Through the Eyes of Travellers

2.1 Core concepts

• Travellers came to India as traders, soldiers, priests, pilgrims and adventurers; their accounts are valuable because, coming from different social-cultural worlds, they recorded "everyday activities" that indigenous writers took for granted (NCERT §intro, p. 115–116).
• We have practically no surviving travel accounts left by women, although women did travel (NCERT §intro, p. 115).
• Al-Biruni (973–1048) was born in Khwarizm, present-day Uzbekistan; knew Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and Sanskrit, and read Greek philosophers (Plato etc.) in Arabic translation; in 1017 Sultan Mahmud took him as a hostage to Ghazni, where he developed an interest in India and spent the rest of his life until death at age 70 (NCERT §1.1, p. 116).
• He learnt Sanskrit from Brahmana priests and scholars, translated Patanjali's grammar into Arabic, and translated Euclid into Sanskrit for his Brahmana friends (NCERT §1.1, p. 116).
• Kitab-ul-Hind was written in Arabic, simple and lucid in style, voluminous, divided into 80 chapters on religion, philosophy, festivals, astronomy, alchemy, manners and customs, social life, weights and measures, iconography, laws and metrology (NCERT §1.2, p. 117).
• Al-Biruni adopted a near-geometric chapter structure: a question, a description from Sanskritic traditions, then a comparison with other cultures — a precision attributed by some scholars to his mathematical orientation (NCERT §1.2, p. 117).
• The term "Hindu" was an Old Persian word (sixth–fifth centuries BCE) for the region east of the Sindhu; Arabs called the region "al-Hind"; later Turks called the people Hindu, the land Hindustan, the language Hindavi — none of these expressions originally indicated religious identity (NCERT box, p. 117).
• Three barriers Al-Biruni identified to understanding India: (1) language — Sanskrit so different from Arabic/Persian that concepts could not be easily translated; (2) difference in religious beliefs and practices; (3) the self-absorption and "insularity" of the local population (NCERT §4.1, p. 124).
• He depended almost exclusively on the works of Brahmanas — Vedas, Puranas, Bhagavad Gita, Patanjali, Manusmriti (NCERT §4.1, p. 124).
• On caste, Al-Biruni sought parallels with ancient Persia's four social categories (knights/princes; monks/fire-priests/lawyers; physicians/astronomers/scientists; peasants/artisans) and noted that under Islam all men were considered equal, differing only in piety (NCERT §4.2, p. 124).
• He disapproved of the notion of pollution: anything that falls into impurity strives to regain purity (sun cleans the air, salt prevents the sea from rotting); the conception of social pollution was, he argued, contrary to the laws of nature (NCERT §4.2, p. 124–125).
• Ibn Battuta (1304–77), born in Tangier, Morocco, into a family of experts in Islamic religious law (shari'a); he prized travel over books; reached Sind in 1333 having travelled through Central Asia, attracted by Muhammad bin Tughlaq's reputation as a patron (NCERT §2.1, p. 118).
• The Sultan was impressed by his scholarship and appointed him qazi (judge) of Delhi; he later fell out of favour, was restored, and in 1342 was sent as envoy to the Mongol ruler of China (NCERT §2.1, p. 118).
• He travelled via the Malabar coast, Maldives (qazi for 18 months), Sri Lanka, Bengal, Assam, Sumatra and China (Beijing); returned home in 1347 (NCERT §2.1, p. 118–119).
• According to Ibn Battuta: 40 days from Multan to Delhi, ~50 days from Sind to Delhi, 40 days Daulatabad to Delhi, 10 days Gwalior to Delhi (NCERT §2.1, p. 119).
• His Rihla, written in Arabic, was dictated to Ibn Juzayy on the orders of the local ruler upon his return (NCERT Source 3, p. 121).
• He described unfamiliar things using comparisons — the coconut's nut resembles a man's head with two eyes and a mouth, its inside like the brain, with fibres like hair used to sew up ships in place of iron nails (NCERT §5.1 + Source 6, p. 126).
• Paan ("betel") is cultivated like the grape-vine, has no fruit, grown only for its leaves; used with areca nut and a little chalk, chewed together (NCERT §5.1 + Source 7, p. 126).
• He described Delhi as the largest city in India and Daulatabad (Maharashtra) as rivalling Delhi in size; bazaars were hubs of social/cultural life with mosques and temples; Daulatabad had Tarababad, a market-place for male and female singers (NCERT §5.2 + Source 9, p. 127–128).
• Indian agriculture was very productive — two crops a year on fertile soil; Indian textiles (cotton, fine muslin, silk, brocade, satin) were exported across West Asia and Southeast Asia (NCERT §5.2, p. 128).
• Postal system had two kinds: the horse-post (uluq), run by royal horses at stations every four miles; the foot-post (dawa), with three stations per mile (each one-third of a mile). The foot-post was quicker and was also used to transport Khurasan fruits; news of spies reached the Sultan from Sind in just five days, vs. fifty days by ordinary travel (NCERT §5.3 + Source 10, p. 129).
• François Bernier (1620–88), French physician, political philosopher and historian; in India for 12 years (1656–1668); attached as physician to Prince Dara Shukoh (eldest son of Shah Jahan), later to Danishmand Khan, an Armenian noble at the Mughal court (NCERT §3, p. 122).
• His book Travels in the Mughal Empire was dedicated to Louis XIV, king of France; many of his other works were letters to influential officials. He almost always presented India as inferior to Europe (NCERT §3.1, p. 122).
• His works were published in France in 1670–71 and translated into English, Dutch, German and Italian within five years; between 1670 and 1725 reprinted eight times in French — in marked contrast to Arabic/Persian accounts that circulated only as manuscripts and were generally not published before 1800 (NCERT §3.1, p. 123).
• Bernier's representation worked on a binary opposition model — India as the inverse of Europe — and hierarchically ordered, with India as inferior (NCERT §6, p. 130).
• His central economic argument: there was no private property in land in Mughal India; the emperor owned all the land and distributed it to his nobles. This (he claimed) led to ruination of agriculture, oppression of peasantry and prevented the emergence of "improving" landlords as in Western Europe (NCERT §6.1, p. 130).
• Bernier concluded: "There is no middle state in India" — society had only impoverished masses and a small rich ruling class with nothing in between (NCERT §6.1, p. 131).
• no Mughal official document suggests the state was the sole owner of land; Abu'l Fazl (Akbar's chronicler) described land revenue as "remunerations of sovereignty", a claim for protection, not rent on land owned by the king (NCERT §6.1, p. 132).
• Bernier's ideas influenced Montesquieu's concept of "oriental despotism" and later Karl Marx's concept of the "Asiatic mode of production" (in which surplus was appropriated by the state and society consisted of autonomous, internally egalitarian, stagnant village communities) (NCERT §6.1, p. 132).
• During the 17th century about 15 per cent of Indian population lived in towns — higher than the urban proportion in contemporary Western Europe — yet Bernier characterised Mughal cities as "camp towns" that owed their existence to the imperial camp and declined when it moved (NCERT §6.2, p. 134).
• This was an oversimplification: there were manufacturing towns, trading towns, port-towns, sacred centres and pilgrimage towns; merchants were organised into caste-cum-occupational bodies (mahajans in western India), led by a sheth, and in cities such as Ahmedabad collectively represented by the nagarsheth (NCERT §6.2, p. 134).
• Bernier also described karkhanas (imperial workshops) where embroiderers, goldsmiths, painters, lacquer-varnishers, joiners, turners, tailors, shoemakers and silk/brocade/muslin manufacturers worked under a master (NCERT Source 14, p. 134).
• On slavery: slaves were openly sold in markets and gifted; Ibn Battuta himself bought slaves in Sind as gifts for Muhammad bin Tughlaq; Muhammad bin Tughlaq once gave a preacher "a hundred thousand tankas and two hundred slaves"; female slaves performed music/dance, spied on nobles, and the price of slaves (especially female for domestic labour) was very low (NCERT §7, p. 135).
• On sati, Bernier left a famous description of a Lahore child sati — a young widow not more than twelve years old, who trembled and wept but was forced by Brahmanas onto the wood and burnt alive; European travellers used sati as a marker of difference between East and West (NCERT §7 + Source 16, p. 135).
• These accounts need qualification: women's labour was crucial to agricultural and non-agricultural production; merchant women participated in commerce and even went to court; women were not confined to private spaces (NCERT §7, p. 136).

