Mediaeval India Under Mohammedan Rule (A.D. 712-1764)
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
PRESIDENT WHtTE LIBRARY, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, S.//2^/^f^3 .4/^ ^^j<^ '^8«"V DATE DUE JUL 3 1 1344 NOV 81949 R 1 iD> i4w- ^tOlTf DEC 11 1975 6 R Cornell University Library DS 452.L26M5 Mediaeval India under Mohammedan rule A 3 1924 024 066 668 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024066668 Stories of the Nations A Series of Historical Studies intended to present in graphic narratives the stories of the different nations that have attained prominence in history. In the story form the current of each national life is distinctly indicated, and its picturesque and noteworthy periods and episodes are presented for the reader in their philosophical relations to each other as well as to imiversal history. 12°, Illustrated, cloth, each . $1.50 Half Leather, each . $1.75 Nos. 62 and following Nos. net $1.33 Each .... (By mail) f 1.50 Half leather, gilt top, each . net ^1.60 (By mail) $1.75 POR FULL LI3T SEE END OP THIS VOLtlME MEDly^VAL INDIA UNDER MOHAMMEDAN RULE FOUR emperors: babar, humayun, akbar, and jahangir. THE STORY OF THE NATIONS MEDIEVAL INDIA UNDER MOHAMMEDAN RULE 712-1764 BY STANLEY LANE-POOLE M.A., LITT.D., M.R.I.A. PROFESSOR OF ARABIC AT TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN 1903 T ^ .0 ", . (, -,j^^::4f, Copyright, 1903 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Entered at Stationer's Hall, London BY T. FISHER UNWIN Published, February, 1903 Zbe Iftntcftcrboclier press, mew J^orh PREFACE THE Mediaeval Period of Indian history, though it does not exactly correspond with the Middle Age of Europe, is not less clearly defined. It begins when the immemorial systems, rule, and customs of Ancient India were invaded, subdued, and modified by a succession of foreign conquerors who imposed a new rule and introduced an exotic creed, strange languages and a foreign art. These conquerors were Muslims, and with the arrival of the Turks under Mahmud the Iconoclast at the beginning of the eleventh century, India entered upon her Middle Age. From that epoch for nearly eight hundred years her history is grouped round the Moham- medan rulers who gradually brought under their control nearly the whole country from the Hima- layas to the Krishna river. The Period ends when one of the last of these rulers, oppressed by the revival of Hindu ascendency, placed himself under EngHsh protection, and Modern India came into being. Distinct and clearly marked as the Medieeval or Mohammedan Period is, the transition implies no violent change. History is always continuous ; there iv PREFA CE ' start ; and each new period carries can be no fresh ' on much of what preceded it. In India, as ever in the East, change is so gradual as to be almost im- perceptible. Ancient India was too deeply rooted in its traditions to wither even under the storm of Muslim conquest. The old Indian life survived the shock of the new ideas, which it modified at least as outlived Muslim much as it was modified ; it the Period, and still endures, but little altered, in the Modern Age of English domination. It never really assimilated the foreigners or their ideas. Despite the efforts of a few wide-seeing men like Akbar, no true or permanent union, except occa- sionally among the official and ruling classes, ever took place between the Muslims and the Hindus; and the ascendant races, whether Turks, Persians, Afghans, or Moghuls, remained essentially an army of occupation among a hostile or at least repellent population. The history of the Mohammedan Period is there- fore necessarily more a chronicle of kings and courts and conquests than of organic or national growth. The vast mass of the people enjoy the doubtful happiness of having no history, since they show no development ; apparently they are the same yester- day, to-day, and forever. Nor was there any such marked change even in the principles and methods of government as might be expected from the diversity of successive rulers of various races. English Collector-Magistrates follow much the same system, in essential outline, as that which Akbar adopted from his Hindu Chancellor, and many ; PREFACE V executive details and most of the principles of local administration have their origin in probably prehis- toric custom. But in the character and life of the rulers there is infinite variety, and it is round the lives of great men — and a few great women, though such seldom emerge before the public gaze in the East — that the chief interest of the Mediaeval Period centres. A history of ' the people ' is usually assumed, in the present day, to be more stimulating and instructive than the record of kings and courts but even if true, this can only be understood of Western peoples, of peoples who strive to go for- ward — or at least change. In the East the people does not change, and there, far more than among progressive races, the ' simple annals of the poor,' however moving and pathetic, are indescribably trite and monotonous compared with the lives of those more fortunate to whom much has been given in opportunity, wealth, power, and knowledge. Such contrasted characters as those of Ala-ad-din, Mo- hammad Taghlak, Babar, Akbar, and Aurangzib — it is a pity their names are so outlandish — may rival any portrait gallery that could be collected in Europe in the same four centuries ; and in the lives and policies, the wars and studies, the habits and cere- monies of such leaders the imagination finds ample scope for the realization of strangely vivid and dra- matic situations. To realize Mediaeval India there is no better way than to dive into the eight volumes of the price- less ' History of India as told by its own Histo- rians ' which Sir H. M. Elliot conceived and began vi PREFACE and which Professor Dowson edited and completed with infinite labour and learning. It is a revelation of Indian life as seen through the eyes of the Persian court annalists. It is, however, a mine to be worked, not a consecutive history, and its wide leaps in chronology, its repetitions, recurrences, and omissions, render it no easy guide for general readers. As a source it is invaluable, and the present book owes an immense debt to it ; indeed, no modern historian of India can afford to neglect it. The well-known and remarkably accurate and judicious ' History ' by Elphinstone of course had not the advantage of the numerous materials brought together by Elliot and Dowson ; but El- phinstone had good authorities and used them with discrimination, and one still turns to him with profit. Another modern work of the highest au- thority, full of ripe learning, fine judgment, and nervous English, is Erskine's ' History of India under Babar and Humayun': it is no light loss that the author's death cut short a work planned on such noble lines. Among recent books I have found my friend Mr. H. G. Keene's ' Sketch of the History of Hindustan,' and his other volumes, ' the most suggestive ; Thomas's Chronicles of the Pathan Kings,' the ' Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India,' Professor Blochmann and Colonel H. S. Jarrett's notes to their translation of the ' ' Ain-i-Akbari ' of Abu-1-Fazl, Mr. Sewell's Vijay- anagar,' and Mr. E. Denison Ross's translation of Haidar's ' Tarikh-i-Rashidi,' have naturally been of great service; but to enumerate the works that : '' PREFACE VU must be consulted by an historian of India would be almost to publish a catalogue of an Indian library. For the chapters on the emperors Babar and Aurangzib I have naturally drawn largely from my own two volumes in the ' Rulers of India series, with the permission of the Delegates of the Oxford University Press ; and I have also been allowed to reprint from the ' Quarterly Review some pages on mediaeval travellers at the court of the Great Moghul. My thanks are also due to my friend Mr. Arthur Ransom for his kind assistance in certain details. In the matter of the orthography of Indian names I have attempted a compromise. Nothing can make these names familiar or pronounceable to the average reader, and the more they are adorned with accents and diacritical dots the less beautiful they appear. I have therefore left the names as plain and simple as possible. The reader should remember that the vowels are to be pronounced as in Italian, not as in English, and that short a in Indian names is sounded obscurely (as in about). The Chronological Tables at the end of the vol- ume will supply what is omitted in a necessarily concise narrative, where general outline is more important than dynastic or genealogical details. Stanley Lane-Poole. Note.—As the reader may wish to consult the works of European travellers in India, to whom frequent reference is made in the later chapters of this history, the following list of the best English editions will be useful l6o8-i6n. The Voyage of Franijois Pyrard of Laval to the East VI 11 PREFACE Indies, etc. Translated and edited by Albert Gray, assisted by H. C. P. Bell, Ceylon C.S. Two vols, in three. Hakluyt Society, 18S7-1890. 1608-1613. Captain William Hawkins, his Relations of the Oc- currents which happened in the time of his residence in India, in the county [sic] of the Great Mogoll^ etc.