Duiker W.J., Spielvogel J.J. The Essential World History. Volume 1: To 1800

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nor less. The unbelievers and Brahmans, filled with jealousy,

cut it down and scattered the leaves far and wide, but yet it

always sprang up again in the same place as before.

For a while, Buddhism was probably able to stave off

the Hindu challenge with its own salvationist creed of

Mahayana, which also emphasized the role of devotion,

but the days of Buddhism as a dominant faith in the

subcontinent were numbered. By the eighth century

C.E.,

Hindu missionaries spread throughout southern India,

where their presence was spearheaded by new temples

honoring Shiva in Kanchi, the site of a famous Buddhist

monastery, and at Mamallapuram.

The Arrival of Islam

Focus Question: How did Islam arrive in the Indian

subcontinent, and why were Muslim peoples able to

establish states there?

While India was still undergoing a transition after the

collapse of the Gupta Empire, a new and dynamic force in

the form of Islam was arising in the Arabian peninsula to

the west. As we have seen, during the seventh and eighth

centuries, Arab armies carried the new faith westward to

the Iberian peninsula and eastward across the arid

wastelands of Persia and into the rugged mountains of the

Hindu Kush. Islam first reached India through the Arabs

in the eighth century, but a second onslaught in the tenth

and eleventh centuries by Turkic-speaking converts had a

more lasting effect.

Although Arab merchants had been active along the

Indian coasts for centuries, Arab armies did not reach

India until the early eighth century. When Indian pirates

attacked Arab shipping near the delta of the Indus River,

the Muslim ruler in Mesopotamia demanded an apology

from the ruler of Sind, a Hindu state in the Indus valley.

When the latter refused, Muslim forces conquered lower

Sind in 711 and then moved northward into the Punjab,

bringing Arab rule into the frontier regions of the sub-

continent for the first time.

The Empire of Mahmud of Ghazni

For the next three centuries, Islam made no further ad-

vances into India. But a second phase began at the end of

THE EDUCATION OF A BRAHMIN

Although the seventh-century Chinese traveler Xuan

Zang was a Buddhist, he faithfully recorded his

impressions of the Hindu religion in his memoirs.

Here he describes the education of a brahmin, a

member of the highest class in Indian society.

Compare the educational practices described here with the

training provided to young men in other traditional societies in

Europe, Asia, and the Americas. What, if anything, was distinc-

tive about the educational system in India?

214 CHAPTER 9 THE EXPANSION OF CIVILIZATION IN SOUTHERN ASIA

Text not available due to copyright restrictions

the tenth century with the rise of the state of

Ghazni, located in the area of the old Kushan

kingdom in present-day Afghanistan. The new

kingdom was founded in 962 when Turkic-

speaking slaves seized power from the Samanids, a

Persian dynasty. When the founder of the new

state died in 997, his son, Mahmud of Ghazni

(r. 997--1030), succeeded him. Brilliant and am-

bitious, Mahmud used his patrimony as a base of

operations for sporadic forays against neighboring

Hindu kingdoms to the southeast. Before his

death in 1030, he was able to extend his rule

throughout the upper Indus valley and as far

south as the Indian Ocean (see Map 9.4). In

wealth and cultural brilliance, his court at Ghazni

rivaled that of the Abbasid dynasty in neighboring

Baghdad. But his achievements had a dark side. Describ-

ing Mahmud’s conquests in northwestern India, the con-

temporary historian al-Biruni wrote:

Mahmud utterly ruined the prosperity of the country, and

performed wonderful exploits by which the Hindus became

like atoms scattered in all directions, and like a tale of old in

the mouth of the people. Their scattered remains cherish, of

course, the most inveterate aversion towards all Muslims.

This is the reason, too, why Hindu sciences have retired far

away from those parts of the country conquered by us, and

have fled to places which our hand cannot yet reach, to

Kashmir, Benares, and other places.

