Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official Part 58

'True, sir; these are questions beyond the reach of human understanding.'

'How often do you read over the Koran?'

'I read the whole over about three times a month,' replied the Mufti.[63]

I mentioned this conversation one day to the Nawab Ali-ud-din,[64] a most estimable old gentleman of seventy years of age, who resides at Muradabad, and asked him whether he did not think it a singular omission on the part of Muhammad, after his journey to heaven, not to tell mankind some of the truths that have since been discovered regarding the nature of the bodies that fill these heavens, and the laws that govern their motions. Mankind could not, either from the Koran, or from the traditions, perceive that he was at all aware of the errors of the System of astronomy that prevailed in his day, and among his people.'

'Not at all', replied the Nawab; 'the prophets had, no doubt, abundant opportunities of becoming acquainted with the heavenly bodies, and the laws which govern them, particularly those who, like Muhammad, had been up through the seven heavens; but their thoughts were so entirely taken up with the Deity that they probably never noticed the objects by which he was surrounded; and if they had noticed them, they would not, perhaps, have thought it necessary to say anything about them. Their object was to direct men's thoughts towards G.o.d and his commandments, and to instruct them in their duties towards him and towards each other.

'Suppose', continued the Nawab, 'you were to be invited to see and converse with even your earthly sovereign, would not your thoughts be too much taken up with him to admit of your giving, on your return, an account of the things you saw about him? I have been several times to see you, and I declare that I have been so much taken up with the conversations which have pa.s.sed, that I have never noticed the many articles I now see around me, nor could I have told any one on my return home what I had seen in your room--the wall-shades, the pictures, the sofas, the tables, the book-cases,' continued he, casting his eyes round the room,' all escaped my notice, and might have escaped it had my eyes been younger and stronger than they are.

What then must have been the state of mind of those great prophets, who were admitted to see and converse with the great Creator of the universe, and were sent by him to instruct mankind?

'I told my old friend that I thought his answer the best that could be given; but still, that we could not help thinking that if Muhammad had really been acquainted with the nature of the heavenly bodies, and the laws which govern them, he would have taken advantage of his knowledge to secure more firmly their faith in his mission, and have explained to them the real state of the case, instead of talking about the stars as merely made to be thrown at devils, to give light to men upon this little globe of ours, and to guide them in their wanderings upon it by sea and land.

'But what', said the Nawab, 'are the great truths that you would have had our holy prophet to teach mankind?'

'Why, Nawab Sahib, I would have had him tell us, amongst other things, of that law which makes this our globe and the other planets revolve round the sun, and their moons around them. I would have had him teach us something of the nature of the things we call comets, or stars with large tails, and of that of the fixed stars, which we suppose to be suns, like our sun, with planets revolving round them like ours, since it is clear that they do not borrow their light from our sun, nor from anything that we can discover in the heavens. I would also have had him tell us the nature of that white belt which crosses the sky, which you call the ovarious belt, "Khatt-i-abyaz", and we the milky-way, and which we consider to be a collection of self-lighted stars, while many orthodox but unlettered Musalmans think it the marks made in the sky by "Borak", the rough-shod donkey, on which your prophet rode from Jerusalem to heaven. And you think, Nawab Sahib, that there was quite evidence enough to satisfy any person whose heart had not been hardened to unbelief? and that no description of the heavenly bodies, or of the laws which govern their motion, could have had any influence on the minds of such people?

'[65]

'a.s.suredly I do, sir! Has not G.o.d said, "If we should open a gate in the heavens above them, and they should ascend thereto all the day long, they would surely say, our eyes are only dazzled, or rather we are a people deluded by enchantments."[66] Do you think, sir, that anything which his majesty Moses could have said about the planets, and the comets, and the milky way, would have tended so much to persuade the children of Israel of his divine mission as did the single stroke of his rod, which brought a river of delicious water gus.h.i.+ng from a dry rock when they were all dying from thirst? When our holy prophet', continued the Nawab (placing the points of the four fingers of his right hand on the table), 'placed his blessed hand thus on the ground, and caused four streams to gush out from the dug plain, and supply with fresh water the whole army which was peris.h.i.+ng from thirst; and when out of only _five small dates_ he afterwards feasted this immense army till they could eat no more, he surely did more to convince his followers of his divine mission than he could have done by any discourse about the planets, and the milky way (Khatt-i-abyaz).'

