Syllabus:
The Vijayanagara Empire - Polity; Krishnadevaraya; Agriculture; Segmentary State
European Accounts; Art and Culture ; Rise of Provincial Dynasties: Bengal, Bahmanids, Gujarat, Malwa; Kashmir (Zainul Abedin), Kalhan’s Rajtarangini
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Give an account of the polity and society of Vijayanagara empire under Krishnadevaraya. [1979, 60m] [2015, 10m]
Discuss the social dynamics in the Vijayanagara Empire. [2010, 20m]
The administration under the Vijayanagar Empire was well organized. The king enjoyed absolute authority in executive, judicial and legislative matters. He was the highest court of appeal. The succession to the throne was on the principle of hereditary. Sometimes usurpation to the throne took place as Saluva Narasimha came to power by ending the Sangama dynasty. The king was assisted by a council of ministers in his day to day administration. The Empire was divided into different administrative units called Mandalams, Nadus, sthalas and finally into gramas. The governor of Mandalam was called Mandaleswara or Nayak. Vijayanagar rulers gave full powers to the local authorities in the administration.
Besides land revenue, tributes and gifts from vassals and feudal chiefs, customs collected at the ports, taxes on various professions were other sources of income to the government. Land revenue was fixed generally one sixth of the produce. The expenditure of the government includes personal expenses of king and the charities given by him and military expenditure. In the matter of justice, harsh punishments such as mutilation and throwing to elephants were followed.
The Vijayanagar army was well-organized and efficient. It consisted of the cavalry, infantry, artillery and elephants. High-breed horses were procured from foreign traders. The top-grade officers of the army were known as Nayaks or Poligars. They were granted land in lieu of their services. These lands were called amaram. Soldiers were usually paid in cash.
Social Life:
Allasani Peddanna in his Manucharitam refers the existence of four castes – Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas and Sudras - in the Vijayanagar society. Foreign travelers left vivid accounts on the splendour of buildings and luxurious social life in the city of Vijayanagar. Silk and cotton clothes were mainly used for dress. Perfumes, flowers and ornaments were used by the people. Paes mentions of the beautiful houses of the rich and the large number of their household servants. Nicolo Conti refers to the prevalence of slavery. Dancing, music, wrestling, gambling and cock-fighting were some of the amusements. The Sangama rulers were chiefly Saivaites and Virupaksha was their family deity. But other dynasties were Vaishnavites. Srivaishnavism of Ramanuja was very popular. But all kings were tolerant towards other religions. Borbosa referred to the religious freedom enjoyed by everyone. Muslims were employed in the administration and they were freely allowed to build mosques and worship. A large number of temples were built during this period and numerous festivals were celebrated. The Epics and the Puranas were popular among the masses.
The position of women had not improved. However, some of them were learned. Gangadevi, wife of Kumarakampana authored the famous work Maduravijayam. Hannamma and Thirumalamma were famous poets of this period. According to Nuniz, a large number of women were employed in royal palaces as dancers, domestic servants and palanquin bearers. The attachment of dancing girls to temples was in practice. Paes refers to the flourishing devadasi system. Polygamy was prevalent among the royal families. Sati was honoured and Nuniz gives a description of it.
Economic Condition:
According to the accounts of the foreign travelers, the Vijayanagar Empire was one of the wealthiest parts of the world at that time. Agriculture continued to be the chief occupation of the people. The Vijayanagar rulers provided a stimulus to its further growth by providing irrigation facilities. New tanks were built and dams were constructed across the rivers like Tunghabadra. Nuniz refers to the excavation of canals.
