The Lotus and The Rose
Two invasions had a profound impact on India –the Aryans who gave
India Sanskrit and the Vedic religion and the Muslims who established Indo-Islamic
Culture. While the political impact may
have faded away, both cultures have seeped seamlessly into the daily lives of
Indians, both altering and being altered in the process.
Muslim expansion only took with it the Quran and Arabic, adapting
and developing the existing cultures they found. India was no exception. As
Reginald Massey puts it, the Lotus had met with the Rose.
Koine, a Greek word that means common or shared , is often used to
describe the cross fertilization of cultures in the Muslim world - soldiers and traders from different lands, combining
of languages and lifestyles. Urdu emerged from a mix of Turkish, Persian,
Arabic and now English, with a Sanskrit
grammar base.
Muslim invaders brought Islam to India, but, along with Islam,
they brought Chaghatai, Persian, and Turkic cultures, which soon blended with
local art and culture, much as the blue Kabul river eventually merges with the
mighty Indus.
With the current bad boy image of Islam, it is difficult to
acknowledge that Islam also brought secularism to India. Persian and Central Asian Islam was already
one removed from its Arab origins, and as Harbans Mukhia puts it, “Islam sat
lightly on the Mughals”, who were eager to explore and celebrate what India had
to offer.
Pre Islamic India had sophisticated administrative, philosophical
and artistic structures , all devotional in nature. The King was the shadow of Vishnu
with divine responsibility and authority. All art, architecture, music, drama
and dance , even gems, scents, and erotic art was devaloka – a plane of
existence where gods and devas exist in heavenly harmony. The King’s palace
could not be more lavish than the temple. The Gupta period of the 5th
century had advanced investigations into science mathematics, statecraft, the
arts, and established shastar or theories which became immutable traditions for
subsequent generations. Indian art had to “idealize and not rationalize”.
The discerning Muslim rulers recognized the potential of the
highly developed crafts and arts, divested them of their religiosity and
embarked on an aesthetic journey of exquisite elegance and style. Their cosmopolitan urbanism attracted visitors
and diplomats from all over the Muslim world, China and Europe, each adding new
knowledge.
Political rather than religious decisions determined
statecraft. Alliances were made and
rebellions crushed whether Hindu or Muslim. Some temples were destroyed while
others were venerated. Merit determined rank rather than religion. . Akbar
advised his son Danial:Mirza 'Judge the nobility of any one's being and great
lineage from the essence of his merit, and not from the pedigree of his
ancestors or greatness of the seed.'
The Mughals achieved compliance by the awe of cultural
grandeur. Abul Fazl's notes: 'when the
veil of reverence had been torn, they became rebellious'. The Court
established a code of akhlaq or etiquette
that filtered into society. Lavish clothing and accessories , zardozi, kamkhab,
chikankari , embroidery with silver and gold threads, exquisite shawls and
carpets, Mughlai cuisine spread to regional kingdoms. The Hindu festivals of
Holi, Dussehra and Diwali were celebrated alongside Eid, Nauroz
and Gulab Pash
Every aspect of court life was dispassionately documented starting with
Babar’s memoirs. Annemarie Schimmel writes “No other Muslim Empire has left so
much documentation” – from recipes to the behavior of elephants, magic, cloud
formations to matters of the court. Historiography changed from recounting
religious legend to documenting reality.
A new urban and secular poetry developed. Shahrashub poetry depicted city life of merchants, professions,
crafts, beautiful boys, and the worldly love of the saqi and mehboob. Sufis who flocked to India gave literary status to regional languages. Hindu
Bakhti or devotional poets experimented with the new forms of ghazal and
qasida. Amir Khusro in the late 13 C paved the way for Urdu
poetry which reached great heights in the 18th century, introducing the mushaira.
Amir Khusro is also credited with six musical innovations
including – qaul or qawali, khyal, and tarana in which only phonemes were used
rather than words, New musical instruments were introduced – tabla,
sitar, sarod, sarangi, shehnai, santoor. Yamani and kafi from Persia were incorporated
in the raga system by Amir Khusro. Kathak replaced religious themes with
movements depicting flowers, fruits, birds and animals, performed with variations of rhythm, dramatic pauses and pirouettes often using a
single piece of music called lehra. A
completely secular Art for Art’s sake
was born.
Lavishly decorated secular buildings became the hallmark of Muslim
empires – palaces, havelis, mausoleums, forts and gardens, some designed by the
women of the palace. Women contributed
to social cultural literary artistic and economic fields as well as politics.
Artists in Mughal India were expected to depict visual truth.
Portraits, flora and fauna, current political and social events were the themes
of miniature painting. The introduction of paper allowed experimentation in art,
brushwork and shading not possible in the earlier murals or palm leaf
paintings.
As Modi removes the Taj Mahal from tourism booklets in his mission
to ‘clean India’, does he remove Islam or secularism?
Durriya Kazi
October 29, 2018
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