Key Areas of MAP

PORTS
CITIES
CAPITALS
TRADE ROUTE
Ancient rivers(current name) Now find the Sulaiman and Kirthar hills to the
Passes
mountains northwest. Some of the areas where women and
hills
dynasties association with monument or thing
men first began to grow crops such as wheat and
war locations barley about 8000 years ago are located here.
People also began rearing animals like sheep, goat,
and cattle, and lived in villages. Locate the Garo
hills to the north-east and the Vindhyas in central
India. These were some of the other areas where

Map : 1
Physical Map of the Subcontinent

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 Choosing a place to live in
Look at Map 2 below. All the places marked with
red triangles are sites from which archaeologists
have found evidence of hunter-gatherers. (Hunter-
gatherers lived in many more places. Only some
are shown on the map). Many sites were located
near sources of water, such as rivers and lakes.

Map : 2
Some Important Archaeological Sites

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 What was special about these cities? These cities were found
in Punjab and Sind in
Many of these cities were divided into two or more Pakistan, and in Gujarat,
parts. Usually, the part to the west was smaller Rajasthan, Haryana
and Punjab in India.
but higher. Archaeologists describe this as the Archaeologists have found
citadel. Generally, the part to the east was larger a set of unique objects
but lower. This is called the lower town. Very in almost all these cities:
red pottery painted with
often walls of baked brick were built around each
designs in black, stone
part. The bricks were so well baked that they have weights, seals, special
lasted for thousands of years. The bricks were beads, copper tools, and
laid in an interlocking pattern and that made the paralleled sided long stone
blades.
walls strong.
In some cities, special
buildings were constructed
on the citadel. For example, in
Mohenjodaro, a very special MAP : 3
tank, which archaeologists The Earliest Cities
call the Great Bath, was built in the Subcontinent

in this area. This was lined

with bricks, coated with
plaster, and made water-
tight with a layer of natural
tar. There were steps leading
down to it from two sides,
while there were rooms on
all sides. Water was probably
brought in from a well,
and drained out after use.
Perhaps important people
took a dip in this tank on
special occasions.
Other cities, such as
Kalibangan and Lothal
had fire altars, where
sacrifices may have been
performed. And some cities
like Mohenjodaro, Harappa,
and Lothal had elaborate
storehouses.

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 They made earthen pots. Some of these were
grey in colour, others were red. One special type
of pottery found at these sites is known as Painted
Grey Ware. As is obvious from the name, these grey
pots had painted designs, usually simple lines and
geometric patterns.

Mahajanapadas
About 2500 years ago, some janapadas became
more important than others, and were known as
mahajanapadas. Some of these are shown on Map
4. Most mahajanapadas had a capital city, many
of these were fortified. This means that huge walls
of wood, brick or stone were built around them.
Forts were probably built because people were
afraid of attacks from other kings and needed

Map : 4
Important Janapadas,
Mahajanapadas and Cities

45 
kingdoms, kings and
an early republic

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 There were several cities in the empire (marked The places where
with black dots on the map). These included the inscriptions of Ashoka
have been found are
capital Pataliputra, Taxila, and Ujjain. Taxila was marked with red dots.
a gateway to the northwest, including Central These were included
Asia, while Ujjain lay on the route from north to within the empire.
south India. Merchants, officials and craftspersons Name the countries where
probably lived in these cities. Ashokan inscriptions have
been found. Which Indian
In other areas there were villages of farmers and states were outside the
herders. In some areas such as central India, there empire?
were forests where people gathered forest produce
and hunted animals for food. People in different
parts of the empire spoke different languages.

Map : 5
The Mauryan Empire: showing the principal
cities and some of the places where
inscriptions were found.

Inscriptions were found

63 
from a kingdom to an
empire

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 Map : 6
Showing Important Trade Routes including the Silk Route

These routes were under the

control of Chinese rulers.

These routes were under

the control of the Kushanas
(Chapter 8).

These were important sea

routes.

These routes were under the

control of the rulers of Iran
(Persia).

These routes were controlled by

the Roman emperors.

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 Chinese, Indian, Iranian, Arab,
Greek and Roman traders
participated in these exchanges.

The ports along the coast of

south IndiaA were important
Shaka coin
centres for the export of
pepper and other spices.

Find Poduca (south India) on the

map. This was the Roman name
for Arikamedu (Chapter 8).
Based on The Times Atlas of World History,
(ed. Geoffrey Barraclough) Hammond Inc,
71 
New Jersey, 1986, pp 70–71.
from a kingdom to an
empire

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 Find Prayaga (the old name for Allahabad),
Ujjain and Pataliputra (Patna) on the map. These
were important centres of the Gupta rulers.
What was the difference between the way
in which Samudragupta treated the rulers of
Aryavarta and Dakshinapatha?
Can you suggest any reasons for this difference?

MAP : 7
Showing Important Cities and Kingdoms

87 
new empires and
kingdoms

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  108
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 1 Introduction: Tracing Changes
through a Thousand Years

Map 1
A section of the world
map drawn by the
geographer al-Idrisi
in the twelfth century
showing the Indian
subcontinent from
land to sea.

T ake a look at Maps 1 and 2. Map 1 was made in

1154­ ce by the Arab geographer Al-Idrisi. The
section reproduced here is a detail of the Indian
subcontinent from his larger map of the world. Map 2
Cartographer
was made in the 1720s by a French cartographer. The A person who
two maps are quite different even though they are of the makes maps.
same area. In al-Idrisi’s map, south India is where we
would expect to find north India and Sri Lanka is the
island at the top. Place-names are marked in Arabic,

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 Map 2
The subcontinent, from
the early-eighteenth-
century Atlas Nouveau
of Guillaume de l’Isle.

and there are some well-known names like Kanauj

in Uttar Pradesh (spelt in the map as Qanauj). Map 2
was made nearly 600 years after Map 1, during this
period, information about the subcontinent had
changed considerably. This map seems more familiar to
us and the coastal areas in particular are surprisingly
detailed. This map was used by European sailors and
merchants on their voyages.

?
Look at the areas in the interior of the subcontinent
on Map 2. Are they as detailed as those on the coast?
Follow the course of the River Ganga and see how it is
shown. Why do you think there is a difference in the level
of detail and accuracy between the coastal and inland
areas in this map?

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 Region and Empire
Large states like those of the Cholas (Chapter 2),
Tughluqs (Chapter 3) or Mughals (Chapter 4)
encompassed many regions. A Sanskrit prashasti
(see Chapter 2 for an example of a prashasti ) praising
the Delhi Sultan Ghiyasuddin Balban (1266-1287)
explained that he was the ruler of a vast empire that
stretched from Bengal (Gauda) in the east to Ghazni
(Gajjana) in Afghanistan in the west and included all
of south India (Dravida). People of different regions –
Gauda, Andhra, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra and
Gujarat – apparently fled before his armies. Historians

Map 3
Provinces of the Delhi
Sultanate during
Muhammad Tughluq’s
reign according to
the Egyptian source
Masalik al-Absar fi
Mamalik al-Amsar of
Shihabuddin Umari.

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 2 kings and
kingdoms

M any new dynasties emerged after the

seventh century. Map 1 shows the major ruling
dynasties in different parts of the subcontinent
between the seventh and twelfth centuries.

Map 1
Major kingdoms,
seventh-twelfth
centuries

?
Locate the
Gurjara-Pratiharas,
Rashtrakutas,
Palas, Cholas
and Chahamanas
(Chauhans).
Can you identify
the present-day
states over which
they exercised
control?

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 Map 2
The Chola kingdom
and its neighbours.

The successors of Vijayalaya conquered neighbouring

regions and the kingdom grew in size and power. The
Pandyan and the Pallava territories to the south and
north were made part of this kingdom. Rajaraja I,
considered the most powerful Chola ruler, became
king in 985 and expanded control over most of these
areas. He also reorganised the administration of
the empire. Rajaraja’s son Rajendra I continued his
policies and even invaded the Ganga valley, Sri Lanka
and countries of Southeast Asia, developing a navy for
these expeditions.
Splendid Temples and Bronze Sculpture
The big temples of Thanjavur and Gangaikonda-
cholapuram, built by Rajaraja and Rajendra, are
architectural and sculptural marvels.

