Through the Eyes of Travellers: Perceptions of Society, Class 12 History

What Through the Eyes of Travellers: Perceptions of Society (c. tenth to seventeenth century) is about

Weightage: Themes in Indian History Part II carries 25 of the 80 theory marks; this chapter shares them with Bhakti-Sufi Traditions: Changes in Religious Beliefs and Devotional Texts (c. eighth to eighteenth century), An Imperial Capital: Vijayanagara (c. fourteenth to sixteenth century), Peasants and Zamindars and the State: Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire (c. sixteenth-seventeenth centuries). A separate 5-mark map question covers the map items of all three books.Source: CBSE History (027) syllabus 2026-27, course structure

Key concepts

Why travellers' accounts matter, and their limits

NCERT section Introduction

Why people travelled: for work, to escape disasters, as traders, merchants, soldiers, priests and pilgrims, or for adventure.

Why their accounts are useful:

• Coming from different social and cultural settings, they noticed everyday practices that Indian writers took for granted as routine.
• Subjects varied: court affairs, religious issues, architecture and monuments. For example, Abdur Razzaq Samarqandi, a diplomat from Herat, gave an important description of Vijayanagara in the fifteenth century.
• Some 'travellers' were Mughal administrators touring within the empire, interested in popular customs and folklore.

Limits:

• They generally recorded what was unusual, not the typical.
• Their observations were shaped by the contexts they came from.
• Many aspects of social life went unnoticed.
• Practically no travel accounts by women survive.
• The experiences of people from the subcontinent who travelled abroad are relatively unknown.

A key question for every account: who did the traveller write for? The answer differs from case to case.

Worked example

Why are the accounts of foreign travellers useful to historians of medieval India? Give two reasons and one limitation. (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Travellers from different cultures noticed everyday activities that local writers took for granted and did not record.
2. Their accounts cover varied subjects such as court life, religion, architecture, towns and trade.
3. Limitation: they recorded what struck them as unusual and saw through the lens of their own society, so their accounts can be selective or biased.

Answer: They record overlooked everyday life across many subjects, but they focus on the unusual and are shaped by the traveller's own background.

Al-Biruni: from Khwarizm to the Punjab

NCERT section 1.1 From Khwarizm to the Punjab

Life:

• Born in 973 in Khwarizm (present-day Uzbekistan), an important centre of learning.
• Knew Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and Sanskrit. He did not know Greek but had read Plato and other Greek philosophers in Arabic translation.
• In 1017, Sultan Mahmud invaded Khwarizm and took scholars and poets to his capital, Ghazni. Al-Biruni arrived as a hostage, came to like the city and lived there until his death at 70.

Interest in India:

• Not unusual: since the eighth century, Arabic translations had been made of Sanskrit works on astronomy, mathematics and medicine.
• When the Punjab became part of the Ghaznavid empire, contacts with local people created mutual trust.
• He spent years with Brahmana priests and scholars, learning Sanskrit and studying religious and philosophical texts, and probably travelled widely in the Punjab and parts of northern India.
• Travel writing was already an accepted part of Arabic literature, covering lands from the Sahara to the Volga.

Translator: he translated several Sanskrit works into Arabic, including Patanjali's work on grammar, and translated Euclid into Sanskrit for his Brahmana friends.

His objectives (Source 1): his work was meant to help those who wished to discuss religious questions with Hindus and to be a repertory of information for those who wished to associate with them.

Worked example

How did Al-Biruni come to develop an interest in India? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. He was taken to Ghazni by Sultan Mahmud in 1017; there he grew interested in India.
2. Sanskrit works on astronomy, mathematics and medicine had been translated into Arabic since the eighth century, so Indian learning was already known.
3. When the Punjab became part of the Ghaznavid empire, he spent years with Brahmana priests and scholars, learning Sanskrit and studying texts.

Answer: Brought to Ghazni, he built on a tradition of Arabic translations of Sanskrit works and used the Ghaznavid link with Punjab to study with Brahmana scholars.

The Kitab-ul-Hind

NCERT section 1.2 The Kitab-ul-Hind; 'Hindu' box

Features:

• Written in Arabic; simple and lucid.
• Voluminous, with 80 chapters covering subjects such as religion, philosophy, festivals, astronomy, alchemy, customs and manners, social life, iconography, laws, weights and measures, and metrology (the science of measurement).
• Distinctive structure in each chapter (generally): begin with a question, follow with a description based on Sanskritic traditions, and end with a comparison with other cultures. Some scholars link this almost geometric precision to his mathematical orientation.
• Probably meant for people living along the frontiers of the subcontinent.
• He knew Arabic translations and adaptations of Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit texts (fables to astronomy and medicine) but criticised how they were written and wanted to improve on them.
• Few people in India read him before 1500, though many outside India may have.

