Tracing Changes Through a Thousand Years: Sources and Periodisation of Medieval India

1.1 What do the two old maps show?

Take two maps of the same land. The first was drawn in 1154 CE by the Arab geographer Al-Idrisi. The second was drawn in the 1720s by a French mapmaker.

The two maps look very different. The place-names on the first are in Arabic. The second comes from the Atlas Nouveau of Guillaume de l’Isle.

1.2 Why do the maps differ so much?

Mapmaking was a different science in each age. The 1720s map was used by European sailors and merchants on their voyages.

So its coastal areas are surprisingly detailed. A sailor needed the coast most. The inland parts mattered less to him.

1.3 What is the lesson for a student of history?

Every source has a maker, and the maker had a purpose. The purpose shapes what the source shows and what it leaves out.

A historian must ask who made it, when, and for whom. Only then can the source be used well.

1.4 What period does this article cover?

It covers the thousand years from roughly 700 to 1750. Historians usually call this span medieval India.

The label is a convenience. Later cards show why it hides as much as it shows.

2.1 Is Hindustan the same as India today?

Today we use Hindustan for India, the modern nation. In the medieval period the word meant something else.

Its meaning changed with the writer. So a historian must ask who used the word, and when.

2.2 How was it used in the thirteenth century?

In the 13th century the word meant the areas of Punjab, Haryana and the lands between the Ganga and Yamuna.

He used it in a political sense. It meant the lands ruled from Delhi. The term never included south India.

2.3 How did Babur and Amir Khusrau use it?

In the early sixteenth century, Babur used Hindustan for the geography, the fauna and the culture of the inhabitants of the subcontinent.

This was close to how the fourteenth-century poet Amir Khusrau used the word Hind. Both meant a wide land and its people.

2.4 So did a nation called Hindustan exist?

The idea of a geographical and cultural land did exist. But the word did not carry the political and national meanings we give it today.

A reader must not push the modern meaning back into old texts.

Each writer used the word for a different stretch of land.

3.1 What kinds of evidence do historians use?

For these thousand years, historians still rely on coins, inscriptions, architecture and textual records.

But the number and variety of textual records increased dramatically during this period. Paper also gradually became cheaper.

3.2 Why is a hand-copied book a problem?

There was no printing press in those days, so scribes copied manuscripts by hand.

As scribes copied, they also introduced small changes: a word here, a sentence there. Over the centuries, copies of one text came to differ from each other.

3.3 Why did authors revise their chronicles?

Authors did not always stop at one version. On occasion they revised their chronicles at different times.

So two copies of a chronicle can differ. Historians must compare versions before they trust a detail.

3.4 Why does handwriting matter?

Handwriting could make Persian and Arabic hard to read. The nastaliq style is cursive and easy to read. The shikaste style is denser.

A historian needs skill with the script before reading the words.

Each kind of source answers a different kind of question.

4.1 Who was a foreigner in the past?

Today a foreigner is someone who is not an Indian. In the medieval period the word meant any stranger who appeared, say, in a given village.

The stranger was someone who was not a part of that society or culture.

4.2 Which old words carried that meaning?

Words for such a person were not about a country. They marked someone as an outsider.

Today the word carries a national meaning. Then it did not.

4.3 What does this mean in practice?

A city-dweller could call a forest-dweller a foreigner. The same would hold for two people from different villages.

So a medieval text that names a foreigner may not mean a person from another land at all.

4.4 Why should students care?

Exam questions often use modern words for old ideas. A careless reader may then make a wrong claim.

Check the meaning of each key word in its own time before you answer.

5.1 What new tools and crops arrived?

New technologies appeared at different times. They included the Persian wheel in irrigation and the spinning wheel in weaving.

New foods and drinks also reached the subcontinent: potatoes, corn, chillies, tea and coffee.

5.2 Did ideas travel with them?

Yes. These tools and crops came along with people, who brought other ideas with them as well.

That is why this was a period of economic, political, social and cultural change.

5.3 Who were the Rajputs?

The name comes from Rajaputra, the son of a ruler. Between the eighth and fourteenth centuries, it was used for a group of warriors who claimed Kshatriya caste status.

Their poets and bards praised their valour and loyalty. Kayasthas, a caste of scribes and secretaries, also gained political weight.

5.4 How did the land and the village change?

There was a gradual clearing of forests and the extension of agriculture. The change was faster in some areas than in others.

Each jati made rules for its members. These regulations were enforced by an assembly of elders, described in some areas as the jati panchayat.

A quick list of the main changes this card covers.

6.1 How many languages did Khusrau notice?

In 1318, the poet Amir Khusrau noted that there was a different language in every region of this land.

So every region had its own speech and its own culture. India was never one block of one kind.

6.2 Which states ruled many regions?

Some dynasties built an empire that was pan-regional, spanning diverse regions. Examples are the Cholas, Khaljis, Tughluqs and Mughals.

Not all these empires were equally stable or successful.

6.3 What happened when the Mughal Empire declined?

When the Mughal Empire declined in the eighteenth century, it led to the re-emergence of regional states.

Years of rule by big states had changed these regions. They kept shared habits in government, trade and culture.

6.4 What was the new faith of the age?

One major development was the idea of bhakti. It means a loving, personal deity that devotees could reach without the aid of priests or elaborate rituals.

Islam also spread. Many rulers were patrons of Islam and of learned theologians and jurists.

Use this list as a short revision sheet for the card.

7.1 How did British historians divide the past?

British historians divided the history of India into three periods: Hindu, Muslim and British. This scheme is traced to James Mill.

It rested on one idea. The religion of rulers was the only important historical change.

7.2 What was wrong with that scheme?

It ignored the rich diversity of the subcontinent. Few historians follow this periodisation today.

Most look to economic and social factors instead. These show change in farming, trade, towns and belief.

7.3 What did Romila Thapar argue?

Thapar saw the root of communal history in Mill’s scheme. It split Indian history into Hindu, Muslim and British phases.

A reviewer adds a fair point. Mill’s scheme took its form not because he was a communalist. Later writers exploited it to project a communal reading.

7.4 Is the word medieval also a problem?

Yes. Describing the entire period as one historical unit is not without its problems.

The word medieval is often set against modern. Modernity carries a sense of material progress and intellectual advancement. That seems to suggest that the medieval period was lacking in any change whatsoever.

But this thousand years was full of change, as the earlier cards showed.

The table sets the old scheme beside the view most historians hold.