Describe the process of manuscript production in the Mughal court.
Process of manuscript production in the Mughal court included the following:
(a)Paper-maker’s responsibility was to prepare the folios of the manuscript.
(b)Skill writer, i.e. scribes or calligrapher copied the texts.
(c)Guilders, illuminated the pages of the manuscript.
(d)Miniature painter illustrated the scene from the text.
(e)The book binders gathered the folio and gave it to the original shape of a book.
What were the distinctive features of the Mughal nobility? How was their relationship with the emperor shaped?
Discuss, with examples, the distinctive features of Mughal chronicles.
What were the concerns that shaped Mughal policies and attitudes towards regions outside the subcontinent?
Discuss the major features of Mughal provincial administration. How did the centre control the provinces?
Identify the elements that went into the making of the Mughal ideal of kingship.
Assess the role played by women of the imperial household in the Mughal Empire.
In what ways would the daily routine and special festivities associated with the Mughal court have conveyed a sense of the power of the emperor?
To what extent do you think the visual material presented in this chapter corresponds with Abu’l Fazl’s description of the taswir (Source 1)?
Write a note on the Kitab-ul-Hind.
What have been the methods used to study the ruins of Hampi over the last two centuries? In what way do you think they would have complemented the information provided by the priests of the Virupaksha temple?
What are the problems in using the Ain as a source for reconstructing agrarian history? How do historians deal with this situation?
Explain with examples what historians mean by the integration of cults.
Compare and contrast the perspectives from which Ibn Battuta and Bernier wrote their accounts of their travels in India.
How were the water requirements of Vijayanagara met?
To what extent is it possible to characterise agricultural production in the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries as subsistence agriculture? Give reasons for your answer.
To what extent do you think the architecture of mosques in the subcontinent reflects a combination of universal ideals and local traditions?
Discuss the picture of urban centres that emerges from Bernier’s account.
What do you think were the advantages and disadvantages of enclosing agricultural land within the fortified area of the city?
Choose any two of the religious teachers/thinkers/saints mentioned in this chapter, and find out more about their lives and teachings. Prepare a report about the area and the times in which they lived, their major ideas, how we know about them, and why you think they are important.
What have been the methods used to study the ruins of Hampi over the last two centuries? In what way do you think they would have complemented the information provided by the priests of the Virupaksha temple?
What were the elements of the practice of sati that drew the attention of Bernier?
Compare and contrast the perspectives from which Ibn Battuta and Bernier wrote their accounts of their travels in India.
Discuss whether the term “royal centre” is an appropriate description for the part of the city for which it is used.
Discuss the ways in which the Alvars, Nayanars and Virashaivas expressed critiques of the caste system.
Explain with examples what historians mean by the integration of cults.
On an outline map of the world mark the countries visited by Ibn Battuta. What are the seas that he may have crossed?
Write a note on the Kitab-ul-Hind.
Read any five of the sources included in this chapter and discuss the social and religious ideas that are expressed in them.