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 3 delhI: 12th TO 15th CENTURY

I n Chapter 2 we saw that regions like the Kaveri delta

became the centre of large kingdoms. Did you notice
that there was no mention of a kingdom with Delhi
as its capital? That was because Delhi became an
important city only in the twelfth century.
Take a look at Table 1. Delhi first became the capital
of a kingdom under the Tomara Rajputs, who were
defeated in the middle of the twelfth century by the
Chauhans (also referred to as Chahamanas) of Ajmer.
Map 1
Selected Sultanate It was under the Tomaras and Chauhans that Delhi
cities of Delhi, became an important commercial centre. Many rich
thirteenth-fourteenth Jaina merchants lived in the city and constructed
centuries.
several temples. Coins minted
here, called dehliwal, had a
wide circulation.
The transformation of Delhi
into a capital that controlled vast
areas of the subcontinent started
with the foundation of the Delhi
Sultanate in the beginning of the
thirteenth century. Take a look at
Table 1 again and identify the five
dynasties that together made the
Delhi Sultanate.
The Delhi Sultans built many
-
cities in the area that we now
know as Delhi. Look at Map 1
- and locate Dehli-i Kuhna, Siri and
Jahanpanah.

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 Map 1
Military campaigns
under Akbar and
Aurangzeb.

Mughal Traditions of Succession

The Mughals did not believe in the rule of primogeniture,
where the eldest son inherited his father’s estate.
Instead they followed the Mughal and Timurid Mughal marriages
custom of coparcenary inheritance, or a division of with the Rajputs
the inheritance amongst all the sons. Which do you
The mother of
think is a fairer division of inheritance: primogeniture Jahangir was
or coparcenary? a Kachhwaha
princess, daughter
of the Rajput
Mughal Relations with Other Rulers ruler of Amber
(modern- day
The Mughal rulers campaigned constantly against
Jaipur). The
rulers who refused to accept their authority. But as mother of Shah
the Mughals became powerful many other rulers Jahan was a Rathor
also joined them voluntarily. The Rajputs are a good princess, daughter
example of this. Many of them married their daughters of the Rajput
ruler of Marwar
into Mughal families and received high positions. But (Jodhpur).
many resisted as well.
41 the mughals

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 Map 1
Location of some
of the major Indian
tribes.

tribe in the north-west. They were divided into many

smaller clans under different chiefs. In the western Clan
Himalaya lived the shepherd tribe of Gaddis. The A clan is a group
distant north-eastern part of the subcontinent too was of families or
entirely dominated by tribes – the Nagas, Ahoms and households
many others. claiming descent
from a common
In many areas of present-day Bihar and Jharkhand, ancestor. Tribal
Chero chiefdoms had emerged by the twelfth century. organisation is
Raja Man Singh, Akbar’s famous general, attacked often based on
and defeated the Cheros in 1591. A large amount of kinship or clan
booty was taken from them, but they were not entirely loyalties.
subdued. Under Aurangzeb, Mughal forces captured
many Chero fortresses and subjugated the tribe. The
Mundas and Santals were among the other important
tribes that lived in this region and also in Orissa
and Bengal.
tribes, nomads and
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 garhs. Each garh was controlled
by a particular Gond clan. This
was further divided into units of
84 villages called chaurasi. The
chaurasi was subdivided into
barhots which were made up of
12 villages each.
The emergence of large states
changed the nature of Gond
society. Their basically equal
society gradually got divided
into unequal social classes.
Brahmanas received land grants
from the Gond rajas and became
more influential. The Gond chiefs
now wished to be recognised
as Rajputs. So, Aman Das, the
Gond raja of Garha Katanga,
assumed the title of Sangram
Map 2 Shah. His son, Dalpat, married
Gondwana. princess Durgawati, the daughter
of Salbahan, the Chandel
Rajput raja of Mahoba.
Dalpat, however, died
Fig. 6
early. Rani Durgawati
A carved door.
Gond tribe, Bastar was very capable, and
area, Madhya started ruling on behalf
Pradesh. of her five-year-old son,
Bir Narain. Under her,
the kingdom became
even more extensive. In
1565, the Mughal forces
under Asaf Khan attacked
Garha Katanga. A strong
resistance was put up by
Rani Durgawati. She was
defeated and preferred to
die rather than surrender.
Her son, too, died fighting
soon after.

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 Garha Katanga was a rich state. It earned much
wealth by trapping and exporting wild elephants to other
kingdoms. When the Mughals defeated the Gonds, they
?
captured a huge booty of precious coins and elephants. Discuss why the
They annexed part of the kingdom and granted the rest Mughals were
interested in the
to Chandra Shah, an uncle of Bir Narain. Despite the
land of the Gonds.
fall of Garha Katanga, the Gond kingdoms survived for
some time. However, they became much weaker and
later struggled unsuccessfully against the stronger
Bundelas and Marathas.

The Ahoms
The Ahoms migrated to the Brahmaputra valley from
present-day Myanmar in the thirteenth century.
They created a new state by suppressing the older
political system of the bhuiyans (landlords). During
the sixteenth century, they annexed the kingdoms of
the Chhutiyas (1523) and of Koch-Hajo (1581) and
subjugated many other tribes. The Ahoms built a
large state, and for this they used firearms as early as
the 1530s. By the 1660s they could even make high-
quality gunpowder and cannons.
Map 3
However, the Ahoms faced many invasions from the Tribes of eastern
south-west. In 1662, the Mughals under Mir Jumla India.
attacked the Ahom kingdom. Despite their brave
defence, the Ahoms were defeated.
But direct Mughal control over the
region could not last long.
The Ahom state depended upon
forced labour. Those forced to work
for the state were called paiks.
A census of the population was
taken. Each village had to send a
number of paiks by rotation. People
from heavily populated areas were
shifted to less populated places.
Ahom clans were thus broken up.
By the first half of the seventeenth
century the administration became
quite centralised.
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 Map 1
Major bhakti saints
and the regions
associated with them.

The essence of
Shankaradeva’s
devotion came to
be known as Eka
Sarana Nama
Dharma (supreme
surrender to
the One). The
teachings of
expression of his devotion and as a literary work. Surdas Shankaradeva
was an ardent devotee of Krishna. His compositions, were based on the
Bhagavad Gita
compiled in the Sursagara, Surasaravali and Sahitya
and Bhagavata
Lahari, express his devotion. Also contemporary was Purana. He also
Shankaradeva of Assam (late fifteenth century) who encouraged the
emphasised devotion to Vishnu, and composed poems establishment
and plays in Assamese. He began the practice of setting of satra or
up namghars or houses of recitation and prayer, a monasteries for
practice that continues to date. transmission of
knowledge. His
This tradition also included saints like Dadu Dayal, major compositions
Ravidas and Mirabai. Mirabai was a Rajput princess included
married into the royal family of Mewar in the sixteenth Kirtana-ghosha.
century. Mirabai became a disciple of Ravidas, a saint
from a caste considered “untouchable”. She was
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 These preserved the memories of heroes and were
expected to inspire others to follow their example.
Ordinary people were also attracted by these stories
– which often depicted dramatic situations, and a
range of strong emotions – loyalty, friendship, love,
valour, anger, etc.
Did women find a place within these stories?
Sometimes women are depicted as following their
heroic husbands in both life and death – there are
stories about the practice of sati or the immolation
of widows on the funeral pyre of their husbands. So
those who followed the heroic ideal often had to pay
for it with their lives.

Map 1
Regions discussed in
this chapter.

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 8 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
POLITICAL FORMATIONS

I f you look at Maps 1 and 2 closely, you will see

something significant happening in the subcontinent
during the first half of the eighteenth century. Notice
how the boundaries of the Mughal Empire were
reshaped by the emergence of a number of independent

Map 1
State formations in the
eighteenth century.

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 kingdoms. By 1765,
notice how another
power, the British, had
successfully grabbed
major chunks of territory
in eastern India. What
these maps tell us is
that political conditions
in eighteenth-century
India changed quite
dramatically and within
a relatively short span
of time.
In this chapter, we
will read about the
emergence of new
political groups in the
subcontinent during
the first half of the
eighteenth century –
roughly from 1707,
when Aurangzeb died,
till the third battle of
Panipat in 1761. Map 2
British territories in
the mid-eighteenth
The Crisis of the Empire and century.