The word 'Hindu': derived from an Old Persian word used c. sixth-fifth centuries BCE for the region east of the Sindhu (Indus). Arabs called the region al-Hind and its people Hindi; later Turks called the people east of the Indus Hindu, their land Hindustan and their language Hindavi. None of these terms indicated religious identity at first; the religious meaning developed much later.

Worked example

Write a note on the Kitab-ul-Hind. (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Written by Al-Biruni in simple, lucid Arabic, it is a voluminous text of 80 chapters on religion, philosophy, festivals, astronomy, customs, social life, weights and measures, laws and metrology.
2. Each chapter generally begins with a question, gives a description based on Sanskritic traditions, and ends with a comparison with other cultures.
3. It was probably meant for people living along the frontiers of the subcontinent.

Answer: An Arabic encyclopaedic work of 80 chapters with a precise question-description-comparison structure, written for readers on the frontiers.

Al-Biruni and the Sanskritic tradition: barriers and caste

NCERT section 4. Making Sense of an Alien World; Source 5

Three barriers to understanding that Al-Biruni identified:
1. Language: Sanskrit was so different from Arabic and Persian that ideas could not easily be translated. He described it as a language of enormous range in words and inflections, using many names for one thing and one word for many subjects.
2. Differences in religious beliefs and practices.
3. The self-absorption and insularity of the local population.

Despite knowing these problems, he depended almost exclusively on Brahmanical works: the Vedas, Puranas, Bhagavad Gita, Patanjali, the Manusmriti and so on.

On caste:

• He looked for parallels: ancient Persia recognised four social categories (knights and princes; monks, fire-priests and lawyers; physicians, astronomers and scientists; peasants and artisans), so social divisions were not unique to India.
• He noted that within Islam all men were equal, differing only in piety.
• Following Brahmanical texts, he described the varnas as created from the head (Brahmana), shoulders and hands (Kshatriya), thigh (Vaishya) and feet (Shudra) of Brahman, though they lived together in the same towns, villages and houses.
• He rejected the notion of pollution: whatever becomes impure strives to regain purity (the sun cleanses the air, salt keeps the sea from pollution); otherwise life on earth would be impossible. Social pollution was contrary to the laws of nature.

Limitation: his picture was shaped by normative texts written from the Brahmanas' viewpoint. In real life the system was less rigid: the antyaja (born outside the system) were expected to provide cheap labour to peasants and zamindars, so though socially oppressed they were part of economic networks.

He was also sceptical: told of a wooden idol said to have lasted 216,432 years, he asked how wood could last so long in a damp place, ending, "God knows best!"

Worked example

Discuss Al-Biruni's understanding of the caste system. (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. He sought parallels in other societies, such as the four social categories of ancient Persia, to show social divisions were not unique to India, while noting that Islam regarded all men as equal except in piety.
2. He accepted the Brahmanical description of the four varnas, drawn almost entirely from Sanskrit normative texts.
3. But he rejected the idea of pollution as contrary to the laws of nature; his text-based view missed how the system worked in practice, for example the antyaja's inclusion in economic networks.

Answer: He compared it with Persia, described it from Brahmanical texts, but rejected pollution; his text-based view made it look more rigid than it was.

Ibn Battuta: an early globe-trotter

NCERT section 2. Ibn Battuta's Rihla

Background: born in Tangier, Morocco, into a respected family known for expertise in Islamic religious law (shari'a). Unlike most of his class, he valued experience gained through travel above books.

Before India: he left Tangier at 22, alone, 'as birds forsake their nests' (Source 2); made pilgrimages to Mecca and travelled in Syria, Iraq, Persia, Yemen, Oman and East African ports.

In India:

• Travelling overland through Central Asia, he reached Sind in 1333.
• Drawn by Muhammad bin Tughlaq's reputation as a generous patron of arts and letters, he went to Delhi via Multan and Uch.
• The Sultan made him the qazi (judge) of Delhi. Later he fell out of favour and was imprisoned; once the misunderstanding was cleared, he was restored.
• In 1342 he was sent as the Sultan's envoy to the Mongol ruler of China.

After Delhi: through central India to the Malabar coast; the Maldives (18 months as qazi); Sri Lanka; back to Malabar and the Maldives; Bengal and Assam; by ship to Sumatra and to Zaytun (Quanzhou) in China, travelling as far as Beijing; he decided to return in 1347 and reached home in 1354, about 30 years after setting out.

