How do the medieval sources come to represent Indian and foreign identities? In this context is it correct to call the Turkish advent as “Islamic conquest”?

Medival sources both foreign and Indian present to us the events which took place during the time in very different lights. Aziz Ahmed has paired the medieval sources into two paired genres- Islamic epics of conquest which was written mainly in Persian, and then Hindu epics of resistance which was composed in Hindi and other Indian vernaculars. Both of them developed in ignorance of each other and were in a direct relationship of challenge and response. While one glorifies the Muslim rule, the other criticizes it. In the Muslim epics, India is described as glorified because of the supremacy of the Muslim rule. In the anti-Muslim epics or the counter epics, those rulers who resisted the Muslim rule and died tragic deaths are exalted.

From the late tenth century Turkic and central Asian warriors mostly of the Islamic religion began to enter the Indian subcontinent and established new polities which came to dominate much of India. Richard Davies says that the Muslims worshipped a god they considered unique and so for them Hindu worship appeared as idolatry and polytheism. For the Indian sources, the foreign invaders were considered to be demons and desecrators of their temples. The Ghaznavids were considered to be part of the “demonic destabilizing other” by the brahmanical orders. The new comers at times destroyed idols and temples in order to establish their power while the existing Hindu warriors seeking to establish their own independent kingdoms of the Muslims re-established images and temples as a means of proclaiming their autonomy. Temple desecration occurred mainly on the expanding military borders. The invasion by the Turks are considered by many scholars to be one in the name of Islam and also many medieval sources also present them in that way. But scholars such as Romila Thapar and Richard Davis show us that there were in fact other factors involved which were mostly the primary reasons for the invasions and conquests.

A more Indic identity develops with the establishment of Muslim polities in south India. The term Hindu was initially used neither for a religion or a culture but rather al-hind was a geographical identity and Hindus were the people living in this land. The term Hindu began to be routinely used by the Persian sources from the 13^th century onwards. The term Hindu meant Indic as opposed to Turkish and “of the Hindu religion” meant as opposed to ”of Islamic religion”. So Talbot says that the term Hindu in the 14^th century was primarily not a religious one.

The Islamic works focus on the duties and destinies of the rulers to subjugate India. Amir Khusraw says that Satanism had prospered in India and had hatched its eggs over time. Therefore the Turko-Persian sources considered the destruction of temples and establishing mosques an important part of purification. A major event dealt with is that of the successful raid of the Somanatha temple and destruction of the Siva Linga idol in Gujarat in 1206 A.D by Mahmud of Ghazni. This temple was considered by the Turko-Persians sources to be the centre of idolatry, equivalent of Mecca. Islamic works elevated Somanatha to be the cultic centre of Hinduism and that the Somanatha idol was the lord of all idols, although there is no evidence that the Indians regarded it as anything more than an important holy site. But Mahmud’s victory was considered to be a symbolic defeat of polytheism and by his success, he had also fulfilled the prophesy given to prophet Mohammed by the angel Gabriel that the idol which had escaped to India would be destroyed by a ruler named Mahmud.

Mahmud’s fame became greater after his death and he was portrayed in Islamic sources as the ideal ruler. Isami who composed the first literary epic of Muslim India used Mahmud as the hero of this epic and stressed that Mahmud should serve as a model to other rulers. Many of the miracles that were claimed to have been performed by the Somanatha idol were in fact human deception using various techniques and this was mentioned in Mahmud’s letter to the caliph. In the accounts of those like Isami, the Somanatha idol was completely destroyed while others like Al-Biruni say that the Mahmud ordered the statue to be relocated. But Hindu images often had a way of reappearing. Many of the idols went into hiding underground or in forests and after the time of danger had passed, they would reappear and those who were responsible for this would claim it as a supernatural work. Somanatha, due to the fame of Mahmud’s victory and diligence of Solanki rulers to rebuild the temple, subsequently became a primary site of religious contention and a marker of political control over Gujarat.

Richard M. Eaton deals extensively with the temple destruction by the Turko-Persians. Abd-al-Milik-Isami. Eaton talks about the positive and negative sides of state building and temples. While patronage to the Chisty Shaikhs was the positive part, the negative part was the large scale destruction of any previous political authority in the areas. He talks about the bonding between the king, god, temple and land and says that destruction of temples and establishing new ones was a pattern which had existed in India from a long time as a process of asserting new authority. Temple desecration usually occurred in the instance of military conflicts during expansions and occasionally they were converted to mosques. The indo-Muslim rulers were aware of the relationship between a royal Hindu patron and his client temple and so there was always a possibility that the temples political significance might be activated and serve as a power base to the patrons. Eaton also contrasts temples and mosques and says that while temples had a huge connection with the ruling authority, mosques did not have any such connection and so desecration of a mosque would not have relevance to the de-establishment of a regime. Temple desecration also occurred as punishments for disloyalty or treason of Hindu officers under the Turko-Persian rule.

Cynthia Talbot who has specialised in the study of the Andhras during the medieval times says that the most negative representation of Muslims in Andhra records appear immediately after the disastrous events of 1323 when the Delhi sultanate defeats the Kakatiyas. By 1325, almost all of south India was under Muslim control. The various evils committed by the Muslims such as eating of beef, destroyers of temples, taxing the previously tax exempt Brahman villages have given them the descriptions of Rakshasa demons of the ancient myths. Popular names given to the Muslims were Mlechha, Yavanas and Shakas as they failed to uphold the hierarchical caste system.

