Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official Part 39

1. Govardhan is a very sacred place of pilgrimage, full of temples, situated in the Mathura (Muttra) district, sixteen miles west of Mathura, Regulation V of 1826 annexed Govardhan to the Agra district.

In 1832 Mathura was made the head-quarters of a new district, Govardhan and other territory being transferred from Agra.

2. The Puranas, even when narrating history after a fas.h.i.+on, are cast in the form of prophecies. The Bhagavat Purana is especially devoted to the legends of Krishna. The Hindi version of the 10th Book (_skandha_) is known as the 'Prem Sagar', or 'Ocean of Love', and is, perhaps, the most wearisome book in the world.

3. This flight occurred during the struggles following the battle of Pla.s.sy in 1757, which were terminated by the battle of Buxar in 1764, and the grant to the East India Company of the civil administration of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa in the following year. Shah alam bore, in weakness and misery, the burden of the imperial t.i.tle from 1759 to 1806. From 1765 to 1771 he was the dependent of the English at Allahabad. From 1771 to 1803 he was usually under the control of Maratha chiefs, and from the time of Lord Lake's entry into Delhi, in 1803 he became simply a prisoner of the British Government. His successors occupied the same position. In 1788 he was barbarously blinded by the Rohilla chief, Ghulam Kadir.

4. Akbar II. His position as Emperor was purely t.i.tular.

5. The name is printed as Booalee s.h.i.+na in the original edition. His full designation is Abu Ali al-Husain ibn Abdullah ibn Sina, which means 'that Sina was his grandfather. Avicenna is a corruption of either Abu Sina or Ibn Sina. He lived a strenuous, pa.s.sionate life, but found time to compose about a hundred treatises on medicine and almost every subject known to Arabian science. He died in A.D. 1037.

A good biography of him will be found in _Encyclo. Brit._, 11th ed., 1910.

6. Otherwise called Eurasians, or, according to the latest official decree, Anglo-Indians.

7. 'Diplomatic characters' would now be described as officers of the Political Department.

8. These remarks of the author should help to dispel the common delusion that the English officials of the olden time spoke the Indian languages better than their more highly trained successors.

9. The author wrote these words at the moment of the inauguration by Lord William Bentinck and Macaulay of the new policy which established English as the official language of India, and the vehicle for the higher instruction of its people, as enunciated in the resolution dated 7th March, 1835, and described by Boulger in _Lord William Bentinck_ (Rulers of India, 1897), chap. 8. The decision then formed and acted on alone rendered possible the employment of natives of India in the higher branches of the administration. Such employment has gradually year by year increased, and certainly will further increase, at least up to the extreme limit of safety. Indians now (1914) occupy seats in the Council of India in London, and in the Executive and Legislative Councils of the Governor-General, Provincial Governors, and Lieutenant-Governors.

They hold most of the judicial appointments and fill many responsible executive offices.

10. Khojah Nasir-ud-din of Tus in Persia was a great astronomer, philosopher, and mathematician in the thirteenth century. The author's Imam-ud-din Ghazzali is intended for Abu Hamid Imam al Ghazzali, one of the most famous of Musulman doctors. He was born at Tus, the modern Mashhad (Meshed) in Khurasan, and died in A.D. 1111.

His works are numerous. One is ent.i.tled _The Ruin of Philosophies_, and another, the most celebrated, is _The Resuscitation of Religious Sciences_ (F. J. Arbuthnot, _A Manual of Arabian History and Literature_, London, 1890). These authors are again referred to in a subsequent chapter. I am not able to judge the propriety of Sleeman's enthusiastic praise.

11. The gentleman referred to was Mr. John Wilton, who was appointed to the service in 1775.

12. The cantonments at Dinapore (properly Danapur) are ten miles distant from the great city of Patna.

13. The rupee was worth more than two s.h.i.+llings in 1810. The remuneration of high officials by commission has been long abolished.

