6
The trade routes of the Indian Ocean became even more firmly established in AD fourth and fifth centuries. By this time, we find records of people from far outside the Indian Ocean rim, such as Chinese pilgrims and merchants, visiting India and criss-crossing the seas. Anchoring this period of prosperity and globalization was the remarkable empire of the Guptas.
The Gupta empire had its origins in the eastern Gangetic plains, in what is now Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh, where the dynasty’s first emperor, Chandragupta I, established his power base. However, it was his son Samudragupta (AD 336–370) who dramatically expanded the empire. In a series of military campaigns he established direct or indirect control over nearly all of India. After establishing Gupta rule across the northern plains and central India, he led a campaign along the eastern coast into the deep south where he defeated in turn the rulers of Odisha and Andhra, and eventually Pallava king Vishnugopa of Kanchi. The northern conquests were directly ruled from the capital Pataliputra while the southern kings were allowed to rule their kingdoms as tribute-paying subordinates.
The empire was expended further by Samudragupta’s son Chandragupta II (also called Vikramaditya), who reigned between AD 375 and 413. From certain accounts it appears that he ascended the throne by removing his unpopular elder brother, Ramagupta.
According to a few surviving passages of a lost play called Devi-Chandragupta, the Gupta empire was invaded by the Sakas (Scythians) after Samudragupta’s death. The new king Ramagupta found himself trapped and appealed for peace. One of the terms imposed by the Sakas was that Queen Dhruva-devi would have to be handed over to them. This insult to the family incensed the king’s younger brother. Disguising himself as Dhruva-devi, he entered the Saka camp and killed their king before escaping. The invaders were forced to withdraw in disorder. This turned Chandragupta into a popular hero, but Ramagupta resented this and tried to assassinate his younger sibling. In the ensuing power struggle, Chandragupta finally killed his elder brother. He then crowned himself emperor and married Dhruva-devi.
This colourful story may not be an accurate rendition of real historical events, but Gupta-era inscriptions do show that Chandragupta II had a queen called Dhruva-devi and had children by her.1 We also know that he led a number of successful military campaigns against the Saka and other Central Asian groups that had encroached into western India. The famous iron pillar in Delhi tells us that he crossed the estuary of the Indus and defeated the Bahlikas (Bactrians). This would have brought the ports of Gujarat and Sindh under Gupta control. We also have rock inscriptions mentioning Chandragupta Vikramaditya in the remote Hunza valley, in Gilgit–Baltistan to the far north, suggesting that Gupta armies had pushed beyond the Kashmir valley into the Pamirs.
The Guptas would enjoy direct and indirect control over most of the Indian subcontinent for several generations. North and central India was ruled directly from Pataliputra while peninsular India was managed through tributary kingdoms or close allies like the Vakatakas. Central Asian groups would continue to make occasional raids from the north-west but Chandragupta Vikramaditya’s immediate successors Kumaragupta and Skandagupta were able to fend them off.
With peace established over such a large territory, the Gupta era witnessed an extraordinary economic and cultural boom, and is often referred to as the ‘Golden Age’ of classical India. The empire’s ports in Gujarat and Bengal were busy with merchants, diplomats, scholars and pilgrims from China, Persia, Arabia, Ethiopia and the eastern Roman empire. Although the Guptas were staunch Hindus they followed a policy of religious tolerance. A Chinese text tells us that the Sri Lankan king Meghavarna sent a mission to Samudragupta to request permission to set up a monastery and rest house for Lankan pilgrims visiting Bodh Gaya. Permission was granted and a grand monastery was built; its magnificence was later described by the Chinese scholar–pilgrim Xuan Zang in the seventh century. The famous Nalanda University was also established under Gupta rule.
Fa Xian’s Voyage Home
A Chinese scholar called Fa Xian (also spelled Fa Hien) visited India in the early fifth century and has left us a fascinating account of his journey. He came to India by land via Central Asia and spent several years in northern India studying Buddhist texts. Although his writings are heavily skewed towards places and matters of interest to a Buddhist pilgrim, Fa Xian leaves us with the impression that India was a prosperous and well-governed country under the Guptas. Most interestingly for the purposes of this book, he has left us a vivid account of his return journey by sea.2
Around AD 410, Fa Xian left the Gupta capital of Pataliputra and made his way down the Ganga. There were several ports in Bengal during this period. One of them was Chandraketugarh, the remains of which have been uncovered 30 kms north of modern-day Kolkata. Archaeologists excavating a mound near Kolkata airport have recently found the remains of another ancient settlement.3 In other words, the city has a history that goes back much before the establishment of a colonial settlement in the seventeenth century.
