The Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries — UPSC History Optional Notes

1. Background: why regional states arose

Weakening of Delhi: Revolts under Muhammad bin Tughluq, the hereditary iqtas of Firuz Shah and succession disputes after 1388 loosened Delhi's control over distant provinces.

Timur's invasion (1398): Timur sacked Delhi in December 1398; the Tughluqs never recovered, and governors in the provinces became independent rulers.

Earlier breakaways: Bengal had become independent by the 1330s–40s and the Bahmanis in the Deccan in 1347, both under Muhammad bin Tughluq.

Other states: Besides those below, the Sharqis of Jaunpur (from 1394), the Rajput kingdom of Mewar under Rana Kumbha (1433–68) and the Gajapatis of Odisha were major powers.

2. Bengal

Ilyas Shahi dynasty: Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah united Lakhnauti, Satgaon and Sonargaon by c. 1352 and resisted Firuz Shah Tughluq, who besieged him at Ekdala (1353–54) but had to withdraw.

Sikandar Shah (1358–90): He repulsed Firuz's second invasion and built the vast Adina mosque at Pandua (1374–75).

Ghiyasuddin Azam Shah: Known for justice and learning; he exchanged embassies with Ming China and is said to have corresponded with the Persian poet Hafiz.

Raja Ganesh: A Hindu landholder who seized power in the 1410s; his son ruled as Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah after converting to Islam.

Later Ilyas Shahis and Habshis: The Ilyas Shahis were restored in the 1430s; Abyssinian (Habshi) palace guards held power from 1487 to 1493.

Hussain Shahi dynasty: Alauddin Hussain Shah (1493–1519) restored order, appointed Hindus to high office and patronised Bengali literature; Chaitanya lived in his reign; Nusrat Shah (1519–32) continued this patronage.

End: Sher Shah took Gaur in 1538, and Bengal passed to the Surs and later the Mughals.

3. Kashmir

Shah Mir dynasty (from 1339): Shah Mir, a minister of the last Hindu ruler, took the throne as Shamsuddin; Sufis led by Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani and his son Mir Muhammad Hamadani spread Islam in the valley.

Sultan Sikandar (1389–1413): Called But-shikan (idol-breaker) in later tradition; under his minister Suha Bhatta temples were destroyed, Brahmanas persecuted and jizya imposed, according to Jonaraja.

Zain-ul-Abidin (1420–70): Remembered as Budshah (the great king); he abolished jizya, allowed Brahmanas who had fled to return, permitted rebuilding of temples and restored grants, according to Jonaraja and Srivara.

His patronage: He had the Mahabharata and Kalhana's Rajatarangini translated into Persian and the Persian works into Sanskrit; he knew Persian, Kashmiri, Sanskrit and Tibetan.

Public works: Canals, bridges (Zaina Kadal in Srinagar) and the island of Zaina Lank in the Wular lake; tradition credits him with fostering crafts such as paper-making, bookbinding and shawl-weaving with craftsmen from Central Asia.

Later period: After him the Shah Miris weakened; the Chaks took power in the 16th century, and Akbar annexed Kashmir in 1586.

4. Gujarat

Foundation: Zafar Khan, Tughluq governor, declared independence as Muzaffar Shah (c. 1407).

Ahmad Shah I (1411–42): He founded Ahmedabad (1411) on the Sabarmati and built its Jami Masjid (1424); he brought Rajput chiefs under control and appointed Hindus to some posts.

Mahmud Begarha (1458–1511): The greatest ruler; he took Junagadh (Girnar) and Champaner (1484), which he renamed Muhammadabad; the name Begarha is explained either as 'conqueror of two forts' or by his moustaches curved like a cow's horns.

Naval conflict: Allied with the Mamluks of Egypt and the Zamorin, Gujarat's fleet under Malik Ayaz defeated the Portuguese at Chaul (1508) but lost at Diu (February 1509).

Travellers: Varthema and Duarte Barbosa describe Mahmud Begarha; Varthema's tale that he lived on poison is a legend.

Bahadur Shah (1526–37): He annexed Malwa (1531) and sacked Chittor (1535) but was defeated by Humayun (1535); he allowed the Portuguese to build a fort at Diu and was killed in a scuffle with them in 1537.

End: Akbar conquered Gujarat in 1572–73.

5. Malwa

Ghuri dynasty: Dilawar Khan Ghuri, Tughluq governor, became independent c. 1401; his son Hoshang Shah (1406–35) made Mandu the capital.

Hoshang Shah: He encouraged trade, welcomed Hindus and Jains, and his marble tomb at Mandu is one of the finest buildings of Malwa.

Khalji dynasty of Malwa: Mahmud Khalji (1436–69) seized power, fought Gujarat, the Bahmanis and Rana Kumbha of Mewar; both Kumbha and Mahmud claimed victory, Kumbha raising the Vijay Stambh at Chittor and Mahmud a victory tower at Mandu.

Ghiyasuddin Khalji (1469–1500): A peaceful reign remembered for his large harem and the illustrated cookbook Nimatnama, prepared under him and his successor.

End: Bahadur Shah of Gujarat annexed Malwa (1531); later Baz Bahadur ruled until Akbar's conquest (1561–62).

6. Sources and evidence

Kashmir: Jonaraja's Rajatarangini (continuation of Kalhana to Zain-ul-Abidin's time) and Srivara's Jaina Rajatarangini; Mirza Haidar Dughlat's Tarikh-i-Rashidi (16th c.).

Gujarat: Sikandar bin Manjhu's Mirat-i-Sikandari (1611); Portuguese accounts and Varthema and Barbosa.

Bengal: Coins and inscriptions are central because few chronicles survive; Chinese records (Ma Huan, 1430s) and Bengali literature.

General: Ferishta's Tarikh-i-Ferishta (early 17th c.) and Nizamuddin Ahmad's Tabaqat-i-Akbari (1590s) give histories of all the regional kingdoms.

7. Analysis

Regional rootedness: These states relied on local elites, Hindu officials and chiefs, local languages and regional trade, unlike the Delhi Sultanate's foreign-based nobility.

Economic base: Gujarat's maritime trade, Bengal's rice, textiles and ports, and Malwa's position on trade routes gave them wealth.

Culture: Each developed a provincial architectural style and patronised regional literature, laying the base of later regional identities.

Instability: Frequent wars among themselves (Gujarat–Malwa, Malwa–Mewar) and succession struggles made them vulnerable to the Mughals.

8. Historiography and debates

Decline view: Older histories treated the 15th century as a 'dark age' of fragmentation between two empires.

Regional view: Francesca Orsini and Samira Sheikh, eds., After Timur Left (2014), show the 15th century as a time of cultural creativity and circulation; Samira Sheikh's Forging a Region (2010) traces Gujarat's formation through sultans, traders and pilgrims.

Bengal: Richard Eaton's The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier (1993) explains the Bengal sultanate's Bengali cultural patronage and the spread of Islam with land clearing.

Kashmir: Mohibbul Hasan's Kashmir under the Sultans (1959) is the standard work; Zain-ul-Abidin is usually compared with Akbar as a tolerant ruler.

9. Using it in the exam

10 marks: For 'Zain-ul-Abidin', give dates, religious policy, translations, public works and the sources (Jonaraja, Srivara).

15 marks: For 'Mahmud Begarha' or 'Hussain Shah', cover conquests, administration, culture and links with the Portuguese or Bengali literature.

20 marks: For 'rise of provincial kingdoms', explain causes, survey the states briefly, and assess whether the century was one of decline or regional growth.

Keywords: Timur 1398, regional sultanates, Budshah, Mirat-i-Sikandari, Mandu, Ilyas Shahi, Hussain Shahi, Battle of Diu 1509.

1. The Bahmani kingdom (1347–1527)

Foundation: The amiran-i-sada (commanders of a hundred villages) of the Deccan revolted against Muhammad bin Tughluq; Alauddin Hasan Bahman Shah (Hasan Gangu) was crowned in 1347 with his capital at Gulbarga.

Firuz Shah Bahmani (1397–1422): A learned ruler who built an observatory near Daulatabad, inducted Hindus into the administration and, according to Ferishta, married a daughter of Deva Raya I after a war.

Ahmad Shah I Wali (1422–36): Shifted the capital to Bidar (c. 1425–29); he turned from the Chishti saint Gesudaraz to the Nimatullahi Sufis of Iran.

Mahmud Gawan: A Persian merchant who became chief minister (peshwa or wakil-us-saltanat) in the 1460s–70s; he conquered Goa and the coastal Konkan from Vijayanagara and campaigned in the eastern Telugu coastal region (Rajahmundry, Kondavidu).

Gawan's reforms: He divided the four provinces (tarafs) into eight, kept some land in each as khalisa (crown land), cut the governors' military powers, began measuring land for revenue and built a great madrasa at Bidar (1472).

Deccanis and Afaqis: Nobles split into Deccanis (local Muslims and Habshis) and Afaqis or gharibs (newcomers from Iran and Central Asia); Gawan, an Afaqi, was executed in 1481 on forged charges, after which the kingdom broke up.

Five successor sultanates: Bijapur (Adil Shahi, 1489–90), Ahmadnagar (Nizam Shahi, 1490), Berar (Imad Shahi, 1490), Golconda (Qutb Shahi, 1518) and Bidar (Barid Shahi, c. 1527).

Culture: Persian court culture, Dakhni language, the Jami Masjid at Gulbarga (1367) with its covered courtyard, Bidar's madrasa with glazed tiles, and the Chand Minar at Daulatabad (1435).

2. Vijayanagara: foundation and dynasties

Foundation (1336): Harihara and Bukka of the Sangama family founded the kingdom on the Tungabhadra; tradition links the foundation with the sage Vidyaranya of Sringeri.

Origin debate: One view holds that they were Telugu officers of the Kakatiyas, taken to Delhi and converted, who returned and reverted to Hinduism; another makes them Kannada feudatories of the Hoysalas; the evidence is mostly later and contested.

Sangama dynasty (1336–1485): Bukka I conquered the Madurai sultanate through his son Kumara Kampana (c. 1370s), celebrated in Gangadevi's Madhuravijayam.

Deva Raya II (1424–46): Recruited Muslim cavalry and archers, granted them land and built a mosque for them in the capital; Abdur Razzaq, envoy of the Timurid ruler Shahrukh, visited in 1443.

Saluva (1485–1505) and Tuluva (1505–70): Generals Saluva Narasimha and then Narasa Nayaka took power when the Sangamas weakened.

Krishnadeva Raya (1509–29): Took Raichur from Bijapur (1520), defeated the Gajapatis of Odisha, kept friendly relations with the Portuguese for horses and wrote the Telugu poem Amuktamalyada, which includes advice on statecraft.

Rama Raya and Talikota (1565): Rama Raya, regent for Sadashiva, played the Deccan sultans against one another; Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Golconda and Bidar united and defeated him at Talikota (Rakshasa-Tangadi) in January 1565, and the city was sacked.

Aravidu dynasty: The empire survived from Penukonda and Chandragiri into the 17th century.

3. Administration and economy of Vijayanagara

King: The king (raya) was supreme; the Amuktamalyada advises him to rule for his subjects' welfare and develop ports and tanks.

Nayankara system: Military chiefs (amara-nayakas) received territories (amaram) in return for keeping troops for the king and paying tribute; Nuniz says the king gave the lands to captains who kept fixed numbers of horse and foot.

Forts and Brahmanas: Important forts were placed under Brahmana commanders, a feature noted by Nuniz.

Villages: Village servants (ayagars) were paid with land or a share of the harvest; Tamil and Kannada inscriptions record village assemblies, though their role declined.

Temples: Temples were large landholders, bankers and employers; royal grants to temples tied local elites to the king.

Trade: Horses from Arabia and Persia were vital for the army; ports on the west coast and contact with the Portuguese supplied them; Paes describes the capital's bazaars full of jewels and goods.

