Indo-Persian travel writing
Topic: Medieval India through Travellers' Eyes · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Through the Eyes of Travellers"
Meaning
Indo-Persian travel writing means the travel accounts written in Persian about India between about 1400 and 1800. Some of these writers had read the earlier accounts of Al-Biruni and Ibn Battuta. Most of them saw India as a "land of wonders", though a few were disgusted or disappointed. Like other Persian and Arabic accounts, they were copied by hand as manuscripts and mostly not printed before 1800. So they were read far less widely than printed European books like Bernier's.
Example
Abdur Razzaq Samarqandi visited south India in the 1440s. At Calicut he called the people "a strange nation". Near Mangalore he was amazed by a temple with a gold statue with ruby eyes. In the 1740s Shaikh Ali Hazin came to north India expecting a grand welcome and left disappointed.
Don't confuse with
- Kitab-ul-Hind and the Rihla: Al-Biruni's and Ibn Battuta's works were written in Arabic, not Persian, and are much older than this body of writing.
- European travel accounts (Bernier, Tavernier): these were printed and reprinted many times, so they shaped how Europe saw India.