UPSC History Delhi Sultnat (Gulam, Khilji, Tughlak, Sayyed, Lodhi) NCERT Extracts - Cultural Development

Cultural Development

• When the Turks came to India, they not only had a well-defined faith in Islam to which they were deeply attached, they also had definite ideas of government, art, architecture, etc.
• The interaction of the Turks with the Indians who held strong religious beliefs and had well-developed ideas of art, architecture and literature resulted, in the long run, in the development of a new enriched culture.
• The process of assimilation, therefore, had many ups and downs and varied from region to region and from field to field.

 Architecture

• One of the first requirements of the new rulers was houses to live in, and places of worship. They at first converted temples and other existing building into mosques.
• The Arhai Din ka Jhonpra had been a monastery.
• The only new construction in Delhi was a facade of three elaborately carved arches in front of the deity room (garbha griha) which was demolished.
• The style of decoration used on these arches is very interesting: no human or animal figures were used since it was considered to be un-Islamic to do so.
• Instead they used scrolls of flowers and verses of the Quran which were intertwined in a very artistic manner.
• Soon, the Turks started constructing their own buildings.
• In their buildings, the Turks used the arch and the dome on a wide scale.
• Neither the arch nor the dome was a Turkish or Muslim invention.
• The Arabs borrowed them from Rome through the Byzantine Empire, developed them and made them their own.
• The use of the arch and the dome had a number of advantages. The dome provided a pleasing skyline and as the architects gained more experience and confidence, the dome rose higher.
• The arch and the dome dispensed with the need for a large number of pillars to support the roof and enabled the construction of large halls with a clear view. Such places of assembly were useful in mosques as well as in palaces.
• However, the arch and the dome needed a strong cement, otherwise the stones could not be held in place. The Turks used fine quality light mortar in their buildings.
• Thus, new architectural forms and mortar of a superior kind became widespread in north India, with the arrival of the Turks.
• The arch and the dome were known to the Indians earlier, but they were not used on a large.
• The Turkish rulers used both the dome and the arch method as well as the slab and beam method in their buildings.
• In the sphere to decoration, the Turks eschewed representation of human and animal figures in the buildings.
• Instead, they used geometrical and floral designs, combining them with panels of inscriptions containing verses from the Quran.
• Thus, the Arabic script itself became a work of art. The combination of these decorative devices was called Arabesque.
• They also freely borrowed Hindu motifs such as the bell motif, swastika, lotus, etc. Thus, like the Indians, the Turks were intensely fond of decoration.
• Yellow sandstone, or marble was used in these buildings for decoration and to show of the colour of the red sandstone.
• The most magnificent building constructed by the Turks in the thirteenth century was the Qutab Minar.
• This tapering tower, originally 71.4 metre high, built by Itutmish, was dedicated of the Sufi saint, Qutab-ud-Din Bakhtiyar Kaki.
• Although traditions of building towers are to be found both in India and West Asia, the Qutab Minar is unique in many ways.
• It derives its effect mainly from the skilful manner in which the balconies have been projected yet linked with the main tower, the use of red and white sandstone and marble in panels and in the top stages and the ribbed effect.
• The Qutb Minar is five storeys high. The band of inscriptions (in Arabic) are under its first balcony.
• The first floor was constructed by Qutbuddin Aybak and the rest by Iltutmish around 1229. Over the years it was damaged by lightning and earthquakes and repaired by Alauddin Khaiji, Muhammad Tughluq, Firuz Shah Tughluq and Ibrahim Lodi.
• Alauddin built his capital at Siri, a few kilometres away from the site around the Qutab. Alauddin planned a tower twice the height of the Qutab, but did not live to complete it
• But he added an entrance door to the Qutab. This door, which is called the Alai Darwaza. has arches of very pleasing proportions.
• There was great building activity in the Tughlaq period. Ghiyasuddin and Muhammad Tughlaq built the huge palace-fortress complex called
• By blocking the passage of the Jamuna a huge artificial lake was created around it
• The tomb of Ghiyasuddin marks a new trend in architecture. To have a good skyline, the building was put upon a high platform. Its beauty was heightened by marble dome.
• A striking feature of the Tughlaq architecture was the sloping wall. This is called "batter". However, we do not find any "batter' in the buildings of Firuz Tughlaq.
• A second feature of the Tughlaq architecture was deliberate attempts to combine the principles of the arch, and the lintel and beam in their buildings.
• This is found in a marked manner in the building^ of Firuz Tughlaq.
• In the Hauz Khas, which was a pleasure resort and had a huge lake around it, alternate stories have arches, and the lintel and beam.
• The same is to found in some buildings of Firuz Shah's new fort which is now called the Kotla.
• The Tughlaq did not generally use the costly red sandstone in their buildings but the cheaper and more easily available grey stone.
• Since it was not easy to carve this type of stone, the Tughlaq buildings have a minimum of decoration. But the decorative found in all the buildings of Firuz are the lotus. Lodis developed this tradition further.
• Another device used by the Lodis was placing their buildings, especially tombs, on a high platform, thus giving the building a feeling of size as well as a better skyline.
• Some of the tombs were placed in the midst of gardens.
• The Lodi Garden in Delhi is a fine example of this.
• Some of the tombs were of an octagonal shape.
• Many of these features were adopted by the Mughals later on, and their culmination is to be found in the Taj Mahal built by Shah Jahan.