Fa Xian would have sailed past all these settlements as he made his way to the most important port in Bengal—Tamralipti. The site of this famous port of antiquity is now called Tamluk, a couple of hours drive south-west of Kolkata, near where the Rupnarayan flows into the Gangetic delta. The old channel of the river that Fa Xian would have used, however, has dried up. Except for a 1200-year-old temple dedicated to goddess Kali, there is little there today to hint at its past glory.
Fa Xian remained here for two years copying sacred documents. He then boarded a big merchant ship that set sail with the first winds of the winter monsoons (probably around Kartik Purnima). We are told that it took just fourteen days for the ship to reach Sri Lanka. Fa Xian would spend another two years on the island studying and copying various scriptures. He tells us that Buddhism was flourishing and that the king, as the custodian of the sacred Tooth Relic, was a generous patron to the Buddhist sangha. Interestingly, he adds that the king lived his personal life strictly according to Hindu rules and rituals.
Next Fa Xian set sail for South East Asia on board a large merchant vessel. The ship must have been fairly large as it carried two hundred people and had a smaller vessel accompanying it with stores. Unfortunately, after two days of fair weather, the ships ran into a major storm and the larger ship sprang a leak. There was panic and some of the passengers tried to forcibly board the smaller boat. The crew of the smaller ship, fearing a stampede, cut the towing cable and sailed away. With little choice, the merchants began to throw their valuable cargo overboard to save their ship. Fa Xian also threw his water basin and pitcher. He feared he would be forced to throw away his beloved books too, but the weather soon cleared up.
After thirteen days they arrived at a small island. The ship was beached and the leak was repaired. No one was sure about the location of the island and there were fears that they would be attacked by pirates (it is likely that this was one of the islands off the north Sumatra coast or perhaps the Nicobar Islands). Eventually, the crew got its bearings and set on a new course. After ninety days at sea, they finally reached Java. Fa Xian spent five months there. All he tells us about Java is that it had an overwhelmingly Hindu population and very few Buddhists (this was not entirely true given the evidence of Borobudur).
He now boarded another merchant ship headed for China. This must have been a very big vessel because the crew alone numbered two hundred men. We are told, furthermore, that the ship carried adequate provisions for fifty days. Fa Xian was very comfortable on this ship and it is possible he even enjoyed a cabin. After a month at sea, however, they were hit by a major storm. Again, there was panic on board. Some of his co-passengers even blamed Fa Xian for bringing bad luck (perhaps they had heard of his previous voyage and thought this was too much of a coincidence)! Luckily an influential merchant intervened and calmed things down.
Meanwhile, the storm had blown the ship off course and they could not sight land even after seventy days at sea. Provisions and water were running desperately low and the crew members started blaming each other. Fed up with the bickering, some of the more experienced merchants took charge and set a new course to the north-west. Eventually, after another twelve days, they arrived on the Chinese coast.
This narrative is fascinating at many levels. It provides the earliest first-hand description of an actual voyage in the eastern Indian Ocean. It also tells us that by the fifth century, there was a well-established sea route from Bengal to Sri Lanka and onward to China via South East Asia. Despite all the dangers, there were large ships and experienced merchants that seemed to have routinely made the journey.
The Mystery of the Pallavas
As mentioned in the previous chapter, the early history of the southern tip of India is dominated by the rivalries of three clans—the Cheras, Pandyas and Cholas. The Sinhalese kings of Sri Lanka sometimes participated in this, usually as allies of the Pandyas. The exact territories and alliances waxed and waned but roughly speaking the core stronghold of the Cheras was the Kerala coast, for the Pandyas it was southern Tamil Nadu, around Madurai, and the Chola power base was the Kaveri delta. It is astonishing that this triangular contest continued for over fifteen centuries. Put in a European context, this would be equivalent to the War of the Roses still going on and having another thousand years to run!
Nevertheless, a few other dynasties did insert themselves into the story for significant periods of time. Perhaps the most important of these were the Pallavas of Kanchipuram (this is less than a two-hour drive from Chennai). A Pallava kingdom already existed when Samudragupta marched down on his southern campaign. However, there is a long-standing debate about the origins of this dynasty.4 The texts and inscriptions variously hint at a Chola prince, an Andhra chieftain or a Brahmin scholar. Some scholars have even speculated about Parthian origins. Nevertheless, all the available evidence agrees that the dynasty gained its royal status from the marriage to a princess of the Naga clan. Clearly, this marriage alliance is an important part of the story.