14. There used to be two opium agents, one at Patna, and the other at Ghazipur, who administered the Opium Department under the control of the Board of Revenue in Calcutta. In deference to the demands of the Chinese Government and of public opinion in England, the Agency at Ghazipur has been closed, and the Government of India is withdrawing gradually from the opium trade. Such lucrative sinecures as those described in the text have long ceased to exist.

15. These Persian words would not now be used in orders to servants.

16. This officer was Sir Joseph O'Halloran, K.C.B., attached to the 18th Regiment, N.I. He became a Lieutenant-Colonel on June 4, 1814, and Major-General on January 10, 1837. He is mentioned in _Ramaseeana_ (p 59) as Brigadier-General commanding the Sagar Division.

17. The King's demand was improper and illegal. The Muhammadan law, like the Jewish (Leviticus xviii, 18), prohibits a man from being married to two sisters at once. 'Ye are also forbidden to take to wife two sisters; except what is already past: for G.o.d is gracious and merciful' (_Koran_, chap. iv). Compare the ruling in 'Mishkat-ul- Masabih', Book XIII, chap. v, Part II (Matthews, vol. ii, p. 94).

18. The colonel's son has succeeded to his father's estates, and he and his wife are, I believe, very happy together. [W. H. S.] Such an incident would, of course, be now inconceivable. The family name is also spelled Gardner. The romantic history of the Gardners is summarized in the appendix to _A Particular Account of the European Military Adventures of Hindustan, from 1784 to 1803_; compiled by Herbert Compton: London, 1892.

19. _Ante_, Chapter 53 text between [2] and [3].

20. Kasganj, the residence of Colonel Gardner, is in the Etah district of the United Provinces. In 1911 the population was 16,429.

CHAPTER 54

Fathpur-Sikri--The Emperor Akbar's Pilgrimage--Birth of Jahangir.

On the 6th January we left Agra, which soon after became the residence of the Governor of the North-Western Provinces, Sir Charles Metcalfe.[1] It was, when I was there, the residence of a civil commissioner, a judge, a magistrate, a collector of land revenue, a collector of customs, and all their a.s.sistants and establishments. A brigadier commands the station, which contained a park of artillery, one regiment of European and four regiments of native infantry.[2]

Near the artillery practice-ground, we pa.s.sed the tomb of Jodh Bai, the wife of the Emperor Akbar, and the mother of Jahangir. She was of Rajput caste, daughter of the Hindoo chief of Jodhpur, a very beautiful, and, it is said, a very amiable woman.[3] The Mogul Emperors, though Muhammadans, were then in the habit of taking their wives from among the Rajput princes of the country, with a view to secure their allegiance. The tomb itself is in ruins, having only part of the dome standing, and the walls and magnificent gateway that at one time surrounded it have been all taken away and sold by a thrifty Government, or appropriated to purposes of more practical utility.[4]

I have heard many Muhammadans say that they could trace the decline of their empire in Hindustan to the loss of the Rajput blood in the veins of their princes.[5] 'Better blood' than that of the Rajputs of India certainly never flowed in the veins of any human beings; or, what is the same thing, no blood was ever believed to be finer by the people themselves and those they had to deal with. The difference is all in the imagination, and the imagination is all-powerful with nations as with individuals. The Britons thought their blood the finest in the world till they were conquered by the Romans, the Picts, the Scots, and the Saxons. The Saxons thought theirs the finest in the world till they were conquered by the Danes and the Normans. This is the history of the human race. The quality of the blood of a whole people has depended often upon the fate of a battle, which in the ancient world doomed the vanquished to the hammer; and the hammer changed the blood of those sold by it from generation to generation. How many Norman robbers got their blood enn.o.bled, and how many Saxon n.o.bles got theirs plebeianized by the Battle of Hastings; and how difficult it would be for any of us to say from which we descended--the Britons or the Saxons, the Danes or the Normans; or in what particular action our ancestors were the victors or the vanquished, and became enn.o.bled or plebeianized by the thousand accidents which influence the fate of battles. A series of successful aggressions upon their neighbours will commonly give a nation a notion that they are superior in courage; and pride will make them attribute this superiority to blood--that is, to an old date. This was, perhaps, never more exemplified than in the case of the Gurkhas of Nepal, a small diminutive race of men not unlike the Huns, but certainly as brave as any men can possibly be. A Gurkha thought himself equal to any four other men of the hills, though they were all much stronger; just as a Dane thought himself equal to four Saxons at one time in Britain. The other men of the hills began to think that he really was so, and could not stand before him.[6]

