Resistance and Resilience (1000–1700 CE)

This is Chapter 3 of NCERT's new integrated Grade 9 textbook Understanding Society: India and Beyond, Part 2: 36 pages (45–80; the last is a notes page). Its parts: what resistance and resilience mean; invasions and resistance in the 11th–12th centuries (a map, Fig. 3.1); Rajput resistance to the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals (Figs 3.2–3.6); the Ahoms (Figs 3.7, 3.8); Vijayanagara and the Nayakas (Fig. 3.9); the Marathas and their forts (Figs 3.10–3.13); a 17th-century map (Fig. 3.14); the Sikhs and the Jats (Fig. 3.15); Bhakti, Sufism and sulh-i-kul (Figs 3.16–3.21); temples (Figs 3.22–3.27); and the economy — irrigation, the hundī, merchants and the Indian Ocean (Figs 3.28–3.31). A running timeline crosses the bottom of pages 46–53. It ends with a summary and ten questions and activities. Every number is recomputed; our additions are marked †. We use ten concept sections, one per topic.

• How this book relates to UPSC, honestly: it is a new, foundational Class 9 book with a clear theme (resistance and resilience). UPSC asks medieval history as facts and chronology (Prelims) and analysis (Mains GS1). The depth sits in the senior books: lehs202 (Class 12: Bhakti–Sufi Traditions), lehs203 (Class 12: An Imperial Capital — Vijayanagara), lehs204 (Class 12: Peasants, Zamindars and the State — Mughal revenue, mansabs), lehs201 (Class 12: Through the Eyes of Travellers — Bernier, Ibn Battuta), kefa106 and kefa108 (Class 11 Fine Arts: temple and Indo-Islamic architecture) and kehs103 (Class 11: Nomadic Empires — the Mongols).
• Same book: iest201 (Oceans and Life — the Indian Ocean you meet again in the trade section) and iest202 (Life on Earth — Bundelkhand's tanks and the commons). In Book I, iest105 (State and Society up to 1000 CE) covers the centuries just before this one. On historians and sources, jess302 shows how the same events can be read in different ways.
• UPSC from this chapter: Prelims asks about Mahmud's motive (1979), Tarain–Panipat–Company chronology (1984), Khanua (2001), Vijayanagara's founding and fall (1979, 1984, 2015), the dynasties' dates (2023), the Chola navy (1980, 2025), Shivaji's coronation (1985), the mansabdari system (1979, 1981, 1989, 1992, 1996), Bhakti saints and Sufism (1979, 1982, 1984, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1996), the Europeans (1979, 1983, 1994), banjaras (2016) and the hundī (2020). Mains GS1 asks about Sufis and saints (2014), Krishnadeva Raya (2016), Chaitanya (2018), Bhakti literature (2021), Sultanate technology (2023) and Akbar's syncretism (2025). We link 34; questions on Sultanate administration, Mughal painting and architecture sit on other chapters.

