Land of seven rivers: History of India's Geography (16 page)

All discussion about Khajuraho tends to
focus on the erotic sculptures that adorn some of the temples. However, if one
actually visits the temples, it is quickly apparent that the most striking
sculptures depict lions or lion-like dragons. Several of them are shown locked in
mortal combat with a Chandela king or warrior (occasionally women warriors). Just
like the Mauryan emperors, the Chandelas liked to use the lion as a symbol of their
power. Equally telling is the total absence of tigers in the sculptures. I found
this particularly intriguing given that Panna Tiger Reserve is barely a
twenty-minute drive away from Khajuraho. Was this lion country during medieval
times? Or, was the tiger simply not considered a worthy symbol of royal power?

For a century and half after
Mahmud’s raids, the Turks were largely restricted to West Punjab. If
anything, there was a sense of complacency. That changed in 1192 when Muhammad Ghori
defeated Prithviraj Chauhan, the Rajput king of Delhi and Ajmer, in the Second
Battle of Tarain (150 km from Delhi in the modern state of Haryana).

The Turks occupied Delhi and then
embarked on a series of conquests that radically changed the political, social and
urban geography of India. By 1194, Varanasi and Kannauj were captured and sacked.
The latter, then the largest city in northern India, would never really recover.
Within a few years, the university of Nalanda was destroyed by Bakhtiyar Khilji, its
library was torched and most of its scholars put to death. The scene was chronicled
by Minhaj-ud-din, a judge from Ghor, who had accompanied the invading army:

The great number of the
inhabitants of that place were Brahmans … and they were all slain.
There were a great number of books there; and when all these books came under
the observation of the Mussalmans they summoned a number of Hindus that they
might give them information respecting the import of these books; but the whole
of the Hindus had been killed …
¹³

While there were many Brahmin scholars
at Nalanda, the bulk of those massacred were probably Buddhist monks. A few
survivors would linger, but most would flee to Tibet where their traditions would be
kept alive till the Chinese take-over of the mid-twentieth century. After Nalanda,
Bakhtiyar Khilji attacked and completely destroyed Vikramshila, another famous
Buddhist university. The practice of Buddhism in the subcontinent, already in
decline, would
collapse after these devastating attacks. In
1235, Sultan Iltutmish laid waste Ujjain—once the secondary capital of the
Gupta empire and a major centre for mathematics, literature, astronomy and Hindu
philosophy. It is worth noting that at exactly the same time as these universities
were being destroyed, the University of Oxford was being established on the other
side of the planet.

By the end of the thirteenth century,
armies led by generals like Malik Kafur would be making raids into the deep south.
It was a very bloody period in Indian history—ancient cities, universities
and temples were laid waste and hundreds of thousands, probably millions, were
massacred. Anyone who doubts this should read the
Tarikh-i-Farishtah
¹⁴
. Thus ended the second cycle of urbanization that had begun in the Gangetic
plains during the Iron Age.

A few sparks of the classical period
would remain alive in the city of Vijaynagar in the far South and in the even more
faraway kingdoms of South East Asia. However, India was embarking on a new cycle of
urbanization that derived many of its elements from Central Asia and Persia. This
book is not meant as a comprehensive history of empires, individuals and events. I
will, therefore, deal with this cycle of urbanization largely through the evolution
of its most prominent city—Delhi.

The area in and around Delhi has been
inhabited by humans from the Stone Age—stone implements have been found
scattered in the ridges of the Aravalli range. The Rig Vedic
people would also have been familiar with the region since it falls in the eastern
corner of the Sapta-Sindhu landscape. There are even scattered remains of small
settlements from the late Harappan age. Perhaps, this was one of the places where
the Harappans settled as they abandoned the drying Saraswati and shifted to the
Gangetic plains.

Since then, cities have been built,
abandoned, pillaged and rebuilt many times on this site. Depending on how you count,
between eight and sixteen Delhis have been built through history. Thus, the terms
‘Old Delhi’ and ‘New Delhi’ have meant
different things at different points in time. So when William Sleeman visited the
city in 1836, he referred to Shahjehanabad, what we now call Old Delhi, as New
Delhi
¹⁵
. To him, Old Delhi referred to the ruins that were scattered from Mehrauli to
Purana Qila—the area that is now occupied by what we call New Delhi.
Nevertheless, the current cycle of expansion is remarkable even by standards of the
city’s long history. After Delhi was sacked by the British in 1858, its
urban population fell to a mere 154,417 as per the 1868 census.
¹⁶
Today, the urban system of Delhi, the National Capital Region, is home to
almost twenty million people and it continues to grow and evolve rapidly.

