Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-s22k5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-12T09:22:52.492Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

22 - South Asia and the Mongol Empire

from Volume I Part 4 - External Histories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

By
Tansen Sen
Edited by
Michal Biran  and
Hodong Kim
Michal Biran
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hodong Kim
Affiliation:
Seoul National University
Get access

Summary

Although the Mongols constantly threatened South Asia, and despite the fact that Changhadaid raids led to a brief occupation of Delhi, much of the subcontinent remained free from Mongol subjugation. The region’s engagement with the Mongol world of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was multilayered and complicated. It involved military skirmishes and diplomatic exchanges with multiple Mongol khanates; the circulation of people, knowledge, and technologies; extensive commercial exchanges; and cultural exchanges associated with Buddhism and Islam. This chapter focuses on several facets of these encounters and interactions in order to demonstrate the intricate links between South Asia and the various Mongol khanates that significantly contributed to transforming Eurasian connections through both overland and maritime routes.

Keywords

Delhi SultanateJalāl al-DinTemürMarco PoloIbn BaṭṭūṭaMa’barKollamBuddhismmaritime trade
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire , pp. 827 - 851
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahmad, Aziz. 1961. “Mongol Pressure in an Alien Land.” CAJ 6: 82–93.Google Scholar
Ahmad, Aziz 1979. “Conversion to Islam in the Valley of Kashmir.” CAJ 23: 3–18.Google Scholar
Akasoy, Anna. 2013. “The Buddha and the Straight Path: Rashīd al-Dīn’s Life of the Buddha. Islamic Perspectives.” In Akasoy, Burnett, and Yoeli-Tlalim 2013, 173–96.Google Scholar
Akasoy, Anna, Burnett, Charles, and Yoeli-Tlalim, Ronit, eds. 2010. Islam and Tibet: Interactions along the Musk Routes. Farnham and Burlington.Google Scholar
Akasoy, Anna, Burnett, Charles, and Yoeli-Tlalim, Ronit 2013. Rashīd al-Dīn: Agent and Mediator of Cultural Exchanges in Ilkhanid Iran. London and Turin.Google Scholar
Allsen, Thomas T. 2002. Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Allsen, Thomas T. 2019. The Steppe and the Sea: Pearls in the Mongol Empire. Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Amitai-Preiss, Reuven, and Morgan, David O., eds. 1999. The Mongol Empire and Its Legacy. Leiden.Google Scholar
Azad, Arezou. 2010. “Three Rock-Cut Cave Sites in Iran and Their Ilkhanid Buddhist Aspects Reconsidered.” In Akasoy, Burnett, and Yoeli-Tlalim 2010, 209–30.Google Scholar
Baṭṭuṭa/Gibb. See Abbreviations.Google Scholar
Biran, Michal. 1977. The Mongol World Empire, 1206–1370. London.Google Scholar
Biran, Michal 2002. “The Chaghadaids and Islam: The Conversion of Tarmashirin Khan (1331–34).” JAOS 122.4: 742–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biran, Michal 2008. “Diplomacy and Chancellery Practices in the Chagataid Khanate: Some Preliminary Remarks.” Oriente Moderno, new series 88.2: 369–93.Google Scholar
Biran, Michal 2013. Qaidu and the Rise of the Independent Mongol State in Central Asia. New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brend, Barbara. 2003. Perspectives on Persian Painting: Illustrations of Amir Khusrau’s Khamsah. New York.Google Scholar
Buell, Paul D. 2010. “Tibetans, Mongols and the Fusion of Eurasian Cultures.” In Akasoy, Burnett, and Yoeli-Tlalim 2010, 189–208.Google Scholar
Canby, Sheila R. 1993. “Depictions of Buddha Sakyamuni in the Jami’ al-Tavarikh and the Majma’ al-Tavarikh.” Muqarnas 10: 299–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chakravarti, Ranabir. 1999. “Early Medieval Bengal and the Trade in Horses: A Note.” JESHO 42.2: 194–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chaudhuri, K. N. 1990. Asia before Europe: Economy and Civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750. Cambridge.Google Scholar
CHC6. See Abbreviations.Google Scholar
Gaohua, Chen 陳高華. 1980. “Yindu Mabaer wangzi Bohali lai Hua xinkao 印度馬八兒王子孛哈里來華新考” (New Examination of the Arrival in China of the Prince Bohali of Maʿbar). Nankai xuebao 南開學報 4: 70–73.Google Scholar
CHI5. See Abbreviations.Google Scholar
