.

Ramaswamy, Vijaya. 1982. Peasant, State and Society in Medieval South India: A Review Article. Studies in History, 4: 307-19.

This is an extremely useful essay for a critical perspective on one of the most influential work on Medieval South Indian politics (see above, Stein: 1980).

Stein, Burton. 1995. The Segmentary State: Interim Reflections. In The State in India, ed., Kulke, 134-161. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Paperback edition, 1997. Originally published in Purusartha, vol. 13 (1991): 217-88.

In this article, Stein responded to his critics and revised some of his arguments offered earlier (see above).

Sharma, R.S. 1989-1990. The Segmentary Theory and the Indian Experience. Indian Historical Review, 16, nos. 1-2: 80-108.

In this review article, Sharma mounts an elaborate critique of Burton Stein’s theory of Segmentary state formation.

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Subbarayalu, Y. 1982. The Cola State. Studies in History, 4, no.2: 269-306.

This is an interesting reflection on the nature of Chola state especially vis-à-vis its institutional set up.

Heitzman, James. 1987. State Formation in South India, 850-1280. Indian Economic and Social History Review, 24, no. 1: 35-61. Also reproduced in The State in India: 1000-1700, ed. H.Kulke, 162-94.

Heitzman attempts to capture the character of a continuously expanding and changing Chola state by classifying the areas under its control into five separate ecological/agrarian zones. He examines the differential presence of the state in each of these zones at different points of time.

Forms of Legitimation; brahmans and temples; royal genealogies; rituals of kingship

Veluthat, Kesavan. 1993. Religious Symbols in Political Legitimation: The Case of Early Medieval South India. Social Scientist, 21, 1/2: 23-34.

Heitzman, James. 1991. Ritual, Polity and Economy: The Transactional Network of an Imperial Temple in Medieval South India. Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient, 34: 23-54.

Heitzman establishes interesting links between the ritual roles of the temples in South India on the one hand and their economic and political activities.

Sharma, Sanjay. 2006. Negotiating Identity and Status: Legitimation and Patronage under the Gurjara-Pratiharas of Kannauj. Studies in History, 22, 2: 181-220.

The essay examines the epigraphic and other evidence to study the way in which the Pratiharas transformed themselves and their political/Legitimation strategies as their state expanded its territories.

Nath, Vijay. 2001. From Brahmanism to Hinduism: Negotiating the Myth of the Great Tradition. Social Scientist, 29, nos. 3-4: 19-50. Originally published in Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 2001 (Calcutta Session).

The essay discusses the interface between religious and political by examining the processes that marked the evolution of Brahmanism in early middle ages.

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Sahu, B.P. 2001. Brahmanical Ideologies, Regional Identities and the Construction of Early India. Social Scientist, 29, nos. 7-8: 3-18.

This is a sweeping reflection on the ways in which Brahmanical ideologies and political initiatives were linked to expansion of state societies and assertion of regional identities in a dialogical context.

Spencer, G.W. 1969. Religious Networks and Royal Influence in Eleventh Century South India. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 12, no. 1: 42-56.

How did the elaborate networks of temples’ administration contend with, benefited (and benefited from) vertically expanding Chola state? This is the subject of Spencer’s extremely insightful essay.

Ogura, Yasushi. 1999. The Changing Concept of Kingship in the Cola Period: Royal Temple Constructions, c. AD 850-1279. In Kingship in Indian History: Japanese Studies on South Asia No. 2, ed. Noboru Karashima, 119-142. Delhi: Manohar.

The essay traces evolution of kingship in the context of changing patterns of royal architecture and patronage of temples.

Veluthat, Kesavan. 2000. The Role of Nadu in the Socio-Political Structure of South India (c. AD 600-1200). In The Feudal Order: State, Society and Ideology in Medieval South India, ed. D.N.Jha, 179-96. Delhi: Manohar.

Veluthat analyses the place of ‘nadu’ in south Indian history to reflect on nature of state and society under the Cholas.

Kulke, Hermann. 2001. Royal Temple Policy and the Structure of Medieval Hindu Kingdoms. In Kings and Cults: State Formation and Legitimation in India and Southeast Asia, by Kulke, 1-16. Delhi: Manohar.

In the specific context of Orissa, this article examines the state’s changing patterns of patronage of temples. It also reflects on the ways in which their interface with temples affected the kingdoms themselves.

III. Agrarian Structures and Social Change

Agricultural Expansion

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Sharma, R.S.1987. Agrarian Expansion. Urban Decay in India, c. 300-1000, by R.S.Sharma, 168-77. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.

In this short and focussed chapter, Sharma traces agrarian expansion during early medieval period as part of larger process of urban decay, state formation and feudalisation.

Nandi, R.N. 2000. Chapter 3-6: State Formation, Agrarian Growth and Social Change in Feudal South India, c. 600-1200 A.D. Delhi: Manohar.

In the context of early medieval south India, Nandi analyses the problem of agrarian growth in relation with social changes and horizontal expansion of state. Again, the study is located under the broader rubric of feudalisation.

Champaklakshmi, R. 1995. State and Economy: South India, c. A.D. 400-1300. In Recent Perspectives of Early Medieval India, ed. Romila Thapar, 275-317. Delhi: Popular Prakashan in association with Book Review Trust.

Another study of agrarian processes in south India, this essay departs from the framework of feudalism and examines economic growth within a set of political, fiscal and ideological variables.

B.D.Chattopadhyaya, B.D. 1973. Irrigation in Early Medieval Rajasthan. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, XVI, parts II and III: 298-316. Reproduced in The Making of Early Medieval India by B.D.Chattopadhyaya, 38-56. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994. Paperback edition, 1997.

In this micro study of medieval Rajasthan, Chattopadhyaya focuses on the patterns of artificial irrigation and its relationship with changing agrarian structures and growth of the region.

Peasants and Landlords with Reference to Regional Variations

Sharma, R.S. 1985. How Feudal was Indian Feudalism?. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 12, nos. 2/3: 19-43. A revised and updated version of this article is to be found in The State in India, 1000-1700, ed. H. Kulke, 48-85. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995. Paperback edition, 1997. The same essay is also reproduced in The Feudalism Debate, ed. H.Mukhia, 82-111. Delhi: Manohar, 1999.

Although this is a restatement of Sharma’s thesis of Indian feudalism, this article focuses very sharply on the problem of peasant-landlord relationship in early medieval India. It also attempts to deal with the

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critique of feudalism paradigm by examining specific evidence from various agrarian regions.

Yadava, B.N.S. 1980. The Problem of the Emergence of Feudal Relations in Early India. Presidential Address, Section I (Ancient India), Indian History Congress, 41st Session, Bombay. Also reproduced in The Feudal Order: State, Society and Ideology in Early Medieval India, ed. D.N.Jha, 249-301. Delhi: Manohar, 2000.

Again, this essay examines the nature of agrarian relations with particular reference to plight of peasants as indicated, among others, in the astrological texts of early medieval age.

Yadava, B.N.S. 1997. Immobility and Subjection of Indian Peasantry. In Land System and Rural Society in Early India, ed. B.P.Sahu, 329-42. Delhi: Manohar.

Another useful essay that analyses the conditions of the peasants within the context of agrarian relations.

Sahu, B.P. 1993. Aspects of Rural Economy in Early Medieval Orissa. Social Scientist, 21, 1/2: 48-68.

As the title suggests, it is a study of the specific conditions of rural economy in early medieval Orissa. Though a study of a ‘region’, it helps us also in relating to the debate about the nature of early medieval Indian history.

Chattopadhyaya, B.D. 1973. Irrigation in Early Medieval Rajasthan. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, XVI, parts II and III: 298-316. Reproduced in The Making of Early Medieval India by B.D.Chattopadhyaya, 38-56. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994. Paperback edition, 1997.

(See above for comments)

Sahu, B.P. 1997. Introduction to Land System and Rural Society in Early India, ed. B.P.Sahu, 1-58. Delhi: Manohar.

In this fairly comprehensive and critical historiographic essay on early historical and early medieval period, changes in scholarly approaches towards early medieval history have been discussed at length. The author also provides a good survey of region-wise variations that have been documented by scholars.

Peasantisation of Tribes; Proliferation of Castes; Untouchables

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Sharma, R.S. 1969. Social Changes in Early Medieval India. The first Devraj Chanana Memorial Lecture. New Delhi: People’s Publishing House. Also reproduced (with slight changes) in Early Medieval Indian Society by R.S.Sharma, 186-213. Kolkata: Orient Longman. 2001.

This is by far the most comprehensive survey of social changes in early medieval India. It mostly deals with the issues of mobility, differentiation and proliferation of castes and other social groups within a largely localised context of kinship relations.

Jaiswal, Suvira. 1998. Caste: Origins, Functions and Dimensions of Change. New Delhi: Manohar.

This is a sociologist account of changes in the institution of caste since the ancient through the middle ages. Useful and relevant insights are to be found scattered through the book, especially in Chapters 2 and 5.

Chattopadhyaya, B.D. 1990. Aspects of Rural Settlements and Rural Society in Early Medieval India. Calcutta: K.P.Bagchi.

An alternative perspective on social changes that remain somewhat similar but are understood differently is available in this book.

Chattopadhyaya, B.D. 1994. Introduction to The Making of Early Medieval India by B.D.Chattopadhyaya, 1-37. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Although this is a general survey of historiography on early medieval India, it carries relevant set of reflections on possible as well as available social histories of the period.

Jha, Vivekanand. 1975. Stages in the History of Untouchables. Indian Historical Review, 2, no.1: 14-31.

The essay examines some evidence about untouchables in various periods of Indian history. One of the very few works that deal with the issue of untouchability in the historical context.

Jha. Vivekanand. 1997. Caste, Untouchability and Social Justice: Early North Indian Perspective. Social Scientist, 25, nos. 11-12: 19-30.

Another short piece that traces the history of untouchability within the larger history of varna and jati.

Karashima, Noboru. 1997. The Untouchables in Tamil Inscriptions and Other Historical Sources in Tamilnadu. In Caste System, Untouchability and the Depressed, ed. H.Kotani, 21-30. Delhi: Manohar.

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Karashima looks at evidence, chiefly epigraphic, on the untouchables in the Tamil country during early medieval period.

Aktor, Mikael. 2002. Rules of Untouchability in Ancient and Medieval Law Books: Householders, Competence and Inauspiciousness. International Journal of Hindu Studies, 6, nos. 3: 243-74.

Aktor provides an alternative frame, beyond the usual notions of purity and impurity, to understand practices of untouchability both at present and in historical times.

IV. Trade, Urbanisation and Forms of Exchange

Inter-regional and Maritime Trade

Malik, Anjali. 1998. Merchants and Merchandise in Early Medieval Northern India, A.D. 600-1000. Delhi: Manohar.

This is a more or less descriptive account of trading activities in north India during the period specified. The introduction also offers a sweeping view of the state of historiography in the field.

Hall, Kenneth R. 1980. Trade and Statecraft in the Age of the Colas. New Delhi: Abhinav.

As the title promises, Hall provides an account of how trade could be linked to statecraft under the Cholas. The strength of the work lies in the manner in which it establishes linkages between commerce and state formation.

Jain, V.K. 1990. Trade and Traders in Western India (AD 1000-1300). New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.

Jain in this well-researched monograph argues for the existence of vibrant trading activities in the first three centuries of the second Christian millennium.

Chakravarti, Ranabir. 2004. Introduction to Trade in Early India, ed. Ranabir Chakravarti, 72-101. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

In his long introduction to the edited volume, Chakravarti outlines the historiography of trade for the late ancient and early medieval period. In the pages specified, he surveys the evidence for trade during the early medieval period.

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Chakravarti, Ranabir. 1990. Monarchs, Merchants and a Matha in Northern Konkan (c. AD 900-1053). Indian Economic and Social History Review, 27, no. 2. Also reprinted in Trade in Early India, ed. R. Chakravarti, 257-281. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Chakravarti studies the interactions between what he calls different ‘ensembles’ of activities like economic, political and cultural. The essay may usefully be compared with another (Shrimali, 1996, listed below) that also studies Konkan region for related though not identical developments.

Chattopadhyaya, B.D. 1985. Markets and Merchants in Early Medieval Rajasthan. Social Science Probings, 2, no. 4: 413-40. Also reprinted in The Making of Early Medieval India, by B.D.Chattopadhyaya, 89-119. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994. Paperback edition, 1997.

Chattopadhyaya provides very interesting study of not only thriving markets and merchants in Rajasthan, but also of how markets grow over a period of time and relate to their ‘hinterland’.

Urban Processes and Monetisation

Sharma, R.S. 1987. Urban Decay in India c. 300 – c. 1000. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.

This is probably the most influential major monograph that looks for and fails to find enough evidence of urbanism in India during the period between 4th to 10th centuries. With separate chapters on the relevant epigraphic and literary sources and on each of the four major regions (north; middle Gangetic and eastern; central and western; and the south), the book makes sweeping arguments that have remained contentious.