the Later Mughals

In Chapter 4, you saw how the Mughal Empire reached
the height of its success and started facing a variety
of crises towards the closing years of the seventeenth ?
century. These were caused by a number of factors. See Chapter 4,
Emperor Aurangzeb had depleted the military and Table 1. Which
financial resources of his empire by fighting a long group of people
war in the Deccan. challenged Mughal
authority for the
Under his successors, the efficiency of the imperial longest time in
administration broke down. It became increasingly Aurangzeb’s reign?
difficult for the later Mughal emperors to keep a check
on their powerful mansabdars. Nobles appointed
as governors (subadars) often controlled the offices
eighteenth-century
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 East India Company
Comes East
In 1600, the East India
Company acquired a charter
from the ruler of England,
Queen Elizabeth I, granting
it the sole right to trade with
the East. This meant that
no other trading group in
England could compete with
the East India Company. With
this charter, the Company
could venture across the
oceans, looking for new lands
from which it could buy goods
Fig. 2 – Routes to India in the
eighteenth century at a cheap price, and carry them back to Europe to
sell at higher prices. The Company did not have to fear
competition from other English trading companies.
Mercantile trading companies in those days made profit
primarily by excluding competition, so that they could
buy cheap and sell dear.
The royal charter, however, could not prevent other
European powers from entering the Eastern markets.
Mercantile – A business
By the time the first English ships sailed down the
enterprise that makes
west coast of Africa, round the Cape of Good Hope, and
profit primarily through
crossed the Indian Ocean, the Portuguese had already
trade, buying goods
established their presence in the western coast of India,
cheap and selling them at
and had their base in Goa. In fact, it was Vasco da
higher prices
Gama, a Portuguese explorer, who had discovered this
sea route to India in 1498. By the early seventeenth
century, the Dutch too were exploring the possibilities
of trade in the Indian Ocean. Soon the French traders
arrived on the scene.
The problem was that all the companies were
interested in buying the same things. The fine qualities
of cotton and silk produced in India had a big market
in Europe. Pepper, cloves, cardamom and cinnamon
too were in great demand. Competition amongst the
European companies inevitably pushed up the prices
at which these goods could be purchased, and this
reduced the profits that could be earned. The only way
the trading companies could flourish was by eliminating
rival competitors. The urge to secure markets, therefore,
led to fierce battles between the trading companies.
Through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they
regularly sank each other’s ships, blockaded routes,
and prevented rival ships from moving with supplies of

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 Fig. 14 a – India, 1797 Fig. 14 b – India, 1840

Fig. 14 a, b, c – Expansion of British

territorial power in India
Look at these maps along with a present-day
political map of India. In each of these maps,
try and identify the different parts of India
that were not under British rule.

Fig. 14 c – India, 1857

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 From where did these forest
people get their supplies of rice
and other grains? At times they
exchanged goods – getting what
they needed in return for their
valuable forest produce. At other
times, they bought goods with the
small amount of earnings they
had. Some of them did odd jobs
in the villages, carrying loads
or building roads, while others
laboured in the fields of peasants
and farmers. When supplies of
forest produce shrank, tribal
people had to increasingly wander
around in search of work as
labourers. But many of them – like
the Baigas of central India – were
reluctant to do work for others.
The Baigas saw themselves as
people of the forest, who could
only live on the produce of the
forest. It was below the dignity of
a Baiga to become a labourer.
Tribal groups often needed
to buy and sell in order to be
able to get the goods that were Fig. 3 – Location of some tribal
not produced within the locality. This led to their groups in India
dependence on traders and moneylenders. Traders came
around with things for sale, and sold the goods at high
prices. Moneylenders gave loans with which the tribals
met their cash needs, adding to what they earned. But
the interest charged on the loans was usually very
high. So for the tribals, market and commerce often
meant debt and poverty. They therefore came to see
the moneylender and trader as evil outsiders and the
cause of their misery.

Some herded animals

Many tribal groups lived by herding and rearing animals.
They were pastoralists who moved with their herds of
cattle or sheep according to the seasons. When the grass
in one place was exhausted, they moved to another area.
The Van Gujjars of the Punjab hills and the Labadis of
Andhra Pradesh were cattle herders, the Gaddis of Kulu
were shepherds, and the Bakarwals of Kashmir reared
goats. You will read more about them in your history
book next year.

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 2. All ruling chiefs of the country were assured that their territory
would never be annexed in future. They were allowed to pass on
their kingdoms to their heirs, including adopted sons. However, they
were made to acknowledge the British Queen as their Sovereign
Paramount. Thus the Indian rulers were to hold their kingdoms as
subordinates of the British Crown.
3. It was decided that the proportion of Indian soldiers in the army
would be reduced and the number of European soldiers would be
increased. It was also decided that instead of recruiting soldiers from
Awadh, Bihar, central India and south India, more soldiers would be
recruited from among the Gurkhas, Sikhs and Pathans.
4. The land and property of Muslims was confiscated on a large
scale and they were treated with suspicion and hostility. The British
believed that they were responsible for the rebellion in a big way.
5. The British decided to respect the customary religious and
social practices of the people in India.
6. Policies were made to protect landlords and zamindars and
give them security of rights over their lands.
Thus a new phase of history began after 1857.

 Main centres of the Revolt

 Other centres of the Revolt Fig. 16 – Some
important centres of
the Revolt in North
India

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 2 The Russian Revolution

In one of the least industrialised of European states this situation was

reversed. Socialists took over the government in Russia through the
October Revolution of 1917. The fall of monarchy in February 1917
and the events of October are normally called the Russian Revolution.

How did this come about? What were the social and political
conditions in Russia when the revolution occurred? To answer these
questions, let us look at Russia a few years before the revolution.

2.1 The Russian Empire in 1914

In 1914, Tsar Nicholas II ruled Russia and its empire. Besides the
territory around Moscow, the Russian empire included current-day
Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, parts of Poland, Ukraine and
Belarus. It stretched to the Pacific and comprised today’s Central
Asian states, as well as Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The majority
religion was Russian Orthodox Christianity – which had grown out Fig.3 – Tsar Nicholas II in the White
Hall of the Winter Palace,
of the Greek Orthodox Church – but the empire also included St Petersburg, 1900.
Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and Buddhists. Painted by Earnest Lipgart (1847-1932)
India and the Contemporary World

Fig.4 – Europe in 1914.

The map shows the Russian empire and the European countries at war during the First
World War.

30

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1 Birth of the Weimar Republic

Germany, a powerful empire in the early years of the twentieth

century, fought the First World War (1914-1918) alongside the
Austrian empire and against the Allies (England, France and Russia.)
All joined the war enthusiastically hoping to gain from a quick
victory. Little did they realise that the war would stretch on,
eventually draining Europe of all its resources. Germany made initial
gains by occupying France and Belgium. However the Allies,
strengthened by the US entry in 1917, won , defeating Germany and the
Central Powers in November 1918.

The defeat of Imperial Germany and the abdication of the emperor

gave an opportunity to parliamentary parties to recast German polity.
A National Assembly met at Weimar and established a democratic
constitution with a federal structure. Deputies were now elected to
the German Parliament or Reichstag, on the basis of equal and
universal votes cast by all adults including women.

This republic, however, was not received well by its own people
largely because of the terms it was forced to accept after Germany’s
defeat at the end of the First World War. The peace treaty at

Nazism and the Rise of Hitler

Germany 1914
Land taken from Germany
Land under League of Nations control Fig.2 – Germany after the
Demilitarised zone Versailles Treaty. You can see in
this map the parts of the
territory that Germany lost after
the treaty.

51

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2.2 Reconstruction
Hitler assigned the responsibility of economic recovery to the
economist Hjalmar Schacht who aimed at full production and full
employment through a state-funded work-creation programme. This
project produced the famous German superhighways and the
people’s car, the Volkswagen.

In foreign policy also Hitler acquired quick successes. He pulled

out of the League of Nations in 1933, reoccupied the Rhineland in
1936, and integrated Austria and Germany in 1938 under the slogan,
One people, One empire, and One leader. He then went on to wrest German-
speaking Sudentenland from Czechoslovakia, and gobbled up the Fig.10 – The poster announces: ‘Your
volkswagen’.
entire country. In all of this he had the unspoken support of Such posters suggested that owning a car was
England, which had considered the Versailles verdict too harsh. no longer just a dream for an ordinary worker.

These quick successes at home and abroad seemed to reverse the

destiny of the country.

Hitler did not stop here. Schacht had advised Hitler against investing
hugely in rearmament as the state still ran on deficit financing.
Cautious people, however, had no place in Nazi Germany. Schacht
had to leave. Hitler chose war as the way out of the approaching

Nazism and the Rise of Hitler

Fig.11 – Expansion of Nazi power: Europe 1942.

59

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 2.1 How Did these Changes Affect the Lives of Pastoralists?
These measures led to a serious shortage of pastures. When grazing
lands were taken over and turned into cultivated fields, the available
area of pastureland declined. Similarly, the reservation of forests
meant that shepherds and cattle herders could no longer freely pasture
their cattle in the forests.

As pasturelands disappeared under the plough, the existing animal

stock had to feed on whatever grazing land remained. This led to
continuous intensive grazing of these pastures. Usually nomadic
pastoralists grazed their animals in one area and moved to another
area. These pastoral movements allowed time for the natural
restoration of vegetation growth. When restrictions were imposed
on pastoral movements, grazing lands came to be continuously used
and the quality of patures declined. This in turn created a further
shortage of forage for animals and the deterioration of animal stock.
Underfed cattle died in large numbers during scarcities and famines.
India and the Contemporary World

Fig.11 – Pastoralists in India.