• Two ideas: resistance = actively opposing a threat (war, alliances, diplomacy, negotiation); resilience = enduring and adapting while keeping traditions. ‘Resilience is the backbone of resistance.’ The book: a period of conflict and cooperation, not only invasion.
• 1000–1200: Mahmud of Ghazni defeats Jayapala (1001); Naiki Devi beats Muhammad Ghuri at Kasahrada (1178); Ghuri beats Prithviraj at Tarain II (1192); Sultanate 1206. Chauhans, Gahadavalas, Senas fall; Gujarat, Malwa, the Chandellas resist for about a century; Odisha and parts of Assam stay outside Turkish rule.
• Sultanate and Rajputs: iqta, heavier revenue (up to 50%); Khalji sieges of Ranthambore (1301), Chittor (1303), Devagiri (1307); Hammir regains Mewar (c. 1325); Kumbha (1433–68). Mughals: Panipat (1526), Khanua (1527); Akbar's mansabs draw in Amber; Mewar resists — Chittor (1567–68), Haldighati (1576), Dewair (1582), Bhil allies, a treaty exempting Mewar's ruler from attending court.
• Ahoms (1228–1826): terrain, paiks, bāchārī boats; Mir Jumla takes Garhgaon (1662); Lachit Borphukan wins Saraighat (1671). Vijayanagara (1336, Harihara and Bukka): Kumara Kampana ends the Madurai Sultanate; Talikota 1565; Nayakas. Marathas: swarajya, Shivaji crowned 1674, forts (Raigad, Sinhagad, Gingee). Sikhs: Gurus Arjan and Tegh Bahadur executed; Akal Takht, miri-piri, Khalsa 1699, misls. Jats: Gokul (1669), Sinsini (1686).
• Bhakti: local languages, nirguna/saguna, nām kīrtan and sankirtan (Chaitanya), Tulsidas, Sankardev, women saints, Raskhan and Rahim. Sufism: silsilahs (Chishti, Suhrawardi; Qadiri, Naqshbandi). Sulh-i-kul under Akbar.
• Temples: economy, credit, legitimacy (Gajapati as Rauta of Jagannath); destroyed in places from the 11th century, restored elsewhere (Srirangam, Kashi Vishwanath, Govind Dev ji); low-profile ‘haveli’ temples. Economy: Persian wheel, small-scale irrigation, hundī, banjārās, Gujarati merchants, Europeans from the Portuguese on.

NCERT opens by describing the years 1000–1700 as a time of deep political, social and cultural change: repeated invasions and wars, which it says were accompanied by religious discrimination and social distress, and regional powers that pushed back in both military and cultural ways. It defines resilience as the capacity to survive and adapt in hard times while keeping inherited social, cultural and spiritual traditions — for instance by restoring places of worship, adjusting customs and, in many regions, building lasting patterns of coexistence across religious and cultural lines. Resistance is actively opposing a force, authority or threat to protect power, territory, interests or identity — through warfare, alliances, diplomacy, negotiation or other political action. The two are linked: a cause or a leader starts resistance, but the ability to endure comes from resilience. The book is explicit that the period was one of conflict and cooperation, ‘rather than being merely a story of invasion and resistance’. It adds a reason for the invasions besides territory and religion: the surplus produce of fertile river plains.

The book traces invasions from the mid-7th century, when Arab forces came by land and sea and were repulsed by rulers in the Deccan, Malwa, Kashmir and Rajasthan. Mahmud, Sultan of Ghazni (in present-day Afghanistan and north-eastern Iran), first attacked in 1001, defeating Jayapala of the Hindu Shahi dynasty. Through the 11th and 12th centuries the Hindu Shahis, Chandellas, Solankis and Chauhans fought the Turkish invaders. In 1178 Queen Naiki Devi of the Chaulukya kingdom defeated Muhammad Ghuri at Kasahrada, near Mount Abu. By the end of the 12th century the Chauhans, Gahadavalas and Senas had come under Turkish control (Ghuri defeated Prithviraj Chauhan at the Second Battle of Tarain, 1192), but Gujarat, Malwa and the Chandellas' Bundelkhand resisted for about a century more. The Turks did not conquer present-day Odisha or parts of Assam; several Rajput states stayed centres of resistance; and peninsular India remained outside Turkish control in these two centuries. The Delhi Sultanate was established in 1206.

