Pub Date : 2021-05-01DOI: 10.1177/09719458211060994
Mudit Trivedi, Hemanth Kadambi, Supriya Varma
{"title":"Introduction: Archaeologies of the Medieval","authors":"Mudit Trivedi, Hemanth Kadambi, Supriya Varma","doi":"10.1177/09719458211060994","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09719458211060994","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42683,"journal":{"name":"MEDIEVAL HISTORY JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45816888","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-01DOI: 10.1177/09719458211052727
Eduard Fanthome
Current scholarship on medieval South India has developed a comprehensive account of the ways in which political claims were constituted by dynasts and their subordinates in a range of contexts, from imperial courts to provinces. It has elaborated the modalities of political claim-making through instantiations of politico-cultural traditions or ‘cosmopolises’, and the integrative processes and social changes associated with them. However, this scholarship largely focused on imperial capitals and secondary urban settlements, which constituted nodes in the political networks of polities and loci of contestation and integration within them. Regions in which cosmopolitan traditions did not inform political practice remain opaque to this historiography. This article investigates one such contest- the ‘contested’ Raichur Doab. It explores the politics of the production of a settlement- MARP-30 and the ways they were negotiated to constitute relations of inclusion and exclusion.MARP-30 is part of the multi-component site at Maski that during the period of MARP-30’s occupation does not evince evidence of cosmopolitan practices. Examining the constitution of socio-political relations in this context will expand our understanding of political practice in medieval South India to include practices inaccessible through texts and under-explored archaeologically, and yet typical of medieval South India given the political and social dynamism that characterize the medieval period.
{"title":"Politics Beyond Imperial Cores: Spatial Production in the Peripheries of Medieval South India","authors":"Eduard Fanthome","doi":"10.1177/09719458211052727","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09719458211052727","url":null,"abstract":"Current scholarship on medieval South India has developed a comprehensive account of the ways in which political claims were constituted by dynasts and their subordinates in a range of contexts, from imperial courts to provinces. It has elaborated the modalities of political claim-making through instantiations of politico-cultural traditions or ‘cosmopolises’, and the integrative processes and social changes associated with them. However, this scholarship largely focused on imperial capitals and secondary urban settlements, which constituted nodes in the political networks of polities and loci of contestation and integration within them. Regions in which cosmopolitan traditions did not inform political practice remain opaque to this historiography. This article investigates one such contest- the ‘contested’ Raichur Doab. It explores the politics of the production of a settlement- MARP-30 and the ways they were negotiated to constitute relations of inclusion and exclusion.MARP-30 is part of the multi-component site at Maski that during the period of MARP-30’s occupation does not evince evidence of cosmopolitan practices. Examining the constitution of socio-political relations in this context will expand our understanding of political practice in medieval South India to include practices inaccessible through texts and under-explored archaeologically, and yet typical of medieval South India given the political and social dynamism that characterize the medieval period.","PeriodicalId":42683,"journal":{"name":"MEDIEVAL HISTORY JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45733761","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-01DOI: 10.1177/09719458211055884
Mudit Trivedi
Do archaeology and history refer to the same real past? Their relationship has been understood primarily as epistemic, as one of the distinct techniques for knowing different aspects or epochs of the past. When archaeologies of more familiar, historical, medieval pasts are conducted, why do these accounts enthusiastically find and lose, provoke and distress, their specialist kin; or why do historiography and archaeography relate uneasily? This article argues that it is useful to think of archaeography and historiography as two sensibilities, two activities, and following de Certeau, as two operations. Each operation is governed by distinct protocols of generalisation, different aspirations of synthesis, distinct poetics that govern their texts and the account they wish to give of their subjects. Appreciating these differences, this article focuses on the foreclosures shared by both operations with reference to the tangle of the medieval. It asks, what comes to count as evidence and how, which questions arise and why, and what aspects of pasts termed medieval appear familiar, alien, or interesting. From these questions it builds an account of what archaeology can disclose about shared modern historicist commitments to the medieval and those uneasily kept out of its scenes. This article grounds these questions through an engagement with South Asian medieval historiography on the theme of settlement. First, through a genealogy of settlement it examines the reasons for the concept’s centrality to accounts of medieval life, (modern) politics and the state. Through examples drawn from research in Mewat, it examines what these commitments to thinking about settlement disable and enable, the questions its assumptions exclude. It demonstrates how archaeologies of settlement bring into view questions of anteriority, and how attention to spatial relations of remove and accrual reverse figure and ground in accounts of dwelling. In light of these disjoinders, it asks, must we continue to close our operations, to write our medieval, in the manner we do?
