Resistance and Resilience (1000 to 1700 CE)

Chapter at a glance

This History chapter covers 1000–1700 CE, a period the textbook describes as one of repeated invasions and wars, and also of the resilience of Indian civilisation. It looks at how kingdoms and communities resisted (wars, alliances, diplomacy, guerrilla tactics) and how society endured through Bhakti, temples and a strong economy.

Key ideas: resistance and resilience

Resilience is the backbone of resistance: leadership provides the cause, resilience provides the ability to endure. The period is a story of conflict and cooperation, not only invasion and resistance.

Timeline to remember

The textbook timeline marks Rudramadevī’s reign as “Kākatīya Queen” (1262–1289).

Resisting invasions (11th–13th centuries)

• From the mid-7th century Arab forces were repulsed by rulers in the Deccan, Malwa, Kashmir and Rajasthan. India’s farm surplus from fertile river plains was one reason for the invasions.
• In the 11th–12th centuries the Hindu Shāhis, Chandellas, Solankīs and Chauhāns fought the Turkish invaders. Gujarat, Malwa and Bundelkhand held out for about a century more; the Turks never conquered present-day Odisha or parts of Assam; peninsular India stayed free of Turkic control.
• The Delhi Sultanate (1206) centralised power through the iqta system (territories assigned to commanders instead of salaries), which raised the burden on peasants. Resistance came from the Yādavas (Devagiri), Kākatīyas (Warangal), Hoysālas and Rajput states; Rāṇā Hammīr took Mewar back around 1325.

Rajputs and Mughals (1500–1700)

• Akbar’s mansabdari system: mansab means rank; mansabdars held graded military-civil ranks, strengthening imperial control. Some Rajputs (the Kachhwāhas of Amber) cooperated through mansabs; others, like Mewar, resisted.
• Chittor (1567–68): Rāṇā Udai Singh resisted for over five months, then withdrew with his people to the Aravallis.
• Mahārāṇā Pratāp: fought at Haldighati (1576), then used guerrilla warfare in the Aravalli terrain and regained most of Mewar in the 1580s (Dewair, 1582). The Bhils gave crucial support with terrain knowledge, archery and guidance; Mewar’s coat of arms shows a Rajput and a Bhil warrior with Eklingji.
• Mahārāṇā Amar Singh resisted Jahāngīr’s attacks (1605, 1608, 1609). The Mughals finally made a treaty exempting Mewar’s ruler from personal attendance at court, recognising its autonomy.
• Poet Dursā Arhā praised Pratāp: horses unbranded, head unbowed; he never attended the Nauroz festival or the Jharokha Darshan.
• Other resisters: Kānhaḍa Deva (Jalore), Hammīra Deva (Ranthambore), Rāṇā Kumbhā (Mewar), Rāo Surjan Hāḍā (Bundi).

Regional powers that endured

The Ahoms of Assam (1228–1826)

Independent for almost six centuries. Their strengths were knowledge of Assam’s forests, rivers and monsoons, guerrilla tactics, alliances, the Paik system and a river navy of fast bāchārī boats. Clashes: Samdhara (1615); Mīr Jumlā took Garhgaon (1662) but King Jayadhvaj Singha renounced the treaty; Lachit Borphukan’s victory at Saraighat (1671) secured the Brahmaputra as a boundary.

Vijayanagara (from 1336)

Founded by Harihara and Bukkā near Hampi (“City of Victory”), protected by river and rocky terrain, to check the Sultanate in the south. Kumāra Kampana (Bukkā’s son) ended the Madurai Sultanate and reinstated deities at Kanchipuram and Srirangam. The empire peaked under Kṛiṣhṇadevarāya (died 1529), patron of Tirupati and the Vitthala temple, then fell after Talikota (1565) into Nāyaka kingdoms. Muthu Vīrappa Nāyak III of Madurai mocked the Mughal “royal slipper” ritual of submission.

Rānī Abbakkā Chowṭā of Ullal (Karnataka, reigned 1525–1570) defeated Portuguese naval forces.

Marathas and Swarājya

Chhatrapati Śhivājī (crowned 1674) championed swarājya (self-rule). Forts like Raigad and Sinhagad were bases for guerrilla warfare, safe retreats, fallback capitals, and centres of administration and justice, with water and armouries to survive sieges. Aurangzeb spent over two decades in the Deccan trying to subdue them. Gingee (Senji) Fort in Tamil Nadu became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2025.

The Sikhs

• Founded by Guru Nānak (late 15th century): one God, social equality, rejection of rituals.
• Jahāngīr ordered the execution of Guru Arjan Dev; Guru Hargobind was held at Gwalior Fort and set up the Akāl Takht (temporal authority). The mīrī–pīrī concept: Harmandir Sahib for spiritual (pīrī) and Akāl Takht for worldly (mīrī) authority.
• Aurangzeb ordered the execution of Guru Tegh Bahādur (1675). Guru Gobind Singh founded the Khalsa (1699). Later the Sikhs organised into armed misals, a network of confederacies.