Literature

Sanskrit Literature

• Sanskrit continued to be a vehicle for higher thought and a medium for literature during the period under review. Following the great Sankara, works in the field of Advaita philosophy by Ramanuja, Madhava, Vallabha, etc., continued to be written in Sanskrit.
• The great Mitakshara of Vijnaneshwar, which forms one of the two principle Hindu schools of law, cannot be placed earlier than the twelfth century.
• Another famous commentator was Chandeshwar ofBihar who lived in the fourteenth century.
• The Jains, too, contributed to the growth of Sanskrit. Hemachandra Suri was the most eminent of these.
• Little attempt was made to translate Islamic works or Persian literature into Sanskrit.
• Possibly, the only exception was the translation of the love story of Yusuf and Zulaikha written by the famous Persian poet, Jami.

Arabic and Persian Literature

• The Turks who came to India were deeply influenced by the Persian language which had become the literary and administrative language of Central Asia from the tenth century onwards.
• In India, the use of Arabic remained largely confined to a narrow circle of Islamic scholars and philosophers, most of the original literature on the subject being written in Arabic.
• The most well-known of digests of the Islamic law were prepared in the reign of Firuz Tughlaq.
• But Arabic digests continued to be prepared, the most famous of these being the Fatawa-i-Alamgiri, or the Digest of Laws prepared by a group of jurists in the reign of Aurangzeb.
• With the arrival of the Turks in India during the tenth century, a new language, Persian, was introduced in the country.
• There was a resurgence of the Persian language in Iran and Central Asia from the tenth century onwards and some of the greatest poets of the Persian language, such as Firdausi and Sadi, lived and composed their works between the tenth and fourteenth centuries.
• The most famous historians of this period were Ziauddin Barani, Afif and Isami.
• Zia Nakhshabi (d. 1350) was the first to translate into Persian Sanskrit stories which were related by a parrot to a woman whose husband had gone on a journey.
• The book Tuti Nama (Book of the Parrot), written in the time of Muhammad Tughlaq, proved very popular and was translated from Persian into Turkish and into many European languages as well.                              
• He also translated the old Indian treatise on sexology, the Kok Shastra, into Persian.
• Later in the time ofFiruz Shah, Sanskrit books on medicine and music were translated into Persian.
• Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin of Kashmir had famous historical work Rajatarangini and the Mahabharata translated into Persian.

Regional Language

• During this period, literary works of high quality were produced in many of the regional languages as well.
• The use of the common language by the Bhakti saints was, undoubtedly, an important factor in the rise of these languages.
• In course of time, when these languages had reached a certain stage of development, some of the Muslim kings gave them patronage for literary purposes also.
• For example, Nusrat Shah of Bengal had the mahabharata and the Ramayana translated into Bengali.
• Maladhar Basu also translated the Bhagavata into Bengali under his patronage.
• His patronage of Bengali poets had been mentioned earlier.
• In Jaunpur, the Sufi Saints, such as Malik Muhammad Jaisi, wrote in Hindi and put forward Sufi concepts in a form which could be easily understood by the common man. They popularised many Persian forms, such as the masnavi.

Fine Arts

• When the Turks came to India, they inherited the rich Arab tradition of music which had been further developed in Iran and Central Asia.
• They brought with them a number of new musical instruments, such as the rabab and sarangi, and new musical modes and regulations.
• Indian music and Indian musicians at the court of the Caliphs at Baghdad had possibly influenced the development of music there.
• The process of integration in the field of music continued under Firuz.
• The Indian classical work Ragadarpan was translated into Persian during this reign. Musical gatherings spread from the abodes of the Suffis to the palaces of the nobles.
• Sultan Husain Sharqi, the ruler of Jaunpur, was a great patron of music.
• The Sufi saint, Pir Bodhan, is supposed to have been the second great musician of the age.
• Another regional kingdom where music was highly cultivated was the kingdom of Gwalior. Raja Man Singh of Gwalior was a great music lover.
• The work Man Kautuhal in which all the new musical modes introduced by the Muslims were included was prepared under his aegis.
• After the conquest of Jaunpur, Sikandar Lodi followed its tradition of patronising music on a lavish scale - a tradition which was adopted by the great Mughals later on.

Some Important Facts

• Between the seventh and tenth centuries architects started adding more rooms, doors and windows to buildings. Roofs, doors and windows were still made by placing a horizontal beam across two vertical columns, a style of architecture called "trabeate" or "corbelled".
• Between the eighth and thirteenth centuries the trabeate style was used in the construction of temples, mosques, tombs and in buildings attached to large stepped-wells (baolis).