The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate (39 page)

THE APPEARANCE AND lifestyle of some of the medieval Indian kings were odd beyond belief. Such was the case of Sultan Mahmud Shah Begarha of Gujarat. ‘The said sultan has mustachios under his nose so long that he ties them over his head as a woman would tie her tresses, and he has a white beard which reaches to his girdle,’ writes the early sixteenth-century Italian
traveller Varthema, who was in Gujarat during Begarha’s reign. ‘Every day he eats poison. Do not, however, imagine that he fills his stomach with it; but he eats a certain quantity, so that when he wishes to destroy any great personage he makes him come before him stripped and naked, [and he spits on him the juice of the various fruits and leaves he has masticated, so that, because of the highly poisonous quality of spittle,] the man falls dead to the ground in the space of half an hour.

‘This sultan has also three or four thousand women [in his harem], and every night he sleeps with one, and she is found dead in the morning. Every time that he takes off his shirt, that shirt is never again touched by any one; and so also his other garments; and every day he chooses new garments … [The sultan could consume poison daily, because] his father had fed him upon poison from his childhood.’ This portrait, bizarre though it might seem, is at least partly confirmed by Barbosa, who visited Gujarat around this time. ‘I have heard that he was brought up from childhood to take poison, for his father, fearing that, in accordance with the usage of the country, he might be killed by that means, took this precaution against such a catastrophe,’ writes Barbosa. ‘He began to make him eat of it in small doses, gradually increasing them, until he could take a large quantity, whereby he became so poisonous, that if a fly lighted on his hand, it swelled and died at once, and many of the women with whom he slept died from the same cause.’

Begarha had other strange practices too. ‘In the morning, when he rises, there come to his palace fifty elephants, on each of which a man sits astride; and the said elephants do reverence to the sultan, and they have nothing else to do,’ reports Varthema. ‘And when he eats, fifty or sixty kinds of [musical] instruments play, namely, trumpets, drums of several sorts, and flageolets, and fifes, with many others, which for the sake of brevity I forbear mentioning. When the sultan eats, the said elephants again do reverence to him.’ Curiously, the raja of Vijayanagar also had a custom of being greeted by an elephant in the morning. ‘The king has a white elephant, exceedingly large,’ reports Razzak, ‘Every morning this animal is brought into the presence of the monarch, for to cast eye upon him is thought a favourable omen.’

IN CONTRAST TO the rigid and grandiose formality of the court customs of most kings of the middle and late Sultanate period, court customs in the early Sultanate period were quite simple. But they became rigidly formal during the reign of Balban, who had a very lofty concept of kingship and considered it an imperative practical necessity, for good governance, to elevate the sultan to a status far above the nobles, and thus create an unbridgeable psychological distance between him and the nobles, so that royal diktats would be unquestioningly obeyed by all. Balban therefore enforced in Delhi a court
etiquette somewhat similar to that of the pre-Islamic Sassanian monarchy of Persia, such as requiring courtiers to prostrate before the sultan, and kiss his throne or his feet.

To match his exalted concept of kingship, Balban always maintained a sternly regal demeanour in public, and took every care to be impeccably ceremonious in all he did. And he demanded that his courtiers also should behave becomingly in his presence. He permitted absolutely no frivolity, even loud laughter, in the court. The later sultans were not quite as stern as Balban, but most of them did maintain a fair amount of formality in the court. The only sultan who notably relaxed the court practices was Khizr Khan, the founder of the Sayyid dynasty, who reverted to the simplicity and camaraderie in the relationship between the courtiers and the sultan that had existed in the early Sultanate period.

There was usually a master of the ceremonies at the court, to regulate the people who entered the court and to ensure that proper order was maintained there, and that all observed the formalities required of them. All strangers presenting themselves to the sultan were required to make an offering to him as a homage. ‘No stranger admitted to court can avoid offering a present [to the sultan] as a kind of introduction, which the sultan repays by one of much greater value,’ states Battuta. And the sultan when he wanted to honour a courtier or a visitor invested him with a
khilat
, a ceremonial robe.