Cynthia Talbot also talks about Prataparudra Charitramu, the acts or deeds of Prataparudra which talks about the struggle between Prataparudra and the Delhi sultanate and his ultimate defeat at their hands. Prataparudra importance was his placement in the centre of historical change as he represented the last appeal of the golden age. In Rajputana, Kanhadade Prabandha is a Hindu counter epic which narrates the conflict between Sultanate armies under Allauddin Khilji and the Rajput chief Kanhadade of Jalor Fort, between 1295 and 1310. Inscription like those of Chittapa Khana refers to the Turks as wicked. The Turko-Persians were represented as “rabid iconoclasts” because of the large scale temple desecration and destruction of images. But according to Richard Eaton, it was not just religious factors which led to the invasions and destruction, but rather there were strong economic motives behind it as well. Very often there was also no actual destruction but instead just appropriation of movable property. But the symbolic value of temple desecration was far greater than the material loss incurred.

The Muslim epics of conquest grew out of the quasidas which were written on occasion of Indian campaigns by Ghaznavid poets in Lahore and Ghazna. The first war epic written in Muslim Indian was that of Amir Khusrau’s Miftah al-futith 1, which celebrates the four victories of Jaldl al-din Khaljl (1290- 96), two of them against Hindu rajas, one against the Mongols and one against a rebel Muslim governor. these epics make more sense as historical attitude rather than as history according to Aziz Ahmed. Isami glorifies the role of Mahmud of Ghazni who made the conquest of India possible. The motif of war waged in order to avenge the honour of women is seen in some of these epics. Also the theme of romance between people of the two groups is dealt with in these sources.

The Hindu epics of resistance were mainly the bardic literature of the Rajputs. The terms Yavana, Mleccha and Turuksha were used to refer to these foreigners. These epics of resistance present the Turko-Persians as the others just as the Persian sources present the non-Muslims as the other in their literature. In the counter-epics, the aim was to glorify the resistance put up by the Rajputs and to praise their bravery. These texts were written over several centuries and it was initially passed on through oral tradition. The Turks as presented as having used deceitful methods in war such as in the case of the battle with Prithviraja in the second battle of Tarain, where his forces were gaining an edge. Bu then the Turks retreated and returned once Prithviraja’s forces had retreated. In this way the weakness of the Rajputs are undermined. The terms used for the Turks were did not necessarily have a religious connotation as in the case of terms like Yavana which was a geographical identity or Mlechha which was a cultural identity.

Romila thapar critically examines the way in which the Turks are presented in the Indian sources. She says that the term Muslim did not occur in any of the sources but rather terms like Yavana, Saka, Mleccha, and Turuksha were used. Yavana was used for the people coming in from the west, Mleccha referred to those non-Sanskrit speaking people who were outside the caste hierarchy. She says that the perception that the two groups had of each other was in terms of monolithic religion. Cynthia Talbot says that the pejorative representation of the Turko-Persians was a by-product of the process of identity formation and even then the term Muslim was not used.

For the Ghaznavids, the invasions were more for the material gains and it was primarily an economic motive which led to the invasion by the Ghaznavids according to Richard Davis. The treasures from India were taken back to Ghazna and it kept the currency of their quality high. The Ghaznavids used the wealth from their invasions for financing their larger political objectives at Khurasan. Even the Ghurids benefitted from their conquests and even in the case of temple desecration it was mainly done for asserting their authority and also for the treasures obtained from the temples.

In conclusion, we observe that the Indian and foreign sources represent each other as the other. Also the terms Hindu and Muslim are rarely used in their sources and even in the instances that they are used, they are used as a geographical identity rather than a using them in a religious sense. In this context and on the evidence provided by those like Richard Davis and Richard Eaton, we can see that the invasions were not just campaigns of Islam and for conversion. There were stronger political and economic motives behind the Turkish advent and therefore the Turkish advent cannot be seen as Islamic conquest.

Bibliography

• A. Nizami – State And Culture In Medieval India

• Romila Thapar – Cultural Pasts: Essays In Early Indian History
  • Imagined Religious Communities?, Ancient History And The Modern Search For A Hindu Identity – Romila Thapar
  • The Tyranny Of Labels – Romila Thapar

• David Gilmartin And Bruce B. Lawrence (Ed.), Beyond Hindu And Turk: Rethinking Religious Identities In Islamicate South Asia
  • Temple Desecration And Indo-Muslim States – Richard M. Eaton

• Richard H. Davis, Lives Of Indian Images

• Sheldon Pollock,Rāmāyana And Political Imagination In India(article)

• Cynthia Talbot, Inscribing The Other, Inscribing The Self: Hindu-Muslim Identities In Pre-Colonial India(article)

• Aziz Ahmad,Epic and Counter-Epic in Medieval India(article)

• Mohammad Habib And K. Nizami (Ed.), A Comprehensive History Of India, Volume 5: The Delhi Sultanate (A.D. 1206-1526)

Arpith Thomas Isaac

II History