We pa.s.sed many wells from which the people were watering their fields, and found those which yielded a brackish water were considered to be much more valuable for irrigation than those which yielded sweet water. It is the same in the valley of the Nerbudda, but brackish water does not suit some soils and some crops. On the 8th we reached Fathpur Sikri, which lies about twenty-four miles from Agra, and stands upon the back of a narrow range of sandstone hills, rising abruptly from the alluvial plains to the highest, about one hundred feet, and extends three miles north-north-east and south- south-west. This place owes its celebrity to a Muhammadan saint, the Shaikh Salim of Chisht, a town in Persia, who owed his to the following circ.u.mstance:

The Emperor Akbar's sons had all died in infancy, and he made a pilgrimage to the shrine of the celebrated Muin-ud-din of Chisht, at Ajmer. He and his family went all the way on foot at the rate of three 'kos', or four miles, a day, a distance of about three hundred and fifty miles. 'Kanats', or cloth walls, were raised on each side of the road, carpets spread over it, and high towers of burnt bricks erected at every stage, to mark the places where he rested. On reaching the shrine he made a supplication to the saint, who at night appeared to him in his sleep, and recommended him to go and entreat the intercession of a very holy old man, who lived a secluded life upon the top of the little range of hills at Sikri. He went accordingly, and was a.s.sured by the old man, then ninety-six years of age, that the Empress Jodh Bai, the daughter of a Hindoo prince, would be delivered of a son, who would live to a good old age. She was then pregnant, and remained in the vicinity of the old man's hermitage till her confinement, which took place 31st of August, 1569. The infant was called after the hermit, Mirza Salim, and became in time Emperor of Hindostan, under the name of Jahangir.[7] It was to this Emperor Jahangir that Sir Thomas Roe, the amba.s.sador, was sent from the English Court.[8] Akbar, in order to secure to himself, his family, and his people, the advantage of the continued intercessions of so holy a man, took up his residence at Sikri, and covered the hill with magnificent buildings for himself, his courtiers, and his public establishments.[9]

The quadrangle, which contains the mosque on the west side, and tomb of the old hermit in the centre, was completed in the year 1578, six years before his death; and is, perhaps, one of the finest in the world. It is five hundred and seventy-five feet square, and surrounded by a high wall, with a magnificent cloister all around within.[10] On the outside is a magnificent gateway, at the top of a n.o.ble flight of steps twenty-four feet high. The whole gateway is one hundred and twenty feet in height, and the same in breadth, and presents beyond the wall five sides of an octagon, of which the front face is eighty feet wide. The arch in the centre of this s.p.a.ce is sixty feet high by forty wide.[11] This gateway is no doubt extremely grand and beautiful; but what strikes one most is the disproportion between the thing wanted and the thing provided--there seems to be something quite preposterous in forming so enormous an entrance for a poor diminutive man to walk through--and walk he must, unless carried through on men's shoulders; for neither elephant, horse, nor bullock could ascend over the flight of steps. In all these places the staircases, on the contrary, are as disproportionately small; they look as if they were made for rats to crawl through, while the gateways seem as if they were made for s.h.i.+ps to sail under.[12] One of the most interesting sights was the immense swarms of swallows flying round the thick bed of nests that occupy the apex of this arch, and, to the spectators below, they look precisely like swarm of bees round a large honeycomb. I quoted a pa.s.sage in the Koran in praise of the swallows, and asked the guardians of the place whether they did not think themselves happy in having such swarms of sacred birds over their heads all day long. 'Not at all,' said they; 'they oblige us to sweep the gateway ten times a day; but there is no getting at their nests, or we should soon get rid of them.' They then told me that the sacred bird of the Koran was the 'ababil', or large black swallow, and not the 'partadil', a little piebald thing of no religious merit whatever.[13] On the right side of the entrance is engraven on stone in large letters, standing out in bas-relief, the following pa.s.sage in Arabic: 'Jesus, on whom be peace, has said, "The word is merely a bridge; you are to pa.s.s over it, and not to build your dwellings upon it".' Where this saying of Christ is to be found I know not, nor has any Muhammadan yet been able to tell me; but the quoting of such a pa.s.sage, in such a place, is a proof of the absence of all bigotry on the part of Akbar.[14]

