Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official

831

These names stand in the original edition as 'Tyz Mahomed Khan, of Ghujper,' and 'Tyz Alee Khan'. In 1857 the then Nawāb of Jhajjar joined the rebels. He was accordingly hanged, and his estate was confiscated. It is now included in the Rohtak District. See Fanshawe's Settlement Report of that District.

832

The disastrous retreat of Colonel Monson before Jeswant Rāo Holkār during the rainy season of 1804 is one of the few serious reverses which have interrupted the long series of British victories in India. A considerable force under the command of Colonel Monson, sent out by General Lake at the beginning of May in pursuit of Holkār, was withdrawn too far from its base, and was compelled to retreat through Rājputāna, and fall back on Agra. During the retreat the rains broke, and, under pressure caused by the difficulties of the march and incessant attacks of the enemy, the Company's troops became disorganized, and lost their guns and baggage. The shattered remnants of the force straggled into Agra at the end of August. The disgrace of this retreat was speedily avenged by the great victory of Dīg.

833

This old Norman-French formula. Oyez, Oyez, meaning 'Hear!' is still, or recently was, used at the Assizes in the High Court, Calcutta. The formula would not now be heard at Delhi, or elsewhere beyond the precincts of the High Court.

834

January, 1836.

835

'Balamgarh' is a mistake for Ballabgarh of I. G. (properly Ballabhgarh), which is about twenty-four miles from Delhi. In 1857 the chief was hanged for rebellion. The estate was confiscated and included in the Delhi District, under the Panjāb Government. From October 1, 1912, that District ceased to exist. Part of the Ballabhgarh sub-district has been included in the new Chief Commissioner's Province of Delhi, and part in the Gurgāon District.

836

Few observers will accept this proposition without considerable reservation.

837

Patiālā is the principal of the Cis-Satlaj Sikh Protected States. Nābhā belongs to the same group. Both states are very loyal, and supply Imperial Service troops. For a sketch of their history see chapters 2 and 9 of Sir Lepel Griffin's Ranjīt Singh.

838

The Sikh is a military nation formed out of the Jāts (who were without a place among the castes of the Hindoos),[a] by that strong bond of union, the love of conquest and plunder. Their religions and civil codes are the Granths, books written by their reputed prophets, the last of whom was Guru Govind,[b] in whose name Ranjīt Singh stamps his gold coins with this legend: 'The sword, the pot, victory, and conquest were quickly found in the grace of Guru Govind Singh,'[c] This prophet died insane in the end of the seventeenth century. He was the son of a priest Tēg Bahādur, who was made a martyr of by the bigoted Muhammadans of Patna in 1675. The son became a Peter the Hermit, in the same manner as Hargovind before him, when his father, Arjun Mal, was made a martyr by the fanaticism of the same people. A few more such martyrdoms would have set the Sikhs up for ever. They admit converts freely, and while they have a fair prospect of conquest and plunder they will find them; but, when they cease, they will be swallowed up in the great ocean of Hinduism, since they have no chance of getting up an 'army of martyrs' while we have the supreme power.[d] They detest us for the same reason that the military followers of the other native chiefs detest us, because we say 'Thus far shall you go, and no farther' in your career of conquest and plunder.[e] As governors, they are even worse than the Marāthās—utterly detestable. They have not the slightest idea of a duty towards the people from whose industry they are provided. Such a thing was never dreamed of by a Sikh. They continue to receive in marriage the daughters of Jāts, as in this case; but they will not give their daughters to Jāts. [W. H. S.]

839

The Emperors of Delhi, from Jahāngīr onwards, used to strike special coins, generally of small size, bearing the word nisār, which means 'scattering', for the purpose of distribution among the crowd on the occasion of a wedding, or other great festivity.

a. It has already been observed that the author was completely mistaken in his estimate of the social position of Jāts. It is not correct to say that they 'were without a place among the castes of the Hindoos'. 'The Jāt is in every respect the most important of the Panjāb peoples. . . . The distinction between Jāt and Rājpūt is social rather than ethnic. . . . Socially the Jāt occupies a position which is shared by the Rōr, the Gūjar, and the Ahīr; all four eating and smoking together. Among the races of purely Hindoo origin I think that the Jāt stands next after the Brahman, the Rājpūt, and the Khatrī. . . . There are Jāts and Jāts. . . . His is the highest of the castes practising widow marriage.' (Ibbetson, Outlines of Panjāb Ethnography, Calcutta, 1883, pp. 220 sqq.) The Jāts in the United Provinces occupy much the same relative position.

b. The Sikhs are mostly, but not all, Jāts. The organization is essentially a religions one, and a few Brahmans and many members of various other castes join it. Even sweepers are admitted with certain limitations. The word Sikh means 'disciple'. Nānak Shāh, the founder, was born in A.D. 1469. The Ādi Granth, the Sikh Bible, containing compositions by Nānak, his next four successors, and other persons, was completed in 1604. A second Granth was compiled in 1734 by Govind Singh, the tenth Guru. The only authoritative version of the Sikh scriptures is the great work by Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion (Oxford, 1909, 6 vols.).