Court etiquette was fairly elaborate in Vijayanagar also. There, as Paes notes, those attending the court, ‘as soon as they enter make their salaam to him (the raja), and place themselves along the wall far off from him. They do not speak to one another, nor do they chew betel before him, but they place their hands in the sleeves of their tunics and cast their eyes on the ground. And if the king desires to speak to anyone, it is done through a second person … The salaam, which is the greatest courtesy that exists among them, is that they put their hands joined above their head as high as they can.’ And all men respectfully removed their footwear before entering the royal court.

Most courtiers were servile sycophants, and were obsequious towards the king, and they passively conformed to the abject subservience required of them in the royal court, for their career depended on the whim and pleasure of the sultan. It was very rarely that anyone spoke out in the court; usually when the king asked his nobles for some advice, they in turn asked him what was in his mind, and they generally agreed with whatever he suggested.

THE CUSTOMS AND practices observed in the Delhi court are described in detail by Battuta. ‘The sultan’s palace in Delhi is called Dar Sara, and has many doors. At the first door there are a number of guards … trumpeters and flute-players,’ states Battuta. ‘When any amir or person of note arrives, they
sound their instruments and announce, “So-and-so has come! So-and-so has come!” The same takes place also at the second and third doors.

‘Outside the first door are platforms on which executioners sit, for the custom amongst them is that when the sultan orders a man to be executed, the sentence is carried out at the door of the audience hall, and the body lies there for three nights.

‘Between the first and second doors there is a large vestibule with platforms along both sides, on which sit those whose turn of duty it is to guard the doors. Between the second and third doors there is a large platform on which the principal
naqib
(chief usher) sits … [He holds a gold mace in his hand] and on his head he wears a jewelled tiara of gold, surmounted by peacock feathers. The second door leads to an extensive audience hall in which the people sit.

‘At the third door there are platforms occupied by scribes … One of their customs is that none may pass through this door except those whom the sultan has authorized, and for each such person he assigns a number of his staff to enter [the court] along with him. Whenever any person comes to this door the scribes write down “So-and-so came at the first hour”, or the second [hour], and so on, and the sultan receives a report of this after the evening prayer. Another of their customs is that anyone who absents himself from the palace for three days or more, with or without excuse, may not enter this door thereafter except by the sultan’s permission. If he has an excuse of illness or otherwise, he presents the sultan with a gift suitable to his rank. The third door opens into an immense audience hall called Hazar Uslun, which means “a thousand pillars”. The pillars are of wood and support a wooden roof, admirably carved. The people sit under this, and it is in this hall that the sultan holds public audiences.’ According to Nikitin, a Russian traveller in India in the fifteenth century, ‘the sultan’s palace has seven gates, and at each gate are seated 100 guards and 100 Muhammadan scribes, who enter the names of all persons going in and out.’

IT WAS AN indispensable duty of the sultan to hold a durbar every day, sometimes even twice a day, morning and afternoon. ‘As a rule his audiences are held in the afternoon, though he often holds them early in the day [also],’ reports Battuta about the practice of Muhammad Tughluq. ‘He sits cross-legged on a throne placed on a dais carpeted in white, with a large cushion behind him and two other as armrests, on his right and left. When he takes his seat, the vizier stands in front of him, the secretaries behind the vizier, then the chamberlains, and so on in the order of precedence. As the sultan sits down the chamberlains and
naqibs
say in their loudest voice:
Bismillah!

