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Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official
548
These notions are still prevalent.
549
December, 1835, Christmas Day.
550
'Overthrower of horses'; the same epithet is applied to the Utangan river, south of the Agra district, owing to the difficulty with which it is crossed when in flood (N.W.P. Gazetteer, 1st ed., vol. vii, p. 423).
551
Sindhia's territories, measuring 25,041 square miles, are in parts intermixed with those of other princes, and so extend over a wide space. Gwālior and its government have been discussed already in Chapter 36.
552
December, 1835.
553
The author's remark that in India the roads are 'nowhere metalled' must seem hardly credible to a modern traveller, who sees the country intersected by thousands of miles of metalled road. The Grand Trunk Road from Calcutta to Lahore, constructed in Lord Dalhousie's time, alone measures about 1,200 miles. The development of roads since 1850 ha been enormous, and yet the mileage of good roads would have to be increased tenfold to put India on an equality with the more advanced countries of Europe.
554
Ante, Chanter 36, notes 26 & 27.
555
The Baiza Bāī was the widow of Daulat Rāo Sindhia. He had died on March 21, 1827. With the consent of the Government of India, she adopted a boy as his successor, but, being an ambitions and intriguing woman, she tried to keep all power in her own hands. The young Mahārājā fled from her, and took refuge in the Residency in October, 1832. In December of the same year Lord William Bentinck visited Gwālior, and assumed an attitude of absolute neutrality. The result was that trouble continued, and seven months later the Mahārājā again fled to the Residency. The troops then revolted against the Baiza Bāī, and compelled her to retire to Dhōlpur. This event put an end to her political activity. Ultimately she was allowed to return to Gwālior, and died there in 1862 (Malleson, The Native States of India, pp. 160- 4). The author wrote an unpublished history of Baiza Bāī (ante, Bibliography).
556
Long since abolished.
557
The law now permits the person injured to be compensated out of any fine realized.
558
The system of employing gangs of prisoners on the roads was open to great abuses, and has been long given up. The prisoners are now, as a rule, employed only on the jail promises, and cannot be utilized for outside work, except under special circumstances by special sanction.
559
The notes to this edition have recorded many changes in India, but no change has taken place in the difficulties which beset the administration of criminal law. They are still those which the author describes, and Police Commissions cannot remove them. The power to exact security for good behaviour from known bad characters still exists, and, when discreetly used, is of great value. The conviction of atrocious robbers and murderers is, perhaps, less rare than it was in the author's time, though many still escape even the minor penalty of arrest. The want of a sound moral public opinion is the fundamental difficulty in Indian police administration—a truth fully Understood by the author, but rarely realized by members of Parliament.
560
The title of the Dhōlpur chief is now Mahārājā Rānā. In 1905 his reduced army numbered 1,216 of all ranks (I. G., 1908). The force is not of serious military value.
561
The identification of the Jāts, or Jats, with the Getae is not even probable. The anchor exaggerates the lowness of the social rank of the Jāts, who cannot properly be described as people of 'very low caste'. They are, and have long been, numerous and powerful in the Panjāb and the neighbouring countries. It is true that they hate Brahmans, care little for Brahman notions of propriety, either as regards food or marriage, and to a certain extent stand outside the orthodox Hindoo system; but they are heterodox rather than low-caste. The Rājās of Bharatpur, Dhōlpur, Nābha, Patiālā, and Jīnd are all Jāts. The Jāts are a fine and interesting people, who seem to suffer little deterioration from the notorious laxity of their matrimonial arrangements. They are skilled and industrious cultivators. A saying has been current in Upper India that, if the British power is ever broken, the succession will pass to the Jāts.
562
This is the Brahman and Baniyā theory. A high-spirited Rājpūt of Rājputāna, full of pride in his long ancestry, and yet fond of wild boar's flesh, would indeed be wroth if denounced as a low-caste man. It is, however, unfortunately, quite true that all races which become entangled in the meshes of Hinduism tend to gradually surrender their freedom, and to become proud of submission to the senseless formalities and restrictions which the Brahman loves.
563
Akbar II. He was titular emperor from A.D. 1806 to 1837, and was succeeded by Bahādur Shāh II, the last of his line. The portrait of Akbar II is the frontispiece to volume i of the original edition of this work, and a miniature portrait of him is given in the frontispiece of volume ii.