Military: Large armies with cavalry, war elephants and, by the 16th century, firearms; the Raichur doab wars with the Bahmanis were constant.

4. Sources and evidence

Foreign travellers: Nicolo de Conti (c. 1420), Abdur Razzaq (1443), Afanasy Nikitin (in the Bahmani kingdom, c. 1469–72), Domingo Paes (c. 1520–22) and Fernao Nuniz (c. 1535), Duarte Barbosa.

Persian chronicles: Ferishta's Tarikh-i-Ferishta (early 17th c.) and Sayyid Ali Tabatabai's Burhan-i-Maasir (1590s) on the Bahmanis; Mahmud Gawan's letters (Riyaz-ul-Insha).

Indian texts and inscriptions: Thousands of Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Sanskrit inscriptions; the Madhuravijayam and the Amuktamalyada.

Archaeology: The site of Hampi (UNESCO World Heritage Site, 1986), documented by the Vijayanagara Research Project of John Fritz and George Michell from the 1980s, shows the royal centre and sacred centre of the city.

5. Analysis

Rivalry: The wars over the Raichur doab and the coastal ports were driven by control of fertile land, trade and horses more than by religion; both sides employed soldiers of the other faith.

Shared culture: Vijayanagara kings adopted Islamicate court dress and the title Hindu-raya-suratrana ('Sultan among Hindu kings'), and buildings such as the Lotus Mahal use arches and domes.

Decline of the Bahmanis: Factional strife, overmighty governors and the death of Gawan caused the break-up.

Talikota: The defeat ended Vijayanagara's capital but not the state; the nayakas of Madurai, Thanjavur and Ikkeri became virtually independent.

6. Historiography and debates

Hindu bulwark: Robert Sewell's A Forgotten Empire (1900) and many nationalist historians saw Vijayanagara as a Hindu bulwark against Islam.

Centralised state: K.A. Nilakanta Sastri described a strong, centralised empire, a view later qualified.

Segmentary state: Burton Stein (Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India, 1980; Vijayanagara, 1989) applied the segmentary state model, with ritual sovereignty at the centre and real power with local chiefs.

Feudal or nayaka state: Noboru Karashima, using inscriptions, saw the nayaka system as close to feudalism; others stress its military-fiscal character.

Islamicate culture: Phillip Wagoner, in 'Sultan among Hindu Kings' (1996), shows how Vijayanagara elites adopted Islamicate dress and court styles, rejecting the 'bulwark' thesis.

Bahmanis: H.K. Sherwani's The Bahmanis of the Deccan (1953) and Richard Eaton's A Social History of the Deccan, 1300–1761 (2005), which uses lives such as Gawan's to explain Deccani politics.

7. Using it in the exam

10 marks: For 'Mahmud Gawan', give career, reforms, the Deccani–Afaqi conflict and his significance.

15 marks: For 'nayankara system', explain amaram, military obligations, tribute, the role of Brahmana forts and the historians' debate.

20 marks: For 'nature of the Vijayanagara state', compare Sewell, Nilakanta Sastri, Stein, Karashima and Wagoner, using travellers' evidence.

Keywords: Raichur doab, tarafs, khalisa, Afaqi, amara-nayaka, ayagar, segmentary state, Hindu-raya-suratrana, Talikota 1565.

Source line: Paes describes the city of Vijayanagara as being as large as Rome and very beautiful to the sight, with a great many groves and waters (a paraphrase).

1. The Sayyids (1414–51)

Khizr Khan: Timur's governor of Multan took Delhi in 1414; he ruled as a deputy of Timur's successor Shahrukh rather than taking the title of Sultan.

Weakness: The Sayyids controlled little beyond Delhi and its neighbourhood; Yahya Sirhindi's Tarikh-i-Mubarak Shahi is the main source for them.

2. The Lodis (1451–1526)

Bahlul Lodi (1451–89): An Afghan governor of Sirhind who took Delhi in 1451; he treated Afghan nobles as partners, and later Afghan chronicles say he would not sit on a throne in their presence but on a carpet with them.

Conquest of Jaunpur: After long wars with the Sharqis, Bahlul annexed Jaunpur (1479) and expelled Husain Shah Sharqi.

Afghan settlement: He invited Afghans from Roh (the Afghan homeland) with promises of land, building a tribal base for the dynasty.

Sikandar Lodi (1489–1517): The ablest Lodi; he audited the accounts of nobles, reorganised the espionage system and annexed Bihar.

Agra: He founded Agra as a new capital in c. 1504–06 to control the chiefs of the area of Gwalior and Dholpur.

Gaz-i-Sikandari: His measuring yard (gaz) remained the standard for land measurement until Akbar replaced it with the gaz-i-Ilahi.

Culture and religion: He wrote Persian verse under the pen-name Gulrukhi and encouraged Sanskrit works to be translated into Persian; he was also orthodox, destroying temples at Mathura and Narwar, and chroniclers record his execution of a Brahmana named Bodhan who said both faiths were true.

Ibrahim Lodi (1517–26): Tried to rule as an absolute monarch, humiliated and executed senior nobles, and drove Daulat Khan Lodi, governor of Punjab, and others to invite Babur.

3. Babur (1526–30)

Background: Born in 1483 in Ferghana, a Timurid on his father's side and a descendant of Chingiz Khan on his mother's; he lost Samarqand to the Uzbek Shaibani Khan, took Kabul in 1504 and assumed the title padshah in 1507.

Turn to India: Unable to recover Central Asia, he led raids into India from 1519; the invitation from Daulat Khan Lodi and Rana Sanga's supposed offer gave him an opening.

First Battle of Panipat (21 April 1526): With perhaps 12,000 men against a much larger force, he used the tulughma (flanking parties that wheeled round the enemy), the araba (carts tied together as a barrier) and artillery and matchlocks under Ustad Ali Quli and Mustafa; Ibrahim Lodi was killed.

Khanwa (March 1527): Against Rana Sanga of Mewar and his Rajput and Afghan allies, Babur declared jihad, broke his wine cups, abolished the tamgha (customs duty) on Muslims and took the title ghazi after victory.

Chanderi (1528): He took the fort of Medini Rai, and the Rajput defenders performed jauhar.

Ghaghra (1529): He defeated the Afghans of Bihar and Bengal under Mahmud Lodi near the Ghaghra river.

Death: Babur died at Agra in December 1530; he had begun laying out gardens (char bagh) and roads with stages.

View of Hindustan: In the Baburnama he complains that Hindustan had no good horses, grapes, musk-melons, ice, baths or colleges, but praises its vast numbers of workmen of every kind and its plentiful gold and silver (a paraphrase).

4. Humayun (1530–40; 1555–56)

Inheritance: He inherited a newly conquered, poorly consolidated empire; following Timurid custom his brothers received shares, Kamran taking Kabul and the Punjab.

Gujarat: He defeated Bahadur Shah of Gujarat and took Mandu and Champaner (1535) but lost Gujarat soon after.

Sher Khan: While Humayun spent months in Gaur, Sher Khan cut his communications; Humayun was defeated at Chausa (June 1539) and at Kanauj or Bilgram (May 1540).

Exile: He wandered through Sind, where Akbar was born at Amarkot (1542), and found refuge with Shah Tahmasp of Persia (1544).

Recovery: With Persian help he took Kandahar and Kabul (1545), defeated the Surs at Machhiwara and Sirhind and re-entered Delhi in July 1555.

Death: He died in January 1556 after falling from the stairs of his library, the Sher Mandal in Delhi's Purana Qila.

5. Sources and evidence

Baburnama: Babur's memoirs in Chaghatai Turkish (Tuzuk-i-Baburi), a frank account of battles, nature and people, later translated into Persian under Akbar.

Humayun: Gulbadan Begum's Humayun-nama, Jauhar Aftabchi's Tazkirat-ul-Waqiat, Bayazid Bayat's memoirs, and Abul Fazl's Akbarnama.

Lodis: Afghan histories of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, such as Rizqullah Mushtaqi's Waqiat-i-Mushtaqi, Ahmad Yadgar's Tarikh-i-Shahi and Niamatullah's Makhzan-i-Afghani; they idealise the Afghans and must be used carefully.

6. Analysis

Nature of the Lodi state: Afghan kingship rested on tribal solidarity and partnership with clan chiefs; Sikandar's attempt at centralisation and Ibrahim's absolutism clashed with this ideal.

Reasons for Babur's victory: Better generalship, cavalry tactics with the tulughma, firearms used with field defences, Lodi disunity and Rajput–Afghan failure to combine early.

Humayun's failures: Division of resources with brothers, lack of a settled administration, delay in confronting Sher Khan, and Sher Khan's superior skill; personal failings such as indecision are also stressed by some historians.

Significance: Panipat did not create an empire at once; consolidation came only under Akbar, but the Timurid claim to rule Hindustan was established.

7. Historiography and debates

Afghan kingship: R.P. Tripathi (Some Aspects of Muslim Administration, 1936) and Iqtidar Husain Siddiqui (Some Aspects of Afghan Despotism in India, 1969) discuss whether the Lodi state was tribal or despotic; Siddiqui shows strong central control under Sikandar.

Gunpowder: Iqtidar Alam Khan's Gunpowder and Firearms: Warfare in Medieval India (2004) shows that firearms were known in India before Babur, in the Deccan and Gujarat, and that Babur's real advantage lay in combining them with field defences and mobile cavalry.

Gunpowder empires: Marshall Hodgson and William McNeill grouped the Mughals with the Ottomans and Safavids as 'gunpowder empires', a label now criticised as over-simple.

Babur: Stephen Dale's The Garden of the Eight Paradises (2004) studies Babur as a Timurid poet-king and reads the Baburnama as literature.

8. Using it in the exam

10 marks: For 'Sikandar Lodi' or 'Battle of Khanwa', give dates, actions and significance, with one source.

15 marks: For 'causes of Babur's success', combine military technology and tactics with the political weakness of his rivals and the debate on gunpowder.

20 marks: For 'Humayun's failure', balance structural causes (Timurid division, Afghan resurgence) and personal ones, then explain his recovery.

Keywords: Afghan polity, gaz-i-Sikandari, tulughma, araba, Rumi method, jihad and ghazi at Khanwa, Chausa, Kanauj, Baburnama.

1. Rise to power

Early life: Farid, son of Hasan Sur, a jagirdar of Sasaram in Bihar; his date of birth is uncertain (c. 1472 or c. 1486 in different accounts).

Pargana manager: He managed his father's parganas of Sasaram and Khawaspur, where, according to Abbas Khan Sarwani, he learned to protect peasants and control the village headmen.

Title Sher Khan: He received the title from Bahar Khan Lohani of Bihar, traditionally for killing a tiger; he became regent of Bihar and gained the fort of Chunar by marriage.

Against the Mughals: He took advantage of Humayun's campaigns in Gujarat and Bengal, defeated him at Chausa (June 1539), took the title Sher Shah, and defeated him again at Kanauj (May 1540).

Conquests: Punjab, Malwa (1542), Raisen (1543), Multan and Sind; at Samel (Giri-Sumel, 1544) he defeated Maldeo of Marwar with difficulty, and the remark that he had nearly lost the empire of Hindustan for a handful of millet (bajra) is attributed to him.

Death: He died at the siege of Kalinjar in May 1545 when a gunpowder explosion wounded him; his son Islam Shah (1545–53) ruled ably, but the Sur state collapsed after him.

2. Central and provincial administration

Ruler at the centre: Sher Shah kept power in his own hands and worked long hours; ministries resembled those of the Sultanate (diwan-i-wizarat, diwan-i-ariz, diwan-i-rasalat, diwan-i-insha).

Sarkar: The empire was divided into sarkars, each with a shiqdar-i-shiqdaran (military head and keeper of order) and a munsif-i-munsifan (civil and judicial head and revenue supervisor).