The tomb of Shaikh Salim, the hermit, is a very beautiful little building, in the centre of the quadrangle.[15] The man who guards it told me that the Jats, while they reigned, robbed this tomb, as well as those at Agra, of some of the most beautiful and valuable portion of the mosaic work.[16] 'But,' said he, 'they were well plundered in their turn by your troops at Bharatpur; retribution always follows the wicked sooner or later.'[17] He showed us the little roof of stone tiles, close to the original little dingy mosque of the old hermit, where the Empress gave birth to Jahangir;[18] and told us that she was a very sensible woman, whose counsels had great weight with the Emperor.[19] 'His majesty's only fault was', he said, 'an inclination to learn the art of magic, which was taught him by an old Hindoo religious mendicant,' whose apartment near the palace he pointed out to us.

'Fortunately,' said our cicerone, 'the fellow died before the Emperor had learnt enough to practise the art without his aid.'

Shaikh Salim had, he declared, gone more than twenty times on pilgrimage to the tomb of the holy prophet; and was not much pleased to have his repose so much disturbed by the noise and bustle of the imperial court. At last, Akbar wanted to surround the hill with regular fortifications, and the Shaikh could stand it no longer.[20]

'Either you or I must leave this hill,' said he to the Emperor; 'if the efficacy of my prayers is no longer to be relied upon, let me depart in peace.' 'If it be _your majesty's_ will,' replied the Emperor, 'that one should go, let it be your slave, I pray.' The old story: 'There is nothing like relying upon the efficacy of our prayers,' say the priests, 'Nothing like relying upon that of our sharp swords,' say the soldiers; and, as nations advance from barbarism, they generally contrive to divide between them the surplus produce of the land and labour of society.

The old hermit consented to remain, and pointed out Agra as a place which he thought would answer the Emperor's purpose extremely well.

Agra, then an unpeopled waste, soon became a city, and Fathpur-Sikri was deserted.[21] Cities which, like this, are maintained by the public establishments that attend and surround the courts of sovereign princes, must always, like this, become deserted when these sovereigns change their resting-places. To the history of the rise and progress, decline and fall, of how many cities is this the key?

Close to the tomb of the saint is another containing the remains of a great number of his descendants, who continue to enjoy, under the successors of Akbar, large grants of rent-free lands for their own support, and for that of the mosque and mausoleum. These grants have, by degrees, been nearly all resumed;[22] and, as the repair of the buildings is now entrusted to the public officers of our government, the surviving members of the saint's family, who still reside among the ruins, are extremely poor. What strikes a European most in going over these palaces of the Moghal Emperors is the want of what a gentleman of fortune in his own country would consider elegantly comfortable accommodations. Five hundred pounds a year would at the present day secure him more of this in any civilized country of Europe or America than the greatest of those Emperors could command.

He would, perhaps, have the same impression in going over the domestic architecture of the most civilized nations of the ancient world, Persia and Egypt, Greece and Rome.[23]

Notes:

1. The Act of 1833 (3 & 4 William IV, c. 85), which reconst.i.tuted the government of India, provided that the upper Provinces should be formed into a separate Presidency under the name of Agra, and Sir Charles Metcalfe was nominated as the first Governor. On reconsideration, this arrangement was modified, and instead of the Presidency of Agra, the Lieutenant-Governors.h.i.+p of the North-Western Provinces was formed, with head-quarters at Agra. Sir C. Metcalfe became Lieutenant-Governor in 1836, but held the office for a short time only, until January, 1838, when Lord Auckland, the Governor- General, took over temporary charge. The seat of the Local Government was moved to Allahabad in 1868. From 1877 the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces was also Chief Commissioner of Oudh. The name North-Western Provinces, which had become unsuitable and misleading since the annexation of the Panjab in 1849, could not be retained after the formation of the North-West Frontier Province in 1902. Accordingly, from that year the combined jurisdiction of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh received the new official name of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. The t.i.tle of Chief Commissioner of Oudh was dropped at the same time, but the legal System and administration of the old kingdom of Oudh continued to be distinct in certain respects.