This map indicates the location of only those
pastoral communities mentioned in the
chapter. There are many others living in
various parts of India.

106

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Fig.13 – Pastoral communities in Africa.
The inset shows the location of the Maasais in Kenya and Tanzania.

We will discuss some of these changes by looking at one pastoral

community – the Maasai – in some detail. The Maasai cattle herders
live primarily in east Africa: 300, 000 in southern Kenya and another
150,000 in Tanzania. We will see how new laws and regulations took
away their land and restricted their movement. This affected their
lives in times of drought and even reshaped their social relationships.

Pastoralists in the Modern World

3.1 Where have the Grazing Lands Gone?
One of the problems the Maasais have faced is the continuous loss of
their grazing lands. Before colonial times, Maasailand stretched over
a vast area from north Kenya to the steppes of northern Tanzania.
In the late nineteenth century, European imperial powers scrambled On Tanganyika
for territorial possessions in Africa, slicing up the region into different
Britain conquered what had been German East
colonies. In 1885, Maasailand was cut into half with an international Africa during the First World War. In 1919
boundary between British Kenya and German Tanganyika. Tanganyika came under British control. It
Subsequently, the best grazing lands were gradually taken over for attained independence in 1961 and united with
white settlement and the Maasai were pushed into a small area in Zanzibar to form Tanzania in 1964.

109

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 ICELAND
(DENMARK)

ATLANTIC SEA
NORWAY
(SWEDEN)

SWEDEN
SCOTLAND

IRELAND GREAT
BRITAIN DENMARK
RUSSIAN EMPIRE
WALES HABOVER
ENGLAND (G.B.)
PRUSSIA
NETHERLANDS POLAND

GALICIA
BAVARIA
AUSTRIAN EMPIRE
FRANCE
SWITZERLAND AUSTRIA

HUNGARY

SMALL ROMANIA
AL

STATES SERBIA GEORGIA

TUG

SPAIN CORSICA BULGARIA

POR

ARMENIA
OTTOMAN EMPIRE

PER
KINGDOM
SARDINIA OF THE

SIA
TWO
SICILIES

GREECE MESOPOTAMIA
TUNIS
ALGERIA CRETE SYRIA
MOROCCO CYPRUS
MEDITERRANEAN SEA
PALESTINE

EGYPT Fig. 3 — Europe after the

Congress of Vienna, 1815.

Within the wide swathe of territory that came under his control,
Napoleon set about introducing many of the reforms that he had
already introduced in France. Through a return to monarchy
India and the Contemporary World

Napoleon had, no doubt, destroyed democracy in France, but in

the administrative field he had incorporated revolutionary principles
in order to make the whole system more rational and efficient. The
Civil Code of 1804 – usually known as the Napoleonic Code –
did away with all privileges based on birth, established equality
before the law and secured the right to property. This Code was
exported to the regions under French control. In the Dutch Republic,
in Switzerland, in Italy and Germany, Napoleon simplified
administrative divisions, abolished the feudal system and freed
peasants from serfdom and manorial dues. In the towns too, guild
restrictions were removed. Transport and communication systems
were improved. Peasants, artisans, workers and new businessmen

6
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 BALTIC SEA

NORTH SEA
SCHLESWIG-
HOLSTEIN EAST PRUSSIA

MECKLENBURG- POMERANIA
SCHWERIN WEST PRUSSIA

HANOVER
IA
BRANDENBURG SS
U
BRUNSWICK PR
POSEN
WESTPHALIA
RUSSIAN
EMPIRE
A
SS
RHINELAND NA
EN THURINGIAN SILESIA
ESS STATES
H

Prussia before 1866

RG
BE AUSTRIAN Conquered by Prussia in Austro-Prussia
EM EMPIRE War, 1866
TT
UR Austrian territories excluded from German
W Confederation 1867
N

Joined with Prussia to form German

DE

Confederation, 1867
BA

BAVARIA
South German states joining with Prussia to
form German Empire, 1871
Won by Prussia in Franco-Prussia War, 1871

Fig. 12 — Unification of Germany (1866-71).

4.2 Italy Unified

Like Germany, Italy too had a long history of political fragmentation.
Italians were scattered over several dynastic states as well as the
multi-national Habsburg Empire. During the middle of the
nineteenth century, Italy was divided into seven states, of which
only one, Sardinia-Piedmont, was ruled by an Italian princely house.
The north was under Austrian Habsburgs, the centre was ruled by
the Pope and the southern regions were under the domination
of the Bourbon kings of Spain. Even the Italian language had
India and the Contemporary World

Fig. 13 — Caricature of Otto von Bismarck in

not acquired one common form and still had many regional and the German reichstag (parliament), from Figaro,
local variations. Vienna, 5 March 1870.

During the 1830s, Giuseppe Mazzini had sought to put together a

coherent programme for a unitary Italian Republic. He had also Activity
formed a secret society called Young Italy for the dissemination of Describe the caricature. How does it represent
his goals. The failure of revolutionary uprisings both in 1831 and the relationship between Bismarck and the
1848 meant that the mantle now fell on Sardinia-Piedmont under elected deputies of Parliament? What
its ruler King Victor Emmanuel II to unify the Italian states through interpretation of democratic processes is the
war. In the eyes of the ruling elites of this region, a unified artist trying to convey?

Italy offered them the possibility of economic development and

political dominance.

20
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Chief Minister Cavour who led the movement to unify the regions
of Italy was neither a revolutionary nor a democrat. Like many Activity
other wealthy and educated members of the Italian elite, he spoke Look at Fig. 14(a). Do you think that the people
French much better than he did Italian. Through a tactful diplomatic living in any of these regions thought of
alliance with France engineered by Cavour, Sardinia-Piedmont themselves as Italians?
succeeded in defeating the Austrian forces in 1859. Apart from regular Examine Fig. 14(b). Which was the first region
troops, a large number of armed volunteers under the leadership of to become a part of unified Italy? Which was the
Giuseppe Garibaldi joined the fray. In 1860, they marched into South last region to join? In which year did the largest

Italy and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and succeeded in winning number of states join?

the support of the local peasants in order to drive out the Spanish
rulers. In 1861 Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed king of united
Italy. However, much of the Italian population, among whom rates
of illiteracy were very high, remained blissfully unaware of liberal-
nationalist ideology. The peasant masses who had supported Garibaldi
in southern Italy had never heard of Italia, and believed that ‘La Talia’
was Victor Emmanuel’s wife!

SWITZERLAND

SWITZERLAND
LOMBARDY VENETIA

SAVOY 1866
SARDINIA PARMA AUSTRIA

MODENA 1858
SAN MARINO
MONACO 1858-60
TUSCANY
PAPAL
STATE

1870

1860
KINGDOM
OF BOTH 1858
SICILIES

Europe

TUNIS
N a t i o n a l i s m in

Fig. 14(b) — Italy after unification.

TUNIS
The map shows the year in which different
regions (seen in Fig 14(a) become part of a
Fig. 14(a) — Italian states before unification, 1858. unified Italy.

4.3 The Strange Case of Britain

The model of the nation or the nation-state, some scholars have
argued, is Great Britain. In Britain the formation of the nation-state

21
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Look at a map of Africa (Fig. 10). You SPANISH
MOROCCO
will see some countries’ borders run MEDITERRANEAN SEA
TUNISIA

straight, as if they were drawn using a MOROCCO

SPANISH LIBYA
ALGERIA
ruler. Well, in fact this was almost how SAHARA (TRIPOLI)
EGYPT

RE
rival European powers in Africa drew up RIO

DS
DE ORO

EA
the borders demarcating their respective FRENCH
FRENCH WEST AFRICA EQUATORIAL ERITREA FRENCH
territories. In 1885 the big European AFRICA ANGLO- SOMALILAND
FRENCH SUDAN
powers met in Berlin to complete the EGYPTIAN
PORT SUDAN BRITISH
NIGERIA
carving up of Africa between them. GUINEA SOMALILAND
ETHIOPIA
SIERRA CAMEROONS ITALIAN
Britain and France made vast additions to LEONE
GOLD TOGO BRITISH
SOMALILAND
CONGO
their overseas territories in the late nineteenth IVORY COAST MIDDLE
FREE STATE EAST AFRICA
COAST CONGO
century. Belgium and Germany became new (BELGIAN
CONGO) GERMAN
colonial powers. The US also became a ATLANTIC EAST AFRICA
OCEAN
colonial power in the late 1890s by taking ANGOLA
PORTUGUESE
NORTHERN
EAST AFRICA
over some colonies earlier held by Spain. RHODESIA

GERMAN SOUTHERN
Let us look at one example of the destructive BELGIAN
BRITISH SOUTH WEST RHODESIA MADAGASCAR
FRENCH AFRICA
impact of colonialism on the economy and GERMAN
ITALIAN
PORTUGUESE
livelihoods of colonised people. SPANISH
BRITISH DOMINION UNION OF
INDEPENDENT STATE
SOUTH AFRICA

Fig. 10 – Map of colonial Africa at the end of the nineteenth century.

