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

THERE IS VERY little information about the lifestyle of the common people in medieval chronicles, but there is in them a good amount of data on the lifestyle of the affluent. The urban rich in peninsular India in the mid-fifteenth century lived in palatial, multi-storeyed mansions, according Razzak. This was confirmed a few decades later by the Portuguese traveller Paes, who noted that the cities in the peninsula had large populations and had several rows of handsome buildings. The city of Vijayanagar, according to him, was as large as Rome and very beautiful, and had lakes and shady parks in it. But while the nobles lived in grand mansions, the common people lived in modest houses of just three or four small rooms, including kitchen. And the poor everywhere in India lived in mud-and-thatch single room hovels. In Kerala, kings even forbade the common people from roofing their houses with tiles instead of with thatch; they had to get royal permission to use tiles.

The walls and floors of the houses of commoners, and the mats on which their residents sat and slept, were invariably plastered with cow-dung, which Indians ‘looked upon as a clean substance,’ according to Chau Ju-Kua, an early thirteenth century Chinese chronicler. Confirms Marco Polo: ‘The people of this country have a custom of rubbing their houses all over with cow-dung.’ Another common feature of the Hindu homes was that people generally, even the poor, adorned their front-yard with rangoli, auspicious decorative designs, plain or colourful.

As for chairs and tables, there would have been hardly any of that in the homes of most medieval Indians, for, as Marco Polo notes, all the people of India, ‘great and small, kings and barons included, do sit upon the floor only.’ But beds seem to have been fairly common in the homes of the affluent, and are described in detail by Battuta. ‘The beds in India are light, and can be carried by a single man,’ he writes. ‘Every person when travelling has to transport his own bed, which his slave boy carries on his head. It consists of four conical legs with four crosspieces of wood on which braids of silk or cotton are woven. When one lies down on it, there is no need for anything to make it pliable, for it itself is pliable. Along with the bed they carry two mattresses and pillows and a coverlet, all made of silk. Their custom is to put linen or cotton slips on the mattresses and coverlets, so that when they become dirty they wash the slips, while the bedding inside remains clean.’ According to Marco Polo, ‘nobles and great folks slept on beds made of very light cane work, hanging from the ceiling by cords for fear of tarantulas and other vermin, while the common folk slept on the streets.’

THE DRESS AND ornaments of the people, as well as their lifestyle, varied considerably from region to region in medieval India, and even within each region these varied according to the religion, class and caste of the people. But the common people everywhere in India, particularly in the peninsula, were scantily dressed, because of the warm and humid climate of India, and also because they could afford nothing better. ‘The common people go quite naked, with the exception of a piece of cloth about their middle,’ states Varthema, about what he saw in peninsular India. ‘The blacks of this country go about with nearly naked bodies, wearing only a piece of cloth called langoti, extending from the navel to above their knees,’ writes Razzak about Kerala. ‘The king and the beggar both go about in this way …’

In coastal Maharashtra, according to Nikitin, ‘people are all naked and barefooted. Women walk about with their heads uncovered and their breasts bare. Boys and girls all go naked till seven years, and do not hide their shame.’ Adds Battuta: ‘The women of … all the coastal districts wear nothing but loose unsewn garments, one end of which they gird round their waists, and drape the rest over their head and shoulders. They are beautiful and virtuous, and each wears a gold ring in her nose.’

Men and women of the upper classes, unlike the near naked common people, dressed luxuriously in most regions of India. Notes Varthema about the nobles of Vijayanagar: ‘Their dress is this: the men of condition wear a short shirt, and on their head a cloth of gold and silk in the Moorish fashion … The king wears a cap of gold brocade two spans long, and when he goes to war he wears a quilted dress of cotton, and over it he puts another garment full of gold piastres, and having all around it jewels of various kinds. His horse is worth more than some of our cities, on account of the ornaments which it wears.’ Barbosa also offers a similar description; according to him the affluent men in Vijayanagar wore a girdle and a short silk or cotton shirt, often brocaded; they also wore a small turban or a brocaded cap.

As for upper class women, they, according to Barbosa, ‘wear white garments of very thin cotton, or silk of bright colours, five yards long, one part of which is girt round them below, and the other part is thrown over one shoulder and drawn across their breasts in such a way that one arm and shoulder remains uncovered … Their heads are uncovered and the hair is tightly gathered into a becoming knot on the top of the head, and in their hair they put many scented flowers … These women are very beautiful and very bold.’

The reports of various foreign visitors in medieval India on the dress and ornaments of the people are, in general terms, consistent, but there are several inconsistencies in the details they provide. Thus, while Varthema states that the people of Vijayanagar, even the nobles, wore ‘nothing on their feet,’ Paes notes that though ‘the majority of the people there, or almost all, go about the country barefooted,’ the affluent men in Vijayanagar wore shoes with pointed ends, or sandals fitted with straps, ‘like those which of old the Romans were wont to wear …’ According to Barbosa, even women of the affluent families in Vijayanagar wore shoes, embroidered leather shoes. And they dressed luxuriously.

One of the most commendable practices of the people of medieval India was that most of them, whatever their class and caste, generally maintained good personal hygiene. ‘It is their practice that everyone, male and female, washes their body twice every day,’ observes Marco Polo. According Barbosa, nobles in Vijayanagar after bath daubed their bodies with ‘white sandalwood, aloes, camphor, musk and saffron all ground fine and kneaded with rose water.’ And Chau Ju-Kua notes: ‘The inhabitants [of India] morning and evening besmear their bodies with turmeric so as to look like gold covered images.’

MEDIEVAL INDIANS, THE elite as well as the commoners, men as well as women, generally paid more attention to ornaments than to garments. ‘All the inhabitants of the country, whether high or low, even down to the artificers of the bazaar, wear jewels and gilt ornaments on their ears and around their necks, arms, wrists, and fingers,’ notes Razzak. ‘In the side of one of their nostrils they make a small hole, through which they put a fine gold wire with a pearl, sapphire or ruby pendant,’ reports Barbosa about the ornaments worn by affluent women in Vijayanagar. ‘They have their ears bored as well, and in them they wear earrings set with many jewels; on their necks they wear necklaces of gold and jewels and very fine coral beads; bracelets of gold and precious stones and many good coral beads are fitted to their arms.’ A common luxury which nearly everyone in India could afford was to adorn themselves, and their homes, with flowers. Notes Razzak about Vijayanagar: ‘Sweet-scented flowers are always procurable fresh in that city, and they are considered as even necessary sustenance, seeing that without them people could not exist.’