Pargana: Each sarkar had parganas with a shiqdar (law and order), an amin or munsif (revenue assessment), a fotedar (treasurer) and two karkuns (writers, one for Persian and one for Hindi accounts).

Village: The muqaddam and patwari continued; village headmen were made collectively responsible for crimes and thefts in their area.

Transfers: Officials were regularly transferred, according to Abbas Khan every two or three years, to prevent local entrenchment.

3. Land revenue system

Measurement (zabt): Cultivated land was measured using the gaz-i-Sikandari and a rope; Todar Mal, later Akbar's revenue minister, served under Sher Shah.

Rai: A schedule of crop rates was prepared for each crop on three grades of land (good, middling and poor); the average produce was calculated and the state took one-third.

Cash or kind: The share was fixed in kind and could be paid in cash at market prices; the cultivator had some choice.

Patta and qabuliyat: Each peasant received a patta stating the land and revenue due and signed a qabuliyat (deed of acceptance) agreeing to pay.

Cesses: Jaribana (surveyor's fee) and muhassilana (collector's fee) were charged at fixed rates; a small cess was kept for famine relief.

Concern for peasants: Abbas Khan reports orders that soldiers should not damage crops on the march and that compensation should be paid for damage.

Limits: The system was applied mainly in the core areas of north India; in some regions older forms of assessment such as crop-sharing continued.

4. Currency, roads and trade

Rupiya: He issued a silver coin of about 178 grains, the rupiya, the ancestor of the rupee, and the copper dam, with a fixed ratio between them; he also struck gold coins.

Roads: The Sadak-i-Azam ran from Sonargaon in Bengal to the Indus in the north-west (part of what the British called the Grand Trunk Road); other roads linked Agra with Burhanpur, Agra with Jodhpur and Chittor, and Lahore with Multan.

Sarais: Abbas Khan says Sher Shah built 1,700 sarais along the roads, with separate quarters for Hindus and Muslims, wells and horses for the postal service (dak chauki).

Customs: Duties were collected only at the point of entry and at the point of sale, removing many internal tolls and helping trade.

5. Army, justice and police

Army: A large standing army recruited and paid by the ruler; he revived Alauddin Khalji's dagh (branding of horses) and chehra (descriptive roll of soldiers).

Justice: Qazis and mir-i-adls handled cases; Sher Shah was known for strict and impartial justice, even against his relatives, according to Abbas Khan.

Police: The principle of local responsibility made headmen trace thieves or pay compensation.

6. Buildings

Sasaram tomb: Sher Shah's octagonal tomb at Sasaram stands in the middle of an artificial lake, one of the finest Afghan monuments.

Purana Qila: He rebuilt Humayun's Dinpanah as Shergarh (Purana Qila, Delhi); its Qila-i-Kuhna mosque is a fine example of the Sur style.

Rohtas fort: Built near Jhelum (now in Pakistan) to control the Gakkhars and guard the north-west.

7. Sources and evidence

Abbas Khan Sarwani: Tuhfa-i-Akbar Shahi, also called Tarikh-i-Sher Shahi (written c. 1580s at Akbar's command), the main source, based on Afghan informants; it is admiring and anecdotal.

Others: Abul Fazl's Akbarnama (hostile to the Surs as rivals of the Mughals), Badauni's Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh, Niamatullah's Makhzan-i-Afghani; Malik Muhammad Jayasi's Padmavat (1540) praises Sher Shah as ruler of the age.

Coins and monuments: Surviving rupiyas, the sarais, roads and kos minars are physical evidence of his administration.

8. Historiography and debates

Constructive genius: K.R. Qanungo's Sher Shah (1921) presented him as a great constructive genius and the true forerunner of Akbar; many British writers such as H.G. Keene praised him highly.

Reformer of old institutions: R.P. Tripathi, I.H. Siddiqui and others argue that most of his measures (dagh and chehra, measurement, the gaz, pargana officers) had precedents under Alauddin and Sikandar Lodi, and that his achievement was revival and better execution.

Link to Akbar: Irfan Habib (The Agrarian System of Mughal India, 1963) and Satish Chandra see Sher Shah's rai as the base of Akbar's later zabt and dahsala; he is a bridge between the Sultanate and Mughal systems.

Mughal bias: Abul Fazl's account plays down Sher Shah, while Afghan sources idealise him; historians must balance the two.

9. Using it in the exam

10 marks: For 'Sher Shah's land revenue system', cover measurement, rai, one-third share, patta–qabuliyat and cesses.

15 marks: For 'administration of Sher Shah', give central, sarkar and pargana structure, revenue, currency, roads and justice.

20 marks: For 'Sher Shah: innovator or reformer?', present Qanungo against Tripathi and Siddiqui and conclude with his link to Akbar.

Keywords: shiqdar-i-shiqdaran, munsif-i-munsifan, rai, patta and qabuliyat, jaribana, rupiya, Sadak-i-Azam, dagh and chehra.

Source line: Abbas Khan reports Sher Shah as saying that cultivators are the source of prosperity, so that if they are oppressed the kingdom suffers (a paraphrase).

1. Background: why Portugal went east

Motives: The crusading spirit of the Reconquista, the search for gold and spices without Venetian and Muslim middlemen, and the hope of finding Christian allies (the legend of Prester John).

Preparation: Prince Henry the Navigator (d. 1460) sponsored voyages down the African coast; Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488.

Papal and treaty backing: Papal bulls and the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) with Spain gave Portugal the eastern half of the non-European world in Iberian eyes, which justified the padroado (royal patronage of the Church) in Asia.

2. Arrival and early conflict

Vasco da Gama (1498): Guided across the Arabian Sea from Malindi, he reached Kappad near Calicut on 20 May 1498; the Zamorin received him, but Arab merchants and the Zamorin's officials were hostile.

Famous answer: According to the anonymous journal of the voyage (the Roteiro), when asked what they sought, the Portuguese replied 'Christians and spices'.

Cabral (1500): Pedro Alvares Cabral set up a factory at Calicut; after a clash he bombarded the city and moved to Cochin, whose ruler, a rival of the Zamorin, became Portugal's ally.

Da Gama's second voyage (1502): He used terror, including the burning of a pilgrim ship returning from Mecca, to force the Zamorin to submit.

The Zamorin and the Marakkars: The Kunjali Marakkars, Muslim naval commanders of the Zamorin, led a long resistance at sea through the 16th century.

3. Almeida and Albuquerque

Francisco de Almeida (1505–09): The first viceroy; his 'Blue Water' policy aimed to dominate the sea rather than hold land, using a few forts (Kilwa, Anjediva, Cannanore, Cochin).

Battle of Chaul (1508): A combined fleet of the Mamluks of Egypt and Gujarat under Malik Ayaz defeated the Portuguese, and Almeida's son was killed.

Battle of Diu (February 1509): Almeida destroyed the combined Gujarati, Mamluk and Calicut fleet, establishing Portuguese naval supremacy in the Arabian Sea.

Afonso de Albuquerque (1509–15): He sought control of key points of Indian Ocean trade by land bases: Goa from Bijapur (November 1510), Malacca (1511) and Hormuz (1515); he failed at Aden (1513).

Albuquerque's policies: He encouraged Portuguese men to marry local women (casados), banned sati in Goa, relied on Hindu support against Bijapur, and made Goa the capital of the Estado da India (from 1530).

Later expansion: Under Nino da Cunha the Portuguese gained Bassein (1534) and a fort at Diu (1535) from Bahadur Shah of Gujarat; Daman followed in 1559; they settled at Hooghly in Bengal (c. 1579–80, with Akbar's permission), Chittagong and San Thome near Madras.

4. The system: Estado da India

Estado da India: A network of forts and factories from East Africa to Macau under a viceroy at Goa, not a territorial empire in India.

Cartaz: Asian ships had to buy a pass (cartaz) from the Portuguese, call at Portuguese ports and pay duties; ships without one could be seized; even the Mughals bought passes for the Haj ships.

Monopoly: The Crown claimed a monopoly of pepper and some spices and of certain routes, carried to Lisbon by the Carreira da India; much Asian trade, however, continued outside its control.

Cafilas: Coastal convoys protected by Portuguese ships carried goods along the west coast.

Religion: Under the padroado, missionaries came; Francis Xavier reached Goa in 1542; the Inquisition was set up in Goa in 1560; the Synod of Diamper (1599) brought the St Thomas Christians of Kerala under Rome.

Printing: The first printing press in India was set up by the Jesuits in Goa in 1556.

5. Decline

Causes: A small population stretched over a vast area, corruption and private trade by officials, religious intolerance that alienated Indian rulers and merchants, and the union of the Portuguese and Spanish crowns (1580–1640) that dragged Portugal into Spain's wars.

New rivals: The Dutch and English companies, with greater capital and naval power, broke Portuguese dominance; the English defeated them off Swally near Surat (1612), and with Persia took Hormuz (1622); the Dutch took Malacca (1641) and the Malabar forts.

Mughal action: Shah Jahan expelled the Portuguese from Hooghly in 1632.

Survival: Goa, Daman and Diu remained Portuguese until India took them in 1961.

6. Sources and evidence

Portuguese chronicles: The Roteiro of the first voyage; Joao de Barros's Decadas da Asia; Gaspar Correia's Lendas da India; Castanheda; Albuquerque's letters.

Descriptions of Asia: Tome Pires's Suma Oriental (c. 1512–15) and Duarte Barbosa's book (c. 1516) on ports, goods and peoples.

Indian side: Zainuddin Makhdum's Arabic Tuhfat-ul-Mujahidin (c. 1583) describes Portuguese violence in Malabar and calls for resistance; Mughal and Gujarati chronicles such as the Mirat-i-Sikandari.

Material remains: Forts at Diu, Daman, Bassein and Cochin, the churches of Old Goa (Bom Jesus, completed 1605) and cartazes in archives.

7. Analysis: impact

Trade: They introduced armed trading and the idea of control of the sea, which later companies developed, but they did not displace Asian merchants, who adapted.

New crops: From the Americas came chillies, tobacco, maize, potato, pineapple, papaya, cashew and groundnut, which changed Indian diet and agriculture over time.

Culture: Church architecture, printing, Portuguese words in Indian languages (such as words for window, key and table in several languages) and an Indo-Portuguese community.

Military: Their naval guns and forts showed the importance of sea power, which land-based Indian states largely ignored.

8. Historiography and debates

Panikkar: K.M. Panikkar's Asia and Western Dominance (1953) called 1498–1945 the 'Vasco da Gama epoch' of Asian history, stressing European sea power as a turning point.

Pearson: M.N. Pearson (Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat, 1976; The Portuguese in India, 1987) argued that the Portuguese impact on land-based Indian states was small and that Mughal rulers saw the sea as a merchants' matter.

Steensgaard: Niels Steensgaard (The Asian Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth Century, 1974) described the Estado as a 'redistributive enterprise' that lived by selling protection, unlike the later trading companies.

Subrahmanyam: Sanjay Subrahmanyam's The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500–1700 (1993) and The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama (1997) place the Portuguese within Asian politics and show how they adapted to it; Ashin Das Gupta's work on Malabar shows the resilience of Asian trade.

Boxer: C.R. Boxer's The Portuguese Seaborne Empire (1969) remains a classic survey.

9. Using it in the exam

10 marks: For 'cartaz system', explain what it was, how it was enforced, who bought passes and its limits.

15 marks: For 'Albuquerque', cover his conquests, policies (marriage, sati ban, Goa as capital) and his strategy compared with Almeida's.

20 marks: For 'nature and impact of the Portuguese enterprise', present Panikkar against Pearson, Steensgaard and Subrahmanyam, and list economic, cultural and military effects.

Keywords: Estado da India, cartaz, cafila, padroado, Blue Water policy, Diu 1509, Goa 1510, redistributive enterprise, Kunjali Marakkars.