There were numerous industries and they were organized into guilds. Metal workers and other craftsmen flourished during this period. Diamond mines were located in Kurnool and Anantapur district. Vijayanagar was also a great centre of trade. The chief gold coin was the varaha but weights and measures varied from place to place. Inland, coastal and overseas trade led to the general prosperity. There were a number of seaports on the Malabar coast, the chief being Cannanore. Commercial contacts with Arabia, Persia, South Africa and Portugal on the west and with Burma, Malay peninsula and China on the east flourished. The chief items of exports were cotton and silk clothes, spices, rice, iron, saltpeter and sugar. The imports consisted of horses, pearls, copper, coral, mercury, China silk and velvet clothes. The art of shipbuilding had developed.
To what extent is ‘Segmentary State’ model relevant for defining the Vijayanagar State? Critically examine. [2014, 20m]
Critiques of Centralization: Segmentary State [Burton Stein].
Vijayanagara state was not a centralized bureaucratic state like the Cholas or the Pandhya states. He applied the Segmentary state model and argued that the VN king exercised a ritual authority just like the Chole king. He derived this theory from Southhall’s anthropological studies, which had been applied to Africa. Thus the VN state was an important variant form of segmentary organization in which the chiefly office, nayaka was more formal and independent of the dominant landed groups of a locality. The term amaranayankaraencapsulates the rights of the nayaka for it signifies an office (kara) possessed by a military chief (nayaka) in command (amara) of a body of troops.
The view of Burton Stein has come under a lot of criticism
The first is that it is a conception model. It has been borrowed and cannot be applied to the Vijayanagara state.
There is not just ritual authority exercised by the king. There was a considerable increase in the power of the king from the Chola period. There was also an expansion in the scope and role of the state and king. Certain institutions like the Council of Ministers developed further.
Stein said that there is not much of a distinction between the provincial governors and the nayakas. Scholars like Shastri and Mahalingam emphasize the differences between the two. These differences are a) generally, the provincial governors were from the royal family, and were representatives of the royal family. The nayaks were military chieftains who enjoyed rights over land given to them.
The provincial governors were subject to transfer and dismissal, and were under greater control of the king as compared to the nayakas who enjoyed relatively more autonomy.
Write a short essay on: “Architecture of the Vijayanagara Empire.” [2000, 20m]
Discuss the development of art and culture under the Vijayanagar Empire. [1987, 60m]
“Art, literature and culture reached a high level of development in the Vijayanagar Empire.” Discuss. [1989, 60m]
The establishment of the powerful state of Vijayanagara Empire in 14th century filled the political vacuum in southern India and left a permanent impression in the fields of administration, culture, religion, art and architecture.
Architecture attained a certain fullness and freedom of expression during the Vijayanagara rule.
The Vijayanagara style of art and architecture was essentially opulent, ornate and exuberant.
Provida Style (New Architecture) | Monoliths- | Temples | ||||||
Included Constructions of Temples, Monolithic Sculptures, Palace, official buildings, Cities, irrigation works such as Step Wells, Tanks etc. Religious zeal of the kings was expressed in the constructions of new temples, renovation of old ones. Two main traditions of temple buildings, namely the Deccan and the Tamil, merged.
| Huge monolithic of Ganesh, Hanuman, Narasimha and stone chariot. Vijayanagara's advantage - abounds in granite and a dark green chlorite stone, both used extensively as building material. The use of monolithic multiple piers in the temple at Vijayanagara testify this fact.
| Harmonious blend of Hindu and Islamic architecture features and convergence of Nagara and Dravida forms of Temples. Virupaksha temple: most sacred and noted for its architectural values: 3 towered, 9 tiered temple with presiding deity Lord Shiva. Vittalaswamy, Hazara Ramaswamy and Balakrishna temples built by Krishna Deva Raya.
