The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate (59 page)

The Indian mystic sages of the middle ages were usually syncretic in their religious views, and had no hesitation to freely incorporate elements of different faiths in their teachings. ‘There is only one god, though Hindus and Muslims call him by different names,’ states sage Haridasa. ‘This one god is the highest meaning of both the Puranas and the Koran.’ This was the common credo of all mystic sects. There was in fact hardly any fundamental difference between the various mystic sects of medieval India. Their common view was that all gods (and goddesses) are manifestations of The One, though man, because of the limitations of his understanding, sees them as many. And, as the mystics did not discriminate between gods, they did not discriminate between men either, and they rejected or ignored caste and communal divisions. Another common characteristic of these mystic sects was that they generally were intensely emotion-charged movements.

One of the most prominent mystic saint-poets of medieval India was Kabir, who lived and preached in Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. The details of his background and early life are uncertain. He probably lived around the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, and was evidently born a Muslim, as his name indicates. There is a legend that he was the illegitimate son of a Brahmin widow, who abandoned him on birth, and that he was then brought up by a humble Muslim family of weavers. Kabir’s family profession is reflected in the many similes drawn from weaving in his verses. We do not know what
education he had, if any at all. His poems were all oral compositions, which were later written down by his disciples, so there is quite probably some amount of interpolations in them.

Kabir was probably inclined to mysticism from an early age, but the transformative event of his life was his adoption by Ramananda—the great Vaishnava saint-reformer of Varanasi—as his disciple. As Kabir set out on his spiritual journey he was quite confident of what he would achieve in life, and what his achievement would mean to others, as he states in one of his poems:

When I was born, the world smiled and I cried.

But I will do such deeds that when I die,

I will be smiling and the world will be crying.

The main thrust of Kabir’s mission was to unite Hindus and Muslims in a common quest for god realisation. ‘Hindus and Muslims have the same god,’ he held. ‘God is the breath of all breath … Look within your heart, for there you will find [god] … All men and women in the world are his living forms.’ Although many of his sayings had a strong Hindu flavour in them—presumably because of Ramananda’s influence—he made no distinction between Hinduism and Islam. Similarly, though he usually referred to god as Hari or Rama, he used those words as synonyms of god, and not as the names of particular deities. ‘I am not Hindu nor Muslim; Allah-Ram is the breath of my body,’ he stated, and went on to declare that

All that lives and dies,

they are all one.

The this and that haggling,

is done.

Kabir made no distinction between religions or castes. ‘In the beginning there was no Turk, no Hindu, no race, no caste,’ he maintained. Not surprisingly, he ridiculed many of the common Hindu beliefs and practices, such as the caste system, idol worship, belief in divine incarnations, the practice of going on pilgrimages, and so on. ‘If by worshipping stones one can find god, I shall worship a mountain,’ he mocked. He considered many of the conventional socio-religious customs and practices of all religions as utterly ludicrous. ‘A Brahmin wears a sacred thread he himself has made. If you are a Brahmin, born of a Brahmin mother, why haven’t you come into the world in some special way?’ he taunted. ‘If you are a Turk, born of a Turk, why weren’t you circumcised in the womb of your mother? If you milk a black cow and a white cow, can you distinguish the milk that they give?’

Kabir’s emphasis was on inward devotion, not on outward displays of faith. And he exhorted:

Make thy mind the Kaaba,

thy body the temple

thy conscience the primary teacher …

Hindus and Muslims have the same lord.>

Kabir’s disciples—Kabir-panthis—came from both Hindu and Muslim communities, but on his death they split into two sects, one of Hindus and the other of Muslims, each claiming that Kabir belonged to their religion. And they wrangled with each other about the funeral rites they should perform for him. But when, according to legend, they removed the sheet supposedly covering his body, all they found there was a heap of flowers. His Muslim and Hindu followers then divided the flowers between them, and performed over each lot their particular funeral rites. Subsequently even the Hindu followers of Kabir split into two groups, the Bap (father) sect, and the Mai (mother) sect. The Kabir-panthis are generally considered a Hindu sect.