1. Ramananda and the transition

Ramananda: A Ram devotee of Banaras, usually placed in the 14th–15th centuries (his dates are debated); tradition makes him the teacher of saints of many castes, including Kabir, Ravidas, Sena, Dhanna and Pipa, but these links are hagiographic and historians doubt several of them.

Use of Hindi: He is credited with preaching in the common language and admitting disciples regardless of caste.

2. Nirguna bhakti (the Sant tradition)

Kabir: A weaver (julaha) of Banaras; tradition dates him 1398–1518, but most scholars place his active life in the 15th century; his verses (sakhis, sabads, ramainis) survive in the Bijak, the Rajasthani Kabir Granthavali and the Guru Granth Sahib.

Kabir's message: God (Ram, Rahim, Hari, Allah) is one and formless; he mocked idol worship, pilgrimages, fasting, the authority of pandits and mullas, and caste.

Ravidas (Raidas): A leather-worker (chamar) of Banaras, whose songs describe an ideal city without sorrow, Begampura; about forty of his hymns are in the Guru Granth Sahib.

Other sants: Sena (barber), Dhanna (Jat peasant) and Pipa (a Rajput chief who became a devotee).

Guru Nanak (1469–1539): Born at Talwandi (Nankana Sahib), he travelled widely (the udasis) and settled at Kartarpur on the Ravi; he taught nam (meditation on the divine name), dan (charity) and ishnan (purity) and set up the sangat (congregation) and langar (common kitchen).

From Nanak to a community: He named Angad as his successor; Guru Arjan compiled the Adi Granth in 1604, containing the hymns of the Gurus and of Kabir, Namdev, Ravidas, Farid and others.

Dadu Dayal (1544–1603): A cotton-carder of Gujarat and Rajasthan who carried the nirguna tradition into the 16th century.

3. Saguna bhakti

Vallabhacharya (1479–1531): A Telugu Brahmana who taught shuddhadvaita (pure non-dualism) and the Pushti marg (path of grace) of devotion to Krishna as Shrinathji; Surdas, author of the Sursagar, is linked with his sect.

Chaitanya (1486–1533): From Navadvip in Bengal, he spread ecstatic kirtan to Krishna and Radha; he lived at Puri in his later years; his followers (the Gosvamis of Vrindavan) gave Gaudiya Vaishnavism a theology.

Mirabai: A Rathor princess married into the Mewar royal family (early 16th century), she defied family and caste norms in her devotion to Krishna; her songs survive largely in oral and later written versions.

Shankaradeva (1449–1568): In Assam he founded the Ekasarana dharma (devotion to Krishna alone), set up the namghar (prayer hall) and satra (monastery), and composed Borgeet songs and Ankiya Naat plays; his disciple was Madhavadeva.

Southern saints: Annamacharya (1408–1503) of Tirupati composed Telugu songs; Purandaradasa (1484–1564) and Kanakadasa led the Haridasa movement in Kannada under Vijayanagara.

Maharashtra: Eknath (1533–99) continued the Varkari tradition with Marathi works on the Bhagavata.

Tulsidas (1532–1623): His Ramcharitmanas (begun 1574) in Awadhi belongs to the later 16th century but completes this movement in north India.

4. Sufism in the 15th–16th centuries

Chishtis in the provinces: After Delhi declined, Chishti centres grew in Gulbarga (Gesudaraz, died 1422), Gujarat, Malwa and Bengal; Shaikh Abdul Quddus Gangohi (1456–1537) of the Sabiri branch used Hindi verse and wrote letters to Babur and Humayun.

Shattari order: Brought by Shah Abdullah Shattari in the 15th century; Muhammad Ghaus Gwaliori (died 1563) adopted yogic practices and is linked with the Persian version of the yoga text Amritakunda.

Qadiri order: Established in India in the 15th century, with an important centre at Uch in Sind; it became prominent under the Mughals.

Mahdavi movement: Sayyid Muhammad of Jaunpur (1443–1505) declared himself the Mahdi (the awaited redeemer) in the 1490s; his followers formed communities in Gujarat and the Deccan and were opposed by the ulama.

Rishis of Kashmir: The Rishi order of Nund Rishi spread in rural Kashmir, close to local Shaiva traditions.

Sufi romances (premakhyan): Qutban's Mrigavati (1503), Malik Muhammad Jayasi's Padmavat (1540) and Manjhan's Madhumalati (1545) used Indian love stories in Awadhi to express Sufi ideas of the soul's search for God.

5. Sources and evidence

Collections of verse: The Adi Granth (1604) is the earliest firmly dated anthology; the Dadupanthi Panchvani and the Kabir Granthavali are other early compilations.

Hagiographies: Nabhadas's Bhaktamal (c. 1600), the janam-sakhis of Guru Nanak, Krishnadasa Kaviraja's Chaitanya Charitamrita and Shankaradeva's biographies (charits).

Sufi texts: Letters of Abdul Quddus Gangohi, Muhammad Ghaus's works, and the premakhyans themselves.

Caution: Most texts were written down long after the saints' lives, so attributions and dates are uncertain.

6. Analysis

Social base: Many nirguna saints were weavers, leather-workers, barbers and peasants; their message spoke to urban artisans and lower castes who gained economic weight with the growth of crafts.

Critique of authority: They challenged Brahmanical and ulama authority, caste and ritual, though they did not organise a social revolution.

Saguna and regional identity: Krishna and Rama bhakti built regional religious cultures (Bengal, Braj, Assam, Maharashtra) and literatures.

Institutionalisation: Over time movements became sects with gurus, texts and centres (the Sikh panth, Kabirpanth, Pushti marg, Assam satras).

Sufi–bhakti interaction: Shared ideas of love, the guru, inner devotion and the use of vernaculars brought the two traditions close, but they remained distinct.

7. Historiography and debates

Response to Islam: Ramchandra Shukla (Hindi Sahitya ka Itihas, 1929) saw bhakti as a response of a defeated people to Muslim rule; Tara Chand stressed Islamic influence on monotheism.

Indigenous continuity: Hazari Prasad Dwivedi (Kabir, 1942) traced Kabir to Nath and Indian traditions; Charlotte Vaudeville (A Weaver Named Kabir, 1993) placed him in the Sant tradition with roots in the Naths and Vaishnava bhakti, not as a conscious synthesis of Hinduism and Islam.

Social history: Irfan Habib linked 'popular monotheism' to artisans and the commercial growth of the Sultanate period; David Lorenzen (Kabir Legends, 1991) studies how the Kabirpanth used his image.

Nanak: W.H. McLeod (Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion, 1968) placed Nanak in the Sant tradition, which drew debate from Sikh scholars who stress his originality.

Modernity debate: Purushottam Agrawal (Akath Kahani Prem Ki, 2009) argues that Kabir's age shows an indigenous early modernity, in a mercantile and urban setting.

8. Using it in the exam

10 marks: For 'Kabir' or 'Shankaradeva', give context, teachings, social base and legacy, with one textual source.

15 marks: For 'nirguna and saguna bhakti', compare ideas, saints, social base and literature.

20 marks: For 'social significance of the bhakti movement', present its critique of caste and ritual, its limits, and the historiographical debate (Shukla, Tara Chand, Vaudeville, Habib).

Keywords: nirguna and saguna, Sant parampara, sakhi, sangat and langar, Pushti marg, Ekasarana, namghar, Mahdavi, premakhyan.

Source line: A sakhi attributed to Kabir says that reading books the whole world died without becoming learned, and that whoever reads the two and a half letters of love (prem) is truly learned (a paraphrase of 'pothi padhi padhi jag mua').

1. Regional cultural specificities

Why regional cultures grew: Regional courts needed local support and legitimacy, bhakti and Sufi movements used local languages, and regional trade created wealthy patrons.

Bengal: Sultans patronised Bengali; Muslim and Hindu poets shared themes, and the cult of figures such as Satya Pir (revered by Hindus as Satyanarayan) shows a shared religious culture.

Gujarat: A mercantile culture of Jain, Hindu and Muslim traders; Jain manuscript painting and temple building continued under the sultans.

Kashmir: Zain-ul-Abidin's court supported Sanskrit and Persian; crafts such as papier mache and shawl weaving are associated with this age by tradition.

Rajasthan: Rana Kumbha of Mewar (1433–68) built Kumbhalgarh and the Vijay Stambh at Chittor; the music treatise Sangitaraja is attributed to him.

2. Literary traditions

Bengali: Maladhar Basu's Sri Krishna Vijaya (1470s), for which Sultan Barbak Shah gave him the title Gunaraj Khan; Krittibas Ojha's Bengali Ramayana (c. 15th c.); Bipradas Pipilai's Manasa Vijaya (1495); Bengali Mahabharata versions by Kavindra Parameshvara and Srikara Nandi under Hussain Shahi generals Paragal Khan and Chhuti Khan.

Gujarati: Narsinh Mehta (c. 15th c.) of Junagadh composed Krishna bhakti songs, including 'Vaishnava jana to', later Gandhi's favourite hymn.

Odia: Sarala Das wrote the Odia Mahabharata in the 15th century under the Gajapati Kapilendra Deva; the Panchasakha poets (16th c.), including Jagannatha Das, author of the Odia Bhagavata.

Assamese: Shankaradeva's Borgeets, Ankiya Naat plays and his Kirtana Ghosha.

Hindi and Awadhi: Sant poetry (Kabir, Ravidas), Surdas's Braj songs and Sufi premakhyans (Mrigavati 1503, Padmavat 1540).

Persian and Sanskrit: Regional histories in Persian, and Sanskrit chronicles such as the Kashmir Rajataranginis of Jonaraja and Srivara.

Dakhni: An early form of Urdu used in the Bahmani and later Deccan sultanates; some Sufi prose works are attributed to Gesudaraz, though the attribution is debated.

3. Provincial architecture

Bengal: Brick architecture with terracotta ornament and the curved cornice copied from bamboo-and-thatch huts; the Adina mosque at Pandua (1374–75), the Eklakhi tomb at Pandua (early 15th c.), the Dakhil Darwaza and Firoz Minar (1480s) at Gaur, the Chhota Sona Masjid (Hussain Shah's reign) and the Bara Sona Masjid at Gaur (completed 1526).

Jaunpur (Sharqi): Mosques with huge propylon-like screens in front of the prayer hall: the Atala Masjid (1408), the Jhanjhri Masjid, the Lal Darwaza mosque and the Jami Masjid; Jaunpur was called the 'Shiraz of India'.

Gujarat: The richest provincial style, using local trabeate stone construction and fine carving; the Jami Masjid of Ahmedabad (1424), Rani Sipri's mosque, the Adalaj stepwell (1499) and the Champaner monuments, including its Jami Masjid (1513); Champaner–Pavagadh became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004.

Malwa (Mandu): Massive and austere buildings with coloured tiles and stone; the Jami Masjid (completed under Mahmud Khalji, 1454), Hoshang Shah's marble tomb, the Jahaz Mahal (ship palace) between two tanks, the Hindola Mahal with sloping walls, and the Ashrafi Mahal.

Kashmir: Wooden architecture with pyramidal roofs, as in the Khanqah of Shah Hamadan in Srinagar; the Jami Masjid of Srinagar was begun by Sultan Sikandar.

Deccan: The Jami Masjid of Gulbarga (1367) with a covered courtyard; Mahmud Gawan's madrasa at Bidar (1472) in Persian style with glazed tiles; the Chand Minar of Daulatabad (1435).

Lodi Delhi: Octagonal tombs (Sikandar Lodi's tomb, 1517–18, with a double dome) and square tombs (Bara Gumbad) in the Lodi Gardens.

4. Vijayanagara architecture and art

City plan: Hampi had a royal centre (palaces, Mahanavami platform, audience halls, the Lotus Mahal, elephant stables, the stepped tank) and a sacred centre along the Tungabhadra, enclosed by walls and irrigated by canals and tanks.

Temples: The Virupaksha temple was enlarged, with a tall eastern gopuram; the Hazara Rama temple (15th c.), the royal chapel, has friezes of the Ramayana and of court processions; the Vitthala temple (16th c.) has its stone chariot and 'musical' pillars; the Krishna temple was built by Krishnadeva Raya (1513) after his conquest of Udayagiri.

Features of the style: Very tall gateway towers (raya gopurams), many-pillared halls, kalyana mandapas (marriage halls for the deity), separate shrines for the goddess (amman), and pillars carved with rearing horses and yalis.

Mahanavami Dibba: A great stone platform with reliefs of hunting, dancing, horses and foreign envoys, used for the nine-day Mahanavami festival described by Paes and Nuniz.

Islamicate buildings: The Lotus Mahal and the elephant stables use arches and domes of Deccani Sultanate type, showing shared courtly taste.

Painting: The ceiling murals of the Veerabhadra temple at Lepakshi (16th c.) depict epic and Shaiva stories in a flat, linear style with elaborate costumes.

Sculpture: The monolithic Ugra Narasimha and the large Ganesha images at Hampi.

5. Vijayanagara literature and music

Sanskrit: Sayana's Vedic commentaries; Gangadevi's Madhuravijayam on Kumara Kampana's conquest of Madurai; the Varadambika Parinayam by Tirumalamba, a poet at Achyuta Raya's court.

Telugu: Krishnadeva Raya's Amuktamalyada; Allasani Peddana's Manucharitramu; Tenali Ramakrishna; tradition speaks of eight court poets (ashtadiggajas), though the list is partly legendary; Srinatha (14th–15th c.) was an earlier major poet.

Kannada: Kumaravyasa's Karnata Bharata Kathamanjari (15th c.); Chamarasa's Virashaiva Prabhulingalile under Deva Raya II; the Haridasa songs of Purandaradasa and Kanakadasa.

Tamil: Arunagirinathar's Tiruppugazh and Villiputturar's Tamil Bharatam (15th c.).

Music and dance: Purandaradasa systematised teaching methods that became the basis of Carnatic music; temple dance by devadasis flourished.

6. Society in Vijayanagara

Brahmanas and temples: Brahmanas held high status as priests, scholars, administrators and fort commanders; temples were centres of economy and festivals.

Castes and guilds: The left-hand and right-hand caste groupings (idangai and valangai) of artisans and peasants were active; merchants and weavers gained status through temple gifts.

Women: Nuniz describes women in the palace who were wrestlers, astrologers, accountants and musicians; women poets such as Gangadevi and Tirumalamba wrote at court; devadasis held temple roles.

Sati: Nuniz and others describe sati, and many memorial stones (mastikal) in Karnataka confirm it, though it was not universal.

Festivals: Mahanavami was the great royal festival in which the king displayed his wealth and received tribute.

7. Sources and evidence

Travellers: Abdur Razzaq (1443), Paes (c. 1520–22) and Nuniz (c. 1535) on the city, court, festivals and women; Barbosa on trade and society.

Monuments: Hampi (UNESCO World Heritage Site, 1986), Lepakshi, the provincial mosques and tombs; their inscriptions give dates and patrons.

Texts: Regional literary works themselves, with their dedications to patrons.

8. Historiography and debates

Architectural history: Percy Brown classified provincial styles; Catherine Asher and Cynthia Talbot's India Before Europe (2006) treat the 15th century as an age of regional creativity; George Michell's studies (Architecture and Art of Southern India, 1995) and the Vijayanagara Research Project (with John Fritz) documented Hampi.

Shared court culture: Phillip Wagoner shows Islamicate dress and buildings at Vijayanagara; Richard Eaton and others see a 'Persianate' cultural world that included Hindu and Muslim courts.

Vernacularisation: Sheldon Pollock's thesis explains the rise of regional literatures; Velcheru Narayana Rao, David Shulman and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (Symbols of Substance, 1992) study the court culture of the south Indian nayakas that grew from Vijayanagara.

9. Using it in the exam

10 marks: For a monument (Atala Masjid, Jahaz Mahal, Vitthala temple) give location, patron, date and two or three features.

15 marks: For 'provincial architecture', compare two or three regional styles and explain how local materials and traditions shaped them.

20 marks: For 'society and culture of Vijayanagara', cover temples and art, literature, music, women and festivals, using Paes and Nuniz, and the Islamicate influence.

Keywords: provincial style, terracotta, propylon screen, trabeate, raya gopuram, kalyana mandapa, Mahanavami Dibba, ashtadiggajas, Haridasa.

1. Provincial Dynasties: Bengal, Kashmir, Gujarat and Malwa

Example 1 (UPSC 2019, 10 marks): Assess the rule of Zainul Abedin in Kashmir.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(c)

Approach: An assessment: give the context and sources, then his religious policy, economic and public works, and cultural patronage, and end with a balanced verdict.

Zain-ul-Abidin (1420–70) of the Shahmiri dynasty is remembered in Kashmir as Budshah, the great king. His reign is known from Jonaraja's and Srivara's Sanskrit Rajataranginis and later Persian histories.

Religious policy: Reversing the persecution under his father Sikandar, he abolished the jizya, allowed Brahmanas who had fled to return, restored grants and permitted temples to be rebuilt; he is also said to have banned cow-slaughter. Brahmanas again served in his administration.

Economy and public works: He built canals, embankments and bridges, the island of Zaina Lank in the Wular lake and new towns, lowered taxes and controlled prices. He brought craftsmen from Central Asia, which tradition links to Kashmir's shawl-weaving, papier-mâché, carpet and bookbinding crafts.

Culture: He patronised Sanskrit and Persian learning and had works such as the Mahabharata and Kalhana's Rajatarangini translated into Persian, and encouraged music.

His rule is rightly seen as the high point of the Kashmir Sultanate, a model of tolerance and prosperity, though our sources are largely court eulogies and his successors could not sustain his achievement.

Example 2 (UPSC 2016, 10 marks): Evaluate Jonaraja’s account of the reign of Zain-ul-Abidin.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(c)

Approach: Evaluate the source, not the king: introduce Jonaraja and his work, state what it tells us about Zain-ul-Abidin, then weigh its strengths and weaknesses.

Jonaraja, a Sanskrit poet at the court of Zain-ul-Abidin, continued Kalhana's Rajatarangini in his own Rajatarangini (often called the second), carrying the history of Kashmir from the 12th century to his patron's reign; he died c. 1459, and Srivara continued the work.

What it tells us: Jonaraja contrasts the persecution of Sultan Sikandar and his minister Suha Bhatta with Zain-ul-Abidin's restoration of temples and grants, the return of Brahmanas, the end of the jizya, public works and patronage of learning.

Strengths: It is a contemporary, eyewitness account by an insider, written in the critical tradition of Kalhana, and gives detail on administration, famine, prices and court culture not found in Persian sources.

Weaknesses: As a court poet writing for his patron, Jonaraja is eulogistic; his ornate kavya style blurs facts; his chronology is thin; and as a Brahmana he judges rulers mainly by their treatment of Brahmanas.

Jonaraja's account is indispensable for Zain-ul-Abidin's reign, but must be read with Srivara and later Persian sources.

2. The Bahmanis and the Vijayanagara Empire

Example 3 (UPSC 2026, 15 marks): From the Portuguese merchant Domingo Paes' description of Krishnadevaraya's reign, assess the socio-economic and cultural uniqueness of the Vijayanagara Empire.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(a)

Approach: Introduce Paes and his account, then draw out the social, economic and cultural features he describes, showing what made Vijayanagara distinctive, and end with a note on the limits of the source.

Domingo Paes, a Portuguese horse-trader, visited Vijayanagara c. 1520–22, at the height of Krishnadeva Raya's reign. His account, preserved with that of Nuniz and translated by Robert Sewell in A Forgotten Empire (1900), is among the most vivid descriptions of the empire.

The king: Paes describes Krishnadeva Raya as a fair, robust and cheerful ruler, feared and respected, who exercised and wrestled every morning and dispensed justice firmly.

Economy: He compares the city to Rome in size and beauty and describes markets overflowing with rice, wheat, pulses and other provisions, cheap and abundant, and bazaars of diamonds, rubies and pearls. Horses imported through the western ports were vital to the army.

Society: He notes the many women of the palace, the temple women who danced before the deity and enjoyed high status, and the splendour of the nobles. The prosperity he saw rested on a tank-irrigated countryside.

Culture: His account of the nine-day Mahanavami festival, with parades, dancers, wrestling and the review of troops, and of the great temples shows a court culture that joined royal ritual and display.

Limits: Paes saw mainly the capital and the court, wrote as an outsider with commercial interests and may exaggerate.

His account shows the unique blend of military power, commercial wealth and temple-centred culture that made Vijayanagara distinctive.

Example 4 (UPSC 2022, 20 marks): The prolonged conflict between the Vijayanagara Kingdom and the Bahmani successor states was influenced less by cultural factors, and more by strategic and economic considerations. Comment.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(c)

Approach: Comment by setting out the strategic and economic stakes of the conflict, then the cultural and religious dimension and its limits, using evidence of cross-religious alliances, and conclude.

From the 14th century Vijayanagara fought first the Bahmani kingdom and then its successor states, Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Golconda, Bidar and Berar, until the battle of Talikota (1565). Older writers such as Robert Sewell (A Forgotten Empire, 1900) saw Vijayanagara as a Hindu bulwark against Islam, but most modern historians stress material causes.

Strategic factors: The Raichur Doab between the Krishna and Tungabhadra, with its forts of Raichur and Mudgal, was the frontier both sides needed for defence. Krishnadeva Raya's capture of Raichur (1520) and the later struggles show its importance.

Economic factors: The Doab was fertile; the Krishna–Godavari delta and the diamond-bearing tracts were rich; and the ports of Goa and the Konkan controlled the import of war horses from Arabia and Persia, on which both cavalry armies depended.

Alliances across religion: The pattern of alliances shows that faith did not decide policy. Vijayanagara recruited Muslim archers under Devaraya II, and Rama Raya allied in turn with Bijapur, Ahmadnagar and Golconda, playing them against each other. The Sultanates fought each other as often as they fought Vijayanagara.

Cultural factors: Persian chronicles such as Ferishta's describe the wars as jihad, Vijayanagara inscriptions praise kings as protectors of dharma, and temples and mosques were sometimes attacked. Such rhetoric legitimised war but rarely decided it.

Shared culture: Phillip Wagoner shows that the Vijayanagara elite adopted Islamicate dress, titles (such as 'sultan among Hindu kings') and architecture; Richard Eaton likewise describes a shared Deccani political culture.

The statement is largely valid: religion supplied the language of the conflict, but its causes and course were shaped by territory, revenue and the horse trade.

Example 5 (UPSC 2020, 10 marks): Describe in detail about the foreign travellers' accounts which gave information of Vijayanagar kingdom.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(b)

Approach: Describe the main travellers one by one in chronological order, with the date of each visit and what each reports, and end with a line on their combined value.

Foreign visitors left detailed descriptions of Vijayanagara, which complement its inscriptions and literature.

Nicolo de Conti (Italian, c. 1420), in the reign of Devaraya I, describes the great size of the city, its walls and the king's many wives, and mentions sati.

Abdur Razzaq (c. 1443), envoy of the Timurid ruler Shah Rukh to Devaraya II, describes the seven concentric fortifications, the bazaars of jewels, the Mahanavami festival and the vast army, and calls the city unlike any he had seen.

Duarte Barbosa (c. 1516) writes on trade, the horse imports and religious tolerance.

Domingo Paes (c. 1520–22) gives the fullest picture of Krishnadeva Raya, the markets, the palace and the Mahanavami, and compares the city to Rome.

