Indian Antiquary Vol 51

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 213

NOVEMBRD, 1922)
THE ADVENT OF ISLAM INTO SOUTHERN INDIA
200
THE ADVENT OF ISLAM INTO SOUTHERN INDIA.
(4 Recent Investigation.)
BY SIR RICHARD TEMPLE, BT. Tre appearance of another of Professor Krishnaswami Aiyangar's valuable and wel. some historical works has induced me to construct an article out of what I had intended to be a review, in order to draw general attention to the importance of investigating the history of South India, which has only to be better and more widely known to prove it to be as interesting and notable as that of the North, Indeed, the modern investigator is, I observe, Beginning to grasp that it is not possible to understand India as a whole, in any aspect of its history, without an adequate knowledge of the part played in it by the South. This parti. cular book deals with South India and her Muhammadan invadersi-a period and a subject about which too much authentic detail cannot for the present be forthcoming, as so much is still required before anything like a reliable general history can be written. The volume consists of the reprint of six lectures, together with what are really five appendices on certain details, all valuable.
The first two lectures deal with the conditions of Hindu South India in and before the thirteenth century A.D., from original sources, and the last four with the Muhammadan incursions of the Dakhan and further South under the Khiljis (Prof. Krishnaswami writes both Khaljis and Khiljis) and the Tughlaks, and also with the fourteenth century Muhammadan Kingdoms in the Dakhan and South India. These are followed by a series of geographioal notes of extraordinary importance, as they concern identifications of the very obscure placenames used by contemporary or early Musalman writers and are the product of a widely. read general scholar, possessing an intimate knowledge of the archaic forms of his own language and of the geography of his own country acquired by personal travel. These notes can never be neglected by anyone examining the historical geography of the Extreme South of the Indian Peninsula. Of the Appendices, that which deals with the Travels of Ibn Batuta is a translation by Miss Ida Gunther, B.A., Lecturer in Queen Mary's College for Women, Madras, from vol. IV of the French edition of Ibn Batuta by Messrs. C. Defrémery and B.L. Sanguinetti. It is a useful appendix to such a volume as this, but it is marred by an irregular transliteration or transcription of the Arabic names of men and places. There is also an "additional special note" on the nationality of th3 Khiljis, who, it has been claimed, were more Afghans than Turks. I am glad to see that Professor Krishnaswami comes practically to the conclusion that they were of Turki origin from people settled in Afghanistan. I have always personally held them to be Turki.
Having thus generally described the book, I propose to look into the principal part of it--the Mubammadan invasions. The first point to notice is that the earliest were of the peaceful variety, owing to an enlightened polioy pursued by the Hindu Rulers of both coasts to the Southward, which gave special protection to overseas traders and settlers, so that by the end of the thirteenth century A.D. flourishing Arab and Musulman communi. ties arose on the East Coromandel Coast from Motu palli at the mouth of the Krishna to Kayal at the mouth of Tamraparni, whence the name of Ma'abar, the Passage' for that Coast. Kayal became the chief port for the great trade in horses established by the celebrated Arab chief Jamaluddin of Kish, farmer-general of Fårs (Persia proper), known to fame as the Maliku'l-Islam, working through his brother Takîu'ddin'Abdu'r Rahman, bin Muhammadu'thThaibt, generally known as the Marzabån. But Ma'abar extended as an appellation 4
1 South India and her Muhammadan Invadors, by Prof. 8. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, M.A., Univor nity of Madrma. Humphrey Milford: Oxford University Press, 1991