{"title":"Between Archaeography and Historiography: Unsettling the Medieval?","authors":"Mudit Trivedi","doi":"10.1177/09719458211055884","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09719458211055884","url":null,"abstract":"Do archaeology and history refer to the same real past? Their relationship has been understood primarily as epistemic, as one of the distinct techniques for knowing different aspects or epochs of the past. When archaeologies of more familiar, historical, medieval pasts are conducted, why do these accounts enthusiastically find and lose, provoke and distress, their specialist kin; or why do historiography and archaeography relate uneasily? This article argues that it is useful to think of archaeography and historiography as two sensibilities, two activities, and following de Certeau, as two operations. Each operation is governed by distinct protocols of generalisation, different aspirations of synthesis, distinct poetics that govern their texts and the account they wish to give of their subjects. Appreciating these differences, this article focuses on the foreclosures shared by both operations with reference to the tangle of the medieval. It asks, what comes to count as evidence and how, which questions arise and why, and what aspects of pasts termed medieval appear familiar, alien, or interesting. From these questions it builds an account of what archaeology can disclose about shared modern historicist commitments to the medieval and those uneasily kept out of its scenes. This article grounds these questions through an engagement with South Asian medieval historiography on the theme of settlement. First, through a genealogy of settlement it examines the reasons for the concept’s centrality to accounts of medieval life, (modern) politics and the state. Through examples drawn from research in Mewat, it examines what these commitments to thinking about settlement disable and enable, the questions its assumptions exclude. It demonstrates how archaeologies of settlement bring into view questions of anteriority, and how attention to spatial relations of remove and accrual reverse figure and ground in accounts of dwelling. In light of these disjoinders, it asks, must we continue to close our operations, to write our medieval, in the manner we do?","PeriodicalId":42683,"journal":{"name":"MEDIEVAL HISTORY JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41883296","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-01DOI: 10.1177/09719458211056147
Anne Casile
Instabilities of the monsoon climate system, along with alternating periods of severe dryness and wetness, are known to have punctuated and disrupted the lives of peoples and institutions across Asia during medieval times. As far as India is concerned, the topic has attracted little attention from historians and archaeologists. Did climatic variations play a determining role in societal changes in medieval times? The aim of this article is not to answer, but to raise and refine this question by calling for new interdisciplinary initiatives which would enrich our reading and understanding of the past and contribute different threads to the narratives of medieval history and archaeology. While doing so, it highlights two lingering ‘lacks’ underlying the well-established historiography: the lack of attention to nature, and thus to climate; and the lack of archaeology. Attention is then focused on recent advances in palaeoclimatology and in research linking climate and society, in which India is yet to find a substantial place. Finally, the article outlines prospects and openings for the study of the medieval past as it relates to the climate-water-society nexus, by presenting an ongoing project called MANDU exploring histories and archaeologies of the land-waterscapes of Mandu in Central India.