Sharma, R.S. 2001. Paucity of Metallic Coinage (c. 500-c. 1000). In Early Medieval Indian Society: A Study in Feudalisation, by R.S. Sharma, 119-62. Kolkata: Orient Longman.

This is another essay that follows up the ‘feudalism argument’ by trying to establish the lack of evidence for enough coins for the period before the 11th century in early medieval India. The essay makes for interesting comparison with a major monograph on the topic produced shortly after this (Deyell, 1990) listed below.

Champakalakshmi, R. 1996. Developments within: Urban Processes in the Early Medieval Period, c. A.D. 600-1300. Trade, Ideology and Urbanisation: South India 300 B.C. to 1300, by R. Champaklakshmi, 203-310. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

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Moving on from her work on trade and trade guilds in South India, Champaklakshmi looks at evidence for urbanism in South India during the period specified.

Heitzman, James. 1997. Gifts of Power: Lordship in an Early State, 82-89, 107-120. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Though Heitzman’s book is concerned about state formation under the Cholas in the book, the pages specified talk about urban settlements and their economic underpinnings during the period.

Shrimali, K.M. 1996. How Monetised was the Silhara Economy? In Society and Ideology: Essays in Honour of Professor R.S. Sharma, ed. D.N. Jha, 95-123. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. A slightly different version of the piece is also available with the changed title of ‘Monetization in a Coastal Economy: The Case of Konkan under the Silaharas’, in The Feudal Order, ed. D.N. Jha, 345-82. New Delhi: Manohar, 2000.

In this very focussed essay, Shrimali examines the evidence for/against monetisation in the Konkan economy. The arguments put forth contrasts interestingly with those offered in a similar context for a slightly different time period by Ranabir Chakravarti (1990, see above).

Chattopadhyaya, B.D. 1994. Urban Centres in Early Medieval India: An Overview. In The Making of Early Medieval India, by B.D.Chattopadhyaya, 155-82. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Paperback edition, 1997. Originally published in Situating Indian History, ed. S. Bhattacharyya and Romila Thapar. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986.

In this study of a few urban centres, Chattopadhyaya tries to trace the evolution and economic function of these townships from north India during early middle ages.

Chattopadhyaya, B.D. 1994. Trade and Urban Centres in Early Medieval North India. In The Making of Early Medieval India, by B.D.Chattopadhyaya, 130-54. Originally published in The Indian Historical Review, 1 (1974), no. 2.

Chattopadhyaya, in the same vein (see the reference above) examines the ways in which trading centres could evolve into urban settlements over a period of time.

Deyell, John S. 1990. Living Without Silver: The Monetary History of Early Medieval North India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

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Probably, the most well researched work on the state of monetisation in the subcontinent during early medieval period, Deyell challenged several orthodoxies in the field by bringing in focus personal hoards of coins as against exclusively depending on numismatic reports and museum collections of coins. Fascinating work that added several new dimensions to the so-called feudalism debate.

Merchant Guilds of South India

Abraham, Meera. 1988. Two Medieval Merchant Guilds of South India. New Delhi: Manohar.

The book provides detailed analysis of functioning of a merchant guild of Manigramam in Tamilnadu and another of Ayyavole in Karnataka, two of the most prominent medieval guilds in south India.

Champakalakshmi, R. 2004. The Medieval South Indian Guilds: Their Role in Trade and Urbanisation. In Trade in Early India, ed. R. Chakravarti, 326-43. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Originally published in Society and Ideology in India: Essays in Honour of Professor R.S. Sharma, ed. D.N.Jha. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1996.

Chmpaklakshmi studies the relevant evidence for delineating the changing roles of mainly three south Indian guilds of early medieval period.

V. Religious and Cultural Developments

Bhakti, Tantrism, Puranic Traditions, Popular Religious Cults and Buddhism and Jainism

Suggested Readings Sharma, R.S. 2001. Economic and Social Basis of Tantrism (Chapter

8) & The Feudal Mind (Chapter 9). In Early Medieval Indian Society: A Study in Feudalisation, 235-282. Kolkata: Orient Longman. Original but shorter versions of these articles are to be found respectively in (a) Indian Society, Historical Probings: Essays in Memory of D.D. Kosambi, ed. R.S. Sharma and V. Jha, 175-189. New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1993. (b) Social Science Probings, 13 (1996). Both of these essays in the (shorter version) are also reproduced in The Feudal Order: State, Society and Ideology in Early Medieval India, ed. D.N. Jha. New Delhi: Manohar, 2000.

In ‘The Feudal Mind’, Sharma stretches the argument of feudalism to ideological and religious developments in early medieval times. In

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somewhat similar fashion, though not that directly, he relates popularity of Tantric practices to their socio-economic ‘base’.

White, David Gordon, ed. 2001. Tantra in Practice. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publ.

This is a large collection of mostly short essays on Tantric practices spanning a wide stretch of time (Ancient to Contemporary) and space (from Nepal and India to China and Japan). Of some relevance are the ‘Introduction’ by David Gordon White (pp. 3-40); ‘A Parody of the Kapalikas in the Mattavilasa’ by David N. Lorenzen (pp. 81-96); ‘Tantric Rites in Antal’s Poetry’ by D. Dennis Hudson (pp. 206-230); and ‘Jain Tantra: Divinatory and Meditative Practices in the Twelfth Century Yogasastra of Hemachandra’ by Olle Ovarnstrom (pp. 595-604).

Nandi, R.N. 1986. Social Roots of Religion in Ancient India, Sections II and III. Calcutta: K.P.Bagchi.

Though this is primarily a book on ancient India, it does refer to early medieval period and seeks to establish linkages between religious processes and perceived material/social developments of the time.

Nandi, R.N. 2000. Origin of the Virasaiva Movement. In The Feudal Order: State, Society and Ideology in Early Medieval India, ed. D.N.Jha, 469-86. New Delhi: Manohar. Originally the article was published in Indian Historical Review, 2 (1975), no. 1.

Although this essay deals with Virsaiva movement that originated in early 12th century, it is presumed to be part of the South Indian Bhakti tradition and hence may be dealt with here.

Chakrabarti, Kunal. 2001. Religious Process: The Puranas and the Making of a Regional Tradition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

In this pioneering work, Chakrabarti looks at the Puranic tradition as an open scriptural tradition that could accommodate upcoming regional traditions within expanding (and changing) Brahmanical canons.

Chakrabarti, Kunal. Texts and Traditions: The Making of the Bengal Puranas. In Tradition, Dissent and Ideology, ed. R.Champaklakshmi & S. Gopal, 55-88. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Here again, Chakrabarti studies the way the Bengal Puranas emerge to assimilate a local tradition within a larger mythological / literary corpus.

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Mahalakshmi, R. 2000. Outside the Norm, Within the Tradition: Karaikkal Ammaiyar and the Ideology of Tamil Bhakti. Studies in History, 16, no. 1: 17-40.

In an empirically grounded piece, Mahalakshmi traces the evolution of Bhakti ideology and its location vis-à-vis ‘tradition’ in early medieval Tamil region.

Champakalakshmi, R. 1996. From Devotion and Dissent to Dominance: The Bhakti of the Tamil Alvars and Nayanars. In Tradition, Dissent and Ideology, ed. R. Champaklakshmi & S. Gopal, 135-63. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Champakalakshmi examines the Bhakti tradition of Alvars and Nayanars of South India to trace their changing social and political roles during the seventh to the twelfth centuries.

Narayanan, M.G.S. and Veluthat, K. 2000. Bhakti Movement in South India. In The Feudal Order: State, Society and Ideology in Early Medieval India, ed. D.N. Jha, 385-410. New Delhi: Manohar. The essay was originally published in Indian Movements: Some Aspects of Dissent, Protest and Reform, ed. S.C. Malik. Simla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1978. The same was also reproduced in Feudal Social Formation in Early India, ed. D.N. Jha. Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1987.

This is another piece that, from a slightly different perspective, examines the changing ideology as well as social base of the South Indian Bhakti movement.

Prentiss, Karen P. 1999. Bhakti as a Movement. In The Embodiment of Bhakti, by Karen P. Prentiss, pp. 25-42. New York: Oxford University Press.

Should Bhakti in South India be considered as a social ‘movement’? This is the theme of this essay that considers issues relating to religious developments in early medieval India.

Stein, Burton. 1968. Social Mobility and Medieval South Indian Hindu Sects. In Social Mobility in the Caste System in India: An Interdisciplinary Symposium, ed. James Silverberg, 78-94. The Hague: Mouton. The article is also reproduced in Religious Movements in South Asia 600-1800, ed. David N. Lorenzen, 81-101. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004. Paperback edition, 2005.

Stein in this rather focussed essay tentatively outlines the way certain emerging ‘Bhakti’ sects, especially Srivaishnava sect, allowed for social mobility among certain Sudra families during the period beginning eleventh century.

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Regional Languages and Literature

Majumdar, R.C. n.d. ed. History and Culture of the Indian People: The Struggle for Empire. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Relevant part is Chapter XV (‘Language and Literature’), 297-397.

Though largely descriptive, this long chapter on language and literature helped collate some basic pieces of information on the development of regional languages and literature. Its theoretical grid has since been questioned but it is still useful for putting together so much relevant information together.

Sharma, R.S. 2001. Transition from Ancient to Medieval. In Early Medieval Indian Society: A Study in Feudalisation, by R.S. Sharma, 16-44. Delhi: Orient Longman.

Although the essay is a general reflection on the question of transition from ancient to medieval, Sharma considers the issue of the emergence of regional languages and literature, predictably from the vantage point of processes of feudalisation, through several pages. The relevant pages in the above mentioned edition are 35-38.

Sheldon Pollock, ed. 1995. Social Scientist (Special Issue), 23, Nos. 10-12.

This is a collection of very interesting research papers on the issue of language and literature in what Pollock in his introduction calls the ‘Vernacular Millennium’. Particularly relevant are the essays by S. Nagaraju, V. Narayan Rao and Pollock.

Pollock, Sheldon. 1998. India in the Vernacular Millenium: Literary Culture and Polity, 1000-1500. In Early Modernities, ed. Shmuel Eisenstadt, Wolfgang Schluchter and Bjorn Wittrock. Special issue of Daedalus, 127, 3: 41-74.

Pollock, Sheldon. 1998. The Cosmopolitan Vernacular. The Journal of Asian Studies, 57, 1: 6-37.

Art and Architecture: Evolution of Regional Styles

Desai, Devangana. 1989. Social Dimensions of Art in Early India. Presidential Address (Ancient India), Proceeding of the Indian History Congress,50th session, Gorakhpur: 21-56.

The address treats the regionalization of art and architecture in early medieval India against the backdrop of the feudalism hypothesis.

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According to the author, numerous local centres of art emerged as religious donations increased with the rise of proliferation of local rulers and feudatories. In the closed economy and localism of the feudal structure, art was increasingly conditioned by regionalism and canonization. Folk elements and tantric iconography in temples is seen against the background of a deprived urban milieu and patronage coming mainly from a rural aristocracy.

  Desai. Devangana. 1974. Art under Feudalism in India (c. A.D. 500-

1300). In The Indian Historical Review,vol.1, no. 1: 10-17. Reprinted in Jha, Feudal Social Formation in Early India. 1987. pp 391-401.

This is an earlier article by the same author. It discusses the socio-cultural aspects of feudalism that influenced the function, nature and character of art in early medieval India. It attempts to study art and architectural developments under a specific social milieu (feudal), where the chief function of art was to glorify the status of opulent patrons, thereby failing to convey higher qualities (though apparently it was in the service of religion).              

  Chattopadhyaya, B.D. 1993. Historiography, History, and Religious

Centers: Early Medieval North India, circa A.D.. 700-1200. In Gods, Guardians, and Lovers: Temple Sculpture from North India A. D.  700-1200, eds, Vishakha Desai and Darielle N. Mason. New York and Ahmadabad: The Asia Society Galleries and Mapin Publishing Ltd. 33-47.

An alternative approach to comprehend the regionalization of culture is suggested in this article in terms of the historical processes of local state formation leading to the changed character of art. It discusses the political, social and cultural dimensions of early medieval India, emphasizing on factor of legitimation of temporal authority as the most significant ideological dimension of the period. The need to link one’s royal origins to religious and divine forces led to extraordinary temple building in this period. The article further explores the spatial contexts and social linkages of the sacred spaces. It discusses the fluctuating patterns of regional powers, their relationship to their spiritual mentors, and their need for legitimation of their newly acquired power in the form of temple building.             

  Willis, Michael D. 1993. Religious and Royal Patronage in North

India. In Gods, Guardians, and Lovers: Temple Sculpture from North India A. D.  700-1200, eds, Vishakha Desai and Darielle N. Mason. New York and Ahmadabad: The Asia Society Galleries and Mapin Publishing Ltd.: 49-65.

The essay discusses the nature of different levels of patronage of temple sites of north India. It explores the local focus of temple

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inscriptions, involving the nobility, officers and common people. The essay is also concerned with issues of legitimation.