‘[Behind the sultan stands a man] with a fly-whisk in his hand to drive off flies. A hundred armour-bearers stand on his right, and a like number on his
left, carrying shields, swords, and bows. The other functionaries and notables stand along the hall to the right and the left. Then they bring in sixty horses with royal harness, half of which are arranged on the right and half on the left, where the sultan can see them. Next fifty elephants are brought in, which are adorned with silken cloths, and have their tusks shod with iron for greater efficacy in killing criminals. On the neck of each elephant sits its mahout, who carries a sort of iron axe with which he punishes it and directs it to do what is required of it. Each elephant has on its back a sort of large chest capable of holding twenty warriors or more or less, according to the size of the beast.

‘These elephants are trained to make obeisance to the sultan and incline their heads, and when they do so the chamberlains cry in a loud voice:
Bismillah!
The elephants are also arranged half on the right and half on the left, behind the persons standing. As each person enters … he makes an obeisance on reaching the station of the chamberlains, and the chamberlains say
Bismillah
, regulating the loudness of their utterance to the rank of the person concerned; he then goes to his appointed place, beyond which he never passes. If it is one of the infidel Hindus who makes obeisance, the chamberlains say to him, “May god guide thee”.

‘If there should be anyone at the door who has come to offer the sultan a gift, the chamberlains enter the sultan’s presence in their order of precedence, make obeisance in three places, and inform the sultan of the person at the door. If he commands them to bring him in, they place the gift in the hands of the men who stand … in front of the sultan, so he can see it. He then calls in the donor, who makes obeisance three times before reaching the sultan and makes another obeisance at the station of the chamberlains. The sultan then addresses him in person with the greatest courtesy and bids him welcome. If he is a person who is worthy of honour, the sultan takes him by the hand or embraces him, and asks for some part of his present. It is then placed before him, and if it consists of a weapon or fabric he turns it this way and that with his hand and expresses his approval, to set the donor at ease and encourage him. He then gives him a robe of honour and assigns him a sum of money … proportionate to his merit.’

Similar formalities were observed when the sultan went on tour, and great precautions were taken for his safety—he was, in the case of Balban, always accompanied by a commando force of 1000 soldiers. And the return of the sultan to the capital was invariably a grand celebratory occasion. ‘When the sultan returns from a journey, the elephants are decorated, and on sixteen of them are placed sixteen parasols, some brocaded and some set with jewels,’ continues Battuta. ‘Wooden pavilions are built several storeys high and covered with silk cloths, and in each story there are singing girls wearing magnificent dresses and ornaments, with dancing girls amongst them. At the centre of each
pavilion is a large tank made of skins and filled with syrup-water, from which all the people, natives or strangers, may drink, receiving at the same time betel leaves and areca nuts. The space between the pavilions is carpeted with silk cloths, on which the sultan’s horse treads. The walls of the street along which he passes from the gate of the city to the gate of the palace are hung with silk cloths. In front of him march footmen from his own slaves, several thousands in number, and behind him come the mob and soldiers. On one of his entries into the capital I saw three or four small catapults placed on elephants throwing gold and silver coins amongst the people from the moment he entered the city till he reached the palace.’

The Bahmani sultans also maintained a grand style when they appeared in public. ‘The Sultan, riding on a golden saddle, wears a habit embroidered with sapphires, and on his pointed headdress a large diamond,’ notes Nikitin. ‘He also carries a suit of gold armour inlaid with sapphires, and three swords mounted in gold.’ The sultan’s way through the crowd was cleared for him by a huge armoured elephant. And the sultan was accompanied by a large troupe of armoured soldiers, as well as by several hundred women singers and dancers. The rear of the procession was made up of 300 armoured elephants, each of which held heavy chains in its trunk, and carried several soldiers on a platform fitted to its back. Similar pomp was displayed by the rajas of Vijayanagar also when they appeared in public. The horse on which the raja rode, according to Varthema, was ‘worth more than some of our cities on account of the ornaments which it wears.’