As we know, the term ‘Naga’ was often used to refer to people with oriental features in North-East India or in South East Asia (i.e. the Sundaland diaspora). The Pallavas are known to have links with kingdoms in South East Asia that used the serpent as a symbol or called themselves the serpent people. As mentioned in Chapter 1, for instance, the remains of the Kadaram kingdom in Kedah, Malaysia, are concentrated in an area that is still called the Valley of the Serpents. Similarly, the multi-headed cobra was the symbol of royalty among the Khmer. It raises the possibility that the Naga princess who helped found the Pallava dynasty was from South East Asia—maybe a descendant of Princess Soma and Kaundinya! Perhaps this explains the especially close links between the Pallavas and the Indianized kingdoms of that part of the world.
In AD sixth century, the Pallavas began to expand their kingdom under king Simha-Vishnu who defeated the Cholas, the Pandyas and a mysterious tribe called the Kalabhras. Having secured themselves to the south, the Pallavas then turned their attention to the north where they came in conflict with the Chalukyas who had carved out a large kingdom in what are now the states of Karnataka and Maharashtra. The Pallava-Chalukya rivalry would last several generations with the pendulum of fortune swinging back and forth.
Simha-Vishnu had a younger brother Bhima who sailed to a distant land and became a ruler after marrying a local princess. Five generations later, when Simha-Vishnu’s direct line died out, the Pallavas would bring back a twelve-year-old descendant of Bhima to sit on the throne. The boy would become Nandi Varman II whom readers will recall from the beginning of this book. It is interesting that his inscriptions emphasize that he was a ‘pure’ Pallava. One explanation would be that, being foreign-born, he needed to firmly emphasize his right to the throne. However, the oriental faces in the temple panels suggest he was not shy of his South East Asian links. Perhaps the term ‘pure’ has a somewhat different meaning. Remember that the Pallava dynasty began with a marriage to a Naga princess. So Nandi Varman II may have been making a different point—that he was the descendant of a Pallava prince—that is, Bhima—and a Naga queen and, consequently, a true Pallava.
At the height of their power, the Pallavas controlled Tamil Nadu, southern Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and parts of Sri Lanka. Their capital of Kanchipuram and their main port in Mahabalipuram were impressive cities that the Pallava kings adorned with large Hindu temples. Several of them have survived in both locations and are well worth a visit. Modern-day tourists visiting Mahabalipuram usually see the rock-cut caves and the Shore Temple. They will often ignore a modern lighthouse on a hill behind the ancient monuments. However, maritime history buffs would be rewarded if they walked up to it because they will come across the remains of a Pallava-era lighthouse built around AD 630 where a fire was kept burning every night in order to guide ships to the port.
Although the archaeological remains in Mahabalipuram are impressive, most of the Pallava-era port city is now under the sea. There is an old legend that there were originally seven temples on the shore. It was said that the city’s wealthy citizens grew so arrogant that the gods sent a great flood to punish them. The flood swept away all but one of the temples, the lonely Shore Temple that we see today. Historians had long discounted this oral history despite claims by local fishermen that their nets routinely got entangled in stone structures in the sea.
Then, in December 2004, a deadly tsunami hit coastlines across the Indian Ocean. Before the tsunami came in, the sea first withdrew and, for a few minutes, exposed several stone structures off the coast of Mahabalipuram. Later investigations by the Archaeological Survey of India have confirmed that there are indeed several temples and man-made structures that lie submerged off the coast.5 Moreover, studies of the area have found evidence that this coastline has been hit by tsunamis repeatedly and it is possible that the flood mentioned in the legend relates to a tsunami.
With whom were the merchant fleets of Mahabalipuram trading? By the eighth century, there were already a number of well-developed Indianized kingdoms in South East Asia. The Sri Vijaya kingdom covered most of Sumatra and the Malay peninsula. It had two major urban hubs—Palembang on Sumatra and Kadaram on the peninsula. Java was another major political centre. Its kingdoms steadily extended their influence over islands such as Bali and Madura till it later grew into the great Majapahit empire that controlled a large swathe of what is now Indonesia. In Cambodia, the Khmers were welded into a kingdom that culminated in the Angkor empire. Further east, the kingdom of Champa stretched along the central and southern coast of Vietnam (some historians argue that it was more a confederacy than a centralized kingdom). These kingdoms traded with each other and with India and China. They also fought bitter wars, particularly the Khmers versus the Chams, and the Javans versus the Sri Vijaya.