'No doubt, Nawab Sahib, these were very powerful arguments for those who saw them, or believed them to have been seen; and those who doubt the divinity of your prophets mission are those who doubt their ever having been seen.'

'The whole army saw and attested them, sir, and that is evidence enough for us; and those who saw them, and were not satisfied, must have had their hearts hardened to unbelief.'

'And you think, Nawab Sahib, that a man is not master of his own belief or disbelief in religions matters; though he is rewarded by an eternity of bliss in paradise for the one, and punished by an eternity of scorching in h.e.l.l for the other?

'I do, sir, faith is a matter of feeling; and over our feelings we have no control. All that we can do is to prevent their influencing our actions, when these actions would be mischievous. I have a desire to stretch out this arm, and crush that fly on the table, I can control the act, and do so; but the desire is not under my control.'

'True, Nawab Sahib; and in this life we punish men not for their feelings, which are beyond their control, but for their acts, over which they have no control; and we are apt to think that the Deity will do the same.'

'There are, sir,' continued the Nawab, 'three kinds of certainty--the moral certainty, the mathematical, and the religious certainty, which we hold to be the greatest of all--the one in which the mind feels entire repose. This repose I feel in everything that is written in the Koran, in the Bible, and, with the few known exceptions, in the New Testament.[67] We do not believe that Christ was the son of G.o.d, though we believe him to have been a great prophet sent down to enlighten mankind; nor do we believe that he was crucified. We believe that the wicked Jews got hold of a thief, and crucified him in the belief that he was the Christ; but the real Christ was, we think, taken up into heaven, and not suffered to be crucified.'

'But, Nawab Sahib, the Sikhs have their book, in which they have the same faith.'

'True, sir, but the Sikhs are unlettered, ignorant brutes; and you do not, I hope, call their "Granth" a book--a thing written only the other day, and full of nonsense. No "book" has appeared since the Koran came down from heaven; nor will any other come till the day of judgement. And how', said the Nawab, 'have people in modern days made all the discoveries you speak of in astronomy?'

'Chiefly, Nawab Sahib, by means of the telescope, which is an instrument of modern invention.'

'And do you suppose, sir, that I would put the evidence of your "durbins" (telescopes) in opposition to that of the holy prophet? No, sir, depend upon it that there is much fallacy in a telescope--it is not to be relied upon. I have conversed with many excellent European gentlemen, and their great fault appears to me to be in the implicit faith they put in these _telescopes_--they hold their evidence above that of the prophets, Moses, Abraham, and Elijah. It is dreadful to think how much mischief these telescopes may do. No, sir, let us hold fast by the prophets; what they tell us is the truth, and the only truth that we can entirely rely upon in this life. I would not hold the evidence of all the telescopes in the world as anything against one word uttered by the humblest of the prophets named in the Old or New Testament, or the holy Koran. The prophets, sir, keep to the prophets, and throw aside your telescopes--there is no truth in them; some of them turn people upside down, and make them walk upon their heads; and yet you put their evidence against that of the prophets.'[68]

Nothing that I could say would, after this, convince the Nawab that there was any virtue in telescopes; his religions feeling had been greatly excited against them; and had Galileo, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Newton, Laplace, and the Herschels, all been present to defend them, they would not have altered his opinion of their demerits. The old man has, I believe, a shrewd suspicion that they are inventions of the devil to lead men from the right way; and were he told all that these great men have discovered through their means, he would be very much disposed to believe that they were incarnations of his satanic majesty playing over again with 'durbins' (telescopes) the same game which the serpent played with the apple in the garden of Eden.

Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid; Leave them to G.o.d above: him serve and fear; Of other creatures, as him pleases best, Wherever placed, let him dispose: joy thou In what he gives to thee, this Paradise And thy fair Eve: heaven is for thee too high To know what pa.s.ses there: be lowly wise: Think only what concerns thee, and thy being: Dream not of other worlds, what creatures there Live, in what state, condition, or degree: Contented that thus far hath been revealed, Not of earth only, but of highest heaven.'[69]

Notes:

1. Chapter 75 _post_ is devoted to the history of the Begam Samru (Sumroo). The 'great street' is the celebrated Chandni Chauk, a very wide thoroughfare. The branch of the ca.n.a.l which runs down the middle of it is now covered over. The Begam's house is now occupied by the Delhi Bank (Fanshawe, p, 49).

