Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  The Muslim Court language was Persian. Most educated people learnt Persian if they had anything to do with the Courts or government offices. Thus large numbers of Hindus learnt Persian. Gradually a new language developed in the camps and bazaars, called “Urdu”, which means “camp”. In reality this was not a new language. It was Hindi with a slightly different dress on; there were more of Persian words in it, but otherwise it was Hindi. This Hindi–Urdu language, or as it is sometimes called Hindustani, spread all over northern and Central India. It is today spoken, with minor variations, by about 150,000,000 people and understood by a far greater number. Thus it is, from the point of numbers, one of the major languages of the world.

  In architecture, new styles were developed and many noble buildings arose—in Bijapur and Vijayanagar in the south; in Golkonda; in Ahmedabad, which was then a great and beautiful city, and in Jaunpur, not far from Allahabad. Do you remember our visit to the old ruins of Golkonda near Hyderabad? We went up the great fortress and saw, spread out beneath us, the old city, with its palaces and markets—all in ruins now.

  So, while kings quarrelled and destroyed each other, silent forces in India worked ceaselessly for a synthesis, in order that the people of India might live harmoniously together and devote their energies jointly to progress and betterment. In the course of centuries they achieved considerable success. But before their work was completed there was another upset, and we went back part of the way we had come. Again we have today to march the same way and work for a synthesis of all that is good. But this time it must be on surer foundations. It must be based on freedom and social equality, and it must fit in with a better world-order. Only then will it endure.

  The problem of this synthesis of religion and culture engrossed the better mind of India for many hundreds of years. It was so full of it that political and social freedom were forgotten, and just when Europe shot ahead in a dozen different directions, India remained behind, unprogressing and vegetating.

  There was a time, as I have already told you, when India controlled foreign markets because of her progress in chemistry—in the making of dyes—in tempering steel, and for many other reasons. Her ships carried her merchandise to distant places. India had long lost this control at the time of which we are speaking. In the sixteenth century the river began to flow back to the East. It was a small trickle to begin with. But it was to grow till it became a mighty stream.

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  The Kingdoms of South India

  July 14, 1932

  Let us have another look at India and see the shifting panorama of States and empires. Almost it is like a great and unending movie film with silent pictures coming one after the other.

  You will remember, perhaps, the mad Sultan Mohammad Tughlaq and how he succeeded in breaking up the Delhi Empire. The great provinces in the south fell away and new States arose there, chief among these being the Hindu State of Vijayanagar and the Muslim State of Gulbarga. To the east, the province of Gaur, which included Bengal and Bihar, became independent under a Muslim ruler.

  Mohammad’s successor was his nephew Firoz Shah. He was saner than his uncle and more humane. But there was still intolerance. Firoz was an efficient ruler, and he introduced many reforms in his administration. He could not recover the lost provinces in the south or east, but he managed to check the process of the breaking up of the empire. He was particularly fond of building new cities and palaces and mosques, and planning gardens. Firozabad, near Delhi, and Jaunpur, not far from Allahabad, were founded by him. He also built a great canal on the Jumna, and repaired many of the old buildings which were falling to pieces. He was quite proud of this work of his, and left a long list of the new buildings he had put up and the old ones he had repaired.

  Firoz Shah’s mother was a Rajput woman, Bibi Naila, the daughter of a big chief. There is a story that she was at first refused in marriage to Firoz’s father. Thereupon there was war and Naila’s country was attacked and desolated. Bibi Naila, on learning of the suffering of her people on her account, was much upset and decided to put an end to it and save her people by surrendering herself to the father of Firoz Shah. Thus Firoz Shah had Rajput blood. You will find that such intermarriages between Muslim rulers and Rajput women became frequent, and this must have helped in developing a sentiment of a common nationality.