564
One of these tombs, namely, that of Bībī Zarīna, dated A.H. 942 = A.D. 1535-6, is described by Cunningham (A.S.R., xx, p. 113, pl. xxxvii), who notes that according to an obviously false local popular story, the lady was a daughter of Shāh Jahān, who lived a century later. This story seems to have misled the author. No inscription of the reign of Shāh Jahān at Dhōlpur is recorded.
565
The three sons were Dārā Shikoh, Aurangzēb, and Murād Baksh.
566
December, 1835.
567
It is not, perhaps, generally known, though it deserves to be so, that the bamboo seeds only once, and dies immediately after seeding. All bamboos from the same seed die at the same time, whenever they may have been planted. The life of the common large bamboo is about fifty years. [W. H. S.] The period is said to vary between thirty and sixty years. Bamboo seed is eaten as rice when obtainable. The author's theories about electricity are more ingenious than satisfactory.
568
Better known as the Mauritius.
569
This proposition may be accepted with confidence. Electricity is a great mystery, which becomes more mysterious the more it is studied.
570
A letter of the author's, dated 13th March, 1809, is extant, in which he gives a full description of the performance of Macbeth at the Haymarket by Kemble and Mrs. Siddons on Saturday, 11th March. The author sailed in the Devonshire on the 24th March.
571
No European had ever before, I believe, noted this, [W. H. S.] Moīn-ud-dīn (p. 49) says that this phrase, 'Thou art our patron, help as therefore against the unbelieving nations,' is from the long chapter 2 ('The Cow') of the Korān, but I have not succeeded in finding the exact words in Sale's version of that chapter. I suspect that the words have been misread. Moīn-ud- dīn gives as the words at the north side of the tomb,
572
The Empress had been a good deal exasperated against the Portuguese and Dutch by the treatment her husband received from them when a fugitive, after an unsuccessful rebellion against his father; and her hatred to them extended, in some degree, to all Christians, whom she considered to be included in the term 'Kāfir', or unbeliever. [W. H. S.] Prince Shāh Jahān (Khurram) rebelled against his father, Jahāngīr, in A.D. 1623, and submitted in A.D. 1625. The terrible punishment inflicted by Shāh Jahān when Emperor on the Portuguese of Hūgli (Hooghly) is related by Bernier (Constable's ed., pp. 177, 287). The Emperor had previously destroyed the Jesuits' church at Lahore completely, and the greater part of the church at Agra.
573
The cleverness, astuteness, energy, and business capacity of Aurangzēb are undoubted, and yet his long reign was a disastrous failure. The author reflects the praises of Muhammadans who cherish the memory of the 'namāzī'. The Emperor himself knew better when, in his old ago, he wrote to his son Azam the pathetic words, 'I have not done well by the country or its people. My years have gone by profitless' (Lane-Poole's version in Aurangzib (Rulers of India), p. 203. Letter No. 72 in Bilimoria, Letters of Aurungzbe, Bombay, 1908. Another version in E. and D. vii, 562.) His reign lasted for almost forty-nine years, from June 1658 to February 1707, and not for only forty years.
574
The real tombs are in the vault below. Beautiful cenotaphs stand under the dome. The inscription on the tomb of the Empress is exactly repeated on her cenotaph, and runs thus:-
'The splendid sepulchre of Arjumand Bānō Bēgam, entitled Mumtāz Mahall, deceased in the year 1040 Hijrī.'
The epitaph on Shāh Jahān's tomb is as follows:-
'The sacred sepulchre of His Moat Exalted Majesty, nesting in Paradise, the Second Lord of the Conjunction, Shāh Jahān, the Emperor. May his mausoleum ever flourish. Year 1076 Hijrī.'
The inscription on Shāh Jahān's cenotaph adds more titles and gives the exact date of death as 'the night of Rajab 28, A.H. 1076'. 1040 Hījrī corresponds with the period from July 31, A.D. 1630 to July 19, 1631; and 1076 Hijrī with the period July 4, A. D. 1665 to June 23, 1666, Old Style. The dates in New Style would be ten days later.
The epithet 'nesting in Paradise' (firdaus āshiyānī) was the official posthumous title of Shāh Jahān, frequently used by historians instead of his name.
