Provincial Kingdoms of Medieval India: Rulers and Capitals

The Delhi Sultanate reached its widest extent under Muhammad bin Tughlaq, and then came apart. Timur's invasion of 1398 left the throne at Delhi too weak to hold distant provinces, and one governor after another stopped sending revenue and began striking coins in his own name. The kingdoms that grew out of these breakaways are called the provincial or regional kingdoms of medieval India. Five of them are asked about again and again: Bengal, Jaunpur, Malwa, Gujarat and Kashmir. Each must be remembered as a set of four facts — the founder and the year, the capital, the greatest ruler with his title, and the year a Mughal emperor annexed it. The kingdoms matter for more than their politics. Freed from Delhi, they built in local styles, paid for literature in regional languages and gave shelter to poets, saints and craftsmen, so the provincial courts of the fifteenth century are where regional culture in north India takes shape.

Bengal

Bengal was always the hardest province for Delhi to govern, because the rivers made the march long and the monsoon made it slow; the Sultanate's own historians called it Bulghakpur, the city of rebellion. Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah united Bengal in 1342, founded the Ilyas Shahi dynasty and took the title Shah-i-Bangalah, ruling from Pandua. Firoz Shah Tughlaq invaded Bengal twice and failed to recover it both times. His successor Sikandar Shah built the Adina Mosque at Pandua, the largest mosque of medieval Bengal. Early in the fifteenth century power passed briefly to Raja Ganesha and to his son, who ruled as Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah after conversion. The high point came with Alauddin Hussain Shah, founder of the Hussain Shahi dynasty, whose reign from 1493 is called the golden age of medieval Bengal: Bengali literature was patronised at his court, and he was a contemporary of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Bengal finally lost its independence to Akbar in 1576, when the Karrani ruler Daud Khan was defeated.

Jaunpur

The city of Jaunpur on the Gomti had been founded by Firoz Shah Tughlaq in memory of Muhammad bin Tughlaq, whose personal name was Jauna Khan. In 1394 a eunuch noble, Malik Sarwar, was sent east with the title Malik-us-Sharq, the Master of the East, and from that title his line is called the Sharqi dynasty. Its greatest ruler was Ibrahim Shah Sharqi, under whom Jaunpur drew so many scholars that it was called the Shiraz of the East. The Atala Mosque, with its huge screen-like gateway and no minarets, is the best example of the distinctive Jaunpur style, and the Lal Darwaza and Jama Mosques followed it. Jaunpur was also a centre of Hindustani music and of Persian learning. Its independence was short: Bahlol Lodi defeated Hussain Shah Sharqi and annexed Jaunpur to Delhi in 1484.

Malwa

Malwa broke away in 1401 under Dilawar Khan Ghuri, with Dhar as his capital. His son Hoshang Shah moved the capital to the hill fort of Mandu, which he renamed Shadiabad, the city of joy. Hoshang Shah's tomb at Mandu is the first building in India faced entirely in marble, and Shah Jahan later sent his architects to study it. Mahmud Khalji I founded the Khalji line of Malwa in 1436 and fought a long war with Rana Kumbha of Mewar, who raised the Vijaya Stambha at Chittor to mark his victory. Mandu also holds the Jahaz Mahal and the Hindola Mahal. The last ruler, Baz Bahadur, is remembered with Rani Roopmati in Malwa's music and legend; Akbar's general Adham Khan defeated him and Malwa was annexed in 1561.

Gujarat

Gujarat was the richest of the five, because the ports of Cambay and later Surat carried the trade of the western Indian Ocean. Zafar Khan, a governor of Firoz Shah Tughlaq, declared independence in 1407 as Muzaffar Shah I. His grandson Ahmad Shah I founded the city of Ahmedabad on the Sabarmati in 1411 and made it his capital, building the Jama Mosque and the Teen Darwaza there. The greatest ruler was Mahmud Begarha, who earned that name by taking the two forts of Girnar and Champaner; he founded Mustafabad near Girnar and Muhammadabad at Champaner, and his reign saw the first armed clashes with the Portuguese off the Gujarat coast. Akbar annexed Gujarat in 1573, the year in which the famous stone screens of the Sidi Saiyyed Mosque at Ahmedabad were carved.

Kashmir

Muslim rule in Kashmir began in 1339 with Shah Mir, who took the title Shamsuddin and founded the Shah Mir dynasty. Sikandar Shah, who ruled at the close of the fourteenth century, is remembered by the harsh epithet Butshikan, the idol breaker. His son Zain-ul-Abidin reversed that policy completely and is the one ruler of Kashmir every exam asks about. Called Bud Shah, the great king, he abolished the jizya, invited back the Brahmins who had fled, had the Mahabharata and Kalhana's Rajatarangini translated into Persian, and brought artisans from Samarkand who established paper-making, shawl weaving, carpet weaving and wood carving in the valley. His court historians Jonaraja and Srivara continued the Rajatarangini. For this breadth of policy he is often called the Akbar of Kashmir. The valley was annexed by Akbar in 1586.

The five kingdoms at a glance

Why these kingdoms matter

Three results of this break-up are worth writing in an answer. First, architecture became regional: brick and terracotta with curved cornices in Bengal, bold arched gateways without minarets at Jaunpur, marble and airy pavilions at Mandu, and carved stone borrowed from temple craftsmen in Gujarat. Second, regional languages gained courtly support, Bengali at Gaur and Gujarati in Ahmedabad, while Persian remained the language of administration. Third, the wealth and the divisions of these kingdoms invited the Mughals, who annexed four of the five between 1561 and 1586 and so completed under Akbar the unification that Delhi had lost two centuries earlier.