Given the close political and commercial links between the Pallavas and these kingdoms, it is not surprising that the dominant source of Indian influence in South East Asia shifted from Odiya to Tamil during this period. For instance, the South East Asians adopted the Pallava version of the Brahmi script. This is why the scripts used to write Khmer, Thai, Lao, Burmese and Javanese-Kawi are derived from the Pallava script. Till the early nineteenth century, the Brahmi-derived Baybayin script was even used to write Tagalog in the Philippines.
As we saw from Fa Xian’s account, the trade routes between India and China were well established by the fifth century. By the Pallava period, there were large Indian merchant communities living in Chinese ports. Since the 1930s, archaeologists have discovered evidence of a number of Hindu shrines and at least two large temples in and around the port city of Quanzhou.6 These include stone carvings depicting mythological tales related to the gods Vishnu and Shiva that look identical to those found in southern India during the same period. In the nearby village of Chedian, locals still worship the image of a goddess who is clearly of Indian origin (the villagers see her as a form of the Chinese goddess Guanyin).
Arabia on the Eve of Islam
As we have seen, the history of ancient Yemen was about the rivalries between clans such as the Sabeans, Hadhramis and the Himyar. Their culture was quite distinct from that of the Arabs. However, from AD second century, the dynamics of the region began to change due to demographic, cultural and geopolitical shifts. Initially, the region witnessed the arrival of a large Jewish trader and refugee community from the west. The descendants of these Jewish settlers would survive in both Ethiopia and Yemen until the twentieth century.
Meanwhile, waves of Arabs from the area around modern Riyadh began to encroach into neighbouring territories. One branch pushed into Yemen and Oman. It is not clear why these large-scale migrations took place but Arab names suddenly start to appear in Yemeni inscriptions. The records suggest growing Arab assertiveness against the local clans as their numbers grew. One of them records the ‘war against some of the Arabs on the borders of the tribe Hashid and in some of the lands of the Arabs, Arabs who had acted wrongfully against their lords, the kings of Saba’.7Note that as I type these words, a Saudi-led coalition pounds the Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Under demographic pressure, exacerbated by the breaching of an ancient Sabean dam, some Yemeni groups migrated north into Oman, which was witnessing its own Arab migration. Over time, these two migrations displaced or absorbed the existing Persianized population in Oman. To this day, most Omanis can trace their ancestry to the two migrations; the Yamani clans claim Yemeni origin and the Nizari clans claim central Arabian origin.
The Sabeans were, meanwhile, forced to accept an alliance with the Himyar who, for a while, imposed control over southern Arabia. However, the Himyar were themselves caught between the two great powers of the time—the Sassanian empire of Persia and their bitter rivals, the Byzantines. By this time the Byzantines (that is, the eastern Roman empire with its capital in Constantinople, modern Istanbul) had become enthusiastic and proselytizing Christians, and geopolitics took on a religious colour. The Byzantine emperor Constantius (337–361) dispatched ambassadors and the missionary Theophilus the Indian to the Himyarite court demanding permission to build churches and proselytize.
Ethiopia was one of the countries that was profoundly affected by this churn in geopolitics and religion during AD fourth century. Around the middle of AD fourth century, the Ethiopians captured two Christian teenagers, Frumentius and Edesius from a merchant ship on the Red Sea. They were taken to the capital Aksum where they served as slaves of the king. They soon came to be trusted and, shortly before his death, the king granted them their freedom and promoted them to high office. The widowed queen became dependent on them for running the kingdom and also entrusted the education of her infant son, the new king, to Frumentius.8
The former slaves now used their position to actively promote Christianity, and eventually, under the influence of his tutor, the young king Erazanes too converted to the faith. Thus, Ethiopia came to be a Christian country. This brought it into the cultural and geopolitical sphere of influence of the Byzantines. These changes were clearly noticed by the Indians of that period as they began to refer to the Ethiopians as ‘Krishna Yavana’ or dark Greeks.
In the early sixth century, the Aksum king Ella Asbeha attacked Yemen and placed a Christian king on the Himyar throne. Once the Ethiopians withdrew, there was a revolt against the Christians led by the Jews and the pro-Persian faction, and the country plunged into bloody civil war. A Jewish warlord called Yusuf captured the throne and attacked the chain of fortifications around the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. Contemporary accounts tell us that the raid left 12,500 dead and 11,000 captives (and yielded 290,000 sheep, oxen and camels as spoils of war).9
Ella Asbeha was not long in responding. He assembled a large army and a fleet to attack Yemen. Yusuf and his allies were killed and a Christian king was again placed on the throne. The Ethiopians also left behind a garrison and stipulated that the Yemeni had to pay a tribute to Aksum every year. However, soon after Ella Asbeha left, the garrison went rogue and replaced the king with their own candidate. In this way, a complicated civil war laid waste a prosperous country that had given rise to the legend about the Queen of Sheba.
Eventually some order was restored by the part-legendary hero Sayf Ibn Dhi-Yazan who used Persian help to evict the Ethiopians. Sayf became king under the understanding that he would pay tribute to the Sassanian monarch. However, Sayf was stabbed to death by a group of Ethiopian slaves and the Persian army was dispatched once again. This time the region was put under direct Persian rule.
These events need to be seen in the broader context of the prolonged wars between the Persians and Byzantines across the Middle East. The campaigns in Yemen were part of an attempt by the Byzantine–Ethiopian alliance to take control of the Red Sea trade route to India and bypass the rival Persian Gulf route. As a contemporary Byzantine put it, ‘For it was impossible for the Ethiopians to buy silks from the Indians, since the Persian merchants always locate themselves in the very harbours where the Indians first put in, as they inhabit the adjoining country and are accustomed to buy the whole cargo.’10
As if the wars were not enough, the Middle East was also devastated by a deadly pandemic. Known as the Plague of Justinian, it was first reported in Egypt around AD 541. Egyptian grain ships then took it to the Byzantine capital Constantinople where it is said to have killed half the population. It soon spread across the Mediterranean and the Middle East where, over a few decades, it killed an estimated 25–50 million people. Thus, when the seventh century dawned, the Middle East was exhausted. These were the circumstances in which a completely new force emerged—Islam.
The Rise of Islam
The sudden rise of Islam radically changed the power dynamics of the western Indian Ocean in the seventh century. As is well known, Prophet Muhammad was initially not successful in convincing his own tribe, the Quraysh of Mecca, about his message. In AD 622, he and his followers slipped away to Medina. Their fortunes began to turn after they successfully defended Medina against an alliance of their enemies in AD 627. It is remembered as the Battle of the Trench as Muhammad used trenches to neutralize the enemy’s superior cavalry. Within three years, he would capture Mecca and carve out a significant kingdom in the Arabian peninsula.
Having secured his base, the Prophet sent out messengers to the chieftains of neighbouring tribes asking them to join his cause. This included Yemeni and Omani groups that had tired of Persian rule and wanted to push them out. Muhammad’s envoy is said to have arrived just as the Omanis led by King Julanda were contemplating a major offensive against the Persians. The Persians held the coast while the Omanis held the mountains in the interior. The Julanda princes received the envoy in Nizwa. It is an oasis surrounded by tall craggy mountains, and one can see why the Omanis would repeatedly fall back on it throughout history when threatened (although the picturesque fort and souk that one sees there today is of a much later period than being discussed here).11 The contents of Prophet Muhammad’s letter to the Omanis are said to have survived and reads as follows:12
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful,
From Muhammad bin Abdullah to Gaifar and Abd, sons of Al-Julanda, peace is upon him who follows the guidance now and after,
I am calling both of you in the name of Islam.
You will be safe if you submit to Islam. I am the messenger of Allah to all of the people. I bring news of Islam to all the people, and will fight the infidels. I hope you accept Islam, but if you do not, then you will lose your country, and my horsemen will invade your territory, and my prophecy will dominate your country.
The Omanis were clearly impressed with the message for they accepted Islam. Thus, they are among the first people to have converted to the religion. Fortified by the new faith and the promise of Muhammad’s support, the Omanis proceeded to oust the Persians from the settlements along the coast.
The Prophet died in AD 632, just two years after he had conquered Mecca. However, his immediate successors would rapidly expand the empire. The Arabs defeated the Persians at the Battle of Qadisiyyah in AD 637 which led to the fall of Ctesiphon, the capital of the Sassanians. Soon they would take over the whole of the Persian empire. The Byzantines put up a more spirited resistance in their heartlands of Anatolia but the Arabs captured Jerusalem by AD 638 and controlled the whole of Syria, Palestine and Egypt by AD 641.13 Yemeni and Omani warriors played an important role in these early conquests.
In other words, within a decade of Muhammad’s death, the Arabs came to control a vast empire. Their extraordinary success must have convinced them that God was really on their side. Unfortunately, such a rapid increase in wealth and power inevitably led to rivalries and tensions within the newly emerging elite. The power struggle culminated in the Battle of Karbala in AD 680 where Muhammad’s grandson Husain ibn Ali and his followers were massacred by a much larger army sent by Umayyad Caliph Yazid. Husain is said to have died with his infant son in his arms. This incident created the Shia–Sunni sectarian divide that exists to this day.