Box 2

Sir Henry Morton Stanley in Central

Africa
Stanley was a journalist and explorer sent
by the New York Herald to find Livingston,
a missionary and explorer who had been in

The Making of a Global World

Africa for several years. Like other European
and American explorers of the time, Stanley
went with arms, mobilised local hunters,
warriors and labourers to help him, fought
with local tribes, investigated African
terrains, and mapped different regions.
These explorations helped the conquest
of Africa. Geographical explorations were
not driven by an innocent search for
scientific information. They were directly
linked to imperial projects.

Fig. 11 – Sir Henry Morton Stanley and his retinue in Central Africa,
Illustrated London News, 1871.

61
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many decades. And, as you have read last year, opium shipments to
China grew rapidly from the 1820s to become for a while India’s
single largest export. Britain grew opium in India and exported it to
China and, with the money earned through this sale, it financed its
tea and other imports from China.

Over the nineteenth century, British manufactures flooded the Indian

market. Food grain and raw material exports from India to Britain
and the rest of the world increased. But the value of British exports
to India was much higher than the value of British imports from
India. Thus Britain had a ‘trade surplus’ with India. Britain used this
surplus to balance its trade deficits with other countries – that is,
with countries from which Britain was importing more than it was
selling to. This is how a multilateral settlement system works – it
allows one country’s deficit with another country to be settled
by its surplus with a third country. By helping Britain balance its
deficits, India played a crucial role in the late-nineteenth-century
world economy.

Britain’s trade surplus in India also helped pay the so-called ‘home
charges’ that included private remittances home by British officials
and traders, interest payments on India’s external debt, and pensions
of British officials in India.

Aleppo Bukhara
ll
Wa

Yarkand The
Alexandria Great

Basra Lahore
Pe

Hoogly Canton
rs

Bandar Abbas
ia
n
G
ul

Muscat
f

Surat
Re

Jedda Hanoi
dS
ea

Macha Masulipatam Bangkok

Madras

The Making of a Global World

Goa

Acheh Malacca
Indian Ocean

Mombasa
Batavia
Bantam

Mozambique

Sea route
Land route
Volume of trade passing through the port

Fig. 19 – The trade routes that linked India to the world at the end of the seventeenth century.

67
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 10 THEMES IN WORLD HISTORY

According to the From the mid-nineteenth century there was no stopping the
Bible, the Flood was enthusiasm for exploring the ancient past of Mesopotamia. In
1873, a British newspaper funded an expedition of the British
meant to destroy
Museum to search for a tablet narrating the story of the Flood,
all life on earth.
mentioned in the Bible.
However, God chose
By the 1960s, it was understood that the stories of the
a man, Noah, to Old Testament were not literally true, but may have been
ensure that life ways of expressing memories about important changes in
could continue after history. Gradually, archaeological techniques became far
the Flood. Noah more sophisticated and refined. What is more, attention was
built a huge boat, directed to different questions, including reconstructing the
an ark. He took a lives of ordinary people. Establishing the literal truth of
pair each of all Biblical narratives receded into the background. Much of
known species of what we discuss subsequently in the chapter is based on
animals and birds these later studies.
on board the ark,
which survived the
Flood. There was a
strikingly similar
story in the
Mesopotamian
tradition, where the
principal character
was called Ziusudra
or Utnapishtim.

MAP 1: West Asia

ACTIVITY 1

Many societies
have myths
about floods.
These are often
ways of
preserving and
expressing
memories about
Mesopotamia and its Geography
important Iraq is a land of diverse environments. In the north-east lie green,
changes in undulating plains, gradually rising to tree-covered mountain ranges
history. Find out
with clear streams and wild flowers, with enough rainfall to grow crops.
more about
these, noting how
Here, agriculture began between 7000 and 6000 BCE. In the north,
life before and there is a stretch of upland called a steppe, where animal herding
after the flood is offers people a better livelihood than agriculture – after the winter
represented. rains, sheep and goats feed on the grasses and low shrubs that grow
here. To the east, tributaries of the Tigris provide routes of

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 WRITING AND CITY LIFE 11

communication into the mountains of Iran. The south is a desert

– and this is where the first cities and writing emerged (see below).
This desert could support cities because the rivers Euphrates
and Tigris, which rise in the northern mountains, carry loads of
silt (fine mud). When they flood or when their water is let out on
to the fields, fertile silt is deposited.

MAP 2: Mesopotamia:
Mountains, Steppe,
Desert, Irrigated
Zone of the South.

After the Euphrates has entered the desert, its water flows out
into small channels. These channels flood their banks and, in
the past, functioned as irrigation canals: water could be let into
the fields of wheat, barley, peas or lentils when necessary. Of all
ancient systems, that of the Roman Empire (Theme 3) included,
it was the agriculture of southern Mesopotamia that was the
most productive, even though the region did not have sufficient
rainfall to grow crops.
Not only agriculture, Mesopotamian sheep and goats that grazed
on the steppe, the north-eastern plains and the mountain slopes
(that is, on tracts too high for the rivers to flood and fertilise)
produced meat, milk and wool in abundance. Further, fish was
available in rivers and date-palms gave fruit in summer. Let us
not, however, make the mistake of thinking that cities grew simply
because of rural prosperity. We shall discuss other factors by
and by, but first let us be clear about city life.

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 54 THEMES IN WORLD HISTORY

recaptured Africa from the Vandals (in 533) but his recovery of Italy (from
the Ostrogoths) left that country devastated and paved the way for the
Lombard invasion. By the early seventh century, the war between Rome
and Iran had flared up again, and the Sasanians who had ruled Iran since
the third century launched a wholesale invasion of all the major eastern
provinces (including Egypt). When Byzantium, as the Roman Empire was
now increasingly known, recovered these provinces in the 620s, it was
just a few years away, literally, from the final major blow which came, this
time, from the south-east.
The expansion of Islam from its beginnings in Arabia has been
called ‘the greatest political revolution ever to occur in the history of
the ancient world’. By 642, barely ten years after the Prophet
Muhammad’s death, large parts of both the eastern Roman and
Sasanian empires had fallen to the Arabs in a series of stunning
confrontations. However, we should bear in mind that those conquests,
which eventually (a century later) extended as far afield as Spain, Sind
and Central Asia, began in fact with the subjection of the Arab tribes
by the emerging Islamic state, first within Arabia and then in the
Syrian desert and on the fringes of Iraq. As we will see in Theme 4, the
unification of the Arabian peninsula and its numerous tribes was the
MAP 2: West Asia key factor behind the territorial expansion of Islam.

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 60 THEMES IN WORLD HISTORY

Mongols) are quite different and the Italian and Latin versions
of Marco Polo’s travels to the Mongol court do not match.
Since the Mongols produced little literature on their own and
were instead ‘written about’ by literati from foreign cultural
milieus, historians have to often double as philologists to pick
out the meanings of phrases for their closest approximation
to Mongol usage. The work of scholars like Igor de Rachewiltz
on The Secret History of the Mongols and Gerhard Doerfer on
Mongol and Turkic terminologies that infiltrated into the
Persian language brings out the difficulties involved in
studying the history of the Central Asian nomads. As we will
notice through the remainder of this chapter, despite their
incredible achievements there is much about Genghis Khan
and the Mongol world empire still awaiting the diligent
scholar’s scrutiny.