The title 'Second Lord of the Conjunction' means that Shāh Jahān was held to have been born under the fortunate conjunction of Venus and Jupiter, as his ancestor Tīmūr had been.
575
The details in the text are inaccurate. Arjumand Bānō Bēgam, daughter of Āsaf Khān, brother of Nūr Jahān, the queen of Jahāngīr, was born in A.D. 1592, married in 1612, and died July 7, 1631 (o.s.), at Burhānpur in the Deccan. After a delay of six months her remains were removed to Agra, and there rested six months longer at a spot in the Tāj gardens still remembered, until her tomb was sufficiently advanced for the final interment. Her titles were Mumtāz-i-Mahall, 'Exalted in the Palace'; Qudsia Bēgam, and Nawāb Aliyā Bēgam. She bore her husband eight sons and six daughters, fourteen children in all, of whom seven were alive at the time of her death. The child whose birth cost the mother's life was Gauharārā Bēgam, who survived for many years (Irvine, Storia do Mogor, iv. 425). Beale wrongly gives her name as Dahar Ārā.
Shāh Jahān, two years before his union with Arjumand Bāno Bēgam, had been married to a Persian princess, by whom he had a daughter who died young. Five and a half years after his marriage to Arjumand Bāno Bēgam, he espoused a third wife, daughter of Shāh Nawāz Khān, by whom he had a son, who died in infancy. This third marriage was dictated by motives of policy, and did not impair the Emperor's devotion to his favourite consort (Muh. Latīf, Agra, p. 101).
576
The testimony of Tavernier is doubtless correct if understood as referring to the whole complex of buildings connected with the mausoleum. He visited Agra several times. He left India in January, 1654, returning to the country in 1659. Work on the Tāj began in 1632, and so appears to have been completed about the close of, 1653 (Tavernier, Travels, transl. Ball, vol. i, pp. xxi, xxii, 25, 110, 142, 149). The latest dated inscription, that of the calligraphist Amānat Khan at the entrance to the domed mausoleum, was recorded in the twelfth year of the reign, A.H. 1048, equivalent to A.D. 1638-9. That year may be taken as the date of the completion of the mausoleum itself, as distinguished from the great mass of supplementary structures.
577
Various records of the cost differ enormously, apparently because they refer to different things. If all the buildings and the vast value of the materials be included, the highest estimate, namely, four and a half millions of pounds sterling, in round numbers, is not excessive (H.F.A., 1911, p. 415) The figures are recorded with minute accuracy as 411 lākhs, 48,826 rupees, 7 annas, and 6 pies. A karōr (crore) is 100 lākhs, or 10 millions.
578
The enclosure occupies a space of more than forty-two acres.
579
This statement, though commonly made, is erroneous. The building is named the 'assembly house' (jamā'at khāna), or 'guest-house' (mihmān khāna) and was intended as the place for the congregation to assemble before prayers, or on the anniversaries of the deaths of the Emperor Shāh Jahān or his consort. Tāj Mahal (Muh. Latīf, Agra, p. 113). Of course, it also serves as an architectural balance for the mosque.
580
The gardens of the Tāj have been much improved since the author's time, and are now under the care of a skilled European superintendent, and full of beautiful shrubs and trees. The author's measurements of the quadrangle seem to be wrong. Different figures are given by Moīn-ud-dīn (Hist. of the Tāj, p. 29) and Fergusson (ed. 1910, vol. ii, p. 313). No official survey is available.
581
The white marble that forms the substance of the building came, Mr. Keene thinks, from Makrāna near Jaipur, but according to Mr. Hacket (Records of the Geographical Survey of India, x. 84), from Raiwāla in Jaipur, near the Alwar border [note]. The account of these marbles given in the Rājputāna Gazetteer, 1st ed. (ii. 127) favours Mr. Keene's view' (N.W.P. Gazetteer, 1st ed., vol. vii, p. 707). The ornamental stones used for the inlay work in the Tāj are lapis lazuli, jasper, heliotrope, Chalcedon agate, chalcedony, cornelian, sarde, plasma (or quartz and chlorite), yellow and striped marble, clay slate, and nephrite, or jade (Dr. Voysey, in Asiatic Researches, vol. xv, p. 429, quoted by V. Bail in Records of the Geological Survey of India, vii. 109). Moīn-ud- dīn (pp. 27-9) gives a longer list, from the custodians' Persian account.