Hazards: journeys were slow (Multan to Delhi 40 days; Sind to Delhi about 50; Daulatabad to Delhi 40; Gwalior to Delhi 10) and dangerous: his caravan was attacked by robbers between Multan and Delhi and he was severely wounded. He also suffered fever and loneliness.

The Rihla: on his return, the ruler of Morocco ordered his stories recorded. Ibn Juzayy wrote what he dictated, a narrative meant to entertain and instruct with 'curious particulars' and 'marvellous things' (Source 3). His account is often compared with Marco Polo's.

Worked example

Why did Ibn Battuta go to Delhi and what happened to him there? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. He was attracted by Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq's reputation as a generous patron of arts and letters.
2. The Sultan, impressed by his scholarship, appointed him qazi of Delhi; later he fell out of favour and was imprisoned.
3. After the misunderstanding was cleared he was restored and, in 1342, sent as the Sultan's envoy to the Mongol ruler of China.

Answer: Drawn by the Sultan's patronage, he became qazi of Delhi, was imprisoned, then restored and sent as envoy to China.

Ibn Battuta and the excitement of the unfamiliar

NCERT section 5. Ibn Battuta and the Excitement of the Unfamiliar; Sources 6-10

By the fourteenth century the subcontinent was part of a global network of communication from China to north-west Africa and Europe. Ibn Battuta highlighted anything unfamiliar to impress his listeners with distant yet accessible worlds.

Strategies of representation:

• Coconut (Source 6): trees like date-palms; the nut 'resembles a man's head' with two eyes and a mouth, a brain-like inside when green and hair-like fibre, used for cords to sew ships.
• Paan (Source 7): the betel vine grown like the grape-vine, only for its leaves, chewed with areca nut and a little chalk.

He used comparisons with things his audience knew.

Cities: densely populated and prosperous, with crowded streets and colourful markets. Delhi was vast, the largest in India; Daulatabad rivalled it. Delhi (Source 8) had an unparalleled rampart eleven cubits wide with storehouses, 28 gates (darwaza), the Budaun darwaza the greatest, a grain market at the Mandwi darwaza, an orchard at the Gul darwaza, and a cemetery with domed graves and flowers.

Bazaars were hubs of social and cultural life, with a mosque and a temple and spaces for dancers, musicians and singers. At Daulatabad, Tarababad was a market for male and female singers (Source 9).

Economy: historians use his account to suggest towns drew wealth from village surplus. He found agriculture productive (two crops a year on fertile soil) and noted India's integration into inter-Asian trade: textiles (cotton, fine muslin, silk, brocade, satin) were in great demand; some muslins were so costly that only nobles and the very rich could wear them.

Communication (Source 10): inns and guest houses on trade routes; an efficient postal system let merchants send information, remit credit and dispatch goods. News reports of spies reached the Sultan from Sind in five days (against 50 days of ordinary travel).

• Horse-post (uluq): royal horses stationed every four miles.
• Foot-post (dawa): three stations per mile; runners with a two-cubit rod topped with copper bells handed the letter on; faster than the horse-post, and used even for fruits of Khurasan.

Worked example

How did Ibn Battuta describe the coconut to readers who had never seen one? Is the comparison effective? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. He compared the tree to the familiar date-palm, differing only in its fruit.
2. He compared the nut to a man's head: two 'eyes' and a 'mouth', a brain-like inside when green and hair-like fibre.
3. The comparisons are vivid and help readers picture it while stressing its strangeness, though the head comparison is impressionistic rather than exact; he also noted its use for cords to sew ships.

Answer: By comparing it with date-palms and a human head; vivid and memorable, if not botanically precise.

François Bernier: a doctor with a difference

NCERT section 3. François Bernier; 6. Bernier and the 'Degenerate' East

Other European travellers: after the Portuguese arrived about 1500, many wrote on Indian customs; the Jesuit Roberto Nobili translated Indian texts; Duarte Barbosa described trade and society in south India. After 1600 came Dutch, English and French travellers: the French jeweller Tavernier (at least six visits, interested in trade); the Italian doctor Manucci, who settled in India.

Bernier: a French doctor, political philosopher and historian, in India for 12 years (1656-1668); physician to Prince Dara Shukoh (Shah Jahan's eldest son) and later with Danishmand Khan, an Armenian noble. He travelled widely, including with the Mughal army to Kashmir (Source 4 lists his horses, camel, servants, tent and provisions).

