10. The government of Gwalior has improved since the author wrote. Many reforms have been begun and more or less fully executed. In May, 1887, the vast hoard of rupees buried in pits in the fort, valued at five millions sterling, was exhumed, and lent to the Government of India to be usefully employed. The passive opposition of a court like that of Gwalior to the effectual execution of reforms is continuous and difficult to overcome.

11. The author's description of the ordinary Asiatic government at almost all times and in all places as 'a grinding military despotism' is correct. Sentimental persons in both India and England are apt to forget this weighty truth. The golden age of India, excepting, perhaps, the Gupta period between A.D. 330 and 455, is as mythical as that of Ireland. What Persia now is, that would India be, if she had been left to her own devices.

12. Sir A. Cunningham was stationed at Gwalior for five years, and had thus an exceptionally accurate knowledge of the fortress. His account, which corrects the text in some particulars, is as follows:- 'the great fortress of Gwalior is situated on a precipitous, flat- topped, and isolated hill of sandstone, which rises 300 feet above the town at the north end, but only 274 feet at the upper gate of the principal entrance. The hill is long and narrow; its extreme length from north to south being one mile and three-quarters, while its breadth varies from 600 feet opposite the main entrance to 2,800 feet in the middle opposite the great temple. The walls are from 30 to 35 feet in height, and the rock immediately below them is steeply, but irregularly, scarped all round the hill. The long line of battlements which crowns the steep scarp on the east is broken only by the lofty towers and fretted domes of the noble palace of Raja Man Singh. On the opposite side, the line of battlements is relieved by the deep recess of the Urwahi valley, and by the zigzag and serrated parapets and loopholed bastions which flank the numerous gates of the two western entrances. At the northern end, where the rock has been quarried for ages, the jagged masses of the overhanging cliff seem ready to fall upon the city beneath them. To the south the hill is less lofty, but the rock has been steeply scarped, and is generally quite inaccessible. Midway over all towers the giant form of a massive Hindu temple, grey with the moss of ages. Altogether, the fort of Gwalior forms one of the most picturesque views in Northern India' (A.S.R., vol. ii, p. 330).

13. The nakedness of the image in itself proves that Buddha could not be the person represented. His statues are never nude. The Gwalior figures are images of some of the twenty-four great saints (Tirthankaras or Jinas) of the Digambara sect of the Jain religion. Jain statues are frequently of colossal size. The largest of those at Gwalior is fifty-seven feet high. The Gwalior sculptures are of late date—the middle of the fifteenth century. The antiquities of Gwalior, including these sculptures, are well described in A.S.R., vol. ii, pp. 330-95, plates lxxxvi to xci.

14. This mosque is the Jami', or cathedral, mosque 'situated at the eastern foot of the fortress, near the Alamgiri Darwaza (gate). It is a neat and favourable specimen of the later Moghal architecture. Its beauty, however, is partly due to the fine light-coloured sandstone of which it is built. This at once attracted the notice of Sir Wm. Sleeman, who, &c.' (A.S.R., vol. ii, p. 370). This mosque is in the old city, described as 'a crowded mass of small flat-roofed stone houses' (ibid. p. 330).

15. The Geological Survey recognizes a special group of 'transition' rocks between the metamorphic and the Vindhyan series under the name of the Gwalior area. 'The Gwalior area is . . . only fifty miles long from east to west, and about fifteen miles wide. It takes its name from the city of Gwalior, which stands upon it, surrounding the famous fort built upon a scarped outlier of Vindhyan sandstone, which rests upon a base of massive bedded trap belonging to the transition period' (Manual of Geology of India, 1st ed., Part l, p. 56). The writers of the manual do not notice the basaltic cap of the fort hill described by the author, and at p. 300 use language which implies that the hill is outside the limits of the Deccan trap. But the author's observations seem sufficiently precise to warrant the conclusion that he was right in believing the basaltic cap of the Gwalior hill to be an outlying fragment of the vast Deccan trap sheet. The relation between laterite and lithomarge is discussed in p. 353 of the Manual, and the occurrence of laterite caps on the highest ground of the country, at two places-near Gwalior, 'outside of the trap area', is noticed (ibid. p. 356). These two places are at Raipur hill, and on the Kaimur sandstone, about two miles to the north-west. No doubt these two hills are outliers of the Central India spread of laterite, which has been traced as far as Sipri, about sixty miles south of the Raipur hill (Hacket, Geology of Gwalior and Vicinity, in Records of Geol. Survey of India, vol. iii, p. 41). The geology of Gwalior is also discussed in Mallet's paper entitled 'Sketch of the Geology of Scindia's Territories' (Records, vol. viii, p. 55). Neither writer refers to the basaltic cap of Gwalior fort hill. For the refutation of the author's theory of the subaqueous origin of the Deccan trap see notes Chapters 14, note 13, and Chapter 17, note 3 ante.

16. In the reign of Muizz-ud-din, Muhammad bin Sam, also known by the names of Shibab-ud-din, and Muhammad Ghori. He struck billon coins at the Gwalior mint. the correct date is A.D. 1196. The Hijri year 592 began on the 6th Dec., A.D. 1195.

17. Shams-ud-din Iltutmish, 'the greatest of the Slave Kings', reigned from A.D. 1210 to 1235 (A.H. 607-633). He besieged Gwalior in A.H. 629 and after eleven months' resistance captured the place in the month Safar, A.H. 630, equivalent to Nov.-Dec. A.D. 1232. The date given in the text is wrong. The correct name of this king is Iltutmish (Z.D.M.G., vol. lxi (1907), pp. 192, 193). It is written Altumash by the author, and Altamsh by Thomas and Cunningham. A summary of the events of his reign, based on coins and other original documents, is given on page 45 of Thomas, Chronicles of the Pathan Kings of Delhi. Iltutmish recorded an inscription dated A.H. 630 at Gwalior (ibid. p. 80). This inscription was seen by Babur, but has since disappeared.

18. Ibrahim Lodi, A.D. 1517-26. He was defeated and killed by Babur at the first battle of Panipat, A.D. 1526. the correct date of his capture of Gwalior, according to Cunningham (A.S.R., vol. ii, p. 340), is 1518.

19. Humayun was son of Babur, and father of Akbar the Great. His first reign lasted from A.D. 1530 to 1540; his second brief reign of less than six months was terminated by an accident in January A.D. 1556. The correct date of the surrender of Gwalior to Sher Shah was A.D. 1542, corresponding to A.H. 949 (A. S .R., vol. ii, p. 393), which year began 17th April, 1542.

20. Sher Khan is generally known as Sher (or Shir) Shah. A good summary of his career from A.D. 1528 to his death in A.D. 1545 (A.H. 934 to 952) is given by Thomas (op. cit. p. 393). He struck coins at Gwalior in A.H. 950, 951, 952 (ibid. p. 403).

21. Gohad lies between Etawah (Itawa) and Gwalior, twenty-eight miles north-east of the latter. The chief, originally an obscure Jat landholder, rose to power during the confusion of the eighteenth century, and allied himself with the British in 1789 (Thornton, Gazetteer, s.v. 'Gohad').

22. This memorable exploit was performed during Warren Hastings's war with the Marathas, Sir Eyre Coote being Commander-in-Chief. Captain Popham first stormed the fort of Lahar, a stronghold west of Kalpi (Calpee), and then, by a cleverly arranged escalade, captured 'with little trouble and small loss' the Gwalior fortress, which was garrisoned by a thousand men, and commonly supposed to be impregnable. 'Captain Popham was rewarded for his gallant services by being promoted to the rank of Major' (Thornton, The History of the British Empire in India, 2nd ed., 1859, p. 149). 'It is said that the spot (for escalade) was pointed out to Popham by a cowherd, and that the whole of the attacking party were supplied with grass shoes to prevent them from slipping on the ledges of rock. There is a story also that the cost of these grass shoes was deducted from Popham's pay when he was about to leave India as a Major-General, nearly a quarter of a century afterwards' (A.S.R., vol. ii, p. 340).

23. James Bruce, 'the celebrated traveller', was Consul at Algiers. He explored Tripoli, Tunis, Syria, and Egypt, and travelled in Abyssinia from November 1769 to December 1771. He returned to Egypt by the Nile, arriving at Cairo in January 1773. His travels were published in 1790. He died in 1794.

24. The Sindhia family of Gwalior was founded by Ranoji Sindhia, a man of humble origin, in the service of the Peshwa. Ranoji died about A.D. 1750, and was succeeded by one of his natural sons, Mahadaji (corruptly Mahdaju, &c.) Sindhia, whose turbulent and chequered career lasted till 1794, when he was succeeded by his grand-nephew, Daulat Rao. The Maratha power under Daulat Rao was broken in 1803, by Sir Arthur Wellesley at Assaye and Argaum, and by Lord Lake at Laswari. Mahadaji's career is treated fully by Grant Duff, A History of the Mahrattas (1826 and reprint). Mr. H. G. Keene in his little book (Rulers of India, Oxford, 1892) erroneously gives the chiefs name as 'Madhava Rao'. The anthor's 'Madhoji' also is wrong.

25. It is impossible within the limits of a note to give an account of the extraordinary career of General De Boigne. His Indian adventures began in 1778, and terminated in September 1796, when he retired from Sindhia's service, and sold his private regiment of Persian cavalry, six hundred strong, to Lord Cornwallis, on behalf of the East India Company, for three lakhs of rupees (about L30,000). He settled in his native town, Chamberi in Savoy, and lived, in the enjoyment of his great wealth, and of high honours conferred by the sovereigns of France and Italy, until 21st June, 1830. He was created a Count, and was succeeded in the title by his son. See G. M. Raymond, Memoire sur la Carriere Militaire et Politique de M. le General Comte de Boigne, 2ieme ed., Chambery, 1830. Nine chapters of Mr. Herbert Compton's book, A Particular Account of European Military Adventurers of Hindustan (London, 1892), are devoted to De Boigne.

26. The cession of Gohad to Sindhia, sanctioned in the year 1805, during the brief and inglorious second term of office of Lord Cornwallis, was effected by Sir George Barlow. The transaction is severely censured by Thornton (History, p. 343) as a breach of faith. Gwalior was given up to Sindhia along with Gohad. In January 1844, shortly after the battle of Maharajpur, Gwalior was again occupied by the forces of the Company, and the fortress (save for the Mutiny period) continued in British occupation until the 2nd December 1885, when Lord Dufferin restored it to Sindhia in exchange for Jhansi. In June 1857 the Gwalior soldiery mutinied and massacred the Europeans, but the Maharaja remained throughout loyal to the English Government.

Sir Hugh Rose recaptured the place by assault on the 28th June 1858. In the changed circumstances of the country, and with regard to the modern developments of the art of war, the Gwalior fortress is now of slight military value.

27. The territory of the Dholpur chief is about fifty-four miles long by twenty-three broad. The town of Dholpur is nearly midway between Agra and Gwalior. The revenue is estimated by Thornton (1858) as seven lakhs, not only three lakhs as stated by the author. It was about eight lakhs in 1904 (I.G., 1908).



CHAPTER 37

Content for Empire between the Sons of Shah Jahan.

Under the Emperors of Delhi the fortress of Gwalior was always considered as an imperial State prison, in which they confined those rivals and competitors for dominion whom they did not like to put to a violent death. They kept a large menagerie, and other things, for their amusement. Among the best of the princes who ended their days in this great prison was Sulaiman Shikoh, the eldest son of the unhappy Dara.[1] A narrative of the contest for empire between the four sons of Shah Jahan may, perhaps, prove both interesting and instructive; and, as I shall have occasion, in the course of my rambles, to refer to the characters who figured in it, I shall venture to give it a place. . . .[2]

Notes:

1. 'The prisons of Gwalior are situated in a small outwork on the western side of the fortress, immediately above the Dhondha gateway. They are called "nau chauki", or "the nine cells", and are both well lighted and well ventilated. But in spite of their height, from fifteen to twenty-six feet, they must be insufferably close in the hot season. These were the State prisons in which Akbar confined his rebellious cousins, and Aurangzeb the troublesome sons of Dara and Murad, as well as his own more dangerous son Muhammad. During these times the fort was strictly guarded, and no one was allowed to enter without a pass' (A.S.R., vol. ii, p. 369), Sulaiman Shikoh, whom Manucci credits with 'all the gifts of nature', was poisoned at Gwalior early in the reign of Aurangzeb, by order of that monarch, paternal uncle of the victim (Irvine, Storia do Mogor, i. 380). The author, following Bernier, always calls Shahjahan's eldest son simply Dara. His name really was Dara Shikoh (or Shukoh), meaning 'in splendour like Darius'.

2. The following twelve chapters contain an historical piece, to the personages and events of which the author will have frequent occasion to refer; and it is introduced in this place from its connexion with Gwalior, the State prison in which some of its actors ended their days. [W. H. S.]

The 'historical piece' which occupies chapters 37 to 46, inclusive of the author's text is little more than a paraphrase of The History of the Late Rebellion in the States of the Great Mogol by Bernier, as the disquisition is called in Brock's translation. Mr. A. Constable's revised and annotated translation of Bernier's work (Constable and Co., 1891; reprinted with corrections. Oxford University Press, 1914) renders superfluous the reprinting of Sleeman's paraphrase, which would require much correction and comment before it could be presented to readers of the present day. The main facts of the narrative are, moreover, now easily accessible in the histories of Elphinstone and innumerable other writers. Such explanations as may be required to elucidate allusions to the excised portion in the later chapters of the anthor's work will be found in the notes. The titles of the chapters which have not been reprinted follow here for facility of reference.

CHAPTER 38

Aurangzeb and Murad Defeat their Father's Army near Ujain.

CHAPTER 39

Dara Marches in Person against his Brothers, and is Defeated.

CHAPTER 40

Dara Retreats towards Lahore—Is robbed by the Jats—Their Character.

CHAPTER 41

Shah Jahan Imprisoned by his Two Sons, Aurangzeb and Murad.

CHAPTER 42

Aurangzeb Throws off the Mask, Imprisons his Brother Murad, and Assumes the Government of the Empire.

CHAPTER 43

Aurangzeb Meets Shuja in Bengal and Defeats him, after Pursuing Dara to the Hyphasis.

CHAPTER 44

Aurangzeb Imprisons his Eldest Son—Shuja and all his Family are Destroyed.

CHAPTER 45

Second Defeat and Death of Dara, and Imprisonment of his Two Sons.

CHAPTER 46

Death and Character of Amir Jumla,



CHAPTER 47

Reflections on the Preceding History.

The contest for the empire of India here described is very like that which preceded it, between the sons of Jahangir, in which Shah Jahan succeeded in destroying all his brothers and nephews; and that which succeeded it, forty years after,[1] in which Mu'azzam, the second of the four sons of Aurangzeb, did the same;[2] and it may, like the rest of Indian history, teach us a few useful lessons. First, we perceive the advantages of the law of primogeniture, which accustoms people to consider the right of the eldest son as sacred, and the conduct of any man who attempts to violate it as criminal. Among Muhammadans, property, as well real as personal, is divided equally among the sons;[3] and their Koran, which is their only civil and criminal, as well as religions, code, makes no provision for the successions to sovereignty. The death of every sovereign is, in consequence, followed by a contest between his sons, unless they are overawed by some paramount power; and he who succeeds in this contest finds it necessary, for his own security, to put all his brothers and nephews to death, lest they should be rescued by factions, and made the cause of future civil wars. But sons, who exercise the powers of viceroys and command armies, cannot, where the succession is unsettled, wait patiently for the natural death of their father— delay may be dangerous. Circumstances, which now seem more favourable to their views than to those of their brothers, may alter; the military aristocracy depend upon the success of the chief they choose in the enterprise, and the army more upon plunder than regular pay; both may desert the cause of the more wary for that of the more daring; each is flattered into an overweening confidence in his own ability and good fortune; and all rush on to seize upon the throne yet filled by their wretched parent, who, in the history of his own crimes, now reads those of his children. Gibbon has justly observed (chap. 7): 'the superior prerogative of birth, when it has obtained the sanction of time and popular opinion, is the plainest and least invidious of all distinctions among mankind. The acknowledged right extinguishes the hopes of faction; and the conscious security disarms the cruelty of the monarch. To the firm establishment of this idea we owe the peaceful succession and mild administration of European monarchies. To the defect of it we must attribute the frequent civil wars through which an Asiatic despot is obliged to cut his way to the throne of his fathers. Yet, even in the East, the sphere of contention is usually limited to the princes of the reigning house; and, as soon as the fortunate competitor has removed his brethren by the sword and the bowstring, he no longer entertains any jealousy of his meaner subjects.'

Among Hindoos, both real and personal property is divided in the same manner equally among the sons;[4] but a principality is, among them, considered as an exception to this rule; and every large estate, within which the proprietor holds criminal jurisdiction, and maintains a military establishment, is considered a principality. In such cases the law of primogeniture is rigorously enforced; and the death of the prince scarcely ever involves a contest for power and dominion between his sons. The feelings of the people, who are accustomed to consider the right of the eldest son to the succession as religiously sacred, would be greatly shocked at the attempt of any of his brothers to invade it. The younger brothers, never for a moment supposing they could be supported in such a sacrilegious attempt, feel for their eldest brother a reverence inferior only to that which they feel for their father; and the eldest brother, never supposing such attempts on their part as possible, feels towards them as towards his own children. All the members of such a family commonly live in the greatest harmony.[5] In the laws, usages, and feelings of the people upon this subject we had the means of preventing that eternal subdivision of landed property, which ever has been, and ever will be, the bane of everything that is great and good in India; but, unhappily, our rulers have never had the wisdom to avail themselves of them. In a great part of India the property, or the lease of a village held in farm under Government, was considered as a principality, and subject strictly to the same laws of primogeniture—it was a fief, held under Government on condition of either direct service, rendered to the State in war, in education, or charitable or religions duties, or of furnishing the means, in money or in kind, to provide for such service. In every part of the Sagar and Nerbudda Territories the law of primogeniture in such leases was in force when we took possession, and has been ever since preserved.[6] The eldest of the sons that remain united with the father, at his death, succeeds to the estate, and to the obligation of maintaining all the widows and orphan children of those of his brothers who remained united to their parent stock up to their death, all his unmarried sisters, and, above all, his mother. All the younger brothers aid him in the management, and are maintained by him till they wish to separate, when a division of the stock takes place, and is adjusted by the elders of the village. The member, who thus separates from the parent stock, from that time forfeits for ever all claims to support from the possessor of the ancestral estate, either for himself, his widow, or his orphan children.[7]

Next, it is obvious that no existing Government in India could, in case of invasion or civil war, count upon the fidelity of their aristocracy either of land or of office. It is observed by Hume, in treating of the reign of King John in England, that 'men easily change sides in a civil war, especially where the power is founded upon an hereditary and independent authority, and is not derived from the opinion and favour of the people'—that is, upon the people collectively or the nation; for the hereditary and independent authority of the English baron in the time of King John was founded upon the opinion and fidelity of only that portion of the people over which he ruled, in the same manner as that of the Hindoo chiefs of India in the time of Shah Jahan; but it was without reference either to the honesty of the cause he espoused, or to the opinion and feeling of the nation or empire generally regarding it. The Hindoo territorial chiefs, like the feudal barons of the Middle Ages in Europe, employed all the revenues of their estates in the maintenance of military followers, upon whose fidelity they could entirely rely, whatever side they might themselves take in a civil war; and the more of these resources that were left at their disposal, the more impatient they became of the restraints which settled governments imposed upon them. Under such settled governments they felt that they had an arm which they could not use; and the stronger that arm, the stronger was their desire to use it in the subjugation of their neighbours. The reigning emperors tried to secure their fidelity by assigning to them posts of honour about their court that required their personal attendance in all their pomp of pride; and by taking from each a daughter in marriage. If any one rebelled or neglected his duties, he was either crushed by the imperial forces, or put to the ban of the empire', and his territories were assigned to any one who would undertake to conquer them.[8] Their attendance at our viceroyal court would be a sad encumbrance;[9] and our Governor- General could not well conciliate them by matrimonial alliances, unless we were to alter a good deal in their favour our law against polygamy; nor would it be desirable to 'let slip the dogs of war' once more throughout the land by adopting the plan of putting the refractory chiefs to the ban of the empire. Their troops would be of no use to us in the way they are organized and disciplined, even if we could rely upon their fidelity in time of need; and this I do not think we ever can.[10]

If it be the duty of all such territorial chiefs to contribute to the support of the public establishments of the paramount power by which they are secured in the possession of their estates, and defended from all external danger, as it most assuredly is, it is the duty of that power to take such contribution in money, or the means of maintaining establishments more suited to its purpose than their rude militia can ever be; and thereby to impair the powers of that arm which they are so impatient to wield for their own aggrandizement, and to the prejudice of their neighbours; and to strengthen that of the paramount power by which the whole are kept in peace, harmony, and security. We give to India what India never had before our rule, and never could have without it, the assurance that there will always be at the head of the Government a sensible ruler trained up to office in the best school in the world; and that the security of the rights, and the enforcement of the duties, presented or defined by law, will not depend upon the will or caprice of individuals in power. These assurances the people in India now everywhere thoroughly understand and appreciate. They see in the native states around them that the lucky accident of an able governor is too rare ever to be calculated upon; while all that the people have of property, office, or character, depends not only upon their governor, but upon every change that he may make in his ministers.

The government of the Muhammadans was always essentially military, and the aristocracy was always one of military office. There was nothing else upon which an aristocracy could be formed. All high civil offices were combined with the military commands. The emperor was the great proprietor of all the lands, and collected and distributed their rents through his own servants. Every Musalman with his Koran in his hand was his own priest and his own lawyer; and the people were nowhere represented in any municipal or legislative assembly—there was no bar, bench, senate, corporation, art, science, or literature by which men could rise to eminence and power. Capital had nowhere been concentrated upon great commercial or manufacturing establishments. There were, in short, no great men but the military servants of Government; and all the servants of Government held their posts at the will and pleasure of their sovereign.[11]

If a man was appointed by the emperor to the command of five thousand, the whole of this five thousand depended entirely on his favour for their employment, and upon their employment for their subsistence, whether paid from the imperial treasury, or by an assignment of land in some distant province.[12] In our armies there is a regular gradation of rank; and every officer feels that he holds his commission by a tenure as high in origin, as secure in possession, and as independent in its exercise, as that of the general who commands; and the soldiers all know and feel that the places of those officers, who are killed or disabled in action, will be immediately filled by those next in rank, who are equally trained to command, and whose authority none will dispute. In the Muhammadan armies there was no such gradation of rank. Every man held his office at the will of the chief whom he followed, and he was every moment made to feel that all his hopes of advancement must depend upon his pleasure. The relation between them was that of patron and client; the client felt bound to yield implicit obedience to the commands of his patron, whatever they might be; and the patron, in like manner, felt bound to protect and promote the interests of his client, as long as he continued to do so. As often as the patron changed sides in a civil war, his clients all blindly followed him; and when he was killed, they instantly dispersed to serve under any other leader whom they might find willing to take their services on the same terms.

The Hindoo chiefs of the military class had hereditary territorial possessions; and the greater part of these possessions were commonly distributed on conditions of military service among their followers, who were all of the same clan. But the highest Muhammadan officers of the empire had not an acre more of land than they required for their dwelling-houses, gardens, and cemeteries. They had nothing but their office to depend upon, and were always naturally anxious to hold it under the strongest side in any competition for dominion. When the star of the competitor under whom they served seemed to be on the wane, they soon found some plausible excuse to make their peace with his rival, and serve under his banners. Each competitor fought for his own life, and those of his children; the imperial throne could be filled by only one man; and that man dared not leave one single brother alive. His father had taken good care to dispose of all his own brothers and nephews in the last contest. The subsistence of the highest, as well as that of the lowest, officer in the army depended upon their employment in the public service, and all such employments would be given to those who served the victor in the struggle. Under such circumstances one is rather surprised that the history of civil wars in India exhibits so many instances of fidelity and devotion.

The mass of the people stood aloof in such contests without any feeling of interest, save the dread that their homes might become the seat of the war, or the tracks of armies which were alike destructive to the people in their course whatever side they might follow. The result could have no effect upon their laws and institutions, and little upon their industry and property. As ships are from necessity formed to weather the storms to which they are constantly liable at sea, so were the Indian village communities framed to weather those of invasion and civil war, to which they were so much accustomed by land; and, in the course of a year or two, no traces were found of ravages that one might have supposed it would have taken ages to recover from. The lands remained the same, and their fertility was improved by the fallow; every man carried away with him the implements of his trade, and brought them back with him when he returned; and the industry of every village supplied every necessary article that the community required for their food, clothing, furniture, and accommodation. Each of these little communities, when left unmolested, was in itself sufficient to secure the rights and enforce the duties of all the different members; and all they wanted from their government was moderation in the land taxes, and protection from external violence. Arrian says: 'If any intestine war happens to break forth among the Indians, it is deemed a heinous crime either to seize the husbandmen or spoil their harvest. All the rest wage war against each other, and kill and slay as they think convenient, while they live quietly and peaceably among them, and employ themselves at their rural affairs either in their fields or vineyards.'[13] I am afraid armies were not much more disposed to forbearance in the days of Alexander than at present, and that his followers must have supposed they remained untouched, merely because they heard of their sudden rise again from their ruins by that spirit of moral and political vitality with which necessity seems to have endowed them.[14]

During the early part of his life and reign, Aurangzeb was employed in conquering and destroying the two independent kingdoms of Golconda and Bijapur in the Deccan, which he formed into two provinces governed by viceroys. Each had had an army of above a hundred thousand men while independent. The officers and soldiers of these armies had nothing but their courage and their swords to depend upon for their subsistence. Finding no longer any employment under settled and legitimate authority in defending the life, property, and independence of the people, they were obliged to seek it around the standards of lawless freebooters; and upon the ruins of these independent kingdoms and their disbanded armies rose the Maratha power, the hydra-headed monster which Aurangzeb thus created by his ambition, and spent the last twenty years of his life in vain attempts to crush.[15] The monster has been since crushed by being deprived of its Peshwa, the head which alone could infuse into all the members of the confederacy a feeling of nationality, and direct all their efforts, when required, to one common object. Sindhia, the chief of Gwalior, is one of the surviving members of this great confederacy—the rest are the Holkars of Indore, the Bhonslas of Nagpur, and the Gaikwars of Baroda,[16] the grandchildren of the commandants of predatory armies, who formed capital cities out of their standing camps in the countries they invaded and conquered in the name of their head, the Satara Raja,[17] and afterwards in that of his mayor of the palace, the Peshwa. There is not now the slightest feeling of nationality left among the Maratha States, either collectively or individually.[18] There is not the slightest feeling of sympathy between the mass of the people and the chief who rules over them, and his public establishments. To maintain these public establishments he everywhere plunders the people, who most heartily detest him and them. These public establishments are composed of men of all religions and sects, gathered from all quarters of India, and bound together by no common feeling, save the hope of plunder and promotion. Not one in ten is from, or has his family in, the country where he serves, nor is one in ten of the same clan with his chief. Not one of them has any hope of a provision either for himself, when disabled from wounds or old age from serving his chief any longer, or for his family, should he lose his life in his service.

In India[19] there are a great many native chiefs who were enabled, during the disorders which attended the decline and fall of the Muhammadan power and the rise and progress of the Marathas and English, to raise and maintain armies by the plunder of their neighbours. The paramount power of the British being now securely established throughout the country, they are prevented from indulging any longer in such sporting propensities; and might employ their vast revenues in securing the blessing of good civil government for the territories in the possession of which they are secured by our military establishment. But these chiefs are not much disposed to convert their swords into ploughshares; they continue to spend their revenues on useless military establishments for purposes of parade and show. A native prince would, they say, be as insignificant without an army as a native gentleman upon an elephant without a cavalcade, or upon a horse without a tail. But the said army have learnt from their forefathers that they were to look to aggressions upon their neighbours—to pillage, plunder, and conquest, for wealth and promotion; and they continue to prevent their prince from indulging in any disposition to turn his attention to the duties of civil government. They all live in the hope of some disaster to the paramount power which secures the increasing wealth of the surrounding countries from their grasp; and threatened innovations from the north-west raise their spirits and hopes in proportion as they depress those of the classes engaged in all branches of peaceful industry.

There are, in all parts of India, thousands and tens of thousands who have lived by the sword, or who wish to live by the sword, but cannot find employment suited to their tastes. These would all flock to the standard of the first lawless chief who could offer them a fair prospect of plunder; and to them all wars and rumours of war are delightful. The moment they hear of a threatened invasion from the north-west, they whet their swords, and look fiercely around upon those from whose breasts they are 'to cut their pound of flesh'.[20]



Notes:

1. 'Fifty years after' would be more nearly correct. Aurangzeb wa crowned 23rd July, 1658, according to the author. See end of next note.

2. On the death of Aurangzeb, which took place in the Deccan, on the 3rd of March, 1707 (N.S.), his son 'Azam marched at the head of the troops which he commanded in the Deccan, to meet Mu'azzam, who was viceroy in Kabul. They met and fought near Agra. 'Azam was defeated and killed. The victor marched to meet his other brother, Kam Baksh, whom he killed near Hyderabad in the Deccan, and secured to himself the empire. On his death, which took place in 1713, his four sons contended in the same way for the throne at the head of the armies of their respective viceroyalties. Mu'izz-ud-din, the most crafty, persuaded his two brothers, Rafi-ash-Shan and Jahan Shah, to unite their forces with his own against their ambitions brother, Azim-ash- Shan, whom they defeated and killed, Mu'izz-ud-din then destroyed his two allies. [W. H. S.]

The above note is not altogether accurate. 'Azam, the third son of Aurangzeb, was killed in battle near Agra, in June 1707. During the interval between Aurangzeb's death and his own, he had struck coins. Mu'azzam, the second, and eldest then surviving son, after the defeat of his rival, ascended the throne under the title of Shah Alam Bahadur Shah, and is generally known as Bahadur Shah. He was then sixty-four years of age, his father having been eighty-seven years old when he died. The events following the death of Bahadur Shah are narrated as follows by Mr. Lane-Poole; 'The Deccan was the weakest point in the empire from the beginning of the reign. Hardly had Bahadur appointed his youngest brother, Kam Baksh ('Wish-fulfiller'), viceroy of Bijapur and Haidarabad, when that infatuated prince rebelled and committed such atrocities that the Emperor was compelled to attack him. Zu-l-Fikar engaged and defeated the rebel king (who was striking coins in full assumption of sovereignty) near Haidarabad, and Kam Baksh died of his wounds (1708, A.H. 1120).

'In the midst of this confusion, and surrounded by portents of coming disruption, Bahadur died, 1712 (1124). He left four sons, who immediately entered with the zest of their race upon the struggle for the crown. The eldest, 'Azim-ash-Shan ("Strong of Heart"), first assumed the sceptre, but Zu-l-Fikar, the prime minister, opposed and routed him, and the prince was drowned in his flight. The successful general next defeated and slew two other brothers, Khujistah Akhtar Jahan-Shah and Rafi-ash-Shan, and placed the surviving of the four sons of Bahadur [i.e. Mu'izz-ud-din] on the throne with the title of Jahandar ("World-owner"). The new Emperor was an irredeemable poltroon and an abandoned debauchee.' (The History of the Moghul Emperors of Hindustan illustrated by their Coins, Constable, 1892, and in Introd. to B. M. Catal. of Moghul Emperors, same date.)

He was killed in 1713, and was succeeded by Farrukh-siyar, the son of Azim-ush-Shan. The chronology is as follows:-

No. Sovereign. A.H. A.D. VI. Aurangzeb Alamgir, Muhayi-ud-din . 1068 1658 ['Azam Shah . . . . . 1118 1707 Kam Baksh . . . . . 1119-20 1708] VII. Bahadur Shah-'Alam, Kutb-ud-din . . 1119 1707 VIII. Jahandar Shah, Mu'izz-ud-din . . 1124 1713 IX. Farrukhsiyar . . . . . 1124 1713

The question concerning the exact date from which the beginning of Aurangzeb's reign should be reckoned is obscured by the conflict of authorities and has given rise to much discussion. The results may be stated briefly as follow:—

Aurangzeb formally took possession of the throne in a garden outside Delhi on the 1st Zu'l Q'adah, A.H. 1068, July 31, A.D. 1658, but subsequently orders were passed to antedate the beginning of the reign to 1st Ramazan in the same year, equivalent to June 2, 1658. After the destruction of Shah Shuja, Aurangzeb returned to Delhi in May, A.D. 1659, and was again enthroned with full ceremonial on June 15, 1659 (= A.H. 1069). Some authors consequently assume the accession to have taken place in 1659. But the reign certainly began in A.D. 1658, and should be reckoned as running from the official date, June 2 of that year. The dates given above are in New Style (N.S.). If recorded in Old Style (O.S.) they would be ten days earlier. (See Irvine and Hoernle in J.A.S.B., Part I, vol. lxii (1893), pp. 256-67; and Irvine, in Ind. Ant., vol. xl (1911), pp. 74, 75.)

3. The author invariably ignores the fact that daughters and other female relatives inherit under Muhammadan law.

4. Hindoo law does not ordinarily recognize any right of succession for daughters, and so differs essentially from the law of Islam. The exceptions to this general rule are unimportant.

5. The experience of most officials does not confirm this statement.

6. The statement now requires modification. After the Central Provinces were constituted in 1861, the principle of succession by primogeniture was maintained only in the Hoshangabad, Chhindwara, Chanda, and Chhattisgarh Districts. But even there the legal effect of the restrictions on alienation and partition is 'not quite free from doubt' (I.G. 1908, x. 73). The tendency of the law courts is to apply everywhere uniform rules taken from the Hindoo law books.

7. 'See ante, Chapter 10, notes 10, 16. The gradual conversion of tenure by leases from Government into proprietary right in land has brought the land under the operation of the ordinary Hindoo law, and each member of a joint family can now enforce partition of the land as well as of the stock upon it. The evils resulting from incessant partition are obvious, but no remedy can be devised. The people insist on partition, and will effect it privately, if the law imposes obstacles to a formal public division.

8. These remarks attribute too much System to the disorderly working of an Asiatic despotism. No institution resembling the formal 'ban of the empire' ever really existed in India.

9. The Rajas at Simla might now be considered by some people as an encumbrance.

10. The author could not foresee the gallant service to be rendered by the Chiefs of the Panjab and other territories in the Mutiny, nor the institution of the Imperial Service Troops. Those troops, first organized in 1888, in response to the voluntary offers made by many princes as a reply to the Russian aggression on Panjdeh, are select bodies, picked from the soldiery of certain native states, and equipped and drilled in the European manner. Cashmere (Kashmir) and many States in the Panjab and elsewhere furnish troops of this kind, officered by local gentlemen, under the guidance of English inspecting officers. The Kashmir Imperial Service Troops did excellent service during the campaign of 1892 in Hunza and Nagar. the System so happily introduced is likely to be much further developed. In 1907 the authorized strength was a little over 18,000 (I.G., iv (1907), pp. 87, 373).

11. 'In Rome, as in Egypt and India, many of the great works which, in modern nations, form the basis of gradations of rank in society, were executed by Government out of public revenue, or by individuals gratuitously for the benefit of the public; for instance, roads, canals, aqueducts, bridges, &c., from which no one derived an income, though all derived benefit. There was no capital invested, with a view to profit, in machinery, railroads, canals, steam-engines, and other great works which, in the preparation and distribution of man's enjoyments, save the labour of so many millions to the nations of modern Europe and America, and supply the incomes of many of the most useful and most enlightened members of their middle and higher classes of society. During the republic, and under the first emperors, the laws were simple, and few derived any considerable income from explaining them. Still fewer derived their incomes from expounding the religion of the people till the establishment of Christianity.

Man was the principal machine in which property was invested with a view to profit, and the concentration of capital in hordes of slaves, and the farm of the public revenues of conquered provinces and tributary states, were, with the land, the great basis of the aristocracies of Rome, and the Roman world generally. The senatorial and equestrian orders were supported chiefly by lending out their slaves as gladiators and artificers, and by farming the revenues, and lending money to the oppressed subjects of the provinces, and to vanquished princes, at an exorbitant interest, to enable them to pay what the state or its public officers demanded. The slaves throughout the Roman empire were about equal in number to the free population, and they were for the most part concentrated in the hands of the members of the upper and middle classes, who derived their incomes from lending and employing them. They were to those classes in the old world what canals, railroads, steam-engines, &c., are to those of modern days. Some Roman citizens had as many as five thousand slaves educated to the one occupation of gladiators for the public shows of Rome. Julius Caesar had this number in Italy waiting his return from Gaul; and Gordianus used commonly to give five hundred pair for a public festival, and never less than one hundred and fifty.

In India slavery is happily but little known;[a] the church had no hierarchy either among the Hindoos or Muhammadans; nor had the law any high interpreters. In all its civil branches of marriage, inheritance, succession, and contract, it was to the people of the two religions as simple as the laws of the twelve tables; and contributed just as little to the support of the aristocracy as they did. In all these respects, China is much the same; the land belongs to the sovereign, and is minutely subdivided among those who farm and cultivate it—the great works in canals, aqueducts, bridges, roads, &c., are made by Government, and yield no private income. Capital is nowhere concentrated in expensive machinery; their church is without a hierarchy, their law without barristers-their higher classes are therefore composed almost exclusively of the public servants of the Government. The rule which prescribes that princes of the blood shall not be employed in the government of provinces and the command of armies, and that the reigning sovereign shall have the nomination of his successor, has saved China from a frequent return of the scenes which I have described. None of the princes are put to death, because it is known that all will acquiesce in the nomination when made known, supported as it always is by the popular sentiment throughout the empire. [W. H. S.]

a. the anthor's statement that in the year 1836 slavery was 'but little known in India' is a truly astonishing one. Slavery of various kinds—racial, predial, domestic—the slavery of captives, and of debtors, had existed in India from time immemorial, and still flourished in 1836. Slavery, so far as the law can abolish it, was abolished by the Indian Act v of 1843, but the final blow was not dealt until January l, 1862, when sections 370, &c., of the Indian Penal Code came into force. In practice, domestic servitude exists to this day in great Muhammadan households, and multitudes of agricultural labourers have a very dim consciousness of personal freedom. The Criminal Law Commissioners, who reported previous to the passage of Act v of 1843, estimated that in British India, as then constituted, the proportion of the slave to the free population varied from one-sixth to two-fifths. Sir Bartle Frere estimated the slave population of the territories included in British India in the year 1841 as being between eight and nine millions. Slaves were heritable and transferable property, and could be mortgaged or let out on hire. The article 'Slave' in Balfour, Cyclopaedia (3rd ed.), from which most of the above particulars are taken, is copious, and gives references to various authorities. The following works may also be consulted: The Law and Custom of Slavery in British India, by William Adam, 8vo, 1840; An Account of Slave Population in the Western Peninsula of India, 1822, with an Appendix on Slavery in Malabar; India's Cries to British Humanity, by J. Peggs, 8vo, 1830; and E.H.I., 3rd ed. (1914), pp. 100, 178, 180, 441.

12. In Akbar's time there were thirty-three grades of official rank, and the officers were known as 'commanders of ten thousand', 'commanders of five thousand', and so on. Only princes of the blood royal were granted the commands of seven thousand and of ten thousand. The number of troopers actually provided by each officer did not correspond with the number indicated by his title. The graded officials were called mansabdars, no clear distinction between civil and military duties being drawn (The Emperor Akbar, by Count Von Noer; translated by Annette S. Beveridge, Calcutta, 1890, vol. i, p. 267).

13. Diodorus Siculus has the same observation. 'No enemy ever does any prejudice to the husbandmen; but, out of a due regard to the common good, forbear to injure them in the least degree; and, therefore, the land being never spoiled or wasted, yields its fruit in great abundance, and furnishes the inhabitants with plenty of victual and all other provisions.' Book II, chap. 3. [W. H. S.] These allegations certainly cannot be accepted as accurate statements of fact, however they may be explained. See E.H.I., 3rd ed. (1914), p. 442.

14. The rapid recovery of Indian villages and villagers from the effects of war does not need for its explanation the evocation of 'a spirit of moral and political vitality'. The real explanation is to be found in the simplicity of the village life and needs, as expounded by the author in the preceding passage. Human societies with a low standard of comfort and a simple scheme of life are, like individual organisms of lowly structure and few functions, hard to kill. Human labour, and a few cattle, with a little grain and some sticks, are the only essential requisites for the foundation or reconstruction of a village.

15. Golconda was taken by Aurangzeb, after a protracted siege, in 1677. Bijapur surrendered to him on the 15th October, 1686. The vast ruins of this splendid city, which was deserted after the conquest, occupy a space thirty miles in circumference. The town has partially recovered, and is now the head-quarters of a Bombay District, with about 24,000 inhabitants. Sivaji, the founder of the Maratha power, died in 1680.

16. The Indore and Baroda States still survive, and the reigning chiefs of both have frequently visited England, and paid their respects to their Sovereign. Bhonsla was the family name of the chiefs of Berar, also known as the Rajas of Nagpur. The last Raja, Raghoji III, died in December 1853, leaving no child begotten or adopted. Lord Dalhousie annexed the State as lapsed, and his action was confirmed in 1864 by the Court of Directors and the Crown.

17. The State of Satara, like that of Nagpur, lapsed owing to failure of heirs, and was annexed in 1854. It is now a district in the Bombay Presidency.

18. During the early years of the twentieth century a spirit of Maratha nationalism has been sedulously cultivated, with inconvenient results.

19. This paragraph, and that next following, are, in the original edition, printed as part of Chapter 48, 'The Great Diamond of Kohinur', with which they have nothing to do. They seem to belong properly to Chapter 47, and are therefore inserted here. The observations in both paragraphs are merely repetitions of remarks already recorded.

20. It need hardly be said that these fire-eaters no longer exist.



CHAPTER 48

The Great Diamond of Kohinur.

The foregoing historical episode occupies too large a space in what might otherwise be termed a personal narrative; but still I am tempted to append to it a sketch of the fortunes of that famous diamond, called with Oriental extravagance the Mountain of Light, which, by exciting the cupidity of Shah Jahan, played so important a part in the drama.

After slumbering for the greater part of a century in the imperial treasury, it was afterwards taken by Nadir Shah, the king of Persia, who invaded India under the reign of Muhammad Shah, in the year 1738.[1] Nadir Shah, in one of his mad fits, had put out the eyes of his son, Raza Kuli Mirza, and, when he was assassinated, the conspirators gave the throne and the diamond to this son's son, Shahrukh Mirza, who fixed his residence at Meshed.[2] Ahmad Shah, the Abdali, commanded the Afghan cavalry in the service of Nadir Shah, and had the charge of the military chest at the time he was put to death. With this chest, he and his cavalry left the camp during the disorders that followed the murder of the king, and returned with all haste to Kandahar, where they met Tariki Khan, on his way to Nadir Shah's camp with the tribute of the five provinces which he had retained of his Indian conquests, Kandahar, Kabul, Tatta, Bakkar, Multan, and Peshawar. They gave him the first news of the death of the king, seized upon his treasure, and, with the aid of this and the military chest, Ahmad Shah took possession of these five provinces, and formed them into the little independent kingdom of Afghanistan, over which he long reigned, and from which he occasionally invaded India and Khurasan.[3]

Shahrukh Mirza had his eyes put out some time after by a faction. Ahmad Shah marched to his relief, put the rebels to death, and united his eldest son, Taimur Shah, in marriage to the daughter of the unfortunate prince, from whom he took the diamond, since it could be of no use to a man who could no longer see its beauties. He established Taimur as his viceroy at Herat, and his youngest son at Kandahar; and fixed his own residence at Kabul, where he died.[4] He was succeeded by Taimur Shah, who was succeeded by his eldest son, Zaman Shah, who, after a reign of a few years, was driven from his throne by his younger brother, Mahmud. He sought an asylum with his friend Ashik, who commanded a distant fortress, and who betrayed him to the usurper, and put him into confinement. He concealed the great diamond in a crevice in the wall of the room in which he was confined; and the rest of his jewels in a hole made in the ground with his dagger. As soon as Mahmud received intimation of the arrest from Ashik, he sent for his brother, had his eyes put out, and demanded the jewels, but Zaman Shah pretended that he had thrown them into the river as he passed over. Two years after this, the third brother, the Sultan Shuja, deposed Mahmud, ascended the throne by the consent of his elder brother, and, as a fair specimen of his notions of retributive justice, he blew away from the mouths of cannon, not only Ashik himself, but his wife and all his innocent and unoffending children.

He intended to put out the eyes of his deposed brother, Mahmud, but was dissuaded from it by his mother and Zaman Shah, who now pointed out to him the place where he had concealed the great diamond. Mahmud made his escape from prison, raised a party, drove out his brothers, and once more ascended the throne. The two brothers sought an asylum in the Honourable Company's territories; and have from that time resided at an out frontier station of Ludiana, upon the banks of the Hyphasis,[5] upon a liberal pension assigned for their maintenance by our Government. On their way through the territories of the Sikh chief, Ranjit Singh, Shuja was discovered to have this great diamond, the Mountain of Light, about his person; and he was, by a little torture skilfully applied to the mind and body, made to surrender it to his generous host.[6] Mahmud was succeeded in the government of the fortress and province of Herat by his son Kamran; but the throne of Kabul was seized by the mayor of the palace, who bequeathed it to his son Dost Muhammad, a man, in all the qualities requisite in a sovereign, immeasurably superior to any member of the house of Ahmad Shah Abdali. Ranjit Singh had wrested from him the province of Peshawar in times of difficulty, and, as we would not assist him in recovering it from our old ally, he thought himself justified in seeking the aid of those who would, the Russians and Persians, who were eager to avail themselves of so fair an occasion to establish a footing in India. Such a footing would have been manifestly incompatible with the peace and security of our dominions in India, and we were obliged, in self-defence, to give to Shuja the aid which he had so often before in vain solicited, to enable him to recover the throne of his very limited number of legal ancestors.[7]

Notes:

1. Nadir Shah was crowned king of Persia in 1736, entered the Panjab, at the close of 1738, and occupied Delhi in March 1739. Having perpetrated an awful massacre of the inhabitants, he retired after a stay of fifty-eight days, He was assassinated in May 1747.

2. Meshed, properly Mashhad ('the place of martyrdom'), is the chief city of Khurasan. Nadir Shah was killed while encamped there.

3. Ahmad Shah defeated the Marathas in the third great battle of Panipat, A.D. 1761. He had conquered the Panjab in 1748. He invaded India five times.

4. In 1773.

5. Ludiana (misspelt 'Ludhiana' in I.G., 1908) is named from the Lodi Afghans, who founded it in 1481. The town is now the headquarters of the district of the same name under the Panjab Government. Part of the district lapsed to the British Government in 1836, other parts lapsed during the years 1846 and 1847, and the rest came from territory already British by rearrangement of jurisdiction. Hyphasis is the Greek name for the Bias river.

6. The above history of the Kohinur may, I believe, be relied upon. I received a narrative of it from Shah Zaman, the blind old king himself, through General Smith, who commanded the troops at Ludiana; forming a detail of the several revolutions too long and too full of new names for insertion here. [W. H. S.] The above note is, in the original edition, misplaced, and appended to two paragraphs of the text, which have no connexion with the story of the diamond, and really belong to Chapter 47, to which they have been removed in this edition.

The author assumes the identity of the Kohinur with the great diamond found in one of the Golconda mines, and presented by Amir Jumla to Shah Jahan. The much-disputed history of the Kohinur has been exhaustively discussed by Valentine Ball (Tavernier's Travels in India: Appendix I (1), 'The Great Mogul's Diamond and the true History of the Koh-i-nur; and (2) 'Summary History of the Koh-i- nur'). He has proved that the Kohinur is almost certainly the diamond given by Amir (Mir) Jumla to Shah Jahan, though now much reduced in weight by mutilation and repeated cutting. Assuming the identity of the Kohinur with Amir Jumla's gift, the leading incidents in the history of this famous jewel are as follows;—

Event. Approximate Date. Found at mine of Kollur on the Kistna (Krishna) river . . . . . . . . .Not known Presented to Shah Jahan by Mir Jumla, being uncut, and weighing about 756 English carats 1656 or 1657 Ground by Hortensio Borgio, and greatly reduced in weight . . . . . . . about 1657 Seen and weighed by Tavernier in Aurangzeb's treasury, its weight being 268 19/50 English carats . . . . . . . . . 1665 Taken by Nadir Shah of Persia from Muhammad Shah of Delhi, and named Kohinur . . . 1739 Inherited by Shah Rukh, grandson of Nadir Shah. . 1747 Given up by Shah Rukh to Ahmad Shah Abdali . . 1751 Inherited by Timur, son of Ahmad Shah . . . 1772 Inherited by Shah Zaman, son of Timur . . . 1793 Taken by Shah Shuja, brother of Shah Zaman . . 1795 Taken by Ranjit Singh, of Lahore, from Shah Shuja . 1813 Inherited by Dilip (Dhuleep) Singh, reputed son of Ranjit Singh. . . . . 1839 Annexed, with the Panjab, and passed, through John Lawrence's waistcoat pocket (see his Life), into the possession of H.M. the Queen, its weight then being 186 1/16 English carats . . . . . 1849 Exhibited at Great Exhibition in London . . . 1851 Recut under supervision of Messrs. Garrards, and reduced in weight to 106 1/16 English carats . 1852

The difference in weight between 268 19/50 carats in 1665 and 186 1/16 carats in 1849 seems to be due to mutilation of the stone during its stay in Persia and Afghanistan.

7. The policy of the first Afghan War has been, it is hardly necessary to observe, much disputed, and the author's confident defence of Lord Auckland's action cannot be accepted.



CHAPTER 49

Pindhari System—Character of the Maratha Administration—Cause of their Dislike to the Paramount Power.

The attempt of the Marquis of Hastings to rescue India from that dreadful scourge, the Pindhari system, involved him in a war with all the great Maratha states, except Gwalior; that is, with the Peshwa at Puna, Holkar at Indore, and the Bhonsla at Nagpur; and Gwalior was prevented from joining the other states in their unholy league against us only by the presence of the grand division of the army, under the personal command of the Marquis, in the immediate vicinity of his capital. It was not that these chiefs liked the Pindharis, or felt any interest in their welfare, but because they were always anxious to crush that rising paramount authority which had the power, and had always manifested the will, to interpose and prevent the free indulgence of their predatory habits—the free exercise of that weapon, a standing army, which the disorders incident upon the decline and fall of the Muhammadan army had put into their hands, and which a continued series of successful aggressions upon their neighbours could alone enable them to pay or keep under control. They seized with avidity any occasion of quarrel with the paramount power which seemed likely to unite them all in one great effort to shake it off; and they are still prepared to do the same, because they feel that they could easily extend their depredations if that power were withdrawn; and they know no other road to wealth and glory but such successful depredations. Their ancestors rose by them, their states were formed by them, and their armies have been maintained by them. They look back upon them for all that seems to them honourable in the history of their families. Their bards sing of them in all their marriage and funeral processions; and, as their imaginations kindle at the recollection, they detest the arm that is extended to defend the wealth and the industry of the surrounding territories from their grasp. As the industrious classes acquire and display their wealth in the countries around during a long peace, under a strong and settled government, these native chiefs, with their little disorderly armies, feel precisely as an English country gentleman would feel with a pack of foxhounds, in a country swarming with foxes, and without the privilege of hunting them.[1]

Their armies always took the auspices and set out kingdom taking (mulk giri) after the Dasahra,[2] in November, as regularly as English gentlemen go partridge-shooting on the 1st of September; and I may here give, as a specimen, the excursion of Jean Baptiste Filose,[3] who sallied forth on such an expedition, at the head of a division of Sindhia's army, just before this Pindhari war commenced. From Gwalior he proceeded to Karauli,[4] and took from that chief the district of Sabalgarh, yielding four lakhs of rupees yearly.[5] He then took the territory of the Raja of Chanderi,[6] Mor Pahlad, one of the oldest of the Bundelkhand chiefs, which then yielded about seven lakhs of rupees,[7] but now yields only four. The Raja got an allowance of forty thousand rupees a year. He then took the territories of the Rajas of Raghugarh and Bajranggarh,[8] yielding three lakhs a year; and Bahadurgarh, yielding two lakhs a year;[9] and the three princes got fifty thousand rupees a year for subsistence among them. He then took Lopar, yielding two lakhs and a half, and assigned the Raja twenty-five thousand. He then took Garha Kota,[10] whose chief gets subsistence from our Government. Baptiste had just completed his kingdom taking expedition, when our armies took the field against the Pindharis; and, on the termination of that war in 1817, all these acquisitions were confirmed and guaranteed to his master Sindhia by our Government. It cannot be supposed that either he or his army can ever feel any great attachment towards a paramount authority that has the power and the will to interpose, and prevent their indulging in such sporting excursions as these, or any great disinclination to take advantage of any occasion that may seem likely to unite all the native chiefs in a common effort to crush it. The Nepalese have the same feeling as the Marathas in a still stronger degree, since their kingdom-taking excursions had been still greater and more successful; and, being all soldiers from the same soil, they were easily persuaded, by a long series of successful aggressions, that their courage was superior to that of all other men.[11]

In the year 1833, the Gwalior territory yielded a net revenue to the treasury of ninety-two lakhs of rupees, after discharging all the local costs of the civil and fiscal administration of the different districts, in officers, establishments, charitable institutions, religions endowments, military fiefs, &c.[12] In the remote districts, which are much infested by the predatory tribes of Bhils,[13] and in consequence badly peopled and cultivated, the net revenue is estimated to be about one-third of the gross collections; but, in the districts near the capital, which are tolerably well cultivated, the net revenue brought to the treasury is about five- sixths of the gross collections; and these collections are equal to the whole annual rent of the land; for every man by whom the land is held or cultivated is a mere tenant at will, liable every season to be turned out, to give place to any other man that may offer more for the holding.

There is nowhere to be seen upon the land any useful or ornamental work, calculated to attach the people to the soil or to their villages; and, as hardly any of the recruits for the regiments are drawn from the peasantry of the country, the agricultural classes have nowhere any feeling of interest in the welfare or existence of the government. I am persuaded that there is not a single village in all the Gwalior dominions in which nine-tenths of the people would not be glad to see that government destroyed, under the persuasion that they could not possibly have a worse, and would be very likely to find a better.

The present force at Gwalior consists of three regiments of infantry, under Colonel Alexander; six under the command of Apaji, the adopted son of the late Bala Bai;[14] eleven under Colonel Jacobs and his son; five under Colonel Jean Baptiste Filose; two under the command of the Mamu Sahib, the maternal uncle of the Maharaja; three in what is called Babu Baoli's camp; in all thirty regiments, consisting, when complete, of six hundred men each, with four field-pieces. The 'Jinsi', or artillery, consists of two hundred guns of different calibre. There are but few corps of cavalry, and these are not considered very efficient, I believe.[15]

Robbers and murderers of all descriptions have always been in the habit of taking the field in India immediately after the festival of the Dasahra,[16] at the end of October, from the sovereign of a state at the head of his armies, down to the leader of a little band of pickpockets from the corner of some obscure village. All invoke the Deity, and take the auspices to ascertain his will, nearly in the same way; and all expect that he will guide them successfully through their enterprises, as long as they find the omens favourable. No one among them ever dreams that his undertaking can be less acceptable to the Deity than that of another, provided he gives him the same due share of what he acquires in his thefts, his robberies, or his conquests, in sacrifices and offerings upon his shrines, and in donations to his priests.[17] Nor does the robber often dream that he shall be considered a less respectable citizen by the circle in which he moves than the soldier, provided he spends his income as liberally, and discharges all his duties in his relations with them as well; and this he generally does to secure their goodwill, whatever may be the character of his depredations upon distant circles of society and communities. The man who returned to Oudh, or Rohilkhand, after a campaign under a Pindhari chief, was as well received as one who returned after serving one under Sindhia, Holkar, or Ranjit Singh. A friend of mine one day asked a leader of a band of 'dacoits', or banditti, whether they did not often commit murder. 'God forbid', said he, 'that we should ever commit murder; but, if people choose to oppose us, we, of course, strike and kill; but you do the same. I hear that there is now a large assemblage of troops in the upper provinces going to take foreign countries; if they are opposed, they will kill people. We only do the same.'[18] The history of the rise of every nation in the world unhappily bears out the notion that princes are only robbers upon a large scale, till their ambition is curbed by a balance of power among nations.

On the 25th[19] we came on to Dhamela, fourteen miles, over a plain, with the range of sandstone hills on the left, receding from us to the west; and that on the right receding still more to the east. Here and there were some insulated hills of the same formation rising abruptly from the plain to our right. All the villages we saw were built upon masses of this sandstone rock, rising abruptly at intervals from the surface of the plain, in horizontal strata. These hillocks afford the people stone for building, and great facilities for defending themselves against the inroads of freebooters. There is not, I suppose, in the world a finer stone for building than these sandstone hills afford; and we passed a great many carts carrying them off to distant places in slabs or flags from ten to sixteen feet long, two to three feet wide, and six inches thick. They are white, with very minute pink spots, and of a texture so very fine that they would be taken for indurated clay on a slight inspection. The houses of the poorest peasants are here built of this beautiful freestone, which, after two hundred years, looks as if it had been quarried only yesterday.

About three miles from our tents we crossed over the little river Ghorapachhar,[20] flowing over a bed of this sandstone. The soil all the way very light, and the cultivation scanty and bad. Except within the enclosures of men's houses, scarcely a tree to be anywhere seen to give shelter and shade to the weary traveller; and we could find no ground for our camp with a shrub to shelter man or beast. All are swept away to form gun-carriages for the Gwalior artillery, with a philosophical disregard to the comforts of the living, the repose of the dead who planted them with a view to a comfortable berth in the next world, and to the will of the gods to whom they are dedicated. There is nothing left upon the land of animal or vegetable life to enrich it; nothing of stock but what is necessary to draw from the soil an annual crop, and which looks to one harvest for its entire return. The sovereign proprietor of the soil lets it out by the year, in farms or villages, to men who depend entirely upon the year's return for the means of payment. He, in his turn, lets the lands in detail to those who till them, and who depend for their subsistence, and for the means of paying their rents, upon the returns of the single harvest. There is no manufacture anywhere to be seen, save of brass pots and rude cooking utensils; no trade or commerce, save in the transport of the rude produce of the land to the great camp at Gwalior, upon the backs of bullocks, for want of roads fit for wheeled carriages. No one resides in the villages, save those whose labour is indispensably necessary to the rudest tillage, and those who collect the dues of government, and are paid upon the lowest possible scale. Such is the state of the Gwalior territories in every part of India where I have seen them.[21] The miseries and misrule of the Oudh, Hyderabad, and other Muhammadan governments, are heard of everywhere, because there are, under these governments, a middle and higher class upon the land to suffer and proclaim them; but those of the Gwalior state are never heard of, because no such classes are ever allowed to grow up upon the land. Had Russia governed Poland, and Turkey Greece, in the way that Gwalior has governed her conquered territories, we should never have heard of the wrongs of the one or the other.

In my morning's ride the day before I left Gwalior, I saw a fine leopard standing by the side of the most frequented road, and staring at every one who passed. It was held by two men, who sat by and talked to it as if it had been a human being. I thought it was an animal for show, and I was about to give them something, when they told me that they were servants of the Maharaja, and were training the leopard to bear the sight and society of man. 'It had', they said, 'been caught about three months ago in the jungles, where it could never bear the sight and society of man, or of any animal that it could not prey upon; and must be kept upon the most frequented road till quite tamed. Leopards taken when very young would', they said, 'do very well as pets, but never answered for hunting; a good leopard for hunting must, before taken, be allowed to be a season or two providing for himself, and living upon the deer he takes in the jungles and plains.'

Notes:

1. For the characteristics of the Marathas and Pindharis, see ante, Chapter 21, note 2.

2. Ante, Chapter 26, note 8, and Chapter 32, note 9.

3. Ante, Chapter 17, note 6.

4. A small principality, about seventy miles equidistant from Agra, Gwalior, Mathura, Alwar, Jaipur, and Tonk. The attack on Karauli occurred in 1813. Full details are given in the author's Report on Budhuk alias Bagree Decoits, pp. 99-104.

5. Four hundred thousand rupees.

6. Ante, Chapter 33, note 15.

7. Seven hundred thousand rupees.

8. Raghugarh is now a mediatized chiefship in the Central India Agency, controlled by the Resident at Gwalior. Bajranggarh, a stronghold eleven miles south of Guna (Goonah), and about 140 miles distant from Gwalior, is in the Raghugarh territory.

9. Three hundred thousand and two hundred thousand rupees, respectively. Bahadurgarh is now included in the Isagarh district of the Gwalior State.

10. I cannot find any mention of Lopar, if the name is correctly printed. Garha Kota seems to be a slip of the pen for Garha. Garha Kota is in British territory, in the Sagar District, C. P. But Garha is a petty state, formerly included in the Raghugarh State. The town of Garha is on the eastern slope of the Malwa plateau in 25 deg. 2' N. and 78 deg. 3' E. (I.G., 1908, s.v.).

11. On the coronation or installation of every new prince of the house of Sindhia, orders are given to plunder a few shops in the town as a part of the ceremony, and this they call or consider 'taking the auspices'. Compensation is supposed to be made to the proprietors, but rarely is made. I believe the same auspices are taken at the installation of a new prince of every other Maratha house. The Moghal invaders of India were, in the same manner, obliged to allow their armies to take the auspices in the sack of a few towns, though they had surrendered without resistance. They were given up to pillage as a religions duty. Even the accomplished Babar was obliged to concede this privilege to his army. [W. H. S.]

In reply to the editor's inquiries, Colonel Biddulph, officiating Resident at Gwalior, has kindly communicated the following information on the subject of the above note, in a letter dated 30th December, 1892. 'The custom of looting some "Banias'" shops on the installation of a new Maharaja in Gwalior is still observed. It was observed when the present Madho Rao Sindhia was installed on the gadi on 3rd July, 1886, and the looting was stopped by the police on the owners of the shops calling out "Dohai Madho Maharajki!" five shops were looted on the occasion, and compensation to the amount of Rs. 427, 4, 3 was paid to the owners. My informant tells me that the custom has apparently no connexion with religion, but is believed to refer to the days when the period between the decease of one ruler and the accession of his successor was one of disorder and plunder. The maintenance of the custom is supposed to notify to the people that they must now look to the new ruler for protection.

