Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official Part 40

6. When the author wrote the above remarks, Englishmen knew the gallant Gurkhas as enemies only; they now know them as worthy and equal brethren in arms. The recruitment of Gurkhas for the British service began in 1838. The spelling 'Gorkha' is more accurate.

7. The 'kos' varies much in value, but in most parts of the United Provinces it is reckoned as equal to two miles. According to the _N.W.P. Gazetteer_ (p. 568), the nearest approximate value for the Agra kos is 1 3/4 mile. Three kos would, therefore, be equal to about 5 1/4 miles. Muin-ud-din died in A.D. 1236. Sleeman, on I know not what authority, represents Akbar as resorting to Salim Chishti, Shaikh of Fathpur-Sikri, on the advice given by a vision accorded at Ajmer. The _Tabaqat-i-Akbari_ simply records that Akbar had visited the Shaikh, the 'very holy old man' of Sleeman, several times, and had obtained the promise of a son. That promise was fulfilled by the birth of the princes Salim and Murad, who both saw the light at Fathpur-Sikri. The pilgrimage of Akbar on foot to Ajmer, which began on Friday, Shaban (8th month) 12, A.H. 977, took place _after_ the birth of Prince Salim, which occurred on the 18th of Rabi-ul-auwwal (3rd month) of the same Hijri year. Akbar travelled at the rate of 7 or 8 _kos_ a day, and spent about 25 days on the journey (E. & D. v.

333, 334). If he had moved at the rate stated by Sleeman he would have been nearly three months on the road. He reached Ajmer about the middle of February (N.S.). Shaikh Salim Chishti died in A.D. 1572 (A.

H. 979) aged 96 lunar years.

8. Sir Thomas Roe was sent out by James I, and arrived at Jahangir's court in January, 1616. He remained there till 1618, and secured for his countrymen the privilege of trading at Surat. The best edition of his book is that by Mr. William Foster (Hakluyt Soc., 1899).

9. Fathpur-Sikri is fully described and ill.u.s.trated in the late Mr.

E. W. Smith's fine work in quarto ent.i.tled _The Moghul Architecture of Fathpur-Sikri_ (4 Parts, Allahabad Govt. Press, 1894-8), which supersedes all other writings on the subject. The double name of the town means 'Fathpur at Sikri' according to a familiar Indian practice. The name Fathpur ('City of Victory') was bestowed in A.D.

1573 to commemorate the glorious campaign in Gujarat, but building on the site had been begun in 1569. The historians usually call the town simply Fathpur, which name also is found on the coinage, from probably A.H. 977 (A.D. 1569-70). The mint was not in regular working order until eight years later (A.H. 985). Coins continued to be struck regularly at Fathpur until A.H. 989 (A.D. 1581-2). Akbar abandoned his costly foundation a little later. The only coin from the Fathpur mint of subsequent date is one of the first year of Shahjahan (Wright, _Catalogue of Coins in Indian Museum, Mughal Emperors_, 1908, p. xlvii). But Rodgers believed in the genuineness of a zodiacal gold coin of Jahangir purporting to be struck at Fathpur (_J.A.S.B._, vol. lvii (1888), Part I, p. 26).

10. Sleeman's dates and details require much correction. The mosque was completed at some time in the year A.H. 979 (May 26, 1571, to May 13, 1572, o.s.), excepting the Buland Darwaza, which was erected in A.H. 983 (1575-6). The 'old hermit', Shaikh Salim, died on February 13, 1572 (Ramazan 27, A.H. 979). E. W. Smith (_op. cit._, Part IV, p.

1) gives the correct measurements as follow: 'Exclusive of the bastions upon the angles it measures 542' from east to west to the outside of the _liwan_ or sanctuary, or 515' 3" to the outside of the west main wall (which sets back from the outer wall of the liwan) and 438' from north to south. The general plan adopted by Muhammadans for their masjids has been followed. In the centre is a vast courtyard open to the heavens, measuring 359' 10" by 438' 9", surrounded on the north, south, and east sides by s.p.a.cious cloisters 38' 3" in depth, and on the west by the liwan itself, 288' 2" in length by 65' deep.