Intriguingly, there is an oral tradition in India that Husain’s party included a group of Hindu mercenaries who were also killed in the battle. This is why the Mohyal Brahmins of Punjab still join Shia Muslims in the annual ritual mourning of Muharram. Given the atmosphere of suspicion and intrigue within the Arab leadership, one should not be surprised that outsiders had been hired as personal guards. As we shall see, twelve centuries later, another group of Indian soldiers would find themselves under siege in Iraq.
The Umayyads next decided to impose direct control over the Omanis who, as early and willing converts to Islam, had come to expect a degree of autonomy. Two brothers, Sulaiman and Said, organized a heroic defence against a large army of 40,000 sent by land and sea. The Omanis were initially successful but the enemy kept getting reinforcements and eventually their resistance broke down. Around AD 700, the two brothers fled by ship with their families and followers to Africa. Thus began Oman’s long relationship with the eastern seaboard of Africa, which the Arabs called the Land of Zunj.14
Umayyad rule came to a bloody end in AD 750 when the dynasty was overthrown by Abu-al-Abbas. It is said that after he defeated and killed his predecessor, he called a banquet of reconciliation for the surviving nobility of the former regime. After they had sat down to eat, they were all slaughtered to a man. A carpet then was laid out over the dead bodies and the new caliph and his followers then sat and ate upon the bed of corpses!15
Given all this bloodshed, another wave of refugees fled to Africa. In this way, the east coast of Africa came to have a smattering of Arab settlements. Meanwhile, the remaining Omanis withdrew once more to the rough Al Hajar mountains around Nizwa. There they developed a distinct branch of Islam called Ibadhi. To this day, the majority of Omanis follow Ibadhi Islam.
The Arabian Nights
Despite disruptions caused by all the wars, merchants continued to sail between India and the Middle East. Few people realize that India is home to the second oldest mosque in the world—the Cheraman mosque in Kerala. If the claimed date is accurate, it was built by Arab merchants before the Prophet had conquered Mecca.16 The mosque is located an hour’s drive north of Kochi in the general area of Muzeris, highlighting yet again the importance of this ancient port. Old photographs show that the original structure of the mosque was based on local temple architecture but unfortunately, during renovations in 1984, the building was modified to add domes and minarets to conform to a more conventional view of Islamic architecture. There is talk now of reverting to the old design in order to attract tourists but it is never quite the same thing.
As we saw in the previous section, the initial years of the Abbasid caliphate were very bloody and rivals were mercilessly eliminated. Eventually, the Abbasids managed to establish order over the vast empire. They also shifted the capital from Damascus to Baghdad. Under the rule of Harun al-Rashid (AD 786–809), the empire enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity. However, at the same time, the relative simplicity of early Islam was replaced by a glittering court and the elaborate pomp reminiscent of the Sassanians. It was also a time that trade boomed in the western Indian Ocean.
The spirit of the times is echoed in the tales of the Arabian Nights. In the tale ‘How Abu Hasan Broke Wind’ we are told of a wealthy Yemeni merchant who had become very rich by trading with India.17 Having loudly farted at his own wedding, he fled social embarrassment by sailing off to India where he settled in the port of Calicut (Kozhikode) in Kerala. We are informed that the local king, a Hindu, welcomed Arabs and that the port had a large community of Hadramawt Yemeni merchants. We are not concerned here with the storyline but the vivid description of medieval globalization.
The constant circulation of merchants and sailors meant that a significant part of the male population in Kerala was transitory while the female population was more rooted. Over time, it seems to have led to matrilineal social arrangements. The Nairs of Kerala and the Bunt of the Karnataka coast, both warrior clans, developed matrilineal customs. The Arab merchants also took on local wives and their descendants, the ‘Mappila’ Muslims, are now a quarter of Kerala’s population. It is worth noting that the term ‘Mappila’ means son-in-law in the local Malayalam language.
The Arabian Nights contains many tales about merchants and voyages but arguably the most entertaining are those of Sindbad. The collection contains several of his voyages but his second voyage is especially interesting. It tells us that Sindbad’s ship anchored near a beautiful island and he decided to go for a walk. Finding a nice spot, Sindbad fell asleep under a tree. Unfortunately, he slept for much longer than expected and, when he woke up, he discovered that his ship had left without him! Naturally he was very alarmed at being abandoned on what seemed an uninhabited island.