  Huntington, Susan. 1985. The Art of Ancient India: Buddhist, Hindu,

Jain New York and Tokyo: Weather Hill. This book is very useful as a general survey of regional variations from a purely architectural point of view. The following two works also broadly fall in the same category:

Harle, J. C. 1986. The Art and Architecture of the Indian Subcontinent. New Zealand: Pelican History of Art, Penguin Books.

  Brown, Percy. 1971 (rpt). Indian Architecture: Buddhist and Hindu

Periods. Bombay: D.B.taraporevala Sons and Co. Pvt. Ltd.   

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Unit II

VI. Interpreting the Delhi Sultanate, circa 1200-1550:

[a] Survey of Sources; Delhi-centred focus.

(This topic will include a general survey of available sources for writing the history of Delhi sultanate with a special stock-taking of the Persian court chronicles. The idea is to be familiarised with the nature, scope and limitations of these sources, and to take a critical look at the manner in which historians have used these sources. The discussion of the sources, however, will not be confined to this topic alone. In fact, detailed discussion of the sources would be necessary with respect to the historiography on the specific themes of the history of Delhi sultanate.)

Kumar, Sunil. 2007. Appendix: Persian Literary Traditions and Narrativizing the Delhi Sultanate. In The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate 1192-1286, by Sunil Kumar, 362-77. Ranikhet: Permanent Black.

The author considers the Persian literary traditions to address historiographic issues relating to the way the ‘story’ of Delhi Sultanate is usually told by historians.

Mukhia, Harbans. 1976. Historians and Historiography in the reign of Akbar. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House.

Although it is a book devoted to Akbar’s reign, its first chapter surveys the Persian court literature under the Delhi sultanate for background.

Hardy, Peter. 1961. Some Studies in Pre-Mughal Muslim Historiography. In Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon, ed. C.H.Philips, 115-27. London: Oxford University Press.

In this rather general essay, Hardy considers trends in what he calls ‘Muslim’ historiography of the Pre-Mughal period.

Hardy, Peter. 1966. Historians of Medieval India: Studies in Indo-Muslim Historical Writing. London: Luzac and Company Ltd.

Here, the author considers the writings of some of the most influential chroniclers of the Sultanate including, Minhaj Juzjani (the author of Tabaqat-i Nasiri) and Zia Barani (the author of Tarikh-i Firuzshahi).

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Jackson, Peter. 1999. The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History, 44-60 (Sultan and Sources) and 151-70 (Sultans, Saints and Sources). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

In the sections specified, the author examines the nature (and limitations) of the sources available for reconstructing the history of the Delhi Sultanate.

Day, U.N. 1971. Chapter 8: Some Chronicles and Chroniclers of Medieval India. In Some Aspects of Medieval Indian History, by U.N. Day, 143-81. New Delhi: Kumar Brothers.

In this collection of Day’s essays, the chapter specified above examines general trends of Persian historiography, with separate and useful notices on the life and works of Minhaj us-Siraj Juzjani, Amir Khusrau, Ziauddin Barani, Shams Siraj Afif, and Ali bin Mahmud al Kirmani, the 15th century chronicler of Malwa.

Habib, Irfan. 1981. Barani's theory of the History of the Delhi Sultanate. Indian Historical Review, 7: 99-115.

Habib outlines the theoretical grid within which, according to him, Barani wrote the history of the sultanate. The essay is useful not just as an interesting approach to Barani’s views about history but also as a contentious attempt to reconstruct the history of Sultanate itself.

Habib, Muhammad. 1950. Chishti Mystic Records of the Sultanate Period. Medieval India Quarterly, 1: 1-42.

This is a very interesting and early attempt by Muhammad Habib to assess a host of Chishti Mystic Records and their value as source material for the historians of Sultanate period.

[b] Historiography Mahmud of Ghazni; nature of Turkish campaigns; The issue of “Indian” and “Foreign”;

(The first two subtopics are clubbed together here as they more closely overlap than the rest and involve the same readings. The idea is to discuss how historians interpret and characterise Ghazanavid invasions; how most of them treat them as a ‘foreign’ invasion, and how recent historiography has raised and examined some of these issues.)

Habib, Mohammad. 1927. Sultan Mahmud of Ghaznin. In Politics and Society during the Early Medieval Period, Collected Works of Professor Habib, vol. 2, ed. K.A.Nizami, 36-104. New Delhi: People’s Publishing House. Reprint, 1981.

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In this long essay on Mahmud, Habib dissociated the Sultan from what he considered to be the essence of Islam and probably for the first time located his invasions primarily in its financial and political context.

Bosworth, C.E. 1966. Mahmud of Ghazna in Contemporary Eyes and in Later Persian literature. In Iran, 4: 85-92. (Alternatively, see MAHMUD b.SEBUKTIGIN, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. H.A.R.Gibb et al. Leiden: E.J. Brill.)

Mainly a historian of west Asia, Bosworth situates Mahmud in the backdrop of West Asian and Afghan context and looks at the latter Persian representations of the Turkish ruler as a great iconic empire builder.

Nazim, M. 1931. The Life and Times of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This is more of a general and descriptive account of the Ghazanavid ruler, his achievements and failings and as the title says his ‘life and times’ in a linear narrative.

Richards, J.F. 1974. The Islamic Frontier in the East: Expansion into South Asia. South Asia, 4: 91-109.

A focussed piece that views Ghazanavid invasions in north India as part of a larger set of historical processes that saw a continuous (and not episodic) expansion of the military, political and cultural frontier of Islam in east.

Ahmad, Aziz. 1963. Epic and Counter Epic in Medieval India. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 83: 470-76. The essay is also reproduced in India’s Islamic Traditions: 711-1750, ed. Richard M.Eaton, 37-49. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

A short and controversial piece that ‘discovered’ two parallel and rival narrative trends in the way Islam’s encounter with ‘Indian civilisation’ was represented.

Davis, Richard. 1999. Lives of Indian Images, 88-112 and 186-221. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas Publishers.

Davis, an Art Historian, traces the way in which idols were (and are) always treated as political trophies in the subcontinent. Chapter 3 and Chapter 6 examine the official Ghazanavid narratives that were woven in the wake of Mahmud’s alleged iconoclasm in India. They also reflect on the ‘pre-history’ of desecration of idols in India.

Thapar, Romila. 2004. Somanath: The Many Voices of History. New Delhi: Penguin Books India.

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This is arguably the most sophisticated and comprehensive work on the multiple histories of Somanath temple. The work is particularly fascinating for the fact that it looks at the manner in which the episode of Mahmud’s desecration of the temple has, over the centuries, ceased the imagination of a variety of people leading them to forge their own narratives around it.

Thapar, Romila. 1989. Imagined Religious Communities? Ancient History and the Modern search for a Hindu Identity. Modern Asian Studies, 23, 2: 209-31. Reproduced in Cultural Pasts: Essays in Early Indian History, by Romila Thapar, 965-89. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000. Paperback edition, 2003.

Another interesting piece by Thapar who discusses the problems of talking about religious communitarian identity in pre-modern times. The essay helps in developing a critical perspective on much that were written on the Ghazanavid invasion representing a clash of religious communities.

Chattopadhyaya, B.D. 1998. Representing the Other? Sanskrit Sources and the Muslims (eight to fourteenth century). New Delhi: Manohar.

In a rare instance of a historian of ancient and early medieval India venturing beyond the 12th century, Chattopadhyaya examines Sanskrit texts of the period to map the multiple ways and contexts in which they articulated the idea of the other. An extremely useful work that helps complicate the question of ‘the Muslim Other”. The perspective contrasts interestingly with those of Pollock (1993, below) and Ahmad Aziz (1963, above). It also helps historicize the question of Indian and foreign when understood in terms of self and the other.

Pollock, Sheldon. 1993. Ramayana and Political Imagination in India. Journal of Asian Studies, 52: 261-297. Reproduced in Religious Movements in South Asia 600-1800, ed. David N. Lorenzen, 153-208. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004. Paperback edition, 2005.

In this controversial piece, Pollock tries to examine why the Ramayana narrative (of conflict between good and evil) found favour in Indic political iconography in north India after the establishment of ‘Muslim’ power in middle ages. The perspective contrasts starkly with that of Chattopadhyaya (1998, above).

Eaton, Richard M. 2002. Temple Desecration and Indo-Muslim States. In Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia, ed. David Gilmartin and Bruce B.Lawrence, 246-81. New Delhi: India Research Press. The article can also be accessed in Essays on Islam and Indian History, by Richard M. Eaton. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000.

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Eaton traces the history of temple desecration in India from early medieval till almost the modern times. The essay provides rich empirical evidence to capture patterns of temple desecration across varied political contexts and by agents from diverse religious backgrounds.

Kumar, Sunil. ed. 2005. Demolishing Myths or Mosques and Temples? Readings on History and Temple Desecration in Medieval India. New Delhi: Three Essays.

All the four essays and the short introduction by the editor directly or indirectly reflect on the history of temple desecration. All the essays are reproductions of the respective authors’ earlier publications. They include (i) Indian Art Objects as Loot by Richard H. Davis; (ii) Somanatha: Narratives of a History; (iii) Temple Desecration in Pre-Modern India by Richard M. Eaton; (iv) Islam, Iconoclasm and the Early Indian Mosque by Fibarr B. Flood. The last one by Blood examines the complex aesthetic and political context of Islamic iconoclasm that is historically contingent.

Inden, Ronald. 1986. Orientalist Constructions of India. Modern Asian Studies, 20: 401-443.

Inden in a pithy restatement of his famous position seeks to problematize the idea of ‘India’ in a pre-modern context. In so doing, he adds another dimension to the debate about ‘Indian’ and ‘foreign’ around the issue of Turkish/Muslim invasions.

[b] Historiography (contd.) Islam and the question of social mobility. Continuity and Change: urban centres; technology; rural society.

(These themes will involve a discussion of classical Marxist position of Islam as an egalitarian social ideology cutting across caste boundaries and creating opportunities for social mobility as argued by Mohd. Habib, as well as the modification of this argument by Irfan Habib, who focuses more on economic and technological change. The attempt will be to examine these perspectives in the light of recent research by Richard Eaton, Muzaffar Alam, et al.)

Habib, Muhammad. 1974. Introduction to Elliot and Dowson's History of India vol. II. Reprinted in Politics and Society during the Early Medieval Period: Collected Works of Professor Habib, vol. 1, ed. K.A.Nizami, 33-110. New Delhi: People’s Publishing House.

In one of the first attempts to write a social history of the advent of Islam in India, Mohammad Habib linked the establishment of Delhi Sultanate to what he thought to be essentially ‘emancipatory’ ideals of the religion.

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Siddiqui, I.H. 1992. Social Mobility in the Delhi Sultanate. In Medieval India1: Researches in the History of India 1200-1750, ed. Irfan Habib, 22-48. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

This is a description of evidence for social mobility in north India from 13th century onwards which the author relates to the policies followed by the rulers of the Sultanate. The overall orientation remains the same that was followed by Mohammad Habib.

Habib, Irfan. 1978. Economic History of the Delhi Sultanate: An Essay in Interpretation. Indian Historical Review, 4, 2: 287-303.

Writing a general history of economic developments under the sultanate, Irfan Habib challenged some of Mohammad Habib’s ideas about egalitarian/emancipatory potential of Islam in India. Yet, he elaborated on how certain policies of the sultans, followed in secular interest, might in the long run have created new opportunities for occupational advancement in the realm.

Habib, Irfan. 1969. Technological Changes and Society, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Presidential Address, Section II. Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 31: 139-161. Reprinted in Studies in the History of Science in India, vol. II, ed. D.P.Chattopadhyay, 1992.

This was one of the first attempts by Irfan Habib to write about how sultanate was implicated in the introduction of new technologies in the subcontinent in a way that could lead to changes in society including newer avenues for upward mobility.

Eaton, Richard M. 1974. Sufi Folk Literature and the Expansion of Indian Islam. History of Religion, 14, 2: 117-27. Also reprinted in the more recent Essays on Islam and Indian History, by Richard Eaton, 189-208. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Until very recently, few secular historians studied religious processes under the sultanate beyond very general narratives about lives and teachings of Sufi and Bhakti saints. Richard Eaton in this essay and another (see below, Eaton: 1985) was one of those who did. In this essay, Eaton linked Sufi’s interactions with local societies and its implications for expansion of Islam.

Eaton, Richard M. 1985. Approaches to the Study of Conversion to Islam in India. In Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies, ed. Richard C. Martin, 106-26. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Also paraphrased in The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760, by Richard M. Eaton, xxi-xxvii, 268-303. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Reprint: New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997. The essay was reprinted again in Religious Movements in South

25

Asia 600-1800, ed. David N. Lorenzen, 105-127. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004. Paperback edition, 2005.

In this pioneering essay, Eaton critiqued existing theories of conversion and sought to provide a secular framework for understanding what he noted to be a protracted process of conversion to Islam.

Alam, Muzaffar. 1989. Competition and Co-existence: Indo-Islamic Interaction in Medieval North India. Itinerario 13: 37-59.