It is said to be copied from one at Makka [Mecca], and was erected according to a chronogram over the main arch in A.D. 1571, or at the same time as Rajah Bir Bal's house.' The 'six years before his death'

of Sleeman's text should be 'six months' (Latif, _Agra_, p. 149).

11. The southern portal, known as the Buland Darwaza, or Lofty Gateway, does not match the other gateways. It was built in A.D.

1575-6 (A.H. 983), and was adorned in A.D. 1601-2 (A.H. 1010) with an inscription recording Akbar's triumphant return from his campaign in the Deccan. The date is fixed by a chronogram, preserved in Beale's work ent.i.tled _Miftah-ul-tawarikh_ (_Ann. Progr. Rep. A. S. Northern Circle_, for 1905-6, p. 34, correcting E. W. Smith). Correct measurements are:

From roadway below to pavement . . . 42 feet From pavement to top of finial . . . 134 "

Breadth across main front . . . . 130 "

Breadth across back facing the mosque . . 123 "

Depth . . . . . . . . 88 1/2 feet.

Full details, with ample ill.u.s.trations, are given by E. W. Smith, op.

cit., Part IV, chap. ii. In the original edition of Sleeman a chromolithograph of the gateway is inserted. Photographs are reproduced in _H.F.A._, Pl. xcvi, and Fergusson, _History of Indian and E. Archit._ (ed. 1910), fig. 425.

12. Fergusson (ed. 1910, vol. ii, p. 297) successfully justifies the vast size of the gateway. 'The semi-dome is the modulus of the design, and its scale that by which the imagination measures its magnificence.'

The cramped staircases criticized by Sleeman are those ascending from the pavement to the roof, one on the north-west, and the other on the north-east side of the gate. Each flight has 123 steep steps.

13. See the 105th chapter of the Koran. 'Hast thou not seen how thy Lord dealt with the masters of the elephant? Did he not make their treacherous design an occasion of drawing them into error; and send against them flocks of _swallows_ which cast down upon them stones of baked clay, and rendered them like the leaves of corn eaten by cattle?' [W. H. S.] The quotation is from Sale's translation, but Sale uses the word 'birds', and not '_swallows_'. In his note, where he tells the whole story, he speaks of 'a large flock of birds like swallows'. The Arabic, Persian, and Hindustani dictionaries give no other word than 'ababil' for swallow. The word 'partadil' (purtadeel) occurs in none of them. According to Oates, _Fauna of British India_ (London, 1890), the 'ababil' is the common swallow, _Hirundo rustica_; and the 'mosque-swallow' ('masjid-ababil'), otherwise called 'Sykes's striated swallow', is the _H. erythropygia, H.

Daurica_ of Balfour, _Cyclop. of India_, 3rd ed., s.v. Hirundinidae.

This latter species is the 'little piebald thing' mentioned by the author.

14. Muh. Latif (Agra, pp. 146, 147) gives the text and English rendering of the inscription, which is in Persian, except the _logion_ ascribed to Jesus, which is in Arabic. His translation of the Jesus saying is as follows:

'So said Jeans, on whom be peace! "The world is a bridge; pa.s.s over it, but build no house on it. He who reflected on the distresses of the Day of Judgement gained pleasure everlasting.

'"Worldly pleasures are but momentary; spend, then, thy life in devotion and remember that what remains of it is valueless".'

Like the author, I am unable to trace the source of the quotation.

The inscription probably was recorded after Akbar's breach with Islam, which may be dated from 1579 or 1580. When he built the mosque, in 1571-5, he was still a devout Musalman, although entertaining liberal opinions. He died on October 25, 1605 (N.S.; October 15, O.S.)

15. For a full account of the exquisite sepulchre of Shaikh Salim, see E. W. Smith, op. cit.. Part III, chap. ii. An inscription over the doorway is dated A.H. 979 = 1571-2, the year of the saint's death. The building, constructed regardless of expense, must be somewhat later. 'As originally built by Akbar, the tomb was of red sandstone, and the marble trellis-work, the chief ornament of the tomb, was erected subsequently by the Emperor Jahangir' (Latif, _Agra_, p. 144).

