Railways. Main Lines.—It is just over fifty years since the first railway, a short line joining Lahore and Amritsar, was opened in 1862. Three years later Lahore was linked up with Multan and the small steamers which then plied on the Indus. Amritsar was connected with Delhi in 1870, and Lahore with Peshawar in 1883. The line from Peshawar to Lahore, and branching thence to Karachi and Delhi may be considered the Trunk Line. The railway service has been enormously developed in the past thirty years. In 1912 there were over 4000 miles of open lines. There are now three routes from Delhi to Lahore:



(a) The N.W. Railway via Meerut and Saharanpur (on east of Jamna), and Ambala, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar;

(b) The Southern Panjab Railway via Jind, Rohtak, Bhatinda, and Ferozepore;

(c) The Delhi-Ambala-Kalka branch of the East Indian Rallway from Delhi through Karnal to Ambala, and thence by the N.W. Railway. This is the shortest route.

The Southern Panjab Railway also connects Delhi with Karachi through its junction with the N.W. Railway at Samasata to the south of Bahawalpur. Another route is by a line passing through Rewari and the Merta junction. Karachi is the natural seaport of the central and western Panjab. The S.P. Railway now gives an easy connection with Ferozepore and Ludhiana, and the enormous export of wheat, cotton, etc. from the new canal colonies is carried by several lines which converge at Khanewal, a junction on the main line, a little north of Multan.

Railways. Minor Lines.—The Sind Sagar branch starting from Lala Musa between Lahore and Amritsar with smaller lines taking off further north at Golra and Campbellpur serves the part of the province lying north of the Salt Range. These lines converge at Kundian in the Mianwali district, and a single line runs thence southwards to points on the Indus opposite Dera Ismail Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan, and turning eastwards rejoins the trunk line at Sher Shah near Multan. There are a number of branch lines in the plains, some owned by native States. Strategically a very important one is that which crossing the Indus by the Khushalgarh bridge unites Rawalpindi with Kohat. The only hill railway is that from Kalka to Simla. A second is now under construction which, when completed, will connect Rawalpindi with Srinagar. All these lines with the exception of the branch of the E.I. Railway mentioned above are worked by the staff of the N. W. State Railway, whose manager controls inside and outside the Panjab some 5000 miles of open line. The interest earned in 1912 was 4-1/2 p.c., a good return when it is considered that the parts of the system to the north of the Salt Range and the Sind Sagar railway were built primarily for strategic reasons.



CHAPTER XIII

CANALS

Importance of Canals.—One need have no hesitation in placing among the greatest achievements of British rule in the Panjab the magnificent system of irrigation canals which it has given to the province. Its great alluvial plain traversed by large rivers drawing an unfailing supply of water from the Himalayan snows affords an ideal field for the labours of the canal engineer. The vastness of the arid areas which without irrigation yield no crops at all or only cheap millets and pulses makes his works of inestimable benefit to the people and a source of revenue to the State.

Canals before annexation.—In the west of the province we found in existence small inundation canals dug by the people with some help from their rulers. These only ran during the monsoon season, when the rivers were swollen. In 1626 Shahjahan's Persian engineer, Ali Mardan Khan, brought to Delhi the water of the canal dug by Firoz Shah as a monsoon channel and made perennial by Akbar. But during the paralysis of the central power in the eighteenth century the channels became silted up. The same able engineer dug a canal from the Ravi near Madhopur to water the royal gardens at Lahore. What remained of this work at annexation was known as the Hasli.

Extent of Canal Irrigation.—In 1911-12, when the deficiency of the rainfall made the demand for water keen, the canals of the Panjab and the N.W.F. Province irrigated 8-1/2 millions of acres. The figures are:

Panjab

A. Permanent Canals Acres Interest earned %

1. Western Jamna 775,450 7-3/4 2. Sirhind 1,609,458 8 3. Upper Bari Doab 1,156,808 11-1/2 4. Lower Chenab 2,334,090 34 5. Lower Jhelam 801,649 10-1/3 B. Monsoon Canals 1,654,437 Total 8,331,892

N.W. Frontier Province

Acres Interest earned %

Lower Swat River 157,650 9-3/4 Two minor Canals 67,510 Total 225,160

On the Sirhind Canal, on which the demand fluctuates greatly with the character of the season, the area was twice the normal. The three canals of the Triple Project will, when fully developed, add 1,871,000 acres to the irrigated area of the Panjab, and the Upper Swat Canal will increase that of the N.W.F. Province by 381,000 acres. The canals will therefore in a year of drought be able to water over ten millions of acres without taking account of possible extensions if a second canal should be drawn from the Sutlej. The money spent from imperial funds on Panjab canals has exceeded twelve millions sterling, and no money has ever been better spent. In, when the area irrigated was a good deal less than in, the value of the crops raised by the use of canal water was estimated at about 207 millions of rupees or nearly L14,000,000. It is only possible to note very briefly the steps by which this remarkable result has been achieved.



Western Jamna Canal.—Soon after the assumption of authority at Delhi in 1803 the question of the old Canal from the Jamna was taken up. The Delhi Branch was reopened in 1819, and the Hansi Branch six years later. In the famine year nearly 400,000 acres were irrigated. For more than half a century that figure represented the irrigating capacity of the canal. The English engineers in the main retained the faulty Moghal alignment, and waterlogging of the worst description developed. The effect on the health of the people was appalling. After long delay the canal was remodelled. The result has been most satisfactory in every way. In the last decade of the nineteenth century the Sirsa Branch and the Nardak Distributary were added, to carry water to parts of the Karnal and Hissar districts where any failure of the monsoon resulted in widespread loss of crops. If a scheme to increase the supply can be carried out, further extension in tracts now very liable to famine will become possible. In the six years ending the interest earned exceeded 8 p.c.

Upper Bari Doab Canal.—The headworks of the Upper Bari Doab Canal are above Madhopur near the point where the Ravi leaves the hills. The work was started soon after annexation, but only finished in 1859. Irrigation has grown from 90,000 acres in to 533,000 in, 861,000 in 1900-1, and 1,157,000 in. The later history of the canal consists mainly of great extensions in the arid Lahore district, and the irrigation there is now three-fifths of the whole. In parts of Amritsar, and markedly near the city, waterlogging has become a grave evil, but remedial measures have now been undertaken. The interest earned on the capital expenditure in the six years ending averaged 11-1/2 p.c.

Sirhind Canal.—A quarter of a century passed after the Upper Bari Doab Canal began working before the water of the Sutlej was used for irrigation. The Sirhind Canal weir is at Rupar where the river emerges from the Siwaliks. Patiala, Jind, and Nabha contributed to the cost, and own three of the five branches. But the two British branches are entitled to nearly two-thirds of the water, which is utilized in the Ludhiana and Ferozepore districts and in the Faridkot State. The soil of the tract commanded is for the most part a light sandy loam, and in years of good rainfall it repays dry cultivation. The result is that the area watered fluctuates largely. But in the six years ending the interest earned averaged 7 p.c., and the power of expansion in a bad year is a great boon to the peasantry.

Canal extensions in Western Panjab.—In the last quarter of a century the chief task of the Canal Department in the Panjab has been the extension of irrigation to the Rechna and Jech Doabs and the lower part of the Bari Doab. All three contained large areas of waste belonging to the State, mostly good soil, but incapable of cultivation owing to the scanty rainfall. Colonization has therefore been an important part of all the later canal projects. The operations have embraced the excavation of five canals.

Lower Chenab Canal.—The Lower Chenab Canal is one of the greatest irrigation works in the world, the area commanded being 3-1/3 million acres, the average discharge four or five times that of the Thames at Teddington, and the average irrigated area 2-1/4 million acres. There are three main branches, the Rakh, the Jhang, and the Gugera. The supply is secured by a great weir built across the Chenab river at Khanki in the Gujranwala district, and the irrigation is chiefly in the Gujranwala, Lyallpur, and Jhang districts. In the four years ending the average interest earned was 28 p.c., and in future the rate should rarely fall below 30 p.c. The capital expenditure has been a little over L2,000,000. The interest charges were cleared about five years after the starting of irrigation, and the capital has already been repaid to the State twice over.



Lower Jhelam Canal.—The Lower Jhelam Canal, which waters the tract between the Jhelam and Chenab in the Shahpur and Jhang districts, is a smaller and less profitable work. The culturable commanded area is about one million acres. The head-works are at Rasul in the Gujrat district. Irrigation began in 1901. In the four years ending 1911-12 the average area watered was 748,000 acres and the interest earned exceeded 10 p.c.

Triple Project—Upper Jhelam and Upper Chenab Canals and Lower Bari Doab Canal.—The Lower Chenab Canal takes the whole available supply of the Chenab river. But it does not command a large area in the Rechna Doab lying in the west of Gujranwala, in which rain cultivation is very risky and well cultivation is costly. No help can be got from the Ravi, as the Upper Bari Doab Canal exhausts its supply. Desirable as the extension of irrigation in the areas mentioned above is, the problem of supplying it might well have seemed insuperable. The bold scheme known as the Triple Project which embraces the construction of the Upper Jhelam, Upper Chenab, and Lower Bari Doab Canals, is based on the belief that the Jhelam river has even in the cold weather water to spare after feeding the Lower Jhelam Canal. The true raison d'etre of the Upper Jhelam Canal, whose head-works are at Mangla in Kashmir a little north of the Gujrat district, is to throw a large volume of water into the Chenab at Khanki, where the Lower Chenab Canal takes off, and so set free an equal supply to be taken out of the Chenab higher up at Merala in Sialkot, where are the head-works of the Upper Chenab Canal. But the Upper Jhelam Canal will also water annually some 345,000 acres in Gujrat and Shahpur. The Upper Chenab Canal will irrigate 648,000 acres mostly in Gujranwala, and will be carried across the Ravi by an aqueduct at Balloke in the south of Lahore. Henceforth the canal is known as the Lower Bari Doab, which will water 882,000 acres, mostly owned by the State, in the Montgomery and Multan districts. On the other two canals the area of Government land is not large. The Triple Project is approaching completion, and irrigation from the Upper Chenab Canal has begun. The engineering difficulties have been great, and the forecast does not promise such large gains as even the Lower Jhelam Canal. But a return of 7-1/2 p.c. is expected.