Deyell, John S. 1990. Living without Silver: The Monetary History of Early Medieval North India. Oxford and New Delhi.Google Scholar
Deyell, John S. 2010. “Cowries and Coins: The Dual Monetary System of the Bengal Sultanate.” Indian Economic and Social History 47.1: 63–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Digby, Simon. 1982. “The Maritime Trade of India.” In The Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. 1, c. 1200–c. 1750, ed. Raychaudhuri, Tapan and Habib, Irfan, 125–59. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Digby, Simon 2004. “Before Timur Came: Provincialization of the Delhi Sultanate through the Fourteenth Century.” JESHO 47.3: 298–356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yuming, Duan 段玉明. 2007. Zhikong: Zuihou yiwei lai Hua de Yindu gaoseng 指空—最後一位來華的印度高僧 (Zhikong: The Last Eminent Indian Monk to Come to China). Chengdu.Google Scholar
Dunn, Ross E. 1986. The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the 14th Century. Berkeley.Google Scholar
Dziwenka, Ronald James. 2010. “‘The Last Light of Indian Buddhism’: The Monk Zhikong in 14th Century China and Korea.” PhD dissertation, University of Arizona.Google Scholar
Eaton, Richard M. 1978. Sufis of Bijapur, 1300–1700: Social Roles of Sufis in Medieval India. Princeton.Google Scholar
Eaton, Richard M. 1993. The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760. Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elverskog, Johan. 2010. Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road. Philadelphia.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franke, Herbert. 1994. “A Note on Multilinguality in China under the Mongols: The Compilers of the Revised Buddhist Canon, 1285–87.” In Opuscula Altaica: Essays Presented in Honor of Henry Schwarz, ed. Kaplan, Edward H. and Whisenhunt, Donald W., 286–98. Bellingham, WA.Google Scholar
Grupper, Samuel M. 2004. “The Buddhist Sanctuary-Vihara of Labnasagut and the Il-Qan Hulegu: An Overview of Il-Qanid Buddhism and Related Matters.” AEMA 13: 5–77.Google Scholar
Hung, Hsiao-chun, Hartatik, Tisna Arif Ma‘rifat, and Truman Simanjuntak. 2022. “Mongol Fleet on the Way to Java: First Archaeological Remains from the Karimata Strait in Indonesia.” Archaeological Research in Asia 29: 100327, 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hussain, Syed Ejaz. 2013. “Silver Flow and Horse Supply to Sultanate Bengal with Special Reference to Trans-Himalayan Trade (13th–16th Centuries).” JESHO 56: 264–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Peter. 1975. “The Mongols and the Delhi Sultanate in the Reign of Muḥammad Tughluq (1325–1351).” CAJ 19: 118–57.Google Scholar
Jackson, Peter 1990. “Jalāl al-Dīn, the Mongols and the Khwarazmian Conquest of the Panjāb and Sind.” Iran 28: 45–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Peter 1999. The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Jahn, Karl. 1965. Rashīd al-Dīn’s History of India: Collected Essays with Facsimiles and Indices. London.Google Scholar
Jing, Anning. 1994 . “The Portraits of Khubilai Khan and Chabi by Anige (1245–1306), a Nepali Artist at the Yuan Court.” Artibus Asiae 54.1–2: 40–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
JT/Boyle. See Abbreviations.Google Scholar
Karashima, Noboru 辛島昇. 1988. “Jūsan seikī matsu ni okeru mīnami Indo to Chūgoku no aida no kōryū: Senshu Tamirugo kokubun to ‘Genshi’ Bahachijiden o megutte 十三世紀末における南イソドと中國の間の交通—泉州タミル語刻文と元史馬八兒伝をめぐって” (Relations between South India and China at the End of the Thirteenth Century: On the Quanzhou Tamil Inscription and Descriptions of Maʿbar in the History of the Yuan). In Enoki hakushi shōju kinen Tōyō shi ronsō 榎博士頌壽紀念東洋史論叢, ed. Enoki hakushi shōju kinen Tōyō shi ronsō hensan iinkai, 77–105. Tokyo.Google Scholar
Karashima, N., and Y. Kanazawa. 2002. “Testimony of Chinese Ceramic Sherds.” In Ancient and Medieval Commercial Activities in the Indian Ocean: Testimony of Inscriptions and Ceramic-Sherds, Report of the Taisho University Research Project, ed. Karashima, Noboru, 109–18. Chennai.Google Scholar
Kauz, Ralph. 2006. “The Maritime Trade of Kish during the Mongol Period.” In Komaroff 2006, 51–67.Google Scholar
Khan, Iqtidar Alam. 1996. “Coming of Gunpowder to the Islamic World and North India: Spotlight on the Role of the Mongols.” Journal of Asian History 30.1: 27–45.Google Scholar
Kolbas, Judith. 2006. The Mongols in Iran: Chingis Khan to Uljaytu, 1220–1309. London and New York.Google Scholar