16. The first plundering of Akbar's tomb at Sikandra by the Jats occurred in 1691 according to Manucci (_ante_, chapter 51, note 29.).

The outrages at Fathpur-Sikri seem to have been later in date, and to have happened after the capture of Agra in 1761 by Suraj Mall, the famous Raja of Bhurtpore (Bharatpur). The Jats retained possession of Agra until 1774 (_I.G._, 1908, vol. viii, p. 76). That is the period while they reigned, to use the author's words. Tradition affirms that daring that time they shot away the tops of the minarets at the entrance to the Sikandra park; took the armour and books of Akbar from his tomb, and sent them to Bharatpur, and also melted down two silver doors at the Taj, which had cost Shah Jahan more than 125,000 rupees (_N.W.P. Gazetteer_, 1st ed., vol. vii, p. 619)

17. We besieged and took Bharatpur in order to rescue the young prince, our ally, from his uncle, who had forcibly a.s.sumed the office of prime minister to his nephew. As soon as we got possession, all the property we found, belonging either to the nephew or the uncle, was declared to be prize-money, and taken for the troops. The young prince was obliged to borrow an elephant from the prize agents to ride upon. He has ever since enjoyed the whole of the revenue of his large territory. [W. H. S.] The final siege and capture of Bharatpur by Lord Combermere took place in January, 1826. The plundering, as Metcalfe observed, 'has been very disgraceful, and has tarnished our well-earned honours'. All the state treasures and jewels, amounting to forty-eight lakhs of rupees, or say half a million of pounds sterling, which should have been made over to the rightful Raja, were treated as lawful prize, and at once distributed among the officers and men. Lord Combermere himself took six lakhs (Marshman, _History of India_, ed., 1869, vol. ii, p. 409).

18. The 'little dingy mosque' was built over the cave in which the saint dwelt, and was presented to him by the local quarry-men. It is therefore called The Stone-cutters' Mosque. It is fully described by E. W. Smith, op. cit., Part IV. chap. iii. It is earlier in date than any of Akbar's buildings, having been built in A. H. 945 (A.D. 1538- 9), a year after the saint had settled in the 'dangerous jungle'

(_Progr. Rep. A. S. N. Circle_, 1905-6, p. 35).

19. The people of India no doubt owed much of the good they enjoyed under the long reign of Akbar to this most excellent woman, who inspired not only her husband but the most able Muhammadan minister that India has ever had, with feelings of universal benevolence. It was from her that this great minister, Abul Fazl, derived the spirit that dictated the following pa.s.sages in his admirable work, the Ain- i-Akbari; 'Every sect becomes infatuated with its particular doctrines; animosity and dissension prevail, and each man deeming the tenets of his sect to be the dictates of truth itself, aims at the destruction of all others, vilifies reputation, stains the earth with blood, and has the vanity to imagine that he is performing meritorious actions. Were the voice of reason attended to, mankind would be sensible of their error, and lament the weaknesses which led them to interfere in the religious concerns of each other.

Persecution, after all, defeats its own end; it obliges men to conceal their opinions, but produces no change in them.

'Summarily, the Hindoos are religious, affable, courteous to strangers, p.r.o.ne to inflict austerities on themselves, lovers of justice, given to retirement, able in business, grateful, admirers of truth, and of unbounded fidelity in all their dealings.

'This character shines brightest in adversity. Their soldiers know not what it is to fly from the field of battle; when the success of the combat becomes doubtful, they dismount from their horses, and throw away their lives in payment of the debt of valour. They have great respect for their tutors; and make no account of their lives when they can devote them to the service of their G.o.d.