2. The civil establishment and garrison are still nearly the same as in the author's time. The inland customs department is now concerned only with the restrictions on the manufacture of salt. The offices of district magistrate and collector of land revenue have long been combined in a single officer.

3. Akbar married the daughter of Bihari Mal, chief of Jaipur, in A.D.

1562. There is little doubt that she, _Mariam-uz-Zamani_, was the mother of Jahangir. See Blochmann, transl. _Ain_, vol. i, p. 619. Mr.

Beveridge has given up the opinion which he formerly advocated in _J.A.S.B._, vol. lvi (1887), Part I, pp. 164-7.

The Jodhpur princess was given the posthumous t.i.tle of 'Mariam-uz- Zamani', or 'Mary of the age', which circ.u.mstance probably originated the belief that Akbar had one Christian queen. Her tomb at Sikandara is locally known simply as Rauza Maryam, 'the mausoleum of Mary', a designation which has had much to do with the persistence of the erroneous belief in the existence of a Christian consort of Akbar.

Mr. Beveridge holds, and I think rightly, that Jodh Bai is not a proper name. It seems to mean merely 'princess of Jodhpur'. The only lady really known as Jodh Bai was the daughter of Udai Singh (Moth Raja) of Jaipur, who became a consort of Jahangir. Sleeman's notion that Jahangir's mother also was called Jodh Bai is mistaken (Blochmann, _ut supra_).

4. It was blown up about 1832 by order of the Government, and the materials of the gates, walls, and outer towns were used for the building of barracks. But the mausoleum itself resisted the spoiler and remained 'a huge shapeless heap of ma.s.sive fragments of masonry'.

The building consisted of a square room raised on a platform with a vault below. The marble tomb or cenotaph of the queen still exists in the vault. A fine gateway formerly stood at the entrance to the enclosure, and there was a small mosque to the west of the tomb (_A.S.R._ vol. iv. (1874), p. 121: Muh. Latif, _Agra_, p. 192). It is painful to be obliged to record so many instances of vandalism committed by English officials. This tomb is the memorial of Jodh Bai, daughter of Udai Singh, _alias_ Moth Raja, who was married to Jahangir in A.D. 1585, and was the mother of Shah Jahan. Her personal names were Jagat Goshaini and Balmati. She died in A.D. 1619. Akbar's queen, Maryam-uz-Zamani, daughter of Raja Bihari Mall of Jaipur (Amber), who died in A.D. 1623, is buried at Sikandra. (See Beale, s.v. 'Jodh Bai' and 'Mariam Zamani'; Blochmann, transl. _Ain_, pp.

429, 619.) The tomb of Maryam-uz-Zamani has been purchased by Government from the missionaries, who had used it as a school, and has been restored. (_Ann. Rep. A.S., India_, 1910-11, pp. 92-6.)

5. Although it may be admitted that the Rajput strain of blood improved the const.i.tution of the royal family of Delhi, the decline and fall of the Timuride dynasty cannot be truly ascribed to 'the loss of the Rajput blood in the veins' of the ruling princes. The empire was tottering to its fall long before the death of Aurangzeb, who 'had himself married two Hindoo wives; and he wedded his son Muazzam (afterwards the Emperor Bahadur) to a Hindoo princess, as his forefathers had done before him'. (Lane-Poole, _The History of the Moghul Emperors of Hindustan ill.u.s.trated by their Coins_, p. xviii. ) The wonder is, not that the empire of Delhi fell, but that it lasted so long.