Resistance against the advances of Mahmud and his

successors into northern India was led by the Rajputs,

aristocratic Hindu clans who were probably descended

from tribal groups that had penetrated into northwest-

ern India from Central Asia in earlier centuries. The

Rajputs possessed a strong military tradition and fought

bravely, but their military tactics, based on infantry

supported by elephants, were no match for the fearsome

cavalry of the invaders, whose ability to strike with

lightning speed contrasted sharply with the slow-footed

forces of their adversaries. Although the power of Ghazni

declined after Mahmud’s death, a successor state in the

area resumed the advance in the late twelfth century, and

by 1200, Muslim power, in the form of a new Delhi

sultanate, had been extended over the entire plain of

northern India.

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William J. Duiker

Mamallapuram Shore Temple. Mamallapuram

(‘‘The City of the Great Warrior’’) was so named by one

of the powerful kings of the Pallavan kingdom on the

eastern coast of South India. From this port, ships

embarked on naval expeditions to Sri Lanka and far-off

destinations in Southeast Asia. Although the site was

originally identified with the Hindu deity Vishnu, in the

eighth century

C.E. a Pallavan monarch built this shore

temple in honor of Vishnu’s rival deity, Shiva. It stands

as a visual confirmation of the revival of the Hindu faith

in southern India at the time. Centuries of wind and

rain have eroded the ornate carvings that originally

covered the large granite blocks. Nearby stands a group

of five rock-cut monoliths named after heroes in the

Mahabharata. The seventh-century rock cutters carved

these impressive shrines out of giant boulders.

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William J. Duiker

THE ARRIVAL O F ISLAM 215

The Delhi Sultanate

South of the Ganges River valley, Muslim influence spread

more slowly and in fact had little immediate impact.

Muslim armies launched occasional forays into the Dec-

can Plateau, but at first, they had little success, even

though the area was divided among a number of warring

kingdoms, including the Cholas along the eastern coast

and the Pandyas far to the south.

One reason the Delhi sultanate failed to take advan-

tage of the disarray of its rivals was the threat posed by the

Mongols on the northwestern frontier (see Chapter 10).

Mongol armies unleashed by the great tribal warrior

Genghis Khan occupied Baghdad and destroyed the Ab-

basid caliphate in the 1250s, while other forc es occupied

the Punjab around Lahore, from which they threatened

Delhi on several occasions. For the next half-century, the

attention of the sultanate was focused on the Mongols.

Bay

Bengal

Arabian

Sea

Indian

Ocean

Caspian

Sea

EMPIRE OF

MAHMUD OF GHAZNI

TRANSOXIANA

CHOLA

CHALUKYAS

ARABIA

AFGHANISTAN

Kanchi

Benares

(Varanasi)

Delhi

Lahore

Ghazni

Samarkand

Bukhara

INDIA

Pataliputra

TIBET

KASHMIR

PUNJAB

SIND

IRAN

Deccan

Plateau

Empire of Mahmud of Ghazni

Kingdom of Chola

Delhi sultanate in 1200

0 250 500 Miles

0 250 500 750 Kilometers

MAP 9.4 India, 1000–1200. Beginning in the tenth century, Turkic-speaking peoples

invaded northwestern India and introdu ced Islam to the peoples in the area. Most famous was

the empire of Mahmud of Ghazni.

Locate the major trade routes passing thr ough the ar ea. What geographic features explain

the location of those r outes?

216 CHAPTER 9 THE EXPANSION OF CIVILIZATION IN SOUTHERN ASIA

That threat fin ally declined in the early fourteenth century

with the gradual breakup of the Mongol Empire, and a

new Islamic state emerged in the form of a new Tughluq

dynasty (1320--1413), which extended its power into the

Deccan Plateau. In praise of his sover eign, the Tughluq

monarch Ala-ud-din, the poet Amir Khusrau exclaimed:

Happy be Hindustan, with its splendor of religion,

Where Islamic law enjoys perfect honor and dignity;

In learning Delhi now rivals Bukhara;

Islam has been made manifest by the rulers.

From Ghazni to the very shore of the ocean

You see Islam in its glory.

Such happiness was not destined to endure, however.

During the latter half of the fourteenth century, the

Tughluq dynasty gradually fell into decline. In 1398, a

new military force crossed the Indus River from the

northwest, raided the capital of Delhi, and then withdrew.

According to some contemporary historians, as many

as 100,000 Hindu prisoners were massacred before the

gates of the city. Such was India’s first encounter with

Tamerlane.

Tamerlane

Tamerlane (c. 1330s--1405), also known as Timur -i-lang

(Timur the Lame), was the ruler of a M ongol khanate

based in Samarkand to the north of the P amir Mountains.

His kingdom had been founded on the ruins of the Mongol

Empire, which had begun to disintegrate as a result of

succession struggles in the thirteenth century. Tamerlane,

the son of a local aristocrat, seized power in Samarkand in

1369 and immediately launched a program of conquest.

During the 1380s, he brought the entire region east of the

Caspian Sea under his authority and then conquered

Baghdad and occupied Mesopotamia (see Map 9.5). After

his brief foray into northern India, he turned to the west

and raided the Anatolian peninsula. Defeating the army of

the Ottoman Turks, he advanced almost as far as the Bos-

porus before withdrawing. ‘‘The last of the great nomadic

conquerors,’’ as one recent historian described him, died in

1405 in the midst of a final military campaign.

The passing of Tamerlane removed a major menace

from the diverse states of the Indian subcontinent. But

the respite from external challenge was not a long one. By

the end of the fifteenth century, two new challenges had

appeared from beyond the horizon: the Mughals, a newly

emerging nomadic power beyond the Khyber Pass in the

north, and the Portuguese traders, who arrived by sea

from the eastern coast of Africa in search of gold and

spices. Both, in different ways, would exert a major im-

pact on the later course of Indian civilization.

Kutub Minar. To commemorate their victory, in 1192 the Muslim

conquerors of northern India constructed a magnificent mosque on the site

of Delhi’s largest Hindu temple. Much of the material for the mosque came

from twenty-seven local Hindu and Jain shrines (right). Adjacent to the

mosque soars the Kutub Minar, symbol of the new conquering faith.

Originally 238 feet high, the tower’s inscription proclaimed its mission to

cast the long shadow of God over the realm of the Hindus.

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William J. Duiker

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William J. Duiker

THE ARRIVAL O F ISLAM 217

MAP 9.5 The E mpire of

Tamerlane.

In the fourteenth

century, Tamerlane, a feared

conqueror of Mongolian extraction,

established a brief empire in Central

Asia with his capital at Samarkand.

Which of the states shown in

this map wer e part of Muslim

civilization?

Samarkand, Gem of the Empire. The city of Samarkand has a

long history. Originating during the first millennium

B.C.E. as a caravan

stop on the Silk Road, it was occupied by Alexander the Great, the

Abbasids, and the Mongols before becoming the capital of Tamerlane’s

expanding empire. Tamerlane expended great sums in creating a city

worthy of his imperial ambitions. Shown here is the great square, known

as the Registan. Site of a mosque, a library, and a Muslim university, all

built in the exuberant Persian style, Samarkand was the jumping-off

point for trade with China far to the east. The inset highlights the

fanciful tile mosaics, showing lions chasing deer while a rising sun

smiles on the scene.

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William J. Duiker

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William J. Duiker

218 CHAPTER 9 THE EXPANSION OF CIVILIZATION IN SOUTHERN ASIA

Society and Culture

Focus Questions: What impact did Muslim rule have

on Indian society? To what degree did the indigenous

population conv ert to the new religion, and why? Wh at are

some of the most important cultural achievements of Indian

civilization in the era between the Mauryas and the M ughals?

The establishment of Muslim rule over the northern parts

of the subcontinent had a significant impact on the so-

ciety and culture of the Indian people.

Religion

Like their counterparts in other areas that came under

Islamic rule, man y M uslim rulers in India were relatively

tolerant of other faiths and used peaceful means, if an y, to

encourage nonbelievers to c on vert to Islam. E ven the more

enlightened, howev er, could be fierce when their religious

zeal was aroused. One ruler, on being informed that a

Hindu fair had been held near Delhi, ordered the promoters

of the event put to death. Hindu temples were razed, and

mosques were erected in their place. Ev entually, however,

most M uslim rulers r ealized that not all H indus could be

con verted and recognized the necessity of acc epting what to

them was an alien and repugnant religion. While Hindu

religious practices were generally tolerated, non-Muslims

were compelled to pay a tax to the state. Some Hindus likely

con verted to Islam to av oid paying the tax, but they were

then expected to mak e the traditional charitable c ontribu-

tion requir ed of Muslims in all Islamic societies.

Over time, millions of Hindus did turn to the

Muslim faith. Some were individuals or groups in the

employ of the Muslim ruling class, such as government

officials, artisans, or merchants catering to the needs of

the court. But many others were probably peasants from

the sudra class or even untouchables who found in the

egalitarian message of Islam a way of removing the stigma

of low-class status in the Hindu social hierarchy.

Seldom have two major religions been so strikingly

different. Wher eas Hinduism tolerated a belief in the ex-

istence of several deit ies (although admittedly they were

all considered by some to be manifestations of one su-

preme god), Islam was uncompromisingly monotheistic.

Whereas Hinduism was hierarchical, Islam was egalitar-

ian. Whereas Hinduism featured a priestly class to serve as

an intermediary with the ultimate force of the universe,

Islam permitted no one to come between believers and their

god. Such differences contributed to the mutual hostility

that developed between the adherents of the two faiths in

the Indian subcontinent, but more mundane issues, such

as the Muslim habit of eating beef and the idolatry and

sexual frankness in Hindu art, were probably a greater source

of antagonism at the popular lev el (see the box above).

THE ISLAMIC CONQUEST OF INDIA

One consequence of the Muslim conquest of

northern India was the imposition of many Islamic

customs on Hindu society. In this excerpt, the four-

teenth-century Muslim historian Zia-ud-din Barani

describes the attempt of one Muslim ruler, Ala-ud-din, to pre-

vent the use of alcohol and gambling, two practices expressly

forbidden in Muslim society. Ala-ud-din had seized power in

Delhi from a rival in 1294.

A Muslim Ruler Suppresses Hindu Practices

He forbade wine, beer, and intoxicating drugs to be used or sold;

dicing, too, was prohibited. Vintners and beer sellers were turned

out of the city, and the heavy taxes which had been levied from

them were abolished. All the china and glass vessels of the Sultan’s

banqueting room were broken and thrown outside the gate of

Badaun, where they formed a mound. Jars and casks of wine were

emptied out there till they made mire as if it were the season of

the rains. The Sultan himself entirely gave up wine parties. Self-

respecting people at once followed his example; but the ne’er-do-

wells went on making wine and spirits and hid the leather bottles

in loads of hay or firewood and by various such tricks smuggled

it into the city. Inspectors and gatekeepers and spies diligently

sought to seize the contraband and the smugglers; and when seized

the wine was given to the elephants, and the importers and sellers

and drinkers [were] flogged and given short terms of imprisonment.

So many were they, however, that holes had to be dug for their in-

carceration outside the great thoroughfare of the Badaun gate, and

many of the wine bibbers died from the rigor of their confinement

and others were taken out half-dead and were long in recovering

their health. The terror of these holes deterred many from drinking.

Those who could not give it up had to journey ten or twelve leagues

to get a drink, for at half that distance, four or five leagues from

Delhi, wine could not be publicly sold or drunk. The prevention of

drinking proving very difficult, the Sultan enacted that people might

distill and drink privately in their own homes, if drinking parties

were not held and the liquor not sold. After the prohibition of

drinking, conspiracies diminished.

The ruler described here is a Muslim, establishing regulations

for moral behavior in a predominantly Hindu society. Based on

the information presented in Chapter 8, did Muslim rulers in

African societies often adopt a similar approach?

SOCIETY AND CULTURE 219

In other cases, the two peoples borrowed from each

other. Some Muslim rulers found the Indian idea of di-

vine kingship appealing. In their turn, Hindu rajas

learned by bitter experience the superiority of cavalry

mounted on horses instead of elephants, the primary

assault weapon in early India. Some upper-class Hindu

males were attracted to the Muslim tradition of purdah

and began to keep their women in seclusion (termed

locally ‘‘behind the curtain’’) from everyday society.

Hindu sources claimed that one reason for adopting the

custom was to protect Hindu women from the roving

eyes of foreigners. But it is likely that many Indian fam-

ilies adopted the practice for reasons of prestige or be-

cause they were convinced that purdah was a practical

means of protecting female virtue.

All in all, Muslim rule probably did not have a sig-

nificant impact on the lives of most Indian women (see

the comparative essay ‘‘Caste, Class, and Family’’ above).

Purdah was more commonly practiced by the higher

classes than by the lower classes. Though probably of little

COMPARATIVE ESSAY

ASTE,CLASS, AND FAMILY

Why have men and women played such

different roles throughout human history?

Why have some societies historically

adopted the nuclear family, while others

preferred the joint family or the clan? Such questions

are controversial and often subject to vigorous debate,

yet they are crucial to our understanding of the human

experience.

As we know, the first human beings practiced hunting and

foraging, living in small bands composed of one or more

lineage groups and moving from place to place in search

of sustenance. Individual members of the community were

assigned different economic and social roles---usually with

men as the hunters and women as the food gatherers---but

such roles were not rigidly defined. The concept of private

property did not exist, and all members shared the goods

possessed by the community according to need.

The agricultural revolution brought about dramatic

changes in human social organizations. Although women,

as food gatherers, may have been the first farmers, men---now

increasingly deprived of their traditional role as hunters---began to

replace them in the fields. As communities gradually adopted a

sedentary lifestyle, women were increasingly assigned to domestic

tasks in the home while raising the children. As farming communi-

ties grew in size and prosperity, vocational specialization and the

concept of private property appeared, leading to the family as a

legal entity and the emergence of a class system composed of elites,

commoners, and slaves. Women were deemed inferior to men and

placed in a subordinate status.

This trend toward job specialization and a rigid class system

was less developed in pastoral societies, some of which still practiced

a nomadic style of life and shared communal goods on a roughly

equal basis within the community. Even within sedentary societies,

there was considerable variety in the nature of social organizations.

In some areas, the nuclear family consisted of parents and their de-

pendent children. Other societies, however, adopted (either in theory

or in practice) the idea of the joint family (ideally consisting of

three generations of a family living under one roof) and sometimes

even going a step further, linking several families under the larger

grouping of the caste or the clan. Prominent examples of the latter

tendency include India and China, although the degree to which

such concepts conformed to reality is a matter of debate.

Such large social organizations, where they occurred, often

established a rigid hierarchy of status within the community, includ-

ing the subordination of women. At the same time, they sometimes

played a useful role in society, providing a safety net or a ladder of

upward mobility for disadvantaged members of the group, as well

as a source of stability in societies where legitimate and effective

authority at the central level was lacking.

What do you think accounts for some of the unique aspects

of community and family life in traditional India? What are

these unique characteristics?

The Good Life. On the walls of the Buddhist temple of Borobudur are a series of

bas-reliefs in stone depicting the path to enlightenment. The lower levels depict the

pleasures of the material world. Shown here is a woman of leisure, assisted by her

maidservants, at her toilette.

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William J. Duiker

220 CHAPTER 9 THE EXPANSION OF CIVILIZATION IN SOUTHERN ASIA

consolation, sexual relations in poor and lower-class

families were relatively egalitarian, as men and women

worked together on press gangs or in the fields. Muslim

customs apparently had little effect on the Hindu tradi-

tion of sati. In fact, in many respects, Muslim women had

more rights than their Hindu counterparts. They had

more property rights than Hindu women and were legally

permitted to divorce under certain conditions and to

remarry after the death of their husband. The primary

role for Indian women in general, however, was to pro-

duce children. Sons were preferred over daughters, not

only because they alone could conduct ancestral rites but

also because a daughter was a financial liability. A father

had to provide a costly dowry for a daughter when she

married, yet after the wedding, she would transfer her

labor assets to her husband’s family. Still, women shared

with men a position in the Indian religious pantheon.

The Hindu female deity, known as Devi, was celebrated

by both men and women as the source of cosmic power,

bestower of wishes, and symbol of fertility.

Overall, the Muslims continued to view themselves as

foreign conquerors and generally maintained a strict

separation between the Muslim ruling class and the mass

of the Hindu population. Although a few Hindus rose to

important positions in the local bureaucracy, most high

posts in the central government and the provinces were

reserved for Muslims. Only with the founding of the

Mughal dynasty was a serious effort undertaken to rec-

oncile the differences.

One result of this effort was the religion of the Sikhs

(‘‘disciples’’). Founded by the guru Nanak in the early

sixteenth century in the Punjab, Sikhism attempted to

integrate the best of the two faiths in a single religion.

Sikhism originated in the devotionalist movement in

Hinduism, which taught that God was the single true

reality. All else is illusion. But Nanak rejected the Hindu

tradition of asceticism and mortification of the flesh and,

like Muhammad, taught his disciples to participate in the

world. Sikhism achieved considerable popularity in north-

western India, where Islam and Hinduism confr onted each

other directly, and eventually evolved into a militant faith

that fiercely protected its adherents against its two larger

rivals. In the end, Sikhism failed to reconcile Hinduism and

Islam but instead provided an alternative to them.

One complication for both Muslims and Hindus as

they tried to come to terms with the existence of a mixed

society was the problem of class and caste. Could non-

Hindus form castes, and if so, how were they related to

the Hindu castes? Where did the Turkic-speaking elites

who made up the ruling class in many of the Islamic

states fit into the equation?

The problem was resolved in a pragmatic manner

that probably followed an earlier tradition of assimilating

non-Hindu tribal groups into the system. Members of the

Turkic ruling groups formed social groups that were

roughly equivalent to the Hindu brahmin or kshatriya

class. Ordinary Indians who converted to Islam also

formed Muslim castes, although at a lower level on the

social scale. Many who did so were probably artisans who

converted en masse to obtain the privileges that conver-

sion could bring.

In most of India, then, Muslim rule did not sub-

stantially disrupt the class and caste system, although it

may have become more fluid than it was previously. One

perceptive European visitor in the early sixteenth century

reported that in Malabar, along the southwestern coast,

there were separate castes for fishing, pottery making,

weaving, carpentry and metalworking, salt mining, sor-

cery, and labor on the plantations. There were separate

castes for doing the laundry, one for the elite and the

other for the common people.

Economy and Daily Life

India’s landed and commercial elites lived in the cities,

often in conditions of considerable opulence. The rulers,

of course, possessed the most wealth. One maharaja of a

relatively small state in southern India, for example, had

more than 100,000 soldiers in his pay along with 900

elephants and 20,000 horses. Another maintained a

thousand high-class women to serve as sweepers of his

palace. Each carried a broom and a brass basin containing

a mixture of cow dung and water and followed him from

one house to another, plastering the path where he was to

tread. Most urban dwellers, of course, did not live in such

style. Xuan Zang, the Chinese Buddhist missionary, left us

a description of ordinary homes in a seventh-century

urban area:

Their houses are surrounded by low walls, and form the sub-

urbs. The earth being soft and muddy, the walls of the towns

are mostly built of brick or tiles. The towers on the walls are

constructed of wood or bamboo; the houses have balconies

and belvederes, which are made of wood, with a coating of

lime or mortar, and covered with tiles. The different build-

ings have the same form as those in China; rushes, or dry

branches, or tiles, or boards are used for covering them. The

walls are covered with lime and mud, mixed with cow’s dung

for purity. At different seasons they scatter flowers about.

Such are some of their different customs.

Agriculture The majority of India’s population (esti-

mated at slightly more than 100 million in the first mil-

lennium

C.E.), however, lived on the land. Most were

peasants who tilled small plots with a wooden plow

pulled by oxen and paid a percentage of the harvest to

their landlord. The landlord in turn forwarded part of the

SOCIETY AND CULTURE 221

payment to the local ruler. In effect, the landlord func-

tioned as a tax collector for the king, who retained ulti-

mate ownership of all farmland in his domain. At best,

most peasants lived at the subsistence level. At worst, they

were forced into debt and fell victim to moneylenders

who charged exorbitant rates of interest.

In the north and in the upland regions of the Deccan

Plateau, the primary grain crops were wheat and barley.

In the Ganges valley and the southern coastal plains, the

main crop was rice. Vegetables were grown everywhere,

and southern India produced many spices, fruits, sugar-

cane, and cotton. The cotton plant apparently originated

in the Indus River valley and spread from there. Although

some cotton was cultivated in Spain and North Africa by

the eighth and ninth centuries, India remained the pri-

mary producer of cotton goods. Spices such as cinnamon,

pepper, ginger, sandalwood, cardamom, and cumin were

also major export products.

Foreign Trade Agriculture, of course, was not the only

source of wealth in India. Since ancient times, the sub-

continent had served as a major entrepo

t for trade be-

tween the Middle East and the Pacific basin, as well as the

source of other goods shipped throughout the known

world. Although civil strife and piracy, heavy taxation of

the business community by local rulers to finance their

fratricidal wars, and increased customs duties between

principalities may have contributed to a decline in in-

ternal trade, the level of foreign trade remained high,

particularly in the kingdoms in the south and along the

northwestern coast, which were located along the tradi-

tional trade routes to the Middle East and the Mediter-

ranean Sea. Much of this foreign trade was carried on by

wealthy Hindu castes with close ties to the royal courts.

But there were other participants as well, including such

non-Hindu minorities as the Muslims, the Parsis, and the

Jain community. The Parsis, expatriates from Persia who

practiced the Zoroastrian religion, dominated banking

and the textile industry in the cities bordering the Rann

of Kutch. Later they would become a dominant economic

force in the modern city of Mumbai (Bombay). The Jains

became prominent in trade and manufacturing even

though their faith emphasized simplicity and the rejec-

tion of materialism.

According to early European travelers, merchants

often lived quite well. One Portuguese observer described

the ‘‘Moorish’’ population in Bengal as follows:

They have girdles of cloth, and over them silk scarves; they

carry in their girdles daggers garnished with silver and gold,

according to the rank of the person who carries them; on

their fingers many rings set with rich jewels, and cotton tur-

bans on their heads. They are luxurious, eat well and spend

freely, and have many other extravagances as well. They

bathe often in great tanks which they have in their houses.

Everyone has three or four wives or as many as he can main-

tain. They keep them carefully shut up, and treat them very

well, giving them great store of gold, silver and apparel of

fine silk.

Outside these relatively small, specialized trading

communities, most manufacturing and commerce were

in the hands of petty traders and artisans, who were

generally limited to local markets. This failure to build on

the promise of antiquity has led some historians to ask

why India failed to produce an expansion of commerce

and growth of cities similar to the developments that

began in Europe during the High Middle Ages or even in

China during the Song dynasty (see Chapter 10). Some

have pointed to the traditionally low status of artisans

and merchants in Indian society, symbolized by the

comment in the Arthasastra that merchants were ‘‘thieves

that are not called by the name of thief.’’

Yet commercial

activities were frowned on in many areas in Europe

throughout the Middle Ages, a fact that did not prevent

the emergence of capitalist societies in much of the West.