Hinduism in medieval times was a very different religion from what it was in Vedic times, having metamorphosed twice over a period of two thousand years, first into Upanishadic Hinduism around the middle of the first millennium
BCE
, a thousand years after Aryans brought the religion with them into India, and then into Puranic Hinduism yet another thousand years later, around the middle of the first millennium
CE
. These transformations of Hinduism however were not due to any external influence, but due to its own evolutionary process, as in the case of Upanishadic Hinduism, or due to its assimilation of numerous tribal cults over the centuries, as in the case of Puranic Hinduism.
¹

These evolutionary processes in Hinduism ended well before the Turkish invasion of India, and there were no radical, transformative new developments in the religion during the medieval period. The late classical period was the age of mystics in Hinduism, around whom several new cults had formed, many of which endured well into the medieval period. A few new mystic cults also appeared in Hinduism in medieval times. But far more fascinating than all this was the appearance of a few syncretic religious cults in India at this time, some of which had significant insights into the human predicament. But they all remained peripheral movements, and did not bring about any notable or enduring changes in Hindu religion or society.

An important development in Hinduism in the late classical period was the formation of monasteries,
mathas
, evidently in simulation of Buddhist
monasteries. In time some of these monasteries grew enormously in wealth, power and influence, and their chiefs took to surrounding themselves with quasi-royal paraphernalia, holding court under ceremonial umbrellas, and touring around on elephants, accompanied by drummers and followed by large entourages.

But these were superficial changes, changes in appearance, not in substance, and they involved only a tiny fraction of the Hindu population, and had virtually no effect on the religious culture of the common people, which remained the same as it had been for several centuries. The approach of the common people to religion in Hindu society was rather casual, unlike the fervent earnestness of the devotees of monotheistic religions, like Christianity and Islam. Hindus, notes al-Biruni, are ‘so little pious, that, when speaking of these things (religious matters), they do not even abstain from silly and unbecoming language.’

Hindus were devout in religion, but not fanatical. The main reason for this was the presence of countless gods in Hinduism, unlike in all the other major religions of the world. This multiplicity of gods in turn led to the existence of a great diversity of sects, rituals and beliefs in Hinduism. And this sectarian diversity in turn led to the practice of broad religious tolerance by Hindus. Though there were a few instances of clashes between rival Hindu sects, they by and large coexisted companionably. Nor was it uncommon for the devotees of one Hindu deity to also offer devotions to other Hindu deities, or even to the deities of other religions. Hindus, unlike Christians and Muslims, were not monomaniacal about their faith. Hinduism has no heresies, as any deviant belief and practice could be accommodated and legitimised in it.

Despite all this diversity there were a few universally held beliefs among Hindus. One such belief was in metempsychosis. This was noted by several medieval chroniclers. ‘Metempsychosis is the shibboleth of the Hindu religion,’ comments al-Biruni. This faith ‘is rooted in their hearts, and about which they have not the slightest doubt,’ adds Abu Zaid, a tenth century Iraqi chronicler. Life, Hindus held, does not begin with birth. Or end with death. Birth and death are only transformative phases of the eternal cycle of life that a being goes through, in which one could be reborn in any socio-cultural environment, or even as any creature, depending on one’s karma.

FACTUAL, OBJECTIVE INFORMATION about medieval Hinduism is scanty, though there are some interesting sidelights on it in the reports of foreign travellers and scholars. The religious beliefs of medieval Hindus, according to al-Biruni, were similar to those of ancient Greeks: ‘The heathen Greeks, before the rise of Christianity, held much the same opinions as Hindus; their
educated classes thought much the same as those of Hindus; their common people held the same idolatrous views as those of Hindus.’

Belief in omens was universal in medieval India, and was often trivial and absurd in its expressions. In Kerala, according to Barbosa, ‘if a cat crosses in front of any person who is about to do any business, he does it not; or if on going from the house for any purpose they see a crow carrying a stick, they turn back; or if while saying farewell to other persons with whom they have been, one of them sneezes, he who was going sits down and does not leave soon.’