'They consider the Supreme Being to be above all labour, and believe Brahma to be the creator of the world, Vishnu its preserver, and Siva its destroyer. But one sect believes that G.o.d, who hath no equal, appeared on earth under the three above-mentioned forms, without having been thereby polluted in the smallest degree, in the same manner as the Christians speak of the Messiah; others hold that all these were only human beings, who, on account of their sanct.i.ty and righteousness, were raised to these high dignities.' [W. H. S.] The pa.s.sage quoted is from Gladwin's translation, vol. ii, p. 318 (4th ed., London, 1800). The wording varies in different editions of Gladwin's work. A better version will be found in Jarrett, transl.

_ain_ (Calcutta, 1894), vol. iii, p. 8.

There is no substantial foundation for the author's statement that Abul Fazl learned his charity and toleration from the Hindoo mother of Jahangir. The influences which really moulded the opinions of both Abul Fazl and his royal master are well known. When Akbar and Abul Fazl are compared with Elizabeth and Burleigh, Philip II and Alva, or the other sovereigns and ministers of the age in Europe, it seems to be little less than a miracle that the Indian statesmen should have held and practised the n.o.ble philosophy expounded in the above quotation from the 'Inst.i.tutes of Akbar'. No man has deserved better than Akbar the stately eulogy p.r.o.nounced by Wordsworth on a hero now obscure:

A meteor wert thou in a darksome night; Yet shall thy name, conspicuous and sublime, Stand in the s.p.a.cious firmament of time, Fixed as a star: such glory is thy right.

(_Sonnets dedicated to Liberty_, Part Second, No. XVII.)

20. The story is absurd, the saint having died early in 1572, when the Fathpur-Sikri buildings were in progress.

'The city . . . is enclosed on three sides by high embattlemented stone walls pierced by. . . gateways protected by heavy and grim semi-circular bastions of rubble masonry. The fourth side was protected by a large lake.' There were nine gateways (E. W. Smith, op. cit., pp. 1, 59; pl. xci, xciii). The Sangin Burj, or Stone Tower, is a fine unfinished fortification (ibid., p. 34). The dam of the lake burst in the 27th year of the reign, A.D. 1582 (Latif, _Agra_, p. 159). The circ.u.mference of the town is variously stated as either six or seven miles.

21. Akbar began the works at the fort of Agra in A.H. 972, corresponding to A.D. 1564-65, several years before he began those at Fathpur in A.D. 1569-70 (E. & D., vol. v, pp. 295, 332); and the buildings at Agra and Fathpur were carried on concurrently. He continued building at Fathpur nearly to the close of his reign. Agra was never 'an unpeopled waste' during Akbar's reign. Sikandar Lodi had made it his capital in A.D. 1501.

22. That is to say, the grantees have now to pay land revenue, or rent, to the state.

23. No good general description of the buildings at Agra, Sikandra, and Fathpur-Sikri exists. The following list indicates the beat treatises available.

(1) Syad Muhammad Latif--_Agra, Historical and Descriptive., &c._; 8vo, Calcutta, 1896, Useful, but crude and badly ill.u.s.trated.

(2) E. W. Smith--_The Moghul Architecture of Fathpur-Sikri_; 4 Parts, 4to, Government Press, Allahabad, 1894-8.

(3) Same author--_Moghul Colour Decoration of Agra_; 4to, Government Press, Allahabad, 1901.

(4) Same author--_Akbar's Tomb, Sikandarah_; posthumous; 4to, Allahabad Government Press, 1909.

The three works by Mr. E. W. Smith are magnificently ill.u.s.trated and worthy of the subject.

(5) Nur Baksh--'The Agra Fort and its Buildings', in _A.S. Annual Report_ for 1903-4, pp. 164-93.

(6) Moin-ud-din--_The History of the Taj, &c._; thin 8vo, 116 pp.; Moon Press, Agra, 1905. Useful, as being the only book devoted to the Taj and connected buildings, but crude and inadequate.

The Archaeological Survey of India, since its reorganization, has not had time to study the Taj buildings, except for conservation purposes. The report by Mr. Carlleyle on the minor remains at and near Agra in _A.S.R._, vol. iv, 1874, is almost worthless.

In 1873 Major Cole prepared a handsome volume ent.i.tled _Ill.u.s.trations of Buildings near Muttra and Agra, &c._