Society, Culture & Economy (13th - 14th Centuries)

Answer : For the historian of a religious tradition, the interpretation and decipherment of texts produced by religious communities remain a central challenge. The genres of religious writing particular to specific traditions, such as hagiography, scriptural commentary, or devotional handbooks, require hermeneutic approaches tailored to the form and function of such texts in their historical and social contexts. To that end, this essay is an examination of the South Asian Islamic genre of malfuzat the teachings and ....

Answer : Kashmir has produced many saints, poets and mystics. Among them, Lal Ded is very prominent. In Kashmir, some people consider her a poet, some consider her a holywoman and some consider her a sufi, a yogi, or a devotee of Shiva. Some even consider as her an avtar. But every Kashmiri considers her a wise woman. Every Kashmiri has some sayings of Lalla on the tip of his tongue. The Kashmiri language is full of ....

Answer : Many industries of considerable size and importance developed in India during this period, the most important of which were textiles, various items of metal work, sugar, indigo, and in certain localities, paper. The Indian textile industry is very old, but the variety of cloth produced was originally limited. Taking advantage of the local talent, the Muslims introduced a number of fine varieties of textiles, most of which had Persian or Arabic origin. Bengal was the ....

Answer : In the period between 1200-1500 CE, as sometimes even now, the work and vocation of agriculturists approximated, bordered, converged and telescoped into many other subsidiary professions and were termed labourers. A peasant, when he was free from his field, in terms of time and seasons, or was compelled to leave his village, generally worked as basket-maker, weaver or water-carrier in his village or in the town nearby temporarily or after migrating to it. With the ....

Answer : Most of the modern studies of the medieval north Indian Bhakti movement are characterized by two long-lasting and widely held orthodoxies. One of them is the assumption that the phenomenon of medieval north Indian Bhakti was marked by a clear divide between nirguni Bhakti (devotion to a non-incarnate, formless God) and saguni Bhakti (devotion to a personal god with attributes). The proponents of nirguni Bhakti included Kabir, Raidas, Dhanna, Dadu, Rajjab, Malik Das, Jagjivan Das, ....

Answer : The Lekhapaddhati is unique in the whole body of ancient Sanskrit texts. It is a collection of actual or specimen documents (lekhas) by unknown compiler, in use for public transactions, administration, rules for drafting land grants, treaties between kings, credit and banking system, mortgage deeds, creditor and debtor’s relations, judicial disputes, and private letters. Presumably, written as a guide for official scribes and professional letter writers, it is the sole non-epigraphic repository of grants and ....

Answer : The demise of Iltumish diluted the political strength in India. None of his successors except of Razia Sultana deserved to be the Sultan of Delhi. Within ten years after the death of Iltumish, four sultans of his dynasty were murdered and the fifth one was a mere puppet in handsof Balban.

The Turkish slaves took advantage of the weakness of the successors of Iltumish and captured the sovereign power to themselves.

The Turkish Slave nobles, after the ....

Answer : The structure of medieval village society in Northern India was slightly modified form of early times. There has been some fundamental changes in village society structure in Medieval time. The difference which emerged is the establishment of Islamic society, beside the existence of Hindu and rigid form of caste system in India.

During Sultanate period and Mughal period, many foreigners of Islam religion settled here in Indian villages as well as large number oflocal Indians converted ....

Answer : The Cholas gave India a strong navy. This navy helped in the diffusion of Material Culture in the South-East Asian Countries.

During the days of Raja Raja-I, Bay of Bengal was called the lake of Cholas. He captured Maldives, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and many other small islands like Java, Sumatra, Borneo and Malaya. trade between India and south-East Asia helped in the Indianization of south-EastAsia and China. Chinese Song dynasty reports that an embassy from ....

Answer : The society was well organised in Vijayanagara empire. Women were respected in society. They were educated and were absorbed in government services. They were trained not only in 5 arts the music, dance, painting, etc. but also in fighting, wrestling, and weapons of war. Women, therefore were employed as body gaurds as well. Many scholarly women were patronised by court. However certain social evils concerning women as child marriage, polygamy, dowry system, practice of sati ....

Answer : The Islami mysticism known as Tasawwuf or Sufism, was as old as Islam itself, and it was, no doubt ‘born in the bosom of Islam’. It assumed the form of a regular movement in Persia in the ninth century as a reaction against the rigid formalism of Islam. It received a theosophical basis during the age the Abbasid Caliphs of Baghdad and the sufi saints drew freely from the mystic concepts of other peoples and ....

Answer : Nirguna bhakti is the devotion towards a formless, all-encompassing God. The word ‘nirgun’ means ‘devoid of qualities,’ referring to the lack of physical attributes in God. It is one of the two forms of devotion prevalent in Hinduism, the other one being Sagun Bhakti which sees God in a physical form. A prominent preacher of Nirgun Bhakti was Saint Kabir, one of the pioneers of the Bhakti movement. The origin of this dogrine has been ....

Answer : The Islami mysticism known as Tasawwuf or Sufism, was as old as Islam itself, and it was, no doubt ‘born in the bosom of Islam’. It assumed the form of a regular movement in Persia in the ninth century as a reaction against the rigid formalism of Islam. It received a theosophical basis during the age the Abbasid Caliphs of Baghdad and the sufi saints drew freely from the mystic concepts of other peoples and ....

Answer : Sufi and Bhakti movements were monistic movements. The term ‘mystic’ means a person who attains or believes in the possibility of attaining insight into mysteries transcending ordinary human knowledge in a state of spiritual ecstasy. Both the sufi and Bhakti movements stressed mystical union of the individual with God. They laid great emphasis on love as the bond between the God and the individual. Most of them were persons of deep devotion who were disgusted ....

Answer : Among the great poets of Persin, the name of Amir Khusro deserves a special mention. Amir Khusro was the greatest poet of his time who lived a long life and occupied the high position of poet-laureate under the Khiljis and the Tughlaqs. He wrote a number of works which are read with great interest even up to this day. He was also a great prose-writer, a musician of merit and a scholar of Hindi. He ....

Answer : The principles of Sufism resemble very much with those of the Bhakti cult and it appears as if the Vedantic philosophy had greatly affected it. Like the Vedantic philosophy Sufism laid emphasis on the principle that individual souls are mainfestations of the Supreme Soul in which they are finally immersed. Free way of thinking is a great blessing and is very necessary for the spiritual advancement. The Sufi Saints believed and preached that the diverse ....