To cut a long story short, Sindbad soon found himself trapped in a valley with very steep sides. He was surprised to find that the valley floor was covered in valuable diamonds. However, he also discovered that there were huge serpents sleeping in nearby caves and that they would devour him as soon as they came out in the evening.
As he was thinking of ways to escape, a large chunk of meat landed near Sindbad and a giant eagle picked it up and flew off. Looking up, he saw that some people at the top of the ravine were throwing down large chunks of meat in the hope that some of the diamonds would stick to the flesh. The eagles would pick up the meat and take them to their nests. At this point, people would scare the birds off by making a lot of noise and collect their diamonds. Sindbad saw his opportunity and filled his pockets with diamonds before tying himself to a piece of meat. In due course, he was picked up by an eagle and made his escape from the valley. The diamonds made him a rich man.
Many readers will be familiar with this Sindbad adventure. What is remarkable is that a very similar tale was told by Herodotus when he wrote about how the Arabs acquired cinnamon. In other words, versions of this story had been circulating in the Indian Ocean for over a thousand years!
The Conquest of Sindh
By AD 711, Arab armies had reached Spain and within a few years they had won control over the Iberian peninsula. The Umayyads were simultaneously pushing east and, in AD 705, an Arab army invaded the Makran coast and took over Baluchistan. This brought them to the borders of Sindh and the first direct encounter with Indic civilization. The kingdom of Sindh was ruled at that time by Raja Dahir, who even Muslim sources accept was an able and popular ruler.
An initial exploratory expedition was repulsed but in AD 711, a more substantial military force was sent out from Iraq under the leadership of a young general called Muhammad bin Qasim. The campaign is recounted in the chronicles of Ferishta and in a text called Chachnama. According to Ferishta, the army first attacked Deval, a port in the Indus estuary, not far from modern Karachi. It seems that the town also had a large Hindu temple and was a place of pilgrimage. The town was defended by a fort garrisoned by four thousand Rajput soldiers. Muhammad bin Qasim directed a constant bombardment against the fort using catapults. Eventually the fort was stormed and all the defenders massacred. As a pilgrimage town, Deval also had a large Brahmin population. Ferishta tells us that every Brahmin male above the age of seventeen was decapitated and all their women and children were enslaved.18
After receiving reinforcements from Iraq, the Arabs moved north to meet Dahir’s main army. Muhammad bin Qasim used a barrage of burning naphtha balls to disrupt the enemy’s elephants before making a cavalry charge. Although surrounded and severely wounded, Raja Dahir fought till he was killed on the battlefield. The Sindhis now withdrew to the fort of Ajdur under the command of their queen where they remained under siege for several months. Facing starvation, they eventually decided to commit ‘jauhar’—the Hindu equivalent of the last stand. The gates were thrown open and the queen led the survivors out for a final charge and they were all massacred. Many of the remaining non-combatants committed suicide. In this way, the Arabs conquered Sindh.
The story does not end here. According to Ferishta, Muhammad bin Qasim captured two of Dahir’s daughters and sent them to the caliph as a gift. They were added to the imperial harem; but when the caliph called the elder princess to his bed, she told him that she was no longer a virgin as Muhammad bin Qasim had already raped her. The caliph flew into a rage at this insult and had the general executed by having him sewn up in animal hide. When his corpse was presented to her, the brave princess confessed that she had lied in order to have her revenge. The veracity of this extraordinary tale of revenge is difficult to ascertain. Arab sources independently confirm that Muhammad bin Qasim was executed soon after his conquest of Sindh but they do not mention the princesses.
Despite the relative ease with which they had taken over Sindh, the Arabs found it difficult to expand beyond their foothold in the subcontinent. The Gurjara–Pratihara empire ruled over much of north India at that time and its armies easily fended off the Arabs. Indian inscriptions also record that the Arabs attempted to push into the Deccan through Gujarat and were repulsed by the Chalukya king Vikramaditya II. Indeed, Hindu rulers seem to have made counter-raids and continued to rule over Afghanistan till the end of the tenth century.
With eastward expansion blocked off, the Arabs turned their attention north towards Central Asia. The Turkic people of the region mostly worshipped the sky god Tengri or were Buddhist. There were also Hindu and Zoroastrian influences. In the middle of the eighth century, they found themselves caught between two great powers. The Chinese Tang dynasty was pushing in from the east while the Abbasid caliphate was pushing in from its base in Iran. The two faced each other at the Battle of Talas in AD 751 in which the Arabs decisively defeated the Tang army. Thus, Central Asia came into the Islamic sphere of influence rather than the Chinese.