The political power of the sect rested on the institutions of Guru Govind, as framed between 1690 and 1708. In 1764 the Sikhs occupied Lahore. Full details of their history will be found in Cunningham, A History of the Sikhs (1st ed., 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1849, suppressed and scarce; 2nd ed. 1853); and more briefly in Sir Lepel Griffin's excellent little book, Ranjīt Singh (Oxford, 'Rulers of India' series, 1892).

c. See R. 0. Temple, 'The Coins of the Modern Chiefs of the Panjāb' (Ind. Ant., vol. xviii (1889), pp. 321-41); and C. J. Rodgers, 'On the Coins of the Sikhs' (J.A.S.B., vol. 1. Part I (1881), pp. 71-93). The couplet is in Persian, which may be transliterated thus:—

Dēg, tēgh, wa fath, wa nasrat bē darangYāft az Nānak Gūrū Govind Singh.

The word dēg, meaning pot or cauldron, is used as a symbol of plenty. The correct rendering is:—

Plenty, the sword, victory, and help without delay,Gūrū Govind Singh obtained from Nānak.

d. This prophecy has not been fulfilled. The annexation of the Panjāb in 1849 put an end to Sikh hopes of 'conquest and plunder', and yet the sect has not been 'swallowed up in the great ocean of Hinduism'. At the census of 1881 its numbers were returned as 1,853,426, or nearly two millions, for all India. The corresponding figure for 1891 is 1,907,833. At the time of the first British census of 1855 the outside influences were depressing: the great Khālsa army had fallen, and Sikh fathers were slow to bring forward their sons for baptism (pāhul). The Mutiny, in the suppression of which the Sikhs took so great a part, worked a change. The Sikhs recovered their spirits and self-respect, and found honourable careers open in the British army and constabulary. 'Thus the creed received a new impulse, and many sons of Sikhs, whose baptism had been deferred, received the pāhul, while new candidates from among the Jāts and lower caste Hindoos joined the faith.' Some reaction then, perhaps, took place, but, on the whole, the numbers of the sect have been maintained or increased. (Sir Lepel Griffin, Ranjīt Singh, pp. 25-34.) For various reasons, which I have not space to explain, the statistics of Sikhism are untrustworthy. The returns for 1911 show an increase of 37 per cent. in the Panjāb. We may, at least, be assured that the numbers are not diminishing.

e. The Sikhs do not now detest us. They willingly furnish soldiers and military police of the best class, equal to the Gōrkhās, and fit to fight in line with English soldiers. The Panjāb chieftains have been among the foremost in offers of loyal assistance to the Government of India in times of danger, and in organizing the Imperial Service troops. The Sikh states are now sufficiently well governed.

840

January, 1836.

841

Farīdpur is a mistake for Farīdābād, a small town sixteen miles from Delhi, founded in 1607 by Shaikh Farīd, treasurer of Jahāngīr, to protect the high road between Agra and Delhi.

842

The beds are dry in the cold season, but the streams, which flow from the hills to the south of Delhi, are torrents in the rainy season.

843

But the education in such schools is of very little value, being commonly confined to the committing of the Korān to memory by boys ignorant of Arabic.

844

In modern India the British buildings are far more varied, and many aspire to some architectural merit.

845

Muhammad is said to have received these communications in all situations; sometimes when riding along the road on his camel, he became suddenly red in the face, and greatly agitated; he made his camel sit down immediately, and called for some one to write. His rhapsodies were all written at the time on leaves and thrown into a box. Gabriel is believed to have made him repeat over the whole once every year during the month of Ramazān. In the year he died Muhammad told his followers that the angel had made him repeat them over twice that year, and that he was sure he would not live to receive another visit. [W. H. S.]

846

The Muhammadan year consists of twelve lunar months of 30 and 29 days alternately. The common year, therefore, consists of only 354 days. But, when intercalary days in certain years are allowed for, the mean year consists of 354 11/30 days. Inasmuch as a solar year consists of about 365¼ days, the difference amounts to nearly 11 days, and any given month in the Muhammadan year consequently goes the round of the seasons in course of time.