The Delhi Sultanate, at the peak of its territorial expansion during the reign of Muhammad Tughluq, was the largest empire in the history of India in the two-millennium-long period between the Mauryan empire at its zenith under Asoka in the mid-third century
BCE
and the Mughal empire at its zenith under Aurangzeb in the late seventeenth century
CE
, and it covered virtually the entire Indian subcontinent, except Kerala in the far south, Kashmir in the far north, and a few pockets here and there in between.

But bulk did not mean stability. Or even strength. The Delhi Sultanate was in fact the least stable of all the great empires in Indian history, and was ever roiling with rebellions and usurpations. Nor did it have the administrative capacity needed to effectively govern its vast and diverse realm. The only notable exception to this dismal state of affairs was the reign of Ala-ud-din Khalji, whose empire was extensive, and his government administratively and militarily strong.

Waging wars was the primary occupation of medieval Indian sultans and rajas, to suppress rebellions, to defend or expand their kingdom, and to seize plunder. Civil administration, except revenue collection, had only a low priority for most of them. With very rare exceptions, providing good government and caring for the welfare of the people hardly concerned the sultans or the rajas.

Most kings in medieval India were just warlords. In the entire history of the Delhi Sultanate, there were no notable periods of stability and peace, except for a time during the reigns of Ala-ud-din Khalji and Firuz Tughluq. Normal life in the Delhi Sultanate was hardly normal. Everything there was ever in a turbulent state, ever seething with violence. This was true of all political relationships in the Sultanate, such as the relationship between the sultan
and his nobles and provincial governors, between the sultan and the Hindu chieftains, even between the sultan and his family members. Anyone at any time could be anyone’s adversary. No loyalty could be ever taken for granted.

The government of the Delhi Sultanate was a minimum government. The sultans occupied the realm, but hardly governed it. Brigands and wild hill tribes often rampaged through the land, swooping down from their inaccessible forest habitats. At times they even menaced major towns. Protection against them was mainly the concern of the local people, seldom that of the sultan. And when the sultan acted against brigands, it was mainly to safeguard his revenue, hardly ever to protect the people. Indeed, the sultans themselves at times acted like brigands, pillaging their own subjects, to collect the overdue taxes from them. And at times even common villagers turned into rampaging brigands.

The usual means of the Delhi sultans to pacify their refractory subjects was to devastate their lands and slaughter the people there en-masse. In the case of Vijayanagar, even its most successful king, Krishnadeva, found it difficult to control the depredations of marauding hill tribes. So he sought to placate them, or to divert their raids into other kingdoms, holding that, as he wrote in
Amukta-malyada
, ‘if the king grows angry with them, he cannot wholly destroy them, but if he wins their affection by kindness and charity, they serve him by invading the enemy’s territory and plundering it.’

MEDIEVAL INDIAN STATES had no fixed frontiers—their frontiers were what their army controlled at any given time. So the territory of the state varied from reign to reign, and even from time to time during the reign of each sultan or raja. And the control of the central government over the provinces of the kingdom also varied from reign to reign. The sultans and the rajas usually kept a certain portion of their kingdom, its richest districts, under their direct administration. The rest of the kingdom was divided into provinces, and given to royal favourites to govern and collect revenue.

During the reign of Ala-ud-din Khalji the Delhi Sultanate was divided into twelve provinces (subas), each under a governor. Each province in turn was divided into a number of districts (sarkars), and the districts again into taluks (parganas). Each taluk was made up of a number of villages, which were the basic administrative units of the state all through pre-modern history of India. Villages were virtually autonomous, and royal officers did not normally intrude into their affairs as long they paid their revenue dues to the king, and did not create any major law and order problem, like breaking out into rebellion or taking to brigandage.

The other divisions of the state—provinces, districts and taluks—also, like villages, enjoyed considerable autonomy in medieval India, in Muslim as well as Hindu kingdoms. Provinces were in fact semi-independent states, and
provincial governors functioned like semi-independent rulers, except that the king exercised hegemonic control over them. In Vijayanagar, as Sewell notes, each provincial chief ‘was allowed entire independence in the territory allotted to him so long as he maintained the quota of horse, foot, and elephants … [assigned to him, and kept them] in perfect readiness for immediate action, and paid his annual tribute to his sovereign. Failing these he was liable to instant ejection, as the king was lord of all and nobles held [their office] only by his goodwill.’

