Language

Sanskrit vs Farsi

  • The entry of Persian into India was mostly due to it being the court / official language of a great Muslim kings. It was “high culture” for them (even if they were ethnic turks). This is how India got the camp language (urdu) with its heavy use of farsi and arabic loan words. Common soldiers in the camps had to converse with the farsi spouting nobility.
  • To quote Sandeep: “Kannada was the official language of the Mysore state when the Wodeyar dynasty ruled over the Mysore kingdom…When Tipu took over, he changed the administrative language from Kannada to Farsi. We can witness this till date. Karnataka Government’s land and revenue records use Farsi terminology. For instance, a usage like “Ramesh’s son Suresh” is written as “Suresh bin Ramesh.” Our state has retained terms like “Khata,” “Khirdi,” “Pahani,” “Khanesuvari,” “Gudasta,” and “Baranamoona,” a direct holdover from Tipu’s times. Not just that—Tipu changed the names of entire cities and towns: Brahmapuri became Sultanpet, Kallikote became Farookabad, Chitradurga became Farook yab Hissar, Coorg became Zafarabad, Devanahalli became Yusufabad, Dinigul became Khaleelabad, Gutti became Faiz Hissar, Krishnagiri became Phalk-il-azam, Mysore became Nazarabad, Penukonda became Fakrabad, Sankridurga became Muzaffarabad, Sira became Rustumabad, and Sakleshpur became Manjarabad…Muslims in Malabar speak, read and write Malayalam even today just as Tamil Muslims in Tamil Nadu read, write and speak in Tamil. Thanks to Tipu, Muslims in Karnataka speak only Urdu. This is the direct result of Tipu’s insistence that Farsi and Urdu were the only permitted mediums of instruction.”

Limited sanskrit patronage

  • Some Muslim rulers did patronize Sanskrit scholars and poets, if only to record history and songs of praise, communicate with their hindu subjects. These are more the exception than the rule.

  • In the Mughal court:

    • “translations of Sanskrit works patronized by the Mughal court such as the Razmnamah (a translation of the Mahabharata) and the Ramayan (a translation of the Ramayana).” (From here).
    • The great aesthetician Jagannatha Pandita spent time at the mughal court.

  • Falsehood: “Muslim emperors mostly patronized Sanksrit. The entry of Persian into India was mostly due to direct migration of mystics, artisans and scholars from Persia after the Mongol attacks.”

    • Manasatarangini on an example of this canard.
      • " From the record of Ferishta, he appears to have merely had translated one of the 1300 books in the library and plagiarized it as his own work. What happened to the rest of the 1299 books? We hear much later of these books from Abdul Qadir al-Badaoni. Pressurized by the Padishaw Akbar to acquire old Hindu and Hermetic material, he managed to lay his hands on what remained of them in Lahore. He describes the text that was plagiarized as the Dalayil-i-Firoz Shahi… Third, we must note that though the translated material survived in Lahore during Akbar’s days none of these texts, including the one plagiarized by Firuz under his name, have survived to date. Thus, one can confidently state that the Islamic actions did not result in salvaging of the original Sanskrit texts but their complete destruction."
      • “As an example, one might cite the case of loss of the critical tantra-s and vaidika texts from Kashmir due to Sikandar but-shikan – shrIvara describes him as burning all Hindu libraries he could lay hands on (sakala pustakAn niShUdita) – so much for the great Kashmiriyat.”
    • There are Tippu Sultan’s Shringeri letters - for that matter, there are pictures of Mahmud of Ghazni’s Sanskrit coins (If it should be of assistance in fooling oneself and others). Sandeep’s book on Tipu.