Many new elements: composite pillar, hundred-pillar hall, chariot-street. A fusion that took place at Vijayanagara, in which the southern elements came to be more dominant than the Deccan features. |
What light do inscriptions and accounts of European travelers throw on the antecedents and legacy of the administrative structure of the Vijayanagar Empire? [1994, 60m]
Nicolo Conti (1420-21) (Italian) | Abdur Razzaq (1443-44) | Duarte Barbosa (1500-16) | Ludovico di Varthema (1502-8) | Domingo Paes (1520-22) (A Portuguese) | Fernao Nuniz (1535-37) (A Portuguese horse dealer.) |
Earliest European visitor Reign of Devaraya I. His original travel account in Latin is lost. Vivid account of the city, its court, customs, currency, festivals, fortification. | A Persian (Shah Rukh's ambassador to Zamorin of Calicut) Reign of Devaraya II. Size and grandeur of the city: “The city is such that eyes has not seen nor ears heard of any place that has seven fortified walls, one within the other.” | Interpreter of Francisco Albuquerque, the Portuguese governor in India. Final touches (after return to Portugal) to his account which included a full description of Vijayanagara. | A soldier, traveller. His voluminous travel account, The Itinerary of Ludovico di Varthema, provides a detailed account of Goa and Calicut and other ports on the west coast. | Eyewitness account -reign Krishnadevaraya. “as large as Rome, and very beautiful to sight, the best provided city in the world… Vijayanagar”. Hampi bazaar: fine example of street architecture. (Markets, Palace, Brothels etc.) | Wrote the Chronicle of Fenaas - foundation to the closing years of the reign of Achyuta deva Raya. Robert Sewell has translated, compiled and edited the accounts of Paes and Nuniz in his famous work, ‘A Forgotten Empire’. Caesar Fredrick (1567-68) - A Portuguese who visited the empire of Vijayanagara after the battle of Tailkota (1565) and comments on the ruined splendour of the imperial city. |
Raichur
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Kurnool
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Discuss the origin of the Vijayanagara Kingdom. Do you agree with the view that Krishnadevaraya was an ideal ruler of this dynasty? [1980, 60m]
Do you think that the reign of Krishnadevaraya inaugurated a new epoch in the history of Vijayanagar? [1983, 20m]
The period of Krishnadevaraya was considered as the golden age of the Vijayanagar history. He was a great warrior, statesman, administrator and a patron of arts. His first task was to repulse the Bahmanis. He occupied Raichur doab, carried the war up to Gulbarga and returned successfully. He extended his dominion in the east and north-east by defeating the Gajapatis of Orissa in A.D.1518.
Particularly, the reign of Krishnadevaraya marked a new era in the literary history of south India.
He was himself a scholar and authored Amuktamalyada, a celebrated Telugu work. His court known as Bhuvanavijayam, was adorned by such eminent poets like Allasani Peddana, Nandi Timmana, Dhurjati, Tenali Ramakrishna, Mallana, Ramarajabhushana, Pingali Surana and Rudra, known as Ashtadiggajas. The greatest of them was Allasani Peddana whose famous work Manucharitra heralded the eminence of the native genius of Telugus.
Telugu language and literature was given a preferential treatment and Telugu was treated as official language of the empire. Simultaneously, Sanskrit and other languages were encouraged by the Vijayanagar rulers.
On the basis of contemporary sources evaluate the system of agriculture and irrigation of the Vijayanagar kingdom. [2013, 15m]
Domingo Paes, a Portuguese who visited the Vijayanagar Empire around 1520 AD, extolled the ingenuity of monarch Krishna Deva Raya to provide irrigation and water supply to the newly-founded city of Nagalapura (Hospet).
Krishna Deva Raya (1509-1530), the greatest of Vijayanagar&’s rulers, once pointed out that the prosperity of a country primarily depends on the extensive construction of tanks and irrigation canals as well as showing leniency to poor cultivators in the matters of taxation and services, and only secondarily, it depends on the extension of the empire.
