A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORYexpounded by experts; somewhere the Rasaka is staged by the ac-
tors. Somewhere the Sudayavasta story is narrated, in another place
the Nala episode; in yet another is recited the Bharta epic with
various diversions. In some quarters selfless Brahmans are uttCjl-"ing
benedictions; in others the Ramayana is eulogised. Some hear flute,
lute, drums or tabors; some, the strains of melodies. Somewhere
attractive girls are performing rhythmic movements. Troops of ac-
tors are giving wonderful dramatic performances and one who en-
ters the courtesan locality would simply swoon from fascination.^55Rahman presents a world filled with stories, songs, and perfor-
mances. He details the forms and figures of the courtesans who entice
the traveler to the city-one.with a forehead adorned with a turakki ti-
laka (Turkic ornament), perhaps a sign of mercantile presence. He then
guides the traveler outward:
And if one chances to wander beyond the precincts of the city, he sees
such a variety of gardens as to forget the mansions altogether. There
are Dhallas, Kundas, Satapatrikas and other countless trees. There are
other strange trees also. The combined shadow of these trees making
up a dense thicket stretching to the length of ten Yojanas.^56Rahman's description evokes a connected geography stretching
between Multan and Cambay. The varieties of storytellers, performers,
and scholars that Rahman places in Multan suggests a heavily traf-
ficked area, and the description of built architecture and planned gar-
dens presupposes political support. Rahman, a poet writing in Prakrit,
achieves poetic excellence with a rare voice that describes the fluidity
of city spaces such as Uch before the eleventh century.
The presence of a "Muslim" such as Rahman in Multan or Jaislmer
or Cambay was the result of both the military and the political expedi-
tions since the eighth century and the steady growth of mercantile ac-
tivities in the Indian Ocean world since the ninth century. While Arab
settlements between Aden, Muscat, Diu, and Thana predate the Muslim
empires of Damascus and Baghdad, those capital cities' clamor for goods
produced a flourishing of trade. These mercantile interests were com-
mingled across political boundaries-numerous epigraphic traces of
Muslim trading communities (often marked as tajika or turakki or
mleccha) in Gujarat and Deccan survive from the ninth century on-