For Hindus, as for the followers of all medieval religions, going on pilgrimages was a major goal of life, to secure a good afterlife. There were seven major holy sites in India for Hindus to visit, from Badrinath in the far north to Rameswaram in the far south. Major rivers, particularly Ganga, were considered sacred by Hindus, and bathing in them was a rite for them. ‘The Hindu infidels worship Ganga, and once every year they come on pilgrimage to this place (Haridwar) which they consider the source of the river, to bathe and have their heads and beards shaved,’ notes Timur in his autobiography. ‘They believe these acts to be the means of obtaining salvation and securing future reward. They dispense large sums in charity among those who wear the Brahminical thread, and they throw money into the river. When infidels die in distant parts, their bodies are burned, and the ashes brought to this river and are thrown into it. This they look upon as a means of sanctification.’

According to Khondamir, an early sixteenth century chronicler, the reason why Hindus consider Ganga to be sacred is that they ‘believe that the water of this river springs from the fountain of paradise.’ Battuta also makes the same point. And so does al-Utbi. Hindus, he writes, regard Ganga ‘as of exceeding sanctity, and consider that its source is in paradise … Devotees come to it from a distance, and drown themselves in it, in the hope of obtaining eternal salvation.’ Adds Yazdi, an early fifteenth century chronicler: up in the Himalayas, there is ‘a stone in the form of a cow, and the water of the river [Ganga] flows out of the mouth of that cow. The infidels of India worship this cow, and come hither from all quarters, from distances even of a year’s journey … They throw gold and silver into the river, and they go down into the river, wash their feet, sprinkle water on their heads, and have their heads and beards shaved. This they consider to be an act of devotion, just as Muslims consider pilgrimage to Mecca a pious act.’

Medieval chroniclers also record the universal Hindu reverence for cows. ‘Hindus call the bull father and the cow mother,’ writes Nikitin, a mid-fifteenth century Russian traveller in India. ‘With their excrements [as fuel] they bake bread and boil food, and with their ashes they mark the symbols of these animals on their own faces, foreheads and whole bodies.’ Serpents were also venerated by Hindus. Notes Varthema, an early sixteenth-century
Italian traveller, ‘Those who kill serpents receive capital punishment [in Hindu kingdoms]: the king would immediately put him to death. In like manner, if anyone kills a cow, he would also put that person to death. They say that these serpents are the spirits of god, and that if they were not his spirits, god would not have given them such power as to immediately kill a person with just a small bite.’

NICOLO CONTI, AN early fifteenth-century Venetian traveller in India, has left us some vivid descriptions of the Hindu festivals he witnessed. ‘At a certain time of the year their idol is carried through the city, placed between two chariots, in which are young women, richly adorned, who sing hymns to the god. The chariots are accompanied by a great concourse of people. Many of them, carried away by the fervour of their faith, cast themselves on the ground before the wheels [of the chariot], in order that they may be crushed to death—a mode of death which they say is very acceptable to their god. Others, making an incision on their side, and inserting a rope thus through their body, hang themselves from the chariot by way of ornaments, and thus suspended and half dead accompany their idol …

‘Thrice in the year they keep festivals of especial solemnity. On one of these occasions the males and females of all ages having bathed in the rivers or the sea, clothe themselves in new garments, and spend three entire days singing, dancing, and feasting. On another of these festivals they fix up within their temples, and on the outside on the roofs, an innumerable number of oil lamps …, which are kept burning day and night. On the third [festival], which lasts nine days, they set up on all the highways large beams, like the masts of small ships, to the upper part of which are attached pieces of very beautiful cloth of various kinds, interwoven with gold. On the summit of each of these beams is each day placed a man of pious aspect, dedicated to religion, capable of enduring all things with equanimity, who is to pray for the favour of god. These men are assailed by the people, who pelt them with oranges, lemons, and other odoriferous fruits, all of which they bear most patiently. There are also three other festival days, during which they sprinkle all passers-by, even the king and queen, with saffron water, placed for that purpose by the wayside. This is received by all with much laughter.’

