From Migration to Materiality: Cultural Transformation under the Deccan Sultanates in the Indo-Pacific Arena

Tariq Latif Tamboli* and Prabhakar Nagnath Kolekar

By placing the Deccan Sultanates into the perspective of the early-modern Indo-Pacific world, the paper disputes the Eurocentric and coast-centric accounts of Indian Ocean history. It states that though the Bahmani polity gave rise to Deccan Sultanates of Bijapur, Golconda, Ahmadnagar, Bidar and Berar, they served a critical mediatory purpose in the development of the Indo-Pacific economic, cultural, and political networks between the 15thand 17th centuries. With their domination of the hinterlands that bordered the core ports on the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, especially of Masulipatnam and their Coromandel outlets, the Deccan Sultanates incorporated the plateau economy into broad oceanic networks between West Asia, East Africa, Southeast Asia, and China. The analysis is based on archaeological and material data from ports, urban hubs, mosques, tombs and manufacturing sites to discover how the incoming populations of West Asia, Central Asia, East Africa, and Southeast Asia negotiated their identity in terms of architecture, burial, inscriptions, numismatics, and portable material culture. These material signatures indicate processes of adaptation, hybridisation, and selective continuity, rather than mere cultural transplantation. The paper suggests that the Deccan Sultanate was formed as a result of constant contact between migrant societies and the local culture, and this resulted in the creation of specific architectural idioms, artistic expression, and socio-political activities, which spread throughout Indo-Pacific connections. By embedding the Deccan Sultanates into international archaeological discourses on migration this paper shows how movement became a productive power in defining local identities.