2. _Ante_, chapter 54, note 14.

3. The Emperors were not in the least ashamed of this practice, and robbed the families of rich merchants as well as those of officials.

In fact they levied in a rough way the high 'death duties' so much admired by Radicals with small expectations. Some remarkable cases are related in detail by Bernier (Bernier, _Travels_, ed. Constable, and V. A. Smith (1914), pp. 163-7). When Aurangzeb heard of the death of the Governor of Kabul, he gave orders to seize the belongings of the deceased, so that 'not even a piece of straw be left' (Bilimoria, _Letters of Aurungzebe_, No. xcix).

4. The meaning of this sentence is obscure.

5. Corresponding to A.D. 1753-4. In the original edition the date is misprinted A.D. 1167.

6. The tomb of Mansur Ali Khan is better known as that of Safdar Jang, which was the honorary t.i.tle of the n.o.ble over whom the edifice was raised. He was the wazir, or chief minister, of the Emperor Ahmad Shah from 1748 to 1752, and was practically King of Oudh, where he had succeeded to the power of his father-in-law, the well-known Saadat Khan: Safdar Jang died in A.D. 1754 and was succeeded in Oudh by his son Shuja-ud-daula.

The author's praise of the beauty of Safdar Jang's tomb will seem extravagant to most critics. In the editor's judgement the building is a very poor attempt to imitate the inimitable Taj. Fergusson (ed.

1910, vol. ii, p. 324, pl. x.x.xiv) gives it the qualified praise that 'it looks grand and imposing at a distance, but it will not bear close inspection'. See Fanshawe, p. 246 and plate. In the original edition a coloured plate of this mausoleum is given.

7. Nizam-ud-din was the disciple of Farid-ud-din Ganj Shakar, so called from his look being sufficient to convert _cods of earth into lumps of sugar_. Farid was the disciple of Kutb-ud-din of Old Delhi, who was the disciple of Muin-ud-din of Ajmer, the greatest of all their saints. [W. H. S.] Muin-ud-din died A.D. 1236. For further particulars of the three saints see Beale, _Oriental Biographical Dictionary_, ed. Keene, 1894. Dr. Horn (_Ep. Ind._ ii, 145 n., 426 n.) gives information about the Persian biographies of Nizam-ud-din and other Chishti saints.

8. For the personal history of Nizam-ud-din see the last preceding chapter, [13]. His tomb is situated in a kind of cemetery, which also contains the tombs of the poet Khusru, the Princess Jahanara, and the Emperor Muhammad Shah, which will be noticed presently. Fanshawe (p.

236) gives a plan of the enclosure. Nizam-ud-din's tomb 'has a very graceful appearance, and is surrounded by a verandah of white marble, while a cut screen encloses the sarcophagus, which is always covered with a cloth. Round the gravestone runs a carved wooden guard, and from the four corners rise stone pillars draped with cloth, which support an angular wooden frame-work, and which has something the appearance of a canopy to a bed. Below this wooden canopy there is stretched a cloth of green and red, much the worse for wear. The interior of the tomb is covered with painted figures in Arabic, and at the head of the grave is a stand with a Koran. The marble screen is very richly cut, and the roof of the arcade-like verandah is finely painted in a flower pattern. Altogether there is a quaint look about the building which cannot fail to strike any one. A good deal of money has at various times been spent on this tomb; the dome was added to the roof in Akbar's time by Muhammad Imam-ud-din Hasan, and in the reign of Shah Jahan (A.D. 1628 [_sic., leg._ 1627]-58) the whole building was put into thorough repair. . . . The tomb is in the village of Ghyaspur, and is reached after pa.s.sing through the 'Chaunsath Khambha'. (Harcourt, _The New Guide to Delhi_ (1866), p.

107.)

In the original edition a small coloured ill.u.s.tration of this tomb, from a miniature, is given on Plate 24. Carr Stephen (pp. 102-7) gives a good and full account of Nizam-ud-din and his tomb.

9. According to Harcourt (p. 108), the tomb of Khusru was erected about A.D. 1350, but this is a misprint for 1530. The poet, whose proper name was Abul Hasan, is often called Amir Khusru, and was of Turkish origin. He was born A.D. 1253, and died in September, 1325.