His approach:

• Constantly compared India with Europe, especially France, focusing on what he found depressing.
• Dedicated his major work to Louis XIV and wrote letters to influential officials, aiming to influence policy-makers to make the 'right' decisions.
• Presented India through binary opposition, as the inverse of Europe, and ordered differences hierarchically so that India appeared inferior.

Circulation: published in France in 1670-71, translated into English, Dutch, German and Italian within five years; reprinted eight times in French between 1670 and 1725 and three times in English by 1684. Arabic and Persian accounts, by contrast, circulated as manuscripts and were generally not published before 1800. European travellers' books thus created an image of India for Europeans; later, Indians such as Shaikh Itisamuddin and Mirza Abu Talib who visited Europe after 1750 tried to correct it.

Worked example

Compare the perspectives from which Ibn Battuta and Bernier wrote their accounts. (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Ibn Battuta described everything that impressed and excited him because of its novelty, writing to entertain and instruct his audience with curiosities.
2. Bernier compared India with Europe, especially France, focusing on situations he considered depressing, and wrote to influence European policy-makers.
3. Ibn Battuta's tone is one of wonder; Bernier's is critical, using binary opposition to present India as inferior to Europe.

Answer: Ibn Battuta wrote with excitement about the unfamiliar for entertainment; Bernier wrote comparatively and critically to warn and influence Europeans.

Bernier on landownership and its influence

NCERT section 6.1 The question of landownership; Sources 11 and 12

Bernier's argument:

• The fundamental difference between Mughal India and Europe was the lack of private property in land; he believed the emperor owned all land and distributed it among nobles.
• Since landholders could not pass land to their children, they avoided long-term investment, so no class of 'improving' landlords emerged.
• Result, he claimed: ruin of agriculture, excessive oppression of peasants, and declining living standards for all except the ruling aristocracy.
• Source 11: much land was barren or untilled for want of labourers; peasants unable to pay rapacious lords lost their means of living and even their children (carried off as slaves), and abandoned the country.
• Indian society was an undifferentiated mass of poor people under a tiny rich ruling class: "There is no middle state in India."
• Source 12: a warning that if European kings followed the Mughal model, they would become 'kings of deserts and solitudes, of beggars and barbarians'.

Bernier was taking part in European debates on state and society, using Mughal India as a warning to those who did not see the merits of private property. The Dutch traveller Pelsaert similarly described stark poverty and blamed the state.

Why historians disagree:

• No Mughal official document says the state was the sole owner of land. Abu'l Fazl describes land revenue as 'remunerations of sovereignty', a claim for protection, not rent on land the ruler owned.
• Europeans may have mistaken it for rent because revenue demands were high; it was actually a tax on the crop.

Influence: Montesquieu used Bernier to develop oriental despotism (absolute Asian rulers, subjects kept in poverty, no private property). Karl Marx developed the Asiatic mode of production: the state took the surplus from autonomous, internally egalitarian village communities, a stagnant system. But rural society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was in fact highly differentiated: big zamindars with superior rights, big peasants using hired labour and producing for the market, small peasants at subsistence, and 'untouchable' landless labourers.

Worked example

Why do historians reject Bernier's view that the Mughal emperor owned all the land? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. No Mughal official document suggests the state was the sole owner of land.
2. Abu'l Fazl described land revenue as 'remunerations of sovereignty', a claim for protection rather than rent on land the ruler owned; it was a tax on the crop.
3. Rural society was highly differentiated (zamindars, rich and small peasants, landless labourers), which contradicts the picture of an undifferentiated poor mass under crown ownership.

Answer: Official sources contradict it, revenue was a tax on the crop for protection, and rural society was differentiated, not a uniform mass.

A more complex social reality: towns, artisans and merchants

NCERT section 6.2 A more complex social reality; Sources 13 and 14

Bernier's own descriptions sometimes contradict his picture of decline.

Contradictions:

• He said artisans had no incentive to improve because the state took profits, so manufactures declined; yet he conceded that vast quantities of the world's precious metals flowed into India in exchange for exported manufactures, and noticed a prosperous merchant community in long-distance trade.
• Source 13: Bengal surpassed Egypt in rice, corn, silks, cotton and indigo; artisans made carpets, brocades, embroideries, gold and silver cloth and silk and cotton goods; gold and silver from all over the globe were 'swallowed up' in Hindustan.
• Source 14 (imperial karkhanas): Bernier is perhaps the only historian to describe them in detail: halls for embroiderers, goldsmiths, painters, lacquer varnishers, joiners, turners, tailors, shoemakers, silk and muslin makers, working all day under a master; yet he says no one aspired to improve the condition into which he was born.