Fernao Nuniz (c. 1535), a horse-trader, wrote a chronicle of the kings and described the nayaka system, the revenue and the Brahmana commanders of forts.

Together, these accounts, translated by Robert Sewell in A Forgotten Empire (1900), are a basic source for the city, court and economy of Vijayanagara.

Example 6 (UPSC 2020, 15 marks): Amuktamalyada dwells much upon the relationship of fort, Brahmanas and dispersed tribal groups. Comment.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(b)

Approach: Introduce the text and its rajaniti section, explain the advice on forts, Brahmanas and forest peoples in turn, and show what this reveals about the Vijayanagara state, with the historiography.

The Amuktamalyada, a Telugu poem by Krishnadeva Raya (1509–29), tells the story of the Vaishnava saint Andal, but one canto contains rajaniti, advice on statecraft, which reflects the problems of ruling a vast and militarised kingdom.

Forts: The state rested on a network of forts (durgas) commanding roads, frontiers and revenue; the poem treats their security as basic to royal power.

Brahmanas: The king is advised to place forts under trustworthy Brahmanas, who would not easily ally with rival warrior chiefs; Nuniz confirms that important forts were held by Brahmana commanders. This reflects the king's distrust of the powerful nayakas.

Forest peoples: The poem notes that the tribal groups of forests and hills cannot easily be crushed by force and advises winning them over by kindness and gifts, so that they become allies rather than raiders.

Significance: Burton Stein used such passages to show that royal power was uneven and depended on balancing local groups; Cynthia Talbot's work on the Andhra region shows how forts and warrior lineages expanded the agrarian frontier.

The text thus reveals a state that relied on forts, loyal Brahmana administrators and negotiated relations with the frontier peoples, not on uniform central control.

Example 7 (UPSC 2020, 15 marks): Describe village polity and economy of medieval Deccan.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(a)

Approach: Describe village polity (institutions and functionaries) and the village economy, covering both the Vijayanagara south and the Bahmani north of the Deccan, and conclude on continuity and change.

In the medieval Deccan (14th–16th centuries) the village was the basic unit of production and revenue, and its institutions are known from inscriptions, Marathi and Telugu records and travellers' accounts.

Village polity in the south: The earlier Chola-period assemblies (sabha, ur) declined as Vijayanagara nayakas took control of revenue. Village affairs were run by hereditary functionaries of the ayagar system: the headman (reddi or gauda), the accountant (karnam or senabova) and the watchman (talari), together with artisans, all paid by shares of the harvest or rent-free land.

Village polity in the north: In the Bahmani and successor territories, the patil (headman) and kulkarni (accountant) managed the village, and the deshmukh and deshpande did the same for the pargana. Their hereditary rights (watan) were bought, sold and defended in records.

Economy: Agriculture depended on tanks, wells and river channels; Vijayanagara rulers and temples built and repaired tanks. Crops included rice, millets, pulses, cotton and sugarcane. Village artisans and servants (the balutedars of Maharashtra) were paid in kind by the peasants.

Temples and markets: Temples owned land, lent money and employed people, and weekly markets linked villages to towns and ports.

The Deccan village thus combined a largely self-sufficient economy with hereditary local offices, while rising revenue demands linked it more closely to the state.

Example 8 (UPSC 2018, 15 marks): Do you agree that convergence of political vacuum and impact of Islamicate culture and polity in peninsular India has much to do with the growth of Vijayanagara kingdom?

Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(a)

Approach: Examine both factors named in the question — the political vacuum and Islamicate influence — with evidence, add the other explanations, and state how far you agree.

Vijayanagara was founded in 1336 by Harihara and Bukka of the Sangama family on the Tungabhadra. Its rapid growth into the largest state of the peninsula has been explained in several ways.

Political vacuum: The Khalji and Tughluq campaigns destroyed or weakened the Yadavas, Kakatiyas, Hoysalas and Pandyas, and Tughluq authority in the south collapsed in the 1330s with revolts and the rise of the Madurai Sultanate and the Bahmanis (1347). The Sangamas, perhaps once in Tughluq service, filled this gap.

Islamicate influence: Phillip Wagoner ('Sultan among Hindu Kings', 1996) showed that the Vijayanagara rulers took the title Hindu-raya-suratrana, wore Islamicate tunics and caps at court, and built arched and domed structures such as the Lotus Mahal. They raised a large cavalry, imported horses and, under Devaraya II, recruited Muslim archers. This military and courtly model helped them compete with the Bahmanis.

Other factors: The traditional account credits the inspiration of the sage Vidyaranya and the defence of dharma, a view Sewell and Nilakanta Sastri echoed; the fertile Tungabhadra valley, tank irrigation, the nayaka system and control of western ports also mattered.

I largely agree: the vacuum provided the opportunity and Islamicate methods the means, though local resources and Hindu legitimacy shaped the state's character.

Example 9 (UPSC 2017, 10 marks): Evaluate the accounts of foreign travellers about the Vijayanagar Empire.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(b)

Approach: Evaluate rather than list: name the main travellers briefly, then weigh the strengths and weaknesses of their testimony, and conclude on how historians should use it.

Vijayanagara is unusually well described by foreigners: Nicolo de Conti (c. 1420), Abdur Razzaq (c. 1443), Duarte Barbosa (c. 1516), Domingo Paes (c. 1520–22) and Fernao Nuniz (c. 1535).

Strengths: They were eyewitnesses who noticed what local texts take for granted: the size and fortifications of the city, the markets and prices, the horse trade, the Mahanavami festival, the palace women and sati. Nuniz's account of the nayakas and their obligations is basic to the study of the state, and archaeology at Hampi has confirmed many details.

Weaknesses: They did not know the local languages, depended on interpreters and saw mainly the capital and court. Merchants such as Paes and Nuniz had commercial interests, Abdur Razzaq wrote for a Timurid patron, and all tended to exaggerate wealth and numbers and to misread unfamiliar customs.

Their accounts are therefore invaluable when checked against inscriptions, literature such as the Amuktamalyada and archaeology.

Example 10 (UPSC 2016, 15 marks): Assess the contribution of Firoz Shah Bahamani and Mahmud Gawan in the field of education.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(c)

Approach: Take the two figures in turn, giving each one's educational work with evidence, then compare and assess their joint contribution.

The Bahmani kingdom (1347–1527) became a centre of Persian learning in the Deccan, and two figures stand out: Sultan Firoz Shah Bahmani and the minister Mahmud Gawan. Our main sources are Ferishta's Tarikh-i-Ferishta and Gawan's own letters.

Firoz Shah Bahmani (1397–1422): Ferishta describes him as learned in theology, the natural sciences, logic and poetry, and as a calligrapher and poet himself. He invited scholars from Iran and Iraq, began an observatory near Daulatabad, and is said to have spoken with the women of his harem in their own languages. His court made the Bahmani capital a seat of learning.

Mahmud Gawan: A Persian merchant who became chief minister (1460s–1481), he founded the great madrasa at Bidar (1472), a three-storeyed building with lecture halls, residences for teachers and students, a mosque and a large library, endowed by him. He was himself a scholar, author of the Riyaz-ul-Insha (a collection of his letters) and the Manazir-ul-Insha on the art of letter writing, and corresponded with scholars of Iran, including the poet Jami.

Comparison: Firoz's patronage was personal and courtly, while Gawan created a lasting institution open to students from many lands.

Together they linked the Deccan to the Persianate world of learning, a legacy that the successor Sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda continued.

Example 11 (UPSC 2015, 10 marks): Mention the salient features of the polity of Vijayanagara Empire under Krishnadevaraya.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(c)

Approach: List and explain the main features of the polity — kingship, central and provincial administration, the nayaka system, army and revenue — with evidence from the Amuktamalyada and the travellers.

Under Krishnadeva Raya (1509–29) Vijayanagara reached its height, and its polity is known from inscriptions, his own Amuktamalyada and the accounts of Paes and Nuniz.

Kingship: The king was supreme and ruled in the name of the god Virupaksha; the Amuktamalyada advises him to protect his subjects, build tanks and develop ports to attract trade.

Administration: He was assisted by ministers, among whom Saluva Timma was the chief. The empire was divided into provinces (rajyas or mandalas), often under princes or trusted nobles.

Nayankara system: Military chiefs (amara-nayakas) held territories (amaram) in return for maintaining troops and paying tribute; Nuniz says the king gave the lands to captains who kept fixed numbers of horse and foot. Important forts were placed under Brahmana commanders.

Army and revenue: A large army with imported horses was financed by land revenue, customs and temple-centred agrarian growth.

The polity combined strong personal kingship with considerable delegation to the nayakas.

Example 12 (UPSC 2014, 20 marks): To what extent is 'Segmentary State' model relevant for defining the Vijayanagar State? Critically examine.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(a)

Approach: Explain the segmentary state model and how Burton Stein applied it, then test it against the evidence and the criticisms, and conclude on how far it fits.

The segmentary state model was developed by the anthropologist Aidan Southall for the Alur of East Africa. It describes a state in which the centre holds ritual sovereignty while real political power lies with many local segments that reproduce the centre on a smaller scale.

Stein's application: Burton Stein applied it first to the Chola state (Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India, 1980) and then to Vijayanagara (Vijayanagara, 1989). He argued that Vijayanagara kings were great ritual figures, visible in the Mahanavami festival and temple patronage, while local power lay with the nayakas, dominant peasant groups and temples.

Evidence for the model: The nayakas held territories with their own troops; the rulers depended on their loyalty, and rebellions were common. The king's authority was displayed through ritual and gift-giving rather than uniform administration.

Evidence against: The Vijayanagara kings had a large standing army, controlled forts through Brahmana commanders, collected substantial revenue and could transfer or remove nayakas, as Nuniz reports. Noboru Karashima's study of Tamil inscriptions found nayakas as agents of state revenue control, and earlier scholars such as Nilakanta Sastri and T.V. Mahalingam saw a centralised empire.

Other critics: Hermann Kulke and others questioned the use of an African model for a large agrarian empire, and Phillip Wagoner's work on Islamicate court culture points to a more militarised and centralising state.

Assessment: The model rightly stresses the role of ritual and local power, but it underestimates the military and fiscal strength of the centre, especially under Krishnadeva Raya.

The segmentary model is therefore only partly relevant: Vijayanagara is better seen as a militarised state in which a strong centre negotiated with powerful nayakas.

3. The Lodis, Babur and Humayun

Example 13 (UPSC 2026, 15 marks): Why did the abdication of power by Alauddin Alam Shah in favour of Bahlol Lodi not culminate in the establishment of the Lodi Dynasty? Elucidate.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(b)

Approach: Explain the transfer of 1448–51, then show why it gave Bahlul only Delhi and a title: the power of Hamid Khan, the Sharqi threat, Afghan tribal politics and the small territory, and how the dynasty was really established later.

The last Sayyid Sultan, Alauddin Alam Shah, withdrew from Delhi to Badaun in 1448 and in 1451 formally gave up the throne in favour of Bahlul Lodi, the Afghan governor of Sirhind, keeping Badaun until his death. Yet this peaceful transfer did not by itself create a secure Lodi dynasty.

A shrunken kingdom: Under the later Sayyids the Sultanate of Delhi controlled little more than the city and the nearby districts, while Jaunpur, Malwa, Gujarat and the Punjab chiefs were independent. Bahlul inherited a title, not an empire.

Rivals at court: Bahlul had entered Delhi with the help of the wazir Hamid Khan, who held real power; Bahlul had to remove him by a stratagem before he could rule.

The Sharqi threat: The Sharqi Sultans of Jaunpur claimed Delhi through marriage ties with the Sayyids. Mahmud Shah Sharqi besieged Delhi in 1452, and the struggle continued for nearly three decades until Bahlul defeated Husain Shah Sharqi and annexed Jaunpur (c. 1479).