Monsoon or Inundation Canals.—The numerous monsoon or inundation canals, which take off from the Indus, Jhelam, Chenab, Ravi, and Sutlej, though individually petty works, perform an important office in the thirsty south-western districts. By their aid a kharif crop can be raised without working the wells in the hot weather, and with luck the fallow can be well soaked in autumn, and put under wheat and other spring crops. For the maturing of these crops a prudent cultivator should not trust to the scanty cold weather rainfall, but should irrigate them from a well. The Sidhnai has a weir, but may be included in this class, for there is no assured supply at its head in the Ravi in the winter. In 1910-11 the inundation canals managed by the State watered 1,800,000 acres. There are a number of private canals in Ferozepore, Shahpur, and the hill district of Kangra. In Ferozepore the district authorities take a share in the management.

Colonization of Canal Lands.—The colonization of huge areas of State lands has been an important part of new canal schemes in the west of the Panjab. When the Lower Chenab Canal was started the population of the vast Bar tract which it commands consisted of a few nomad cattle owners and cattle thieves. It was a point of honour to combine the two professions. Large bodies of colonists were brought from the crowded districts of the central Panjab. The allotments to peasants usually consisted of 55 acres, a big holding for a man who possibly owned only four or five acres in his native district. There were larger allotments known as yeoman and capitalist grants, but the peasants are the only class who have turned out quite satisfactory farmers. Colonization began in 1892 and was practically complete by 1904, when over 1,800,000 acres had been allotted. To save the peasants from the evils which an unrestricted right of transfer was then bringing on the heads of many small farmers in the Panjab it was decided only to give them permanent inalienable tenant right. The Panjab Alienation of Land Act, No. XIII of 1900, has supplied a remedy generally applicable, and the peasant grantees are now being allowed to acquire ownership on very easy terms. The greater part of the colony is in the new Lyallpur district, which had in 1911 a population of 857,511 souls.

On the Lower Jhelam Canal the area of colonized land exceeds 400,000 acres. A feature of colonization on that canal is that half the area is held on condition of keeping up one or more brood mares, the object being to secure a good class of remounts. Succession to these grants is governed by primogeniture. On the Lower Bari Doab Canal a very large area is now being colonized.

Canals of the N.W.F. Province.—Hemmed in as the N.W.F. Province is between the Indus and the Hills, its canals are insignificant as compared with the great irrigation works of the Panjab. The only ones of any importance are in the Peshawar Valley. These draw their supplies from the Kabul, Bara, and Swat rivers, but the works supplied by the first two streams only command small areas. The Lower Swat Canal was begun in 1876, but the tribesmen were hostile and the diggers had to sleep in fortified enclosures. The work was not opened till 1885. A reef in the river has made it possible to dispense with a permanent weir. The country is not an ideal one for irrigation, being much cut up by ravines. But a large area has been brought under command, and the irrigation has more than once exceeded 170,000 acres. In 1911-12 it was 157,650 acres, and the interest earned was 9-3/4 p.c. The Upper Swat Canal, which was opened in April 1914, was a more ambitious project, involving the tunnelling at the Malakand of 11,000 feet of solid rock. The commanded area is nearly 450,000 acres, including 40,000 beyond our administrative frontier. The estimated cost is Rs. 18,240,000 or over L1,200,000 and the annual irrigation expected is 381,562 acres.



CHAPTER XIV

AGRICULTURE AND CROPS

Classification by Zones.—In order to give an intelligible account of the huge area embraced by the Panjab, N.W.F. Province, and Kashmir it is necessary to make a division of the area into zones. Classification must be on very broad lines based on differences of altitude, rainfall, and soil, leading to corresponding differences in the cultivation and the crops. For statistical purposes districts must be taken as a whole, though a more accurate classification would divide some of them between two zones.

Classes of Cultivation.—The broadest division of cultivation is into irrigated and unirrigated, the former including well (chahi), canal (nahri), and abi. The last term describes a small amount of land watered from tanks or jhils in the plains and a larger area in the hills irrigated by kuhls or small artificial channels. "Unirrigated" embraces cultivation dependent on rain (barani) or on flooding or percolation from rivers (sailab). (See Table II.)

Harvests.—There are two harvests, the autumn or kharif, and the spring or rabi. The autumn crops are mostly sown in June and July and reaped from September to December. Cotton is often sown in March. Cane planted in March and cut in January and February is counted as a kharif crop. The spring crops are sown from the latter part of September to the end of December. They are reaped in March and April. Roughly in the Panjab three-fifths of the crops belong to the spring harvest. In the N.W.F. Province the proportion is somewhat higher. In Kashmir the autumn crop is by far the more important.



Implements of Husbandry and Wells.—The implements of husbandry are simple but effective in a land where as a rule there is no advantage in stirring up the soil very deep. With his primitive plough (hal) and a wooden clodcrusher (sohaga) the peasant can produce a tilth for a crop like cane which it would be hard to match in England. There are two kinds of wells, the charsa or rope and bucket well and the harat or Persian wheel.

Rotations.—The commonest rotation in ordinary loam soils is to put in a spring and autumn crop in succession and then let the land lie fallow for a year. Unless a good deal of manure is available this is the course to follow, even in the case of irrigated land. Some poor hard soils are only fit for crops of coarse rice sown after the embanked fields have been filled in the monsoon by drainage from surrounding waste. Other lands are cropped only in the autumn because the winter rainfall is very scanty. Flooded lands are often sown only for the spring harvest.



Cattle, Sheep, and Goats.—In 1909 there were in the British districts of the Panjab 4-1/4 million bullocks and 625,000 male buffaloes available to draw 2,169,000 ploughs and 288,000 carts, thresh the corn, and work a quarter of a million wells, besides sugar, oil, and flour mills. The cattle of the hills, N.W. Panjab, and riverain tracts are undersized, but in the uplands of the Central Panjab and S.E. districts fine oxen are used. The horned cattle share 18 millions of pasture land, much extremely poor, with 4 million sheep and 5-1/2 million goats. Hence the enormous area devoted to fodder crops.

Zones.—Six zones can be distinguished, but, as no district is wholly confined to the mountain zone, it must for statistical purposes be united to the submontane zone:

(a) Mountain above 5000 feet Panjab—Kangra, Simla, Native States in Hills, Ambala, Hoshyarpur.

(b) Submontane N.W.F. Province. Hazara, Kashmir—whole

(c) North Central Plain Panjab—Gujrat, Sialkot, Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Kapurthala, Malerkotla, Powadh tract in Phulkian States.

(d) North-West Area Panjab—Rawalpindi, Jhelam, Attock, Mianwali. N.W.F.P.—Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu.

(e) South-Western Plains Panjab—Gujranwala, Lahore, Shahpur, Jhang, Lyallpur, Montgomery, Multan, Muzaffargarh, Dera Ghazi Khan, Bahawalpur. N.W.F.P.—Dera Ismail Khan.

(f) South-Eastern Area Panjab—Karnal, Rohtak, Gurgaon, Hissar, Ferozepore, Faridkot, Jangal tract in Phulkian States, Native States territory adjoining Gurgaon and Rohtak.

Mountain and Submontane Zones.—In the Mountain Zone the fields are often very minute, consisting of narrow terraces supported by stone revetments built up the slopes of hills. That anyone should be ready to spend time and labour on such unpromising material is a sign of pressure of population on the soil, which is a marked feature of some hill tracts.



Below 8000 feet the great crop is maize. Potatoes have been introduced near our hill stations. The chief pulse of the mountain zone is kulath (Dolichos biflorus), eaten by the very poor. Wheat ascends to 8000 or 9000 feet, and at the higher levels is reaped in August. Barley is grown at much greater heights. Buckwheat (ugal, trumba, drawi), amaranth (chaulai, ganhar, sariara), and a tall chenopod (bathu) are grown in the mountain zone. Buckwheat is common on poor stony lands.



The only comparatively flat land is on the banks above river beds, which are devoted to rice cultivation, the water being conducted to the embanked fields by an elaborate system of little canals or kuhls. This is the only irrigation in the mountains, and is much valued. The Submontane Zone has a rainfall of from 30 to 40 inches. Well irrigation is little used and the dry crops are generally secure. Wheat and maize are the great staples, but gram and chari, i.e. jowar grown for fodder, are also important. Some further information about Kashmir agriculture will be found in a later chapter. For full details about classes of cultivation and crops in all the zones Tables II, III and IV should be consulted.

North Central Panjab Plain.—The best soils and the finest tillage are to be found in the North Central Zone. Gujrat has been included in it, though it has also affinities in the north with the North-West area, and in the south with the South-Western plain. The rainfall varies from 25 to 35 inches. One-third of the cultivated area is protected by wells, and the well cultivation is of a very high class in Ludhiana and Jalandhar, where heavily manured maize is followed by a fine crop of wheat, and cane is commonly grown. In parts of Sialkot and Gujrat the well cultivation is of a different type, the area served per well being large and the object being to protect a big acreage of wheat in the spring harvest. The chief crops in this zone are wheat and chari. The latter is included under "Other Fodder" in Tables III and IV.

North-Western Area.—The plateau north of the Salt Range has a very clean light white sandy loam soil requiring little ploughing and no weeding. It is often very shallow, and this is one reason for the great preference for cold weather crops. Kharif crops are more liable to be burned up. Generally speaking the rainfall is from 15 to 25 inches, the proportion falling in the winter and spring being larger than elsewhere. There is, except in Peshawar and Bannu, where the conditions involve a considerable divergence from the type of this zone, practically no canal irrigation. The well irrigation is unimportant and in most parts consists of a few acres round each well intensively cultivated with market-gardening crops. The dry crops are generally very precarious. In Mianwali the Indus valley is a fine tract, but the harvests fluctuate greatly with the extent of the floods. The Thal in Mianwali to the south of the Sind Sagar railway is really a part of the next zone.