Towns: in the seventeenth century about 15 per cent of the population lived in towns, on average higher than in Western Europe at the time. Yet Bernier called Mughal cities 'camp towns', dependent on the imperial camp, rising when the court arrived and declining when it left. This was oversimplified: there were manufacturing towns, trading towns, port-towns, sacred centres and pilgrimage towns, showing the prosperity of merchant and professional classes.

Merchants: organised in caste-cum-occupational bodies; in western India called mahajans, headed by a sheth; in Ahmedabad the mahajans were represented by the nagarsheth.

Professional classes: physicians (hakim or vaid), lawyers (wakil), teachers (pundit or mulla), and also architects, painters, calligraphers and musicians; some had imperial patrons, many served other patrons or ordinary people in bazaars.

Worked example

Discuss the picture of urban centres that emerges from Bernier's account, and why historians find it oversimplified. (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Bernier called Mughal cities 'camp towns' that depended on the imperial camp, growing when the court arrived and declining when it left.
2. Yet about 15 per cent of the population lived in towns in the seventeenth century, more than the Western European average.
3. There were manufacturing, trading, port, sacred and pilgrimage towns, with mahajans, sheths, the nagarsheth and many professionals, showing independent foundations.

Answer: Bernier saw dependent 'camp towns'; the evidence shows a large, varied urban network with strong merchant and professional classes.

Women: slaves, sati and labourers

NCERT section 7. Women: Slaves, Sati and Labourers; Sources 15 and 16

Travellers were men, interested in and sometimes intrigued by women's condition; they often took social inequities as 'natural'.

Slavery (Ibn Battuta):

• Slaves were openly sold in markets and exchanged as gifts. In Sind he bought 'horses, camels and slaves' as gifts for the Sultan; at Multan he gave the governor a slave and horse with raisins and almonds. Muhammad bin Tughlaq gave a preacher, Nasiruddin, a hundred thousand tankas and two hundred slaves for a sermon.
• There was differentiation among slaves: some female slaves were experts in music and dance (he enjoyed their performance at the wedding of the Sultan's sister); the Sultan used female slaves to spy on nobles, with female scavengers entering houses unannounced to collect information.
• Most female slaves were captured in raids and expeditions.
• Slaves did domestic work and carried people in palanquins (dola); prices of female domestic slaves were very low, and most families who could afford it kept one or two.

Sati (Bernier): European writers highlighted the treatment of women as a marker of difference between West and East. Bernier noted some women seemed to embrace death cheerfully while others were forced. At Lahore he saw a widow of perhaps twelve, trembling and weeping, forced by Brahmanas and an old woman onto the pyre, her hands and feet tied, and burnt alive.

Beyond sati: women's labour was crucial in agricultural and non-agricultural production; women of merchant families took part in commerce, even taking mercantile disputes to court. So women were unlikely to have been confined to the home. Ordinary women workers drew little attention from travellers.

Worked example

Analyse the evidence for slavery provided by Ibn Battuta. (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Slaves were openly sold in markets and given as gifts: he bought slaves in Sind for the Sultan and gave one to the governor of Multan; the Sultan gave a preacher two hundred slaves.
2. Slaves were differentiated: some female slaves were skilled musicians and dancers, others were used by the Sultan to spy on nobles.
3. Most worked in households and carried palanquins; female domestic slaves were cheap, so most families who could afford it kept one or two.

Answer: Slavery was widespread and commercialised, with slaves as gifts, entertainers, spies and cheap domestic labour.

Through the Eyes of Travellers: Perceptions of Society (c. tenth to seventeenth century) in real life

Each concept, met in an everyday situation. Read the situation, answer the question in your own words, then compare with the model answer. The one-line hook is what to remember.

Topics in this chapter

• Al-Biruni and the Kitab-ul-Hind
• Ibn Battuta's Rihla
• François Bernier and Mughal India

Through the Eyes of Travellers: Perceptions of Society (c. tenth to seventeenth century): key facts

Three travellers

Al-Biruni (973-1048, Uzbekistan, Kitab-ul-Hind, Arabic); Ibn Battuta (1304-77, Morocco, Rihla, Arabic); Bernier (1620-88, France, Travels in the Mughal Empire)

Eleventh, fourteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Al-Biruni's languages

Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Sanskrit (not Greek)

Translated Patanjali into Arabic and Euclid into Sanskrit.

Kitab-ul-Hind structure

80 chapters; question -> Sanskritic description -> comparison with other cultures

For readers along the frontiers.

