Medieval travelogues that can be textbooks
| That is why contemporaneous accounts are so useful. William Dalrymple, who has written the preface to this beautifully produced, and very affordable, hardback, showed this with his book about 1857. |
| There are three types of contemporaneous accounts available now""oral histories, newspapers and travellers' accounts. In medieval India, sadly, newspapers were not there and oral histories were restricted to emperors and kings, who, naturally, had their own axes to grind for posterity. |
| And that is what gives travelogues of the period such importance. They light matches in the most unexpected corners. This one comprises 10 such accounts, translated from the original assortment of European languages. Each chapter covers a different part of India and a different period. Obviously, there is some degree of overlapping. |
| Two that catch your attention are by Cesare Federici, who travelled around the Vijayanagar area in the latter part of the 16th century, and Antonio Monserrate, a Catholic priest who visited Akbar, whom he calls Jalal al-Din. |
| Federici has this to say about sati. "I have seen many burnt in this manner, because my house was neer to the gate where they goe out to the place of burning; and when dyeth any Great man, his Wife with all his Slaves with whom he hath had carnal copulation, burne themselves together with him. Also in this Kingdome I have seene... that the man being dead... carried to the place where they will make his sepulcher, and setting him as it were upright, then commeth his wife before him on her knees, casting her armes around his necke, with imbracing and clasping him, until such time as the Masons have made a wall round them, and when the wall is as high as their neckes, there commeth a man behind the women and strangleth her; then when she is dead, the workmen finish the wall over their heads, and so they lie buried together..." (p 29) |
| Monserrate describes many things he saw on his way from Surat to Fatehpur Sikri. One of them is as follows: "...the religious zeal of the 'Musalmans' has destroyed all the idol temples, which used to be very numerous. But the carelessness of these same 'Musalmans' has on the other hand allowed sacrifices to be publicly performed, incense to be offered, and perfumes to be poured out, the ground to be sprinkled with flowers, and wreaths to be hung up, wherever""either amongst the ruins of these old temples or elsewhere""any fragment of an idol is to be found. Thirdly, in place of the Hindu temples, countless tombs and little shrines of wicked and worthless 'Musalmans' have been erected..." (p 47). |
| I have purposely chosen these two paragraphs and quoted them at length. Both show up the political prejudices of the major political parties in India. |
| The real question therefore is this: Will Narendra Modi allow Federici's passage to be included in a textbook on medieval history in Gujarat? Will the Marxists allow Monserrate's to be included in one in West Bengal? |
| Or forget them: will historians owing ideological allegiance have the courage to do it? I suspect not. And that is what makes such little books so valuable and worth spending a few hours on. |
| Beyond the Three Seas Travellers' Tales of Mughal India |
| Edited by Michael H Fisher Random House Price: Rs 350; Pages: 219 |