History Chapter-1 Tracing Changes through a Thousand Years

1. Who was considered a Foreigner in the past?

A. The term ‘Foreigner’ is used to refer to any stranger who appeared in any village. The words
‘Pardesi’ and ‘Ajnabi’ were synonymous with the word Foreigner. These words were used by
citizens of that place or village to refer to any person who arrived for some work for a short
time and who was not a part of that village, society or culture.

2. State Whether true or false:

(b) The Marathas asserted their political importance during the period after 700.
A. True

(c) Forest-dwellers were sometimes pushed out of their lands with the spread of agricultural
settlements.
A. True

(d) Sultan Ghiyasuddin Balban controlled Assam, Manipur and Kashmir.

3. Fill in the blanks:

(a) Archives are places where ________ are kept.

(b) ________ was a fourteenth-century chronicler.

(c) ________, ________, ________, ________ and ________ were some of the new crops
introduced into the subcontinent during this period.

A. Potatoes, Com, Chillies, Tea, and Coffee.

4. List some of the technological changes associated with this period.

A. Following are some of the technological changes that were associated with this period:

i. The use of Persian wheel in irrigation.

A. During this period important changes occurred in the Hindu religion. The Hindus started
worshipping new deities. The construction of temples by royalty, and the growing importance
of Brahmanas, the priests were other developments of this period. Brahmanas' importance
grew due to their knowledge of Sanskrit language. They were patronized by the new rulers.
The idea of bhakti emerged among people.
This was also the period when new religions appeared in the subcontinent. The merchants and
migrants brought with them the teachings of the Quran, the holy book of Muslims. Many
rulers were patrons of Islam and the ulama. And like Hinduism, Islam was interpreted in a
variety of ways by its followers.

6. In what ways has the meaning of the term 'Hindustan' changed over the centuries?

A. The term 'Hindustan' has changed over the centuries in the following ways:

i. For the first time, in the thirteenth century, Minhaj-i-Siraj used the term ‘Hindustan’.
By ‘Hindustan’ he meant the areas of Punjab, Haryana and the land between Ganga
and Yamuna rivers. He used it in the political sense for the lands that were a part of the
dominions of Delhi Sultan.
ii. The poet Amir Khusrau used this term in his poems in the fourteenth century.
iii. In the sixteenth century, Babur used the term to describe the geography, the fauna
and the culture of the inhabitants of the subcontinent.
iv. The term ‘Hindustan’ did not carry the political and national meanings, as we use it
today.

7. How were the affairs of Jatis regulated?

A. The affairs of Jatis were regulated in the following ways:

i. People were grouped into Jatis (sub-castes) and ranked as per their family backgrounds
and occupations that their families carried on.
ii. Ranks were not fixed permanently, and varied as per the power, influence and
resources controlled by members of the Jati.
iii. Jatis framed their own rules and regulations to manage the conduct of their members.
People had to accept these rules.
iv. An assembly of elders was responsible for enforcing these regulations. It was called Jati
Panchayat.
v. However, the Jati or caste of one area varied from that of other areas in many aspects.

8. What does the term pan-regional empire mean?

A. The term pan-regional empire means an empire spanning diverse regions. The dynasties like
Cholas, Khaljis, Tughluqs and Mughals extended their empires pan-regional. All these empires
were not equally stable or successful. But pan-regional rule altered the character of the
regions. Most of the regions across the subcontinent were left with the legacies of the big and
small states that had ruled over them. The emergence of many distinct and shared traditions,
governance, management of the economy, elite cultures and languages were some of the
prominent factors that took place as a result of pan-regional empire.

9. What are the difficulties historians face in using manuscripts?

A. In early days manuscripts were handwritten. They used palm leaves which was difficult to
maintain. Later paper became cheaper and more widely available. People used it to write holy
texts, chronicles of rulers, letters and teachings of saints, etc. There was no printing press in
those days, so scribes copied manuscripts by hand. As scribes copied manuscripts, sometimes
they introduced changes according to their own. So, the different manuscripts of the same
text became substantially different from one another over the centuries. Historians have to
read the different versions and guess what the author had originally written.

10. How do the historians divide the past into periods? Do they face any problems in doing
so?

A. For historians, time is not just passing of hours, days or years. Instead, it is the reflection of
social, economic, cultural and religious changes that occur through the ages. Division of past
events, happenings into large segments that is periods, make it easy to study time for any
historians. British historians divided the history of India into three periods: Hindu, Muslim and
British.
This division was based on the idea that the religion of rulers was the only important historical
change. But this division ignored the rich diversity of the Indian subcontinent. Most historians
take social and economic factors into account in order to characterise the major elements of
different moments of the past. Historians thus faced difficulties to describe the entire period
as one historical unit.