{"title":"Climatic Variation and Society in Medieval South Asia: Unexplored Threads of History and Archaeology of Mandu","authors":"Anne Casile","doi":"10.1177/09719458211056147","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09719458211056147","url":null,"abstract":"Instabilities of the monsoon climate system, along with alternating periods of severe dryness and wetness, are known to have punctuated and disrupted the lives of peoples and institutions across Asia during medieval times. As far as India is concerned, the topic has attracted little attention from historians and archaeologists. Did climatic variations play a determining role in societal changes in medieval times? The aim of this article is not to answer, but to raise and refine this question by calling for new interdisciplinary initiatives which would enrich our reading and understanding of the past and contribute different threads to the narratives of medieval history and archaeology. While doing so, it highlights two lingering ‘lacks’ underlying the well-established historiography: the lack of attention to nature, and thus to climate; and the lack of archaeology. Attention is then focused on recent advances in palaeoclimatology and in research linking climate and society, in which India is yet to find a substantial place. Finally, the article outlines prospects and openings for the study of the medieval past as it relates to the climate-water-society nexus, by presenting an ongoing project called MANDU exploring histories and archaeologies of the land-waterscapes of Mandu in Central India.","PeriodicalId":42683,"journal":{"name":"MEDIEVAL HISTORY JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48142118","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-01DOI: 10.1177/09719458211053686
A. Bauer
Definitions of ‘historical archaeology’ frequently imply the use of documentary sources to contextualise the archaeological record and aid interpretation of its content. In this article, I underscore the importance of a complementary process of using the archaeological record to enrich interpretations of epigraphical sources from the medieval Deccan. Going beyond others’ critical calls to evaluate how interpretations of these inscriptional sources are shaped by biases in research practices, I will suggest that the substantive content of politicised donative stelae on the Raichur Doab was related to shifting material contexts of agricultural land use and the dynamic assemblages of cultigens, soils and water that facilitated production during the period. By contextualising inscriptional records and donative practices within an archaeologically documented landscape of changing production activities, one has a stronger epistemological basis for evaluating the social and political significance of the inscriptional archive and the historiography that it affords. In this case, it allows for the re-evaluation of historiographical tropes of the Raichur Doab’s value as ‘fertile’ agricultural space and provides a richer interpretation of how newly emergent social relationships and distinctions evident in eleventh–sixteenth-century inscriptions articulated with landscape histories.
{"title":"Archaeological Context and Archival Content: Historical Archaeology and Medieval Period Donative Practices on the Raichur Doab, Southern India","authors":"A. Bauer","doi":"10.1177/09719458211053686","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09719458211053686","url":null,"abstract":"Definitions of ‘historical archaeology’ frequently imply the use of documentary sources to contextualise the archaeological record and aid interpretation of its content. In this article, I underscore the importance of a complementary process of using the archaeological record to enrich interpretations of epigraphical sources from the medieval Deccan. Going beyond others’ critical calls to evaluate how interpretations of these inscriptional sources are shaped by biases in research practices, I will suggest that the substantive content of politicised donative stelae on the Raichur Doab was related to shifting material contexts of agricultural land use and the dynamic assemblages of cultigens, soils and water that facilitated production during the period. By contextualising inscriptional records and donative practices within an archaeologically documented landscape of changing production activities, one has a stronger epistemological basis for evaluating the social and political significance of the inscriptional archive and the historiography that it affords. In this case, it allows for the re-evaluation of historiographical tropes of the Raichur Doab’s value as ‘fertile’ agricultural space and provides a richer interpretation of how newly emergent social relationships and distinctions evident in eleventh–sixteenth-century inscriptions articulated with landscape histories.","PeriodicalId":42683,"journal":{"name":"MEDIEVAL HISTORY JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44243481","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-01DOI: 10.1177/09719458211047082
Shobhna Iyer
Richard M. Eaton and Phillip B. Wagoner, Power, Memory, Architecture: Contested Sites on India’s Deccan Plateau. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017, Paperback, 422 pp. ISBN: 9780199477692