The South-Western Plains.—This zone contains nine districts. With the exception of the three on the north border of the zone they have a rainfall of from 5 to 10 inches. Of these six arid districts, only one, Montgomery, has any dry cultivation worth mentioning. In the zone as a whole three-fourths of the cultivation is protected by canals or wells, or by both. In the lowlands near the great rivers cultivation depends on the floods brought to the land direct or through small canals which carry water to parts which the natural overflow would not reach. In the uplands vast areas formerly untouched by the plough have been brought under tillage by the help of perennial canals, and the process of reclamation is still going on. The Thal is a large sandy desert which becomes more and more worthless for cultivation as one proceeds southwards. In the north the people have found out of late years that this unpromising sand can not only yield poor kharif crops, but is worth sowing with gram in the spring harvest. The expense is small, and a lucky season means large profits. In Dera Ghazi Khan a large area of "pat" below the hills is dependent for cultivation on torrents. The favourite crop in the embanked fields into which the water is diverted is jowar.

The South-Eastern Plains.—In the south-eastern Panjab except in Hissar and the native territory on the border of Rajputana, the rainfall is from 20 to 30 inches. In Hissar it amounts to some 15 inches. These are averages; the variations in total amount and distribution over the months of the year are very great. In good seasons the area under dry crops is very large, but the fluctuations in the sown acreage are extraordinary, and the matured is often far below the sown area. The great crops are gram and mixtures of wheat or barley with gram in the spring, and bajra in the autumn, harvest. Well cultivation is not of much importance generally, though some of it in the Jamna riverain is excellent. The irrigated cultivation depends mainly on the Western Jamna and Sirhind canals, and the great canal crops are wheat and cotton. This is the zone in which famine conditions are still most to be feared.

In the Panjab as a whole about one-third of the cultivated area is yearly put under wheat, which with bajra and maize is the staple food of the people. A large surplus of wheat and oil-seeds is available for export.



CHAPTER XV

HANDICRAFTS AND MANUFACTURES

Handicrafts.—The chief handicrafts of the province are those of the weaver, the shoemaker, the carpenter, the potter, and the worker in brass and copper. The figures of the 1911 census for each craft including dependents were: weavers 883,000; shoemakers 540,000; carpenters 381,000; potters and brickmakers 349,000; metalworkers 240,000. The figures for weavers include a few working in factories. The hand-spun cotton-cloth is a coarse strong fabric known as "khaddar" with a single warp and weft. "Khes" is a better article with a double warp and weft. "Susi" is a smooth cloth with coloured stripes used for women's trousers. A superior kind of checked "khes" known as "gabrun" is made at Ludhiana. The native process of weaving is slow and the weavers are very poor. The Salvation Army is trying to introduce an improved hand loom. Fine "lungis" or turbans of cotton with silk borders are made at Ludhiana, Multan, Peshawar, and elsewhere. Effective cotton printing is carried on by very primitive methods at Kot Kamalia and Lahore. Ludhiana and Lahore turn out cotton daris or rugs. Coarse woollen blankets or lois are woven at various places, and coloured felts or namdas are made at Ludhiana, Khushab, and Peshawar. Excellent imitations of Persian carpets are woven at Amritsar, and the Srinagar carpets do credit to the Kashmiris' artistic taste. The best of the Amritsar carpets are made of pashm, the fine underwool of the Tibetan sheep, and pashmina is also used as a material for choghas (dressing-gowns), etc. Coarse woollen cloth or pattu is woven in the Kangra hills for local use. At Multan useful rugs are made whose fabric is a mixture of cotton and wool. More artistic are the Biluch rugs made by the Biluch women with geometrical patterns. These are excellent in colouring. They are rather difficult to procure as they are not made for sale. The weaving of China silk is a common industry in Amritsar, Bahawalpur, Multan, and other places. The phulkari or silk embroidery of the village maidens of Hissar and other districts of the Eastern Panjab, and the more elaborate gold and silver wire embroideries of the Delhi bazars, are excellent. The most artistic product of the plains is the ivory carving of Delhi. As a wood-carver the Panjabi is not to be compared with the Kashmiri. His work is best fitted for doorways and the bow windows or bokharchas commonly seen in the streets of old towns. The best carvers are at Bhera, Chiniot, Amritsar, and Batala. The European demand has produced at Simla and other places an abundant supply of cheap articles of little merit. The inlaid work of Chiniot and Hoshyarpur is good, as is the lacquer-work of Pakpattan. The papier mache work of Kashmir has much artistic merit (Fig. 55), and some of the repousse silver work of Kashmir is excellent.



The craft of the thathera or brass worker is naturally most prominent in the Eastern Panjab, because Hindus prefer brass vessels for cooking purposes. Delhi is the great centre, but the trade is actively carried on at other places, and especially at Jagadhri.

Unglazed pottery is made practically in every village. The blue enamelled pottery of Multan and the glazed Delhi china ware are effective. The manufacture of the latter is on a very petty scale.



Factories.—The factory industries of the Panjab are still very small. In 1911 there were 268 factories employing 28,184 hands. The typical Panjab factory is a little cotton ginning or pressing mill. The grinding of flour and husking of rice are sometimes part of the same business. The number of these mills rose in the 20 years ending 1911 from 12 to 202, and there are complaints that there are now too many factories. Cotton-spinning has not been very successful and the number of mills in 1911, eight, was the same as in 1903-4. The weaving is almost entirely confined to yarn of low counts. Part is used by the hand-loom weavers and part is exported to the United Provinces. Good woollen fabrics are turned out at a factory at Dhariwal in the Gurdaspur district. There were in 1911 fifteen flour mills, ten ironworks, three breweries, and one distillery.



Joint-Stock Companies.—The Panjab has not reached the stage where the joint-stock business successfully takes the place of the family banking or factory business. In 1911 there were 194 joint-stock companies. But many of these were provident societies, the working of which has been attended with such abuses that a special act has been passed for their control. A number of banks and insurance companies have also sprung up of late years. Of some of these the paid up capital is absurdly small, and the recent collapse of the largest and of two smaller native banks has drawn attention to the extremely risky nature of the business done. Of course European and Hindu family banking businesses of the old type stand on quite a different footing. Some of the cotton and other mills are joint-stock concerns.



CHAPTER XVI

EXPORTS AND IMPORTS

Trade.—In 1911-12 the exports from the Panjab, excluding those by land to Central Asia, Ladakh, and Afghanistan, were valued at Rs. 27,63,21,000 (L18,421,000), of which 61 p.c. went to Karachi and about 10 p.c. to Calcutta and Bombay. Of the total 27 p.c. consisted of wheat, nearly the whole of which was dispatched to Karachi. All other grains and pulses were about equal in value to the wheat. "Gram and other pulses" (18 p.c. of total exports) was the chief item. Raw cotton accounts for 15, and oil-seeds for 10 p.c. The imports amounted in value to Rs. 30,01,28,000 (L20,008,000), little more than one-third being received from Karachi. Cotton piece goods (Foreign 22, Indian 8-1/2 p.c.) make up one-third of the total. The other important figures are sugar 12, and metals 11 p.c. The land trade with Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Ladakh is insignificant, but interesting as furnishing an example of modes of transport which have endured for many centuries, and of the pursuit of gain often under appalling physical difficulties.



CHAPTER XVII

HISTORY—PRE-MUHAMMADAN PERIOD, 500 B.C.—1000 A.D.

In Hindu period relations of Panjab were with western kingdoms.—The large tract included in the British province of the Panjab which lies between the Jamna and the Ghagar is, having regard to race, language, and past history, a part of Hindustan. Where "Panjab" is used without qualification in this section the territories west of the Ghagar and south of Kashmir are intended. The true relations of the Panjab and Kashmir during the Hindu period were, except for brief intervals, with Persia, Afghanistan, and Turkistan rather than with the great kingdoms founded in the valley of the Ganges and the Jamna.

Normal division into petty kingdoms and tribal confederacies.—The normal state of the Panjab in early times was to be divided into a number of small kingdoms and tribal republics. Their names and the areas which they occupied varied from time to time. Names of kingdoms that have been rescued from oblivion are Gandhara, corresponding to Peshawar and the valley of the Kabul river, Urasa or Hazara, where the name is still preserved in the Orash plain, Taxila, which may have corresponded roughly to the present districts of Rawalpindi and Attock with a small part of Hazara, Abhisara or the low hills of Jammu, Kashmir, and Trigartta, with its capital Jalandhara, which occupied most of the Jalandhar division north of the Sutlej and the states of Chamba, Suket, and Mandi. The historians of Alexander's campaigns introduce us also to the kingdoms of the elder Poros on both banks of the Jhelam, of the younger Poros east of the Chenab, and of Sophytes (Saubhuti) in the neighbourhood of the Salt Range. We meet also with tribal confederacies, such as in Alexander's time those of the Kathaioi on the upper, and of the Malloi on the lower, Ravi.

Invasion by Alexander, 327-325 B.C.—The great Persian king, Darius, in 512 B.C. pushed out the boundary of his empire to the Indus, then running in a more easternly course than to-day[4]. The army with which Xerxes invaded Greece included a contingent of Indian bowmen[5]. When Alexander overthrew the Persian Empire and started on the conquest of India, the Indus was the boundary of the former. His remarkable campaign lasted from April, 327 B.C., when he led an army of 50,000 or 60,000 Europeans across the Hindu Kush into the Kabul valley, to October, 325, when he started from Sindh on his march to Persia through Makran. Having cleared his left flank by a campaign in the hills of Buner and Swat, he crossed the Indus sixteen miles above Attock near Torbela. The King of Taxila, whose capital was near the Margalla pass on the north border of the present Rawalpindi district, had prudently submitted as soon as the Macedonian army appeared in the Kabul valley. From the Indus Alexander marched to Taxila, and thence to the Jhelam (Hydaspes), forming a camp near the site now occupied by the town of that name in the country of Poros. The great army of the Indian king was drawn up to dispute the passage probably not very far from the eastern end of the present railway bridge. Favoured by night and a monsoon rain-storm—it was the month of July, 326 B.C.—Alexander succeeded in crossing some miles higher up into the Karri plain under the low hills of Gujrat. Here, somewhere near the line now occupied by the upper Jhelam Canal, the Greek soldiers gave the first example of a feat often repeated since, the rout of a large and unwieldy Indian army by a small, but mobile and well-led, European force. Having defeated Poros, Alexander crossed the Chenab (Akesines), stormed Sangala, a fort of the Kathaioi on the upper Ravi (Hydraotes) and advanced as far as the Bias (Hyphasis). But the weary soldiers insisted that this should be the bourn of their eastward march, and, after setting up twelve stone altars on the farther side, Alexander in September, 326 B.C., reluctantly turned back. Before he left the Panjab he had hard fighting with the Malloi on the lower Ravi, and was nearly killed in the storm of one of their forts. Alexander intended that his conquests should be permanent, and made careful arrangements for their administration. But his death in June, 323 B.C., put an end to Greek rule in India. Chandra Gupta Maurya expelled the Macedonian garrisons, and some twenty years later Seleukos Nicator had to cede to him Afghanistan.

