(a) What were 'Brahmadeya' grants? How do you account for the large number of such grants in the early medieval period? (10…

(a) Brahmadeya grants and their proliferation in the early medieval period

A brahmadeya ("given to Brahmanas") was a grant of land, often a whole village, to one or more Brahmanas. Such grants were usually made in perpetuity and recorded on copper plates. They were exempt from taxes and carried rights to collect revenue and exercise local authority. In the north, similar settlements were called agraharas. In the Tamil country, brahmadeya villages were run by their own assembly, the sabha, whose working is described in Parantaka I's Uttaramerur inscriptions.

Why so many grants between the 6th and 12th centuries?

1. Legitimation: new ruling lineages, often of local or tribal origin, obtained Kshatriya status and genealogies from grateful Brahmanas.
2. Agrarian expansion: Brahmana settlements brought forest and frontier land under the plough, spread knowledge of the calendar and agriculture, and incorporated tribal peoples into caste society. B. D. Chattopadhyaya sees this as part of the integration of local areas and the formation of states.
3. Fiscal logic: R. S. Sharma links the grants to the decline of trade and coinage, which made land the natural means of payment.
4. Religious merit: gifts of land were valued as the highest dana.
5. Administration: Brahmana communities served as loyal nuclei of royal influence in the localities.

The grants were therefore instruments of politics and economy as much as acts of piety.

(b) Turkish garrisons and thirteenth-century urbanisation in North India

Mohammad Habib described the Turkish conquest as bringing an "urban revolution". The garrison explanation captures an important part of this, but not all of it.

Role of garrisons

• The Sultans stationed troops at iqta headquarters such as Lahore, Multan, Uchch, Hansi, Badaun, Awadh, Kara and Lakhnauti. Military qasbas grew around forts at strategic points.
• Iqtadars collected revenue in cash and spent it locally on soldiers, households and retainers. This created demand that drew artisans, merchants and service groups into these centres.

Other factors

• Monetisation: the standard silver tanka and copper jital, together with the collection of land revenue in cash, tied the countryside to urban markets.
• Crafts and technology: Irfan Habib notes the spread of paper, the spinning wheel and the carder's bow. Artisans who migrated from Central Asia to escape the Mongols also contributed.
• Trade: overland links with Khurasan and the ports of Gujarat and Bengal.
• Religion and culture: mosques, madrasas and Sufi khanqahs made towns centres of learning and pilgrimage.
• Continuity: many "new" towns were old centres revived.

Judgment. Garrisons supplied the nucleus and the initial demand. The towns lasted, however, because of revenue appropriation, monetisation, crafts and trade. The statement is valid only in part.

(c) The Chahalgani and political instability after Iltutmish

The Turkan-i-Chahalgani ("the Forty") were Iltutmish's Turkish slave-officers (bandagan-i-Shamsi). They were promoted to high office and large iqtas. After Iltutmish died in 1236, five of his descendants ruled within thirty years.

How the Forty caused instability

• Ruknuddin Firuz (1236): his misrule was used as a pretext by the nobles to depose him within months.
• Raziya (1236–40): she asserted personal authority and promoted the Abyssinian Jamaluddin Yaqut. Turkish nobles, including Altunia of Bhatinda, rebelled, and she was overthrown and killed.
• Muizzuddin Bahram (1240–42): the nobles created the office of naib-i-mamlikat to control the Sultan. When Bahram resisted, he was killed.
• Alauddin Masud (1242–46): he too was deposed by the nobles.
• Nasiruddin Mahmud (1246–66): real power passed to Ulugh Khan (Balban), a member of the Forty. Balban's rivalry with Imaduddin Rayhan and other nobles continued the factional struggle.

Qualifications. Other causes also operated: the absence of a law of succession, the ambitions of princes and queen-mothers, Mongol pressure on the north-west, and the resistance of Rajput chiefs. Peter Jackson also doubts that the "Forty" were a formal corporate body.

Still, the nobles' collective ambition drove the cycle of deposition. The instability ended only when Balban, himself one of the Forty, became Sultan (1266) and systematically broke their power.

(d) Rajput painting: Mughal in style, Rajput in content?

Ananda Coomaraswamy's Rajput Painting (1916) set the Hindu, lyrical Rajput tradition against the secular, naturalistic Mughal art. The statement softens that contrast. It holds true for some Rajput courts, but not for all of them.

Where it holds

• From the late 16th century, Rajput princes served at the Mughal court. Artists trained in the imperial atelier then worked at Bikaner, Amber, Bundi and Kota.
• These artists brought Mughal portraiture, shading, finer brushwork, naturalistic flora and fauna, and court and hunting scenes.
• The subjects nevertheless remained Rajput and devotional: Krishna-lila from the Bhagavata Purana and Gita Govinda, the Rasikapriya, Ragamala, Baramasa and nayika-bheda.

Where it does not

• Mewar kept bold flat colours, compartmentalised narrative and the indigenous "Chaurapanchasika" idiom. Sahibdin's Ragamala (1628) and his Ramayana illustrations of the mid-17th century are examples.
• Kishangarh developed an entirely distinctive idiom. Nihal Chand's Bani Thani, painted under Raja Sawant Singh (Nagari Das), has elongated faces, arched eyes and lyrical landscapes, which are not Mughal naturalism.
• The content was not purely Rajput either: darbar scenes, portraits and hunts were borrowed from the Mughals.

Judgment. Rajput painting was a creative synthesis. Mughal technique was absorbed selectively, in different degrees at each court, into a devotional and poetic content that remained Rajput.

(e) Rise of Maratha power in the eighteenth century

Within half a century of Aurangzeb's death (1707), the Marathas grew from a Deccan kingdom into the strongest power in India.

Causes

1. Mughal decline: wars of succession, factional nobles and the jagirdari crisis created a power vacuum that the Marathas exploited.
2. Peshwa leadership: Balaji Vishwanath (Peshwa from 1713) helped the Sayyid brothers in Delhi. In return, in 1719, he secured imperial sanads for chauth and sardeshmukhi over the six Deccan subas and recognition of Shahu's swarajya.
3. Northward expansion: Baji Rao I (1720–40) defeated the Nizam at Palkhed (1728), overran Malwa, Gujarat and Bundelkhand, raided Delhi (1737), and forced the Nizam to cede Malwa after the battle of Bhopal (1738).
4. Confederacy: Sindhia, Holkar, Gaikwad and the Bhonsles of Nagpur carved out regions while acknowledging the Peshwa. This multiplied Maratha reach: Raghuji Bhonsle obtained Odisha revenues from Alivardi Khan (1751), and the Marathas reached Attock (1758).
5. Military and fiscal system: fast light cavalry and guerrilla tactics suited the Deccan terrain. Chauth and sardeshmukhi drew tribute without direct administration.

The defeat at Panipat (1761) checked but did not end this rise. Under Madhav Rao I and Mahadji Sindhia, the Marathas again dominated Delhi. Their rise came from an opportunistic exploitation of Mughal decline, combined with effective Peshwa leadership and a flexible confederate structure.