Barbosa reports that during a temple festival in Kerala, when the idol is taken out in procession, ‘in front of the idol walk many Nairs with bare swords, slashing themselves wheresoever they can, and foaming at the mouth, and shouting so that they seem possessed of devils.’ Friar Odoric, an early fourteenth century Italian missionary-traveller, also reported on several Hindu festivals and temple rites. ‘When any man offers to die in the service of his … god, his parents, and all his friends assemble themselves together with a
consort of musicians, making him a great and solemn feast. Which feast being ended, they hang five sharp knives around his neck and carry him to the idol. As soon as he reaches there, he taketh one of his knives crying with a loud voice, “For the worship of my god do I cut [off] this my flesh”, and then he casteth the morsel which is cut at the face of his idol. At the very last wound wherewith he murdereth himself, he uttereth these words: “Now do I yield myself to death in behalf of my god.” And being dead, his body is burned, and [he] is esteemed by all men to be holy.’

Human sacrifices at temples were prevalent but rare in medieval India, but animal sacrifices were quite common. Barbosa reports about a peculiar rite at a Shiva temple in Vijayanagar, in which a virgin with ‘a sharp-pointed stick’ deflowers herself before the idol and sprinkles it with the oozing blood.

Temples played a prominent role in all facets of life of medieval Indians. Rajas were keen patrons of temples, and they gifted vast treasures to them, so as to root their power firmly in the local socio-cultural soil, and also, more importantly, to win divine favour, which was considered indispensible for success in any venture. Temples also played a notable role in the local economy, by providing finance for agriculture, trade and industry. Major temples were the nuclei around which towns formed, and were significant factors in the revival of urban economy and culture in medieval India.

‘THERE ARE IN all eighty-four creeds,’ states Nikitin about Hindu sects. Quite probably there were very many more Hindu sects than that. There were also several different ascetic orders in Hindu society, commonly called yogis. Battuta once witnessed the performance of feats by yogis at the court of Muhammad Tughluq, and reported on it.

‘The men of this class do some marvellous things,’ reports Battuta. ‘One of them will spend months without eating or drinking, and many of them have pits dug for them in the earth, which are then covered up on top of them, leaving only a space for air to enter. They stay in these for months, and I heard them tell of one who remained thus for a year. People say that they make pills, one of which they take for a given number of days or months, and during that time they require no food or drink. They can tell what is happening at a distance. The sultan [Muhammad Tughluq] holds them in esteem and admits them to his company … The majority [of them] eat no meat. It is obvious that they have so disciplined themselves in ascetic practices that they have no need for any of the goods or vanities of this world.

‘There are amongst them some who merely look at a man and he falls dead on the spot. The common people say that if the breast of a man killed in this way is cut open, it is found to contain no heart, and they assert his heart has been eaten. This is commonest in the case of women, and a woman
who acts thus is called a
kaftar
. During the famine in Delhi they brought one of these women to me, saying that she had eaten the heart of a boy. I ordered them to take her to the sultan’s lieutenant, who commanded that she should be put to test. They filled four jars with water, tied them to her hands and feet and threw her into the river Yamuna. As she did not sink she was known to be a
kaftar
… He ordered her then to be burned … Her ashes were collected by the men and women of the town, for they believe that anyone who fumigates himself with them is safe against a
kaftar’s
enchantments during that year.’

Some of the Hindu ascetic sects in medieval India were like the warrior monks of medieval Europe, and there are some graphic accounts of their activities during the Mughal period. Following the collapse of the Mughal Empire, these ascetic gangs—known as Nagas, their generic name—came to play a notable role in the politics of the late medieval and early modern India, serving under various rajas and sultans—these Hindu warrior ascetics had no compunction to serve under Muslim rulers.

The Nagas were quite bizarre in their appearance as well as their mode of fighting. Colonel Malleson, a British officer in India in the mid-eighteenth century, describes a band of them he saw in the army of the nawab of Oudh as ‘all perfectly naked and covered with paint and ashes.’ Battle was a rite for them, and they, as modern historian W. G. Orr describes them, went into battle in ‘a kind of whirling dance, during which they became wrought up to a pitch of uncontrollable excitement. Then, with ear-piercing yells, they rushed upon the enemy.’