Introduction
In the early decades of the thirteenth century the great empires of the
Euro-Asian continent realised the dangers posed to them by the arrival
of a new political power in the steppes of Central Asia: Genghis Khan
MAP 1: The Mongol
(d. 1227) had united the Mongol people. Genghis Khan’s political vision,
Empire however, went far beyond the creation of a confederacy of Mongol

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 NOMADIC EMPIRES 71

(Pax Mongolica) trade connections matured. Commerce and travel

along the Silk Route reached its peak under the Mongols but, unlike
before, the trade routes did not terminate in China.
They continued north into Mongolia and to Karakorum, the heart
of the new empire. Communication and ease of travel was vital to
retain the coherence of the Mongol regime and travellers were given

MAP 2: The Mongol

Campaigns

ACTIVITY 2

Note the areas

traversed by the
Silk Route and
the goods that
were available to
traders along the
a pass (paiza in Persian; gerege in Mongolian) for safe conduct. way. This map
Traders paid the baj tax for the same purpose, all acknowledging does not reflect
thereby the authority of the Mongol Khan. one of the
The contradictions between the nomadic and sedentary eastern terminal
elements within the Mongol empire eased through the thirteenth points of the silk
century. In the 1230s, for example, as the Mongols waged their route during the
successful war against the Chin dynasty in north China, there height of Mongol
power.
was a strong pressure group within the Mongol leadership that
advocated the massacre of all peasantry and the conversion of
Can you place
their fields into pasture lands. But by the 1270s, when south
the missing city?
China was annexed to the Mongol empire after the defeat of the
Could it have
Sung dynasty, Genghis Khan’s grandson, Qubilai Khan (d. 1294), been on the Silk
appeared as the protector of the peasants and the cities. In the Route in the
1290s, the Mongol ruler of Iran, Ghazan Khan (d. 1304), a twelfth century?
descendant of Genghis Khan’s youngest son Toluy, warned Why not?
family members and other generals to avoid pillaging the
peasantry. It did not lead to a stable prosperous realm, he
advised in a speech whose sedentary overtones would have made
Genghis Khan shudder.

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 THE THREE O RDERS 87

history, and the need to understand the collective behaviour

or attitudes of groups of people.
Bloch’s Feudal Society is about European, particularly
French, society between 900 and 1300, describing in
remarkable detail social relations and hierarchies, land
management and the popular culture of the period.
His career was cut short tragically when he was shot by the
Nazis in the Second World War.
The term ‘medieval
era’ refers to the
An Introduction to Feudalism period in European
history between
The term ‘feudalism’ has been used by historians to describe the
the fifth and the
economic, legal, political and social relationships that existed in Europe
fifteenth centuries.
in the medieval era. Derived from the German word ‘feud’, which

MAP 1: Western
Europe

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 CHANGING CULTURAL T RADITIONS 107

the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. This culture, he

wrote, was characterised by a new belief – that man, as an
individual, was capable of making his own decisions and
developing his skills. He was ‘modern’, in contrast to ‘medieval’
man whose thinking had been controlled by the church.

The Revival of Italian Cities

After the fall of the western Roman Empire, many of the towns
that had been political and cultural centres in Italy fell into ruin.
There was no unified government, and the Pope in Rome, who
was sovereign in his own state, was not a strong political figure.
While western Europe was being reshaped by feudal bonds and
unified under the Latin Church, and eastern Europe under the
Byzantine Empire, and Islam was creating a common civilisation
further west, Italy was weak and fragmented. However, it was these
very developments that helped in the revival of Italian culture.
With the expansion of trade between the Byzantine Empire and the
Islamic countries, the ports on the Italian coast revived. From the
twelfth century, as the Mongols opened up trade with China via the
Silk Route (see Theme 5) and as trade with western European countries

MAP 1: The Italian

States

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 D ISPLACING INDIGENOUS PEOPLES 141

land, this was not a problem, but gradually the Europeans moved
further inland, near native villages. They used their iron tools to cut
down forests to lay out farms.
Natives and Europeans saw different things when they looked at
ACTIVITY 1
forests – natives identified tracks invisible to the Europeans. Europeans
imagined the forests cut down and replaced by cornfields. Jefferson’s Discuss the
‘dream’ was a country populated by Europeans with small farms. The different images
natives, who grew crops for their own needs, not for sale and profit, and that Europeans
thought it wrong to ‘own’ the land, could not understand this. In and native
Jefferson’s view, this made them ‘uncivilised’. Americans had
of each other,
and the different
Canada USA ways in which
they saw nature.
1701 French treaty with
natives of Quebec
1763 Quebec conquered 1781 Britain recognises USA as
by the British an independent country
1774 Quebec Act 1783 British give Mid-West to
1791 Canada Constitutional Act the USA
MAP 1: The expansion
of the USA

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 PATHS TO MODERNISATION 155

Introduction
China and Japan present a marked physical contrast. China is a vast
continental country that spans many climatic zones; the core is
dominated by three major river systems: the Yellow River (Huang He),
the Yangtse River (Chang Jiang – the third longest river in the world)
and the Pearl River. A large part of the country is mountainous.

MAP 1: East Asia

The dominant ethnic group are the Han and the major language is
Chinese (Putonghua) but there are many other nationalities, such as
the Uighur, Hui, Manchu and Tibetan, and aside from dialects, such as
Cantonese (Yue) and Shanghainese (Wu), there are other minority
languages spoken as well.
Chinese food reflects this regional diversity with at least four distinct
types. The best known is southern or Cantonese cuisine – as most
overseas Chinese come from the Canton area – which includes dim
sum (literally touch your heart), an assortment of pastries and
dumplings. In the north, wheat is the staple food, while in Szechuan
spices brought by Buddhist monks in the ancient period, along the
silk route, and chillies by Portuguese traders in the fifteenth century,
have created a fiery cuisine. In eastern China, both rice and wheat
are eaten.

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2 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY

Manda

e lum
Jh ab
en
Ch

i
av
R
Harappa
j Rakhigarhi
tle
Su Banawali

Gan
Mitathal
Kalibangan

Yam

ga
s
du
Ganweriwala

In

una
You will find certain
abbreviations, related to Mohenjodaro Kot Diji
dates, in this book. l
ba
BP stands for Before h am
Sutkagendor Amri Chanhudaro C
Present
Balakot
BCE stands for Before
Common Era

rmati
CE stands for the Common Arabian Sea Dholavira

Saba

i
Era. The present year is

ah
M
2015 according to this
dating system. Map 1 Lothal

c. stands for the Latin Some important Nageshwar Rangpur

da
Mature Harappan sites ma
word circa and means Nar
“approximate.” Sketch map not to scale

1. Beginnings
There were several archaeological cultures in the
region prior to the Mature Harappan. These cultures
Early and Mature
were associated with distinctive pottery, evidence of
Harappan cultures agriculture and pastoralism, and some crafts.
Look at these figures for the Settlements were generally small, and there were
number of settlements in Sind virtually no large buildings. It appears that there
and Cholistan (the desert area was a break between the Early Harappan and the
of Pakistan bordering the Thar Harappan civilisation, evident from large-scale
Desert).
burning at some sites, as well as the abandonment
SIND CHOLISTAN
Total number 106 239
of certain settlements.
of sites
2. Subsistence Strategies
Early Harappan 52 37
sites
If you look at Maps 1 and 2 you will notice that the
Mature Harappan culture developed in some of the
Mature 65 136 areas occupied by the Early Harappan cultures.
Harappan sites These cultures also shared certain common elements
Mature Harappan 43 132 including subsistence strategies. The Harappans ate
settlements on a wide range of plant and animal products, including
new sites fish. Archaeologists have been able to reconstruct
Early Harappan 29 33 dietary practices from finds of charred grains and
sites abandoned seeds. These are studied by archaeo-botanists, who
are specialists in ancient plant remains. Grains

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BRICKS, BEADS AND BONES 3

found at Harappan sites include

wheat, barley, lentil, chickpea
and sesame. Millets are found
from sites in Gujarat. Finds of
rice are relatively rare.
Animal bones found at Harappan
sites include those of cattle, sheep,
goat, buffalo and pig. Studies

s
Indu
done by archaeo-zoologists or zoo- DAMB SISWAL
archaeologists indicate that these SADAAT
animals were domesticated.
KOT
Bones of wild species such as DIJI
boar, deer and gharial are
also found. We do not know AMRI-NAL
whether the Harappans hunted
these animals themselves or
obtained meat from other hunting Arabian Sea
communities. Bones of fish and
fowl are also found.
Map 2
Areas of Early Harappan
2.1 Agricultural technologies occupation
While the prevalence of
Sketch map not to scale
agriculture is indicated by finds
of grain, it is more difficult to
reconstruct actual agricultural practices. Were
seeds broadcast (scattered) on ploughed lands?
Representations on seals and terracotta sculpture
indicate that the bull was known, and
archaeologists extrapolate from this that oxen Fig. 1.3
were used for ploughing. Moreover, terracotta A terracotta bull
models of the plough have been found at sites in
Cholistan and at Banawali (Haryana).
Archaeologists have also found evidence of a
ploughed field at Kalibangan (Rajasthan),
associated with Early Harappan levels (see p. 20).
The field had two sets of furrows at right angles to
each other, suggesting that two different crops
were grown together.
Archaeologists have also tried to identify the
tools used for harvesting. Did the Harappans use
stone blades set in wooden handles or did they use
metal tools?
Most Harappan sites are located in semi-arid Ü Discuss...
lands, where irrigation was probably required for Are there any similarities or
agriculture. Traces of canals have been found at differences in the distribution
the Harappan site of Shortughai in Afghanistan, but of settlements shown on Maps
not in Punjab or Sind. It is possible that ancient 1 and 2?