The Delhi Sultanate (1206) centralised power. Its iqta system assigned territories to military commanders in place of salaries; it became the way land revenue was collected and, the book says, increased the burden on peasants. During its campaigns the Sultanate's forces demolished sites sacred to local communities (the book's words), which hardened resistance, so that resistance had both political and socio-cultural motives. The Yadavas of Devagiri, Rajput dynasties of Rajasthan, the Kakatiyas of Warangal and the Hoysalas of Karnataka repeatedly resisted the Sultans and checked their expansion; Mewar, Gwalior, Malwa, Awadh, Etawah, Ajmer, Jalore, Kalinjar and Kannauj defied different Sultans. The timeline adds Alauddin Khalji's capture of Anhilwara and plunder of Somnath (1298), his sieges of Ranthambore (1301) and Chittor (1303), Malik Kafur's expedition against Devagiri (1307), the Tughluqs (1320) and the Sisodia Rana Hammir taking Mewar back from the Sultanate's tributaries (c. 1325); later Rana Kumbha (1433–68) built a framework of resistance including forts. In 1526 Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi at the First Battle of Panipat; in 1527 Rana Sanga (Sangram Singh I) of Mewar led a Rajput confederacy against him at Khanua and lost — a turning point. Relations then varied: Mewar resisted, while the Kachhwahas of Amber cooperated. The Mughals needed the Rajputs' military strength, loyalty and administration, and drew some into the empire through mansabs (ranks combining military and civil duty, introduced by Akbar).

The Ahom kingdom of Assam kept its independence for almost six centuries (1228–1826) and resisted several invasions. Its commanders preferred to use the terrain rather than fight head-on: they knew Assam's forests, river systems and monsoon cycles, which invaders lacked. The first Ahom–Mughal clash came in 1615 near Samdhara: a Mughal force under Abu Bakr made early gains but had to retreat, and by 1616 the Ahoms had recovered their land — a pattern repeated over the next sixty years. In 1662 Mir Jumla captured the Ahom capital Garhgaon and imposed a treaty, which the Ahoms renounced soon after the Mughals withdrew. In 1671 the Ahom commander Lachit Borphukan defeated a Mughal fleet at the Battle of Saraighat on the Brahmaputra. The book lists four reasons for Ahom endurance: alliance-building, guerrilla tactics, Assam's geography, and the paik system of military-administrative organisation — plus a navy of light, fast river boats called bāchārī.

In the Deccan and the south, the Delhi Sultanate's campaigns weakened older kingdoms: Malik Kafur, Alauddin Khalji's general, attacked cities and temples including Warangal, Belur and Madurai; later, under Muhammad bin Tughluq, the Sultanate pushed further south, contributing to the decline of the Pandyas and the rise of a new Madurai Sultanate. Against this background Harihara and Bukka founded Vijayanagara in 1336, near present-day Hampi (Karnataka). A formidable river and rugged, rocky terrain gave natural defence. The state expanded south of the Krishna and Tungabhadra, became one of the richest in the region, and encouraged literature in Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Sanskrit. Under Bukka it subdued the Madurai Sultanate and annexed Arcot. In 1342 the ageing Hoysala king Vira Ballala III fought the Madurai Sultanate (the Battle of Kannanur) but was captured in a surprise counter-attack and executed. For almost four decades Vijayanagara fought Madurai, until Bukka's son Kumara Kampana killed the Sultan, ended the Madurai Sultanate and reinstated the images in the Rajasimheshwara temple at Kanchipuram and the Ranganathaswamy temple at Srirangam. The empire peaked under Krishnadevaraya (died 1529), who gave grants to temples including Tirupati and the Vitthala temple. In 1565 an alliance of the Deccan sultanates defeated Vijayanagara at Talikota; the city was sacked and largely abandoned, and the empire broke into Nayaka kingdoms, which kept up defiance — such as Muthu Virappa Nayak III of Madurai in the story of the Mughal slipper.

The Marathas were a formidable force in the Deccan, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries. The founding of an independent Maratha state in 1674 is tied to Chhatrapati Shivaji, crowned that year as sovereign ruler. The Marathas had long been part of the region's politics; their knowledge of the Deccan's complex terrain and their martial skills made them strong in war and administration. Territory and sovereignty were linked to swarajya (self-rule), and Shivaji is regarded as one of its earliest proponents. Long wars against the Mughals and others drained the Mughal Empire — Aurangzeb spent more than two decades in the Deccan trying to subdue them — and the Marathas built a wide network of tributary alliances beyond their direct rule. Their land of hills and deep valleys made forts such as Raigad and Sinhagad the nuclei of guerrilla war: swift attacks from several directions, safe retreats, advanced outposts and frontier forts that could serve as fallback capitals. Forts were also centres of administration and justice, and with strong walls, water sources and armouries they could withstand long sieges. The timeline adds the Battle of Pratapgarh (1659), where Shivaji killed Afzal Khan.