The ultimate authority in the Sultanate in all matters was the sultan. In theory he was expected to rule according orthodox Islamic laws and conventions, but in practice he was usually an autocrat, who did whatever he pleased and could get away with. Autocracy did not however necessarily mean tyranny. Though several of the sultans were indeed dreadful tyrants, there were also several sultans who were benevolent rulers. And some of the tyrannical sultans—Ala-ud-din, for instance—were exceptionally caring about the welfare of the common people.

Next to the sultan in authority was the wazir, chief minister. The entire civil administration of the empire was under his purview, and it was he who appointed all the top civil servants and oversaw their work. The management of the finances of the empire—the collection of revenue and the allocation of funds to various government departments—was his particular responsibility. He also had the responsibility of getting the accounts submitted by various government departments and provinces audited, and of taking measures to recover from officers the funds they had misappropriated or squandered. And it was he who disbursed funds to deserving scholars and writers, and sanctioned charitable payments to the indigent. The responsibilities and powers of the wazir were so wide and important that his role in the state was held to be as crucial for its survival as the role of the soul for the survival of a man.

Alongside the wazir there were three other senior ministers in the Delhi Sultanate, each in charge of a crucial government department: Diwan-i-risalat, which administered religious institutions and allotted financial support to the pious and the scholarly; Diwan-i-arz, which controlled the military establishment; and Diwan-i-insha, which handled the state correspondence, collected intelligence reports from the various provinces of the empire, and supervised the transactions between the central government and the provincial officials. These three officers, along with the wazir, were considered the four pillars of the government.

These officers, like all the other top officers of the state, held their posts at the pleasure of the sultan. So what mattered most to them, in terms of their career prospects, was their ability to please the sultan, rather than their ability to discharge their official duties efficiently. And no one was ever secure
in his office, his position being subject to the whims of the sultan as well as the conspiratorial intrigues of rival officers. Inevitably, it was the most earnest and efficient officers who were in the greatest peril, as they most roused the envy of their fellow officers.

IN THE EARLY period of the Delhi Sultanate, till the reign of Balban, the relationship of the nobles with the sultan was of camaraderie than of subservience. Balban changed that, and raised the status of the sultan far above that of the nobles. Consequently most of the nobles became abjectly servile towards the sultan, though there were still a few rare instances of royal officers boldly asserting themselves before the sultan. Such was the case of Ainu-l Mulk, ‘a wise, accomplished … [and] clever man,’ as Afif describes him. He held a senior position in the government under Firuz Tughluq, but had a personality clash with the wazir and was therefore dismissed from service. However, a few days later, the sultan, unwilling to lose the services of this able officer, assigned to him the charge of three fiefs along the critically important north-west frontier of the empire. But Ainu-l Mulk submitted that he would accept the appointment only if he was allowed to submit his reports directly to the sultan, and not through the wazir, and he took charge of the assignment only when the sultan acceded to that condition.

That was an exceptional case. The normal attitude of the nobles towards the sultan was of obsequiousness, and this was evident even in the manner in which provincial governors formally received royal orders. ‘It was the custom for every chief when he heard of the coming of a royal order to go out two or three kos to meet its bearer,’ records Abdullah, a late medieval chronicler, about the practice in the Sultanate during the reign of Sikandar Lodi. ‘A terrace was then erected, on which the messenger placed himself, whilst the nobleman standing beneath received the firman in the most respectful manner with both hands, and placed it on his head … If it was to be read privately he did so, and if it was to be made known to the people, it was read from the pulpit of the mosque.’

