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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 September 2020
The stabilisation of Delhi as the centre of power in the subcontinent reorganised not only political and military structures in north India but also opened up new connections for trade and traders. This article traces the journey of one Hindu merchant family from their ancestral home in the Indus Valley to new prominence in the Sultanate capital. A close reading of a Sanskrit donative inscription written in ornate poetry from the Delhi hinterland shows the changing imagination of politics, religion and space among elite merchants. Uḍḍhara Ṭhakkura adapts the linguistic heritage of Sanskrit public presentation and creates a new and self-aware ideational language to express geography, politics and piety. Uḍḍhara's model was powerful; over the next century, other merchant families adapt it to present their own donative largess. While F. Flood has highlighted the role of Hindu traders through material culture in his magisterial work Objects of Translation (2005), the Sanskrit literary production patronised by mobile mercantile groups can advance and nuance the picture, showing the complex negotiations in creating and presenting a public identity for Hindu groups in the Sultanate period.
I would like to thank the participants of the University of Wisconsin, Madison Preconference on Sanskrit in Persianate India in 2012 for the lively discussion of an early iteration of this paper. Audrey Truschke deserves special credit for co-organising this event. I owe a debt of gratitude to Daud Ali, Hannah Lord Archambault, Manan Ahmad Asif, Ajay Rao and Pushkar Sohoni for their insightful conversations and comments on many of the issues discussed in this article.
2 The well that the inscription commemorates is not known; the inscription itself was not recorded in situ and disappeared and reappeared several times in its modern history. See Vogel, J. P., Catalogue of the Delhi Museum of Archaeology (Calcutta, 1908), pp. 3–5Google Scholar.
3 Pollock, S. Language of the Gods in the World of Men (Berkeley CA, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 Pollock, S., ‘The Death of Sanskrit’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 43, 2 (Cambridge, 2001), p. 416CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Knutson, J., Into the Twilight of Sanskrit Court Poetry: The Sena Literary Salon of Bengal and Beyond (Berkeley CA, 2014), p. 17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 Truschke, A., Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court (New York, 2015)Google Scholar.
7 All of these inscriptions are published in Prasad, P., Inscriptions of the Delhi Sultanate, 1191–1526 (Delhi, 1990)Google Scholar.
8 See Ali, D., ‘Between Market and Court: The Careers of Two Courtier-Merchants in the Twelfth Century Deccan’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 53, 1 (2010), pp. 185–211CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 Bühler, G. and Ozha, V., ‘Śrīdhara's Devapattana Praśasti’, Epigraphia Indica, Vol. II, (1894), pp. 437–446Google Scholar.
10 A detailed comparative study of temple and stepwell inscriptions is to be desired in the history of Sultanate South Asia.
11 F. B. Flood. Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval “Hindu-Muslim” Encounter (Princeton, 2005), especially Chapter 2.
12 Jackson, P., The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History (Cambridge, 1999)Google Scholar; Kumar, S., The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate, 1192–1286 (Bangalore, 2007)Google Scholar.
13 Habib, I., ‘Economic History of the Delhi Sultanate—An Essay in Interpretation’, Indian Historical Review 4, 2 (1978), p. 298Google Scholar.
14 Ibid..,
15 Ibid., pp. 291–292.
16 Habib, M., ‘The Urban Revolution in Northern India’, in Warfare and Weaponry in South Asia 1000–1800, (eds.) Gommans, Jos J. L. and Kolff, Dirk H. A. (New Delhi, 2001), p. 55Google Scholar.
17 Ibid, p. 58.
18 See, for instance, Thakar, R., ‘Segregation of Artisans in Early Medieval India: Mohammad Habib's Thesis Reconsidered’, Urban History 24, 2 (1997), pp. 142–147Google Scholar.
19 Flood, Objects of Translation, p. 25. Italics in original.
20 Ibid.,
21 Asif, M. A., A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia (Cambridge, Mass., 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
22 Here and throughout I cite from my own provisional edition of the inscription, which I have re-edited from photographs of the stone given in Prasad, Inscriptions of the Delhi Sultanate. Where readings have diverged significantly, I have indicated in the notes.
23 Jalāl ad-Dīn Raziya reigned as the daughter of Rukn ad-Dīn Firūz Shāh. In the inscription, the name is clearly in the masculine grammatical gender. While noting this confusion, I translate tadanantaram as “after her” following the historical record against grammatical choices of the verse. It should be noted that perhaps the author of the inscription assumed Jalāl ad-Dīn was a man. For more on Raziya and the complexities of gender, see Gabbay, Alyssa, ‘In Reality a Man: Sultan Iltutmish, His Daughter, Raziya, and Gender Ambiguity in Thirteenth Century Northern India’, Journal of Persianate Studies 4,1 (2011), pp. 45–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 For an account of these tempestuous years and the complex mechanics of succession, see Jackson, The Delhi Sultanate, Chapter 3, ‘Sultans and Sources’, especially pp. 46–49.