Guru Nanak founded a spiritual movement in the late 15th century, later called Sikhism, stressing devotion to one God, social equality and the rejection of rituals. Under his successors the community grew, especially in Punjab, Sindh and the Gangetic plains; Punjab — fertile, densely peopled, with many peasants — was under the Lodis and then the Mughals. The book says the Mughal state intervened more in the Gurus' affairs from the early 17th century as their influence grew: Jahangir ordered the execution of Guru Arjan Dev (the fifth Guru), on the stated ground that he had supported the rebel prince Khusrau; this was a turning point in Sikh organisation. Guru Hargobind (the sixth) was detained in Gwalior Fort, where Sikhs gathered outside to honour him; he founded the Akal Takht, a seat of temporal authority, and the idea of miri-piri — the Harmandir Sahib for spiritual authority (piri), the Akal Takht for worldly authority (miri). In 1675 Aurangzeb ordered the execution of Guru Tegh Bahadur (the ninth). NCERT describes the Mughal state's treatment of the Gurus in very strong terms, as rooted in politics and also in what it calls the Mughals' rigid and discriminatory religious practices, and says it convinced the Sikhs that persecution had to be met with organised, and when necessary armed, resistance. In 1699 Guru Gobind Singh founded the Khalsa with a martial code; after the execution of his sons, the Sikhs formed armed groups, the misls, which became a confederacy, and many peasants became soldiers. The Jats, a farming community of the Ganga–Yamuna Doab, the book says, were burdened by heavy taxes and resented Aurangzeb's religious policies; they rose under Gokul in 1669, and again in 1686 under the zamindars of Sinsini and Sogar; by 1691 the Mughals had the upper hand, but resistance continued.

Between the 11th and 17th centuries Bhakti — personal devotion to the divine, sung in local languages — transformed religious life. It rose in peninsular India from the 7th century (the Alvars, devotees of Vishnu, such as Andal, and the Nayanars, devotees of Shiva, such as Karaikal Ammaiyar), stressing inclusion, equality, simplicity and everyday life; Eknath taught in Marathi a path open to all without institutions. From the 14th century a strong wave spread across the north; Ramananda bridged southern and northern traditions. Two streams developed: nirguna (a formless divine) and saguna (a divine with attributes). Saints came from very diverse social backgrounds. The book argues Bhakti was also resilience: where temple building was restricted or temples were destroyed, devotees could turn to nām kīrtan (reciting the divine Name) and community singing (satsang), which did not depend on buildings and were hard to suppress. Sankardev composed the Kirtana Ghosha, still central to Vaishnava practice in Assam. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Guru Nanak used community singing (sankīrtan) to bridge social divides; Chaitanya led public sankīrtan in Bengal to protest a Qazi's restrictions on devotion. In Rajasthan the Dadu Panth and Niranjani Sampradaya gave stability; some kept bands of warrior ascetics to protect trade routes and travelling saints. The epics were retold in regional languages — Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas in Awadhi; Atukuri Molla's Telugu Ramayana. Women saints rose to prominence — Akka Mahadevi and Lal Ded as ascetics, Bahinabai as a householder devoted to Vithoba — and devotees of many backgrounds joined: Raskhan (Braj; Prem Vatika, Sujan Raskhan), Rahim (Abdul Rahim Khan-i-Khana, a Mughal commander who wrote Braj verse to Krishna) and Bibi Lachimar. Rulers continued to invoke goddesses as protectors in war. Sufism, a mystical dimension of Islam, expanded with the Turks; it arose in West Asia as a spiritual response to worldliness among some ulema and to legal orthodoxy, spread through orders (silsilahs) — Chishti and Suhrawardi under the Sultanate, Qadiri and Naqshbandi under the Mughals — and through khanqahs and shrines; Sufis used Hindavi and Bengali, adopted local practices including breath control (habs-i-dam, like prāṇāyāma), and contributed to the spread of Islam. In the later part of Akbar's reign, sulh-i-kul (‘peace with all’) became state policy; the book reads it as partly political — to win non-Muslim powers' support — and notes Akbar's reverence for the Sun.