In 1369 AD, Bhaskara Bavadura, a prince of the first Vijayanagar dynasty, constructed a huge tank comprising many sluices in modern Kadapa district of Andhra Pradesh by employing a thousand men and one hundred carts to carry stones for the walls. It took almost two years to complete and the same is still in a fairly good condition despite negligence and continues to be used. During the reign of Bukka Raya II (1505-1506), one hydraulic engineer, Singuya Bhatta, carried water from the river Henne by digging a channel to the Siruvera tank in Penugonia, and christened it Pratapa Bukka Raya Madala channel. In 1489, Saluva Narasimha (1486-1489) converted a valley in Anantapur district into a tank, named Narasambudhi. Similarly under the orders of Achyuta Deva Raya (1530-1542), a huge tank was formed channelling waters from the river Arkkavati, which is still utilised as a source of water supply to the city of Bangalore.
The construction of the abovementioned water tank by Krishana Deva Raya was helped by one Joao della Ponte, a Portuguese worker in stones, who helped build a bank across the middle of the valley and many sluices and pipes for letting out water when required. This was indeed a great irrigation work, which catered to a huge area of rice fields and gardens. Almost for nine years, people were allowed to irrigate their fields with its waters for free.
Repair and maintenance of existing irrigation works was given immense importance by the Vijayanagar kings, which is testified by an inscription of 1413 — “A ruined family, a breached tank or pond, a fallen kingdom, whomsoever restores, or repairs a damaged temple, acquires merit four-fold of that which is accrued from them at first.”
Bahmani
Write a short essay on: “The Bahmani Kingdom” [2005, 20m] [2007, 20m]
Discuss the state of society and economy of the Bahmani kingdom as gleaned from historical sources. [2013, 10m][NIKITIN].
Society of Bahmani Kingdom: | Economy of Bahmani Kingdom: |
Cosmopolitan in character. [Muslims, Hindus, Iranians, Transoxonians, Iraqis, and the Abyssinians (Habshis); The Portuguese -16th C] Heterogeneous [Persian, Marathi, Dakhni (proto-Urdu), Kannada and Telugu languages] Mutual rivalry - 2 groups of Muslim society - 1. original inhabitants and 2. coming from Africa, Arabia, Persia, Turkey. Purdah was common and divorce easy. Polygamy (wide) among the upper classes. Harmony among different sects and religions. (Sultan Feroz's (1397-1422) marriage with daughter of royal family of Vijayanagara) During the urs celebrations the Jangam (the head of Lingayats of Madhyal in Gulbarga district) perform in typical Hindu fashion - conch blowing, flower offerings, etc. Interesting - Jangam wore Muslim apparel with the usual cap. | Agriculture was the main occupation of the people. Muhammad Gawan introduced the system of measurement of land and fixing the boundaries of the villages and towns [forerunner of Raja Todar Mal]
Curbed the corruption of the nobles to the minimum, thereby, increasing the state income. Important industries in the Bahmani Kingdom were molasses making industry, metal industry, oil processing, weaving, leather works, weapon making, etc. Ornaments of gold and diamonds were made in large quantity. Golkonda and Bijapur were known for foreign trade. |
Athanasius Nikitin (1470-74). | Russian horse merchant who spent some years in the Deccan and travelled in the Bahmani kingdom. He resided in Bidar |
There were poor, and the nobles who were "extremely opulent". Nobles were carried on their silver beds, preceded by twenty horses caparisoned in gold and followed by 300 men on horseback and 500 on foot along with 10 torchbearers Grandeur of the Bahmani Wazir Muhammad Gawan: Everyday along with him 500 men used to dine. 100 armed personnel kept vigilance round the clock. In contrast, the general population was poor. Life of the upper classes, both Hindus and Muslims, was very luxurious (beautiful houses, lavish dress and ornaments. The shoes of upper class officials were decorated with rubies and diamonds. Though Nikitin mentions only two classes, there was yet another class - the merchants (so-called middle class). | Horses, clothes, silk and pepper were chief items of merchandise. At Shikh Baluda, Peratyr and Aladimand Bazaar, people assembled in large numbers where trade continued for 10 days. Mentions Bahmani seaport Mustafabad. Dabul as a centre for brisk commercial activity. Dabul was well connected with not only the Indian but also African ports. Horses were imported from Arabia, Khurasan and Turkistan. Trade and commerce was mostly in the hands of Muslim Merchants. Musk and Fur were imported from China. |
The rulers of Deccani Muslim states were great patrons of culture, and followed a broad policy of toleration which helped to promote a composite culture. Discuss.
