Tracing Changes Through A Thousand Years

Here is the class notes from Class NCERT History- Chapter 1: “Tracing Changes through A Thousand Years”

New and Old Terminologies

Historical records exist in a variety of languages which have changed considerably over the years.
Medieval Persian, for example, is different from modern Persian.
The difference is not just with regard to grammar and vocabulary; the meanings of words also change over time.
In the thirteenth century by Minhaj-i-Siraj, a chronicler who wrote in Persian, used the term “Hindustan”
- He meant the areas of Punjab, Haryana and the lands between the Ganga and Yamuna.
- He used the term in a political sense for lands that were a part of the dominions of the Delhi Sultan.
- The areas included in this term shifted with the extent of the Sultanate but the term never included south India.
In the early sixteenth century Babur used Hindustan to describe the geography, the fauna and the culture of the inhabitants of the subcontinent.
In the fourteenth-century poet Amir Khusrau used the word “Hind”.
In the medieval period a “foreigner” was any stranger who appeared say in a given village, someone who was not a part of that society or culture.

Cartographer: A person who makes maps.

Historians and their Sources

They rely on coins, inscriptions, architecture and textual records for information.
The number and variety of textual records increased dramatically during this period.
People used it to write holy texts, chronicles of rulers, letters and teachings of saints, petitions and judicial records, and for registers of accounts and taxes.
Manuscripts were collected by wealthy people, rulers, monasteries and temples. They were placed in libraries and archives.
There was no printing press in those days so scribes copied manuscripts by hand.
As scribes copied manuscripts, they also introduced small changes– a word here, a sentence there. These small differences grew over centuries of copying until manuscripts of the same text became substantially different from one another.
For example, the fourteenth-century chronicler Ziyauddin Barani wrote his chronicle first in 1356 and another version two years later.
- The two differ from each other but historians did not know about the existence of the first version.

New Social and Political Groups

Between 700 and 1750 a variety of development that occurred over the period.
Different technologies made their appearance like- the Persian wheel in irrigation, the spinning wheel in weaving, and firearms in combat.
New foods and beverages arrived in the subcontinent – potatoes, corn, chillies, tea and coffee.
These technologies and crops came along with the people.
This was also a period of great mobility.
One group of people who became important in this period were the Rajputs, a name derived from “Rajaputra”, the son of a ruler.
Other groups of people such as the Marathas, Sikhs, Jats, Ahoms and Kayasthas also used the opportunities of the age to become politically important.
Throughout this period there was a gradual clearing of forests and the extension of agriculture, a change faster and more complete in some areas than in others.
Peasant groups gradually began to be influenced by regional markets, chieftains, priests, monasteries and temples.
They became part of large, complex societies, and were required to pay taxes and offer goods and services to local lords.
Economic and social differences emerged amongst peasants. Some possessed more productive land, others also kept cattle, and some combined artisanal work with agricultural activity during the lean season.
As society became more differentiated, people were grouped into jatis or sub-castes and ranked on the basis of their backgrounds and their occupations.
Jatis framed their own rules and regulations to manage the conduct of their members.

Region and Empire

By 700 many regions already possessed distinct geographical dimensions and their own language and cultural characteristics
They were also associated with specific ruling dynasties.
Occasionally dynasties like the Cholas, Khaljis, Tughluqs and Mughals were able to build an empire that was pan-regional – spanning diverse regions.
Through the thousand years between 700 and 1750 the character of the different regions did not grow in isolation.
These regions felt the impact of larger pan-regional forces of integration without ever quite losing their distinctiveness.

Old and New Religions

Collective belief in a supernatural agency – religion – was often closely connected with the social and economic organisation of local communities.
It was during this period that important changes occurred in what we call Hinduism today.
- worship of new deities, the construction of temples by royalty and the growing importance of Brahmanas, the priests, as dominant groups in society.
One of the major developments of this period was the emergence of the idea of bhakti – of a loving, personal deity that devotees could reach without the aid of priests or elaborate rituals.
This was also the period when new religions appeared in the subcontinent. Merchants and migrants first brought the teachings of the holy Quran to India in the seventh century.
Islam was interpreted in a variety of ways by its followers.
- There were the Shia Muslims who believed that the Prophet Muhammad’s son-in-law, Ali, was the legitimate leader of the Muslim community,
- The Sunni Muslims who accepted the authority of the early leaders (Khalifas) of the community, and the succeeding Khalifas.
There were other important differences between the various schools of law (Hanafi and Shafi’i mainly in India), and in theology and mystic traditions.