Such shows of servility by the nobles were however just pretences in most cases—if the sultan grew weak, or the noble grew powerful, the noble’s attitude towards the sultan changed from servility to defiance. Provincial insubordination and rebellion were in fact perennial problems in the Delhi Sultanate.

The provincial governments of the Delhi Sultanate were virtual replicas of its central government, with the governor in the provincial capital occupying a position similar to that of the sultan in Delhi. The main duties of the governor were to collect revenue from his province, and to maintain law and order there. From the revenue of his province the governor had to remit a specified portion to the royal treasury, and with the rest of the revenue meet his administrative
expenses, maintain a military contingent for the sultan, and also meet his personal expenses. The provincial governor in turn farmed out his territory to his subordinates, to administer and to collect revenue.

A BAFFLING FEATURE of the Delhi Sultanate was the open and rampant corruption in its government at all levels, from the highest to the lowest. ‘It was well known in the world that government clerks and servants were given to peculation,’ states Afif. And they often indulged in venality right under the sultan’s nose. ‘It usually happens that there is a long delay in the payment of the money gifts of the sultan,’ grouses Battuta, who once had to wait for six months before receiving the twelve thousand dinars awarded to him by Muhammad Tughluq. ‘They have a custom also of deducting a tenth from all the sums given by the sultan.’ Once when the sultan sanctioned a payment to Battuta and ordered the treasurer to pay it, ‘the treasurer greedily demanded a bribe for doing so and would not write the order,’ states Battuta. ‘So I sent him two hundred tankas (silver coins), but he returned them. One of his servants told me from him that he wanted five hundred tankas, but I refused to pay it.’ Eventually the sultan had to intervene before the money was paid to Battuta.

Provincial governors and other high government officials, even the sultan himself, were not above seeking recompense for doing favours, the only difference being that in their case the offerings were treated as presents, not as bribes. Also, with them it was the rarity of the items offered, and the sentiment behind the offering, that were esteemed more than the cash value of what was offered. Thus when Battuta first arrived in India he presented to the governor of Sind ‘a white slave, a horse, and some raisins and almonds.’ Of these, what the governor appreciated most were the raisins and almonds. ‘These,’ comments Battuta, ‘are among the greatest gifts that can be made to them, since these do not grow in their land and are imported from Khurasan.’

Another aspect of the medieval Indian custom of giving presents was that just as subordinates gave presents to their superiors to win favours from them, superiors often gave presents to their subordinates to secure their loyalty. This was done even by the sultans. Loyalty was invariably on sale in medieval India. All were equally perfidious, at all levels of government and society. Probity was a luxury that virtually no one in medieval India could afford, neither kings nor nobles, nor the common people. Thus Ala-ud-din Khalji, who usurped the throne by murdering his uncle, had no difficulty in winning over to his side the top officers of the empire by liberally presenting to them large sums of money. And ‘those unworthy men, greedy for gold … and caring nothing for loyalty … joined Ala-ud-din,’ observes Barani. Similarly, Ala-ud-din won over the common people of Delhi by showering gold stars on them with a portable catapult. ‘He scattered so much gold that the faithless people easily forgot the
murder of the late sultan, and rejoiced over his succession,’ concludes Barani. And, according to Mughal chronicler Yadgar, Sultan Ibrahim Lodi, who faced opposition from a brother on his accession, one day ‘summoned all the nobles into his private apartment and gained them to his side by making them presents in gold, and giving them titles and dignities.’

THE ATTITUDE OF the sultans towards their nobles during most of the Delhi Sultanate history was a bizarre mixture of two contrary modes, tyrannical as well as complaisant. The scene was however quite different in the first phase of the history of the Sultanate, for at that time there was no great difference in the status of the sultan and of the nobles, and the relationship between them was like that of comrades, rather than that of a king and his subjects, as it became later. This amity was in part because of the egalitarian ethos of early Islam, and also because the early sultans of Delhi were, like several of their top officers, manumitted slaves or their descendants.