🃏 Glossary

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Alvars and Nayanars — Leaders of some of the earliest bhakti movements (c. sixth century) in Tamil Nadu — devotees of Vishnu and of Shiva — who sang hymns in Tamil.

Amara-nayaka — Vijayanagara's military commanders who governed territories and collected taxes; the system probably borrowed from the Delhi Sultanate's iqta system.

Chaitya — A hall for worship; rock-cut chaitya halls with an apsidal, vaulted roof are found at Ajanta, Pitalkhora and Bhaja.

Damin-i-Koh — Land in the Rajmahal hills demarcated by 1832 for the Santhals, who were to settle there as plough cultivators.

Dargah — The tomb-shrine of a Sufi shaikh (a Persian word meaning ‘court’), which became a centre of devotion and pilgrimage.

Dhamma mahamatta — Special officers appointed by Asoka to spread the message of dhamma.

Dharmasutras and Dharmashastras — Sanskrit texts, from c. 500 BCE, setting out social norms; the most important is the Manusmriti.

Epigraphy — The study of inscriptions.

Gotra — A Brahmanical way of classifying people (from c. 1000 BCE), each gotra named after a Vedic seer; members of the same gotra could not marry.

Instrument of Accession — The document by which a princely state's ruler agreed to become part of the Union of India.

Jagir — An assignment of revenue — the way most Mughal mansabdars were paid.

Jangal — Dense forest — in Mughal times huge swathes of it, or of scrubland (kharbandi), covered eastern, central and peninsular India.

Jati — Another term for social categories: while there were four varnas, the number of jatis was not fixed and kept growing.

Jhum cultivation — Shifting cultivation on small forest patches, cleared by cutting treetops and burning the vegetation.

Khanqah — A Sufi hospice, controlled by a teaching master (shaikh, pir or murshid), around which Sufi communities were organised.

Linguistic states — States drawn to reflect the boundaries of languages, following the States Reorganisation Commission — the basis of the States Reorganisation Act of 1956.

Lost-wax casting (cire-perdu) — A way of casting metal images, known since the Indus Valley — the ‘Dancing Girl’ of Mohenjodaro was made this way.

Mahajanapadas — The sixteen early states of the sixth century BCE, an age of early states, cities, iron and the first coins.

Mahalwari — A revenue system (from 1822) in which revenue was fixed village by village (mahal) and collected by the village headman.

Mansabdari — The Mughal military-cum-bureaucratic system of ranks (mansabs) that ran civil and military affairs.

Nagara, Dravida and Vesara — The two broad orders of Hindu temples — Nagara in the north, Dravida in the south — and Vesara, a style mixing the two.

Numismatics — The study of coins — their scripts and images, the metal they are made of, and where they are found.

Objectives Resolution — The resolution Nehru moved in the Constituent Assembly on 13 December 1946, setting out the vision of the Constitution.

Periplus — A Greek word meaning ‘sailing around’ — the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, by an anonymous Greek sailor, describes trade on India's coasts.

Permanent Settlement — From 1793, the East India Company fixed the revenue each Bengal zamindar had to pay; estates of those who failed to pay were auctioned.

Peshkash — A form of tribute collected by the Mughal state.

Pietra dura — Inlay of coloured stones used to decorate the walls of Indo-Islamic buildings, along with mosaic, calligraphy and jalis.

Prashasti — A composition in praise of a king or patron, written by a poet — like Harishena's Prayaga Prashasti for Samudragupta.

Purna Swaraj — Complete independence — the Congress's declared goal; ‘Independence Day’ was first observed on 26 January 1930.

Raiyat — The term Mughal-era Indo-Persian sources most often used for a peasant.

Rihla — Ibn Battuta's book of travels, written in Arabic, rich in detail on fourteenth-century life in the subcontinent.

Ryotwari — A revenue system, as in the Bombay Deccan, in which revenue was settled directly with the ryot (cultivator).

Sangam literature — Anthologies of early Tamil poems (c. first century CE) such as the Puranaruru, describing chiefs, bards and village life.

Sangha — The Buddhist monastic order; its rules are in the Vinaya Pitaka.

Satyagraha — The technique of non-violent protest that Mahatma Gandhi first forged in South Africa.

Shreni — A guild of craft producers and merchants, which probably procured raw materials, regulated production and sold the finished goods.

Subsidiary Alliance — An alliance under which a ruler disbanded his own army, let British troops be stationed in his state and acted on the British Resident's advice — imposed on Awadh in 1801.

Tipitaka — The ‘three baskets’ of Buddhist texts, first passed on orally and later written down.

Union, State and Concurrent lists — The three lists dividing subjects between the Centre and the states in the Constitution; more items were placed under the Union than in other federations.

Vachana — A devotional composition of the Virashaiva (Lingayat) tradition, like those of Basavanna questioning empty ritual.

Varna — The four categories of society named in the Dharmasutras and Dharmashastras, each with prescribed occupations.

Zamindar — A rural magnate: the Ain-i Akbari records how the Mughal state regulated its relationship with the zamindars.