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BRICKS, B EADS AND B ONES 17

material. As of now, the last theory seems the most

plausible, as it is unlikely that entire communities
could have collectively made and implemented such
complex decisions.

9. The End of the Civilisation

There is evidence that by c. 1800 BCE most of the Mature
Harappan sites in regions such as Cholistan had been
abandoned. Simultaneously, there was
an expansion of population into new
settlements in Gujarat, Haryana and Map 4
western Uttar Pradesh. Areas of Late Harappan occupation
In the few Harappan sites that
continued to be occupied after 1900
BCE there appears to have been a
transformation of material culture,
marked by the disappearance of the SWAT
distinctive artefacts of the civilisation
– weights, seals, special beads.

Indus
Writing, long-distance trade, and
craft specialisation also disappeared. CEMETERY H LATE
In general, far fewer materials were SISWAL

used to make far fewer things. House

construction techniques deteriorated
JHUKAR
and large public structures were no
longer produced. Overall, artefacts
and settlements indicate a rural way
of life in what are called “Late
Harappan” or “successor cultures”. Arabian Sea
RANGPUR II B-C
What brought about these
changes? Several explanations have Sketch map not to scale
been put forward. These range from
climatic change, deforestation,
excessive floods, the shifting and/or drying up of
rivers, to overuse of the landscape. Some of these
“causes” may hold for certain settlements, but they
do not explain the collapse of the entire civilisation.
It appears that a strong unifying element, perhaps
the Harappan state, came to an end. This is
evidenced by the disappearance of seals, the script,
distinctive beads and pottery, the shift from a
standardised weight system to the use of local
weights; and the decline and abandonment of cities.
The subcontinent would have to wait for over a
millennium for new cities to develop in a completely
different region.

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30 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY

KAMBOJA Map 1
Early states and their capitals

Pushkalavati

GANDHARA Taxila

Indraprastha
Ahichchhatra
MALLA
KURU
SHURASENA PANCHALA Kusinagara
Shravasti
Mathura VAJJI (VRIJJI)
KOSHALA ANGA
MATSYA Vaishali
KASHI Champa
MAGADHA
Kaushambi Varanasi Rajgir
VATSA
CHEDI VANGA
AVANTI

Ujjayini

Arabian Sea
Bay of Bengal

ASHMAKA
Sketch map not to scale

Ü Which were the areas

where states and cities were century BCE onwards, Brahmanas began composing
most densely clustered? Sanskrit texts known as the Dharmasutras. These
laid down norms for rulers (as well as for other
social categories), who were ideally expected to be
Kshatriyas (see also Chapter 3). Rulers were advised
to collect taxes and tribute from cultivators, traders
and artisans. Were resources also procured
from pastoralists and forest peoples? We do not
really know. What we do know is that raids on
Oligarchy refers to a form of neighbouring states were recognised as a legitimate
government where power is means of acquiring wealth. Gradually, some states
exercised by a group of men. acquired standing armies and maintained regular
The Roman Republic, about bureaucracies. Others continued to depend on
which you read last year, was militia, recruited, more often than not, from the
an oligarchy in spite of its name. peasantry.

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KINGS, F ARMERS AND TOWNS 33

Map 2
Distribution of Asokan inscriptions

Mansehra
Shahbazgarhi
Taxila

Kandahar
Kalsi
Topra Meerut
Bahapur
Nigalisagar Rummindei
Rampurwa
Bairat Lauriya Nandangarh
Lauriya Araraj
Sarnath
Bhabru Gujarra Pataliputra
Kaushambi Sahasram
Ahraura

Ujjayini Sanchi

Girnar

Shishupalgarh
Arabian Sea Jaugada
Sopara
KALINGA

Sannati

Maski
Gavimath Udegolam
Palkigundu Rajula Mandagiri
Nittur
Jatinga Rameshwar Brahmagiri
Siddapur Bay of Bengal

p MAJOR ROCK EDICTS

CHOLAS
MINOR ROCK EDICTS
PILLAR INSCRIPTIONS KERALAPUTRAS
PANDYAS

Sketch map not to scale Ü Could rulers have

engraved inscriptions in areas
that were not included within
this is unlikely. The regions included within the their empire?
empire were just too diverse. Imagine the contrast
between the hilly terrain of Afghanistan and the
coast of Orissa.
It is likely that administrative control was
strongest in areas around the capital and the
provincial centres. These centres were carefully
chosen, both Taxila and Ujjayini being situated
on important long-distance trade routes, while
Suvarnagiri (literally, the golden mountain) was
possibly important for tapping the gold mines
of Karnataka.

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KINGS, F ARMERS AND TOWNS 43

Map 3
Some important kingdoms
and towns
Taxila
KUSHANAS

Kanauj Shravasti
Mathura GUPTAS Vaishali
Varanasi Pataliputra
Kaushambi Rajgir Mahasthan

SHAKAS Vidisha Chandraketugarh

Ujjayini

VAKATAKAS
Bharukachchha
ARABIAN SEA
Shishupalgarh
Sopara Paithan
SATAVAHANAS

Dhanyakataka

BAY OF BENGAL
CHOLAS
Kodumanal
Puhar
CHERAS
PANDYAS

Sketch map not to scale

Ü Were there any cities in the

By the second century BCE, we find short votive region where the Harappan
inscriptions in a number of cities. These mention civilisation flourished in the
the name of the donor, and sometimes specify his/ third millennium BCE?
her occupation as well. They tell us about people
who lived in towns: washing folk, weavers, scribes,
carpenters, potters, goldsmiths, blacksmiths,
officials, religious teachers, merchants and kings.
Sometimes, guilds or shrenis, organisations of
craft producers and merchants, are mentioned as
well. These guilds probably procured raw
materials, regulated production, and marketed the
finished product. It is likely that craftspersons
used a range of iron tools to meet the growing Votive inscriptions record gifts
demands of urban elites. made to religious institutions.

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56 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY

Map 1
Hastinapura The Kuru Panchala region and neighbouring areas
KURU

Indraprastha
SAKYA
SHURASENA G Kapilavastu
an
ga Shravasti
Mathura MALLA Lumbini
Virata
Pava
KOSHALA
Ya
MATSYA m Kushinagara
un Ayodhya
a
Vaishali
VATSA Pataliputra
Sarnath
Varanasi
Kaushambi
Bodh Gaya

Ujjayini

AVANTI Sketch map not to scale

in some situations brothers succeeded one another,

sometimes other kinsmen claimed the throne, and,
in very exceptional circumstances, women such as
Prabhavati Gupta (Chapter 2) exercised power.
The concern with patriliny was not unique to ruling
families. It is evident in mantras in ritual texts such
as the Rigveda. It is possible that these attitudes
were shared by wealthy men and those who claimed
high status, including Brahmanas.
Source 1

Producing “fine sons”

Here is an excerpt of a mantra from the Rigveda, which was probably inserted
in the text c. 1000 BCE, to be chanted by the priest while conducting the marriage
ritual. It is used in many Hindu weddings even today:
I free her from here, but not from there. I have bound her firmly there, so
that through the grace of Indra she will have fine sons and be fortunate in
her husband’s love.
Indra was one of the principal deities, a god of valour, warfare and rain.
“Here” and “there” refer to the father’s and husband’s house respectively.

Ü In the context of the mantra, discuss the implications of marriage

from the point of view of the bride and groom. Are the implications
identical, or are there differences?

