UGC NET History Unit 6 Complete Overview Notes: Medieval Society and Culture

Unit 6 of 10 · Medieval India. This unit is about the people: their religion, society, learning and the arts. Questions test movements and saints (Sufi, Bhakti, Sikh), social groups, and styles of painting, music and architecture, usually as matching and “which is correct” items.

• How to use these notes: learn each movement as saint, region and teaching; learn the arts as style, patron and example; try the practice questions before the explanations.
• Official topics covered: all 10, in the official order.

What this page is: complete overview notes for every official topic: the key facts, the historians’ debates and how UGC asks it, short enough to revise a whole unit in one sitting. For the fuller explanation behind each topic, use the full Medieval India notes.

1. Social organisation & structure

The idea. Medieval society was layered by birth, occupation, religion and power, and both Hindu and Muslim communities had internal hierarchies.

• Hindu society. Varna and a growing number of jatis, regulated by caste panchayats; occupational castes; Rajputs as a ruling class and Kayasthas and Khatris as scribes and administrators.
• Muslim society. A division between the ashraf (descendants of foreigners: Sayyids, Shaikhs, Mughals, Pathans) and the ajlaf (converts); the ulema, Sufis and the nobility. Barani wrote as an aristocrat who disliked low-born appointees.
• The Mughal order. Mansabdars at the top, then merchants, professionals, peasants and artisans; slaves existed but were not the base of the economy.

How UGC asks it. Define ashraf and ajlaf. Trap: both communities had caste-like divisions.

2. Sufis: orders, beliefs, leading saints, social synchronization

The idea. Sufis, mystics who stressed love of God and service of people, organised into orders (silsilas) and became a bridge between communities.

• Beliefs and practice. The khanqah (hospice), the teacher (pir) and disciple (murid), reliance on God (tawakkul), and the doctrine of the unity of being (wahdat-ul-wujud) against which Sirhindi argued the unity of witness.
• Synchronization. Shared saints’ tombs (dargahs), devotional music (qawwali), and a vernacular literature; Sufi conversations were recorded in malfuzat.

Debate. Historians such as Richard Eaton reject the idea that conversion was by the sword, and stress gradual social and economic processes.

How UGC asks it. Match order to saint and city (Chishti: Nizamuddin Auliya, Delhi; Suhrawardi: Bahauddin Zakariya, Multan) and define wahdat-ul-wujud. Trap: the Chishtis kept away from the state, the Suhrawardis did not.

3. Bhakti movement: Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Shaktism; North & South saints; women saints

The idea. Bhakti stressed personal devotion in the vernacular, often against ritual and caste barriers.

• South and Deccan. Basava (Lingayat or Virashaiva; vachanas in Kannada), the Marathi saints Jnaneshwar, Namdev, Eknath, Tukaram (Varkari tradition, abhangs, Vithoba of Pandharpur).
• North, nirguna (formless God): Ramananda, Kabir, Ravidas, Dadu, Guru Nanak.
• North, saguna (God with form): Tulsidas (Rama), Surdas (Krishna), Mirabai, Vallabhacharya, Chaitanya (Bengal, kirtan), Shankaradeva (Assam).
• Women saints. Andal, Karaikkal Ammaiyar, Akka Mahadevi, Lal Ded, Mirabai, Bahina Bai.

Debate. Bhakti has been read as a protest of the low-born, as a bridge with Sufism, and as a move that Brahmanical religion largely absorbed.

How UGC asks it. Saint to region and school; the poetic forms (abhang, vachana, pada, kirtan). Trap: Kabir and Nanak taught a formless God; Tulsidas and Surdas worshipped forms.

4. Sikh movement: Guru Nanak, Adi Granth, Khalsa

The idea. A devotional movement founded by Guru Nanak grew into a distinct community and, under pressure, a military order.

• Guru Nanak (1469–1539): one formless God, rejection of ritual and caste, sangat and langar, and the Kartarpur community.
• Later gurus. Angad (Gurmukhi script); Amar Das (the manji system); Ram Das (Amritsar); Arjan Dev (compiled the Adi Granth in 1604, built the Harmandir, executed in 1606); Hargobind (miri and piri; Akal Takht); Tegh Bahadur (executed in 1675); Gobind Singh (founded the Khalsa in 1699).
• Adi Granth includes the verses of Kabir, Namdev, Ravidas and Farid beside the gurus.

Debate. Historians differ on whether militarisation was mainly a response to Mughal persecution or also reflected the growing role of Jat peasants.

How UGC asks it. Match Guru to contribution (Arjan: Adi Granth; Hargobind: miri and piri; Gobind Singh: Khalsa). Trap: the Khalsa was founded in 1699, long after Guru Nanak.

5. Social classes: ruling class, Ulemas, mercantile/professional classes, Rajput society

The idea. Power, learning and wealth were held by different groups who sometimes overlapped.