847

The Muharram celebration takes its name from the first month of the Muhammadan year, during which it takes place. Alī, the cousin of Muhammad, was married to the prophet's daughter Fatima, and, according to the Shīa sect, must be regarded as the lawful successor of Muhammad, who died in June, A.D. 632. But, as a matter of fact, Omar, Abū Bakr, and Othmān (Usmān) in turn succeeded to the Khalīfate, and Alī did not take possession of the office till A.D. 655. After five and a half years' reign he was assassinated in January, A.D. 661, and his son Hasan, who for a few months had held the vacant office, was poisoned in A.D. 670. Husain, the younger son of Alī, strove to assert his rights by force of arms, but was slain on the tenth day of the month Muharram (10th October, A.D. 680) in a great battle fought at Karbalā near the Euphrates. These events are commemorated yearly by noisy funeral processions. Properly, the proceedings ought to be altogether mournful, and confined to the Shīa sect, but in practice, Sunnī Muhammadans, and even Hindoos, take part in the ceremonies, which are regarded by many of the populace as no more solemn than a Lord Mayor's show.

848

The disgusting festival of the Holī, celebrated with drunkenness and obscenity, takes place in March, and is supposed to be the festival of the vernal equinox (see ante, chapter 27 note 16). The magistrates in India have no duty which requires more tact, discretion, and firmness than the regulation of conflicting religions processions. The general disarmament of the people has rendered collisions less dangerous and sanguinary than they used to be, but, in spite of all precautions, they still occur occasionally. The total prohibition of processions likely to cause collisions is, of course, impracticable.

849

Ante chapter 15 text at [9].

850

Muslim daughters also succeed, each taking half the share of a son.

851

Tempora mutantur. The land revenue, in the author's time, fully preserved its character of rent, and obviously was not a tax. Later legislation has obscured its real nature, and made it look like a tax. When the author wrote, the only taxes levied were indirect ones, as that on salt, which was paid unconsciously. The modern income-tax, local rates, municipal taxation, and gun licences were all unknown.

852

The window tax was levied at varying rates from 1697 to 1851.

853

The Sultan, called by the author 'the Emperor Tughlak the First', as being the first of the Tughlak dynasty, was by birth a Karaunīah Turk, named Ghāzī Bēg Tughlak. He assumed the style of Ghiyās-ud-dīn Tughlak Shāh when he seized the throne in A.D. 1320, and he reigned till A.D. 1325.

854

This gigantic fortress is close to the village of Badarpur, about four miles due east of the Kutb Mīnār, and ten or twelve miles south of the modern city. The building of it occupied more than three years, but the whole undertaking 'proved eminently futile, as his son removed his Court to the old city within forty days after his accession.' (Thomas, Chronicles of the Pathān Kings of Delhi, 1871, p. 192.) The fort is described by Cunningham in A.S.R., vol. i, p. 212, whose description is copied in the guide-books. See also Fanshawe, Delhi Past and Present (John Murray, 1902), p. 288 and plate. That work is cited as 'Fanshawe'.

855

Also called Adilābād. It is described in A.S.R., vol. i, p. 21; Carr Stephen, The Archaeology and Monumental Remains of Delhi, Ludhiana, 1876, p. 98; and Fanshawe, p. 291.

856

'The Barber's House. This lies to the right of the road from Tughlākābad to Badarpur, and is close to the ruined city. It is said to have been built for Tughlak Shāh's barber about A.D. 1323. It is now a mere ruin.' (Harcourt, The New Guide to Delhi, Allahabad, 1866, p. 88.)

857

This fine tomb was built by Muhammad bin Tughlak (A.D. 1325- 51). It is described by Cunningham in A.S.R., vol. i, p. 213. See also Ann. Rep. A. S., India, 1904-5, p. 19, fig. 11; H.F.A., p. 397, fig. 234; and Fanshawe, p. 290, with plate. Thomas (Chronicles, p. 192) and Cunningham both say that the causeway, or viaduct, has twenty-seven, not only twenty-five, arches, as stated in the text. The causeway is 600 feet in length. The sloping walls are characteristic of the period.