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South India in General
Nicolo Manucci (1653-1708). He was an Italian, who ran away from his hometown Venice at the age of 14 and after long travel Asia Minor and Persia, reached India and secured emolument as an artillery man in the Army of Prince Dara Shikoh. After the defeat and death of Dara Shikoh in 1659, he adopted the profession of a medical practitioner. His long stay in India from 1653 to 1708 placed him in a position to appreciate things better than any other European could do. His long memoirs entitled Storio Dor Mogor, which run into four large volumes are full of his personal observations. He has also recorded valuable information on the industrial markets of South India and Hindustan. On seventeenth-century India, Manucci is one of the best possible sources and has rightly been called a “mirror of seventeenth-century India”.
Kashmir
Write a short essay on: “Kalhan as a historian” [2003, 20m]
Assess Kalhana’s views on History. [2009, 20m]
Evaluate Rajtarangini as a source of history. [2012, 10m]
Assess Kalhana’s views on History:
Kalhana was the son of Kalpaka, a minister of king Harsha of Kashmir who was deposed and killed in 1101. Kalhana composed the Rajatarangini, when Jayasinha was ruling in Kashmir.
Kalhana composed a chronicle of the kings of Kashmir in Sanskrit. It is known as Rajatarangini. Rajatarangini is a history of Kashmir up to the twelfth century.
The Rajatarangini, a poetic work, consists of 8 books of unequal strength. It has approximately 8,000 highly polished Sanskrit verses.
GUJARAT, MALWA
Assess the Lekhapaddhati as an important source for evaluating the society and economy of the thirteenth century CE with special reference to Gujarat. [2013, 15m]
Ranabir Chakravarti, in his Trade and Traders in Early Indian Society (2002), also strongly argues against the perception of declining trade in India during 600-1000 CE and demonstrates the linkages of trade at the locality level during this period.
His study is based on 13 epigraphic records of 8th -12th centuries CE inscriptions from different parts of north India, particularly Gujarat and Rajasthan, as well as Lekhapaddhati texts of 13th-14th centuries CE from Gujarat.
He stresses on the importance of mandapika in the trade circuit of early medieval India.
The mandapika, according to him, was a centre for exchange and collection of levies, commercial tolls and duties.
The Lekhapaddhati contain recommendations related to the imposition of commercial cesses on the mandapikas.
He shows that some mandapika appear to have been situated at major urban centres like Siyadoni, Balhari and Anhilwada where they were described as pattanamandapikas.
At other sites, besides these three, the mandapika served as local-level exchange centres, closely associated with their adjacent rural hinterland.
According to him, in the commercial structure and hierarchy of exchange centres, the mandapika might have been assigned a position intermediate between small, rural periodic markets (haat) and developed urban centres involved in inter- and intra-regional trade.
Large number of commodities were brought for transactions and levied at the mandapika of the city.
Many references to vithis or shops points out that this mandapika was a centre of retail and wholesale trade as well.
He opines that it was agricultural expansion that created agrarian surplus which, in turn, helped in city formation.
This led to a greater concentration of population in some villages, thereby transformed them into smaller towns.
Lekhapaddhati
The centre of these activities was the mandapika, a term used for a pavilion (derived from the word mandi in Hindi.
There was an emergence of markets and merchants - weekly haat and rural fairs that became nodal exchange centres, as also a revival of long-distance trade.
This phase of urbanization happened due to agrarian expansion and increased craft production which went beyond the confines of temples or monasteries.
There also emerged several grades of traders, such as purasreshthi and rajasreshthi, while merchants, such as vanik, sarthavaha and sresthi (chief merchant of the nigama), continued to operate.
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