His works are numerous. (Beale.) The grave, and wooden railing round it, were built in A.H. 937 (A.D. 1530-1). . . . The present tomb was built in A.H. 1014 (A.D. 1605-6) by Imad-ud-din Hasan, in the reign of Jahangir, and this date occurs in an inscription under the dome and over the red sandstone screens. (Carr Stephen, p. 115.) In the original edition a small coloured ill.u.s.tration of this tomb, from a miniature, is given on Plate 24. See Fanshawe, p. 241.

10. Akbar II, who died in 1837.

11. When the author was with his regiment, after the close of the Nepalese war.

12. Harcourt (p. 109) truly observes that this tomb 'is a most exquisite piece of workmans.h.i.+p. The tomb itself, raised some few feet from the ground, is entered by steps, and is enclosed in a beautiful cut marble screen, the sarcophagus being covered with a very artistic representation of leaves and flowers carved in marble. Mirza Jahangir was the son of Akbar II, and the tomb was built in A.D. 1832 '.

'He was, in consequence of having fired a pistol at Mr. Seton, the Resident at Delhi, sent as a State prisoner to Allahabad, where he resided in the garden of Sultan Khusro for several years, and died there in A.D. 1821 (A.H. 1236), aged thirty-one years; a salute of thirty-one guns was fired from the ramparts of the fort of Allahabad at the time of his burial. He was at first interred in the same garden, and subsequently his remains were transferred to Delhi, and buried in the courtyard of the mausoleum of Nizam-ud-din Aulia.'

(Beale, _Dictionary_.) The young man's 'overt act of rebellion'

occurred in 1808, and his body was removed to Delhi in 1832. The form of the monument is that ordinarily used for a woman, 'but it was put over the remains of the Prince on a dispensation being granted for the purpose by Muhammadan lawyers'. (Carr Stephen, p. 111.)

13. Muhammad Shah reigned feebly from September, 1719, to April, 1748. 'He is the last of the Mughals who enjoyed even the semblance of power, and has been called "the seal of the house of Babar", for "after his demise everything went to wreck".' (Lane-Poole, p.

x.x.xviii.) Nadir Shah occupied Delhi in 1738, and is said to have ma.s.sacred 120,000 people. The tomb is described by Carr Stephen, p.

110.

14. Jahanara Begam, or the Begam Sahib, was the elder daughter of Shahjahan, a very able intriguer, the partisan of Dara s.h.i.+koh and the opponent of Aurangzeb during the struggle for the throne. She was closely confined in Agra till her father's death in 1666. After that event she was removed to Delhi, where she died in 1682. (Tavernier, _Travels_, transl. Ball, vol. i, p. 345.) She built the Begam Sarai at Delhi. Her amours, real or supposed, furnished Bernier with some scandalous and sensational stories. (Bernier, _Travels_, transl.

Constable, and V. A. Smith (1914), pp. 11-14.) Some writers credit her with all the virtues, e.g., Beale in his _Oriental Biographical Dictionary_. The author has omitted the last line of the inscription- 'May G.o.d illuminate his intentions. In the year 1093 ', corresponding to A.D. 1682. The first line is, 'Let nothing but the green [gra.s.s]

conceal my grave.' (Carr Stephen, p. 109.)

15. The tomb of Humayun was erected by the Emperor's widow, Haji Begam, or Bega Begam, not by Akbar. She was the senior widow of Humayun, ent.i.tled Haji or 'pilgrim ', because she performed the pilgrimage to Mecca. Carr Stephen and other writers confound her with Hamida Banu Begam, the mother of Akbar. For her true history see Beveridge, _The History of Humayun by Gulbadan Begam_ (R.A.S., 1902).

Carr Stephen (p. 203) says that the mausoleum was completed in A.D.

1565, or, according to some, in A.D. 1569, at a coat of fifteen lakhs of rupees. The true date is A.D. 1570, late in A.H. 977 (Baduoui, tr.

Lowe, ii. 135). It is of special interest as being one of the earliest specimens of the architecture of the Moghal dynasty, The ma.s.sive dome of white marble is a landmark for many miles round. The body of the building is of red sandstone with marble decorations. It stands on two n.o.ble terraces. Humayun rests in the central hall under an elaborately carved marble sarcophagus. The head of Dara s.h.i.+koh and the bodies of many members of the royal family are interred in the side rooms. After the fall of Delhi in September, 1857, the rebel princes took refuge in this mausoleum. The story of their execution by Hodson on the road to Delhi is well known, and has been the occasion of much controversy.