Komaroff, Linda, ed. 2006. Beyond the Legacy of Genghis Khan. Leiden.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kumar, Sunil. 2007. The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate, 1192–1286. Ranikhet.Google Scholar
Lambton, A. K. S. 1999. “The Āthār wa aḥyā’ of Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍl Allāh Hamadānī and His Contribution as an Agronomist, Arboriculturist and Horticulturalist.” In Amitai-Preiss and Morgan 1999, 126–54.Google Scholar
Lee, Risha. 2009. “Rethinking Community: The Indic Carvings of Quanzhou.” In Nagapattinam to Suvarnadwipa: Reflections on the Chola Naval Expeditions to Southeast Asia, ed. Hermann Kulke, K. Kesavapany, and Sakhuja, Vijay, 240–70. Singapore.Google Scholar
Liu, Yingsheng. 2000. “An Inscription in Memory of Sayyid Bin Abu Ali: A Study of Relations between China and Oman from the Eleventh to the Fifteenth Century.” In The Silk Roads: Highways of Culture and Commerce, ed. Elisseeff, Vadime, 122–25. New York.Google Scholar
Lo, Jung-pang. 2012. China as a Sea Power, 1127–1368: A Preliminary Survey of the Maritime Expansion and Naval Exploits of the Chinese People during the Southern Song and Yuan Periods. Singapore and Hong Kong.Google Scholar
Makhdumi, Mohammad Rafiuddin, . 2008. “Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍl Allah: A Link between the Indians and the Mongols.” Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society 56.1: 33–43.Google Scholar
Manz, Beatrice Forbes. 1989. The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Polo, Marco. 1938. The Description of the World, tr. A. C. Moule and Paul Pelliot, 3 vols. London.Google Scholar
Martin, Janet. 1978. “The Land of Darkness and the Golden Horde: The Fur Trade under the Mongols xiii–xivth Centuries.” Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique 19.4: 401–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Masson-Smith, John, Jr., and Plunkett, Frances. 1968. “Gold Money in Mongol Iran.” JESHO 11.2: 275–97.Google Scholar
Morgan, D. O. 2001. “Ibn Baṭṭūṭa and the Mongols.” JRAS, 3rd series 11.1: 1–11.Google Scholar
Morton, A. H. 1999. “The Letters of Rashīd al-Dīn: Īlkhānid Fact or Timurid Fiction?” In Amitai-Preiss and Morgan 1999, 155–99.Google Scholar
Mukai, Masaki and Francesca Fiaschetti. 2020. “Yang Tingbi: Mongol Expansion along the Maritime Silk Roads.” In Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia: Generals, Merchants, Intellectuals, ed. Michal Biran, Jonathan Brack, and Francesca Fiaschetti, 83–101. Oakland.Google Scholar
Nianchang, 念常. 1344. Fozu lidai tongzai 佛祖歷代通載 (Comprehensive Chronicle of Buddhist Patriarchs). Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新修大藏經 (Taishō-Era New Edition of the Buddhist Canon), ed. Junjirō, Takakusu 高楠順次郞 (1866–1945), Kaikyoku, Watanabe 渡邊海旭 (1872–1932) et al. 100 vols., vol. 49, item 2036. Tokyo.Google Scholar
Pfeiffer, Judith. 2006. “Reflections on a ‘Double Rapprochement’: Conversion to Islam among the Mongol Elite during the Early Ilkhanate.” In Komaroff 2006, 369–89.Google Scholar
Pfeiffer, Judith ed. 2014. Politics, Patronage and the Transmission of Knowledge in 13th–15th Century Tabriz. Leiden.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prazniak, Roxann. 2010. “Siena on the Silk Roads: Ambrogio Lorenzetti and the Mongol Global Century, 1250–1350.” Journal of World History 21.2: 177–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prazniak, Roxann 2013. “Tabriz on the Silk Roads: Thirteenth-Century Eurasian Cultural Connections.” Asian Review of World Histories 1.2: 169–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prazniak, Roxann 2014. “Ilkhanid Buddhism: Traces of a Passage in Eurasian History.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 56.3: 650–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ptak, Roderich. 1993. “Yuan and Early Ming Notices on the Kayal Area in South India.” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-orient 80: 137–55.Google Scholar
Ptak, Roderich 1996. “Glosses on Wang Dayuan’s Daoyi zhilüe (1349/50).” In Récits de voyages asiatiques: Genres, mentalités, conception de l’espace. Actes du colloque EFEO-EHESS de décembre 1994, ed. Claudine Salmon, 127–41. Paris.Google Scholar
