6. Chronicles & Travelogues

In the \(13^t\)\(^h\) century, when the Pandya kingdom became the dominant Tamil power, Marco Polo, a Venetian traveller, paid a visit. Marco Polo visited Kayal, a port city, twice (presently in Thoothukudi district of Tamilnadu). It was brimming with ships from both Arabia and China. Marco Polo claims to have arrived by ship from China.

 

According to Marco Polo, thousands of horses were transported by sea from Arabia and Persia into southern India.
Al-Beruni (\(11^t\)\(^h\) century) spent ten years in India with Mahmud of Ghazni during one of his campaigns. Alberuni's account of Mahmud's Somnath expedition is the most reliable. He travelled all over India as a learned man and scholar, seeking to understand India and its people. He studied Indian philosophy and learned Sanskrit.

 

Alberuni addressed Indian environments, information structures, social norms, and religion in his book Tahquiq-i-Hind.
Ibn Battuta (\(14^t\)\(^h\) century), a Moroccan scholar of Arab descent, travelled from Morocco through North Africa to Egypt, then to Central Asia and India. His travelogue (Rihla [The Travels]) is jam-packed with details about the people he met and the places he visited. Egypt, he said, was wealthy at the time because it was the hub for all Indian trade with the West. Ibn Battuta describes caste in India and the sati tradition. We hear from him that Indian traders and ships were doing brisk business in foreign ports and on the high seas. He defines Delhi as a huge and majestic metropolis.

 

Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq moved his capital from Delhi to Devagiri (Daulatabad) in the south, effectively turning the region into a desert.
Many international tourists visited Vijayanagar in the south, leaving comprehensive accounts of the state behind.
In \(1420\), an Italian called Nicolo Conti arrived. In \(1443\), Abdur-Razzaq arrived from Heart (the Great Khan's court in Central Asia). In \(1522\), a Portuguese traveller named Domingo Paes paid a visit to the area. Both of them kept a journal of their findings, which we can use today to learn about the glory of the Vijayanagar Empire.