  Firoz Shah died in 1388 after a long reign of thirty-seven years. Immediately the fabric of the Delhi Empire which he had held together fell to pieces. There was no central government and petty rulers bossed it everywhere. It was during this period of disorder and weakness that Timur came down from the north, just ten years after Firoz Shah’s death. He nearly killed Delhi. Slowly the city recovered, and fifty years later it again became the seat of a central government with a Sultan at the head. But it was a little State and could not compare with the great kingdoms of the south and west and east. The Sultans were Afghans. They were a poor lot, and even their own Afghan nobles got fed up with them ultimately, and, in sheer disgust, invited a foreigner to come and rule over them. This foreigner was Babar, a Mongol, or Moghal, as we shall call them now, after they settle down in India. He was directly descended from Timur and his mother was a descendant of Chengiz Khan. He was at the time ruler of Kabul. He gladly accepted the invitation to come to India; indeed, he would probably have come even without the invitation. On the plains of Panipat, near Delhi, in 1526, Babar won the Empire of Hindustan. A great empire rose again, known as the Moghal Empire of India, and Delhi again attained prominence and became the seat of this empire. But before we consider this we must look at the rest of India and see what was happening there during these 150 years of the decline of Delhi.

  Quite a number of States, little and great, existed in India during this period. In Jaunpur, newly founded, there was a small Muslim State ruled by the Sharqi kings. It was not big and powerful, and politically it was not important. But for nearly 100 years in the fifteenth century it was a great seat of culture and toleration in religion. The Muslim colleges of Jaunpur spread these ideas of toleration, and one of the rulers even tried to bring about that synthesis between Hindus and Muslims of which I wrote to you in my last letter. Art and fine building were encouraged, and so were the growing languages of the country, like Hindi and Bengali. In the midst of a great deal of intolerance, the little and short-lived State of Jaunpur stands out, a haven of scholarship and culture and toleration.

  To the east, coming almost right up to Allahabad, was the great State of Gaur, which included Bihar and Bengal. The city of Gaur was a seaport communicating by sea with the coastal towns of India. In central India, west of Allahabad and almost up to Gujrat, was Malwa, with its capital at Mandu, which was a city and fortress combined. Here in Mandu many beautiful and splendid buildings arose, and their ruins attract visitors still.

  North-west of Malwa was Rajputana, with many Rajput States, and especially Chittor. There was frequent fighting between Chittor and Malwa and Gujrat. Chittor was small compared to these two powerful States, but the Rajputs have always been brave fighters. Sometimes, in spite of their small numbers, they won. Such a victory by the Rana of Chittor over Malwa was celebrated by his building a fine tower of victory—the Jaya Stambha—in Chittor. The Sultan of Mandu, not to be outdone, built a high tower at Mandu. The Chittor tower still remains; the Mandu one has vanished.

  To the west of Malwa lay Gujrat. Here was established a powerful kingdom, and its capital, Ahmedabad, founded by Sultan Ahmad Shah, became a great city of nearly 1,000,000 inhabitants. Beautiful buildings arose in this city and, it is said that for 300 years, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, Ahmedabad was one of the finest cities in the world. It is curious to find that the great Jami Masjid of the city resembles the Jaina temple built at Ranpur by the Rana of Chittor, which was built about the same time. This shows how the old Indian architects were being affected by the new ideas, and were producing a new architecture. Here again you see the synthesis in the field of art of which I have already written.
Even now there are many of these fine old buildings in Ahmedabad with wonderful carvings in stone, but the new industrial city that has grown up around them is not a thing of beauty.

  It was about this time that the Portuguese reached India. You will remember that Vasco da Gama was the first to come round the Cape of Good Hope. He reached Calicut in the south in 1498. Of course many Europeans had previously visited India, but they came as traders or just simply as visitors. The Portuguese now came with different ideas. They were full of pride and self-confidence; they had the Pope’s gift of the Eastern world. They came with the intention of conquest. They were small in numbers to begin with, but more and more ships came, and some coast towns were seized, notably Goa. The Portuguese never did much in India. They never got inland. But they were the first of the Europeans to come by sea to attack India. They were followed much later by the French and English. Thus the opening of the sea-routes showed the weakness of India by sea. The old Powers of South India had dwindled and their attention was diverted to dangers from inland.