Maurya Dominion and Empire of Asoka, 323-231 B.C.—Chandra Gupta is the Sandrakottos, to whose capital at Pataliputra (Patna) Seleukos sent Megasthenes in 303 B.C. The Greek ambassador was a diligent and truthful observer, and his notes give a picture of a civilized and complex system of administration. If Chandra Gupta was the David, his grandson, Asoka, was the Solomon of the first Hindu Empire. His long reign, lasting from 273 to 231 B.C., was with one exception a period of profound peace deliberately maintained by an emperor who, after his conversion to the teaching of Gautama Buddha, thought war a sin. Asoka strove to lead his people into the right path by means of pithy abstracts of the moral law of his master graven on rocks and pillars. It is curious to remember that this missionary king was peacefully ruling a great empire in India during the twenty-four years of the struggle between Rome and Carthage, which we call the first Punic War. Of the four Viceroys who governed the outlying provinces of the empire one had his headquarters at Taxila. One of the rock edicts is at Mansehra in Hazara and another at Shahbazgarhi in Peshawar. From this time and for many centuries the dominant religion in the Panjab was Buddhism, but the religion of the villages may then have been as remote from the State creed as it is to-day from orthodox Brahmanism.

Graeco-Bactrian and Graeco-Parthian Rule.—The Panjab slipped from the feeble grasp of Asoka's successors, and for four centuries it looked not to the Ganges, but to the Kabul and the Oxus rivers.



Up to the middle of the first century of our era it was first under Graeco-Bactrian, and later under Graeco-Parthian, rule directly, or indirectly through local rulers with Greek names or Saka Satraps. The Sakas, one of the central Asian shepherd hordes, were pushed out of their pastures on the upper Jaxartes by another horde, the Yuechi. Shadowy Hellenist Princes have left us only their names on coins; one Menander, who ruled about 150 B.C., is an exception. He anticipated the feats of later rulers of Kabul by a temporary conquest of North-Western India, westwards to the Jamna and southwards to the sea.

The Kushan Dynasty.—The Yuechi in turn were driven southward to the Oxus and the Kabul valley and under the Kushan dynasty established their authority in the Panjab about the middle of the first century. The most famous name is that of Kanishka, who wrested from China Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan, and assembled a notable council of sages of the law in Kashmir. His reign may be dated from 120 to 150 A.D. His capital was at Purushapura (Peshawar), near which he built the famous relic tower of Buddha, 400 feet high. Beside the tower was a large monastery still renowned in the ninth and tenth centuries as a home of sacred learning. The rule of Kushan kings in the Panjab lasted till the end of the first quarter of the third century. To their time belong the Buddhist sculptures found in the tracts near their Peshawar capital (see also page 204).

The Gupta Empire.—Of the century preceding the establishment in 320 B.C. of the Gupta dynasty at Patna we know nothing. The Panjab probably again fell under the sway of petty rajas and tribal confederacies, though the Kushan rule was maintained in Peshawar till 465 A.D., when it was finally blotted out by the White Huns. These savage invaders soon after defeated Skanda Gupta, and from this blow the Gupta Empire never recovered. At the height of its power in 400 A.D. under Chandra Gupta II, known as Vikramaditya, who is probably the original of the Bikramajit of Indian legends, it may have reached as far west as the Chenab.

The White Huns or Ephthalites.—In the beginning of the sixth century the White Hun, Mahirakula, ruled the Panjab from Sakala, the modern Sialkot. He was a worshipper of Siva, and a deadly foe of the Buddhist cult, and has been described as a monster of cruelty.

The short-lived dominion of the White Huns was destroyed by the Turks and Persians about the year 565 A.D.

Panjab in seventh century A.D.—From various sources, one of the most valuable being the Memoirs of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Hiuen Tsang, who travelled in India from 630 to 644 A.D., we know something of Northern India in the first half of the seventh century. Hiuen Tsang was at Kanauj as a guest of a powerful king named Harsha, whose first capital was at Thanesar, and who held a suzerainty over all the rajas from the Brahmaputra to the Bias. West of that river the king of Kashmir was also overlord of Taxila, Urasa, Parnotsa (Punch), Rajapuri (Rajauri) and Sinhapura, which seems to have included the Salt Range. The Peshawar valley was probably ruled by the Turki Shahiya kings of Kabul. The rest of the Panjab was divided between a kingdom called by Hiuen Tsang Tsekhia, whose capital was somewhere near Sialkot, and the important kingdom of Sindh, in which the Indus valley as far north as the Salt Range was included. Harsha died in 647 A.D. and his empire collapsed.

Kashmir under Hindu Kings.—For the next century China was at the height of its power. It established a suzerainty over Kashmir, Udyana (Swat), Yasin, and Chitral. The first was at this period a powerful Hindu kingdom. Its annals, as recorded in Kalhana's Rajatarangini, bear henceforward a real relation to history. In 733 A.D. King Muktapida Lalitaditya received investiture from the Chinese Emperor. Seven years later he defeated the King of Kanauj on the Ganges. A ruler who carried his arms so far afield must have been very powerful in the Northern Panjab. The remains of the wonderful Martand temple, which he built in honour of the Sun God, are a standing memorial of his greatness. The history of Kashmir under its Hindu kings for the next 400 years is for the most part that of a wretched people ground down by cruel tyrants. A notable exception was Avantidharman—855-883 A.D.—whose minister, Suyya, carried out very useful drainage and irrigation works.



The Panjab, 650-1000 A.D.—We know little of Panjab history in the 340 years which elapsed between the death of Harsha and the beginning of the Indian raids of the Sultans of Ghazni in 986-7 A.D. The conquest of the kingdom of Sindh by the Arab general, Muhammad Kasim, occurred some centuries earlier, in 712 A.D. Multan, the city of the Sun-worshippers, was occupied, and part at least of the Indus valley submitted to the youthful conqueror. He and his successors in Sindh were tolerant rulers. No attempt was made to occupy the Central Panjab, and when the Turkish Sultan, Sabaktagin, made his first raid into India in 986-7 A.D., his opponent was a powerful raja named Jaipal, who ruled over a wide territory extending from the Hakra to the frontier hills on the north-west. His capital was at Bhatinda. Just about the time when the rulers of Ghazni were laying the train which ended at Delhi and made it the seat of a great Muhammadan Empire, that town was being founded in 993-4 A.D. by the Tunwar Rajputs, who then held sway in that neighbourhood.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: See Sykes' History of Persia, pp. 179-180; also Herodotos III. 94 and 98 and IV. 44.]

[Footnote 5: "The Indians clad with garments made of cotton had bows of cane and arrows of cane tipped with iron."—Herodotos VII. 65.]



CHAPTER XVIII

HISTORY (continued). THE MUHAMMADAN PERIOD, 1000-1764 A.D.

The Ghaznevide Raids.—In the tenth century the Turks were the janissaries of the Abbaside Caliphs of Baghdad, and ambitious soldiers of that race began to carve out kingdoms. One Alptagin set up for himself at Ghazni, and was succeeded in 976 A.D. by his slave Sabaktagin, who began the long series of Indian raids which stained with blood the annals of the next half-century. His son, Mahmud of Ghazni, a ruthless zealot and robber abroad, a patron of learning and literature at home, added the Panjab to his dominions. In the first 26 years of the eleventh century he made seventeen marauding excursions into India. In the first his father's opponent, Jaipal, was beaten in a vain effort to save Peshawar. Ten years later his successor, Anandpal, at the head of a great army, again met the Turks in the Khaibar. The valour of the Ghakkars had practically won the day, when Anandpal's elephant took fright, and this accident turned victory into rout. In one or other of the raids Multan and Lahore were occupied, and the temples of Kangra (Nagarkot) and Thanesar plundered. In 1018 the Turkish army marched as far east as Kanauj. The one permanent result of all these devastations was the occupation of the Panjab. The Turks made Lahore the capital.

Decline of Buddhism.—The iconoclastic raids of Mahmud probably gave the coup de grace to Buddhism. Its golden age may be put at from 250 B.C. to 200 A.D. Brahmanism gradually emerged from retirement and reappeared at royal courts. It was quite ready to admit Buddha to its pantheon, and by so doing it sapped the doctrine he had taught. The Chinese pilgrim, Fahien, in the early part of the fifth century could still describe Buddhism in the Panjab as "very flourishing," and he found numerous monasteries. The religion seems however to have largely degenerated into a childish veneration of relics.

Conquest of Delhi.—For a century and a quarter after the death of Mahmud in 1030 A.D. his line maintained its sway over a much diminished empire. In 1155 the Afghan chief of Ghor, Ala ud din, the "World-burner" (Jahan-soz), levelled Ghazni with the ground. For a little longer the Ghaznevide Turkish kings maintained themselves in Lahore. Between 1175 and 1186 Muhammad Ghori, who had set up a new dynasty at Ghazni, conquered Multan, Peshawar, Sialkot, and Lahore, and put an end to the line of Mahmud. The occupation of Sirhind brought into the field Prithvi Raja, the Chauhan Rajput king of Delhi. In 1191 he routed Muhammad Ghori at Naraina near Karnal. But next year the Afghan came back with a huge host, and this time on the same battlefield fortune favoured him. Prithvi Raja was taken and killed, and Muhammad's slave, Kutbuddin Aibak, whom he left to represent him in India, soon occupied Delhi. In 1203 Muhammad Ghori had to flee for his life after a defeat near the Oxus. The Ghakkars seized the chance and occupied Lahore. But the old lion, though wounded, was still formidable. The Ghakkars were beaten, and, it is said, converted. A year or two later they murdered their conqueror in his tent near the Indus.