As we have already discussed in
Chapter
3
, many of the events of the Mahabharata relate to the area around Delhi.
Indraprastha, the capital of the Pandavas, is said to have been situated in Delhi
along the banks of the Yamuna. According to a strong tradition, its site was under
the sixteenth-century fortress of Purana Qila (literally Old Fort). The tradition
was given credence by the fact that a village called Indrapat used to occupy the
mound. Archaeological excavations inside the
fort have revealed
a significant Late Iron Age settlement that continued to be occupied till the Gupta
period. There is a small museum in Purana Qila that shows photographs and artifacts
from the excavations. However, it is impossible to prove if this was indeed the city
mentioned in the epic. Nothing has been found so far that obviously matches the
descriptions of Indraprastha—no palace or audience hall that would have
attracted the envy of the Kauravas. Perhaps the remains lie hidden under a later
building or perhaps they were swept away by a flood on the Yamuna. It is impossible
to say. Nonetheless, we can see that Delhi was an important settlement for many
centuries. An Ashokan rock inscription was found near the Kalkaji temple in 1996,
suggesting that Delhi may have included several habitations in addition to that at
Purana Qila.

The first Delhi of which we have
definite historical knowledge was built by the Tomar Rajputs, who made it their
headquarters in the eighth century. Their first settlement was at Suraj Kund in the
extreme south of Delhi. Then, as now, the water supply was a major concern, and a
large stone dam built by the Tomars still stands. The nearby village of Anangpur
recalls the name of Raja Anang Pal. A stream from the dam feeds a stepped tank that
was probably linked to a temple dedicated to the Sun God—hence the name
Suraj Kund (Pool of the Sun). Unfortunately, the lake is often dry now because
urbanization and illegal quarrying have disrupted the water-catchment.

In the eleventh century, the Tomars
moved to a more defensible position farther west and constructed a large
fort—Lal Kot, meaning Red Fort. Thus, Shah Jehan’s
seventeenth-
century Red Fort was not the first to bear that
name. To mark his place in history, Anang Pal also added his name to the Iron
Pillar.

A century later, the Chauhans of Ajmer
took control of the city and substantially expanded it. Now renamed Qila Rai
Pithora, this was the capital of Prithviraj Chauhan. I was pleasantly surprised to
find that large sections of the walls of this city have survived, although almost no
one visits them. Anyone interested can drive to the northern end of Mehrauli village
and will find them just past Adam Khan’s tomb. The approach is not pretty
and is used as an open toilet by a nearby slum. The visitor is therefore advised to
walk through one of the shanties and climb on top of the walls. The walk on top of
the nine-hundred-year-old ramparts is beautiful. As one leaves the village behind,
one is surrounded by a thick forest of thorny Kikar trees. The walls extend a couple
of kilometres and along the way one can distinguish towers and other structures
including a major gateway. Perhaps Prithviraj used this gate as he bade farewell to
the beautiful Samyukta as he rode out to face Muhammad Ghori. The urban landscape of
Delhi can just be discerned beyond the trees even as the Qutub Minar looks sternly
on.

When the Turks captured Rai Pithora,
they made it their Indian headquarters and began to remodel it for their own use.
The Qutub Minar complex, a UNESCO World Heritage site, has some of the oldest
Islamic buildings in northern India. At its centre is the mosque built by
Ghori’s slave-general Qutubuddin Aibak. An inscription on the east gate of
the mosque tells us that it was built by demolishing twenty-seven
Hindu–Jain temples.
¹⁷
Defaced idols can still be discerned
amongst the columns.
Interestingly, the Iron Pillar was allowed to continue standing on one side of the
mosque courtyard. Perhaps it was an effort by the new rulers to appropriate ancient
symbols of power. It is also possible that Qutubuddin wanted to let it stand in the
shadow of his own great column, the 72.5m-high stone tower of the Qutub Minar, a
medieval example of ‘mine is bigger than yours’. It is a truly
impressive structure even by modern standards. When the Moroccan traveller Ibn
Batuta visited Delhi over a century later, he was impressed by both the spectacular
height of the tower and the unique metallurgy of the pillar.
¹⁸
He also tells us of how a later sultan wanted to build a tower twice as high
but the project was abandoned. The remains of Alauddin Khilji’s failed
attempt can still be seen nearby.