Temples were central to social, economic and political life. They managed large land grants, employed architects, artisans, sculptors, priests, musicians and staff, gave credit to cultivators, village assemblies and merchant groups, supported irrigation, preserved arts such as Bharatanatyam, served as centres of education, and even had quasi-judicial roles — collecting local taxes and imposing penalties. They gave legitimacy to rulers: in some kingdoms the deity was the sovereign and the king its deputy — the Gajapatis of Odisha called themselves the Rauta (deputy) of Jagannath, the Kachhwahas of Jaipur ruled on behalf of Govindadevaji, and the rulers of Kota saw themselves as representatives of Rama. The Brihadeeswara (Rajarajeshvara) temple at Thanjavur received huge gifts of gold, ornaments and vessels; temple towns such as Thanjavur, Kanchipuram and Puri became cities. Temple building flourished between the 7th and 13th centuries. From the 11th century, the book says, many temples were destroyed, particularly in the Ghaznavid and Ghurid invasions, and from the 12th century some temples and maṭhs were plundered or destroyed and mosques sometimes built on the same sites. At the same time local rulers, merchant guilds and communities maintained and restored temples; rulers allied with the central power could usually build major structures. A Hoysala royal temple at Kannanur was turned into a mosque under the Sultanate and restored as a temple by Kumara Kampana; Todar Mal and Raja Man Singh rebuilt the Kashi Vishwanath temple under Akbar (later demolished in Aurangzeb's reign; the present temple was built beside the original site by Ahilyabai Holkar in 1780); Man Singh built the Govind Dev ji temple at Vrindavan, and the Bundela king Vir Singh a new Keshav Dev temple at Mathura. From the 16th century many temples were built in less visible places, in narrow lanes, looking like ordinary houses without tall shikharas — the ‘haveli temple’ described by some historians — which the book reads as an adaptation to avoid destruction. Maharana Jagat Singh refortified Chittor and built the large Jagdish temple in Udaipur, which some scholars see as a response to Shah Jahan's Jama Masjid in Delhi.

The early second millennium saw agriculture expand and centres of craft production multiply. Land revenue was the state's main income; as empires grew, so did the area cultivated, and collection grew stricter — under Alauddin Khalji and Muhammad bin Tughluq the land tax rose to as much as 50% of produce, plus other taxes. The Delhi Sultans and later the Mughals had a limited role in maritime trade: their interest in coasts and ports was mostly political, military and customs duties, so coastal commerce stayed largely with regional powers and local communities. Irrigation devices — rope pulleys and the Persian wheel — raised output; Vijayanagara combined canals with many small-scale irrigation works. The hundī — like a cheque in some respects — was a bill of exchange for large payments and safe long-distance remittance, run by networks of money-changers (sarrāfs) and their agents (gumāshtas). Inland, caravans linked India to Central Asian routes; local traders such as the banjārās, along with revenue officials, linked villages and towns. From the 13th century seaborne trade grew, linking western India to the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, and India became a hub of the Indian Ocean network between the eastern Mediterranean and China. Krishnadevaraya's Amuktamalyada urged rulers to manage ports well, grow trade in horses, elephants, gems, pearls and sandal-paste, and shelter foreign traders in hard times. From the 16th century the Portuguese sought to control ocean trade while the Mughals centralised land revenue; the Dutch, English, Danes and French followed. New merchant groups controlled wealth, production and supply chains and funded states; peasants grew raw materials while weavers, dyers and bleachers produced cotton textiles. Before the 15th century Arab, Chinese and Indian merchants dominated the ocean trade; later Gujarati merchants especially, and groups in Malabar, Coromandel and Bengal, prospered. Indian merchants worked as traders, shippers, bankers, brokers, dubhāshīs (interpreters), diplomats and officials, and even agriculturist groups such as the Vellalar joined the trade, some learning Portuguese, French, English and Persian.

