The Medieval Centuries

It carried an idea about the ordering of nature. The formal garden is nature arranged, walled and controlled, and it stands at the opposite pole from the sacred grove, which is nature left alone. Both are Indian traditions, and an answer that notices the contrast is making a point rather than listing.

The water works

The most substantial medieval environmental achievement, and the one with the most direct modern relevance.

Canals. Long-distance canals were cut in the north to carry water from the rivers to tracts that had none, and some of the alignments were still in use when British engineers surveyed them.

Tanks and reservoirs. In the Deccan and the south, rulers and communities built and maintained cascades of tanks, each spilling into the next, so that a whole watershed was managed as one system. The Vijayanagara works are the largest surviving example.

Step-wells. In the dry west, the vav or baoli gave access to groundwater through the year and served as a public building as well as a water source.

Why this belongs in a modern answer. Because the National Water Policy asks for exactly what these systems did: local storage, community maintenance, use matched to what a watershed yields. The medieval water works are the strongest Indian evidence that the policy's preference for traditional systems is not romantic. They also show the failure mode: when the ruler who maintained them went, and the community obligation to desilt them lapsed, the systems silted up and stopped working within a generation or two.

Worked example

MU's 2019 paper asks for "the ancient and medieval writings on the protection of Environment with reference to customs and traditions in India."

A candidate who has read only the ancient material will write three paragraphs and stop. A candidate who has read this chapter can add three more, and each of them earns its place.

One: the medieval reserve, which protected forest and game as an incident of royal privilege, and which is the direct ancestor of the sanctuary.

Two: the water works, which are the largest surviving physical evidence of pre-colonial environmental management in India, and which the National Water Policy expressly points back to.

Three: the shift itself, from a natural world owed duties to a natural world owned by a ruler, which is what made the colonial forest settlement possible.

The third is the one that turns a list into an argument, and it costs two sentences.

What the medieval period did NOT produce

No new ethic. The ancient literature had already said what there was to say about duty to the natural world, and the medieval period added devotional literature rather than doctrine. The environmental content of the period is administrative.

No rights in the subject. As in the ancient period, protection runs downwards. There is no medieval instance of a subject enforcing an environmental obligation against a ruler.

No conservation motive. Reserves existed for hunting, canals for revenue and gardens for pleasure and display. That the natural world benefited is a consequence.

Distinctions that carry marks

Quick revision

• The medieval institutions to name are the hunting reserve, the garden, and the water works: canals, tank cascades and step-wells.
• The reserve protected forest and game as an incident of royal privilege, and is the structural ancestor of the sanctuary; several Indian parks are former reserves.
• The water works are the strongest physical evidence of pre-colonial environmental management, and their failure mode is instructive: they silted up within a generation or two of the maintenance obligation lapsing.
• The period produced no new ethic, no rights in the subject and no conservation motive. Its contribution is administrative.
• The shift it completes, from a natural world owed duties to a natural world owned by a ruler, is what made the colonial forest settlement possible.

Test yourself

1. Name the three characteristic medieval institutions and say what each protected.

The hunting reserve, which protected game and the forest cover it needed, as an incident of the ruler's privilege. The formal garden, which carried applied knowledge of water lifting, soils and species. And the water works, canals, tank cascades and step-wells, which managed whole watersheds and gave year-round access to groundwater.

2. Why is the hunting reserve the ancestor of the modern sanctuary?

Because it is structurally the same thing: a defined tract closed to the public in which taking is an offence. The continuity is physical and administrative as well, since several Indian national parks and sanctuaries are former reserves and carry over their boundaries and their staff.

3. What is the modern policy relevance of the medieval water works?

The National Water Policy prefers local storage, community maintenance and use matched to what a watershed yields, and the medieval tank cascades did exactly that at scale. They also demonstrate the failure mode, since the systems silted up within a generation or two of the community obligation to desilt them lapsing.

4. What single change over the medieval centuries matters most for the history of Indian environmental law?

The shift from a natural world regarded as an object of duty to a natural world regarded as an asset of the ruler. Once the forest is the sovereign's property rather than the community's commons, the colonial forest settlement of the nineteenth century follows naturally.