The interactions of pre-Islamic Indic cultures with those of Islam were more complex than most historians thought them to be. Elaborating on this idea, Alam found evidence for both conflict as well as reconciliation between them in medieval India.

Kumar, Sunil. 2001. Qutb and Modern Memory. In Partitions of Memory: The Afterlife of the Division of India, ed. Suvir Kaul, 140-82. Delhi: Permanent Black. Reprinted in The Present in Delhi’s Pasts, by Sunil Kumar, 1-61. Delhi: Three Essays Press, 2002.

Focusing on the Qutb complex, Kumar examined how it remained a contested space within the larger sphere of Sultanate politics. The essay drew attention to fissures within Islamic communities and highlighted the futility of writing a linear history of Delhi Sultanate as if it was driven by a singular vision of ideology and power. This piece is useful for several topics in the syllabus both as a critical reflection on dominant trends of historiography and as an alternative framework for setting up the problematic of complex relations between politics and society.

VII: Changes in the Sultanate Political Structures

[a] Phases of the Delhi Sultanate: 1200-1290; 1290-1450; Ruling Elites

(Under this head, the focus will be on the so-called ‘nobility’ under Delhi Sultanate, and an examination of the categories of analysis [Turk/Tajik/‘Indian’ Muslim, Freemen/Slave] deployed to understand its changing character. The idea is to tease out the various implicit assumptions about the character of the Delhi Sultanate that underpin various perspectives on its ruling elites.)

Nigam, S.B.P. 1968. Nobility under the Sultans of Delhi 1206-1398. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.

Probably the first historian to undertake a full length study of the governing classes (studied as ‘nobility’), Nigam traced their history in

26

terms of factional strife within as well as in terms of relations between crown and nobility. Many of his empirical details were challenged by Irfan Habib later (see below, Habib: 1992). His characterisation of Sultanate nobility as a ‘feudal bureaucracy’ has since been discredited.

Habib, Mohammad. 1958. Life and Thought of Ziauddin Barani. Medieval India Quarterly, 4: 197-252. Reproduced in Collected Works of Professor Mohammad Habib: Politics and Society during the Early Medieval Period, ed. K.A. Nizami, 286-366. New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1981. The relevant section in this long essay is entitled ‘The Governing Class’.

In examining Barani’s ideas about and portrayal of governing classes under the Sultanate, Mohammad Habib also commented upon the these classes especially in the light of certain principles of Islam, that he thought, must have constituted and informed their character.

Ali, Athar. 1981. Nobility under Mohammad Tughlaq. Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 42: 197-202.

Athar Ali described the constitution of nobility under Muhammad Tughlaq. Some of his observations were later questioned by Peter Jackson in his book (see below, Jackson: 1999)

Jackson, Peter. 1990. The Mamluk Institution in Early Muslim India. Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, (1990) 340-58.

How did the institution of elite slavery leave its impact upon the constitution of Sultanate governing class? This is the subject of Jackson’s study of the Mamluk institution in early 13th century.

Nizami, K.A. 1970. Bureaucracy of Muhammad bin Tughluq. In The Comprehensive History of India: Vol. V, Part I: Delhi Sultanate, A.D. 1206-1526, ed. Mohammad Habib and K.A.Nizami, 561-65. Delhi: People’s Publishing House. Reprint, 1996.

In this descriptive account of the ‘bureaucracy’ of Muhammad Tughlaq, the author closely follows the account given by Zia Barani in Tarikh-i Firuzshahi. For a more critical appreciation of the problem, this description may be compared with that of Jackson (see below, Jackson: 1999)

Jackson, Peter. 1999. The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Writing a political and military history of the Sultanate, Jackson traced the composition of Khalji nobility and the nobility under the Tughlaqs (171-92). The author questions some of the evidence available in Barani’s account by examining them closely for consistency as well as

27

by comparing the information with those in other contemporary sources.

Hambly, Gavin. 1972. Who were the Chihilgani, the Forty Slaves of Sultan Shams al-Din Iltutmish of Delhi? Iran 10: 57-62.

Hambly tried to clear the confusion arising out of Barani’s enigmatic reference to the Chihilgani during the later part of Iltutmish’s reign as well as in the decades after his death. Later historians’ account (especially Kumar’s: 1992) of the Chihilgani differed substantively from Gambly’s treatment of the problem.

Habib, Irfan. 1992. Formation of the Sultanate Ruling Class of the Thirteenth Century. In Medieval India1: Researches in the History of India 1200-1750, ed. Irfan Habib, 1-21.

In this study of the formation of the sultanate ruling class, Habib traced the changing ethnic composition of this class mainly in terms of factional strife, clash of ambitions and the ability of the crown to contain these rivalries. Read with his understanding of iqta (see below: Habib: 1982), this essay very nicely sums up his understanding of how the sultanate was able to establish a strong and centralised state system.

Kumar, Sunil. 1992. When Slaves were Nobles: The Shamsi Bandagan in the Early Delhi Sultanate. Studies in History, 10: 23-52.

The piece traces the patterns, among other things, in the way Iltutmish deployed his slaves (organised in a strict hierarchy) and ‘free amirs’ in various sensitive positions. It also interrogates the manner in which Juzjani reports this in Tabaqat-i Nasiri. Its conclusions differ interestingly from those of Irfan Habib (see above, Habib: 1992) and Hambly (see above, Hambly: 1972)

Kumar, Sunil. 2007. The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate, 1192-1286. Ranikhet: Permanent Black.

Tracing the complex process of the ‘emergence’ of Delhi Sultanate by providing rich empirical details, this book makes for difficult but rewarding reading. Its novelty lies, among other things, in the way it foregrounds the period between the ‘great’ sultans (Iltutmish and Balban) as the one when, equally if not more, substantive transformations took place in the character of the state including the composition of its ruling elites. In some senses the whole book is a study of its ruling elites. Of particular relevance though is Chapter 5.

Wink, Andre. 1997. Al Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, vol. II: The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest, 11th – 13th Centuries, 182-99. Leiden: E.J.Brill. Paperback edition, Oxford and New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.

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This is a summary but nuanced description of the changes in the making of the governing classes. The section mentioned makes for good elementary reading on the topic.

Siddiqui, I.H. 1961. Rise of the Afghan Nobility under the Lodi Sultans, 1451-1526. Medieval India Quarterly, 4 : 114-36.

Siddiqui’s is probably the only major work on the nobility under the Lodi sultans. This essay reflects on the position of Afghan nobility in the sultanate during the Lodi period.

Siddiqui, I.H. 1977. The Composition of the Nobility under the Lodi Sultans. In Medieval India: A Miscellany, 4 (1977): 10-66.

The author links the composition and character of the Lodi nobility to what he considered to be the unique ideas of Lodi kingship.

Iqta

(This topic will occasion a critical survey of the historiography on the twin institutions of iqta [revenue assignment/ territorial assignment] and kharaj [tax on land produce] that apparently constituted the backbone of sultanate administration. The focus will be on its changing character and flexibility.)

Moreland, W.H. 1929. Appendix B: Provincial Governors in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. In Agrarian System of Moslem India, 216-223. Delhi: Kanti Publications. Reprint, 1988.

Though written in 1929, this short piece provides very valuable and nuanced account of the problems in understanding the institution of iqta. Reading this helps develop a critical perspective on more elaborate later works on the topic.

Habib, Irfan. 1982. Agrarian Economy. In Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. 1, ed. Tapan Raychaudhuri and Irfan Habib, 48-75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Especially relevant in the piece cited is the section titled, “Iqta’s: Distribution of Revenue Resources among the Ruling Class”, pp. 68-75. This is the only work by a major historian that seeks to trace the history of iqta from the inception of the Sultanate till almost its demise in a linear narrative. The importance of the institution in the making of a strong state is underlined though it might appear to some that this history is linked a little too closely to policies of ‘weaker’ and ‘stronger’ sultans.

Jackson, Peter. 1999. The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History, 95-102. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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In almost an aside in the page numbers mentioned, the book describes different kinds of iqta without necessarily elaborating on where the institution belonged in the scheme of his analysis of sultanate.

Kumar, Sunil. 2008. Balancing Autonomy with Service: Frontier Military Commanders and their Relations with the Delhi Sultans in the 13th and 14th Centuries. Presidential Address, Medieval History Section, Proceedings of the Punjab History Congress (Patiala), 39: 86-100.

Focusing on the frontier military commanders, Kumar highlights the ‘instability’ in the precise meaning of iqta and elaborates on his argument that the character and function of iqta under the sultanate cannot be understood except in terms of the very diverse and changing positions of individual holders of the iqta.

Wink, Andre. 1997. Al Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, vol. II: The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest, 11th – 13th Centuries, 212-64. Leiden: E.J.Brill. Paperback edition, Oxford and New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Wink provides another descriptive account of the institution and links it up primarily with issues of military and fiscal administration.

Kumar, Sunil. 1994. When Slaves were Nobles: The Shamsi Bandagan in the Early Delhi Sultanate. Studies in History, 10: 23-52.

(See above for comments)

Kumar, Sunil. 2007. The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate, 1192-1286. Ranikhet: Permanent Black. Passim.

(See above for comments)

Richards, J.F. 1965. The Economic History of the Lodi Period. Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient, 8: 47-67.

Though this work is not on iqta, there are interesting observations on the institution under the Lodis to be found here. Some contrasts with the views of Irfan Habib (see above, Habib: 1982) may be noticed.

Territorial Changes

[It is very often assumed that a victory in the battlefield automatically resulted in the ‘annexation’ of the vanquished ruler’s territories. This subtopic will provide an opportunity to examine such stereotypes and try to look at the historiography on the question of various levels of control in different parts of the kingdom, especially with reference to the rural/urban as well as settled/rebel (mawas) divide.]

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Kumar, Sunil. 2007. Territorial Changes and the Political Geography of the Sultanate. In The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate, 1192-1286, by Sunil Kumar, 278-86. Ranikhet: Permanent Black.

In the short section mentioned, the author tries to problematize the idea of territorial changes by moving beyond a simple understanding of expansion and contraction of sultanate control. The idea of rebel territories (mawas) in the contemporary chronicles is interrogated with interesting implications.

Habib, Muhammad. 1974. Introduction to Elliot and Dowson's History of India, vol. II. Reprinted in Politics and Society during the Early Medieval Period: Collected Works of Professor Habib, vol. 1, ed. K.A.Nizami, 84-91. New Delhi: People’s Publishing House.

In this seminal piece cited at very places in this bibliography, Mohammad Habib also sought to take note of how the territorial fortunes of Delhi Sultanate fluctuated.

Habib, Irfan. 1997. Political Geography of Northern India, first half of the 13th century. Proceedings of Indian History Congress, 58: 206-17.

As the title suggests, Habib traced the changing political geography of northern India at a time when the control of the Sultans over ‘their’ territories were beginning to be stabilized for the first time.

Hodivala, S.H. 1957. He proceeded into Mawas. In Studies in Indo-Muslim History. Supplement = Vol. II, 226-229. Puna and Bombay: R.S. Hodivala and The Popular Book Depot.

In this meticulously researched text, Hodivala offers interesting insights into how the mawas (usually translated as ‘rebel territory’ or ‘territory under unruly elements’) was mentioned in Persian sources and the problematic ways in which most historians and translators understood it. These comments help develop a critical perspective on how the sultanate chroniclers, especially Juzjani, used the idea of mawas.

Jackson, Peter. 1999. Raid, Conquest and Settlement. In The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History, by Peter Jackson, 123-47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This is a rather conventional and descriptive narrative of territories ‘won’ and ‘settled’ under the sultanate.

Mongol Threat

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[The threat the Delhi sultanate faced in the 13th century from the newly established Mongol empire in the erstwhile ‘central Islamic lands’ is seen to be an important influence on the sultanate revenue, military and defence policies. Indeed the threat constitutes an important factor in most major studies of the Sultanate politics (Kumar, Jackson, Wink, et al.) and even Sultanate economy (Habib). The following list, however, is only of those readings that consider the Mongols and their activities squarely.]

Jackson, Peter. 1999. The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Relevant pages are, 103-122.

This is by far the most direct tracing of the character and magnitude of Mongol threat to the Delhi Sultanate in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Siddiqui, I.H. 1983. Politics and Conditions in the territories under the occupation of Central Asian Rulers in N.W. India in the 13th-14th centuries. Central Asiatic Journal, 27: 288-306.

Though this is a general account of politics under Mongol occupation in the region of Afghanistan, it helps gauge the nature of threat it held out to the sultanate.

Zilli, I.A. 1995. A Rare Farman of Ulugh Beg—New light on Timurid Relations with the Delhi Sultanate”, Proceedings of Indian History Congress, 55: 214-19.

This is a brief note on the relationship of the Delhi Sultanate with the Timurids during the Sayyid period.

Siddiqui, I.H. 1980. The Qarlugh Kingdom in N.W. India During the 13th century. Islamic Culture, 54: 75-90.

For a slightly earlier period this piece by Siddiqui is very similar to the one cited above.