Another factor may have been the monopoly on

foreign trade held by the government in many areas of

India. More important, perhaps, was the impact of the

class and caste system, which limited the ability of en-

trepreneurs to expand their activities and have dealings

with other members of the commercial and manufacturing

community. Successful artisans, for example, normally

could not set up as mer chants to market their pr oducts,

nor could mer chants compete for buyers outside their

normal area of operations. The complex interlocking re-

lationships among the vario us classes in a given region

were a powerful factor inhibiting the development of a

thriving commercial sector in medieval India.

Science and Technology During this period, Indian

thinkers played an important role in promoting knowl-

edge of the sciences throughout the Eurasian world. One

example is the fifth-century astronomer Aryabhata, who

accurately calculated the value of pi and measured the

length of the solar year at slightly more than 365 days.

Indian writings on astronomy, mathematics, and medi-

cine were influential elsewhere in the region, while---as

noted in Chapter 7---the Indian system of numbers, in-

cluding the concept of zero, was introduced into the

Middle East and ultimately replaced the Roman numerals

then in use in medieval Europe.

The Wonder of Indian Culture

The era between the Mauryas and the Mughals in India

was a period of cultural evolution as Indian writers and

222 CHAPTER 9 THE EXPANSION OF CIVILIZATION IN SOUTHERN ASIA

artists built on the literary and artistic achievements of

their predecessors. This is not to say that Indian culture

rested on its ancient laurels. To the contrary, this was an

era of tremendous innovation in all fields of creative

endeavor.

Art and Architecture At the end of antiquity, the pri-

mary forms of religious architecture were the Buddhist

cave temples and monasteries. The first millennium

C.E.

witnessed the evolution of religious architecture from

underground cavity to monumental structure.

The twenty-eight caves of Ajanta in the Deccan Pla-

teau are one of India’s greatest artistic achievements. They

are as impressive for their sculpture and painting as for

their architecture. Except for a few examples from the

second century

B.C.E., most of the caves were carved out of

solid rock over an incredibly short period of eighteen

years, from 460 to 478

C.E. (see the comparative illustra-

tion above). In contrast to the early unadorned temple

halls, these temples were exuberantly decorated with or-

nate pillars, friezes, beamed ceilings, and statues of the

Buddha and bodhisattvas. Several caves served as mon-

asteries, which by then had been transformed from simple

holes in the wall to large complexes with living apart-

ments, halls, and shrines to the Buddha.

All of the inner surfaces of the caves, including the

ceilings, sculptures, walls, door frames, and pillars, were

painted in vivid colors. Perhaps best known are the wall

paintings, which illustrate the various lives and in-

carnations of the Buddha. Similar rock paintings focusing

COMPARATIVE ILLUSTRATION

Rock Arc hitectur e. Along with the caves at Ajanta, one of the greatest

examples of Indian rock architecture remains the eighth-century temple at Ellora,

in central India, shown on the left. Named after Shiva’s holy mountain in the

Himalayas, the temple is approximately the size of the Parthenon in Athens but was literally

carved out of a hillside. The builders dug nearly 100 feet straight down into the top of the

mountain to isolate a single block of rock, removing more than 3 mil lion cubic feet of stone

in the process. Unlike earlier rock-cut shrines, which had been constructed in the form of

caves, the Ellora temple is open to the sky and filled with some of India’s finest sculpture.

The overall impression is one of massive grandeur.

This form of architecture also found expression in parts of Africa. In 1200

C.E., Christian

monks in Ethiopia began to construct a remarkable series of eleven churches carved out of

solid volcanic rock (right). After a 40-foot trench was formed by removing the bedrock, the

central block of stone was hewed into the shape of a Greek cross; then it was hollowed out

and decorated. These churches, which are still in use today, testify to the fervor of Ethiopian

Christianity, which plays a major role in preserving the country’s cultural and national identity.

Wh y do you think some early cultures made fr equent use of rock architectur e, while

others did not? Why do you think the architectural form was discontinued?



William J. Duiker



Werner Forman/Art Resource, NY

SOCIETY AND CULTURE 223