  The Gujrat Sultans fought the Portuguese even by sea. They allied themselves with the Ottoman Turks and defeated a Portuguese fleet, but the Portuguese won later and controlled the sea. Just then the fear of the Moghals at Delhi made the Gujrat Sultans seek peace with the Portuguese, but the latter played them false.

  In South India there had arisen early in the fourteenth century two great kingdoms: Gulbarga, also called the Bahmani kingdom, and, to the south of this, Vijayanagar. The Bahmani kingdom spread all over the Maharashtra area and partly over the Karnataka. It lasted for over 150 years, but its record is an ignoble one. There is intolerance and violence and murder, and the luxury of the Sultan and nobles side by side with extreme misery of the people. Early in the sixteenth century the Bahmani kingdom collapsed through sheer ineptitude and was split up into five sultanates—Bijapur, Ahmednagar, Golkonda, Bidar and Berar. The State of Vijayanagar had meantime carried on for nearly 200 years, and was still flourishing. Between these six States there were frequent wars, each attempting to gain the mastery of the south. There were all manner of combinations between them, and these were always changing. Sometimes a Muslim State fought a Hindu State; sometimes a Muslim and a Hindu State jointly fought another Muslim one. The struggles were purely political, and whenever any one State seemed to become too powerful, the others allied themselves against it. Ultimately Vijayanagar’s strength and wealth induced the Muslim States to combine against it, and in 1565, at the battle of Talikota, they succeeded in crushing it completely. The Empire of Vijayanagar ended after two and a half centuries, and the great and splendid city was utterly destroyed.

  The victorious allies fell out amongst themselves soon after and fought each other, and before long the shadow of the Moghal Empire of Delhi fell on them all. Another of their troubles were the Portuguese, who captured Goa in 1510. This was in Bijapur State. In spite of every effort to dislodge them, the Portuguese stuck to Goa, and their leader, Albuquerque, who had the fine title of Viceroy of the East, indulged in disgusting cruelties. The Portuguese carried out a massacre of the people and did not spare even women and children. Ever since then, to this day, the Portuguese have remained in Goa.

  Beautiful buildings were made in these southern States, specially in Vijayanagar and Golkonda and Bijapur. Golkonda is in ruins now; Bijapur still has many of these fine buildings; Vijayanagar was reduced to dust and is no more. The city of Hyderabad was founded near Golkonda about this time. The builders and craftsmen of the south are said to have gone later to the north and helped in the building of the Taj Mahal at Agra.

  In spite of general toleration of each other’s religions, there were occasional bursts of bigotry and intolerance. The wars were often accompanied by frightful slaughters and destruction. Yet it is interesting to remember that the Muslim State of Bijapur had Hindu cavalry, and that the Hindu State of Vijayanagar had some Muslim troops. There appears to have been a fairly high degree of civilization, but it was a rich man’s show, and the man in the field was out of it. He was poor, and yet, as always happens, he bore the burden of the great luxury of the rich.

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  Vijayanagar

  July 15, 1932

  Of all the kingdoms of the south that we discussed in our last letter, Vijayanagar has the longest history. It so happened that many foreign visitors came to it and left accounts of the State and the city. There was an Italian, Nicolo Conti, who came in 1420; and Abdur-Razzaq of Herat, who came from the Court of the Great Khan in Central Asia in 1443; and Paes, a Portuguese, who visited the city in 1522; and many others. There is also a history of India which deals with the South Indian States, and especially Bijapur. This was written in Persian by Ferishta in Akbar’s time, not long after the period we are considering. Contemporary histories are often very partial and exaggerated, but they are of great help. There are hardly any of these known to us for the pre-Muslim periods, with the exception of the Rajatarangini of Kashmir. Ferishta’s history was thus a great innovation. Others followed him.

  The descriptions of foreign visitors to Vijayanagar give us a good and impartial picture of the city. They tell us more than the accounts of the wretched wars which were frequently taking place. I shall therefore tell you something of what these people say.