Relations with Rural Chieftains

Moreland, W.H. 1929. Chapter II: The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries and Appendix C: Some Fourteenth Century Passages. In Agrarian System of Moslem India by Moreland, 18-65 and 224-35. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reprint, Delhi: Kanti Publications, 1988.

The chapter mentioned is a general account of fiscal history under the sultanate while the appendix is a set of excerpts from Persian chronicles with comments by the author. The latter helps situate the

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problem of writing a history of Sultanate’s changing relations with the rural chieftains.

Habib, Irfan. 1982. Rural Classes. In Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. 1, ed. Tapan Raychaudhuri and Irfan Habib, 53-60. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Irfan Habib looks at evidence for a stratified class of peasants from those with privileges to those with the status practically of semi-serf.

Hardy, Peter. 1978. Growth of Authority over a Conquered Political Elite: Early Delhi Sultanate as a Possible Case Study. In John F. Richards, Kingship and Authority in South Asia, ed. J.F. Richards, 216-241. Madison: University of Wisconsin. Reprint, 1998. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Hardy in the essay examines the problem of the extension of sultanate’s authority over the rural ‘hinterland’.

Jackson, Peter. 1999. The Sultans and Their Hindu Subjects. The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History by Jackson, 278-95. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Although the section specified discusses the relationship of the sultanate with the Hindus, the latter is mostly understood by Jackson as tax-paying subjects. Historiographically, Jackson’s narrative appears quite conservative in this instance.

Kumar, Sunil. 2001. Qutb and Modern Memory. In Partitions of Memory: The Afterlife of the Division of India, ed. Suvir Kaul, 140-82. Delhi: Permanent Black. Relevant pages are, 157-62. Reprinted in The Present in Delhi’s Pasts, by Sunil Kumar, 1-61. Delhi: Three Essays Press, 2002.

(See above for comments)

Kumar, Sunil. 2007. The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate, 1192-1286. Ranikhet: Permanent Black.

It is difficult to specify places in the book where the problem is ‘separately’ discussed. In fact, the theme of Sultanate’s relations with locality chiefs runs through the book as an extremely important aspect. Interestingly, the author traces a very wide range of relations between diverse political agents in the context of Rana-Malik interactions where not all maliks necessarily acted on behalf of the Sultanate.

[b] Legitimation of Political Authority and Resistance

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Theories of Kingship in Chronicles and Normative Literature

Tripathi, R.P 1956. .Some Aspects of Muslim Administration. Allahabad: Central Book Depot. Reprint, 1978. Relevant pages are, 33-38.

In this brief ‘aside’ in the book, Tripathi traced some normative aspects of Turkish kingship.

Hardy, Peter. 1966. Historians of Medieval India: Studies in Indo-Muslim Historical Writing. London: Luzac and Company Ltd. Especially relevant pages are, 20-39.

Peter Hardy discussed Barani’s ideas of kingship and how, according to him, his normative ideas often found its way into his history in the shape of a theory that was attributed to historical players, most notably Balban.

Habib, Irfan. 1981. Barani’s Theory of the History of Delhi Sultanate. Indian Historical Review, 7: 99-115.

Along side considering Barani’s ideas on the theory of history the sultanate, Habib also examines Barani’s theory of kingship and its impact on his historiography. The treatment differs considerably from that of Hardy (see above, Hardy: 1966).

Habib, Irfan. 1999. Zia Barani’s Vision of the State. Medieval History Journal, 2: 19-36.

The ideas discussed in the 1981 article on Barani’s theory of the history of Delhi Sultanate were elaborated here by Habib.

Mukhia, Harbans. 1976. Historians and Historiography during the Reign of Akbar. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House. Relevant pages are, 1-40.

This is a descriptive account of Barani’s theory and history. Later accounts by Habib and most remarkably Alam (see below, Alam: 2002) contrasts with Mukhia’s treatment in interesting ways.

Marlow, Louise. 1977. Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Islamic Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Relevant pages are, 117-142.

The pages specified in the reference above discuss certain historiographical issues in tracing history of Islamic political ideologies.

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Kumar, Sunil. 1985. The Value of Adab al-Mulk as a Historical Source: An Insight into the Ideals and Expectations of Islamic Society in the Middle Period (945-1500). Indian Economic and Social History Review, 22: 307-27.

Focusing on the early thirteenth century text, the author examines articulation of certain normative ideals in Islamic societies and its specific historical context at a time when Delhi Sultanate was yet to find its feet.

Alam, Muzaffar. 2002. Sharia and Governance in the Indo-Islamic Context. In Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia, ed. David Gilmartin and Bruce Lawrence, 216-45. New Delhi: India Research Press.

Alam in this article, studies the diverse literary and political contexts of a variety of political ideologies within the Indo-Islamic societies. The essay is extremely useful in setting into perspective the problem of writing a singular history of Islamic thought or an essentialist reconstruction of Turkish kingship.

Alam, Muzaffar. 2004. Chapter 2: Sharia, Akhlaq and Governance. In The Languages of Political Islam in India c. 1200-1800 by Muzaffar Alam, 26-61. Delhi: Permanent Black.

The pages specified above examine the political ideas of important political thinkers of Islamic world in the 13th through the 15th centuries and highlights the diversity of norms and ideals within the Islamic world.

[b] Legitimation of Political Authority and Resistance (contd.)

Imperial Monuments and Coinage

Meister, Michael W. 1972. The Two-and-a-half-day Mosque. Oriental Art, 18: 57-63. Reproduced in Architecture in Medieval India: Forms, Contexts, Histories, ed. Monica Juneja, 303-314. New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001.

The essay is concerned with how invading cultures interact. Doing a case study of the iconic evidence of the mosque at Ajmer (built by Aibak, 1199), Meister elaborates on the use of tradition within the historical processes of conquest and interaction of politically antagonistic cultures.

Hillenbrand, Robert. 1988. Political Symbolism in Early Indo-Islamic Mosque Architecture: The Case of Ajmer. Iran, 26: 105-117. Reprinted in Piety and Politics in the Early Indian Mosque, ed. F. B. Flood. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008.

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This is another study of the Ajmer mosque focusing chiefly on the location, aesthetic elements and form of the structure. Hillenbrand interprets the decision to build the mosque on an elevation as a deliberate part of a general policy to exalt the structure and thus the new faith and polity. In this essay the mosque is designated as ‘a metaphor of domination’. Monica Juneja provides a critique of this argument in the introduction to Architecture in Medieval India. (see below, Juneja: 2001, p. 63)

Welch, Anthony. 1985. Quran and Tomb: The Religious Epigraphs of Two Early Sultanate Tombs in Delhi. In Indian Epigraphy: Its Bearings on the History of Art, ed. F.M. Asher and G.S. Ghai, 257-67. New Delhi: Oxford and IBH Publishing Co., American Institute of Indian Studies.

This is an analysis of early Sultanate religious epigraphy on the two tombs of Prince Nasir al-din Mahmud and Sultan Iltutmish.

Mujeeb, Muhammad. 2001. The Qutub Complex as a Social Document. In Architecture in Medieval India: Forms, Contexts, Histories, ed. Monica Juneja, 290-300. Delhi: Permanent Black. Originally published in Islamic Influence in India on Indian Society, by M. Mujeeb, 114-27. Meerut/Delhi: Meenakshi Prakashan.

As the first royal architectural assemblage, comprising Delhi’s first congregational mosque, the Qutb complex is the most studied structure of the Delhi sultanate. Mujeeb sees in this essay a beginning of a movement towards unity and fusion of two different architectural traditions of the conqueror and the conquered. What crystallized into Indo-Islamic is seen in the harmonious balance of Islamic architectural traditions of purity of line and form and the indigenous sculptural quality of architecture. 

Flood, Finbarr B. 2007. Islam, Iconoclasm, and the Early Indian Mosque. In Demolishing Myths or Mosques and Temples? Readings on History and Temple Desecration in Medieval India, ed. Sunil Kumar, 141-74. Delhi: Three Essays Collective.

Flood examines the aesthetic implications of iconoclasm in the first mosques constructed after the ‘Muslim conquest’ of north India in the late twelfth century.

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Welch A. & Howard Crane. 1983. The Tughlaqs: Master Builders of the Delhi Sultanate. Muqarnas, 1: 133-66.

This is a typological survey of Tughluq architecture with added information on architects and pattern of religious epigraphy under various rulers of the dynasty.

Juneja, Monica. 2001. Introduction to Architecture in Medieval India: Forms, Contexts, Histories, ed. Monica Juneja, 1-84. Delhi: Permanent Black. Especially relevant are the pages, 76-84.

Laying stress on the iconic, spatial and functional aspects of the Qutb mosque, Juneja sees the complex as a lived social space. Her concern here is how the visual and architectural evidence followed its own logic and the edifice carries a whole host of plurality of meanings to different modes of viewing and perceiving.

Thomas, Edward. 1967. The Chronicles of the Pathan Kings of Delhi. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.

This is a useful reference for understanding the sigilla on coins of the period as imperial statements of authority.

Wright, H. Nelson. 1936. The Coinage and Metrology of the Sultans of Delhi. London and Delhi: Oxford University Press. Reprint, Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, 1974.

This is a relatively comprehensive survey of the coins of Delhi Sultanate for their weight, composition and general character.

Kumar, Sunil. 2001. Qutb and Modern Memory. In Partitions of Memory: The Afterlife of the Division of India, ed. Suvir Kaul, 140-82. Delhi: Permanent Black. Reprinted in The Present in Delhi’s Pasts, by Sunil Kumar, 1-61. Delhi: Three Essays Press, 2002.

Kumar looks at the Qutb complex as a site where rival claims to authority were made and where several successive sultans tried to erase the imprint of earlier rulers and to inscribe a claim of their own. The essay is also useful as a study of very different statements that the sultans made through different mediums: architectural, epigraphic, numismatic and chronicles.

Brown, Percy. 1943. Indian Architecture: The Islamic Period. Bombay: D.B. Taraporevala Sons and Co.

This old classic is still useful as an early and general survey of architectural trends in what the author called the Islamic period of Indian history. The following works, though not that old, also fall more or less in the same category.

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Grover, Satish. 2002. Islamic Architecture in India. New Delhi: CBS (2nd edition). 1st edition, 1996.

Nath, Ram. 1978. A History of Sultanate Architecture. New Delhi: Abhinav.

[b] Legitimation of Political Authority and Resistance (Contd..)

Sufis, Bhaktas and Political Authority

Habib, Mohammad. 1950. The Chishti Mystics Records of the Sultanate Period. Medieval India Quarterly, 1: 1-42.

Mohammad Habib surveyed and provided critical comments on different genres of Chishti texts of the Sultanate period in this early study. He was probably the first person to point to the need for caution in using the texts as sources.

Digby, Simon. 1990. The Sufi Shaykh and the Sultan: A Conflict of Claims to Authority in Medieval India. Iran, 28: 71-81.

This is an extremely important historiographic intervention in the way history of Sufism was written in the subcontinent. Departing from the usual tendencies to look at the Chishti mystics of the 13th and 14th centuries as merely pious souls, the essay examined their claims to authority and situated the conflicts between them and the rulers in the context of these claims.

Digby, Simon. 1986. The Sufi Shaykh as a Source of Authority in Medieval India. Purshartha, 9: 57-78. Reprinted in India’s Islamic Traditions, 711-1750, ed. Richard M. Eaton, 234-62. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Digby traces how the Sufis Shaikhs could be a source of authority not only for their successors but also for several political agents. The essay opened up interesting ways in which link ‘political’ and ‘cultural’ histories.

Eaton, Richard M. 1984. The Political and Religious Authority of the Shrine of Baba Farid. In Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, ed. Barbara D. Metcalf, 333-56. Berkeley: University of California Press. Reprinted in India’s Islamic Traditions, 711-1750, ed. Richard M. Eaton, 263-84. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

The essay seeks to examine how a host of political and religious agents could try to draw legitimacy from Baba Farid’s shrine

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Kumar, Sunil. 2000. Assertions of Authority: A Study of the Discursive Statements of Two Sultans of Delhi. In The Making of Indo-Persian Culture: Indian and French Studies, ed. Muzaffar Alam, N.Delvoye & Marc Gaborieau, 37-65. Delhi: Manohar.

Kumar studied the history of conflict of claims between Alauddin Khalji and Nizamuddin Auliya. Here, instead of focusing on who was right and who was wrong, he tried to examine the texts on either side in terms of their discursive and rhetorical content to underline an ideological contest.

Kumar, Sunil. 2007. Chapter 4: The Ulama and the Emergence of Delhi as the Sanctuary and Axis of Islam in North India. In The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate, 1192-1286, by Sunil Kumar, 192-237. Ranikhet: Permanent Black.

By focusing on the problems of ethnic diversity and ideological differences, the chapter examines the problems of establishing some degree of homogeneity within Islamic community of Delhi Sultanate.

Habib, Irfan. 1994. The Historical Background to the Rise of the Popular Monotheistic Movements of the 15th and 16th Centuries. Reading Material-3 of Course 6, M.A.(Final), Medieval Indian History, ed. Jyotsana Tyagi, 24-28. Delhi: School of Correspondence Courses and Continuing Education, University of Delhi.