• Ruling class. Mughal nobles (Turani, Irani, Afghan, Rajput, Deccani and Maratha groups) who held mansabs.
• Ulema. Scholars, qazis and muftis; the Sadr controlled revenue-free grants (madad-i-maash).
• Merchants and professionals. Bankers (sarrafs), traders (Banias, Marwaris), physicians (hakims, vaids), scribes and accountants.
• Rajputs. Clan-based society, honour and the practices of jauhar and sati; chiefs held hereditary watan lands and married into the Mughal house.

How UGC asks it. Define ashraf, ulema and mansabdar roles and the Rajput watan. Trap: the Sadr controlled revenue-free religious grants, not military appointments.

6. Rural society: chieftains, village officials, cultivators, artisans

The idea. The village was a community of unequal groups tied by hereditary service.

• Chieftains. Zamindars in the north and deshmukhs in the Deccan, with their armed followers.
• Village officials. The headman (muqaddam, patel) and the accountant (patwari, kulkarni).
• Cultivators. Khudkasht and pahi-kasht; in the Deccan, mirasdars with permanent rights and upari cultivators without.
• Artisans and servants. The Deccan balutedars were village servants and artisans who gave customary services for a hereditary share; watandar balutedars held permanent rights, upari ones did not.

How UGC asks it. Define balutedar, watandar, upari. Trap: upari status was temporary, not hereditary.

7. Women’s position: Zanana system, Devadasi system

The idea. Women’s lives varied sharply by class, religion and region, and the sources mostly come from elite men.

• Zanana. Seclusion (purdah) among upper-class Muslim and some Hindu families; the Mughal women’s quarters nevertheless held powerful figures: Nur Jahan (coins issued in her name), Jahanara (who owned trading ships) and Roshanara.
• Hindu women. Child marriage, restrictions on widow remarriage and sati in some groups; women saints and poets stand against this picture.
• Devadasi. Women dedicated to a temple deity who served in rituals, music and dance; in the Chola period they were honoured and temples supported them, but their position fell later.

How UGC asks it. Define zanana and devadasi. Trap: do not generalise from the court to all women.

8. Education: centres, curriculum, Madarasa education

The idea. Education was religious and practical, run by teachers, schools and endowments rather than a state system.

• Muslim education. Maktabs (elementary: Quran and Persian) and madrasas (higher: Arabic, Persian, theology, logic, medicine and mathematics). Firoz Shah’s madrasa, Mahmud Gawan’s at Bidar, and in the 18th century the Dars-i-Nizami syllabus at Farangi Mahal, Lucknow.
• Hindu education. Pathshalas and tols, the Sanskrit centres at Varanasi and Nabadwip (Navya-Nyaya), and mathas.
• Persian was the language of administration, so Kayasthas and Khatris learned it.

How UGC asks it. Maktab versus madrasa; the Dars-i-Nizami at Farangi Mahal; Hindu centres such as Varanasi and Nabadwip. Trap: Persian was the language of administration, so Hindu scribal castes learned it too.

9. Painting schools: Mughal, Rajasthani, Pahari, Garhwali; development of music

The idea. Painting and music grew under court and regional patronage and blended Persian and Indian traditions.

Music. Amir Khusrau is associated with new forms and with the Sufi sama; Man Singh Tomar of Gwalior and Tansen of Akbar’s court developed dhrupad; in the south Purandaradasa is called the father of Carnatic music.

How UGC asks it. School to feature or artist. Trap: the Hamzanama was an Akbar-era project involving many artists.

10. Art & architecture: Indo-Islamic, Mughal, regional styles, Mughal gardens, Maratha forts

The idea. Indo-Islamic architecture joined the arch, dome and minaret to Indian craft and materials.

• Sultanate. The Qutb Minar and Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque, Adhai-din-ka-Jhonpra, the Alai Darwaza (true arch and dome), the sloping walls of Tughluq buildings and the Lodi garden tombs.
• Provincial. Jaunpur (Atala mosque), Gujarat (Ahmedabad’s mosques), Bengal, Malwa, and the Deccan (the Bahmani monuments; Bijapur’s Gol Gumbaz).
• Mughal. Humayun’s tomb (the first great garden tomb), Fatehpur Sikri (Buland Darwaza), Itimad-ud-Daula’s tomb (early pietra dura), and Shah Jahan’s Taj Mahal, Red Fort and Jama Masjid.
• Gardens. The charbagh (also written Char Bagh) is a quadrilateral garden divided into four parts by walkways or water channels, drawing on Persian tradition and used in tomb and palace complexes; it was not purely decorative.
• Regional. Vijayanagara (Hampi: Vitthala temple); Rajput palaces; and the hill forts of the Marathas such as Raigad, Rajgad and Sinhagad.

How UGC asks it. Monument to ruler; features of the charbagh. Trap: the Alai Darwaza is Khalji; Humayun’s tomb is not the Taj.

Revision checklist

• I can name the four Sufi orders with a leading saint and one trait each.
• I can sort Bhakti saints into nirguna and saguna and by region, with women saints.
• I can list the Sikh gurus with one contribution each.
• I can define balutedar, zanana and devadasi correctly.
• I can match a painting school or monument to its patron and one feature.

Next: the official Unit 6 topics · free unit test · Unit 7 complete overview notes.