At the beginning of the fourteenth
century, Alauddin Khilji built the new fort of Siri at the site of a military camp
northeast of the existing city. The main urban cluster continued to be in the old
city but the sultan, who was paranoid about assassins, probably felt safer in the
new fort. Unfortunately, within a few years of it being built, Siri fell to a Mongol
raid. Alauddin managed to push the invaders back and then took care to strengthen
the fortifications. This was a wise move because the Mongols were soon back. This
time they captured the main city and pillaged it. However, Alauddin held out in Siri
for months till the Mongols decided to go back. There are only a few stretches of
walls and other buildings that remain of Siri. Its site is now occupied by the urban
village of Shahpur Jat. It is one of the many villages that live on in the urban
fabric of modern Delhi and is home to numerous small offices and designer workshops.
The rest of Siri is covered by the
Asian Games Village that was
built to house athletes for the event in 1982.

Water supply has always been a major
issue for Delhi. In order to supply the expanding city, Alauddin Khilji built a
large reservoir called Hauz Khas. It still exists and is surrounded by a beautiful
park, a wonderful place to go for a walk on a sunny winter afternoon. Overlooking
the waterbody are the remains of an old Madrassa (Islamic religious school) built by
a later sultan and the urban village of Hauz Khas. Since the 1990s, this village has
transformed itself into a warren of expensive boutiques and trendy bars. This is
ironic because Alauddin was a severe man who strictly controlled the prices of all
goods and forbade the consumption and sale of alcohol.
¹⁹
Such is the revenge of history.

The Khilji dynasty barely survived a few
years after Alauddin and was replaced by another Turkic dynasty, the Tughlaqs. They
also decided to build a new city, called Tughlaqabad, and chose a location to the
east of the existing city. It is unclear why the first Tughlaq Sultan wanted to
build yet another city and why he chose the specific location. Perhaps it was just
to satisfy his ego. Ibn Batuta tells an interesting story that may or may not be
true. Evidently, when the Sultan was just a nobleman serving the Khiljis, he had
suggested to the king that this would be a good place to build a city. The incumbent
had sarcastically replied, ‘When you are Sultan, build it.’
Thus, it was one of the first building projects of the Tughlaqs.

Although overgrown and encroached upon,
the extensive fortifications and other remains of Tughlaqabad are very impressive.
Excavations in the 1990s revealed a secret passage
connected to
the palace, with elaborate passageways, hidden storage rooms and disguised entrance
and exit. The exit is a small opening on the outer wall that looks like an innocuous
drain. However, despite its rather solid appearance, the city was only occupied for
a few years before being abandoned, probably because its water-supply was not
secure.

Muhammad Tughlaq was the second sultan
of the dynasty. He decided to shift the capital a thousand kilometers south to
Daulatabad in 1326
AD
. The fort held a strategic position
on the Southern Road or Dakshina Path, and was ideally located for making raids into
southern India. Therefore, the Sultan’s decision was understandable but
for the fact that Muhammad insisted that every single inhabitant had to move with
him. We have a macabre tale about how an old beggar was too feeble to make the
journey. The Sultan had him tied to a cart and dragged along for forty days. Only
his feet arrived in Daulatabad.

However, the Sultan soon changed his
mind and the entire population was made to trudge back to Delhi. Muhammad now
decided to expand the recently repopulated city and invited settlers from the rest
of his empire and from Central Asia. He built a set of walls that connected the old
city of Lal Kot with the Khilji fortress of Siri. This enclosed a very large area
that would be the next city of Delhi—Jahanpanah. Note that the older
cities continued to be inhabited. Even some parts of the abandoned Tughlaqabad were
used for storage and to house garrisons. Thus, Jahanpanah was probably not entirely
built up but contained open areas and even farming communities within the walls.
Nonetheless, a massive new palace-complex was built. It is this patchwork of urban
settlements that Ibn Batuta saw when he visited Delhi.