This article tried to establish direct link between the policies of Delhi Sultanate and the rise of monotheistic movements in north India as several new agrarian communities emerged by the late 14th and 15th centuries.

VIII: Society and Economy in North India

[a] Geographical Factors; Agricultural Production, Technology

Habib, Irfan. 1982. The Geographical Background. In The Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. I, ed. I.Habib and T.Raychaudhuri, 1-13. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reprint: Orient Longman, 1991.

This is a general description of geography of the subcontinent, especially north India, as a backdrop to study its history in medieval India. Ideally, it should be read before one starts with unit II in the syllabus.

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Moreland, W.H. 1929. Chapter 2: The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. In Agrarian System of Moslem India, by Moreland, 21-66. Delhi: Kanti Publications. Reprint, 1988.

This is more or less a fiscal history of the sultanate in the period specified. It also carries some observation on patterns of agriculture and occasionally state of technology.

Habib, Irfan. 1982. Agricultural Production. In The Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. I, ed. I. Habib and T. Raychaudhuri, 48-53. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reprint: Orient Longman, 1991.

Habib traced the patterns of agricultural production primarily as seen and documented by the sultanate chroniclers and from the point of view of a tax collecting state.

Habib, Irfan. 1969. Technological Changes and Society, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Presidential Address, Section II. Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 31: 139-161. Reprinted in Studies in the History of Science in India, vol. II, ed. D.P.Chattopadhyay, 1992.

(see above for comments)

Singh, Chetan. 1985. Well Irrigantion Methods in Medieval Punjab: the Persian Wheel Reconsidered. Indian Economic and Social History Review, 22: 73-87.

Though focusing on Punjab, the essay examines the state of irrigation technology and the way state was implicated in its development.

Khan, Iqtidar Alam. 1977. Origin and Development of Gunpowder Technology in India: 1250-1500. The Indian Historical Review, 4, no. 1.

Khan traced the history gunpowder in India and comments upon the state of military technology during the period specified in the title of the essay.

[b] Changes in Rural Society: Revenue Systems

Habib, Muhammad. 1974. Introduction to Elliot and Dowson's History of India vol. II. Reprinted in Politics and Society during the Early Medieval Period: Collected Works of Professor Habib, vol. 1, ed. K.A.Nizami, 33-110. New Delhi: People’s Publishing House.

(see above for comments)

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Habib, Irfan. 1978. Economic History of the Delhi Sultanate: An Essay in Interpretation. Indian Historical Review, 4, 2: 287-303.

(see above for comments)

Habib, Irfan. 1982. Agrarian Economy. In The Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. I, ed. I.Habib and T.Raychaudhuri, 48-76. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reprint: Orient Longman, 1991.

(see above for comments)

Habib, Irfan. 1984. Price Regulations of Allauddin Khalji – A Defence of Zia Barani. Indian Economic and Social History Review, 21, no. 4: 393-414. Also reprinted in Money and the Market in India: 1100-1700, ed. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, 85-111. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994. Paperback edition, 1998.

In this celebrated essay, Irfan Habib stood by most of the elements in Barani’s portrayal of Allauddin Khalji’s strict regime of market regulations and price control. The essay is also useful in understanding Habib’s analysis of rural-urban relations as well as fiscal policies under the Khaljis.

Ashraf, K.M. 1934. Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan, 1200-1550. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1988 (Reprint). Relevant pages are, 113-124.

This was one of the first full length secular history of ‘people of Hindustan’ in medieval India where both the rural and urban society was dealt with.

Moreland, W.H. 1929. Chapter II: The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. In Agrarian System of Moslem India, by W.H.Morland, 21-78. Delhi: Kanti Publications. Reprint, 1988.

(see above for comments)

[c] Urbanisation: Technology and Non-agricultural Production

Habib, Muhammad. 1974. Introduction to Elliot and Dowson's History of India vol. II. Reprinted in Politics and Society during the Early Medieval Period: Collected Works of Professor Habib, vol. 1, ed. K.A.Nizami, 33-110. New Delhi: People’s Publishing House.

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This was the piece where Mohammad Habib first gave his theory of urban revolution in the wake of the establishment of Turkish power in India. (Also see above for further comments on the essay).

Habib, Irfan. 1978. Economic History of the Delhi Sultanate: An Essay in Interpretation. Indian Historical Review, 4, 2: 287-303.

(see above for comments)

Verma, H.C. 1986. Dynamics of Urban Life in Pre-Mughal India. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.

The book provides information on the extent, pattern and magnitude of urban development under the sultanate, relating urbanism to the policies of the state.

Habib, Irfan. 1969. Technological Changes and Society, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Presidential Address, Section II. Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 31: 139-161. Reprinted in Studies in the History of Science in India, vol. II, ed. D.P.Chattopadhyay, 1992.

(see above for comments)

Habib, Irfan. 1982. Non-Agricultural Production and Urban Economy. In The Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. I, ed. I.Habib and T.Raychaudhuri, 76-92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reprint: Orient Longman, 1991.

As the title of the essay suggests, it traces patterns of non-agrarian production especially under the patronage of the sultanate and examines certain aspects of the urban economy.

[d] Monetisation: Market Regulations; Trade

Habib, Irfan. 1984. Price Regulations of Allauddin Khalji – A Defence of Zia Barani. Indian Economic and Social History Review, 21, no. 4: 393-414. Also reprinted in Money and the Market in India: 1100-1700, ed. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, 85-111. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994. Paperback edition, 1998.

(see above for comments)

Jackson, Peter. 1999. The Military, the Economy and the Administrative Reform. In The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and

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Military History, by Jackson, 238-54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This is a summary treatment of economic and administrative policies mostly of Allauddin Khalji. Though not worked out in details, its conclusions differ very little from those of Irfan Habib (see above, Habib: 1984).

Day, U.N. 1971. Chapter 4: Market Regulations of Alaud-din Khalji. In Some Aspects of Medieval Indian History by U.N.Day, 71-87. New Delhi: Kumar Brothers.

Apart from Habib’s, this is one of the most elaborate treatments of Allauddin’s market regulations as provided by Barani. Day’s conclusions however are different from Habib’s and together they make for interesting comparison.

Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. 1994. Introduction to Money and the Market in India 1100-1700, ed. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, 1-56. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Paperback edition, 1998.

The relevant sections in the long introduction critically examine the historiography and provides rich theoretical and comparative perspective for understanding the monetary and commercial aspects of Sultanate economy.

Ashraf, K.M. 1934. Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan, 1200-1550. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1988 (Reprint). Relevant pages are, 136-48.

This is an interesting and early Marxist attempt to understand fiscal policies of the Sultanate. The summary treatment, though short, is a useful historiographic entry into the problem.

Wink, Andre. 1997. Nomads, Cities and Trade. In Al Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, vol. II: The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest, 11th – 13th Centuries by Andre Wink, 8-42. Leiden: E.J.Brill. Paperback edition, Oxford and New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.

This is an empirically rich account of urbanism and trade during the sultanate period. Again, it is primarily understood in the light of policies followed by the sultans of Delhi.

Qaisar, A.J. 1974. The Role of Brokers in Medieval India. Indian Historical Review, 1: 220-61.

In an increasingly monetised economy with a state that claimed the larger share of the primary producers’ surplus, the brokers played an

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important role both as facilitators of trade as well as the last resort for peasants. This is the subject of the study by Qaisar.

Digby, Simon. 1971. War Horse and Elephant in the Delhi Sultanate: A Study of Military Supplies. Karachi: Orient Monographs. Particularly relevant pages are, 23-49.

Digby in this unusual monograph looked at the evidence for trade in military equipments, especially war horses. It is one of the few studies, apart from Wink’s, that linked Delhi Sultanate very critically to its involvement in commerce.

IX: Religion, Society, Culture

[a] Sufism: Doctrines, Silsilas and Practices

[In addition to the ones cited under VII-B (iii) above]

Rizvi, S.A.A. 1978. A History of Sufism, vol. 1. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.

Chiefly a study of the teachings and practices of Chishti and Suhrawardi Sufis, this is arguably the most influential work on Sufism during medieval period in India. Rich in details and anecdotes, the study uses a range of Sufi texts to cull out information about the Sufi saints and their activities.

Trimingham, J.S. 1971. The Sufi Orders of Islam. London: Oxford University Press. Particularly relevant pages are, 1-30.

Trimingham provided a broad and general framework for studying Sufi orders. This study has since influenced many works on Sufism in as well as outside of India.

Nizami, K.A. 1948-50. Early Indo-Muslim Mystics and Their Attitude towards the State. Islamic Culture, 22 (1948): 387-98; 23 (1949): 13-21, 162-70, 312-21; 24 (1950): 60-71.

In this lengthy essay, Nizami traced sharply opposed attitude of Chishti and Suhrawardy Sufis towards state. The study however was uncritically and entirely based on Chishti sources and that leaves its marks on his conclusions.

Digby, Simon. 1986. The Sufi Shaykh as a Source of Authority in Medieval India. Purshartha, 9: 57-78. Reprinted in India’s Islamic

44

Traditions, 711-1750, ed. Richard M. Eaton, 234-62. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003.

(see above for comments) Eaton, R.M. 1978. Sufis of Bijapur: Social Roles of Sufis in Medieval

India 1300-1700. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Especially useful is the introductory chapter.

In this pioneering work, Eaton investigated the Bijapur Sufis’ interactions with local societies. The study marked a departure in the way it treated its sources and differentiated amongst them. The introduction provides interesting insights on the historiography of Sufism as it stood then.

Ernst, Carl. 1992. The Interpretation of the Sufi Biographical Tradition in India. In Eternal Garden: Mysticism, History and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Centre by Carl Ernst, 62-93. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Interrogating the medieval genre of tazkira literature in Sufic literary tradition, Ernst provided useful insights into how different genres worked within accepted norms and structures. He also commented upon how it must be an important consideration in the way these texts were to be used by historians.

Alam, Muzaffar. 2004. Chapter 3: The Sufi Intervention. In The Languages of Political Islam in India c. 1200-1800 by Muzaffar Alam, 81-114. Delhi: Permanent Black.

Alam studied Sufi interventions as diverse and broke away from the historiography that always portrayed Sufis as essentially non-political and benign/otherworldly. Sufi relations with the state appear in this account to be complex and multivalent with many different stories to be told.

[b] Bhakti Movements: Nathpanthis; Kabir, Nanak and the Sant Tradition

[In addition to the ones cited under VII-B (iii) above] Vaudeville, Charlotte. 1999. Myths, Saints and Legends in Medieval

India, especially, pp. 199-257.

The novelty of Vaudeville’s study lies in her attempt to look at a wide variety of sources that include epic, Puranic and kavya tradition in Sanskrit as well as vernacular and oral literary traditions to examine the vibrancy of religious processes in middle ages. Particularly useful for the topic at hand is the Part II of the book titled, The Sant Poets of Maharashtra.

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Schomer, Karine & W.H.McLeod, ed. 1987. The Sants: Studies in a Devotional Tradition of India. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.

This book has a number of useful essays by prominent scholars. Particularly relevant are (i) Karine Schomer, "The Sant Tradition in Perspective", pp. 1-17; (ii) Charlotte Vaudeville, "Sant-Mat: Santism as a Universal Path to Sanctity", pp. 21-40; (iii) J.S. Hawley, “The Sant in Surdas”, pp. 191-211; (iv) W.H.McLeod, "The Development of the Sikh Panth", pp. 229-49; (v) Bruce B. Lawrence, “The Sant Movement and North Indian Sufis”, pp. 359-373.

Sharma, Krishna. 2002. Bhakti and the Bhakti Movement: A New Perspective. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. Chapter I: Towards a New Perspective, pp. 1-38.

In this longish introduction, the author examines the state of historiography on medieval Bhakti and attempts to provide a new perspective.

Grewal, J.S. 1993. Contesting Interpretations of Sikh Tradition. New Delhi: Manohar.

The book is one of the most influential study of Sikh traditions that also reflect upon its multiple legacies and varied historiography.

Lorenzen, David N. 2004. Religious Movements in South Asia 600-1800. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Paperback edition, 2005.

Apart from the editior’s Introduction that examines the historiography in the field, the book also carries two essays on Kabir and the Sants by two of the pioneers in the field, namely P.D. Barthwal and Hazariprasad Dvivedi.

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UNIT: III

X: The "Regions" in Indian History, circa 1200-1550

[a] Historiographical Issues

Bhattacharya, Sabyasachi. 1997. Reflections on the Concept of Regional History: Kameshwar Singh Memorial Lecture, 1997. Darbhanga: Maharajadhiraja Kameshwar Singh Kalyani Foundation.

This is a good elementary introduction in the problems of conceptualising different types of ‘region’ and writing their history. It helps situate the problem as worth academic consideration and departs from the convention of taking a ‘region’ as given.

Pollock, Sheldon. 1995. Literary History, Region, and Nation in South Asia: Introductory Note. Social Scientist, 23, 10-12: 1-7.