858

The blunder of calling the Sultāns of Delhi by the name Pathān, due to the translators of Firishta's History, has been perpetuated by Thomas's well-known work, The Chronicles of the Pathān Kings of Delhi, and in countless other books. The name is quite wrong. The only Pathān Sultāns were those of the Lodī dynasty, which immediately preceded Bābur, and those of the Sūr dynasty, the rivals of Bābur's son. 'He (scil. Ghiyās-ud-dīn Balban) was a Turk of the Ilbarī tribe, but compilers of Indian Histories and Gazetteers, and archaeological experts, turn him, like many Turks, Tājzīks, Jāts, and Sayyids, into Pathāns, which is synonymous with Afghan, it being the vitiated Hindī equivalent of Pushtūn, the name by which the people generally known as Afghans call themselves, in their own language. . . . It is quite time to give up Dow and Briggs' Ferishta.' (Raverty, in J.A.S.B., vol. lxi (1892), Part I, p. 164, note.)

859

The murder of Ghiyās-ud-dīn Tughlak by his son Fakhr-ud-dīn Jūnā, also called Ulugh Khān, occurred in the year A.H. 725, which began on 18th December, 1324 (o.s.). The testimony of the contemporary traveller Ibn Batūtā establishes the fact that the fall of the pavilion was premeditated. (Thomas, Chronicles, pp. 187, 189.) The murderer, on his accession to the throne (1325), assumed the style of Muhammad bin Tughlak Shāh.

860

Jalāl-ud-dīn Fīrōz Shāh Khiljī was murdered by his son-in-law and nephew Alā-ud- dīn at Karrā on the Ganges in July, A.D. 1296. The murderer reigned until A.D. 1315 under the title of Alā-ud- dīn Muhammad Shāh, Sikandar Sānī.

861

As already noted, his proper style is Muhammad bin Tughlak Shāh. The word bin means 'son of'. The Sultan is never called 'Muhammad the Third'.

862

A Muhammadan must, if he can, say his prayers with the prescribed forms five times in the twenty-four hours; and on Friday, which is their sabbath, he must, if he can, say three prayers in the church masjid. On other days he may say them where he pleases. Every prayer must begin with the first chapter of the Korān—this is the grace to every prayer. This said, the person may put in what other prayers of the Korān he pleases, and ask for that which he most wants, as long as it does not injure other Musalmāns. This is the first chapter of the Korān: 'Praise be to God the Lord of all creatures—the most merciful—the King of the day of judgement. Thee do we worship, and of Thee do we beg assistance. Direct us in the right way—in the way of those to whom Thou hast been gracious; not of those against whom Thou art incensed; nor of those who go astray.' [W. H. S.] The quotation is from Sale's version. The last clause may also be rendered, 'The way of those to whom Thou hast been gracious, against whom Thou art not incensed, and who have not erred,' as Sale points out in his note.

863

This mad tyrant, among other horrible deeds, flayed his nephew alive. He attempted to invade China through the Himālayas, and for three years issued a forced currency of brass and copper, which he vainly tried to make people take as equal in value to silver. Strange to say, he was allowed to reign for nearly twenty-seven years, and to die peacefully in his bed. The hunts of the 'innocent and unoffending people' were organized rather to gain the benefit of 'sending infidels to hell' than for 'mere amusement'. Daulatābād was the name given by Muhammad bin Tughlak to the ancient fortress of Deogīr (Deogiri, Deoghur), situated about ten miles from Aurangābād, in what is now the Hyderabad State.

864

In the original edition the Moghal leader's name is printed as 'Turmachurn', the Tarmasharīn (with variations in spelling) of Muhammadan authors (see E. and D., iii. 42, 450, 507; v. 485; vi. 222). The name Turghi is given by Thomas, who says he invested Delhi in A.H. 703, corresponding to A.D. 1303-4; and refers to an article in J.A.S.B., vol. xxxv (1866), Part I, pp. 199-218, entitled 'Notes on the History and Topography of the Ancient Cities of Delhi', by O. Campbell. (Chronicles, p. 175, note.) Campbell writes the leader's name as Turghai Khān. Apparently Tarmasharīn was identical with Turghi or Turghai Khān, but I am not sure that he was. The Moghals made several raids during the reign of Alā-ud-dīn Muhammad Shāh.