The four Big Questions, then every Let's Recall, Let's Explore, Let's Map and Think About It box that asks something, in order.

Ten questions and activities. Try first, then open.

Numbers

One-liners

• Resistance is the visible fight; resilience is the staying power under it.
• The book's frame: conflict and cooperation, not invasion alone.
• North and west bore the brunt of the Turks in the 11th–12th centuries; the peninsula stayed outside.
• Rajputs both resisted (Mewar) and allied (Amber) — mansabs bound the allies to the empire.
• Terrain plus community made small powers durable: Aravallis and Bhils, Brahmaputra and paiks, Deccan hills and forts.
• Vijayanagara rose in 1336 against the Sultanate's southern push and fell at Talikota in 1565.
• Sikh resistance grew from faith to institutions: Akal Takht, miri-piri, Khalsa, misls.
• Bhakti made devotion portable — local languages, kirtan, satsang, epics for all.
• Temples were economies and seats of legitimacy; destroyed in places, restored and redesigned in others.
• Hundīs, merchants and ports kept the economy dynamic through political change.

Traps to avoid

• Solanki = Chaulukya of Gujarat; not the Chalukyas of Kalyani.
• Tarain: 1191 Prithviraj won, 1192 Ghuri won.
• Mansabdari was introduced by Akbar; mansabdars were officials of the state.
• The 1663 treaty was thrown off under Chakradhvaj Singha (Guwahati retaken 1667), per most accounts.
• The Ahom–Mughal frontier settled at the Manas after Itakhuli (1682), not simply at Saraighat.
• Guru Gobind Singh was not executed; he died at Nanded in 1708. Misls are 18th-century.
• Miri-piri belongs to Guru Hargobind, not Guru Amar Das.
• The spinning wheel is a textile tool, not an irrigation device.
• Gingee entered the World Heritage List in 2025 as one of twelve ‘Maratha Military Landscapes’.
• Sulh-i-kul (policy) ≠ Din-i-Ilahi (a discipleship circle).

Prelims — what UPSC asks

• From this chapter: Mahmud (1979), chronology of Tarain, Panipat and the Company (1984), Khanua (2001), Vijayanagara (1979, 1984, 2015), dynasties' dates (2023), the Chola navy (1980, 2025), Shivaji (1985), the mansabdari system (1979, 1981, 1989, 1992, 1996), Bhakti and Sufism (1979, 1982, 1984, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1996), the Europeans (1979, 1983, 1994), banjaras (2016) and the hundī (2020). Learn the dated tables and the saints' table; then read lehs202–204.
• Medieval Prelims rewards chronology and pairs (saint–region–language, ruler–battle–year, order–founder). Build your own timeline from our bar chart and keep debatable keys (1979 Mahmud, 2001 Khanua, 1994 joint-stock) in mind.

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

• GS1: Sufis and saints (2014), Krishnadeva Raya (2016), Chaitanya (2018), Bhakti literature (2021), Sultanate technology (2023), Akbar's religious syncretism (2025). Use the chapter's frame — resistance, resilience, conflict and cooperation — but write analytically.
• On contested topics (invaders' motives, temple destruction, conversion, Rajput–Mughal and Sikh–Mughal relations), set out the readings side by side with their authors and the evidence; avoid present-day framing.

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