Qissa-i-Sanjan19
When the Arabs conquered Persia in the seventh century, the majority of Iranians were Zoroastrian. After the conquest, however, more and more people converted to Islam. Faced with growing persecution, some of the remaining Zoroastrians fled to India where their descendants survive as the tiny Parsi community. The history of how this community settled in India is recounted in the Qissa-i-Sanjan, a text composed around 1600.
The text tells us that in the early tenth century, a small group of Zoroastrians left their homes in Khorasan, north-eastern Iran, and set out to look for a country where they could practise their religion in peace. They made their way south to the port of Hormuz from where these families sailed for India. It appears that they first landed on the island of Diu and spent a few years there. However, they still felt insecure and decided to head for a small Hindu kingdom on the Gujarati mainland around AD 936. The text says that the ruler of the kingdom was Jadi Rana (probably of the Jadeja Rajput clan) and describes him as ‘liberal, sagacious and wise’.
Jadi Rana received the refugees warmly and listened patiently to their request for a place to settle. While he was sympathetic to their predicament, he was hesitant to let so many foreigners settle in his lands. There is a well-known legend, probably apocryphal, that the king asked one of his servants to bring a bowl filled with milk to the top. The message being that the bowl would overflow if any more milk was added. The leader of the Parsis, however, responded by adding some sugar to the milk. The dissolved sugar sweetened the milk but did not cause it to overflow. Thus, the account goes, the Parsis convinced the king.
The Qissa contains a somewhat different narrative that is likely to be more accurate. According to this version Jadi Rana asked the Parsis to explain their religion and rituals to him. He must have been struck by the obvious similarities between Zoroastrian and ancient Vedic rituals. The newcomers also composed sixteen Sanskrit slokas to explain their beliefs (these have been preserved). The king must have been satisfied by the explanations for he decided to give the Parsis refuge provided they accepted the following conditions in perpetuity: that they would give up arms; that they would adopt Gujarati as their language; that their women would wear the local dress; and finally, that all marriage ceremonies would be held in the evening (the last condition is particularly sensible, in my view, as morning weddings can be a real drag on the feasting).
The refugees accepted the conditions and the Parsis came to settle in Gujarat. A piece of forested land was identified and given to the newcomers who cleared it and set up a town that they named Sanjan after their city of origin in Khorasan. We are told that it was soon a prosperous settlement and that the Zoroastrians were given full freedom to practise their religion. A fire temple was built using a flame brought from Iran. It is also likely that news of this reached the remaining Zoroastrians in Iran and that Sanjan soon attracted new refugees.
The Qissa tells us that the settlement in Sanjan flourished till the fifteenth century when the town suffered an attack by a large Turkic army led by Alf Khan, general of Sultan Muhammad. The local prince, a descendant of Jadi Rana, rushed to defend Sanjan but was forced to request the Parsis to join his army, thereby lifting one of the original conditions. The text says that the defenders were able to repulse the first raid but, in 1464, Alf Khan returned with a larger army and occupied Sanjan. The surviving Parsis fled, taking with them a flame of the sacred fire. After a period of wandering, they would establish a new settlement at Navsari, close to Surat.
The Roaming Roma
Even as Arabs, Parsis and Jews were settling in India, at least one group of Indians migrated to the Middle East. It has long been suspected on cultural and linguistic grounds that the Roma (Gypsies) of Europe were of Indian origin. Genetic studies have confirmed that they are the descendants of medieval migrants from north-western India.20 What were they doing in the Middle East?
One thing is certain, they were not there as slaves because they would not have been allowed to stay as a cohesive group and maintain their culture. Whatever they were doing, it was useful enough for Muslim kings who allowed them to maintain some sort of ethnic identity. Given the long history of Indian soldiers in the region, it is possible that the ancestors of the Roma were mercenaries. A more intriguing possibility is that they were imported as metal workers. India was famous in the ancient and medieval world for its metallurgy and we know that the famous ‘Damascus sword’ used by Muslim armies against the Crusades was made with Indian steel technology.
In the fifteenth century, the Roma accompanied the Turkish armies into the Balkans. Ottoman records mention Gypsies as blacksmiths, craftsmen and other service providers. They are also mentioned as musicians and dancers. Their attachment to military campaigns meant that they maintained their nomadic lifestyle. Over time they would leave Ottoman-controlled lands and wander far and wide across Europe. Their link to ironmongering, however, would survive into recent times.