CDS (II) 2023 GK Q73: Abdur Razzaq, an ambassador of the ruler of Persia, was

Q: What is the answer to CDS (II) 2023 GK Q73?

A. Correct — A, Fortifications of Calicut. The sentence this question is built on is the one the NCERT chapter on Vijayanagara uses to introduce the traveller: Abdur Razzaq, an ambassador sent by the ruler of Persia to Calicut in the fifteenth century, was greatly impressed by the fortifications, and mentioned seven lines of forts. Abd-al-Razzaq Samarqandi was the envoy of Shah Rukh, the Timurid ruler at Herat; he reached Kozhikode in January 1442 and travelled inland from there to Vijayanagara, then ruled by Deva Raya II. What he described at length in his chronicle, the Matla-us-Sadain wa Majma-ul-Bahrain, was the ring of walls around that city — stone blocks fitted without mortar or any cementing agent, square and rectangular bastions projecting outwards, and cultivated fields, gardens and houses lying in the space between the first, second and third walls. Of the four things the paper offers, walls are the one his account is remembered for.

CDS (II) 2023 General Knowledge · Question 73 of 120

Question text verified against the official CDS question paper.

Abdur Razzaq, an ambassador of the ruler of Persia, was sent to Calicut in the fifteenth century. He was greatly impressed by the :

(a)Fortifications of Calicut
(b)Climatic conditions of the coastal town
(c)High quality spices of the place
(d)Musical traditions of the place

Answer

Why

Correct — A, Fortifications of Calicut. The sentence this question is built on is the one the NCERT chapter on Vijayanagara uses to introduce the traveller: Abdur Razzaq, an ambassador sent by the ruler of Persia to Calicut in the fifteenth century, was greatly impressed by the fortifications, and mentioned seven lines of forts. Abd-al-Razzaq Samarqandi was the envoy of Shah Rukh, the Timurid ruler at Herat; he reached Kozhikode in January 1442 and travelled inland from there to Vijayanagara, then ruled by Deva Raya II. What he described at length in his chronicle, the Matla-us-Sadain wa Majma-ul-Bahrain, was the ring of walls around that city — stone blocks fitted without mortar or any cementing agent, square and rectangular bastions projecting outwards, and cultivated fields, gardens and houses lying in the space between the first, second and third walls. Of the four things the paper offers, walls are the one his account is remembered for.

Why the others are wrong

(b)Climatic conditions of the coastal town — Razzaq writes about Kozhikode as a secure harbour where merchants of every origin could trade safely, not about its weather. No textbook account of him turns on climate.
(c)High quality spices of the place — The most tempting wrong answer, because Calicut's fame does rest on pepper and it is the pepper trade that later brought Vasco da Gama there. Razzaq does note the port's commerce, but the detail carried into Indian history writing under his name is the count of the forts, not the quality of the spices.
(d)Musical traditions of the place — Nothing in his account is about music. This option borrows from the very different reputation of another Persian-language traveller tradition and has no basis in the Matla-us-Sadain.

Concept

Abd-al-Razzaq Samarqandi (1413-1482) was a scholar-diplomat of the Timurid court at Herat, sent by Shah Rukh as ambassador to the Zamorin of Calicut. He was in India from January 1442 to January 1445, going on from the Malabar coast to the Vijayanagara capital. His travel account forms part of the Matla-us-Sadain wa Majma-ul-Bahrain, 'The Rise of the Two Auspicious Constellations and the Meeting of the Two Oceans', and it is one of the four foreign descriptions of Vijayanagara that Indian textbooks use, alongside those of Nicolo de Conti, Domingo Paes and Fernao Nuniz.

There is a real slip inside this question and it is worth naming, because a careful student will feel it. The forts that impressed Razzaq were Vijayanagara's, not Calicut's; Calicut is only where his ship landed. The option prints 'Fortifications of Calicut' because it compresses a single NCERT sentence that begins with Calicut and ends with the forts. The official key marks (a), so that is the answer to give — the examiner is testing recall of the traveller-to-detail pairing, not the geography of the walls. Reason to the answer this way: three of the options attach to nothing in the source at all, and only one of them attaches to a sentence a candidate is likely to have read.

Key facts

Abd-al-Razzaq Samarqandi was the ambassador of Shah Rukh, the Timurid ruler of Persia, and was in India from January 1442 to January 1445.
His account survives inside the chronicle Matla-us-Sadain wa Majma-ul-Bahrain.
He saw Vijayanagara in the reign of Deva Raya II and reported seven lines of forts around the city.
He noted that the walls used no mortar or cementing agent and that the bastions were square and rectangular, projecting outwards.
He recorded cultivated fields, gardens and houses in the space between the first, second and third walls — the city fed itself inside its own defences.

Study next

The four foreign accounts of Vijayanagara — Nicolo de Conti, Abdur Razzaq, Domingo Paes and Fernao Nuniz, and what each is quoted forDeva Raya II and the Sangama line of VijayanagaraCalicut, the Zamorin and the Malabar pepper trade before the PortugueseIbn Battuta and Ma Huan on the ports of the western Indian coastHow Vijayanagara's fortifications, water works and royal centre are described in archaeology

Common traps

Assuming the walls he praised were Calicut's — they were Vijayanagara's, and Calicut is only where the embassy landed.
Swapping Razzaq with Nicolo de Conti or Ibn Battuta, who visited different courts in different decades.
Attaching the seven-lines-of-forts detail to Krishnadeva Raya's reign; Razzaq saw the city a century earlier, under Deva Raya II.

Almost always as a traveller-to-detail pairing — which visitor said what about Vijayanagara — or as a match-the-column item with Conti, Paes and Nuniz.

Related PYQs

UPSC_2021_GS1_Q352021Open & attempt →

According to Portuguese writer Nuniz, the women in Vijayanagara Empire were expert in which of the following areas? 1. Wrestling 2. Astrology 3. Accounting 4. Soothsaying Select the correct answer using the code given below.

(a) 1, 2 and 3 only
(b) 1, 3 and 4 only
(c) 2 and 4 only
(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4

Answer(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4

The same examining habit applied to the same city — take one foreign visitor's account of Vijayanagara and ask what he specifically recorded. There it is Fernao Nuniz on the skills of women at court; here it is Abdur Razzaq on the walls.

NDA_GAT_2023_II_Q1012023Open & attempt →

Consider the following statements regarding the royal center in Vijayanagara Empire : 1. The royal center was located in the south-western part of the settlement 2. It included over 60 temples 3. About 30 building complexes at the site have been identified as palaces Which of the statements given above is/are correct ?

(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) 1, 2 and 3
(d) 1 and 2 only

Answer(c) 1, 2 and 3

The built city itself, from the archaeological side. That NDA item counts the temples and palace complexes inside the royal centre; this one asks what the walls enclosing all of it did to a fifteenth-century visitor.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Abdur Razzaq, who has left an account of the city of Vijayanagara, came to India as the ambassador of which ruler?
- (a)Shah Rukh of Herat
- (b)Timur
- (c)Uzun Hasan
- (d)Ismail Safavi
Answer(a) Shah Rukh of Herat — the Timurid ruler of Persia sent him to the Zamorin of Calicut, and he was in India between 1442 and 1445.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which Vijayanagara ruler was on the throne when Abdur Razzaq visited the capital?
- (a)Harihara I
- (b)Deva Raya II
- (c)Krishnadeva Raya
- (d)Achyuta Raya
Answer(b) Deva Raya II — Razzaq reached Vijayanagara in the 1440s, some seventy years before Krishnadeva Raya's accession.