Turkish and Afghans Sultans of Delhi.—He had no son, and his strong viceroy, Kutbuddin Aibak, became in 1206 the first of the 33 Muhammadan kings, who in five successive dynasties ruled from Delhi a kingdom of varying dimensions, till the last of them fell at Panipat in 1526, and Babar, the first of the Moghals, became master of their red fort palace. The blood-stained annals of these 320 years can only be lightly touched on. Under vigorous rulers like the Turki Slave kings, Altamsh (1210-1236) and Balban (1266-1287), a ferocious and masterful boor like Ala ud din Khalji (1296-1316), or a ferocious but able man of culture like Muhammad Tughlak (1325-1351), the local governors at Lahore and Multan were content to be servants. In the frequent intervals during which the royal authority was in the hands of sottish wastrels, the chance of independence was no doubt seized.

Mongol Invasions.—In 1221 the Mongol cloud rose on the north-west horizon. The cruelty of these camel-riding Tatars and the terror they inspired may perhaps be measured by the appalling picture given of their bestial appearance. In 1221, Chingiz Khan descended on the Indus at the heels of the King of Khwarizm (Khiva), and drove him into Sindh. Then there was a lull for twenty years, after which the Mongol war hordes ruined and ravaged the Panjab for two generations. Two great Panjab governors, Sher Khan under Balban and Tughlak under Ala ud din Khalji, maintained a gallant struggle against these savages. In 1297 and 1303 the Mongols came to the gates of Delhi, but the city did not fall, and soon after they ceased to harry Northern India. During these years the misery of the common people must often have been extreme. When foreign raids ceased for a time they were plundered by their own rulers. In the Panjab the fate of the peasantry must have depended chiefly on the character of the governor for the time being, and of the local feudatories or zamindars, who were given the right to collect the State's share of the produce on condition of keeping up bodies of armed men for service when required.

The Invasion of Timur.—The long reign of Muhammad Tughlak's successor, Firoz Shah (1351-1388), son of a Hindu Rajput princess of Dipalpur, brought relief to all classes. Besides adopting a moderate fiscal policy, he founded towns like Hissar and Fatehabad, dug canals from the Jamna and the Sutlej, and carried out many other useful works. On his death the realm fell into confusion. In 1398-99 another appalling calamity fell upon it in the invasion of Timurlang (Tamerlane), Khan of Samarkand. He entered India at the head of 90,000 horsemen, and marched by Multan, Dipalpur, Sirsa, Kaithal, and Panipat to Delhi. What lust of blood was to the Mongols, religious hatred was to Timur and his Turks. Ten thousand Hindus were put to the sword at Bhatner and 100,000 prisoners were massacred before the victory at Delhi. For the three days' sack of the royal city Timur was not personally responsible. Sated with the blood of lakhs of infidels sent "to the fires of Hell" he marched back through Kangra and Jammu to the Indus. Six years later the House of Tughlak received a deadly wound when the Wazir, Ikbal Khan, fell in battle with Khizr Khan, the governor of Multan.

The later Dynasties.—The Saiyyids, who were in power from 1414 to 1451, only ruled a small territory round Delhi. The local governors and the Hindu chiefs made themselves independent. Sikandar Lodi (1488-1518) reduced them to some form of submission, but his successor, Ibrahim, drove them into opposition by pushing authority further than his power justified. An Afghan noble, Daulat Khan, rebelled in the Panjab. There is always an ear at Kabul listening to the first sounds of discord and weakness between Peshawar and Delhi. Babar, a descendant of Timur, ruled a little kingdom there. In 1519 he advanced as far as Bhera. Five years later his troops burned the Lahore bazar, and sacked Dipalpur. The next winter saw Babar back again, and this time Delhi was his goal. On the 21st of April, 1526, a great battle at Panipat again decided the fate of India, and Babar entered Delhi in triumph.

Akbar and his successors.—He soon bequeathed his Indian kingdom to his son Humayun, who lost it, but recovered it shortly before his death by defeating Sikandar Sur at Sirhind. In 1556 Akbar succeeded at the age of 13, and in the same year Bahram Khan won for his master a great battle at Panipat and seated the Moghals firmly on the throne. For the next century and a half, till their power declined after the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, Kabul and Delhi were under one rule, and the Panjab was held in a strong grasp. When it was disturbed the cause was rebellions of undutiful sons of the reigning Emperor, struggles between rival heirs on the Emperor's death, or attempts to check the growing power of the Sikh Gurus. The empire was divided into subahs, and the area described in this book embraced subahs Lahore and Multan, and parts of subahs Delhi and Kabul. Kashmir and the trans-Indus tract were included in the last.

The Sultans of Kashmir.—The Hindu rule in Kashmir had broken down by the middle of the twelfth century. A long line of Musalman Sultans followed. Two notable names emerge in the end of the fourteenth and the first half of the fifteenth century, Sikandar, the "Idol-breaker," who destroyed most of the Hindu temples and converted his people to Islam, and his wise and tolerant successor, Zain-ul-abidin. Akbar conquered Kashmir in 1587.

Moghal Royal Progresses to Kashmir.—His successors often moved from Delhi by Lahore, Bhimbar, and the Pir Panjal route to the Happy Valley in order to escape the summer heats. Bernier has given us a graphic account of Aurangzeb's move to the hills in 1665. On that occasion his total following was estimated to amount to 300,000 or 400,000 persons, and the journey from Delhi to Lahore occupied two months. The burden royal progresses on this scale must have imposed on the country is inconceivable. Jahangir died in his beloved Kashmir. He planted the road from Delhi to Lahore with trees, set up as milestones the kos minars, some of which are still standing, and built fine sarais at various places.

Prosperity of Lahore under Akbar, Jahangir, and Shahjahan.—The reigns of Akbar and of his son and grandson were the heyday of Lahore. It was the halfway house between Delhi and Kashmir, and between Agra and Kabul. The Moghal Court was often there. Akbar made the city his headquarters from 1584 to 1598. Jahangir was buried and Shahjahan was born at Lahore. The mausoleum of the former is at Shahdara, a mile or two from the city. Shahjahan made the Shalimar garden, and Ali Mardan Khan's Canal, the predecessor of our own Upper Bari Doab Canal, was partly designed to water it. Lahore retained its importance under Aurangzeb, till he became enmeshed in the endless Deccan wars, and his successor, Bahadur Shah, died there in 1712.

Baba Nanak, the first Guru.—According to Sikh legend Babar in one of his invasions had among his prisoners their first Guru, Baba Nanak, and tried to make him a Musalman. Nanak was born in 1469 at Talwandi, now known as Nankana Sahib, 30 miles to the south-west of Lahore, and died twelve years after Babar's victory at Panipat. He journeyed all over India, and, if legend speaks true, even visited Mecca. His propaganda was a peaceful one. A man of the people himself, he had a message to deliver to a peasantry naturally impatient of the shackles of orthodox Hinduism. Sikhism is the most important of all the later dissents from Brahmanism, which represent revolts against idolatry, priestly domination, and the bondage of caste and ritual. These things Nanak unhesitatingly condemned, and in the opening lines of his Japji, the morning service which every true Sikh must know by heart, he asserted in sublime language the unity of God.



The Gurus between Nanak and Govind.—The first three successors of Nanak led the quiet lives of great eastern saints. They managed to keep on good terms with the Emperor and generally also with his local representatives. The fifth Guru, Arjan (1581-1606), began the welding of the Sikhs into a body fit to play a part in secular politics. He compiled their sacred book, known as the Granth Sahib, and made Amritsar the permanent centre of their faith. The tenets of these early Gurus chimed in with the liberal sentiments of Akbar, and he treated them kindly. Arjan was accused of helping Khusru, Jahangir's rebellious son, and is alleged to have died after suffering cruel tortures.

Hitherto there had been little ill-will between monotheistic Sikhs and Muhammadans. Henceforth there was ever-increasing enmity. The peasant converts to the new creed had many scores against Turk officials to pay off, while the new leader Hargovind (1606-1645), had the motive of revenge. He was a Guru of a new type, a lover of horses and hawks, and a man of war. He kept up a bodyguard, and, when danger threatened, armed followers flocked to his standard. The easy-going Jahangir (1605-1627) on the whole treated him well. Shahjahan (1627-1659) was more strict or less prudent, and during his reign there were several collisions between the imperial troops and the Guru's followers. Hargovind was succeeded by his grandson, Har Rai (1645-1661). The new Guru was a man of peace. Har Rai died in 1661, having nominated his younger son, Harkrishn, a child of six, as his successor. His brother, Ram Rai, disputed his claim, but Aurangzeb confirmed Harkrishn's appointment. He died of small pox in 1664 and was succeeded by his uncle, Teg Bahadur (1664-1675), whose chief titles to fame are his execution in 1675, his prophecy of the coming of the English, and the fact that he was the father of the great tenth Guru, Govind. It is said that when in prison at Delhi he gazed southwards one day in the direction of the Emperor's zanana. Charged with this impropriety, he replied: "I was looking in the direction of the Europeans, who are coming to tear down thy pardas and destroy thine empire."



Guru Govind Singh.—When Govind (1675-1708) succeeded his father, Aurangzeb had already started on the course of persecution which fatally weakened the pillars of Turkish rule. Govind grew up with a rooted hatred of the Turks, and a determination to weld his followers into a league of fighting men or Khalsa (Ar. khalis = pure), admission into which was by the pahul, a form of military baptism. Sikhs were henceforth to be Singhs (lions). They were forbidden to smoke, and enjoined to wear the five k's, kes, kangha, kripan, kachh, and kara (uncut hair, comb, sword, short drawers, and steel bracelet). He established himself at Anandpur beyond the Hoshyarpur Siwaliks. Much of his life was spent in struggles with his neighbours, the Rajput Hill Rajas, backed from time to time by detachments of imperial troops from Sirhind. In 1705 two of his sons were killed fighting and two young grandsons were executed at Sirhind. He himself took refuge to the south of the Sutlej, but finally decided to obey a summons from Aurangzeb, and was on the way to the Deccan when the old Emperor died. The Guru took up his residence on the banks of the Godavari, and died there in 1708.