{"title":"Book review: Richard M. Eaton and Phillip B. Wagoner, Power, Memory, Architecture: Contested Sites on India’s Deccan Plateau","authors":"Shobhna Iyer","doi":"10.1177/09719458211047082","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09719458211047082","url":null,"abstract":"Richard M. Eaton and Phillip B. Wagoner, Power, Memory, Architecture: Contested Sites on India’s Deccan Plateau. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017, Paperback, 422 pp. ISBN: 9780199477692","PeriodicalId":42683,"journal":{"name":"MEDIEVAL HISTORY JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46258721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-11-01DOI: 10.1177/0971945820956583
R. Rajarajan
The pañcabhūtas convoked are pṛthvi ‘earth’, ap ‘water’, tejas ‘fire’, vāyu ‘air or wind’ and ākāśa ‘ether’. They are the five elements of nature in Hindu mythology. These are considered the abstractions of Viṣṇu (Figures 1–3, 6 and 10), Śiva (Figure 11) or Dēvī (Figures 7 and 15) as the case may be. Most virile among the five are ‘water’ and ‘fire’, the symbols of creation and destruction. Water from the Darwinian point of view is the creative force in which living organisms originate and survive. It is the sustaining principle, for example, the Mother feeding the child with milk as rain for the plant kingdom. Water is the symbol of destruction at the time of deluge, the mahāpraḷaya; cf. trees on the banks felled when rivers inundate (PTM 11.8.1). Fire creates when channelised through the oven; for example, Kumāra’s birth as also Mīnākṣī (Figure 16) and Draupadī emerging through yajñas. These ideas are best exemplified by the avatāras, aṃśāvatāras and other emanations of Viṣṇu. Śiva destroys the worlds by the power generated by his third eye (e.g., Sodom and Gomorrah in case of Biblical mythology), the God of Love, Kāmadeva symbolic of the seed of creation (Priapus in Roman mythology; Beard, 2008. Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town. London: Profile Books Ltd: 104, figure 36). We are concerned in this article with water as the creative and destructive force, an idea that is as old as the Vedic and Biblical times. The focus is on the Āḻvārs’ Nālāyirativviyappirapantam. The Biblical myth of ‘Noah’s Ark’ may be of value for inter-religious dialogue. Several hundreds of the Tamil hymns have something to say on the symbolism of water. We cite a few examples hereunder. The emphasis is on water and Viśvarūpa.
{"title":"Water, Source of ‘Genesis’ and the End Macro and Micro Viṣṇu in the Hymns of the Āḻvārs","authors":"R. Rajarajan","doi":"10.1177/0971945820956583","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0971945820956583","url":null,"abstract":"The pañcabhūtas convoked are pṛthvi ‘earth’, ap ‘water’, tejas ‘fire’, vāyu ‘air or wind’ and ākāśa ‘ether’. They are the five elements of nature in Hindu mythology. These are considered the abstractions of Viṣṇu (Figures 1–3, 6 and 10), Śiva (Figure 11) or Dēvī (Figures 7 and 15) as the case may be. Most virile among the five are ‘water’ and ‘fire’, the symbols of creation and destruction. Water from the Darwinian point of view is the creative force in which living organisms originate and survive. It is the sustaining principle, for example, the Mother feeding the child with milk as rain for the plant kingdom. Water is the symbol of destruction at the time of deluge, the mahāpraḷaya; cf. trees on the banks felled when rivers inundate (PTM 11.8.1). Fire creates when channelised through the oven; for example, Kumāra’s birth as also Mīnākṣī (Figure 16) and Draupadī emerging through yajñas. These ideas are best exemplified by the avatāras, aṃśāvatāras and other emanations of Viṣṇu. Śiva destroys the worlds by the power generated by his third eye (e.g., Sodom and Gomorrah in case of Biblical mythology), the God of Love, Kāmadeva symbolic of the seed of creation (Priapus in Roman mythology; Beard, 2008. Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town. London: Profile Books Ltd: 104, figure 36). We are concerned in this article with water as the creative and destructive force, an idea that is as old as the Vedic and Biblical times. The focus is on the Āḻvārs’ Nālāyirativviyappirapantam. The Biblical myth of ‘Noah’s Ark’ may be of value for inter-religious dialogue. Several hundreds of the Tamil hymns have something to say on the symbolism of water. We cite a few examples hereunder. The emphasis is on water and Viśvarūpa.","PeriodicalId":42683,"journal":{"name":"MEDIEVAL HISTORY JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0971945820956583","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44013019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: Vijaya Ramaswamy, ed., In Search of Vishwakarma: Mapping Indian Craft Histories","authors":"Jaya Menon","doi":"10.1177/0971945820956919","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0971945820956919","url":null,"abstract":"Vijaya Ramaswamy, ed., In Search of Vishwakarma: Mapping Indian Craft Histories. New Delhi: Primus Books, 2019, pp. x + 282. ISBN: 978-93-5290-839-4.","PeriodicalId":42683,"journal":{"name":"MEDIEVAL HISTORY JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0971945820956919","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46501813","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: Sabita Singh, The Politics of Marriage in Medieval India: Gender and Alliance in Rajasthan","authors":"Tanuja Kothiyal","doi":"10.1177/0971945820956918","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0971945820956918","url":null,"abstract":"Sabita Singh, The Politics of Marriage in Medieval India: Gender and Alliance in Rajasthan. New Delhi: OUP, 2019, pp. 291, ISBN: 019-949145-3.","PeriodicalId":42683,"journal":{"name":"MEDIEVAL HISTORY JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0971945820956918","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41733885","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-11-01DOI: 10.1177/0971945820959897