The Jats

Farmers of the Ganga–Yamuna Doab, burdened by heavy taxes, rebelled under Gokul Jat (1669) and again in 1686 under the zamindars of Sinsani and Sogar. The Italian traveller Niccolao Manucci described their resistance.

Bhakti: resilience of the spirit

• Bhakti is personal devotion expressed in hymns in local languages, emphasising inclusivity, equality and simplicity. It began in peninsular India from the 7th century (Nayanars like Karaikal Ammaiyar, Alvars like Andal) and spread north from the 14th century; Rāmānanda bridged the two.
• Two streams: Nirguṇa (formless divine) and Saguṇa (divine with attributes).
• Why it was resilient: nām kīrtan (reciting the Name) did not depend on buildings that could be destroyed; satsang and sankīrtan (community singing) built solidarity. Chaitanya Mahāprabhu led public sankīrtan in Bengal to protest a Qazi’s restrictions.
• Works: Sankardev’s Kīrtana Ghosha; Tulsidas’s Rāmcharitmānas in Awadhi; Atukuri Molla’s Telugu Molla Rāmāyaṇam. Eknāth composed in Marathi.
• Women saints: Akkā Mahādevi (Karnataka) and Lāl Ded (Kashmir) as ascetics; Bahinābāi (Maharashtra) combined family life and devotion to Vithoba. Lāl Ded: “To learn the scriptures is easy, to live them, hard.”
• Devotees from diverse backgrounds: Raskhān (Braj; Prem Vāṭikā), Rahīm (Mughal commander, Kṛiṣhṇa poetry).
• In Rajasthan the Dādu Panth and Niranjani orders kept warrior ascetics who protected trade routes.

Also in this period: Akbar’s Sulh-i-kul (“peace with all”) policy in his later reign. Sufism, a mystical dimension of Islam, spread through silsilahs (Chishti and Suhrawardi under the Sultanate; Qadiriyya and Naqshbandiya under the Mughals) and khanqahs, using Hindavi and Bengali.

Temples: resilience of sacred sites

• Temples were economic hubs (land, employment, credit to farmers and merchants), centres of education and art (e.g. Bharatanatyam), and sources of political legitimacy. The Gajapatis of Odisha ruled as Rauta (deputy) of Jagannath; the Kachhwāhas of Jaipur on behalf of Govindadevajī.
• The Brihadeeswara temple at Thanjavur received huge donations; temple towns included Thanjavur, Kanchipuram and Puri.
• From the 11th century many temples were destroyed, but rulers, guilds and communities restored them. Examples: Kashi Vishwanath rebuilt by Toḍar Mal and Rājā Mān Singh (later demolished under Aurangzeb; the present temple was built by Ahilyābāī Holkar in 1780); Govind Devji temple, Vrindavan; Keshav Dev temple, Mathura (Vīr Singh Bundela).
• From the 16th century: “havelī temples”, built in narrow lanes and looking like houses, without tall shikharas, to avoid destruction (e.g. Jagat Shiromani Temple, Amer). Mahārāṇā Jagat Singh’s Jagdish temple in Udaipur is seen as a response to Shah Jahan’s Jama Masjid.

The economy: agriculture, trade and merchants

• Land revenue was the main state income. Under Alauddin Khiljī and Muhammad bin Tughlaq it reached as much as 50% of produce.
• Irrigation: rope pulleys, the Persian wheel; Vijayanagara invested in small-scale irrigation.
• Hunḍī: a bill of exchange, like a cheque, for large trades and safe long-distance remittance, run by sarrāfs (money-changers) and their agents (gumasthas).
• Caravans linked India to Central Asia; banjārās linked villages with towns. From the 13th century seaborne trade grew and India became central to the Indian Ocean network.
• Kṛiṣhṇadevarāya’s Amukthamālyadā urges good port management and fair treatment of foreign traders.
• From the 16th century the Portuguese, Dutch, English, Danes and French joined existing networks. Gujarati merchants and those of Malabar, Coromandel and Bengal thrived as traders, bankers, brokers and dubhaśhīs (interpreters). Vellalārs and peasant groups entered commerce, some learning Portuguese, French, English and Persian.

Questions to practise

1. Resistance and resilience are closely connected because: (a) resistance always involves warfare (b) resilience enables communities to endure and sustain resistance (c) resistance needs a large army (d) resilient societies avoid conflict. (b)
2. Why did some Rajput rulers negotiate alliances with the Mughals?
3. How did the Ahoms use geography to keep their independence?
4. What changes took place in temple architecture, and how do they show resilience?
5. “A tradition becomes more resilient when people can carry it with them.” Explain with examples from Bhakti.
6. Why was the hunḍī safer than carrying cash over long distances?
7. Map work: Kasahrada, Haldighati, Saraighat, Hampi (Vijayanagara), Raigad, Gingee, Amritsar.

Key takeaways

• Rajputs, Ahoms, Vijayanagara, Marathas, Sikhs, Jats and others defended their lands through military resistance, guerrilla warfare, terrain knowledge, diplomacy and alliances.
• Bhakti, temples and local languages preserved socio-cultural continuity.
• A dynamic economy (agriculture, irrigation, merchants, hunḍī, Indian Ocean trade) gave society the resources to endure.