2.2 Definitions to memorise

2.3 Diagrams / processes to remember

• Fig. 5.1a–b (p. 115): Paan leaves and a coconut — items that struck many travellers as unusual.
• Fig. 5.2 (p. 117): 13th-c. Arabic manuscript showing the Greek statesman Solon addressing his students — example of Greek thought circulating in Arabic.
• Fig. 5.3 (p. 118): 16th-c. Mughal painting of robbers attacking travellers — illustrates the hazards of medieval travel.
• Map 1 (p. 120): Places visited by Ibn Battuta in Afghanistan, Sind and Punjab — Tirmidh, Balkh, Kabul, Ghazna, Qandahar, Multan, Ajudahan, Sarasati, Hansi, Dehli.
• Fig. 5.6 (p. 122): A 17th-c. painting depicting Bernier in European clothes.
• Fig. 5.10 (p. 128): Ikat weaving patterns — adopted at coastal centres in the subcontinent and Southeast Asia.
• Timeline (p. 137): Al-Biruni 973–1048; Marco Polo 1254–1323; Ibn Battuta 1304–77; Abdur Razzaq 1413–82; Duarte Barbosa 1518; Mahmud Wali Balkhi 1626–31 in India; Tavernier 1605–67; Bernier 1620–88.

2.5 Timeline / Key events

2.4 Common confusions / NTA trap points

• Languages of the works: Kitab-ul-Hind = Arabic; Rihla = Arabic (NOT Persian); Bernier's Travels = French (dedicated to Louis XIV). NTA often swaps these.
• Patron–sovereign confusion: Al-Biruni came with Mahmud of Ghazni (1017); Ibn Battuta served Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq (NOT Alauddin Khalji); Bernier was physician to Dara Shukoh (NOT Aurangzeb personally, although later attached to Danishmand Khan at Aurangzeb's court).
• Uluq vs Dawa: uluq = horse-post (every 4 miles); dawa = foot-post (three stations per mile, i.e. one-third mile each). Foot-post was FASTER than horse-post per NCERT.
• Crown-ownership claim: Bernier said the king owned all land; NCERT explicitly says no Mughal document confirms this — distractor traps often present Bernier's claim as factual.
• "Hindu": Originally a geographical term (east of Sindhu); religious connotation came much later. NTA likes to test the etymology.
• Tarababad: A market for singers in Daulatabad (NOT Delhi).
• "There is no middle state in India" is Bernier's quote, not Ibn Battuta's.