Al-Biruni's three barriers

Language; religious beliefs and practices; insularity of the local people

Yet he relied almost wholly on Brahmanical texts.

Ibn Battuta's journey

1. 1.Sind 1333
2. 2.Delhi (qazi)
3. 3.1342 envoy to China
4. 4.Malabar, Maldives (18 months), Sri Lanka, Bengal, Assam
5. 5.Sumatra
6. 6.Zaytun, Beijing
7. 7.home 1354

Left Tangier at 22.

Travel times (Ibn Battuta)

Multan-Delhi 40 days; Sind-Delhi about 50 days; Daulatabad-Delhi 40 days; Gwalior-Delhi 10 days; spy reports Sind-Delhi 5 days by post

Shows the postal system's efficiency.

Postal system

Uluq = horse-post every four miles; dawa = foot-post, three stations per mile, rod with copper bells

Foot-post faster than horse-post.

Delhi (Ibn Battuta)

Rampart eleven cubits wide; 28 gates; Budaun darwaza greatest; Mandwi darwaza grain market; Gul darwaza orchard

Daulatabad rivalled Delhi; Tarababad market for singers.

Bernier in India

1656-1668 (12 years); physician to Dara Shukoh; then with Danishmand Khan

Dedicated major work to Louis XIV.

Bernier's publication

France 1670-71; translated into English, Dutch, German, Italian within five years; 8 French reprints 1670-1725; 3 English by 1684

Arabic and Persian accounts unpublished before 1800.

From Bernier to theory

Bernier (crown ownership) -> Montesquieu (oriental despotism) -> Marx (Asiatic mode of production)

Contradicted by differentiated rural society and Abu'l Fazl's 'remunerations of sovereignty'.

Urban facts

About 15% urban in the 17th century (higher than Western Europe); mahajans, sheth, nagarsheth (Ahmedabad)

Bernier's 'camp towns' was oversimplified.

Other travellers (timeline)

Marco Polo	1254-1323
Abdur Razzaq	1413-82
Nikitin	in India 1466-72
Duarte Barbosa	visit 1518
Seydi Ali Reis	d. 1562
Monserrate	1536-1600
Mahmud Wali Balkhi	in India 1626-31
Peter Mundy	1600-67
Tavernier	1605-89

Timeline of the chapter.

How the board asks Through the Eyes of Travellers: Perceptions of Society (c. tenth to seventeenth century)

The question patterns to expect, and the method that works for each.

Tricks to remember Through the Eyes of Travellers: Perceptions of Society (c. tenth to seventeenth century)

Short memory aids. Say each one aloud once, then use it on a question the same day.

• Traveller sets

  "A-K-11, I-R-14, B-T-17": Al-Biruni Kitab-ul-Hind 11th century; Ibn Battuta Rihla 14th; Bernier Travels 17th.

  Use it when: Matching and chronology MCQs.

• Al-Biruni's languages

  "SAPHS": Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Sanskrit (no Greek).

  Use it when: MCQs.

• Kitab structure

  Q-D-C: Question, Description (Sanskritic), Comparison.

  Use it when: Note on the Kitab-ul-Hind.

• Three barriers

  "L-R-I": Language, Religion, Insularity.

  Use it when: 3-mark answers.

• Bernier to Marx

  B-M-M: Bernier (crown land) -> Montesquieu (despotism) -> Marx (Asiatic mode).

  Use it when: Long answers on Bernier's influence.

Through the Eyes of Travellers: Perceptions of Society (c. tenth to seventeenth century): board-level solved questions

Ordered from board level to HOTS. Cover the solution, write your own, then compare step by step.

Case-study practice (Section E style)

Read the situation, then answer every part. In the board paper this is a 4-mark question split into 1 + 1 + 2 marks.

Where the marks are

How a typical answer is split into step marks. Show every step: a right final answer alone rarely earns full marks.

Where students lose marks in Through the Eyes of Travellers: Perceptions of Society (c. tenth to seventeenth century)

The slips examiners see most often, and what to write instead.

• ✗Mistake: Mixing up the travellers' centuries and books

  Three travellers, three centuries, similar Arabic-sounding titles.

  Wrong working

  Al-Biruni wrote the Rihla in the fourteenth century.

  Right working

  Al-Biruni wrote the Kitab-ul-Hind (eleventh century); Ibn Battuta's Rihla is fourteenth century.

  ✓Do this: A-K-11, I-R-14, B-T-17: Al-Biruni Kitab 11th; Ibn Battuta Rihla 14th; Bernier Travels 17th.

  Usually costs: 1 mark per MCQ; accuracy in long answers.

