Abraham Eraly - The Age of Wrath - A History of the Delhi Sultanate

The only access to the citadel was through an iron gate at the base of the hill, which opened into a tortuous, zigzag cave passage hewn into the interior of the rock. ‘This passage,’ notes Lahauri, ‘is so dark that even on the brightest day you could not grope your way through it without lamps and torches … In order to obstruct this passage in case of emergency they have constructed some iron plates to close it up, which they can heat up with fire and thus render it utterly impossible for any living creature to pass through. From the middle to the crest of the hill, by way of additional security, strong forts have been erected of stone and quicklime.’

All this made Daulatabad entirely impregnable. ‘Thus the usual means for the reduction of forts — such as mines, covered galleries, and batteries — are all utterly useless in besieging such an impregnable fortress as this,’ concludes Lahauri. ‘In fact, its capture is impossible except through the agency of accidental or miraculous means; hence drought, famine and pestilence became the instruments of its final overthrow.’

THERE ARE A FEW brief descriptions of several other Indian cities in medieval chronicles. One such city is Gwalior, which Hasan Nizami, a contemporary of Qutb-ud-din Aibak, describes as ‘the pearl on the necklace of the castles of Hind.’ Adds Battuta: ‘The fort of Gwalior … is situated on the top of a high mountain, and appears … to be cut out of the rock itself … There are subterranean cisterns in it, and it contains also about twenty bricked wells … Near the gate of the fort there is the figure of an elephant with its mahout, carved in stone, which when seen from a distance seems to be a real elephant. At the base of the fortress there is a fine town, built entirely of white hewn stone, mosques and houses alike. No wood is used except for the doors.’

Urban centres had generally become derelict in India in the late classical period, because of economic decline and the slide of India into the Dark Ages. Though there was some revival of urbanisation during the sultanate period, most of the towns in India were still in a dilapidated state at this time. This was the condition of many villages also, as Battuta in the fourteenth century found. Most medieval Indian villages were secluded settlements, surrounded by thickets or forests, which covered most regions of the subcontinent at this time. Battuta, for instance, found that the Tamil country ‘was an uninterrupted and impassable jungle of trees and reeds.’

Villages in early medieval India were just clusters of huts, with fields and pastures alongside them. They were often temporary habitations, as the population kept shifting periodically, abandoning old villages and setting up new ones, seeking fresh lands for cultivation. ‘In Hindustan hamlets and villages, even towns, are depopulated and set up in a moment,’ noted Mughal emperor Babur in the early sixteenth century. ‘If the people of a large town, one inhabited for years even, flee from it, they do it in such a way that not a sign or trace of them remains in a day, or a day and a half.’

The village scene in medieval India varied considerably from region to region, India being a vast and diverse country. In most parts of India villagers led an isolated, self-sufficient life in medieval times, needing hardly anything from outside the village to meet their meagre requirements. It was only the temple fairs in the neighbouring towns once a year or so that brought villagers out of their seclusion. But there were also regions in India where villages were contiguous, and villagers had a broad social life. ‘The country is but small, yet it is so full of people, that it may well be called one town,’ says Barbosa about Kerala.

TRAVEL FACILITIES, LIKE everything else in medieval India, varied considerably from region to region. The best roads in India at this time were in the Indo-Gangetic Plain, the east-west and the north-south arterial roads passing thorough Delhi. It was a laudable traditional practice of kings and chieftains in premedieval India to plant shade trees and fruit trees along roads, and this practice was continued by medieval rulers. Thus Battuta found that the nearly 1000 kilometre long road between Delhi and Daulatabad was all along the way ‘bordered with trees, such as the willow and others, so the traveller might think himself in a garden.’ Similar was the observation of the anonymous author of Mukhtasiru-t Tawarikh some three centuries later: ‘On all roads shady and fruit trees are planted on both sides. Wells and tanks are dug which contain fresh and sweet water in abundance. The passengers go along the roads under the shadow of the trees, amusing themselves, eating the fruits and drinking cold water, as if they are taking a walk along the beds of a garden.’ And in faraway Kerala, Battuta found that the roads there ‘run through orchards.’

Mukhtasiru-t Tawarikh further states that ‘on all public roads and streets strong bridges are made over every river and rill, and embankments are also are raised.’ This clearly is an exaggeration. Bridges across rivers were rare in medieval India — rivers were usually crossed by boats, or waded across during the dry season. Paes found that in Vijayanagar people crossed rivers ‘by boats which are round like baskets; inside they are made of cane, and outside are covered with leather. They are able to carry fifteen or twenty persons. Even horses and oxen cross in them if necessary, but for the most part these animals swim across. Men row the boats with a sort of paddle, and the boats are always turning round, as they cannot go straight like others. In all the kingdom … there are no other boats but these.’

There was a fair amount of long-distance river traffic in medieval India, particularly down the Ganga-Yamuna river system. But road travel was easier and faster, and had greater facilities. Pillars with travel directions were erected on all important roads. ‘All along the road [from Delhi to central India] … there are pillars, on which is engraved the number of miles from each pillar to the next,’ reports Battuta. ‘Lofty minarets are made at the distance of each kos to indicate the road,’ states Mukhtasiru-t Tawarikh . There were even public transport facilities in some places. According to Afif, a courtier chronicler of Firuz Tughluq, there was in his time very heavy traffic between Delhi and Firuzabad, and ‘to accommodate this great traffic, there were public carriers who kept carriages, mules and horses, which were ready for hire at a settled rate every morning … Palanquin-bearers were also ready to convey passengers. The fare of a carriage was four silver jitals for each person; for a mule, six; for a horse, twelve; and for a palanquin, half a tanka. There were also plenty of porters ready for employment by anyone, and they earned a good livelihood.’

There were also rest houses along the main roads. ‘At every two parasangs inns are built of strong masonry for travellers to dwell in and take rest,’ states Mukhtasiru-t Tawarikh . ‘Every kind of food and drink, all sorts of medicines, and all kinds of necessary instruments and utensils can be obtained at each inn.’ This is also reported by Battuta: ‘At each of these stations the traveller finds all that he needs, as if his … journey lay through a market.’ According to the mid-fifteenth century Russian traveller Nikitin, ‘In the land of India it is the custom of foreign traders to stop at inns; there the food is cooked for the guests by the landlady, who also makes the bed and sleeps with the stranger. Women that know you willingly concede their favours, for they like white men.’

Similar facilities were available even in the peripheral regions of India. ‘The road over the whole distance runs beneath the shade of trees, and at every half-mile there is a wooden shed with benches on which all travellers, whether Muslims or infidels, may sit,’ reports Battuta about his experience in Kerala. ‘At each shed there is a well for drinking water and an infidel in charge of it. If the traveller is an infidel he gives him water in vessels; if he is a Muslim he pours the water into his hands, continuing to do so until he signs to him to stop … At all the halting places on this road there are houses belonging to Muslims, at which Muslim travellers alight, and where they buy all that they need.’