Banda.—Before his death he had converted the Hindu ascetic Banda, and sent him forth on a mission of revenge. Banda defeated and slew the governor of Sirhind, Wazir Khan, and sacked the town. Doubtless he dreamed of making himself Guru. But he was really little more than a condottiere, and his orthodoxy was suspect. He was defeated and captured in 1715 at Gurdaspur. Many of his followers were executed and he himself was tortured to death at Delhi, where the members of an English mission saw a ghastly procession of Sikh prisoners with 2000 heads carried on poles. The blow was severe, and for a generation little was heard of the Sikhs.

Invasions of Nadir Shah and Ahmad Shah.—The central power was weak, and a new era of invasions from the west began. Nadir Shah, the Turkman shepherd, who had made himself master of Persia, advanced through the Panjab. Zakaria Khan, the governor of Lahore, submitted and the town was saved from sack. A victory at Karnal left the road to Delhi open, and in March, 1738, the Persians occupied the capital. A shot fired at Nadir Shah in the Chandni Chauk led to the nine hours' massacre, when the Dariba ran with blood, and 100,000 citizens are said to have perished. The Persians retired laden with booty, including the peacock throne and the Kohinur diamond. The Sikhs harassed detachments of the army on its homeward march. Nadir Shah was murdered nine years later, and his power passed to the Afghan leader, the Durani Ahmad Shah.

Between 1748 and 1767 this remarkable man, who could conquer but could not keep, invaded India eight times. Lahore was occupied in 1748, but at Sirhind the skill of Mir Mannu, called Muin ul Mulk, gave the advantage to the Moghals. Ahmad Shah retreated, and Muin ul Mulk was rewarded with the governorship of the Panjab. He was soon forced to cede to the Afghan the revenue of four districts. His failure to fulfil his compact led to a third invasion in 1752, and Muin ul Mulk, after a gallant defence of Lahore, had to submit. In 1755-56 Ahmad Shah plundered Delhi and then retired, leaving his son, Timur, to represent him at Lahore. Meanwhile the Sikhs had been gathering strength. Then, as now, they formed only a fraction of the population. But they were united by a strong hatred of Muhammadan rule, and in the disorganized state of the country even the loose organization described below made them formidable. Owing to the weakness of the government the Panjab became dotted over with forts, built by local chiefs, who undoubtedly lived largely by plunder. The spiritual organization under a Guru being gone, there gradually grew up a political and military organization into twelve misls, in which "a number of chiefs agreed, after a somewhat democratic and equal fashion, to fight under the general orders of some powerful leader" against the hated Muhammadans. The misls often fought with one another for a change. In the third quarter of the eighteenth century Sardar Jassa Singh of Kapurthala, head of the Ahluwalia misl, was the leading man among the Sikhs. Timur having defiled the tank at Amritsar, Jassa Singh avenged the insult by occupying Lahore in 1756, and the Afghan prince withdrew across the Indus. Adina Beg, the governor of the Jalandhar Doab, called in the Mahrattas, who drove the Sikhs out in 1758. Ahmad Shah's fifth invasion in 1761 was rendered memorable by his great victory over the Mahratta confederacy at Panipat. When he returned to Kabul, the Sikhs besieged his governor, Zin Khan, in Sirhind. Next year Ahmad Shah returned, and repaid their audacity by a crushing defeat near Barnala.

They soon rallied, and, in 1763, under Jassa Singh Ahluwalia and Raja Ala Singh of Patiala razed Sirhind to the ground. After the sack the Sikh horsemen rode over the plains between Sirhind and Karnal, each man claiming for his own any village into which in passing he had thrown some portion of his garments. This was the origin of the numerous petty chiefships and confederacies of horsemen, which, along with the Phulkian States, the British Government took under its protection in 1808. In 1764 the chiefs of the Bhangi misl occupied Lahore.



CHAPTER XIX

HISTORY (continued). THE SIKH PERIOD, 1764-1849 A.D.

Rise of Ranjit Singh.—The Bhangis held Lahore with brief intervals for 25 years. In 1799, Ranjit Singh, basing his claim on a grant from Shah Zaman, the grandson of Ahmad Shah, drove them out, and inaugurated the remarkable career which ended with his death in 1839. When he took Lahore the future Maharaja was only nineteen years of age. He was the head of the Sukarchakia misl, which had its headquarters at Gujranwala. Mean in appearance, his face marked and one eye closed by the ravages of smallpox, he was the one man of genius the Jat tribe has produced. A splendid horseman, a bold leader, a cool thinker untroubled with scruples, an unerring judge of character, he was bound to rise in such times. He set himself to put down every Sikh rival and to profit by the waning of the Durani power to make himself master of their possessions in the Panjab. Pluck, patience, and guile broke down all opposition among the Manjha Sikhs. The Sikh chiefs to the south of the Sutlej were only saved from the same fate by throwing themselves in 1808 on the protection of the English, who six years earlier had occupied Delhi, and by taking under their protection the blind old Emperor, Shah Alam, had virtually proclaimed themselves the paramount power in India. For 44 years he had been only a piece in the game played by Mahrattas, Rohillas, and the English in alliance with the Nawab Wazir of Oudh.



British supremacy established in India.—In the first years of the nineteenth century the Marquess of Wellesley had made up his mind that the time was ripe to grasp supreme power in India. The motive was largely self-preservation. India was included in Napoleon's vast plans for the overthrow of England, and Sindhia, with his army trained in European methods of warfare by French officers, seemed a likely confederate. Colonel Arthur Wellesley's hard-won battle at Assaye in September, 1803, and Lord Lake's victories on the Hindan and at Laswari in the same year, decided the fate of India. Delhi was occupied, and Daulat Rao Sindhia ceded to the company territory reaching from Fazilka on the Sutlej to Delhi on the Jamna, and extending along that river northwards to Karnal and southwards to Mewat. Fazilka and a large part of Hissar then formed a wild desert tract called Bhattiana, over which no effective control was exercised till 1818. In 1832 "the Delhi territory" became part of the North-West Provinces, from which it was transferred to the Panjab after the Mutiny.

Relations of Ranjit Singh with English.—In December, 1808, Ranjit Singh was warned that by the issue of the war with Sindhia the Cis-Sutlej chiefs had come under British protection. The Maharaja was within an ace of declaring war, or let the world think so, but his statesmanlike instincts got the better of mortified ambition, and in April, 1809, he signed a treaty pledging himself to make no conquests south and east of the Sutlej. The compact so reluctantly made was faithfully observed. In 1815, as the result of war with the Gurkhas, the Rajput hill states lying to the south of the Sutlej came under British protection.

Extension of Sikh Kingdom in Panjab.—As early as 1806, when he reduced Jhang, Ranjit Singh began his encroachments on the possessions of the Duranis in the Panjab. Next year, and again in 1810 and 1816, Multan was attacked, but the strong fort was not taken till 1818, when the old Nawab, Muzaffar Khan, and five of his sons, fell fighting at the gate. Kashmir was first attacked in 1811 and finally annexed in 1819. Called in by the great Katoch Raja of Kangra, Sansar Chand, in 1809, to help him against the Gurkhas, Ranjit Singh duped both parties, and became master of the famous fort. Many years later he annexed the whole of the Kangra hill states. By 1820 the Maharaja was supreme from the Sutlej to the Indus, though his hold on Hazara was weak. Peshawar became tributary in 1823, but it was kept in subjection with much difficulty. Across the Indus the position of the Sikhs was always precarious, and revenue was only paid when an armed force could be sent to collect it. As late as 1837 the great Sikh leader, Hari Singh Nalwa, fell fighting with the Afghans at Jamrud. The Barakzai, Dost Muhammad, had been the ruler of Kabul since 1826. In 1838, when the English launched their ill-starred expedition to restore Shah Shuja to his throne, Ranjit Singh did not refuse his help in the passage through the Panjab. But he was worn out by toils and excesses, and next year the weary lion of the Panjab died. He had known how to use men. He employed Jat blades and Brahman and Muhammadan brains. Khatris put both at his service. The best of his local governors was Diwan Sawan Mal, who ruled the South-West Panjab with much profit to himself and to the people. After 1820 the three Jammu brothers, Rajas Dhian Singh, Suchet Singh, and Gulab Singh, had great power.

Successors of Ranjit Singh.—From 1839 till 1846 an orgy of bloodshed and intrigue went on in Lahore. Kharak Singh, the Maharaja's son, died in 1840, and on the same day occurred the death of his son Nao Nihal Singh, compassed probably by the Jammu Rajas. Sher Singh, and then the child, Dalip Singh, succeeded. In September, 1843, Maharaja Sher Singh, his son Partab Singh, and Raja Dhian Singh were shot by Ajit Singh and Lehna Singh of the great Sindhanwalia house. The death of Dhian Singh was avenged by his son, Hira Singh, who proclaimed Dalip Singh as Maharaja and made himself chief minister. When he in turn was killed Rani Jindan, the mother of Dalip Singh, her brother Jowahir Singh, and her favourite, Lal Singh, took the reins.



The First Sikh War and its results.—In 1845 these intriguers, fearing the Khalsa army which they could not control, yielded to its cry to be led across the Sutlej in the hope that its strength would be broken in its conflict with the Company's forces. The valour displayed by the Sikh soldiery on the fields of Mudki, Ferozeshah (Pherushahr), and Sobraon was rendered useless by the treachery of its rulers, and Lahore was occupied in February, 1846. By the treaty signed on 9th March, 1846, the Maharaja ceded the territories in the plains between the Sutlej and Bias, and in the hills between the Bias and the Indus. Kashmir and Hazara were made over by the Company to Raja Gulab Singh for a payment of 75 lakhs, but next year he induced the Lahore Darbar to take over Hazara and give him Jammu in exchange. After Raja Lal Singh had been banished for instigating Shekh Imam ud din to resist the occupation of Kashmir by Gulab Singh, an agreement was executed, in December, 1846, between the Government and the chief Sikh Sardars by which a Council of Regency was appointed to be controlled by a British Resident at Lahore. The office was given to Henry Lawrence.

The Second Sikh War.—These arrangements were destined to be short-lived. Diwan Sawan Mal's son, Mulraj, mismanaged Multan and was ordered to resign. In April, 1848, two English officers sent to instal his Sikh successor were murdered. Herbert Edwardes, with the help of Muhammadan tribesmen and Bahawalpur troops, shut up Mulraj in Multan, but the fort was too strong for the first British regular force, which arrived in August, and it did not fall till January, 1849. During that winter a formidable Sikh revolt against English domination broke out. Its leader was Sardar Chatar Singh, Governor of Hazara. The troops sent by the Darbar to Multan under Chatar Singh's son, Sher Singh, marched northwards in September to join their co-religionists.

On the 13th of January, 1849, Lord Gough fought a very hardly contested battle at Chilianwala. If this was but a doubtful victory, that won six weeks later at Gujrat was decisive. On 12th March, 1849, the soldiers of the Khalsa in proud dejection laid down their weapons at the feet of the victor, and dispersed to their homes.

.]

Annexation.—The cause they represented was in no sense a national one. The Sikhs were a small minority of the population, the bulk of the people being Muhammadans, to whom the English came as deliverers. On the 30th of March, 1849, the proclamation annexing the Panjab was read at Lahore.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: This gun, known to the readers of Kim, stands on the Lahore Mall. Whoever possesses it is supposed to be ruler of the Panjab.]



CHAPTER XX

HISTORY (continued). THE BRITISH PERIOD, 1849-1913

Administrative Arrangements in Panjab.—Lord Dalhousie put the government of the province under a Board of Administration consisting of the two Lawrences, Henry and John, and Charles Mansel. The Board was abolished in 1853 and its powers vested in a Chief Commissioner. A Revenue or Financial Commissioner and a Judicial Commissioner were his principal subordinates. John Lawrence, the first and only Chief Commissioner of the Panjab, became its first Lieutenant-Governor on the 1st of January, 1859. The raising of the Panjab to the full rank of an Indian province was the fitting reward of the great part which its people and its officers, with their cool-headed and determined chief, had played in the suppression of the Mutiny. The overthrow of the Khalsa left the contending parties with the respect which strong men feel for each other; the services of the Sikhs in 1857 healed their wounded pride and removed all soreness.



Administration, 1849-1859.—When John Lawrence laid down his office in the end of February, 1859, ten years of work by himself and the able officers drafted by Lord Dalhousie into the new province had established order on a solid foundation. A strong administration suited to a manly and headstrong people had been organised. In the greater part of the province rights in land had been determined and recorded. The principle of a moderate assessment of the land revenue had been laid down and partially carried out in practice. The policy of canal and railway development, which was to have so great a future in the Panjab, had been definitely started. The province had been divided into nine divisions containing 33 districts. The Divisional Commissioners were superintendents of revenue and police with power to try the gravest criminal offences and to hear appeals in civil cases. The Deputy Commissioner of districts had large civil, criminal, and fiscal powers. A simple criminal and civil code was enforced. The peace of the frontier was secured by a chain of fortified outposts watching the outlets from the hills, behind which were the cantonments at the headquarters of the districts linked together by a military road. The posts and the cantonments except Peshawar were garrisoned by the Frontier Force, a splendid body of troops consisting ultimately of seven infantry and five cavalry regiments, with some mule batteries. This force was till 1885 subject to the orders of the Lieutenant Governor. It never wanted work, for before the Mutiny troops had to be employed seventeen times against the independent tribesmen. East of the Indus order was secured by the disarmament of the people, the maintenance, in addition to civil police, of a strong body of military police, and the construction of good roads. Just before Lawrence left the construction of the Amritsar-Multan railway was begun, and a few weeks after his departure the Upper Bari Doab Canal was opened.



Administration, 1859-1870.—The next eleven years occupied by the administrations of Sir Robert Montgomery and Sir Donald Macleod were a quiet time in which results already achieved were consolidated. The Penal Code was extended to the Panjab in 1862, and a Chief Court with a modest establishment of two judges in 1865 took the place of the Judicial Commissioner. In the same year a Settlement Commissioner was appointed to help the Financial Commissioner in the control of land revenue settlements. Two severe famines marked the beginning and the close of this period. Omitting the usual little frontier excitements, it is necessary to mention the troublesome Ambela campaign in 1863 in the country north of Peshawar, which had for its object the breaking up of the power of a nest of Hindustani fanatics, and the Black Mountain expedition, in 1868, on the Hazara border, in which no fewer than 15,000 men were employed. Sir Henry Durand, who succeeded Sir Donald Macleod, after seven months of office lost his life by an accident in the beginning of 1871.

Administration, 1871-1882.—The next eleven years divided between the administrations of Sir Henry Davies (1871-1877) and Sir Robert Egerton (1877-1882) produced more striking events. In 1872 a small body of fanatics belonging to a Sikh sect known as Kukas or Shouters marched from the Ludhiana district and attacked the headquarters of the little Muhammadan State of Malerkotla. They were repulsed and 68 men surrendered to the Patiala authorities. The Deputy Commissioner of Ludhiana blew 49 of them from the guns, and the rest were executed after summary trial by the Commissioner. Such strong measures were not approved by the Government, but it must be remembered that these madmen had killed ten and wounded seventeen men, and that their lives were justly forfeit. On the 1st of January, 1877, Queen Victoria's assumption of the title of Empress of India (Kaisar-i-Hind) was announced at a great Darbar at Delhi. In 1877 Kashmir, hitherto controlled by the Lieutenant-Governor, was put directly under the Government of India. The same year and the next the province was tried by famine, and in 1878-80 it was the base from which our armies marched on Kabul and Kandahar, while its resources in camels were strained to supply transport. Apart from this its interest in the war was very great because it is the chief recruiting ground of the Indian army and its chiefs sent contingents to help their suzerain. The first stage of the war was closed by the treaty of Gandamak in May, 1879, by which Yakub Khan surrendered any rights he possessed over Khaibar and the Kurram as far as Shutargardan.



Administration, 1882-1892.—During the Lieutenant-Governorships of Sir Charles Aitchison (1882-1887) and Sir James Lyall (1887-1892) there was little trouble on the western frontier. In 1891 the need had arisen of making our power felt up to the Pamirs. The setting up of a British agency at Gilgit was opposed in 1891 by the fighting men of Hunza and Nagar. Colonel Durand advanced rapidly with a small force and when a determined assault reduced the strong fort of Nilt, trouble was at an end once and for all. Within the Panjab the period was one of quiet development. The Sirhind Canal was opened in 1882, and the weir at Khanki for the supply of the Lower Chenab Canal was finished in 1892. New railways were constructed. Lord Ripon's policy of Local Self-government found a strong supporter in Sir Charles Aitchison, and Acts were passed dealing with the constitution and powers of municipal committees and district boards. In 1884 and 1885 a large measure of reorganization was carried out. A separate staff of divisional, district, and subordinate civil judges was appointed. The divisional judges were also sessions judges. The ten commissioners were reduced to six, and five of them were relieved of all criminal work by the sessions judges. The Deputy Commissioner henceforth was a Revenue Collector and District Magistrate with large powers in criminal cases. The revenue administration was at the same time being improved by the reforms embodied in the Panjab Land Revenue and Tenancy Acts passed at the beginning of Sir James Lyall's administration.

Administration, 1892-1902.—The next two administrations, those of Sir Dennis Fitzpatrick (1892-97) and Sir Mackworth Young (1897-1902) were crowded with important events. Throughout the period the colonization of the vast area of waste commanded by the Lower Chenab Canal was carried out, and the Lower Jhelam Canal was formally opened six months before Sir Mackworth Young left. The province suffered from famine in 1896-97 and again in 1899-1900. In October, 1897, a worse enemy appeared in the shape of plague, but its ravages were not very formidable till the end of the period. The Panjab was given a small nominated Legislative Council in 1897, which speedily proved itself a valuable instrument for dealing with much-needed provincial legislation. But the most important Panjab Act of the period, XIII of 1900, dealing with Land Alienation was passed by the Viceroy's Legislative Council. In 1901 a Political Agent was appointed as the intermediary between the Panjab Government and the Phulkian States. On the frontier the conclusion of the Durand Agreement in 1893 might well have raised hopes of quiet times. But the reality was otherwise. The establishment of a British officer at Wana to exercise control over Southern Waziristan in 1894 was forcibly resisted by the Mahsud Wazirs, and an expedition had to be sent into their country. The Mehtar or Chief of Chitral, who was in receipt of a subsidy from the British Government, died in 1892. A period of great confusion followed fomented by the ambitions of Umra Khan of Jandol. Finally we recognised as Mehtar the eldest son, who had come uppermost in the struggle, and sent an English officer as British Agent to Chitral. Umra Khan got our protege murdered, and besieged the Agent in the Chitral fort. He withdrew however on the approach of a small force from Gilgit. Shuja-ul-Mulk was recognised as Mehtar. This little trouble occurred in 1895. Two years later a storm-cloud suddenly burst over the frontier, such as we had never before experienced. It spread rapidly from the Tochi to Swat, tribe after tribe rising and attacking our posts. It is impossible to tell here the story of the military measures taken against the different offending tribes. The most important was the campaign in Tirah against the Orakzais and Afridis, in which 30,000 men were engaged for six months. In 1900 attacks on the peace of the border by the Mahsud Wazirs had to be punished by a blockade, and in the cold weather of 1901-2 small columns harried the hill country to enforce their submission. By this time the connection of the Panjab Government with frontier affairs, which had gradually come to involve responsibility with little real power, had ceased. On the 25th of October, 1901, the North-West Frontier Province was constituted and Colonel (afterwards Sir Harold) Deane became its first Chief Commissioner, an office which he held till 1908, when he was succeeded by Major (now Sir George) Roos Keppel.