865

The tomb of Nizām-ud-dīn is further noticed in the next chapter of this work. It is situated in an enclosure which contains other notable tombs. The following extract from the author's Ramaseeana (p. 121) gives additional particulars concerning this saint of questionable sanctity: 'Nizām-ud-dīn Aulia.—A saint of the Sunnī sect of Muhammadans, said to have been a Thug of great note at some period of his life, and his tomb near Delhi is to this day visited as a place of pilgrimage by Thugs, who make votive offerings to it. He is said to have been of the Barsot class, born in the month of Safar [633], Hijrī, March A.D. 1236; died Rabī-ul-awwal, 725, October A.D. 1325. [The months as stated do not correspond.—Ed.] His tomb is visited by Muhammadan pilgrims from all parts as a place of great sanctity from containing the remains of so holy a man; but the Thugs, both Hindoo and Muhammadan, visit it as containing the remains of the most celebrated Thug of his day. He was of the Sunnī sect, and those of the Shīa sect find no difficulty in believing that he was a Thug; but those of his own sect will never credit it. There are perhaps no sufficient grounds to pronounce him one of the fraternity; but there are some to suspect that he was so at some period of his life. The Thugs say he gave it up early in life, but kept others employed in it till late, and derived an income from it; and the 'dast-ul-ghaib', or supernatural purse, with which he was supposed to be endowed, gives a colour to this. His lavish expenditure, so much beyond his ostensible means, gave rise to the belief that he was supplied from above with money.'

The 'old man of the mountains' with whom the author compares Nizām-ud-dīn (or at least the original 'old man of the mountains', Shaikh-ul Jabal), was Hasan-ibn-Sabbāh (or, us- Sabbāh), who founded the sect of so-called Assassins in the mountains on the shores of the Caspian, and flourished from about A.D. 1089 to 1124. Hulākū the Mongol broke the power of the sect in A.D. 1256 (Thatcher, in Encycl. Brit., 11th ed., 1910, s. v. 'Assassin').

866

Shams-ud-dīn Īltutmish, who had been a slave, reigned from A.D. 1210 to 1235. His Turkish name is variously written as Yulteemush, Altamsh, Alitmish, &c. The form Īltutmish is correct (Z.D.M.G., 1907, p. 192). His tomb is discussed post.

867

This is not quite accurate. A similar mīnār, or mosque tower, built in the middle of the thirteenth century, formerly existed at Koil in the Alīgarh district (A.S.R., i. 191), and two mosques at Bayāna in the Bharatpur State, have each only one mīnār, placed outside the courtyard (ibid., vol. iv, p. ix). Chitor in Rajputānā possesses two noble Hindoo towers, one about 80 feet high, erected in connexion with Jain shrines, and the other, about 120 feet high, erected by Kumbha Rānā as a tower or pillar of victory. (Fergusson, Hist. of Indian and Eastern Architecture, ed. 1910, vol. ii, pp. 57-61.)

868

The short life of James Prinsep extended only from August 20, 1799, to April 22, 1840, and practically terminated in 1838, when his brain began to fail from the undue strain caused by incessant and varied activity. His memorable discoveries in archaeology and numismatics are recorded in the seven volumes of the J.A.S.B. for the years 1832-8. His contributions to those volumes were edited by B. Thomas, and republished in 1868 under the title of Essays on Indian Antiquities. Sir Alexander Cunningham, who was one of Prinsep's fellow workers, gives interesting details of the process by which the discoveries were made, in the Introduction to the first volume of the Reports of the Archaeological Survey. No adequate account of James Prinsep's remarkable career has been published. He was singularly modest and unassuming. A good summary of his life is given in Higginbotham's Men whom India has Known, 2nd ed., Madras, 1874. See also the editor's paper, 'James Prinsep', in East and West, Bombay, July, 1906.

869

The monolith pillars alluded to in the text are chiefly those of the great Emperor Piyadasi, Beloved of the Gods, also known by the name of Asoka. So far from being memorials of a time when 'the mechanical arts were in a rude state', the Asoka columns exhibit the arts of the stone-cutter and sculptor in perfection. They were erected about 242 to 230 B.C., and the inscriptions on them contain a code of moral and religions precepts. They do not commemorate conquests, although the Asoka pillar at Allahabad has been utilized by later sovereigns for the recording of magniloquent inscriptions in praise of their grandeur. The best-known of the Asoka pillars are the two at Delhi, and the one at Allahabad. Many scholars have devoted themselves to the study of the inscriptions of Asoka, which may be said to form the foundation of authentic Indian history. The reader interested in the subject should consult Senart, Les Inscriptions de Piyadasi, t. I and II, Paris, 1881, 1886; V. A. Smith, Asoka, the Buddhist Emperor of India, 2nd ed.. Oxford, 1909; and 'The Monolithic Pillars or Columns of Asoka' (Z.D.M.G., 1911, pp. 221-10). See also E.H.I., 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1914), chap. 6, 7, with Bibliography. Certain of the Gupta emperors in the fifth century A.C. also erected monolith pillars. Some of the pillars of the Gupta period commemorate victories; others are merely religious monuments.