  Vijayanagar was founded about 1338. It was situated in what is known as the Karnataka area of South India. Being a Hindu State, it naturally attracted large numbers of refugees from the Muslim States in the south. It grew rapidly. Within a few years the State dominated the south, and the capital city attracted attention by its wealth and beauty. Vijayanagar became the dominant Power in the Dekhan.

  Ferishta tells us of its great wealth and describes the capital in 1406, when a Muslim Bahmani king from Gulbarga went there to marry a princess of Vijayanagar. He says that for six miles the road was spread with cloth of gold and velvet and similar rich stuffs. What a terrible and scandalous waste of money!

  In 1420 came the Italian, Nicolo Conti, and he tells us that the circumference of the city was sixty miles. This area was so vast because there were numerous gardens. Conti was of opinion that the ruler of Vijayanagar, or Raya as he was called, was the most powerful ruler in India at the time.

  Then comes Abdur-Razzaq from Central Asia. On his way to Vijayanagar, near Mangalore, he saw a wonderful temple made of pure molten brass. It was 16 feet high, and 30 feet by 30 at its base. Further up, at Belur, he was still more amazed at another temple. Indeed, he does not attempt to describe it, as he fears that if he did so, he would be “charged with exaggeration”! Then he reached the city of Vijayanagar, and he goes into ecstasies over this. He says: “The city is such that eye has not seen nor ear heard of any place resembling it upon the whole earth.” He describes the many bazaars:

  At the head of each bazaar there is a lofty arcade and magnificent gallery, but the palace of the King is loftier than all of them . . . The bazaars are very long and broad . . . Sweet-scented flowers are always procurable fresh in that city and they are considered as even necessary sustenance, seeing that without them they could not exist. The tradesmen of each separate guild or craft have their shops close to one another. The jewellers sell their rubies and pearls and diamonds and emeralds openly in the bazaar.

  Abdur-Razzaq goes on to describe that “in this charming area, in which the palace of the King is contained, there are many rivulets and streams flowing through channels of cut stone, polished and even . . . The country is so well populated that it is impossible in a reasonable space to convey an idea of it.” And so he goes on, this visitor from Central Asia in the middle of the fifteenth century, waxing eloquent over the glories of Vijayanagar.

  It may be thought that Abdur-Razzaq was not acquainted with many big cities, and so he was almost overcome when he saw Vijayanagar. Our next visitor, however, was a well-travelled man. He was Paes, the Portuguese, and he came in 1522, just about the time when the Renaissance was influencing Italy and beautiful buildings were rising up in the Ital
ian cities. Paes apparently knew these Italian cities, and his testimony is thus very valuable. The city of Vijayanagar, he says, is as “large as Rome and very beautiful to the sight”. He describes at length the wonders of the city, and the charms of its innumerable lakes and waterways and fruit gardens. It is, he says, “the best-provided city in the world . . . for the state of the city is not like that of other cities, which often fail of supplies and provisions, for in this everything abounds.” One of the rooms he saw in the palace was

  all of ivory, as well the chamber as the walls from top to bottom, and the pillars of the cross-timbers at the top had roses and flowers of lotuses all of ivory, and all well executed, so that there could not be better—it is so rich and beautiful that you would hardly find anywhere another such.

  Paes also describes the ruler of Vijayanagar at the time of his visit. He was one of the great rulers of South Indian history, and his reputation as a great warrior, and as one who was chivalrous to his enemies, as a patron of literature, and a popular and generous king, still survives in the south. His name was Krishna Deva Raya. He reigned for twenty years, from 1609 to 1529. Paes tells of his height and figure and even complexion, which he says was fair. “He is the most feared and perfect king that could possibly be, cheerful of disposition and very merry; he is one that seeks to honour foreigners, and receives them kindly, asking about all their affairs whatever their condition may be.” Giving the King’s many titles, Paes adds: “But it seems that he has in fact nothing compared to what a man like him ought to have, so gallant and perfect is he in all things.”

  High praise indeed! The Empire of Vijayanagar at this time spread all over the south and the east coast. It included Mysore, Travancore and the whole of the present Madras presidency.