582
There is some exaggeration in this statement. Shāh Jahān's concern was with his wife's tomb, and his fortified palaces, more than with 'the cities'.
583
Sleeman's talk about Austin de Bordeaux is wholly based on his misreading of Ustān for Ustād, meaning 'Master', in the Persian account, which names Muhammed-i- Īsā Afandi (Effendi) as the chief designer. He had the title of Ustād, and some versions represent Muhammad Sharīf, the second draughtsman, as his son. Muhammad, the son of Īsā ('Jesus'), apparently was a Turk. He had the Turkish title of 'Effendi', and the Persian MS. used by Moīn- ud-dīn asserts that he came from Turkey. The same authority states that Muhammad Sharīf was a native of Samarkand.
Austin de Bordeaux was wholly distinct from Muhammad-i- Īsā, Ustād Afandi, and there is no reason to suppose that he had anything to do with the Tāj. Sleeman's story about his work at Agra and his death comes from Tavernier (i. 108, transl. Ball: see next note). Austin was in the service of Jahāngīr as early as 1621, and probably came out to India from Persia in 1614. He is described as an engineer (ingénieur), and is recorded to have made a golden throne for Jahāngīr (J.R.A.S., 1910, pp. 494, 1343-5). Sleeman's misreading of ustād as ustān, and his consequent blunders, have misled innumerable writers. In cursive Persian the misreading is easy and natural. He took Ustān as intended for 'Austin'. Certain marks in the garden on the other side of the river indicate the spot where Shāh Jahān had begun work on his own tomb. Aurangzēb, as Tavernier observes, was 'not disposed to complete it' (see A.S.R., iv. 180).
For a summary of the controversy concerning the alleged share of Geronimo Veroneo in the design of the Tāj, see H.F.A., 1911, pp. 416-18. Personally, I am of opinion, as I was more than twenty years ago, that 'the incomparable Tāj is the product of a combination of European and Asiatic genius'. That opinion makes some people very angry.
584
I would not be thought very positive upon this point, I think I am right, but feel that I may be wrong. Tavernier says that Shāh Jahān was obliged to give up his intention of completing a silver ceiling to the great hall in the palace, because Austin de Bordeaux had been killed, and no other person could venture to attempt it. Ustān [sic] Īsā, in all the Persian accounts, stands first among the salaried architects. [W. H. S.] Tavernier's words are, 'Shāh Jahān had intended to cover the arch of a great gallery which is on the right hand with silver, and a Frenchman, named Augustin de Bordeaux, was to have done the work. But the Great Mogul, seeing there was no one in his kingdom who was more capable to send to Goa to negotiate an affair with the Portuguese, the work was not done, for, as the ability of Augustin was feared, he was poisoned on his return from Cochin.' (Tavernier, transl. Ball, vol. i, p. 108. ) The statement that Austin had 'finished the palace at Delhi, and the mausoleum and palace of Agra' is not warranted by any evidence known to the editor.
585
Akbar erected his works on the site of an older fort, named Bādalgarh, presumably of Hindu origin, 'which was of brick, and had become ruinous.' No existing building within the precincts can be referred with certainty to an earlier date than that of Akbar. The erection began in A.H. 972, corresponding to A.D. 1564-5, and the work continued for eight (or, according to another authority, four) years, costing 3,500,000 rupees, or about £350,000 sterling. The walls are of rubble, faced with red sandstone. The best account is the article by Nūr Baksh, entitled 'The Agra Fort and its Buildings', in A.S. Ann. Rep., 1903-4, pp. 164-93.
586
It is difficult to understand how men like the Marquis of Hastings and Lord William Bentinck could have been guilty of such barbarous stupidity. But the fact is beyond doubt, and numberless officials of less exalted rank must share the disgrace of the ruin and spoliation, which, both at Agra and Delhi, have destroyed two noble palaces, and left but a few disconnected fragments. Fergusson's indignant protests (History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, ed. 1910, vol. ii, p. 312, &c.) are none too strong. Sir John Strachey, who was Lieutenant-Governor of the North- Western Provinces in 1876, is entitled to the credit of having done all that lay in his power to remedy the effects of the parsimony and neglect of his predecessors. The buildings which remain at both Agra and Delhi are now well cared for, and large sums are spent yearly on their reparation and conservation. The credit for the modern policy of reverence for the ancient monuments is due to Lord Curzon more than to any one else.