• ✗Mistake: Accepting Bernier's crown-ownership claim as fact

  It is presented vividly in the sources.

  ✓Do this: Always add that no Mughal document supports it and that Abu'l Fazl called revenue 'remunerations of sovereignty'.

  Usually costs: 2-3 marks in a long answer.

• ✗Mistake: Saying Al-Biruni observed caste mainly by travelling

  Students assume travellers write from observation.

  ✓Do this: Say he relied almost exclusively on Brahmanical Sanskrit texts, which made his account normative.

  Usually costs: 1-2 marks.

• ✗Mistake: Reversing uluq and dawa

  Both are unfamiliar words.

  ✓Do this: Uluq = horse (every four miles); dawa = one-third mile, foot-post, faster.

  Usually costs: 1 mark.

• ✗Mistake: Comparing travellers by listing facts about each separately

  Students write two paragraphs instead of a comparison.

  ✓Do this: Compare point by point: purpose, audience, tone, method, reliability.

  Usually costs: 1-2 marks in a 3-mark comparison.

NCERT exercise guide: Through the Eyes of Travellers: Perceptions of Society (c. tenth to seventeenth century)

What each exercise in the NCERT chapter tests, how to approach it, and a question of the same kind solved step by step. Questions here are written in our own words.

Practice questions on Through the Eyes of Travellers: Perceptions of Society (c. tenth to seventeenth century)

Write each answer on paper first. Open the hint only if you are stuck, and the answer only when you have finished.

1. Q1 · 1 mark · MCQBoard level

   Al-Biruni arrived in Ghazni as:
   (a) an ambassador
   (b) a hostage
   (c) a merchant
   (d) a pilgrim

   Hint

   Sultan Mahmud invaded Khwarizm in 1017.

   Answer

   (b) a hostage.

2. Q2 · 1 mark · MCQHarder board level

   Which statement about Bernier is NOT correct?
   (a) He was physician to Prince Dara Shukoh.
   (b) He dedicated his major work to Louis XIV.
   (c) He described Mughal cities as 'camp towns'.
   (d) He believed India had a strong middle class.

   Hint

   'There is no middle state in India.'

   Answer

   (d) He said there was no middle state in India.

3. Q3 · 1 mark · MCQBoard level

   Arrange the travellers in chronological order of their time in or writing about India: (i) Bernier; (ii) Al-Biruni; (iii) Abdur Razzaq; (iv) Ibn Battuta.
   (a) ii, iv, iii, i
   (b) iv, ii, iii, i
   (c) ii, iii, iv, i
   (d) ii, iv, i, iii

   Hint

   11th, 14th, 15th (1440s), 17th centuries.

   Answer

   (a) ii, iv, iii, i.

4. Q4 · 1 mark · Assertion-reasonHarder board level

   Assertion (A): Al-Biruni disapproved of the notion of pollution.
   Reason (R): He argued that everything that becomes impure strives to regain purity, as the sun cleanses the air.
   Choose (a)-(d).

   Hint

   Social pollution contrary to the laws of nature.

   Answer

   (a) Both are true and R explains A.

5. Q5 · 2 marks · Very short answerBoard level

   What were the imperial karkhanas, according to Bernier? (2 marks)

   Hint

   Large halls for artisans.

   Answer

   Large workshops where artisans such as embroiderers, goldsmiths, painters, lacquer varnishers, joiners, tailors, shoemakers and silk and muslin makers worked all day under a master, returning home in the evening.

6. Q6 · 3 marks · Short answerHarder board level

   Name three travellers other than the main three who wrote about India, with one fact each. (3 marks)

   Hint

   Persian and European travellers.

   Answer

   Any three: Abdur Razzaq Samarqandi visited south India in the 1440s and admired a temple near Mangalore but found Calicut's people 'a strange nation'; Mahmud Wali Balkhi travelled widely in the 1620s and became a sort of sanyasi for a time; Shaikh Ali Hazin came in the 1740s and was disappointed; Duarte Barbosa described trade and society in south India; Tavernier, a French jeweller, visited at least six times and studied trade; Manucci, an Italian doctor, settled in India; Pelsaert, a Dutchman, described widespread poverty.

7. Q7 · 3 marks · Short answerHOTS / competency

   How did Bernier's own writings hint at a more complex social reality than his theory allowed? (3 marks)

   Hint

   Precious metals, merchants, Bengal.

   Answer

   Though he claimed manufactures were declining, he admitted vast amounts of the world's gold and silver flowed into India in exchange for exported manufactures; he noticed a prosperous merchant community in long-distance trade; and he described Bengal as surpassing Egypt in rice, silk, cotton and indigo, with artisans producing carpets, brocades and fine cloth. These contradict his picture of uniform ruin.