Afghan politics: Bahlul ruled as first among equals among Afghan clan chiefs whom he invited from Roh and rewarded with land; the crown remained weak.

A firmly established Lodi dynasty therefore emerged only after the conquest of Jaunpur and under Sikandar Lodi (1489–1517), who asserted royal authority over the nobles.

Example 14 (UPSC 2021, 10 marks): Examine the causes of Babur's success against Ibrahim Lodi in the First Battle of Panipat.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(d)

Approach: List and explain the causes on Babur's side (tactics, artillery, leadership) and on Ibrahim's side (disunity, weak generalship), and conclude.

At the First Battle of Panipat (21 April 1526) Babur defeated and killed Ibrahim Lodi, though by his own account in the Baburnama his army was far smaller.

Tactics: Babur anchored one flank on the town of Panipat and the other on ditches and felled trees, and placed a line of carts (araba) tied together, with gaps for cavalry, in front, the 'Rumi' (Ottoman) method. His tulughma flanking parties wheeled round and attacked the Afghans from the rear.

Artillery: Guns and matchlocks under Ustad Ali Quli and Mustafa broke the Afghan charge and frightened the elephants.

Leadership: Babur was a seasoned commander with disciplined, experienced troops.

Ibrahim's weaknesses: Ibrahim had alienated his Afghan nobles; Daulat Khan Lodi of Punjab and Alam Khan had invited Babur, and many nobles fought half-heartedly. Babur calls him an inexperienced general who attacked without order.

Babur's victory came from superior tactics and firepower acting on an army weakened by political disunity.

Example 15 (UPSC 2021, 15 marks): Give your assessment of Bahlul Lodi's relation with his nobility.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(b)

Approach: An assessment: explain the Afghan idea of kingship and how Bahlul treated his nobles, with evidence from the Afghan chronicles, then weigh the benefits and costs of this policy.

Bahlul Lodi (1451–89) founded Afghan rule at Delhi with the support of Afghan clan chiefs. His relations with them are described in later Afghan chronicles such as Niamatullah's Makhzan-i-Afghani and Abdullah's Tarikh-i-Daudi.

Tribal kingship: Afghan tradition saw the ruler as first among equals among clan leaders, not as a despot by divine right in the Turkish manner of Balban.

Bahlul's conduct: The chronicles say he would not sit on a throne before his nobles but sat with them on a carpet, visited them when they were displeased and even laid his sword before them to ask forgiveness. He shared the spoils of war and treated the treasury as common property.

Invitation from Roh: To strengthen himself against the Sharqis, he invited Afghans from Roh (the Afghan homeland) and gave the Lodi, Farmuli, Lohani and Sarwani clans large assignments of land.

Benefits: This won him loyal support through the long war with Jaunpur.

Costs: It left the crown weak and the nobles powerful; I.H. Siddiqui (Some Aspects of Afghan Despotism in India, 1969) shows how later Lodis struggled with this legacy. Sikandar Lodi asserted royal dignity, and Ibrahim's harshness led to revolt and the invitation to Babur.

Bahlul's policy suited his time, but it built a decentralised, clan-based state whose tensions contributed to the fall of the Lodis.

Example 16 (UPSC 2015, 10 marks): How does Tuzuk-i-Babri testify that Babar had been a cultured man ?

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(e)

Approach: Introduce the memoir, then show from its content and style the different sides of Babur's culture: literary, scientific, aesthetic and personal, and conclude.

The Tuzuk-i-Baburi or Baburnama, Babur's memoir written in Chaghatai Turkish, was translated into Persian under Akbar by Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan (1589) and into English by Annette Beveridge. It reveals a man of wide culture.

Literary skill: Its prose is simple, vivid and frank. Babur was also a poet who left a diwan of Turki verse, and he devised a script called the Khatt-i-Baburi.

Observation: He describes the flora, fauna, climate, rivers, peoples and revenue of Hindustan with the curiosity of a naturalist.

Taste: He judges the poets, musicians and painters of the Timurid world, praising Bihzad, and loved gardens, laying out the charbagh at Agra.

Candour: He records his own failures, drinking and remorse, and criticises Hindustan for its lack of good horses, fruit and baths.

The memoir shows that Babur was a soldier of genius and also a refined Timurid prince of letters.

4. Sher Shah and the Sur Administration

Example 17 (UPSC 2020, 15 marks): Evaluate the contribution of Sher Shah towards trade and commerce, administration and agricultural reforms.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(a)

Approach: Take the three fields in turn — trade and commerce, administration, agrarian reforms — with specific measures, then evaluate his originality and legacy.

Sher Shah Sur (1540–45) ruled for only five years after defeating Humayun at Chausa and Kanauj, yet his reforms, described by Abbas Khan Sarwani in the Tarikh-i-Sher Shahi, made a lasting mark.

Trade and commerce: He repaired and built roads, including the great road from Sonargaon in Bengal to the Indus, with sarais at intervals that also served the dak chauki (post). He collected customs only at the point of entry and at the point of sale, abolishing many internal tolls, and issued a fine silver rupiya and copper dam with standard weights.

Administration: The kingdom was divided into sarkars and parganas; the pargana had a shiqdar, an amin (munsif), a treasurer and clerks. Village headmen were made responsible for crimes in their area, and justice was strict.

Agrarian reforms: Land was measured with a standard gaz and rope; a schedule of crop rates (rai) for good, middling and poor land fixed the state's share at one-third of the average produce. The peasant received a patta and gave a qabuliyat.

Evaluation: K.R. Qanungo saw him as a constructive genius; others note that many measures revived Alauddin's ideas. Irfan Habib sees his rai as the basis of Akbar's system.

Sher Shah was more a great reformer than an innovator, and his work bridged the Sultanate and Mughal systems.

5. Portuguese Colonial Enterprise

Example 18 (UPSC 2025, 15 marks): Portuguese maritime power disrupted the character of trade in the Indian Ocean in the 16th century. Review.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(a)

Approach: Review the claim: describe the pre-1498 character of Indian Ocean trade, show how the Portuguese disrupted it, then show the limits of their impact using the historiography, and conclude.

Before Vasco da Gama reached Calicut in 1498, Indian Ocean trade was open and largely peaceful: Gujarati, Arab, Persian, Chettiar and Malay merchants traded freely, and port rulers such as the Zamorin of Calicut levied moderate duties without claiming control of the sea.

Disruption: The Portuguese claimed sovereignty over the sea. Under Almeida (1505–09) and Albuquerque (1509–15) they defeated the Gujarat–Mamluk fleet at Diu (1509), seized Goa (1510), Malacca (1511) and Hormuz (1515), and built fortified posts. They tried to monopolise the pepper and spice trade to Europe and forced Asian ships to buy a pass, the cartaz, and pay duties at their ports. Violence, piracy and convoys became part of trade; Ashin Das Gupta and M.N. Pearson describe this as the coming of armed trade.

Limits: The Portuguese never controlled most of Asian trade. Pearson argues that their power was confined to the sea and some ports, and that land-based empires such as the Mughals were little affected. Gujarati and other merchants continued to trade, often with cartazes, and the Red Sea spice route to the Mediterranean revived by the mid-16th century. J.C. van Leur had argued earlier that European impact on Asian trade was slight before the 17th century.

The statement is valid in that the Portuguese introduced force and licensing into a once open sea, but the structure of Asian trade survived and adapted.

Example 19 (UPSC 2024, 10 marks): Highlight the features of Portuguese colonial enterprise.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(e)

Approach: Highlight the main features in clear heads: naval and fortified basis, the Estado da India, the cartaz and monopoly, religion, and social policy, ending with a line on its character.

After Vasco da Gama's voyage to Calicut (1498), the Portuguese built an Asian empire, the Estado da India, governed from Goa (taken in 1510).

Sea power and forts: It rested on armed fleets and a chain of fortified ports, Goa, Diu, Daman, Cochin, Malacca and Hormuz, rather than on territorial conquest. Albuquerque's strategy was to hold key points that controlled the sea lanes.

Crown monopoly: The spice trade, especially pepper, was a royal monopoly shipped to Lisbon by the Carreira da India.

Cartaz system: Asian ships had to buy a cartaz (pass) and pay duties at Portuguese ports, or risk seizure.

Religion: Missionary work was central; Francis Xavier arrived in 1542, and the Goa Inquisition was set up in 1560.

Social policy: Albuquerque encouraged Portuguese men to marry local women to create a settled population.

The enterprise thus combined commerce, coercion and crusade, a maritime 'empire of the sea' rather than of land.

Example 20 (UPSC 2014, 10 marks): How was Cartaz system used by the Portuguese to maintain their control over the oceanic trade?

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(e)

Approach: Explain what the cartaz was and how it worked, then show how it was enforced and why Asian rulers accepted it, ending with its effect and limits.

The cartaz was a pass or licence issued by the Portuguese from the early 16th century to Asian ships sailing in the Arabian Sea and beyond. It rested on the Portuguese claim to sovereignty over the sea.

How it worked: The pass named the ship, its captain, crew, arms and cargo and its permitted destination. It forbade carrying goods reserved for the Portuguese, such as pepper and spices, and war goods for their enemies, and required the ship to call at a Portuguese port such as Goa or Diu to pay customs duties.

Enforcement: Ships without a cartaz, or breaking its terms, could be seized and their crews killed or enslaved. Coastal shipping was often made to sail in escorted convoys (cafilas).

Acceptance: Lacking navies, Asian rulers bought passes; even the Mughals took cartazes for Haj ships from Surat. Niels Steensgaard described the system as the sale of protection.

The cartaz gave the Portuguese revenue and leverage, but much Asian trade continued under it or evaded it.

6. Bhakti and Sufi Movements, 15th–16th Centuries

Example 21 (UPSC 2025, 10 marks): “The principles of Sikhism represented a harmonious blend of Islamic and Indic religious beliefs and practices.” Comment.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(d)

Approach: Comment by showing the Islamic-like and the Indic elements in Nanak's teaching, then the scholarly objection that Sikhism is not a blend but a distinct faith, and conclude.

Guru Nanak (1469–1539) grew up in a Punjab where Islam and Hindu traditions met, and his teaching, preserved in the Adi Granth (1604), has often been described as a synthesis of the two.

Elements shared with Islam: Belief in one formless God, rejection of idol worship, the equality of believers, congregational worship and the common kitchen (langar), which recalls the Sufi khanqah.

Indic elements: The ideas of karma, rebirth and liberation (mukti), the guru as guide, meditation on the divine name (nam simran) and the language of nirguna bhakti are Indian.

A distinct faith: W.H. McLeod placed Nanak in the North Indian Sant tradition rather than seeing him as a conscious synthesiser, and Sikh scholars stress his original revelation. Nanak criticised the rituals of both pandit and qazi, and the janam-sakhis attribute to him the saying that there is no Hindu and no Musalman.

The statement is partly true: Sikhism shares much with both traditions but is better seen as an independent faith rooted in the Sant tradition.

Example 22 (UPSC 2022, 20 marks): The Vaishnava Bhakti tradition of the fifteenth century contributed to the flourishing of provincial literature. Discuss with appropriate examples.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(c)

Approach: Discuss region by region with named 15th-century Vaishnava poets and works, explain why bhakti favoured the vernacular, and conclude on its contribution and its limits.

In the 15th century Vaishnava bhakti, devotion to Krishna and Rama as forms of Vishnu, spread across India. Because its saints sought to reach ordinary devotees, they composed in regional languages, which gained a body of literature that would shape them for centuries.

Why the vernacular: Bhakti stressed the singing of God's name and stories (kirtan) by the whole community; songs in Sanskrit could not serve this purpose, so devotion and the regional language grew together.

Bengal and Mithila: Vidyapati's Maithili songs on Radha and Krishna and the Bengali songs ascribed to Chandidas created the padavali tradition; Krittivasa's Bengali Ramayana and Maladhar Basu's Sri Krishna Vijaya (1470s) retold the epics and the Bhagavata. Chaitanya (1486–1534) later made kirtan a mass practice.

