How the seeds of a Deccani (Dakhini) culture in the Hyderabad State of the Nizams were sown

When Malik Kafur, Alauddin Khilji's favourite general sacked the Yadava kingdom of Devagiri (present-day Aurangabad) and made inroads into the Kakatiya kingdom at Warangal at the fag-end of the 13th century, little did he realize that his incursions would change this part of the world forever. Kafur was happy making away with gold-laden horses and the Kohinoor. But in the series of invasions that followed, Muhammad bin Tughlak set up his capital in the area before he was forced to retreat north. This sowed the seeds of a Deccani (Dakhni) culture, which reached its zenith in the 20th-century Hyderabad state of the Nizams. It sprawled across present-day Maharashtra, north Karnataka and Telangana. "A distinctive culture evolved. It was a synthesis of north and south, of Hindu and Muslim traditions, and also tribal culture as part of the area was populated with Gonds," says former minister Basheeruddin Babu-khan. A new way of life came into being with a distinct language, Dakhni, a synthesis of Urdu and Telugu; food habits; music and festivals that included Id, Dussehra and tribal feast days revolving around jungle cults.


Meanwhile, south of the Krishna river, the prosperous Vijayanagar kings held sway. Their kingdom, in present-day north-central Karnataka, controlled large parts of what is now Andhra Pradesh. The kings were great proponents of culture and built magnificent temples such as Lord Balaji's in Tirumala. Thus, they spawned a distinctive way of life. "The two cultures were poles apart," says Bharat Kumar who recently wrote a book on Telangana. From the 18th century, much of the area under Vijayanagar came into British hands. Madras was their regional headquarters. This brought English education to the region. As well as an irrigation system. All of this accentuated the differences with people in the Deccan region.

Unfortunately, the Nizams ran a military-feudal system, focused on revenue collection rather than mass education and development. Soon, the economic and cultural gap between the two peoples was enormous. "There was no common meeting ground, except for the Telugu language. But in Telangana the Telugu spoken was different and had no script.The Telugu in parts of the erstwhile British dominion was Sanskritised and classical," says a former state chief secretary...

Andhra Pradesh itself was a union of the Telugu-speaking area of Telangana and the other part that was under the British. Interestingly, the creation of Andhra Pradesh ran counter to the recommendations of the States Reorganization Commission. It advised separate states. "But those were the heady days of integration and states on linguistic basis. Language was considered the basis of culture. So nobody thought that things could go amiss. Although things did not go awry in that sense, it was an uneasy alliance between two unequal economic partners," says the former chief secretary.


http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-12-13/special-report/28066950_1_telugu-telangana-culture

What the north failed to achieve, strangely enough, the Deccan accomplished. Alauddin Khilji's conquests had opened the country, and numerous Sufi saints and Dervishes visited the south in order to spread their message. In the south Persian was an almost unknown tongue, and they were compelled to use the dialect of Delhi, which they knew, in order to carry on their work. Among these saints the one who created the greatest impression was Khwaja Gesu-daraz Banda-nawaz. He left the north when Timur invaded the Punjab in 1398, and settled down in the Deccan. He probably is the first writer of the Khari Boli who made it a literary language. His Risala, Mi’raj-ul Ashiquin, edited from a manuscript of 1500 AD, gives an example of his language. Here are a few sentences from the Risala: Insan ke boojoe kon panch tan. Har ek tan ko panch darwaze hain hor panch darban hain. Pahla tan wajbul wajood. Muqam iska shaitani nafs iska ammara. (The authenticity of this Risala is doubted.)

Next to him is Shams-ul-Ushshaq Shah Miranji, who died in 1496. Many of his works have been preserved, and they illustrate the language of the 15th century.

The 15th century produced quite a number of writers of this language. Bahauddin Bajan, who lived at Berhampur, was a Sufi poet. He wrote:

Yun bajan baje re asrar chhaje
Mandal man men dhamke, rabab rang men jhamke, soofi un par thumke.

Nizami was a poet at the court of Sultan Ahmad Shah III, and lived in the 15th century. He is the author of the first known allegorical poem (Masnavi) in the language, entitled Masnavi Kadorn Rao aur Padam.

From this period—that is, the end of the 14th century—this language, which may be called Hindustani, continues to progress rapidly. When Aurangzeb began the conquest of Bijapur and Golkonda in the 17th century, the poets of the Deccan began to visit the North, and the consequence was that Hindustani poetry became known to the writers of Delhi and other places. The return of the prodigal to the paternal home led to a new development. The courtiers of the Emperors of Delhi were mainly speakers and writers of Persian, but the Hindustani which came to them from the Deccan was the true representative of the mixture of Hindu-Muslim culture which prevailed among the peoples of India.

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urduhindilinks/tarachand/02medieval.html

cat #1 shorn

Propagandhi711 wrote:cat #1 shorn

there has only been one cat for over a decade. and not only has it been shorn, it has been flogged, buggered, skinned, and butchered. we are now to the point of its marrow being sucked out.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:

Propagandhi711 wrote:cat #1 shorn

there has only been one cat for over a decade. and not only has it been shorn, it has been flogged, buggered, skinned, and butchered. we are now to the point of its marrow being sucked out.

sorta like this: