Chapter LI: Book VI: , it follows that it was from Megasthenês that he drew his (7)

[859] This Sámprah according to the Mirat-i-Áhmedi, Persian Text, II. 127, was a small police post or thána in Parganah Bahyal, twenty miles north-east of Áhmedábád. It is now in the Gáekwár's territory. Bahyal was under Pátan, so in the text the place is described as under Pátan.

[860] The surkh or little black-dotted red seed of the Abrus precatorius is called ghúngchi in Hindi and cock's-eye, chashmi-i-khurús, in Persian. As a weight the seed is known as a rati 96 going to the tola. It is used in weighing precious stones. Blochmann's Áin-i-Akbari, I. 16 note 1 and Mirat-i-Áhmedi Persian Text, 366.

[861] Sinor in Baroda territory on the right bank of the Narbada about thirty miles south of Baroda.

[862] Mirat-i-Áhmedi, Persian Text, 372.

[863] Mirat-i-Áhmedi, Persian Text, 427-434.

[864] Arhar-Mátar is according to the Mirat-i-Áhmedi (Persian Text, II. 126) the present Kaira sub-division of Mátar. The Mirat-i-Áhmedi places it twenty miles south-west of Áhmedábád. It is four miles south-west of Kaira.

[865] In the beginning of Ajítsingh's administration the Sacrifice Íd of the Musalmáns very nearly ended in a riot. An overzealous police officer belonging to the Kálúpúr section of Áhmedábád, hoping to please the Hindu viceroy, by force deprived some of the Sunni Bohorás of that quarter of a cow which they had purchased for the sacrifice. The Bohorás in a mass appealed to the Kázi who not succeeding in his representation to the viceroy was obliged to allay the popular excitement by publicly sacrificing a cow after the Íd prayers. Mirat-i-Áhmedi Royal Asiatic Society MS., I. 567-568.

[866] This is the first known mention of Gohilváda, the Gohils country, as a separate district.

[867] During the governorship of Haidar Kúli at Surat the Mirat-i-Áhmedi (Royal Asiatic Society MS., I. 567-568) notices the death of Mulla Abdul Ghafúr the founder of the wealthy family of the Mullás of Surat. Haidar Kúli confiscated Abdul Ghafúr's property representing to the emperor that the Mulla died issueless. But the Mulla's son Abdúl Hye proceeding to Dehli not only obtained from the emperor an order of restitution of property but the title of chief of merchants, Umda-tut-Tujjár, and an elephant.

[868] The sum is 6,75,000 mahmúdis. Like the changízi (see above page 222 note 2) the mahmúdi seems to have varied in value from one-third to one-half of a rupee.

[869] See note 1 page 312. The author of the Mirat-i-Áhmedi (Persian Text Royal Asiatic Society's Library Edition, I. 658) says Trimbakráv was slain. This seems an oversight as in another passage (Ditto, 738-739, see below page 312) he states that Trimbakráv was killed in 1731. The latter statement is in agreement with Grant Duff (History of the Maráthás, I. 364).

[870] The amount was 1,25,000 mahmúdis.

[871] Kasbátis are the descendants of the Musalmán garrisons of some towns of north Gujarát. The Kasbátis of Víramgám were originally Tánk Rájputs.

[872] See note on page 306.

[873] Pátdi (north latitude 23° 10'; east longitude 71° 44'), at the south-east angle of the Ran of Cutch, fifty-two miles west of Áhmedábád.

[874] The Máhi-marátib was a banner having the likeness of a fish at its top.

[875] Of the death at the age of nine years of this son of Saint Sháh-i-Álam the Mirat-i-Áhmedi (Printed Persian Text, II. 26) gives the following details: Malik Seif-ud-dín, the daughter's son of Sultán Áhmed I., had a son who he believed was born to him by the prayer of Saint Sháh-i-Álam. This boy who was about nine years old died. Malik Seif-ud-dín ran to Sháh-i-Álam, who used then to live at Asáwal, two or three miles east of Áhmedábád, and in a transport of grief and rage said to the Saint: 'Is this the way you deceive people? Surely you obtained me the gift of that boy to live and not to die? This I suppose is how you will keep your promise of mediating for our sinful souls before Alláh also?' The Saint could give no reply and retired to his inner apartments. The stricken father went to the Saint's son Sháh Bhíkan, who, going in to his father, entreated him to restore the Malik's boy to life. The Saint asked his son 'Are you prepared to die for the boy?' Sháh Bhíkan said 'I am ready.' The Saint, going into an inner room, spread his skirts before Alláh crying 'Rájanji,' a pet name by which the Saint used to address Alláh, meaning Dear King or Lord, 'Rájanji, here is a goat for a goat; take thou this one and return the other.' Lamentations in the Saint's harem showed that half of the prayer was granted and the Malik on returning to his house found the other half fulfilled.

[876] See above page 256. The Portuguese details have been obtained through the kindness of Dr. Gerson DaCunha.

[877] The following Persian verses are carved on the Âlamgír gateway:

In the time of Álamgír Aurangzíb (A.D. 1658-1707), the ruler of
the World,
This gate resembling the skies in altitude was built anew.
In the year A.H. 1079 (A.D. 1668) the work of renewal was begun
and completed
By the endeavour of the exalted Khán Muhammad Beg Khán.
From the accession of this Emperor of the World Aurangzíb.
This was the eleventh year by way of writing and history.

[878] Mr. Fergusson (Indian Architecture, page 543) says: "The pillars appear to have been taken from a Jain building." But the refinement on the square capital of each pillar of the Hindu Singh-múkh or horned face into a group of leaves of the same outline shows that the pillars were specially carved for use in a Muslim building. The porch on the north side of the tomb enclosure is described (Ditto, page 543) as composed of pillars avowedly re-erected from a Jain building. This note of Mr. Fergusson's must have gone astray, as the north porch of Hoshang's tomb enclosure is in the plain massive pointed arch and square-shafted style of the tomb and of the great mosque. Mr. Fergusson's note apparently belongs to the second and smaller Jámá Masjid, about a hundred yards east of the Sea or Sagár lake, the pillars of whose colonnade and porch are still enlivened by rows of the lucky face of the Hindu old horny.

[879] Hoshang's great mosque has the following much damaged Persian inscription:

The mosque of exalted construction, the temple of heavenly
altitude,
Whose every thick pillar is a copy of the (pillars of the) Sacred
Temple (the Temple of Makkah).
On account of the greatness of its dignity, like the pigeons of
the Temple of Makkah,
Sacred angels of high degree are always engaged in hovering
around it,
The result of the events born of the merciless revolution of
the skies.
When the sun of his life came as far as the balcony (i. e. was
ready to set).
Áazam Humáyún (that is Malik Mughi's) said ...
The administration of the country, the construction of buildings,
and the driving back of enemies
Are things which I leave you (the son of Áazam Humáyún) as parting
advice with great earnestness.
The personification of the kindness of Providence, the Sultán
Alá-ud-dín (Mehmúd I. A.D. 1436-1469), who is
The outcome of the refulgence of the Faith, and the satisfier of
the wants of the people,
In the year A.H. 858. (A.D. 1454),
In the words of the above parting advice, finished the construction
of this building.

[880] This Jámá Mosque has the following Persian inscription dated H. 835 (A.D. 1431):

With good omens, at a happy time, and in a lucky and well-started
year,
On the 4th of the month of Alláh (Ramazán) on the great day
of Friday,
In the year 835 and six months from the Hijrah (A.D. 1431)
Counted according to the revolution of the moon in the Arabian
manner,
This Islamic mosque was founded in this world,
The top of whose dome rubs its head against the green canopy
of Heaven.
The construction of this high mosque was due to
Mughís-ud-dín-wad-dunya (Malik Mughís), the father of Mehmúd
I. of Málwa (A.D. 1436-1469), the redresser of temporal and
spiritual wrongs.
Ulugh (brave), Áazam (great), Humáyún (august), the Khán of the
seven climes and the nine countries.
By the hands of his enterprise this so great mosque was founded,
That some call it the House of Peace, others style it the Kaábah.
This good building was completed on the last of the month of
Shawwál (A.H. 835, A.D. 1431).
May the merit of this good act be inserted in the scroll of the
Khán's actions!
In this centre may the praises of the sermon read (in the name)
of Mehmúd Sháh
Be everlasting, so long as mountains stand on the earth and stars
in the firmament.

[881] The following Persian inscription carved on the entrance arch shows that though it may have been repaired by Báz Bahádur, the building of the palace was fifty years earlier (H. 914, A.D. 1508):

"In the time of the Sultán of Nations, the most just and great, and the most knowing and munificent Khákán Násir Sháh Khilji (A.D. 1500-1512). Written by Yúsuf, the year (H. 914) (A.D. 1508)."

[882] Translations of its two much-admired Persian inscriptions are given below pages 370-371.

[883] On the Tárápúr gateway a Persian inscription of the reign of the emperor Akbar (A.D. 1556-1605) states that the royal road that passed through this gateway was repaired by Táhir Muhammad Hasan Imád-ud-dín.

[884] The Persian references and extracts in this section are contributed by Khán Sáheb Fazl-ul-láh Lutfulláh Farídi of Surat.

[885] Sir John Malcolm in Eastwick's Handbook of the Panjáb, 119. This reference has not been traced. Farishtah (Elliot, VI. 563) says Mándu was built by Anand Dev of the Bais tribe, who was a contemporary of Khusrao Parwíz the Sassanian (A.D. 591-621).

[886] The date is uncertain. Compare Elphinstone's History, 323; Briggs' Farishtah, I. 210-211; Tabakát-i-Násiri in Elliot, II. 328. The conquest of Mándu in A.D. 1227 is not Mándu in Málwa as Elphinstone and Briggs supposed, but Mandúr in the Siwálik Hills. See Elliot, Vol. II. page 325 Note 1. The Persian text of Farishtah (I. 115), though by mistake calling it Mándu (not Mándu), notes that it was the Mandu in the Siwálik hills. The poetical date-script also terms it Biládi-Siwálik or the Siwálik countries. The date of the conquest of the Siwálik Mándu by Altamsh is given by Farishtah (Ditto) as A.H. 624 (A.D. 1226). The conquest of Málwa by Altamsh, the taking by him of Bhilsah and Ujjain, and the destruction of the temple of Maha Káli and of the statue or image of Bikramájit are given as occurring in A.H. 631 (A.D. 1233). The Mirat-i-Sikandari (Persian Text, 13) notices an expedition made in A.D. 1395 by Zafar Khán (Muzaffar I. of Gujarát) against a Hindu chief of Mándu, who, it was reported, was oppressing the Musalmáns. A siege of more than twelve months failed to capture the fort.

[887] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 170.

[888] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 168. According to the Wákiat-i-Mushtáki (Elliot, IV. 553) Diláwar Khán, or as the writer calls him Amín Sháh, through the good offices of a merchant whom he had refrained from plundering obtained the grant of Mándu, which was entirely desolate. The king sent a robe and a horse, and Amín gave up walking and took to riding. He made his friends ride, enlisted horsemen, and promoted the cultivation of the country (Elliot, IV. 552). Farishtah (Pers. Text, II. 460-61) states that when Sultán Muhammad, the son of Fírúz Tughlak, made Khwájah Sarwar his chief minister with the title of Khwájah Jehán, and gave Zafar Khán the viceroyalty of Gujarát and Khizr Khán that of Multán, he sent Diláwar Khán to be governor of Málwa. In another passage Farishtah (II. 461) states that one of Diláwar's grandfathers, Sultán Shaháb-ud-dín, came from Ghor and took service in the court of the Dehli Sultáns. His son rose to be an Amír, and his grandson Diláwar Khán, in the time of Sultán Fírúz, became a leading nobleman, and in the reign of Muhammad, son of Fírúz, obtained Málwa in fief. When the power of the Tughlaks went to ruin Diláwar assumed the royal emblems of the umbrella and the red-tent.

[889] Diláwar Khán Ghori, whose original name was Husein, was one of the grandsons of Sultán Shaháb-ud-dín Muhammad bin Sám. He was one of the nobles of Muhammad, the son of Fírúz Tughlak, who after the death of that monarch, settled in and asserted his power over Málwa. (Pers. Text Faristah, II. 460). The emperor Jehángír (who calls him Âmíd Sháh Ghori) attributes to him the construction of the fort of Dhár. He says (Memoirs Pers. Text, 201-202): Dhár is one of the oldest cities of India. Rája Bhoj, one of the famous ancient Hindu kings, lived in this city. From his time up to this a thousand years have passed. Dhár was also the capital of the Muhammadan rulers of Málwa. When Sultán Muhammad Tughlak (A.D. 1325) was on his way to the conquest of the Dakhan he built a cut-stone fort on a raised site. Its outline is very elegant and beautiful, but the space inside is empty of buildings. Âmíd Sháh Ghori, known as Diláwar Khán, who in the days of Sultán Muhammad the son of Sultán Fírúz, king of Dehli, gained the independent rule of Málwa, built outside this fort an assembly mosque, which has in front of it fixed in the ground a four-cornered iron column about four feet round. When Sultán Bahádur of Gujarát took Málwa (A.D. 1530-31) he wished to carry this column to Gujarát. In digging it up the pillar fell and broke in two, one piece measuring twenty-two feet the other thirteen feet. As it was lying here uncared-for, I (Jehángír) ordered the big piece to be carried to Ágra to be put up in the courtyard of the shrine of him whose abode is the heavenly throne (Akbar), to be utilised as a lamp post. The mosque has two gates. In front of the arch of one gate they have fixed a stone tablet engraved with a prose passage to the effect that Âhmíd Sháh Ghori in the year H. 808 (A.D. 1405) laid the foundation of this mosque. On the other arch they have written a poetic inscription of which the following verses are a part:

The liege lord of the world.
The star of the sphere of glory.
The stay of the people.
The sun of the zenith of perfection.
The bulwark of the law of the Prophet, Ámíd Sháh Dáúd.
The possessor of amiable qualities, the pride of Ghor.
Diláwar Khán, the helper and defender of the Prophet's faith.
The chosen instrument of the exalted Lord, who in the city of
Dhár constructed the assembly mosque
In a happy and auspicious moment on a day of lucky omen.
Of the date 808 years have passed (A.D. 1405)
When this fabric of Hope was completed.

[890] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 169.

[891] When fellow-nobles in the court of the Tughlak Sultán, Zafar Khán (Sultán Muzaffar of Gujarát) and Diláwar Khán bound themselves under an oath to be brothers in arms. Farishtah, Pers. Text II. 462.

[892] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 173; Elphinstone's History, 678.

[893] Though their temples were turned into mosques the Jains continued to prosper under the Ghoris. At Deogarh in Lalitpura in Jhánsi in the North-West Provinces an inscription of Samvat 1481, that is of A.D. 1424, records the dedication of two Jaina images by a Jain priest named Holi during the reign of Sháh Alambhaka of Mandapapura, that is of Sháh Alp Khán of Mándu that is Sultán Hoshang Ghori. Archæological Survey of India, New Series, II. 120.

[894] Farishtah, Pers. Text II. 464-65.

[895] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 176, 178, 180, 181, 183.

[896] Farishtah, Pers. Text II. 466-67.

[897] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 180. In connection with the Tárápúr Gate Farishtah says (Pers. Text, II. 468): The fort of Mándu is built on the top of a mountain, and the line of its fortification is about twenty-eight miles in length. In place of a moat it is surrounded by a deep chasm, so that it is impossible to use missiles against it. Within the fort water and provisions are abundant and it includes land enough to grow grain for the garrison. The extent of its walls makes it impossible for an army to invest it. Most of the villages near it are too small to furnish supplies to a besieging force. The south or Tárápúr gate is exceedingly difficult of access. A horseman can hardly approach it. From whichever side the fort may be attempted, most difficult heights have to be scaled. The long distances and intervening hills prevent the watchers of the besieging force communicating with each other. The gate on the side of Delhi is of easier access than the other gates.

[898] It follows that Farishtah (Briggs, IV. 196) is mistaken in stating that Hoshang's son Muhammad gave Mándu the name of Shádiábád, the Abode of Joy.

[899] Farishtah, Pers. Text II. 472-475. It seems to follow that from the first the monument to Hoshang in Hoshangábád was an empty tomb. Compare Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 180-190.

[900] The following more detailed, but also more confused, story is told in the Wákiat-i-Mushtáki (Elliot, IV. 552-54): A man named Mehmúd, son of Mughís Khilji, came to Hoshang and entered his service. He was a treacherous man, who secretly aspired to the throne. He became minister, and gave his daughter in marriage to the king. [Farishtah, Pers. Text, II. 474, says: "Malik Mughís gave his daughter (Mehmúd's sister) in marriage, not to Hoshang, but to Hoshang's son Muhammad Shah."] His father Malik Mughís, coming to know of his son's ambitious designs, informed the king of them. Hereupon Mehmúd feigned illness, and to deceive the king's physicians shut himself in a dark room and drank the blood of a newly killed goat. When the physicians came Mehmúd rose hastily, threw up the blood into a basin, and tossing back his head rolled on the floor as if in pain. The physicians called for a light. When they saw that what Mehmúd had spat up was blood they were satisfied of his sickness, and told the king that Mehmúd had not long to live. The king refrained from killing a dying man. This strange story seems to be an embellishment of a passage in Farishtah (Pers. Text, II. 477). When Khán Jehán, that is Malik Mughís the father of Mehmúd, was ordered by Sultán Muhammad to take the field against the Rájput rebels of Nádoti (Hároti?) many of the old nobles of Málwa went with him. In their absence the party hostile to the Khiljis represented to Sultán Muhammad that Mehmúd Khilji was plotting his death. On hearing that the Sultán was enraged against him Mehmúd secluded himself from the Court on pretence of illness. At the same time he worked secretly and bribed Sultán Muhammad's cup-bearer to poison his master. On the death of Sultán Muhammad the party of nobles opposed to Mehmúd, concealing the fact of Muhammad's death, sent word that Muhammad had ordered him immediately to the palace, as he wanted to send him on an embassy to Gujarát. Mehmúd, who knew that the Sultán was dead, returned word to the nobles that he had vowed a life-long seclusion as the sweeper of the shrine of his patron Sultán Hoshang, but that if the nobles came to him and convinced him that the good of his country depended on his going to Gujarát he was ready to go and see Sultán Muhammad. The nobles were caught in their own trap. They went to Mehmúd and were secured and imprisoned by him.

[901] Farishtah, Pers. Text, II. 480.

[902] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 196. These titles mean: The Chief of Nobles, the Great, the August.

[903] It is related that one of the pious men in the camp of Sultán Ahmed of Gujarát had a warning dream, in which the Prophet (on whom be peace) appeared to him and said: "The calamity of (spirit of) pestilence is coming down from the skies. Tell Sultán Ahmed to leave this country." This warning was told to Sultán Ahmed, but he disregarded it, and within three days pestilence raged in his camp. Farishtah Pers. Text, II. 484.

[904] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 205, gives 230 minarets and 360 arches. This must have been an addition in the Text used by Briggs. These details do not apply to the building. The Persian text of Farishtah, II. 485, mentions 208 columns or pillars (duyast o hasht ustuwánah). No reference is made either to minarets or to arches.

[905] Farishtah, Pers. Text II. 487.

[906] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 207. Malcolm's Central India, I. 32. In A.D. 1817 Sir John Malcolm (Central India, I. 32 Note) fitted up one of Mehmúd's palaces as a hot-weather residence.

[907] Of the siege of Kumbhalmer a curious incident is recorded by Farishtah (Pers. Text, II. 485). He says that a temple outside the town destroyed by Mehmúd had a marble idol in the form of a goat. The Sultán ordered the idol to be ground into lime and sold to the Rájputs as betel-leaf lime, so that the Hindus might eat their god. The idol was perhaps a ram, not a goat. The temple would then have been a Sun-temple and the ram, the carrier or váhana of the Sun, would have occupied in the porch a position similar to that held by the bull in a Mahádeva temple.

[908] Ruins of Mándu, 13.

[909] In the end of A.H. 846 (A.D. 1442) Mehmúd built a seven-storeyed tower and a college opposite the Jámá Mosque of Hoshang Sháh. Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 210; Persian Text, II. 488.

[910] Compare Briggs' Farishtah, IV 323.

[911] Gladwin's Áin-i-Akbari, II. 41.

[912] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 210; Farishtah, Persian Text II. 488.

[913] Memoirs of the emperor Jehángír (Pers. Text) Sir Sayad Áhmed's Edition, page 188, eleventh year of Jehángír, A.D. 1617.

[914] Herbert's Khán Jehan is doubtless Mehmúd's father the minister Malik Mughís, Khán Jehán Aâzam Humáyún. It cannot be Khán Jehán Pir Muhammad, Akbar's general, who after only a few months' residence was slain in Mándu in A.D. 1561; nor can it be Jehángír's great Afghán general, Khán Jehán Lodi (A.D. 1600-1630), as he was not in Mándu until A.D. 1628, that is more than a year after Herbert left India. Compare Herbert's Travels, 107-118; Elliot, VI. 249-323, VII. 7, 8, and 21; and Blochman's Áin-i-Akbari, 503-506.

[915] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 214.

[916] Ruins of Mándu, 13. Farishtah has three mentions of colleges. One (Pers. Text, II. 475) as the place where the body of Hoshang was carried, probably that prayers might be said over it. In another passage in the reign of Mehmúd I. (Pers. Text, II. 480) he states that Mehmúd built colleges in his territories which became the envy of Shíráz and Samarkand. In a third passage he mentions a college (page 488) near the Victory Tower.

[917] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 217. A different but almost incredible account of the capture of the royal belt is given in the Mirat-i-Sikandari, Pers. Text, 159: When Sultán Kutb-ud-dín, son of Sultán Muhammad, defeated Sultán Mehmúd Khilji at the battle of Kapadvanj, there was such a slaughter as could not be exceeded. By chance, in the heat of the fray, which resembled the Day of Judgment, the wardrobe-keeper of Sultán Kutb-ud-dín, in whose charge was the jewelled belt, was by the restiveness of his horse carried into the ranks of the enemy. The animal there became so violent that the wardrobe-keeper fell off and was captured by the enemy, and the jewelled belt was taken from him and given to Sultán Mehmúd of Málwa. The author adds: This jewelled waistband was in the Málwa treasury at the time the fortress of Mándu was taken by the strength of the arm of Sultán Muzaffar (A.D. 1531). Sultán Mehmúd sent this belt together with a fitting sword and horse to Sultán Muzaffar by the hands of his son.

[918] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 209.

[919] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 234-235: Pers. Text, II. 503.

[920] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 236.

[921] Ruins of Mándu, 6.

[922] Farishtah Pers. Text, II. 504-505.

[923] Farishtah Pers. Text, II. 505.

[924] Farishtah Pers. Text, II. 507.

[925] Wákiat-i-Mushtáki in Elliot, IV. 554-556. Probably these are stock tales. The Gujarát historians give Muzaffar and Muhammad the Gold-giver (A.D. 1441-1451) credit for the horse scrupulosity. See Mirat-i-Sikandari Pers. Text, 178.

[926] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 236-239; Wákiat-i-Jehángíri in Elliot, VI. 349-350; Wákiat-i-Mushtáki in Elliot, IV. 554-55; Malcolm's Central India, I. 35-36. The Mirat-i-Sikandari (Pers. Text, 160) has the following notice of Ghiás-ud-dín: The Sultáns of Mándu had reached such a pitch of luxury and ease that it is impossible to imagine aught exceeding it. Among them Sultán Ghiás-ud-dín was so famous for his luxurious habits, that at present (A.D. 1611) if any one exceeds in luxury and pleasure, they say he is a second Ghiás-ud-dín. The orders of the Sultán were that no event of a painful nature or one in which there was any touch of sadness should be related to him. They say that during his entire reign news of a sad nature was only twice conveyed to him: once when his son-in-law died and once when his daughter was brought before him clothed in white. On this occasion the Sultán is related to have simply said: "Perhaps her husband is dead." This he said because the custom of the people of India is that when the husband of a woman dies she gives up wearing coloured clothes. The second occasion was when the army of Sultán Bahlol Lodi plundered several of the districts of Chanderi. Though it was necessary to report this to the Sultán, his ministers were unable to communicate it to him. They therefore asked a band of actors (bhánds) to assume the dress of Afgháns, and mentioning the districts to represent them as being pillaged and laid waste. Sultán Ghiás-ud-dín exclaimed in surprise: "But is the governor of Chanderi dead that he does not avenge upon the Afgháns the ruin of his country!"

[927] Compare Catalogue of Indian Coins, The Mahomedan States, pages LIV. LV. and 118-121.

[928] Farishtah Pers. Text, II. 507.

[929] Farishtah (Pers. Text, II. 508) detailing how Násir-ud-dín came to power, says: There was a difference between Násir-ud-dín and his brother Alá-ud-dín. The mother of these princes, Khurshíd Ráni, who was the daughter of the Hindu chief of Báglána, had taken Alá-ud-dín the younger brother's side. After killing his father Násir-ud-dín ordered his mother to be dragged out of the harím and Alá-ud-dín and his children to be slaughtered like lambs.

[930] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 238-239. Farishtah holds that Násir-ud-dín's murder of his father is not proved. He adds (Pers. Text, II. 515) that Násir-ud-dín was at Dhár where he had gone to quell the rebellion of the nobles when the news of Ghiás-ud-dín's death reached him. He argues that as a parricide cannot flourish more than a year after his father's murder, and as Násir-ud-dín ruled for years after that event, he could not have killed his father.

[931] Farishtah Pers. Text, II. 516.

[932] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 243. The emperor Jehángír (Memoirs Pers. Text, 181) says that Násir-ud-dín had a disease which made him feel so hot that he used to sit for hours in water.

[933] Wákiat-i-Jehángíri in Elliot, VI. 350. Farishtah (Pers. Text, II. 517-18) says that Násir-ud-dín died of a burning-fever he had contracted by hard drinking and other evil habits, that he showed keen penitence before his death, and bequeathed his kingdom to his third son Mehmúd. The emperor Jehángír (Memoirs Pers. Text, 181) confirms the account of the Wákiat as to the manner of Násir-ud-dín's death.

[934] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 243.

[935] The emperor Jehángír thus describes (Memoirs Pers. Text, 181) his visit to Násir-ud-dín's grave. It is related that when during his reign Sher Khán Afghán Súr (A.D. 1540-1555) visited Násir-ud-dín's grave he ordered his attendants to flagellate the parricide's tomb: When I visited the sepulchre I kicked his grave and ordered those with me to do the same. Not satisfied with this I ordered his bones to be dug out and burned and the ashes to be thrown into the Narbada.

[936] Wákiat-i-Jehángíri in Elliot, VI. 350. The emperor Jehángír (Memoirs Pers. Text, 202) refers to the well-known bridge and water-palace about three miles north of Ujjain as the work of Násir-ud-dín. He says: On Sunday I reached Saádulpur near Ujjain. In this village is a river house with a bridge on which are alcoves both built by Násir-ud-dín Khilji (A.D. 1500-1512). Though the bridge is not specially praiseworthy the water-courses and cisterns connected with it have a certain merit.

[937] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 246.

[938] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 247-249. Malcolm's (Central India, I. 38) writes the Rájput's name Maderay. The Mirat-i-Sikandari (Persian Text, 149-155), gives the form Medáni Rai, the Lord of the Battlefield, a title which the author says (page 149) Mehmúd conferred on the Rájput in acknowledgment of his prowess.

[939] The Mirat-i-Sikandari (Pers. Text, 154) gives the following details of Mehmúd's flight: Sultán Mehmúd, on pretence of hunting left Mándu and remained hunting for several days. The Hindus, whom Medáni Rái had placed on guard over him, slept after the fatigue of the chase. Only some of the more trusted guards remained. Among them was a Rájput named Krishna, a Málwa zamíndár who was attached to the Sultán. Mehmúd said to Krishna: "Can you find me two horses and show me the way to Gujarát that I may get aid from Sultán Muzaffar to punish these rascals? If you can, do so at once, and, Alláh willing, you shall be handsomely rewarded." Krishna brought two horses from the Sultán's stables. Mehmúd rode on one and seated his dearest of wives, Ráni Kannya Kuar, on the other. Krishna marched in front. In half the night and one day they reached the Gujarát frontier.

[940] Tárikh-i-Sher Sháhi in Elliot, IV. 386. The Mirat-i-Sikandari (Pers. Text, 160) gives the following details of the banquet: Sultán Mehmúd showed great hospitality and humility. After the banquet as he led the Sultán over the palaces, they came to a mansion in the centre of which was a four-cornered building like the Kaâbah, carved and gilded, and round it were many apartments. When Sultán Muzaffar placed his foot within the threshold of that building the thousand beauties of Sultán Mehmúd's harím, magnificently apparelled and jewelled, all at once opened the doors of their chambers and burst into view like húris and fairies. When Muzaffar's eyes fell on their charms he bowed his head and said: "To see other than one's own harím is sinful." Sultán Mehmúd replied: "These are mine, and therefore yours, seeing that I am the slave purchased by your Majesty's kindness." Muzaffar said: "They are more suitable for you. May you have joy in them. Let them retire." At a signal from Sultán Mehmúd the ladies vanished.

[941] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 250-262.

[942] Farishtah Pers. Text. II. 527. According to the Mirat-i-Sikandari (Pers. Text, 161) Mehmúd marched against Gágraun first, and slew Hemkaran, a partisan of Medáni Rái, in a hand-to-hand fight. On this the Rána and Medáni Rái joined their forces against Mehmúd.

[943] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 262-263.

[944] Persian Edition, 239.

[945] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 267-68. Sultán Bahádur apparently surprised the party in charge of the Tárápúr or Southern Gate.

[946] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 269; Mirat-i-Áhmedi, Persian Text, I. 76.

[947] Briggs' Farishtah, II. 77.

[948] Abul Fazl's Akbar Námah in Elliot, VI. 14; Briggs' Farishtah, II. 77.

[949] Abul Fazl's Akbar Námah in Elliot, V. 192.

[950] Abul Fazl's Akbar Námah in Elliot, VI. 15; Briggs' Farishtah, II. 80-81.

[951] Abul Fazl's Akbar Námah in Elliot, VI. 18. According to Farishtah (Pers. Text, II. 532) Mallu, the son of Mallu, was a native of Málwa and a Khilji slave noble. Mallu received his title of Kádir Sháh from Sultán Mehmúd III. of Gujarát (A.D. 1536-1544) at the recommendation of his minister Imád-ul-Mulk who was a great friend of Mallu. Mirat-i-Sikandari, Persian Text, 298.

[952] Farishtah Pers. Text, II. 532.

[953] Tárikh-i-Sher Sháh in Elliot, IV. 391; Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 271-72.

[954] Farishtah (Pers. Text, 533-34) refers to the following circumstance as the cause of Kádir Sháh's suspicion. On his way to Sher Sháh's darbár at Ujjain Kádir saw some Mughal prisoners in chains making a road. One of the prisoners seeing him began to sing:

Mará mí bín darín ahwál o fikrí khíshtan mí kun!

In this plight thou seest me to-day,
Thine own turn is not far away.

When Kádir Sháh escaped, Sher Sháh on hearing of his flight exclaimed:

Bá má chi kard dídí
Mallû Ghulám-i-gídí.

Thus he treats us with scorn,
Mallu the slave base born.

To this one of Sher Sháh's men replied:

Kaul-i-Rasúl bar hakk
Lá khaira fil abídi.

The words of the Prophet are true,
No good can a slave ever do.

[955] Tárikh-i-Sher Sháhi in Elliot, IV. 397.

[956] Tárikh-i-Alfi in Elliott, V. 168; Elphinstone's India, 402-403.

[957] Tárikh-i-Alfi in Elliot, V. 168.

[958] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 276.

[959] When Báz Bahádur attacked the Gonds their chief was dead, and his widow, Ráni Durgávati, was ruling in his place. The Ráni led the Gonds against the invaders, and hemming them in one of the passes, inflicted on them such a defeat that Báz Bahádur fled from the field leaving his baggage and camp in her hands. Farishtah Pers. Text, II. 538.

[960] According to Farishtah (Pers. Text, II. 538) Báz Bahádur was already an adept in music.

[961] Malcolm's Central India, I. 39; Ruins of Mándu, 30.

[962] Briggs' Farishtah, II. 210.

[963] Blochman's Áin-i-Akbari, 321.

[964] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 211.

[965] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 216.

[966] Tabakát-i-Akbari in Elliot, V. 291.

[967] Tabakát-i-Akbari in Elliot, V. 330-31.

[968] Blochman's Áin-i-Akbari, 375.

[969] The emperor Jehángír thus describes (Memoirs Pers. Text, 372) a visit to this building: On the third day of Amardád (July 1617) with the palace ladies I set out to see Nílkanth, which is one of the pleasantest places in Mándu fort. Sháh Budágh Khán, who was one of the trusted nobles of my august father, built this very pleasing and joy-giving lodge during the time he held this province in fief (A.D. 1572-1577). I remained at Nílkanth till about an hour after nightfall and then returned to my state quarters.

[970] An officer who distinguished himself under Humáyún, one of Akbar's commanders of Three Thousand, long governor of Mándu, where he died. Blochman's Áin-i-Akbari, 372.

[971] When opposed to Ârab the word Âjam signifies all countries except Arabia, and in a narrow sense, Persia. The meaning of the word Âjam is dumbness, the Arabs so glorying in the richness of their own tongue as to hold all other countries and nations dumb.

[972] The stones on which this inscription is carved have been wrongly arranged by some restorer. Those with the latter portion of the inscription come first and those with the beginning come last. Múnshi Abdur Rahím of Dhár.

[973] The maternal uncle of Naushírwán (A.D. 586-635) the Sassanian, Shirwán Sháh was ruler of a district on Mount Caucasus. Al Masúdi, Arabic Text Prairies d'Or, II. 4, and Rauzat-us-Safa, Persian Text, I. 259.

[974] Blochman's Áin-i-Akbari, 353.

[975] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 279.

[976] Blochman's Áin-i-Akbari, 429.

[977] Gladwin's Áin-i-Akbari, II. 41.

[978] Blochman's Áin-i-Akbari, 31.

[979] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 169, 181, 190.

[980] Nineteen kos, taking the kos to be two miles.

[981] The emperor Jehángír's Memoirs, Pers. Text, Sir Sayad Áhmed's Edition, 178-203.

[982] Literally single-men. The Ahadís were a corps of men who stood immediately under the emperor's orders. Blochman's Áin-i-Akbari, 20 note 1.

[983] This scattering of gold silver or copper coin, called in Arabic and Persian nisár, is a common form of offering. The influence of the evil eye or other baneful influence is believed to be transferred from the person over whom the coin is scattered to the coin and through the coin to him who takes it.

[984] This feat of Núr Jehán's drew from one of the Court poets the couplet:

Núr Jehán gar chih ba súrat zanast
Dar safi Mardán zani sher afkanast.

Núr Jehán the tiger-slayer's woman
Ranks with men as the tiger-slaying woman.

Sherafkan, that is tiger-slayer, was the title of Núr Jehán's first husband Ali-Kuli Istajlu.

[985] Tuzuk-i-Jehángíri Pers. Text, 187.

[986] Tuzuk-i-Jehángíri Pers. Text, 189.

[987] The miskál which was used in weighing gold was equal in weight to ninety-six barleycorns. Blochman's Áin-i-Akbari, 36.

[988] Tuzuk-i-Jehángíri Pers. Text, 195.

[989] Tuzuk-i-Jehángíri Pers. Text, 195.

[990] Tuzuk-i-Jehángíri Pers. Text, 192-194.

[991] Tuzuk-i-Jehángíri Pers. Text, 190.

[992] Tuzuk-i-Jehángíri Pers. Text, 192.

[993] Tuzuk-i-Jehángíri Pers. Text, 194-5.

[994] A Voyage to East India, 181. Terry gives April 1616, but Roe seems correct in saying March 1617. Compare Wákiat-i-Jehángíri in Elliot, VI. 351.

[995] Akbarpur lies between Dharampuri and Waisar. Malcolm's Central India, I. 84 note.

[996] Carriages may have the old meaning of things carried, that is baggage. The time taken favours the view that wagons or carts were forced up the hill. For the early seventeenth century use of carriages in its modern sense compare Terry (Voyage, 161). Of our wagons drawn with oxen ... and other carriages we made a ring every night; also Dodsworth (1614), who describes a band of Rájputs near Baroda cutting off two of his carriages (Kerr's Voyages, IX. 203); and Roe (1616), who journeyed from Ajmír to Mándu with twenty camels four carts and two coaches (Kerr, IX. 308). Terry's carriages seem to be Roe's coaches, to which Dela Valle (A.D. 1623) Hakluyt's Edition, (I. 21) refers as much like the Indian chariots described by Strabo (B.C. 50) covered with crimson silk fringed with yellow about the roof and the curtains. Compare Idrísi (A.D. 1100-1150), but probably from Al Istakhiri, A.D. 960: Elliot, I. 87). In all Nahrwala or north Gujarát the only mode of carrying either passengers or goods is in chariots drawn by oxen with harness and traces under the control of a driver. When in 1616 Jehángír left Ajmír for Mándu the English carriage presented to him by the English ambassador Sir Thomas Roe was allotted to the Sultánah Núr Jehán Begam. It was driven by an English coachman. Jehángír followed in the coach his own men had made in imitation of the English coach. Corryat (1615, Crudities III., Letters from India, unpaged) calls the English chariot a gallant coach of 150 pounds price.

[997] Kerr's Voyages, IX. 335; Wákiat-i-Jehángíri in Elliot, VI. 377.

[998] Roe writing from Ajmír in the previous year (29th August 1616) describes Mándu as a castle on a hill, where there is no town and no buildings. Kerr, IX. 267.

[999] Roe in Kerr's Travels, IX. 313.

[1000] Roe in Kerr's Travels, IX. 314.

[1001] Compare Wákiat-i-Jehángíri in Elliot, VI. 377.

[1002] Roe in Kerr's Travels, IX. 314.

[1003] Roe in Kerr's Travels, IX. 321.

[1004] Roe in Kerr's Travels, IX. 335.

[1005] Corryat's Crudities, III. Extracts (unpaged). This Master Herbert was Thomas, brother of Sir Edward Herbert, the first Lord Herbert. It seems probable that this Thomas supplied his cousin Sir Thomas Herbert who was travelling in India and Persia in A.D. 1627 with his account of Mándu. See below pages 381-382.

[1006] Corryat's Crudities, III. Extracts (unpaged).

[1007] Terry's Voyage, 183; Roe in Kerr, IX. 335.

[1008] Roe in Kerr, IX. 335.

[1009] Wákiat-i-Jehángíri in Elliot, VI. 349.

[1010] Wákiat-i-Jehángiri in Elliot, VI. 350.

[1011] Terry's Voyage, 228.

[1012] Terry's Voyage, 69.

[1013] Terry's Voyage, 183.

[1014] Terry's Voyage, 186, 198.

[1015] Terry's Voyage, 198, 205.

[1016] Roe in Kerr's Voyages, IX. 337; Pinkerton's Voyages, VIII. 35.

[1017] Terry's Voyage, 403.

[1018] Corryat's Crudities, III. Letter 2. Extracts unpaged.

[1019] Roe in Kerr's Voyages, IX. 343.

[1020] Roe in Kerr's Travels, IX. 340-343.

[1021] Roe in Kerr's Travels, IX. 344.

[1022] Terry's Voyage, 377. Terry's details seem not to agree with Roe's who states (Kerr's Voyages, IX. 344 and Pinkerton's Voyages, VIII. 37): I was invited to the drinking, but desired to be excused because there was no avoiding drinking, and their liquors are so hot that they burn out a man's very bowels. Perhaps the invitation Roe declined was to a private drinking party after the public weighing was over.

[1023] Roe in Kerr's Voyage, IX. 347; Elphinstone's History, 494. Kerr (IX. 347) gives September 2 but October 2 is right. Compare Pinkerton's Voyages, VIII. 39.

[1024] Ruins of Mándu, 57. As the emperor must have passed out by the Dehli Gate, and as Roe's lodge was two miles from Báz Bahádur's palace, the lodge cannot have been far from the Dehli Gate. It is disappointing that, of his many genial gossipy entries Jehángír does not devote one to Roe. The only reference to Roe's visit is the indirect entry (Wa'kiat-i-Jehángíri in Elliot, VI. 347) that Jehángír gave one of his nobles a coach, apparently a copy of the English coach, with which, to Jehángír's delight, Roe had presented him.

[1025] Roe in Kerr's Voyages, IX. 353.

[1026] Terry's Voyage, 180.

[1027] Terry's Voyage, 181.

[1028] Wákiat-i-Jehángíri in Elliot, VI. 383.

[1029] Wákiat-i-Jehángíri in Elliot, VI. 387.

[1030] Elphinstone's History, 496-97. Compare Dela Valle (Hakluyt Edition, I. 177) writing in A.D. 1622, Sultán Khurram after his defeat by Jehángír retired to Mándu.

[1031] Dela Valle's Travels, Hakluyt Edition, I. 97.

[1032] Elphinstone's History, 507.

[1033] Herbert's Travels, 84. Corryat's Master Herbert was as already noticed named like the traveller Thomas. The two Thomases were distant relations, both being fourth in descent from Sir Richard Herbert of Colebroke, who lived about the middle of the fifteenth century. A further connection between the two families is the copy of complimentary verses "To my cousin Sir Thomas Herbert," signed Ch. Herbert, in the 1634 and 1665 editions of Herbert's Travels, which are naturally, though somewhat doubtfully, ascribed to Charles Herbert, a brother of our Master Thomas. It is therefore probable that after his return to England Sir Thomas Herbert obtained the Mándu details from Master Thomas who was himself a writer, the author of several poems and pamphlets. Corryat's tale how, during the water-famine at Mándu, Master Herbert annexed a spring or cistern, and then bound a servant of the Great King who attempted to share in its use, shows admirable courage and resolution on the part of Master Thomas, then a youth of twenty years. The details of Thomas in his brother Lord Herbert's autobiography give additional interest to the hero of Corryat's tale of a Tank. Master Thomas was born in. A.D. 1597. In 1610, when a page to Sir Edward Cecil and a boy of thirteen, in the German War especially in the siege of Juliers fifteen miles north-east of Aix-la-Chapelle, Master Thomas showed such forwardness as no man in that great army surpassed. On his voyage to India in 1617, in a fight with a great Portuguese carrack, Captain Joseph, in command of Herbert's ship Globe, was killed. Thomas took Joseph's place, forced the carrack aground, and so riddled her with shot that she never floated again. To his brother's visit to India Lord Herbert refers as a year spent with the merchants who went from Surat to the Great Mughal. After his return to England Master Thomas distinguished himself at Algiers, capturing a vessel worth £1800. In 1622, when Master Thomas was in command of one of the ships sent to fetch Prince Charles (afterwards King Charles I.) from Spain, during the return voyage certain Low Countrymen and Dunkirkers, that is Dutch and Spanish vessels, offended the Prince's dignity by fighting in his presence without his leave. The Prince ordered the fighting ships to be separated; whereupon Master Thomas, with some other ships got betwixt the fighters on either side, and shot so long that both Low Countrymen and Dunkirkers were glad to desist. Afterwards at divers times Thomas fought with great courage and success with divers men in single fight, sometimes hurting and disarming his adversary, sometimes driving him away. The end of Master Thomas was sad. Finding his proofs of himself undervalued he retired into a private and melancholy life, and after living in this sullen humour for many years, he died about 1642 and was buried in London in St. Martin's near Charing Cross.

[1034] Khafi Khán in Elliot, VII. 218.

[1035] Malcolm's Central India, I. 64.

[1036] Malcolm's Central India, I. 78.

[1037] Malcolm's Central India, I. 100.

[1038] Malcolm's Central India, I. 106.

[1039] Central India, II. 503.

[1040] Ruins of Mándu, 43: March 1852 page 34.

[1041] Ruins of Mándu, 43: March 1852 page 34.

[1042] Malcolm's Central India, II. 503.

[1043] Briggs' Farishtah, IV. 235 note *.

[1044] Indian Architecture, 541.

[1045] Ruins of Mándu, 9.

[1046] Ruins of Mándu, 9.

[1047] Ruins of Mándu, 13, 25, 35. Some of these extracts seem to belong to a Bombay Subaltern, who was at Mándu about A.D. 1842, and some to Captain Claudius Harris, who visited the hill in April 1852. Compare Ruins of Mándu, 34.

[1048] Murray's Handbook of the Panjáb, 118.

[1049] Surat was known as Báb-ul-makkah or the Gate of Makka on account of its being the starting place of the ships annually conveying the Muhammadan pilgrims of India to the shrine of their Prophet.

[1050] Sardeshmukhi or ten per cent on the revenue. The chauth was nominally one-fourth, but both these claims were fluctuating in their proportions to the total revenue.

[1051] Now the capital of the Rája of Rájpipla.

[1052] Chauth and Sardeshmukhi as settled in 1699.

[1053] On the western skirts of the Dáng forests.

[1054] Now in the British districts of the Panch Maháls.

[1055] The Muhammadan account is given in the Musalmán portion of this history. Grant Duff's description differs considerably.

[1056] The Marátha practice was to base their demands on the standard or tankha assessment (which was seldom if ever collected), so that by this means they evaded all possibility of claims against them for over-collections.

[1057] At Gala about twelve miles above Surat in the territory of the Gáikwár.

[1058] Tálegaon in the north-west of Poona, now a station on the railway to Bombay.

[1059] Broach was constituted part of the Nizám's personal estate on his resigning the viceroyalty in 1722.

[1060] At the mouth of the Tápti, now belonging to the little Muhammadan state of Sachin.

[1061] Now in the Ahmednagar district.

[1062] In the Surat district some thirty miles east of the city.

[1063] A celebrated hill fort south of Chámpáner in the Panch Maháls district.

[1064] Oriental Memoirs.

[1065] Known as Daskroi.

[1066] The rite of passing cakes from village to village or of passing a dog from village to village is in such complete accord with magical and religious rites practised all over India that it seems hardly possible to accept either as meaningless or as accidental the passing of cakes and of a dog from one part of the country to another on the brink of the Mutinies. Knowing how suitable such a rite is to the state of feeling as well as to the phase of belief prevalent among the plotters of rebellion in Northern India it seems difficult to suppose that the passing of the cakes and the passing of the dog were not both sacramental; that is designed to spread over the country a spirit which had by religious or magical rites been housed in the dog and in the cakes. The cake-spirit, like the sugar-spirit of the Thags, was doubtless Káli, the fierce longing for unbridled cruelty, which worked on the partaker of the Thag sugar with such power that he entered with zest and without remorse on any scheme however cowardly and cruel. Like the Thags those who ate the Mutiny cakes would by partaking become of one spirit, the spirit of the indwelling Káli, and, in that spirit would be ready to support and to take part in any scheme of blood which the leaders of Mutiny might devise and start. Similarly by religious rites the Central India dog, possibly the dog of Báiza Bái of Gwálior (See Text page 437), had been made the home of some fierce war-spirit, apparently of the dog-formed Khandoba the Marátha Sword God and Dog of War. The inspired dog and the inspired dogs-meat were passed through the land in the confidence that through them the spirit of unrest would pervade every village of Gujarát. Since the Mutinies, by the magic of letters, Káli has passed from the wafer into the leaflet, and the paid political propagandist has taken the place of Khandoba's pariah dog.

The correctness of the view suggested above is supported if not established by certain passages in Kaye's Sepoy War, I. 632-642. Chuni says; 'The circulating of cakes was supposed to foretell disturbance and to imply an invitation to the people to unite for some secret purpose.' According to the king of Delhi's physician (page 636) some charm attached to the cakes. The people thought they were made by some adept in the secret arts to keep unpolluted the religion of the country. Another authority (page 637) says; 'The first circulation of the cakes was on the authority of a pandit who said the people would rise in rebellion if cakes were sent round and that the person in whose name the cakes were sent would rule India.' The secret comes out in Sitárám Báwá's evidence (pages 646-648); 'The cakes in question were a charm or jádu which originated with Dása Báwa the guru or teacher of Nána Sáheb. Dása told Nána Sáheb he would make a charm and as far as the magic cakes should be carried so far should the people be on his side. He then took lotusseed-dough called makána and made an idol of it. He reduced the idol to very small pills and having made an immense number of cakes he put a pillet in each and said that as far as the cakes were carried so far would the people determine to throw off the Company's yoke.' With this making of a cake as a sacramental home of Durga or Káli compare the Buddhist of Tibet offering in a human skull to the Máháráni or Queen, that is to Durga or Káli, a sacramental cake made of black-goat's fat, wine, dough, and butter. (Waddell's Buddhism in Tibet, 365.). As to the effect of sharing in Durga's mutiny cakes compare the statement of the Thag Faringia (Sleeman's Ramaseeana, page 216); The sugar sacrament, gur-tapávani, changes our nature. Let a man once taste the sacramental sugar and he will remain a Thag however skilful a craftsman, however well-to-do. The Urdu proverb says Tapauni-ki-dhaunika gur jisne kháyá wuh waisá huá Who eats the sugar of the sacramental Vase as he is so he remains. The Thags are tools in the hand of the god they have eaten. (Compare Ramaseeana, 76.)--J. M. C.

[1067] Rova in the south-east corner of Sirohi: Mandeta in Ídar in the Máhi Kántha. P. FitzGerald Esq. Political Agent Máhi Kántha.

[1068] The translations of the inscriptions and the bulk of the history are the work of Mr. A. M. T. Jackson of the Indian Civil Service.

[1069] Finch in Kerr's Voyages, VIII. 301. Thirty years later the traveller Tavernier (Ball's Edition, II. 87) has: Bargant (Wangam in Jodhpur ?) to Bimál 15 kos: Bimál to Modra 15 kos. Of Jhálor Ufflet has left the following description. Jhálor is a castle on the top of a steep mountain three kos in ascent by a fair stone causeway broad enough for two men. At the end of the first kos is a gate and a place of guard where the causeway is enclosed on both sides with walls. At the end of the second kos is a double gate strongly fortified; and at the third kos is the castle which is entered by three successive gates. The first is very strongly plated with iron, the second not so strong with places above for throwing down melted lead or boiling oil, and the third is thickly beset with iron spikes. Between each of these gates are spacious places of arms and at the inner gate is a strong portcullis. A bowshot within the castle is a splendid pagoda, built by the founders of the castle and ancestors of Ghazni (Gidney) Khán who were Gentiles. He turned Muhammadan and deprived his elder brother of this castle by the following stratagem. Having invited him and his women to a banquet which his brother requited by a similar entertainment he substituted chosen soldiers well armed instead of women, sending them two and two in a dhuli or litter who getting in by this device gained possession of the gates and held the place for the Great Mughal to whom it now (A.D. 1611) appertains being one of the strongest situated forts in the world. About half a kos within the gate is a goodly square tank cut out of the solid rock said to be fifty fathoms deep and full of excellent water. Quoted by Finch in Kerr's Voyages, VIII. 300-301.

[1070] The names of these gateways are Surajpul about six miles (4 kos) east of Bhinmál near Khánpur at the site of a temple of Mahádev; Sávidár about six miles (4 kos) to the south near a temple of Hanumán; Dharanidhar near Vandar about six miles (4 kos) west of Bhinmál at the site of a large well; Kishánbivao about six miles (4 kos) to the north near Nartan at the site of a large well and stones. Rattan Lal Pandit.