In this short but useful introduction, Pollock relates historical constitution of a region to the emergence of its own language and literature. He also related it to the idea of a ‘regional community’, aesthetic choices and political patronage.

Stein, Burton. 1980. South India: The Region. In Peasant, State and Society in Medieval South India, by Burton Stein, 30-62. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Paperback edition, 1994.

Stein discussed the processes of emergence of South India as a ‘region’ and the problems historians need to watch out for therein.

Chattopadhyaya, B.D. 1983. Political Processes and the Structure of Polity in Early Medieval India: Problems of Perspective. Presidential Address, Ancient India Section, Indian History Congress, 44th Session. This is also reproduced in The State in India, 1000-1700, ed., H.Kulke, 195-232. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Paperback edition, 1997.

In this famously dense and complex paper, Chattopadhyaya also reflected on the question of ‘region’ and the need first to examine the processes whereby a region comes into being before one ventured into regional history. He also pointed to the questionable tendency to resort to regional history only when there is no imperium in sight.

Gokahle-Turner, Jayshree. 1980. Region and Regionalism in the Study of Indian Politics: The Case of Maharashtra. In Images of Maharashtra: A Regional Profile of India, ed. N.K. Wagle. London: Curzon Press.

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The author studies the emergence of Maharashtra as a region and its varied trajectories in history.

Schwartzberg, Joseph. 1977. The Evolution of Regional Power Configurations in the Indian Subcontinent. In Realm and Region in Traditional India, ed. Richard G. Fox. Durham: Duke University Press.

Schwartzberg was probably one of the first persons to reflect on the complexity of the idea of ‘region’ in Indian history though regional histories were written in India since much before.

[b] Evidence: Regional Chroniles; bardic narratives; sufi and bhakti texts; travelogues.

Digby, Simon. 1994. Anecdotes of a Provincial Sufi of the Delhi Sultanate, Khwaja Gurg of Kara. Iran, 32: 99-109.

This is a study of the anecdotes about a ‘provincial’ Sufi saint, Khwaja Gurg. Digby notes how Kara (in the present day Uttar Pradesh) and its own maverick Sufi saint are central to the lives of people in the small township wherein even the developments in Delhi are seen to flow from the wishes of this provincial mystic.

Fuer-Haimendorf, C. Von. 1961. The Historical Value of Indian Bardic Literature. In Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon, ed. C.H. Philips. London: Oxford University Press.

A study of the bardic literature chiefly from medieval Rajasthan that seeks to elaborate on how these eulogistic texts could be used by historians.

Lordrick, Deryck O. 2001. Rajasthan as a Region: Myth or Reality. In The Idea of Rajasthan: Explorations in Regional Identity, ed. Karine Schomer, Joan L. Erdman, Deryck O. Lordrick and Lloyd I. Rudolph. New Delhi: Manohar.

The author discusses the historical constitution of Rajasthan as a geopolitical and cultural unit. The essay is also useful as a general reflection on the issue of region and regionalism, and hence is useful for the topic X (a) as well.

Ziegler, Norman. 1976. Marvari Historical Chronicles: Sources for the Cultural History of Rajasthan. Indian Economic and Social History Review, 13: 219-50.

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Although this essay deals mostly with the period after 15th century, it is still useful as an attempt to understand literary genres peculiar to Rajasthan, such bat, khyat, etc. as historical sources.

Eaton, Richard M. 1984. The Political and Religious Authority of the Shrine of Baba Farid. In Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, ed. Barbara Metcalf, 333-56. California: Berkeley University Press. Also reprinted in Essays on Islam and Indian History, by Richard M. Eaton, 203-24. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000.

The essay traces how Baba Farid’s shrine at Ajudhan in the Punjab emerged as an institution that made a transcendental religion meaningful to the local Islamic community both in theory and in practice.

XI. Regional Societies and Political Formations – Continuity and Change:

[a] Local Societies; Clan Solidarities, Confederations and “Rajput”

Kapur, Nandini Sinha. 2002. State Formation in Rajasthan: Mewar during the Seventh-Fifteenth Centuries. Delhi: Manohar.

Kapur traces the historical rise of a Mewar clan from being ordinary chieftains to sovereign monarchs. Rich in empirical details, the study helps understand the varied trajectories of state formation and the making of clan solidarities in Rajasthan.

Eaton, Richard M. 2002. The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier 1204-1760. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Though this is a study of how eastern Bengal came into contact with Islam and eventually adopted that religion, it may also be read as how a local society is ‘constituted’ through its creative dialogical interaction with a fully grown religious system.

Talbot, Cynthia. 2001. Precolonial India in Practice: Society, Region and Identity in Medieval Andhra. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

This is another study that looks at the processes whereby a local society comes to acquire a regional identity through varied cultural and political encounters with multiple ‘others’.

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Kolff, Dirk H.A. 1990. Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market in Hindustan, 1450-1850. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kolff’s study of purabia Rajputs (eastern Rajputs) examines the social processes whereby an occupational group (soldiery) evolves into a status group and eventually constitutes itself as a caste (Rajput). The book is useful for understanding the dynamics of a local peasant society but it is equally relevant as a study of relationship between warfare and society (topic XI-c, below).

Khan, I.A. 1999. Re-examining the Origin and Group Identity of the so-called Purbias, 1500-1800”, PIHC, 60, (1999), pp. 363-371.

This article may be read as a critical reflection on the question of the Purabia Rajput that Kolff examined in a slightly different context (see above, Kolff: 1990).

[b] Vijayanagar: City, Kingdom, Super-regional Power; nayaks, amaram

Karashima, Noboru. 2006. Nayakkattanam and Sirmai in the Vijayanagar Inscriptions in Tamilnadu. In Recent Advances in Vijayanagar Studies, ed. P. Shanmugam and Srinivasan. Chennai: New Era Publication.

This is a close examination of inscriptions of Vijayanagar with a view to throw light on the institution of nayaks and amaranayaks, an issue that has become quite controversial in recent historiography.

Karashima, Noboru. 2002. A Concordance of Nayakas: The Vijayanagar Inscriptions in South India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

The book is divided into two parts: Studies and Concordance, with the latter listing the inscriptions. The first two chapters (Importance of Nayaka Studies and Their Development: A Critique of Burton Stein, 9-28; and Nayaka Rule in North Arcot and South Arcot Districts: Nayakas as Feudal Lords, 29-55) in the first part are of direct relevance for the theme under study.

Mahalingam, T.V. 1940. Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar. Madras: University of Madras. Reprint, 1975.

This is a conventional administrative history of the Vijayanagar state. Though now dated it is useful for certain basic pieces of information that later historians in their work assume to be understood, unless of course they are challenging such information.

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Nilakanta Sastri, K.A. 1955. A History of South India from Pre-historic Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar. Madras: Oxford University Press.

Probably the most influential of early historians of Vijayanagar, Nilakanta Sastri’s conclusion held sway for a long time. The book is written in a general textbook format and is a useful entry point into the topic since most of the later works trace their historiographic journey by referring the Sastri’s work.

Sewell, Robert. 1900. A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): A Contribution to the History of India. London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co. Ltd.

As the first historian to have ‘discovered’ Vijayanagar Empire and undertaken a full-length study, Sewell’s work has acquired the status of a classic. As such it carries all the charms and lapses of a classic work!

Stein, Burton. 1980. Chapter VIII: The Vijayanagara State and Society. In Peasant, State and Society in Medieval South India, by Burton Stein, 366-488. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Paperback edition, 1994.

This long chapter in Stein’s pioneering book was his first major attempt to make a paradigmatic departure on the study of Vijayanagar. Arguably the most influential of all historians on medieval South India, his study of Vijayanagar as another version of segmentary state has also become controversial.

Stein, Burton. 1993. Chapter 3: The City and the Kingdom. In The New Cambridge History of India: Vijayanagar, by Burton Stein, 31-71. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. South Asian edition. New Delhi: Foundation Books, 1994. Reprint, 1999.

Though the whole book is relevant, the chapter specified seeks to elaborate on the place of the Vijayanagar city in the larger scheme of the kingdom. The chapter chiefly explores the city’s architectural lay out and certain public rituals conducted therein that microcosmically represented and sanctified the ideological regime.

Wagoner, Phillip B. 1996. Sultan among Hindu Kings: Dress, Titles, and the Islamicization of Hindu Culture at Vijayanagara. Journal of Asian Studies, 55, no. 4: 851-80. A new approach to the sultanate aspects of life at the capital.

In this fascinating study of Vijayanagar rulers’ ceremonial wardrobe and titles, Wagoner examines the state’s selective appropriation of certain cultural practices associated with the Islamic world.

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Sinopoli, Carla M. 2000. From the Lion Throne: Political and Social Dynamics of the Vijayanagar Empire. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 43, no. 3: 364-98.

[c] Warfare and Society

Gommans, Jos J.L. and Dirk H.A. Kolff, ed. 2001. Warfare and Weaponry in South Asia, 1000-1800. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Though some articles in this collection deal with military technology, the first two sections, viz. ‘Conquest and Society’ and ‘Military Labour Market’ explore the relationship between warfare and society.

Kolff, Dirk H.A. 1990. Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market in Hindustan, 1450-1850. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

(See above for comments)

Khan, Iqtidar A. 2004. Gunpowder and Firearms: Warfare in Medieval India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Again, this book primarily deal with a history of firearms, it does offer useful insights on varied aspects of warfare including its dialogical relationship with changing contours of society.

Khan, Iqtidar A. 1997. The Indian Response to Firearms (1300-1750). Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. Banglore, Presidential Address, 59th Session. A revised version of the article is published in Gunpowder, Explosives and the State: A Technological History, ed. Brenda J. Buchanan, 51-66. Aldershot: Ashgate Publications Ltd., 2006.

Another essay that looks at the ‘Indian’ brush with firearms in the long duration and seeks to explore its implications for political formations and to some extent the subject population.

XII. Society and Economy:

[a] Expansion of Agrarian Structures, Social Stratification and the Vijayanagar Empire

Morrison, Kathleen B. 2000. Fields of Victory: Vijayanagara and the Course of Intensification. Reprint. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.

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This is an analysis of the development of agriculture in the region based on an archaeological survey of the capital’s hinterland. Although the whole book is interesting, chapter one (Agricultural Intensification), two (Agricultural Production in the Vijayanagar Region), and three (Vijayanagar Agriculture in Context) are particularly relevant for the topic under consideration.

Stein, Burton. 1993. Chapter 4: Political Economy and Society: the sixteenth century. In The New Cambridge History of India: Vijayanagar, by Burton Stein, 72-108. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. South Asian edition. New Delhi: Foundation Books, 1994. Reprint, 1999.

This is a seminal work wherein the specified chapter deals specifically with the relationship between state and society under the Vijayanagar state within the familiar paradigm of ‘segmentary state’.

Karashima, Noboru. 1992. Towards a New Formation: South Indian Society under Vijayanagar Rule. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Notwithstanding the subtitle, ‘Society under Vijayanagar’, this is primarily a work on Vijayanagar state. Yet, it does offer insights on the state’s attempt to relate to the complex society it sought to rule. It is based on Karashima’s pioneering effort to classify a large number of Vijayanagar inscriptions across time and space.

Verghese, Anila. 1995. Religious Traditions at Vijayanagar: As Revealed Through Its Monuments. New Delhi: Manohar.

This book provides an analysis of the history of religious beliefs and practices during Vijayanagar period. Makes for interesting comparison with Wagonar’s work (see above, Wagoner: 1996).

[b] Peasants, Pastoral and Tribal Communities: the Deccan and Rajasthan

Sinha, Surjit. 1962. State Formation and Rajput Myth in Tribal Central India. Presidential Address: Section of Anthropology and Archaeology. Forty-Ninth Indian Science Congress, Cuttack. Man in India, 42: 35-80. Reprinted in The State in India 1000-1700, ed. Hermann Kulke, 304-342. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995. Paperback edition, 1997.

This is a rare work on state formation in Tribal India during medieval period. This work can be related to some of the arguments made by B.D. Chattopadhyaya in his famous work on ‘Political Processes’ (see Unit I above, Chattopadhyaya: 1983)

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Ziegler, Norman. 2001. Evolution of the Rathore State of Marwar: Horses, Structural Change and Warfare. In The Idea of Rajasthan: Explorations in Regional Identity, ed. K. Schomer, J.L. Erdman, D.O. Lordrick and L.I. Rudolph. New Delhi: Manohar.

This is another work by a major historian of medieval Rajasthan that explores processes of state formation in Marwar in relation, among other things, with military practices. Also useful for the topic, ‘Warfare and Society’ (see above).

Stern, Henri. 1977. Power in Traditional India: Territory, Caste and Kinship in Rajasthan. In Realm and Region in Traditional India, ed. Richard G. Fox, 52-78. Durham, Duke University Press.

The essay throws light on the significance of caste and kinship in territorial organization of authority in medieval Rajasthan.

