India through the Eyes of Foreign Travellers

Legendary Cities of Ancient India already covers Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador whose account of Pataliputra under the Mauryas is the earliest of these foreign records. This note covers the later travellers, in chronological order, each tied to a specific ruling period and a specific named work.

The two Chinese Buddhist pilgrims: Fa-Hien and Xuanzang

Fa-Hien (Faxian), a Chinese Buddhist monk, travelled through India during the reign of Chandragupta II (Vikramaditya) of the Gupta dynasty, and his own account, A Record of the Buddhist Kingdoms (Fo-Guo-Ji), is a primary source for the social, religious and administrative condition of India under Gupta rule, generally described in his account as prosperous and well-governed. Xuanzang (Hiuen Tsang), travelling roughly two centuries later (c. 629 to 645 CE) during the reign of Harshavardhana, left a considerably more detailed record in his Great Tang Records on the Western Regions (Si-Yu-Ki), covering political administration, religious practice and everyday life across a wide swathe of the subcontinent from Kashmir to the Deccan; Xuanzang also studied at Nalanda itself (already covered in this site's Education in India note), making his account a first-hand description of the university's own functioning rather than a report at second hand.

Al-Biruni: an eleventh-century scholar riding with an army

Al-Biruni, an eleventh-century Persian polymath, produced his own account of India, the Kitab-ul-Hind (Tahqiq-i-Hind), while accompanying, or in the orbit of, Mahmud of Ghazni's campaigns into India, a genuinely uncomfortable historical juxtaposition worth holding precisely: the work is a serious, wide-ranging scholarly study, covering Indian mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, religious ritual and language, and drawing careful comparisons with Persian and Islamic traditions, even though it was produced in the context of a series of military raids on the very society it studies so carefully.

Ibn Battuta: from visiting traveller to Delhi's own judge

Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan traveller, arrived in Delhi in 1333 CE during the reign of Muhammad bin Tughlaq, and his own case is distinctive among this chapter's travellers because he did not merely observe and record India from outside: Tughlaq appointed him Qazi (judge) of Delhi, a position he held for around six years, drawing a substantial salary and holding an official state residence, before eventually departing India as part of a diplomatic mission. His travel account, the Rihla, consequently combines an outsider's descriptive record with a genuine insider's administrative experience of the Delhi Sultanate's own legal system, a first-hand vantage point none of the other travellers in this chapter shared.

The Vijayanagara cluster: Portuguese and Persian accounts of a southern empire

A distinct cluster of travellers left independent accounts of the Vijayanagara Empire, chiefly under Krishnadevaraya's reign, and their accounts are valued precisely because they corroborate each other from genuinely different national vantage points. Domingo Paes, a Portuguese traveller, left a detailed description of the Vijayanagara capital's own prosperity, markets and courtly ceremony, and his account, alongside that of fellow Portuguese traveller Duarte Barbosa and the earlier Persian envoy Abdur Razzaq (who visited under an earlier Vijayanagara ruler), together form the standard cluster of foreign eyewitness sources for reconstructing the empire's own administration and urban life, since Vijayanagara's own indigenous records are comparatively less descriptive of everyday courtly and commercial life than these outside accounts.

Quick revision points

• Fa-Hien (Faxian): Chinese Buddhist monk, travelled under Chandragupta II (Gupta dynasty); wrote A Record of the Buddhist Kingdoms.
• Xuanzang (Hiuen Tsang): Chinese Buddhist monk, travelled under Harshavardhana (c. 629 to 645 CE), studied at Nalanda; wrote Great Tang Records on the Western Regions (Si-Yu-Ki), the most detailed of the Chinese accounts.
• Al-Biruni: 11th-century Persian polymath, produced Kitab-ul-Hind (Tahqiq-i-Hind) while accompanying Mahmud of Ghazni's campaigns; a serious scholarly study of Indian science, philosophy and religion despite its military-campaign context.
• Ibn Battuta: Moroccan traveller, arrived in Delhi 1333 CE under Muhammad bin Tughlaq, who appointed him Qazi (judge) of Delhi for about six years; wrote the Rihla, combining outsider observation with genuine insider administrative experience.
• Vijayanagara cluster (chiefly under Krishnadevaraya): Domingo Paes and Duarte Barbosa (Portuguese) and Abdur Razzaq (Persian envoy, an earlier ruler's reign) together form the standard set of foreign eyewitness accounts of the empire's administration and urban life.