'According to another informant, some "banias" are called by the palace officers and directed to open their shops in the palace precincts, and money is given them to stock their shops. The poor people are then allowed to loot them. No shops are allowed to be looted in the bazaar.

'I cannot learn that any particular name is given to the ceremony, and there appears to be some doubt as to its meaning; but the best information seems to show that the reason assigned above is the correct one.

'I cannot give any information as to the existence of the custom in other Mahratta states.'

The custom was observed late in the sixth century at the birth of King Harsha-vardhana (Harsa-Carita, transl, Cowell and Thomas, p. 111). Anthropologists classify such practices as rites de passage, marking a transition from the old to the new.

'Bania', or 'baniya', means shopkeeper, especially a grain dealer; 'gadi', or 'gaddi', is the cushioned seat, also known as 'masnad', which serves a Hindoo prince as a throne; and 'dohai' is the ordinary form of a cry for redress.

12. Ninety-two lakhs of rupees were then worth more than L920,000. The I.G. (1908) states the normal revenue as 150 lakhs of rupees, equivalent (at the rate of exchange of 1s. 4d. to the rupee, or R 15 = L1) to one million pounds sterling. The fall in exchange has greatly lowered the sterling equivalent.

13. The Bhil tribes are included in the large group of tribes which have been driven back by the more cultivated races into the hills and jungles. They are found among the woods along the banks of the Nerbudda, Tapti, and Mahi, and in many parts of Central India and Rajputana. Of late years they have generally kept quiet; in the earlier part of the nineteenth century they gave much trouble in Khandesh. In Rajputana two irregular corps of Bhils have been organized.

14. Daughter of Mahadaji Sindhia. She died in 1834. See post, Chapter 70.

15. 'In 1886 the fort of Gwalior and the cantonment of Morar were surrendered by the Government of India to Sindhia in exchange for the fort and town of Jhansi. Both forts were mutually surrendered and occupied on 10th March, 1886. As the occupation of the fort of Gwalior necessitated an increase of Sindhia's army, the Maharaja was allowed to add 3,000 men to his infantry' (Letter of Officiating Resident, dated 30th Dec., 1892). In 1908 the Gwalior army, comprising all arms, including three regiments of Imperial Service Cavalry, numbered more than 12,000 men, described as troops of 'very fair quality' (I.G., 1908).

16. Ante, Chapter 26, note 8; Chapter 32, note 9; Chapter 49, note 2.

17. In Ramaseeana the author has fully described the practices of the Thugs in taking omens, and the feelings with which they regarded their profession. Similar information concerning other criminal classes is copiously given in the Report on Budhuk alias Bagree Decoits. See also Meadows Taylor, Confessions of a Thug, in any edition.

18. These notions are still prevalent.

19. December, 1835, Christmas Day.

20. 'Overthrower of horses'; the same epithet is applied to the Utangan river, south of the Agra district, owing to the difficulty with which it is crossed when in flood (N.W.P. Gazetteer, 1st ed., vol. vii, p. 423).

21. Sindhia's territories, measuring 25,041 square miles, are in parts intermixed with those of other princes, and so extend over a wide space. Gwalior and its government have been discussed already in Chapter 36.



CHAPTER 50

Dholpur, Capital of the Jat Chiefs of Gohad—Consequence of Obstacles to the Prosecution of Robbers.

On the morning of the 26th,[1] we sent on one tent, with the intention of following it in the afternoon; but about three o'clock a thunder-storm came on so heavily that I was afraid that which we occupied would come down upon us; and, putting my wife and child in a palankeen, I took them to the dwelling of an old Bairagi, about two hundred yards from us. He received us very kindly, and paid us many compliments about the honour we had conferred upon him. He was a kind and, I think, a good old man, and had six disciples who seemed to reverence him very much. A large stone image of Hanuman, the monkey- god, painted red, and a good store of buffaloes, very comfortably sheltered from the pitiless storm, were in an inner court. The peacocks in dozens sought shelter under the walls and in the tree that stood in the courtyard; and I believe that they would have come into the old man's apartment had they not seen our white faces there. I had a great deal of talk with him, but did not take any notes of it. These old Bairagis, who spend the early and middle parts of life as disciples in pilgrimages to the celebrated temples of their god Vishnu in all parts of India, and the latter part of it as high priests or apostles in listening to the reports of the numerous disciples employed in similar wanderings are, perhaps, the most intelligent men in the country. They are from all the castes and classes of society. The lowest Hindoo may become a Bairagi, and the very highest are often tempted to become so; the service of the god to which they devote themselves levelling all distinctions. Few of them can write or read, but they are shrewd observers of men and things, and often exceedingly agreeable and instructive companions to those who understand them, and can make them enter into unreserved conversation. Our tent stood out the storm pretty well, but we were obliged to defer our march till the next day. On the afternoon of the 27th we went on twelve miles, over a plain of deep alluvion, through which two rivers have cut their way to the Chambal; and, as usual, the ravines along their banks are deep, long, and dreary.

About half-way we were overtaken by one of the heaviest showers of rain I ever saw; it threatened us from neither side, but began to descend from an apparently small bed of clouds directly over our heads, which seemed to spread out on every side as the rain fell, and fill the whole vault of heaven with one dark and dense mass. The wind changed frequently; and in less than half an hour the whole surface of the country over which we were travelling was under water. This dense mass of clouds passed off in about two hours to the east; but twice, when the sun opened and beamed divinely upon us in a cloudless sky to the west, the wind changed suddenly round, and rushed back angrily from the east, to fill up the space which had been quickly rarefied by the genial heat of its rays, till we were again enveloped in darkness, and began to despair of reaching any human habitation before night. Some hail fell among the rain, but not large enough to hurt any one. The thunder was loud and often startling to the strongest nerves, and the lightning vivid, and almost incessant. We managed to keep the road because it was merely a beaten pathway below the common level of the country, and we could trace it by the greater depth of the water, and the absence of all shrubs and grass. All roads in India soon become watercourses—they are nowhere metalled; and, being left for four or five months every year without rain, their soil is reduced to powder by friction, and carried off by the winds over the surrounding country.[2] I was on horseback, but my wife and child were secure in a good palankeen that sheltered them from the rain. The bearers were obliged to move with great caution and slowly, and I sent on every person I could spare that they might keep moving, for the cold blast blowing over their thin and wet clothes seemed intolerable to those who were idle. My child's playmate, Gulab, a lad of about ten years of age, resolutely kept by the side of the palankeen, trotting through the water with his teeth chattering as if he had been in an ague. The rain at last ceased, and the sky in the west cleared up beautifully about half an hour before sunset. Little Gulab threw off his stuffed and quilted vest, and got a good dry English blanket to wrap round him from the palankeen. We soon after reached a small village, in which I treated all who had remained with us to as much coarse sugar (gur) as they could eat; and, as people of all castes can eat of sweetmeats from the hands of confectioners without prejudice to their caste, and this sugar is considered to be the best of all good things for guarding against colds in man or beast, they all ate very heartily, and went on in high spirits. As the sun sank below us on the left, a bright moon shone out upon us from the right, and about an hour after dark we reached our tents on the north bank of the Kuari river, where we found an excellent dinner for ourselves, and good fires, and good shelter for our servants. Little rain had fallen near the tents, and the river Kuari, over which we had to cross, had not, fortunately, much swelled; nor did much fall on the ground we had left; and, as the tents there had been struck and laden before it came on, they came up the next morning early, and went on to our next ground.

On the 28th, we went on to Dholpur, the capital of the Jat chiefs of Gohad,[3] on the left bank of the Chambal, over a plain with a variety of crops, but not one that requires two seasons to reach maturity. The soil excellent in quality and deep, but not a tree anywhere to be seen, nor any such thing as a work of ornament or general utility of any kind. We saw the fort of Dholpur at a distance of six miles, rising apparently from the surface of the level plain, but in reality situated on the summit of the opposite and high bank of a large river, its foundation at least one hundred feet above the level of the water. The immense pandemonia of ravines that separated us from this fort were not visible till we began to descend into them some two or three miles from the bed of the river. Like all the ravines that border the rivers in these parts, they are naked, gloomy, and ghastly, and the knowledge that no solitary traveller is ever safe in them does not tend to improve the impression they make upon us. The river is a beautiful clear stream, here flowing over a bed of fine sand with a motion so gentle, that one can hardly conceive it is she who has played such fantastic tricks along the borders, and made such 'frightful gashes' in them. As we passed over this noble reach of the river Chambal in a ferry-boat, the boatman told us of the magnificent bridge formed here by the Baiza Bai for Lord William Bentinck in 1832, from boats brought down from Agra for the purpose. 'Little', said they, 'did it avail her with the Governor-General in her hour of need.[4]