587
This date is erroneous. The inscription is dated A.H. 1063, in the 26th year of Shāh Jahān, equivalent practically to A.D. 1653. It is given in full, with both text and translation, in A.S. Ann. Rep. for 1903-4, p. 183. It states that the building was erected in the course of seven years at a cost of 300,000 rupees, which = £33,750, at the rate of 2s. 3d. to the rupee current at the time. Errors on the subject disfigure most of the guide-books and other works commonly read.
588
The beauty of the Motī Masjid, like that of most mosques, is all internal. The exterior is ugly. The interior deserves all praise. Fergusson describes this mosque as 'one of the purest and most elegant buildings of its class to be found anywhere', and truly observes that 'the moment you enter by the eastern gateway the effect of its courtyard is surpassingly beautiful'. 'I hardly know anywhere', he adds, 'of a building so perfectly pure and elegant.' (Ind. and E. Arch., ed. 1910, vol. ii, p. 317. See also H.F.A., p. 412, fig. 242.)
589
I would, however, here enter my humble protest against the quadrille and tiffin [scil. lunch] parties, which are sometimes given to the European ladies and gentlemen of the station at this imperial tomb; drinking and dancing are, no doubt, very good things in their season, even in a hot climate, but they are sadly out of place in a sepulchre, and never fail to shock the good feelings of sober-minded people when given there. Good church music gives us great pleasure, without exciting us to dancing or drinking; the Tāj does the same, at least to the sober-minded. [W. H. S.] The regulations now in force prevent any unseemly proceedings. The gardens at the Tāj, of Itimād-ud-daula's tomb, of Akbar's mausoleum at Sikandara, and the Rām Bāgh, are kept up by means of income derived from crown lands, aided by liberal grants from Government.
590
The anthor's curiously meagre description of the magnificent mausoleum of Akbar is, in the original edition, supplemented by coloured plates, prepared apparently from drawings by Indian artists. The structure is absolutely unique, being a square pyramid of five stories, the uppermost of which is built of pure white marble, while the four lower ones are of red sandstone. All earlier descriptions of the building have been superseded by the posthumous work of E. W. Smith, a splendidly illustrated quarto, entitled, Akbar's Tomb, Sikandarah, Agra, Allahabad Government Press, 1909, being vol. xxxv of A. S. India. Work had been begun in the lifetime of Akbar. The lower part of the enclosing wall of the park dates from his reign. The whole of the mausoleum itself probably is to be assigned to the reign of Jahāngīr, who in 1608 disapproved of the structure which had been three or four years in course of erection, and caused the design to be altered to please himself. The work was finished in 1613 at a cost of five millions of rupees (50 lākhs, more than half a million of pounds sterling). The exquisitely carved cenotaph on the top story is inadequately described by Sleeman as 'another marble slab'. It is a single block of marble 3¼ feet high. The tomb in the vault 'is perfectly plain with the exception of a few mouldings'.
591
The ninety-nine names of God do not occur in the Korān. They are enumerated in chapter 1 of Book X of the 'Mishkāt-ul-Masābih' (see note 10, Chapter 5 ante): 'Abū Hurairah said, "Verily there are ninety- nine names for God; and whoever counts them shall enter into paradise. He is Allaho, than which there is no other; Al- Rahmān-ul-Rahīmo, the compassionate and merciful," &c., &c.' (Matthews, vol. i, p. 542.) The list is reproduced in the introduction to Palmer's translation of the Korān, and in Bosworth-Smith, Muhammad and Muhammadanism.
592
The court, 70 feet square, of the topmost story, is open to the sky, but the original intention was to provide a light dome, presumably similar to that built a little later to crown the mausoleum of Itimād-ud-daula. Finch, the traveller, who was at Agra about 1611, was informed that the cenotaph was 'to be inarched over with the most curious white and speckled marble, and to be seeled all within with pure sheet gold, richly inwrought.' The reason for omitting the dome is not recorded.