Yaaminey Mubayi
Situated in the arid heart of the Deccan, Daulatabad has been the centre of historic settlements dating back to the first millennium ad. Its geo-political significance lies in its location along sub-continental trade and pilgrimage routes, causing it to be named ‘Khadki’ or window to the south, a strategic position that prompted Mohammed bin Tughlaq to shift his capital from Delhi to Daulatabad. However, the reason for the continued relevance of Daulatabad as an important settlement is the paradoxical ability of human communities to access and manage water in an arid and inhospitable environment. From the water cisterns of the nearby Ellora caves to wells, baolis, tanks and talaabs, natural and man-made, the landscape burgeons with evidence of the human ability to salvage every drop of water, both underground and overground. Nowhere is this skill more ably demonstrated than in the hydrological works of Malik Ambar, an Abyssinian slave who rose to become the de facto ruler of the Nizamshahi dynasty in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries and is still recognised as a hero by the local community today. Much has been written about this remarkable personality, his origins in the Kambata region of Ethiopia, his travel to the sub-continent via the Arab slave trade, his rise to become the Vakil us Saltanat of the Nizam Shahis of Ahmadnagar and his legendary defence of the kingdom against Mughal expansion into the Deccan. This article, however, explores a less-known aspect of Ambar’s career, his role in constructing an extraordinary system of water management that enhanced the capacities of Daulatabad fort to enable it to support a large garrison and indeed, become a second capital of the Nizamshahi sultanate. Through site-based interactions and conversations with the local community, the personality of Malik Ambar as a local hero and his influence in the region has been reconstructed, enabling an interesting perspective of a historic personage ‘from below’.
{"title":"‘Malik Ambar ki Pipeline’: Reconstructing the Past Through Community Memories","authors":"Yaaminey Mubayi","doi":"10.1177/0971945820959897","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0971945820959897","url":null,"abstract":"Situated in the arid heart of the Deccan, Daulatabad has been the centre of historic settlements dating back to the first millennium ad. Its geo-political significance lies in its location along sub-continental trade and pilgrimage routes, causing it to be named ‘Khadki’ or window to the south, a strategic position that prompted Mohammed bin Tughlaq to shift his capital from Delhi to Daulatabad. However, the reason for the continued relevance of Daulatabad as an important settlement is the paradoxical ability of human communities to access and manage water in an arid and inhospitable environment. From the water cisterns of the nearby Ellora caves to wells, baolis, tanks and talaabs, natural and man-made, the landscape burgeons with evidence of the human ability to salvage every drop of water, both underground and overground. Nowhere is this skill more ably demonstrated than in the hydrological works of Malik Ambar, an Abyssinian slave who rose to become the de facto ruler of the Nizamshahi dynasty in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries and is still recognised as a hero by the local community today. Much has been written about this remarkable personality, his origins in the Kambata region of Ethiopia, his travel to the sub-continent via the Arab slave trade, his rise to become the Vakil us Saltanat of the Nizam Shahis of Ahmadnagar and his legendary defence of the kingdom against Mughal expansion into the Deccan. This article, however, explores a less-known aspect of Ambar’s career, his role in constructing an extraordinary system of water management that enhanced the capacities of Daulatabad fort to enable it to support a large garrison and indeed, become a second capital of the Nizamshahi sultanate. Through site-based interactions and conversations with the local community, the personality of Malik Ambar as a local hero and his influence in the region has been reconstructed, enabling an interesting perspective of a historic personage ‘from below’.","PeriodicalId":42683,"journal":{"name":"MEDIEVAL HISTORY JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0971945820959897","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45020464","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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