Assam and Gujarat: Shankaradeva (1449–1568) wrote the Borgeets, the Ankiya Naat plays and the Kirtana Ghosha, founding Assamese literature, while Narsinh Mehta's Krishna songs are counted among the first great works of Gujarati.

The south: Pothana's Telugu Bhagavatamu and Annamacharya's (1408–1503) thousands of songs to Venkateshvara at Tirupati enriched Telugu, and the Haridasas, led later by Purandaradasa, did the same for Kannada.

The north: Ramananda's tradition and later Surdas in Braj carried the trend into Hindi.

Limits: Sanskrit remained the language of learned theology, and some regional literatures had earlier roots in Jain, Nath and court writing.

Still, the Vaishnava bhakti of the 15th century gave the provincial languages their first great literature, and made them vehicles of devotion and popular culture.

Example 23 (UPSC 2020, 20 marks): The mission of Kabir was to preach a religion of love which would unite all castes and creeds. Explain.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(c)

Approach: Explain the statement by setting out Kabir's background and his idea of love of God, then show how his teaching cut across caste and creed, and finally qualify the idea of a 'religion' that united all, using the historiography.

Kabir, a weaver (julaha) of Banaras who lived in the 15th century, is the best-known nirguna saint. His verses survive in the Bijak, the Kabir Granthavali and the Adi Granth.

Religion of love: For Kabir, God, whether called Ram, Hari, Rahim or Allah, is one, formless and dwells within the heart. He is reached not by ritual, scripture or pilgrimage but by love (prem) and devotion to the name, guided by the true guru. A famous verse says that reading books the whole world died without becoming wise, while one who learns the two and a half letters of love is truly learned (a paraphrase).

Uniting castes: Kabir denied that birth gave any person higher status; he asked how the Brahmana could be superior when all are born in the same way. He mocked untouchability and the pride of the pandit.

Uniting creeds: He criticised both Hindu and Muslim practice: idol worship, fasting, pilgrimage to Mecca or Kashi, circumcision and the sacred thread. The legend that Hindus and Muslims quarrelled over his body at his death symbolises his appeal to both.

Qualification: Kabir did not preach a new religion that merged Hinduism and Islam. Charlotte Vaudeville and Hazari Prasad Dwivedi place him in the Sant and Nath traditions, and his tone was often sharply critical rather than reconciling. His followers later formed the Kabirpanth, a separate sect.

The statement is largely valid: Kabir's mission was a religion of love beyond caste and creed, but he united people by rejecting the boundaries of all organised religion, not by founding a new one.

Example 24 (UPSC 2014, 10 marks): Evaluate the contribution of Vaishnava saints to the growth of medieval Bhakti literature.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(b)

Approach: Evaluate with examples across regions and languages, showing what the Vaishnava saints added in form and content, and conclude on their significance.

The Vaishnava saints, devotees of Vishnu as Krishna or Rama, were the main creators of the devotional literature of medieval India, written in regional languages for ordinary people.

Hindi: Surdas's Sursagar in Braj sang of Krishna's childhood and love, Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas (1574) in Awadhi became the most loved retelling of the Rama story, and Mirabai's songs voiced a woman's devotion.

East: Vidyapati and Chandidas wrote Radha–Krishna songs; Chaitanya's movement inspired Bengali kirtan and biographies; Shankaradeva created Assamese Borgeets and plays.

West and south: Namdev and later Eknath enriched Marathi; Narsinh Mehta founded Gujarati devotional poetry; Annamacharya and Purandaradasa composed songs that shaped Telugu and Kannada and South Indian music.

Contribution: They created new forms (pada, kirtan, abhang, devotional drama), made the epics and the Bhagavata available in the vernacular, and gave literature an emotional, personal voice.

Their work turned regional languages into literary languages and remains part of living worship and popular culture.

7. Regional Cultures, Literature, Provincial Architecture and Vijayanagara Arts

Example 25 (UPSC 2025, 10 marks): “Religious themes inspired a large section of literature in provincial languages in late medieval India.” Comment.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(a)

Approach: Comment by giving examples of religious themes in several provincial literatures, explaining why religion dominated, and then noting the secular strands, ending with a balanced view.

Between the 14th and 16th centuries the regional languages of India produced their first large literatures, and much of it was religious in theme.

Bhakti poetry: Kabir, Surdas, Mirabai and Tulsidas in Hindi; Vidyapati, Chandidas and the Chaitanya poets in Maithili and Bengali; Shankaradeva in Assamese; Namdev and Eknath in Marathi; Narsinh Mehta in Gujarati; Annamacharya and Purandaradasa in Telugu and Kannada.

Epic retellings: Krittivasa's Bengali Ramayana, Sarala Das's Odia Mahabharata and Pothana's Telugu Bhagavatamu brought sacred narratives to ordinary people.

Sufi works: The Hindavi premakhyans, such as Qutban's Mrigavati (1503) and Jayasi's Padmavat (1540), used love stories to express mystical ideas.

Secular strands: Court poetry, heroic ballads and histories also appeared, such as Vidyapati's Kirtilata in praise of a patron and Telugu prabandhas such as Allasani Peddana's Manucharitramu.

The statement is valid: religion, above all bhakti, inspired most provincial literature, though court patronage also nurtured a secular tradition.

Example 26 (UPSC 2024, 20 marks): Discuss the contributions of Bahmani Sultans to the development of Indo-Islamic architecture.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(a)

Approach: Trace the Bahmani buildings in two phases, Gulbarga and Bidar, naming the main monuments and their features and influences, then assess the overall contribution and legacy.

The Bahmani Sultans (1347–1527) created a distinct Deccani style of Indo-Islamic architecture, which drew on the Tughluq style of Delhi, on Persian and Central Asian models brought by immigrant nobles, and on local building traditions.

Gulbarga phase (1347–c. 1429): The fort of Gulbarga enclosed the Jami Masjid (1367), built under Muhammad Shah I and, by its inscription, designed by Rafi of Qazvin. It is unique in India for covering the entire courtyard with small domes, with wide, low arches and a large dome over the mihrab. The royal tombs, such as the Haft Gumbad group, are square domed chambers with sloping walls in the Tughluq manner, which grow more ornate in the double-storeyed tomb of Firoz Shah Bahmani.

Daulatabad: The Chand Minar (1435), a tall tower raised by Alauddin Ahmad Shah, shows Persian influence and glazed tile work.

Bidar phase (from c. 1429): Ahmad Shah Wali moved the capital to Bidar and built a great fort. His tomb at Ashtur has interiors painted with calligraphy and floral designs. The Solah Khamba mosque in the fort has a long prayer hall of pillars.

Mahmud Gawan's madrasa (1472) is the finest example of Persian influence: a three-storeyed building around a courtyard, with tall minarets and a facade once covered with coloured glazed tiles in the Timurid style of Khurasan.

Features: The Bahmani style used massive forts with bastions, wide arches, bulbous domes, glazed tile decoration and stucco, and adapted local stone and craftsmen.

Legacy: The successor Sultanates developed this style into the masterpieces of Bijapur (the Gol Gumbaz) and Golconda (the Qutb Shahi tombs), and it influenced the Mughal Deccan.

The Bahmanis thus gave Indo-Islamic architecture a regional Deccani form that combined Delhi, Persian and local traditions.

Example 27 (UPSC 2019, 10 marks): Discuss how Vijayanagar empire became the cultural capital of the south?

Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(a)

Approach: Show the empire's cultural leadership in architecture and art, literature in several languages, music and religion, with named examples, and conclude.

Between the 14th and 16th centuries Vijayanagara, ruling most of the peninsula, became the patron and centre of South Indian culture.

Architecture: At Hampi the Virupaksha, Hazara Rama and Vitthala temples, with their pillared halls, Ramayana reliefs, musical pillars and stone chariot, defined the Vijayanagara style; the kings also raised tall gopurams and kalyana mandapas at temples across the south.

Literature: Sayana's commentaries on the Vedas were written under the early kings; Krishnadeva Raya wrote the Telugu Amuktamalyada and patronised poets such as Allasani Peddana; Kannada flourished with Kumaravyasa and the Haridasas; Tamil and Sanskrit also received patronage.

Music and dance: Purandaradasa systematised Karnatic music teaching, and temple dancers performed at festivals.

Festivals: The Mahanavami, described by Paes and Nuniz, displayed royal culture.

Vijayanagara thus became the cultural capital of the south by joining royal patronage, temple institutions and many languages.

Example 28 (UPSC 2015, 20 marks): Make an estimate of Rana Kumbha as a patron of literature and art.

Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(a)

Approach: Make an estimate: introduce Kumbha, then assess his patronage of literature (his own works and his court), architecture and the arts with evidence from inscriptions, and give an overall judgement.

Rana Kumbha (1433–68) of Mewar was the most powerful Rajput ruler of his age, who fought the Sultans of Malwa and Gujarat. He was also an outstanding patron of learning and the arts, as the Kumbhalgarh and Chittor inscriptions (prashastis) record.

Literature: Kumbha was himself a scholar. The great treatise on music, the Sangitaraja, is attributed to him, and he wrote a commentary on Jayadeva's Gita Govinda, the Rasikapriya. Sanskrit poets such as Kanha Vyasa, author of the Ekalinga Mahatmya, worked at his court, and the long prashastis themselves are works of Sanskrit poetry.

Architecture: Tradition credits him with many of the 84 forts of Mewar. His greatest work, Kumbhalgarh, was built on a hilltop with walls that run for many kilometres; its architect was Mandana. At Chittor he raised the Vijay Stambh, a nine-storeyed tower covered with sculptures of Hindu deities, to commemorate his victory over Mahmud Khalji of Malwa. He also rebuilt the Kumbhashyam temple.

Architectural theory: Mandana wrote texts on building and sculpture, such as the Prasadamandana and Rajavallabha, showing that Kumbha's patronage extended to technical learning.

Religious tolerance: The great Jain temple at Ranakpur (begun 1439) was built in his reign by the Jain merchant Dharna Shah, showing patronage of other faiths.

Limits: Much of our information comes from court inscriptions written to glorify him, and the authorship of some works attributed to him may belong partly to his court scholars.

Even so, Kumbha stands out as a warrior-king who made Mewar a centre of Sanskrit learning, music and monumental architecture.

Example 29 (UPSC 2015, 15 marks): Why should the sixteenth century be regarded as the period of Indian Renaissance ?

Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(b)

Approach: Explain what 'Renaissance' means, set out the evidence of cultural flowering in 16th-century India that supports the label, then the reasons the European analogy is imperfect, and conclude.

The Renaissance in Europe (14th–16th centuries) meant a rebirth of learning, humanism, vernacular literature and art. Some historians have applied the term to 16th-century India because of a comparable cultural flowering.

Literature and religion: The great bhakti poets Surdas, Tulsidas, Mirabai, Chaitanya and Shankaradeva, and Guru Nanak, made the regional languages vehicles of high literature and a humane, personal religion that questioned ritual and caste.

Courts and patronage: Krishnadeva Raya's Vijayanagara saw a golden age of Telugu literature; Akbar's court produced Persian translations of the Mahabharata and Ramayana, the new Mughal painting and Abul Fazl's histories.

Ideas and statecraft: Akbar's debates in the Ibadat Khana and his policy of sulh-i-kul, and Sher Shah's and Todar Mal's revenue reforms, show rational, innovative thinking.

Art and architecture: Humayun's tomb, Fatehpur Sikri and the Vijayanagara temples mark a peak of building.

Limits: India had no rediscovery of a lost classical past, no printing press, no scientific revolution and no secular humanism of the European kind, and the term is Eurocentric.

The 16th century can be called an Indian Renaissance only loosely, as an age of exceptional creativity rather than a true parallel to Europe.