8. Q8 · 3 marks · Short answerHOTS / competency

   Why did ordinary women workers not attract the attention of travellers such as Ibn Battuta and Bernier? (3 marks)

   Hint

   Who travelled, what they recorded and why.

   Answer

   The travellers were men who recorded what was unusual or remarkable to their audiences, such as sati or slave dancers, while women's daily labour in fields and crafts seemed ordinary; they moved mainly among courts, nobles and towns; and European writers used the treatment of women as a marker of East-West difference, so they focused on dramatic practices. Yet women's labour was crucial in agriculture and crafts, and merchant women even went to court.

9. Q9 · 8 marks · Long answerHOTS / competency

   "Travellers' accounts are both a window and a mirror." Discuss with reference to Al-Biruni, Ibn Battuta and Bernier. (8 marks)

   Hint

   Window: what they show of India. Mirror: what they show of themselves.

   Answer

   Window: Al-Biruni explains Sanskrit learning, festivals, weights, caste; Ibn Battuta shows cities, bazaars, the post, textiles, slavery; Bernier describes the karkhanas, Bengal's fertility, peasants, sati and the army's march. Mirror: Al-Biruni's question-description-comparison method reflects his mathematical mind and his Persian and Islamic comparisons; his reliance on Brahmanical texts makes caste look rigid. Ibn Battuta's love of the marvellous and his audience's appetite for curiosities shape what he highlights (coconut, paan, Tarababad). Bernier's belief in private property and his wish to influence French policy produce binary opposition, 'camp towns', 'no middle state' and crown ownership, ideas later used by Montesquieu and Marx. Conclusion: historians must read each account for its context, purpose and audience, and check it against sources such as Abu'l Fazl and evidence of rural and urban differentiation.

10. Q10 · 3 marks · Short answerHOTS / competency

    Suppose a foreign vlogger spends one week in an Indian city and posts a video titled 'A land of wonders' focusing only on snake charmers and festivals. Using the chapter, what are the strengths and weaknesses of such an account? (3 marks)

    Hint

    Ibn Battuta's 'enjoyment of curiosities'.

    Answer

    Strength: like Ibn Battuta, an outsider notices things locals take for granted and records vivid details. Weakness: like many travellers, the vlogger highlights the unusual to impress an audience, so ordinary life (work, routine, women's labour) is missed; the picture reflects the visitor's background and purpose. It must be checked against local sources.

Test your recall

Answer in your head or on paper first, then open the card. Pulling an answer out of memory makes it stick far better than re-reading.

1. 1.Where was Al-Biruni born and when?Show answer

   In Khwarizm (present-day Uzbekistan), in 973.

2. 2.Who wrote down Ibn Battuta's dictated account?Show answer

   Ibn Juzayy.

3. 3.How many gates did Delhi have according to Ibn Battuta?Show answer

   Twenty-eight.

4. 4.What was Tarababad?Show answer

   A market for male and female singers in Daulatabad.

5. 5.What did Abu'l Fazl call land revenue?Show answer

   'Remunerations of sovereignty': a claim for protection, not rent.

6. 6.What did Bernier mean by 'camp towns'?Show answer

   Towns that depended on the imperial camp, rising when the court arrived and declining when it left.

7. 7.What proportion of the population lived in towns in the seventeenth century?Show answer

   About 15 per cent, higher on average than in Western Europe.

8. 8.Which Indians who visited Europe after 1750 tried to correct European images of India?Show answer

   Shaikh Itisamuddin and Mirza Abu Talib.

9. 9.What is metrology?Show answer

   The science of measurement.

Quick revision checklist

The night before the exam: can you do each of these without looking?

• ☐Can you give two strengths and two limits of travellers' accounts?
• ☐Can you summarise Al-Biruni's life and his translations?
• ☐Can you describe the Kitab-ul-Hind in four points?
• ☐Can you name Al-Biruni's three barriers and his view of pollution?
• ☐Can you trace Ibn Battuta's route from Sind to China?
• ☐Can you describe the uluq and dawa?
• ☐Can you list five features of Delhi from Ibn Battuta?
• ☐Can you explain Bernier's argument about land and why historians reject it?
• ☐Can you explain 'camp towns' and the evidence against it?
• ☐Can you analyse Ibn Battuta's evidence on slavery and Bernier's on sati?

Through the Eyes of Travellers: Perceptions of Society (c. tenth to seventeenth century): frequently asked questions