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THINKERS, BELIEFS AND BUILDINGS 95

7. Stupas
We have seen that Buddhist ideas and practices
emerged out of a process of dialogue with other
traditions – including those of the Brahmanas, Jainas
and several others, not all of whose ideas and
practices were preserved in texts. Some of these
interactions can be seen in the ways in which sacred
places came to be identified.
From earliest times, people tended to regard
Chaitya may also have been
certain places as sacred. These included sites derived from the word chita,
with special trees or unique rocks, or sites of awe- meaning a funeral pyre, and by
inspiring natural beauty. These sites, with small extension a funerary mound.
shrines attached to them, were sometimes
described as chaityas.
Buddhist literature mentions several chaityas.
It also describes places associated with the

Map 1
Major Buddhist sites
Gan

s
du
ga

In Ya Lumbini
m un Shravasti
a Kusinagara

Sarnath Barabar
Bodh
Bharhut Gaya

Narmada Sanchi

nadi
Maha
Ajanta
Nasik Go
Junnar da
va
ri
Karle
ARABIAN Nagarjunakonda
SEA Amaravati
Krishna
BAY OF
BENGAL

Krishna

Sketch map not to scale

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120 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II

Map 1
Places visited by Tirmidh
Ibn Battuta in Andkhoy Qunduz
Afghanistan, Balkh
Sind and Punjab.
Many of the
Parwan
place-names
have been spelt as Kabul
Ibn Battuta would
have known them. Ghazna

Qandahar
j
tle
Su

Ajudahan
Abuhar
Multan
Sarasati

Ü Use the scale on the map to Uja

Hansi Dehli
calculate the distance in miles
between Multan and Delhi.
Ind
us

0 100 200 300

ARABIAN SEA Lahari

Sketch map not to scale

Travelling was also more insecure: Ibn Battuta

was attacked by bands of robbers several times.
In fact he preferred travelling in a caravan along
with companions, but this did not deter highway
robbers. While travelling from Multan to Delhi,
for instance, his caravan was attacked and many
of his fellow travellers lost their lives; those
travellers who survived, including Ibn Battuta,
were severely wounded.
2.2 The “enjoyment of curiosities”
As we have seen, Ibn Battuta was an inveterate
traveller who spent several years travelling through
north Africa, West Asia and parts of Central Asia
(he may even have visited Russia), the Indian
subcontinent and China, before returning to his
native land, Morocco. When he returned, the local
ruler issued instructions that his stories be recorded.

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174 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II
Bidar Warangal
Map 1
Gulbarga
South India, Golconda

Bh
c. fourteenth-eighteenth century Bijapur

im
a
Krishna
Tungabhadra
Hyderabad
Goa Vijayanagara •
Masulipatnam

Pe
nn

al
ar

eng
Chitradurga
Bhatkal • Ikkeri

f B
y o
Basrur

Ba
(Barcelor) Chandragiri
• Kolar •Mylapore
Ara

Mangalore Kanchipuram
•
bia
n S

Mysore Gingee
ea

Cannanore•
Chidambaram

Ka
ve
Calicut

ri
Thanjavur

i
iga
Va Madurai
Cochin•
Ramanathapuram
Quilon Tirunelveli

Ü Identify the present-day states Sri Lanka

that formed part of the empire. Indian Ocean
Sketch map not to scale

dynasty ruled from Penukonda and later from

Chandragiri (near Tirupati).
Although the armies of the Sultans were responsible
for the destruction of the city of Vijayanagara, relations
between the Sultans and the rayas were not always
or inevitably hostile, in spite of religious differences.
Krishnadeva Raya, for example, supported some
Yavana is a Sanskrit word used claimants to power in the Sultanates and took pride
for the Greeks and other peoples in the title “establisher of the Yavana kingdom”.
who entered the subcontinent Similarly, the Sultan of Bijapur intervened to resolve
from the north west. succession disputes in Vijayanagara following the
death of Krishnadeva Raya. In fact the Vijayanagara
kings were keen to ensure the stability of the
Sultanates and vice versa. It was the adventurous
policy of Rama Raya who tried to play off one Sultan
against another that led the Sultans to combine
together and decisively defeat him.

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176 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II

3. Vijayanagara
The Capital and its Environs
Like most capitals, Vijayanagara, was characterised
by a distinctive physical layout and building style.

Fig. 7.4
Plan of Vijayanagara

Ü Identify three major zones on

the plan. Look at the central part.
Can you see channels connecting
up with the river? See how many
fortification walls you can trace.
Was the sacred centre fortified?

Finding out about

the city
A large number of inscriptions
of the kings of Vijayanagara
and their nayakas recording
donations to temples as well as
describing important events
have been recovered. Several
travellers visited the city and
wrote about it. Notable among
their accounts are those of an
Italian trader named Nicolo de
Conti, an ambassador named
Source 3
Abdur Razzaq sent by the ruler
of Persia, a merchant named
A sprawling city
Afanasii Nikitin from Russia,
all of whom visited the city in
the fifteenth century, and those This is an excerpt from Domingo Paes’s description of
of Duarte Barbosa, Domingo Vijayanagara:
Paes and Fernao Nuniz from
The size of this city I do not write here, because it
Portugal, who came in the
cannot all be seen from any one spot, but I climbed a
sixteenth century. hill whence I could see a great part of it; I could not see
it all because it lies between several ranges of hills. What
I saw from thence seemed to me as large as Rome, and
very beautiful to the sight; there are many groves of
Ü Would you find these features
trees within it, in the gardens of the houses, and many
in a city today? Why do you
conduits of water which flow into the midst of it, and in
think the gardens and water places there are lakes; and the king has close to his
bodies were selected for special palace a palm-grove and other rich fruit-bearing trees.
mention by Paes?

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214 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY – PART II
Source 5
Amin was an official responsible
for ensuring that imperial
Classification of lands under Akbar
regulations were carried out in
the provinces. The following is a listing of criteria of classification excerpted
from the Ain:
The Emperor Akbar in his profound sagacity classified
the lands and fixed a different revenue to be paid by
each. Polaj is land which is annually cultivated for each
crop in succession and is never allowed to lie fallow.
Parauti is land left out of cultivation for a time that it
may recover its strength. Chachar is land that has
lain fallow for three or four years. Banjar is land
uncultivated for five years and more. Of the first two
Ü What principles did the kinds of land, there are three classes, good, middling,
and bad. They add together the produce of each sort,
Mughal state follow while
and the third of this represents the medium produce,
classifying lands in its territories?
one-third part of which is exacted as the Royal dues.
How was revenue assessed?

Map 1 Samarqand
The expansion of the Mughal Empire
Balkh
Babur’s reign, 1530
Ü What impact do you think
Akbar’s reign, 1605
the expansion of the empire Kabul
Aurangzeb’s reign, 1707
would have had on land revenue
Qandahar
collection? Lahore

Panipat
Delhi
Agra
Amber
Ajmer Patna
Rohtas
The mansabdari system
The Mughal administrative
system had at its apex a military-
cum-bureaucratic apparatus
( mansabdari ) which was
responsible for looking after the
civil and military affairs of the
Goa Bay of Bengal
state. Some mansabdars were Arabian Sea
paid in cash (naqdi), while the
majority of them were paid
through assignments of revenue
(jagirs) in different regions of the
empire. They were transferred
periodically. See also Chapter 9.
Sketch map not to scale

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REBELS AND THE RAJ 267

Map 1
Territories under British
control in 1857

Source 3
Sketch map not to scale
The Nawab has left

Another song mourned the

which did not wail out the cry of agony in separation plight of the ruler who had to
of Jan-i-Alam.” One folk song bemoaned that “the leave his motherland:
honourable English came and took the country’’ Noble and peasant all wept
(Angrez Bahadur ain, mulk lai linho ). together
This emotional upheaval was aggravated by and all the world wept and
immediate material losses. The removal of the Nawab wailed
led to the dissolution of the court and its culture.
Alas! The chief has bidden
Thus a whole range of people – musicians, dancers, adieu to
poets, artisans, cooks, retainers, administrative
officials and so on – lost their livelihood. his country and gone
abroad.
2.3 Firangi raj and the end of a world
A chain of grievances in Awadh linked prince, Ü Read the entire section
taluqdar, peasant and sepoy. In different ways they and discuss why people
came to identify firangi raj with the end of their mourned the departure of
world – the breakdown of things they valued, Wajid Ali Shah.
respected and held dear. A whole complex of emotions

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REBELS AND THE RAJ 275
Source 7
4. Repression
Villagers as rebels
It is clear from all accounts that we have of 1857
that the British did not have an easy time in putting
down the rebellion. An officer reporting from rural
Before sending out troops to reconquer North Awadh (spelt as Oude in the
India, the British passed a series of laws to help following account) noted:
them quell the insurgency. By a number of Acts, The Oude people are
passed in May and June 1857, not only was the gradually pressing down on
whole of North India put under martial law but the line of communication
military officers and even ordinary Britons were from the North … the Oude
given the power to try and punish Indians people are villagers …
suspected of rebellion. In other words, the ordinary these villagers are nearly
processes of law and trial were suspended and it intangible to Europeans
melting away before them
was put out that rebellion would have only one
and collecting again. The
punishment – death. Civil Authorities report
Armed with these newly enacted special laws these villagers to amount
and the reinforcements brought in from Britain, the to a very large number of
British began the task of suppressing the revolt. men, with a number of guns.
They, like the rebels, recognised the symbolic value
of Delhi. The British thus mounted a two-pronged
Ü What, according to
attack. One force moved from Calcutta into North
this account, were the
India and the other from the Punjab – which problems faced by the
was largely peaceful – to reconquer Delhi. British British in dealing with
these villagers?

Map 2
The map shows
the important
centres of revolt
and the lines of
British attack
Sketch map not to scale
against the rebels.

official telegram handle:- Official_Captain_Invincible

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