25 Both the contemporary writers ‘Ibn Battuta and ‘Isāmī claim that Balban murdered Nasīr ad-Dīn.
26 Jackson, The Delhi Sultanate, p. 26.
27 This name for Delhi is known from other sources although it is not clear if this is another name for the entirety of the city, designates a section of the city, or denotes some town nearby. For instance, Jonarāja's Rājataraṅgiṇī, completed in 1459, speaks of the citizens of Yoginīpura (yoginīpurapaura) in verse 381 “lord of Yoginīpura” (yoginīpuranātha) in verse 441. Both references come during the account of Shiḥāb ad-Dīn, who reigned from 1355–73. See also Sadhu, S. L., Tales from the Rājataraṅgiṇī (Srinagar, 1993), p. 83 n. 131Google Scholar.
28 Prasad's understanding of purapati as “householder” seems unlikely to me (Prasad, Inscriptions of the Delhi Sultanate, p. 13). In his Indian Epigraphical Glossary, Sircar translates the term as “mayor of a town” and gives a few synonyms. See Sircar, D. C., Indian Epigraphical Glossary (Delhi, 1966), p. 266Google Scholar. While it is unclear what exactly it would mean to be “mayor” of Delhi during the Sultanate, from context it does appear to be a rank of some public importance. Incidentally in a parallel worthy of further exploration, the Raṣṭrakuṭa rulers recognised an Arab “governor” of the port of Sanjan on the Arabian Sea. This post seemed to be the head of the local Muslim community. See Sircar, D. C., ‘Rashtrakuta Charters from Chinchani’, Epigraphica Indica 32, 2 (1957), pp. 45–60Google Scholar.
29 This verse is slightly obscure, but I translate it according to the geography of the region of Ucch, situated downriver of the confluence of the Sutlej (=Śatadrumā) and Chenab (=Chandrabhāgā) but before the confluence of the Chenab and the Indus (=Sindhu). Ucch thus occupies the space where the Chenab and the Indus can stand as “friends”, closely connected but with separate identities.
30 Asif, A Book of Conquest, p. 49.
31 Ibid. See Chapter 2, especially pp. 48–55.
32 See Steifels, A. M., Knowledge Before Action: Islamic Learning and Sufi Practice in the Life of Sayyid Jalāl al-dīn Bukhārī Makhdūm-i Jahāniyān (Columbia, SC, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
33 The reign of Balban becomes a touchstone for later sultanate genealogies. In the Tārīkh-i Firūz Shāhī of Baranī, the Tughluq Dynasty locates their genealogical origins in Balban's administration.
34 The inscription calls him Ṣuduvadīna, which presents some problems. It seems to be somewhere halfway between Khuda ad-Dīn and Qutb ad-Dīn. The Perso-Arabic kh sound is often transcribed with the Sanskrit retroflex sibiliant ṣ (and vice-versa), while the Perso-Arabic q is usually transcribed with the Sanskrit k. A more literal transcription would lead to the nonsensical Khudub ad Dīn. Noting this difficulty, I present both possible readings of the name.
35 Jackson, The Delhi Sultanate, p. 34.
36 tasyām pury asti vaṇijām agrotakanivāsināṃ | vaṃśaḥ … Prasad, Sanskrit Inscriptions of the Delhi Sultanate, p. 29, v. 7.
37 See the Naraina Stone Inscription, v. 6, and the discussion by Prasad, Sanskrit Inscriptions of the Delhi Sultanate, pp. 22–27. While the find-spot of the Naraina Stone Inscription is unknown, M. S. Ahluwalia argues that this Naraina is Jaipur in present-day Rajasthan, which would speak to another geographical connection commemorated in stone. See Ahluwalia, M. S. ‘The Sultanate's Penetration into Rajasthan & Central India’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 28 (1966), p. 148Google Scholar. The Delhi Museum Stone Inscription is too worn to say anything definitive, however, there does appear to be the demonym Rohītaka used where one might expect such a discussion. See Prasad, Sanskrit Inscriptions of the Delhi Sultanate, pp. 15–18, especially p. 16.
38 I have re-edited this inscription from pictures of the stone.
39 The reading of hariyānaka is suspect to me. It seems to me that the inscription would more likely read haritālaka, which meaning “yellow” may be included to provide a sort of folk etymology for the name of the area. However, given the context, it is clear that Hariyāna is meant.
40 Prasad reads vyacarachatra which yields no good sense. The inscription clearly shows a dya for Prasad's cha.
41 The Naraina Stone Inscription gestures toward the foundational story for the settlement of Haryana, the burning of the Khāṇḍava Forest. In this purifying forest fire, the wilderness was cleared for Vedic ritual and human habitation. Further the inscription draws to mind the ultimate field of dharma, Kurukṣetra, the site of the revelation of the Bhagavad Gītā.
42 For a theorisation of praśasti, see Pollock, S., Language of the Gods in the World of Men (Berkeley CA, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially pp. 138–145.
43 Kṣemendra. Suvṛttatilaka in Suryakanta. Kṣemendra Studies: Text with English Translation, (ed.) R. K. Panda (Delhi, 2010).
