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

The brothels in Vijayanagar city were located on both sides of a long and broad avenue behind the state mint. ‘The splendour of those houses, the beauty of the heart-ravishers, their blandishments and ogles, are beyond description …,’ reports Razzak. ‘[In the afternoon] they place at the doors of these houses, which are beautifully decorated, chairs and settees on which the courtesans seat themselves. Everyone is covered with pearls, precious stones, and costly garments. They are all exceedingly young and beautiful. Each has one or two slave girls standing before her, to invite and allure [passers-by] to indulgence and pleasure. Any man who passes through this place makes choice of whom he will.’

THE FOOD HABITS of Hindus in medieval India were quite different from what they were in earlier times. Indian society in ancient and early classical period was quite permissive in the matter of food, and allowed all people, irrespective of their class and sex, including the priestly class, the freedom to eat whatever they liked, even beef, drink alcohol and take psychotropic drugs. The scene changed altogether by the middle of the first millennium CE, when the caste system tightened its iron grip on Hindu society. Caste regulations then defined and enforced the food and drink rules applicable to each caste, and these rules played a crucial role in segregating castes.

The old adage that you are what you eat thus acquired a new meaning in India. Predictably, the highest dietary restrictions were on those of the highest caste, Brahmins, who, because of their primary priestly function, were generally forbidden to eat any meat or fish, and had to avoid even certain vegetables — garlic, onions, leeks, and so on — which were thought to stimulate carnal desires. On the other hand, those on the bottom rung of the caste society, the outcastes, had virtually no food restrictions at all.

Caste rules specified not only the dietary taboos to be observed by different castes, but also the dining practices they had to observe. ‘No man of one creed will drink, eat, or marry with those of another,’ observes Nikitin. ‘Some of them feed on mutton, fowls, fish, and eggs, but none on beef … The [high caste] Hindus eat no meat, no cow flesh, no mutton, no chicken. They take their meals twice a day, but not at night, and drink no wine or mead. They neither eat nor drink with Mohammedans. Their fare is poor … They live on Indian corn, carrots … and different herbs. Always eating with their right hand, they will never set the left hand to anything. Nor do they use a knife; the spoon is unknown. While travelling every one carries a stone pot to cook his broth. They take care that Mohammedans do not look into their pot, nor see their food, and should this happen, they will not eat it; some therefore hide themselves under a linen cloth lest they should be seen when eating … They sit down to eat, and wash their hands and feet, and rinse their mouths before they do.’ Adds Battuta: ‘The nobles of the Marathas are Brahmins and Katris (Kshatriyas). Their food consists of rice, vegetables, and oil of sesame … They wash themselves thoroughly before eating …’

‘In eating, they use the right hand only,’ confirms Marco Polo, a late thirteenth century Venetian traveller. ‘So also they drink only from their own drinking vessels, and every man has his own; nor will anyone drink from another’s vessel. And when they drink they do not put the vessel to their lips but hold it aloft and let the drink spout into the mouth … They are very strict … in abstaining from wine. Indeed, they have made a rule that wine-drinkers and seafaring men are never to be accepted as sureties.’

Not only was interdining between castes prohibited in the Hindu society, but even within a family each individual usually took his or her meal separately. The family did not ever sit together for meals. ‘They eat not with one another, nor with their wives,’ states Nikitin. ‘It is an established usage of infidels never to eat in the presence of each other,’ adds Ferishta. Hindus considered eating to be a private act, and that it was preferable to do it in private, like other private acts.

There were of course occasions when several Hindus (all of the same gender, and usually all of the same caste) feasted together, as at a wedding reception. But even on such occasions, though they sat down together for the feast, they were only physically together, not socially together, for they ate in silence, and did not engage each other in conversation. And it was unthinkable for anyone to touch the food served to anyone else. ‘When someone takes something from your food, what remains is a leftover, and cannot be eaten,’ notes al-Biruni. [8] For Indian dietary practices, see The First Spring , Part VII, Chapter 3

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF the Delhi Sultanate and the large scale migration of Turks into India added several new elements to the dietary diversity of Indians. Muslims feasted on beef, but considered it abominable to eat pork; Hindus on the other hand considered it abominable to eat beef, but many Hindus, including high caste Rajputs, feasted on pork. While Hindus preferred to sit alone to eat, Muslims preferred to dine together in groups. And while the cuisine of Hindus, even of nobles and rajas, was quite simple, Muslim aristocracy favoured gourmet food. A medieval chronicle describes, no doubt with some exaggeration, a sultan being served a dish prepared with ‘300 and more ingredients in it.’ Several of these ingredients were no doubt Indian spices, to the use of which Turks took to in India. At the same time, Indians on their part added pilau and kuruma to their cuisine under the influence of Turks.

Turks loved to feast on rich food. According to Shahab-ud-din, 2500 oxen, 2000 sheep, as well as a large number of other animals, and many different kinds of birds, were daily slaughtered in the kitchen of the sultan of Delhi. This claim might be rather hyperbolic, but it is not entirely incredible, when we consider that the raja of Vijayanagar every day supplied for the kitchen of Abdur Razzak, the visiting Persian envoy, ‘two sheep, four couple of fowls, five mans of rice, one man of butter, and one man of sugar, and two varaha gold coins,’ as the ambassador himself states.

Some of the stories told about the gluttons of the age are quite astounding. Battuta, for instance, speaks of an Ethiopian who was renowned as much for his appetite as for his valour: ‘He was tall and corpulent, and used to eat a whole sheep at a meal, and I was told that after eating he would drink about a pound and a half of ghee.’ Even more fantastic are the dietary practices attributed to Begarha, the sultan of Gujarat. A man of gigantic size and gargantuan appetite, he, according to legend, ate about fourteen kilos of food every day, and his breakfast consisted of a cup of honey, a cup of butter, and over a hundred plantains. And, most curious of all, his daily diet included of a swig of poison!

As for the food served at Muslim feasts, Isami, a mid-fourteenth century chronicler, gives an account of a banquet held in the Deccan in honour of the local sultan. ‘It was the eighth part of the day when trumpets announced that the banquet was ready. Silk tapestries were spread and table cloths laid. Leavened and unleavened bread were kept ready, various items of salad were there, green and crisp. Then came roast quail and partridge and roast chicken and roast lamb. Curry puffs and cooked vegetables were there as accompaniments. Juicy almond puddings and halvahs were served as dessert and these were scented with camphor and musk. The meal ended with the distribution of betel and the tambula …’ The tableware used at this feast were imported from China.

THERE WAS NO bar on anyone drinking alcoholic beverages in ancient India, but their consumption fell sharply in the late classical period due to the decline of economic prosperity, the collapse of towns and the virtual disappearance of urban lifestyle, as well as due to the enforcement of caste taboos. Brahmins were now required to totally abjure alcoholic drinks. They, notes Battuta, do not ‘drink wine, for this in their eyes is the greatest of vices.’ Al Masudi, a tenth century Iraqi historian, offers a curious (but sensible) explanation for this. ‘Hindus,’ he writes, ‘abstain from drinking wine, and censure those who consume it; not because their religion forbids it, but in the dread of it clouding their reason and depriving them of their powers.’