Culture from the 13th to 17th centuries: music, painting and crafts, food and textiles, gardens, women rulers and poets, travellers and the Kerala School of mathematics.
Key ideas
Music grew in many styles: Tansen sang at Akbar’s court, dhrupad was revived at Gwalior, and Purandaradasa is called the father of Carnatic music.
Amir Khusrau wrote in Persian and Hindavi and is called the father of Urdu literature.
Crafts included pattachitra painting on cloth and zari or zardozi embroidery in gold and silver thread.
Dishes like the samosa and jalebi came from Persian originals and changed in India.
Gardens were laid out as charbaghs, in four parts divided by water channels.
Razia Sultan was the only woman to rule the Delhi Sultanate.
In the Kerala School, Madhava worked out series for π and trigonometry, and Nilakantha Somayaji proposed a planetary model in 1500.
A GI tag protects the name of a product linked to a region, like Banaras brocade.
Remember
Tansen
musician at Akbar’s court
Dhrupad
revived at Gwalior under Raja Mansingh Tomar
Pattachitra
patta = cloth, chitra = picture
Pashmina / Banaras
Kashmir and Ladakh / brocade saris
Nishat Bagh
Mughal garden at Srinagar
Nilakantha Somayaji
planetary model, 1500 (Copernicus 1543)
GI tag
Geographical Indication: protects a regional product’s name
Watch out
Mixing up the musicians: Tansen (Akbar’s court) and Purandaradasa (Carnatic music).
Thinking a GI tag is a quality mark: it protects a product’s regional name.
Subtracting the wrong way round when comparing 1500 and 1543.
Worked example
According to the chapter, Nilakantha Somayaji proposed his model in 1500 and Copernicus in 1543. (a) How many years earlier was Nilakantha? (b) How many years before 1815 was 1500?