44 While the idea of the digvijaya can be traced back to the epics, its appearance in inscriptions dates back to the fourth-century Allahabad Pillar Inscription of Samudragupta. As a kāvya set-piece, the digvijaya appears in Kālidāsa's Raghuvaṃśa and continued to be deployed in praise of kings and other extraordinary men throughout the history of Sanskrit literature. For an overview of the performance of the digvijaya in classical and medieval South Asia, see Sax, William S., ‘Conquest of the Quarters: Religion and Politics in Hinduism’, International Journal of Hindu Studies 4, 1 (2000) pp. 42–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
45 Prasad reads antasatoṃṣapūrṇṇe.
46 It seems the ablatives need an accusative pair to mirror the first portion of this pāda. Since we moved from the east to the west, it makes sense to supply the north after the ablatives representing the south. Incidentally, east to west and south to north are movements frequently described in digvijaya literature.
47 Such a conventionalised vocabulary of kingship, geography, and conquest is found throughout Sanskrit literature. To give one parallel, in the Rājendrakarṇapūra, an unjustly understudied encomium of king Harṣa of Kashmir (r.1089–1101), the ruler's entirely fictitious conquests are described as follows:
This verse provides an almost exact parallel, using the same meter and the same tropes where word play and allophony provide the geography and modes of conquest.
48 Joshi, P. M., ‘‘Ala-ud-Din Khalji's first Campaign against Devagiri’, in Dr Ghulam Yazdani Commemoration Volume, (ed.) Sherwani, H. K. (Hyderabad, 1966), p. 203Google Scholar.
49 The theorisation that I am thinking of is obviously Sheldon Pollock's concept of “the death of Sanskrit”, as outlined in his article with the same name, ‘The Death of Sanskrit’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 43, 2 (2001), pp. 392–426.
50 Ghazna is also found in Jonarāja's 1459 Sanskrit history of the Sultans of Kashmir, Rājataraṅgiṇī. Describing Sultan Shihāb ad-Din's (r. 1355–73) own digvijaya, the name occurs with slightly different spelling gājinī. Again, Ghazna serves as the north-westernmost boundary of this Sultan's conquests, speaking to a similar imagined scope of political activity.
51 In the immediately following verse, the eastern and western limits of the Sultanate are given as the delta of the Ganges (gaṅgāsāgarasaṃgama) and the Indus (sindhusamudrasaṃgama). While the idea of the Ganges delta as the easternmost boundary of the Indic world is not unheard of, to my knowledge the Indus delta is never used in that context.
52 For a further discussion of stepwells and their features, see Hegewald, J., Water Architecture in South Asia: A Study of Types, Development and Meanings (Leiden, 2002), pp. 155–177CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Bunce, F. W., The Iconography of Water: Well and Tank forms of the Indian Subcontinent (Delhi, 2013)Google Scholar.
53 Hegewald, Water Architecture in South Asia, p. 155.
54 Ed. reads -tarū.
55 In the translation I follow the edition and read as satāṃ.
56 Ed. reads nijaprasādena, however the stone reads clearly bija- which makes no good sense.
57 Ed. reads kaluṣam iti vihṛṣā. The stone reads clearly kaluṣamitivinuṣā, from which I cannot extract a satisfactory meaning. Here I tentatively conjecture kaluṣam iti vapuṣā. I translate accordingly.
58 Ed. reads vidhevā-
59 Paranomasia, a term used to translate the Sanskrit tropological term śleṣa, is a sort of extended pun based on phonological congruence. This pun contains within it an implicit comparison as the image of the well is overlaid with that of the woman.
60 Paul Hacker argues that in Vedāntic contexts, the use of the root √bhram suggests “a confusion resting upon a false identification” in ‘Śaṅkara the Yogin and Śaṇkara the Advaitin: Some Observations’, in Philology and Confrontation: Paul Hacker on Traditional and Modern Vedanta, (ed.) Wilhelm Halbfass (New York, 1995), p. 110. This also recalls the confusion we have already noted in the Naraina Stone inscription.
61 There might be some debate as to whether the figure of speech here is upamā ‘simile’ or utprekṣā ‘poetic fancy’. I have understood it as utprekṣā and translated accordingly. The theological difference in understanding, however slight, may be important. In such a way, liberating knowledge is not like the well, but rather the well seems to shine (bhāti), i.e. exist as or act as, liberating knowledge for those who know spiritual truth.
62 Ali, D. and Flatt, E., ‘Introduction’, in Garden and Landscape Practices in Pre-Colonial India: Histories from the Deccan, (eds.) Ali, D. and Flatt, E. (New Delhi and London, 2011), p. 6Google Scholar.
63 The little-studied Jagaḍucarita speaks to the connections of Cambay to the western India hinterland and the Arabian Sea in the twelfth century. It develops overlapping geographies of trade and piety in a way parallel to the Pālam inscription, but its spatial and temporal imagination is embedded in a different historical dispensation.