Eaton, Richard M. 2007. The Articulation of Islamic Space in the Medieval Deccan. In Cultural History of Medieval India, ed. Meenakshi Khanna. Delhi: Social Science Press.

Eaton discusses how medieval deccan came to terms with Islam especially with regard to ‘places’ and people.

[c] Trade and Urbanisation with Special Reference to South India

Stein, Burton. 1977. Circulation and the Historical Geography of Tamil Country. Journal of Asian Studies, 27, no. 2. Also reproduced in All the King’s Mana: Paper on Medieval South Indian History by Burton Stein, 249-281. Madras: New Era, 1984.

This unusual essay by Stein is one of the earliest attempts to write the history of ‘circulation’ of men and means in south India. The piece offers interesting insight on trading practices and urban processes from the interesting vantage point of a study of ‘circulation’.

Shanmugam, P. 2006. Centres of Production and Market System in Tamil Country. In Recent Advances in Vijayanagar Studies, ed. P. Shanmugam and Srinivasan. Chennai: New Era Publication.

Shanmugam focuses exclusively on centres of production and networks of exchange in Tamil region during the period of Vijayanagar rule.

Sinopoli, Carla M. and Kathleen D. Morrison. 2006. Land Use and Settlement in the Vijayanagar Metropolitan Region: Results of the Vijayanagar Metropolitan Survey. In Recent Advances in Vijayanagar

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Studies, ed. P. Shanmugam and Srinivasan. Chennai: New Era Publications.

[d] Indian Ocean Trade

McPherson, Kenneth. 1993. The Indian Ocean. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. The book was also reproduced in the compendium volume Maritime India, ed. Sanjay Subrahmanyam. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004.

This book provides a very good overview of the Indian Ocean in the centuries before c. 1500 C.E. The first three chapters outline the regional variations with regard to markets, shipping technology and trading communities. The second chapter provides an account of the character of trade across the Indian Ocean. It highlights the activities of south Asian merchants, the spread of Islam and the impact of Chinese on the Indian Ocean. The third chapter gives as account of the impact of the Portuguese on the existing networks of trade across the Indian Ocean.

Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. 1986. The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India, 1500-1650. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This is an important reading because it shows the continuities in commercial networks along the coast and the hinterland through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that are crucial in understanding the history of the European presence in the Indian Ocean and its impact on south Asia from the sixteenth century onwards.

Das Gupta, Ashin and M.N. Pearson. ed. 1987. India and the Indian Ocean, 1500-1800. Calcutta: Oxford University Press.

This is an interesting collection of essays. Particularly relevant are the third chapter (by Genevieve Bouchon and Denys Lombard) and the fourth chapter (by M.N. Pearson). The former entitled ‘the Indian Ocean in the Fifteenth Century’ is a systematic study of regions that provides a brief overview of trading networks across the Indian Ocean. Pearson’s piece provides an insight into the politics of trade in the sixteenth century focussing on the impact of the Portuguese ‘estado’ in Indian Ocean.

Digby, Simon. 1982. The Maritime Trade of India. In The Cambridge Economic History of India c. 1200-c. 1750, Vol. I, ed. Tapan Raychaudhuri and Irfan Habib. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Indian Reprint. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1984 and 1991.

XIII. Religion, Society, Culture

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[a] Religious Cults and Regional Identities: (i) Vaishnavite Movement in Eastern India; (ii) Jagannath Cult in Orissa; (iii) Warkari Movement and Cult of Vithoba in Maharashtra.

Kulke, Hermann. 1993. Jagannath under Muslim Rule. In Kings and Cults: State Formation and Legitimation in India and Southeast Asia, by Hermann Kulke, 33-50. New Delhi: Manohar.

Though the so-called Muslim rule started in Orissa only in 1568 (i.e. outside the period of our syllabus) this essay is useful as a secular history of the complex relations the famous temple came to have with the ‘Muslim’ regime.

Kulke, Hermann. 2002. Jagannath Revisited: Studying Society, Religion and the State in Orissa. New Delhi: Manohar.

This book has a large number of useful essays that explores various facets of the history of Jagannath cult and temple.

Vaudeville, Charlotte. 1999. Pandharpur: City of Saints. In Myths, Saints and Legends in Medieval India, by Charlotte Vaudeville. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

The essay explores the history of the sacred pilgrimage site of Pandharpur by analysing interesting and contending mythologies that invest it.

Ramaswamy, Vijaya. 1997. Chapter 6: Women ‘in’, Women ‘Out’: Women within the Warkari Panths. In Walking Naked: Women, Society, Spirituality in South India. Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study.

This is an extremely interesting chapter in a very well researched book. The chapter explores the changing status of women within the Warkari panths during middle ages.

Bhattacharyya, N.N. 1989. Medieval Bhakti Movements in India. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.

This is a collection of essays on medieval bhakti that deals mostly with bhakti movements in various parts of the subcontinent. The relevant ones are: Vaisnavism in Medieval Orissa (by Prabhat Mukherjee, 232-40); Sankaradeva and Assam Vaisnavism (by Satyendranath Sarma, 241-70); The Bhakti Movement of Assam in Historical Perspective (by N.N. Acharya, 310-14).

[b] Patriarchy, Gender Relations and Women Bhaktas: Mahadevi Yakka, Laldey, Mira

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Ramaswamy, Vijaya. 1997. Walking Naked: Women, Society, Spirituality in South India. Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study.

The book examines gender inequality and examines issues of women’s sexuality and salvation as well as emergence of spirituality as a powerful form of female self-expression. Although the whole book is useful, of particular relevance are Chaper 4 (Bride, Demoness, Other: Women in the Early Devotional Movements in South India), Chapter 5 (Rebels-Housewives: Women in Virsaivism) and the epilogue.

Sangari, Kumkum. 1990. Mirabai and the Spiritual Economy of Bhakti. Economic and Political Weekly, 25, no. 27: 1464-1475.

This is a short and complex essay that looks at the ‘structures’ of Mira bhakti in terms of its familiar and familial tropes and the limitations that these might have put on the radical potential of her bhakti.

Martin, Nancy. 1996. Mirabai: Inscribed Text, Embodied in Life. In Vaisnavi: Women and the Worship of Krishna, ed. Steve Rosen. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. (Originally published in the Journal of Vaisnava Studies, Fall 1995.)

The essay takes a close look at the relationship between Mira’s compositions and her life.

Harlan, Lindsey. 1992.  Religion and Rajput Women: The Ethics of Protection in Contemporary Narratives. University of California Press, Berkeley.

This is a general work on the politics of patriarchal protection for women within Rajput culture. It helps set up the broader theoretical framework for understanding Mira’s historical context.

Hawley, John Stratton. 1988.  Mirabai. In Songs of the Saints of India, ed. John Stratton Hawely and Mark Juergensmeyer. New York: Oxford University Press.

Hawley’s work helps us get an intimate glimpse of Mira’s compositions.

Harlan, Lindsey.  1995.  Abandoning Shame: Mira on the Margins of Marriage. In From the Margins of Hindu Marriage, ed. Lindsey Harlan and Paul B. Courtright. New York: Oxford University Press.

This is another essay that explores the issue of shame and protection for a woman who dared to challenge the institution of marriage.

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Kishwar, Madhu. ed. 1989. Manushi: Women Bhakta Poets. 10th Anniversary Special Volume. 1989. nos. 50-52.

Though this special issue of Manushi contains frequent typographical errors, it carries valuable accounts of the life and works of some outstanding rebel women in Indian history during the period 6th to 17th century. These include Mirabai, Antal, Lal Dey and Akka Mahadevi.

[c] Sufis and Local Societies

Eaton, Richard M. 2000. Who are the Bengal Muslims? Conversion and Islamization in Bengal. In Essays on Islam and Indian History by Richard M. Eaton. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

This is an extremely important work on expansion of Islam in Bengal, and the role of Sufis whose close interactions with local societies is shown to be dialogical.

Khan, Muhammad Ishaq. 2000. The Rishi Movement as a Social Force in Medieval Kashmir. In The Making of Indo-Persian Culture: Indian and French Studies, ed. Muzaffar Alam, Francoise ‘Nalini’ Delvoye, 129-47. New Delhi: Manohar. The article was reproduced in Religious Movements in South Asia 600-1800, ed. David N. Lorenzen, 128-49. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004. Paperback edition, 2005.

The confessional legacies of the Rishi movement have been famously ambivalent. Khan explores the role of the Rishis/Sufis at the local level, both as specialists in spirituality as well as in ‘ordinary’ matters of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ conduct.

Digby, Simon. 1994. Anecdotes of a Provincial Sufi of the Delhi Sultanate, Khwaja Gurg of Kara. Iran, 32: 99-109.

(see above for comments)

Eaton, R.M. 1978. Sufis of Bijapur: Social Roles of Sufis in Medieval India 1300-1700. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

This is probably one of the earliest and most sophisticated work on how in medieval deccan, the Sufis’ came to play an important role for a variety of constituencies of non-Muslims as well as Muslims.

Jha, P.K. 2008. A Table Laden with Good Things: Reading a Fourteenth Century Sufi Text. In Book History in India: Moveable Type, ed. Abhijit Gupta & Swapan Chakravorty, 3-25. Ranikhet: Permanent Black.

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The article explores the way a 14th century Firdausi Sufi came to occupy a position of both spiritual and secular authority among the Muslims of Bihar. It does so by examining the complex process of the apparently social production of a Sufi text.

[d] Consolidation of Regional Identities:

(i) Regional Art and Architectural Forms

Merklinger, E.S. 2005. Sultanate Architecture of Pre-Mughal India. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.

This is a general survey of not only architecture of Delhi Sultanate under various dynasties but also for various ‘regional’ sultanates. There are separate chapters on Bengal, Gujarat, Sind and the Punjab, Malwa, Chanderi and Khandesh, Jaunpur, Decann under the Bahamanids, Deccan under the successors of the Bahamanids as well as Kashmir.

Yazdani, Ghulam. 1929. Mandu: The City of Joy. Oxford: University Press.

Michell, George. 1995. Architecture and art of Southern India: Vijayanagar and the Successor States. The New Cambridge History of India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This is by far the most comprehensive treatment of the monuments of Vijayanagar empire, rich both in empirical details as well as in perspectives on how to read them.

Michell, George and Mark Zebrowski. 1999. Architecture and Art of the Deccan Sultanates. The New Cambridge History of India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This is a useful reference for a history of art and architecture under the deccan sultantes including the Bahamanid and its successor states.

Hasan, Perween. 2001. Temple Niches and Mihrabs in Bengal. In Architecture in Medieval India: Forms, Contexts, Histories, ed. Monica Juneja, 439-47. Delhi: Permanent Black. First published in Anna L. Dallapiccola and S. Z. Lallemant eds. Islam and Indian Regions, 1993, vol. 1. 87-94.

(ii) Beginning of Regional Literature

Majumdar, R.C. n.d. ed. History and Culture of the Indian People: The Struggle for Empire. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Relevant part is Chapter XV (‘Language and Literature’), 297-397.

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Though largely descriptive, this long chapter on language and literature helped collate some basic pieces of information on the development of regional languages and literature. Its theoretical grid has since been questioned but it is still useful for putting together so much relevant information together.

Sheldon Pollock, ed. 1995. Social Scientist (Special Issue), 23, Nos. 10-12.

This is a collection of very interesting research papers on the issue of language and literature in what Pollock in his introduction calls the ‘Vernacular Millenium’. Particularly relevant are the essays by S. Nagaraju, V. Narayan Rao and Pollock.

Sharma, R.S. 2001. Transition from Ancient to Medieval. In Early Medieval Indian Society: A Study in Feudalisation, by R.S. Sharma, 16-44. Delhi: Orient Longman.

Although the essay is a general reflection on the question of transition from ancient to medieval, Sharma considers the issue of the emergence of regional languages and literature, predictably from the vantage point of processes of feudalisation, through several pages. The relevant pages in the above mentioned edition are 35-38.

Pollock, Sheldon. 1998. India in the Vernacular Millenium: Literary Culture and Polity, 1000-1500. In Early Modernities, ed. Shmuel Eisenstadt, Wolfgang Schluchter and Bjorn Wittrock. Special issue of Daedalus, 127, 3: 41-74.

In this seminal work, Pollock famously outlined his idea of the second Christian millennium as a ‘vernacular millennium’ wherein languages that did not travel very far came to acquire their own grammar and literature across Asia and Europe.

Pollock, Sheldon. 2000. Cosmopolitan and Vernacular in History. In Cosmopolitanism, ed. C. A. Breckenridge, et at, Special Issue of Public Culture, 12, 3: 591-625.

The article investigates the complex inter-relationship between the ‘cosmopolitan’ languages (Sanskrit, Persian, etc.) and the vernaculars (Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Bengali, etc.) during the medieval period.

Pollock, Sheldon. 1998. The Cosmopolitan Vernacular. The Journal of Asian Studies, 57, 1: 6-37.

This essay qualifies some of the arguments made by Pollock in his Daedalus article cited above, especially by way of problematizing the binary juxtaposition of cosmopolitan and vernacular.

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