Rockhill, W. W. 1914. “Notes on the Relations and Trade of China with the Eastern Archipelago and the Coast of the Indian Ocean during the Fourteenth Century, Part i.” T’oung Pao 15.3: 419–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rockhill, W. W. 1915. “Notes on the Relations and Trade of China with the Eastern Archipelago and the Coast of the Indian Ocean during the Fourteenth Century, Part ii.iv.” T’oung Pao 16.4: 435–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rossabi, Morris. 1988. Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times. Berkeley.Google Scholar
Rossabi, Morris 1994. “The Reign of Khubilai Khan.” In CHC6, 414–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, Tansen. 2003. Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600–1400. Honolulu.Google Scholar
Sen, Tansen 2006a. “The Formation of Chinese Maritime Networks to Southern Asia, 1200–1450.” JESHO 49.4: 421–53.Google Scholar
Sen, Tansen 2006b. “The Yuan Khanate and India: Cross-cultural Diplomacy in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries.” Asia Major, 3rd series 19.1–2: 299–326.Google Scholar
Sen, Tansen 2011. “Maritime Interactions between China and India: Coastal India and the Ascendancy of Chinese Maritime Power in the Indian Ocean.” Journal of Central Eurasian Studies 2: 41–82.Google Scholar
Shokoohy, Mehrdad. 2003. Muslim Architecture of South India: The Sultanate of Ma‘bar and the Traditions of the Maritime Settlers on the Malabar and Coromandel Coasts (Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Goa). London and New York.Google Scholar
Soucek, Priscilla. 1999. “Ceramic Production as Exemplar of Yuan–Ilkhanid Relations.” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 35: 125–41.Google Scholar
Sperling, Elliot. 1990. “Hülegü and Tibet.” AOH 44.1–2: 145–57.Google Scholar
Subramaniam, T. N. 1978. “A Tamil Colony in Mediaeval China.” In South Indian Studies, ed. Nagaswamy, R, 1–52. Madras.Google Scholar
Titley, Norah M. 1983. Persian Miniature Painting and Its Influence on the Art of Turkey and India: The British Library Collection. London.Google Scholar
Vogel, Hans Ulrich. 2013. Marco Polo Was in China: New Evidence from Currencies, Salts and Revenues. Leiden.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vogel, Hans Ulrich, and Hieronymus, Sabine. 1993. “Cowry Trade and Its Role in the Economy of Yunnan: From the Ninth to the Mid-Seventeenth Century, Part i.” JESHO 36.3: 211–52.Google Scholar
Vu, Hong Lien. 2017. “The Mongol Navy: Kubilai Khan’s Invasions in Đại Việt and Champa.” Nalanda-Sriwijaya Center Working Paper No. 25, at www.iseas.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/nscwps25.pdf.Google Scholar
Wang, Dayuan 汪大淵. 1981. Daoyi zhilüe 島夷誌略 (Brief Records of the Island Barbarians), annotated by Su Jiqing 蘇繼廎 as Daoyi zhilüe jiaoshi 島夷誌略校釋. Beijing.Google Scholar
Waṣṣāf, ʿAbd-Allāh. 1966. Tajziyat al-Amṣār wa-Tazjiyat al-A’sār, in H. M. Elliot and John Dowson, The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians: Mohammadan Period, vol. 3, 24–54. London.Google Scholar
Wink, André. 1997. Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, vol. 2, The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest, 11th–13th Centuries. Leiden.Google Scholar
Wink, André 2004. Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, vol. 3, Indo-Islamic Society, 14th–15th Centuries. Leiden.Google Scholar
Yang, Bin. 2004. “Horses, Silver, and Cowries: Yunnan in Global Perspective.” Journal of World History 15.3: 281–322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yoeli-Tlalim, Ronit. 2013. “Rashīd al-Dīn’s Life of the Buddha: Some Tibetan Perspectives.” In Akasoy, Burnett, and Yoeli-Tlalim 2013, 197–211.Google Scholar
Yokkaichi, Yasuhiro. 2008. “Chinese and Muslim Diasporas and the Indian Ocean Trade Network under Mongol Hegemony.” In The East Asian “Mediterranean”: Maritime Crossroads of Culture, Commerce and Human Migration, ed. Schottenhammer, Angela, 73–102. Wiesbaden.Google Scholar
Yokkaichi, Yasuhiro 2009. “Horses in the East–West Trade between China and Iran under the Mongol Rule. In Pferde in Asien: Geschichte, Handel und Kultur, ed. Fragner, Bert G, Ralph Kauz, Roderich Ptak, and Angela Schottenhammer, 87–97. Vienna.Google Scholar
YS. See Abbreviations.Google Scholar
Yule, Henry. 1871. The Book of Ser Marco Polo, The Venetian: Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East. 2 vols. London.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×