Administration, 1902-1913.—The last eleven years have embraced the Lieutenant Governorship of Sir Charles Rivaz (1902-1907), the too brief administration of Sir Denzil Ibbetson (1907-1908), and that of Sir Louis Dane (1908-1913). Throughout the period plague has been a disturbing factor, preventing entirely the growth of population which the rapid development of the agricultural resources of the province would otherwise have secured. It was among the causes stimulating the unrest which came to a head in 1907. A terrible earthquake occurred in 1905. Its centre was in Kangra, where 20,000 persons perished under the ruins of their houses. The colonization of the Crown waste on the Lower Jhelam Canal was nearly finished during Sir Charles Rivaz's administration. Before he left the Triple Canal Project, now approaching completion, had been undertaken. Other measures of importance to the rural population were the passing of the Co-operative Credit Societies' Act in 1903, and the organization in 1905 of a provincial Agricultural Department. The seditious movement which troubled Bengal had its echo in some parts of the Panjab in the end of 1906 and the spring of 1907. A bill dealing with the rights and obligations of the Crown tenants in the new Canal Colonies was at the time before the Local Legislature. Excitement fomented from outside spread among the prosperous colonists on the Lower Chenab Canal. There was a disturbance in Lahore in connection with the trial of a newspaper editor, the ringleaders being students. When Sir Denzil Ibbetson took the reins into his strong hands in March, 1907, the position was somewhat critical. The disturbance at Lahore was followed by a riot at Rawalpindi. The two leading agitators were deported, a measure which was amply justified by their reckless actions and which had an immediate effect. Lord Minto decided to withhold his assent from the Colony Bill, and it has recently been replaced by a measure which has met with general acceptance. When Sir Denzil Ibbetson took office he was already suffering from a mortal disease. In the following January he gave up the unequal struggle, and shortly afterwards died. Sir Louis Dane became Lieutenant Governor in May, 1908. A striking feature of his administration was the growth of co-operative credit societies or village banks. At the Coronation Darbar on 12th December, 1911, the King-Emperor announced the transfer of the capital of India to Delhi. As a necessary consequence the city and its suburbs were severed from the province, with which they had been connected for 55 years. In 1913 Sir Louis Dane was succeeded by Sir Michael O'Dwyer.



CHAPTER XXI

ARCHAEOLOGY AND COINS



Hindu and Buddhist Remains.—The scholar who ended his study of Indian history with the close of the first millennium of the Christian era would expect to find a fruitful field for the study of ancient monuments of the Hindu faith in the plains of the Panjab. He would look for a great temple of the Sun God at Multan, and at places like Lahore and Kangra, Thanesar and Pihowa, for shrines rich with graven work outside and with treasures of gold and precious stones within. But he would look in vain. The Muhammadan invaders of the five centuries which elapsed between Mahmud of Ghazni and the Moghal Babar were above all things idol-breakers, and their path was marked by the destruction and spoliation of temples. Even those invaders who remained as conquerors deemed it a pious work to build their mosques with the stones of ruined fanes. The transformation, as in the case of the great Kuwwat ul Islam mosque beside the Kutb Minar, did not always involve the complete obliteration of idolatrous emblems. Kangra was not too remote to be reached by invading armies, and the visitor to Nurpur on the road from Pathankot to Dharmsala can realize how magnificent some of the old Hindu buildings were, and how utterly they were destroyed. The smaller buildings to be found in the remoter parts of the hills escaped, and there are characteristic groups of stone temples at Chamba and still older shrines dating from the eighth century at Barmaur and Chitradi in the same state. The ruins of the great temple of the Sun, built by Lalitaditya in the same period, at Martand[7] near Islamabad in the Kashmir State are very striking. The smaller, but far better preserved, temple at Payer is probably of much later date. Round the pool of Katas, one of Siva's eyes, a great place of Hindu pilgrimage in the Salt Range, there is little or nothing of antiquarian value, but there are interesting remains at Malot in the same neighbourhood. It is possible that when the mounds that mark the sites of ancient villages come to be excavated valuable relics of the Hindu period will be brought to light. The forces of nature or the violence of man have wiped out all traces of the numerous Buddhist monasteries which the Chinese pilgrims found in the Panjab. Inscriptions of Asoka? graven on rocks survive at Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra in the North-West Frontier Province. Two pillars with inscriptions of the Missionary Emperor stand at Delhi. They were brought from Topra near the Jamna in Ambala and from Meerut by Firoz Shah. The traveller by train from Jhelam to Rawalpindi can see to the west of the line at Mankiala a great stupa raised to celebrate the self-sacrifice of the Bodhisattva who gave his life to feed a starving tigress. There is a ruined stupa at Sui Vihar in the Bahawalpur State. The Chinese pilgrims described the largest of Indian stupas built by Kanishka near Peshawar to enshrine precious relics of Gautama Buddha and a great monastery beside it. Recent excavations have proved the truth of the conjecture that the two mounds at Shahji ki dheri covered the remains of these buildings, and the six-sided crystal reliquary containing three small fragments of bone has after long centuries been disinterred and is now in the great pagoda at Rangoon. In the Lahore museum there is a rich collection of the sculptures recovered from the Peshawar Valley, the ancient Gandhara. They exhibit strong traces of Greek influence. The best age of Gandhara sculpture was probably over before the reign of Kanishka. The site of the famous town of Taxila is now a protected area, and excavation there may yield a rich reward.



Muhammadan Architecture.—The Muhammadan architecture of North-Western India may be divided into three periods:

(a) The Pathan 1191-1320 (b) The Tughlak 1320-1556 (c) The Moghal 1556-1753



In the Pathan period the royal builders drew their inspiration from Ghazni, but their work was also much affected by Hindu influences for two reasons. They used the materials of Hindu temples in constructing their mosques and they employed masons imbued with the traditions of Hindu art. The best specimens of this period are to be found in the group of buildings in Old Delhi or Kila' Rai Pithora, close to Mahrauli and eleven miles to the south of the present city. These buildings are the magnificent Kuwwat ul Islam (Might of Islam) Mosque (1191-1225), with its splendid tower, the Kutb Minar (1200-1220), from which the mu'azzin called the faithful to prayer, the tomb of the Emperor Altamsh (1238), and the great gateway built in 1310 by Ala ud din Khalji. In the second period, named after the house that occupied the imperial throne when it began, all traces of Hindu influence have vanished, and the buildings display the austere and massive grandeur suited to the faith of the desert prophet unalloyed by foreign elements. This style in its beginning is best seen in the cyclopean ruins of Tughlakabad and the tomb of the Emperor Tughlak Shah, and in some mosques in and near Delhi. Its latest phase is represented by Sher Shah's mosque in the Old Fort or Purana Kila'. To some the simple grandeur of this style will appeal more strongly than the splendid, but at times almost effeminate, beauty of the third period. Noted examples of Moghal architecture in the Panjab are to be found in Shahjahari's red fort palace and Jama' Masjid at New Delhi or Shahjahanabad, Humayun's tomb on the road from Delhi to Mahrauli, the fort palace, the Badshahi and Wazir Khan's mosques, at Lahore, and Jahangir's mausoleum at Shahdara. A very late building in this style is the tomb of Nawab Safdar Jang (1753) near Delhi. A further account of some of the most famous Muhammadan buildings will be found in the paragraphs devoted to the chief cities of the province. The architecture of the British period scarcely deserves notice.



Coins.—Among the most interesting of the archaeological remains are the coins which are found in great abundance on the frontier and all over the Panjab. These take us back through the centuries to times before the invasion of India by Alexander, and for the obscure period intervening between the Greek occupation of the Frontier and the Muhammadan conquest, they are our main source of history. The most ancient of the Indian monetary issues are the so-called punch-marked coins, some of which were undoubtedly in existence before the Greek invasion. Alexander himself left no permanent traces of his progress through the Panjab and Sindh, but about the year 200 B.C., Greeks from Bactria, an outlying province of the Seleukidan Empire, once more appeared on the Indian Frontier, which they effectively occupied for more than a century. They struck the well-known Graeco-Bactrian coins; the most famous of the Indo-Greek princes were Apollodotos and Menander. Towards the close of this dynasty, parts of Sindh and Afghanistan were conquered by Saka Scythians from Central Asia. They struck what are termed the Indo-Scythian and Indo-Parthian coins bearing names in legible Greek legends—Manes, Azes, Azilises, Gondophares, Abdagases. Both Greeks and Sakas were overthrown by the Kushans. The extensive gold and copper Kushan currency, with inscriptions in the Greek script, contains the names of Kadphises, Kanishka, Huvishka, and others. In addition to the coins of these foreign dynasties, there are the purely Indian currencies, e.g. the coins of Taxila, and those bearing the names of such tribes as the Odumbaras, Kunindas, and Yaudheyas. The White Huns overthrew the Kushan Empire in the fifth century. After their own fall in the sixth century, there are more and more debased types of coinage such as the ubiquitous Gadhiya paisa, a degraded Sassanian type. In the ninth century we again meet with coins bearing distinct names, the "bull and horseman" currency of the Hindu kings of Kabul. We have now reached the beginning of the Muhammadan rule in India. Muhammad bin Sam was the founder of the first Pathan dynasty of Delhi, and was succeeded by a long line of Sultans. The Pathan and Moghal coins bear Arabic and Persian legends. There were mints at Lahore, Multan, Hafizabad, Kalanaur, Derajat, Peshawar, Srinagar and Jammu. An issue of coins peculiar to the Panjab is that of the Sikhs. Their coin legends, partly Persian, partly Panjabi, are written in the Persian and Gurmukhi scripts. Amongst Sikh mints were Amritsar, Lahore, Multan, Dera, Anandgarh, Jhang, and Kashmir.



FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 7: See page 166.]



CHAPTER XXII

ADMINISTRATION—GENERAL

Panjab Districts.—The administrative unit in the Panjab is the district in charge of a Deputy Commissioner. The districts are divided into tahsils, each on the average containing four, and are grouped together in divisions managed by Commissioners. There are 28 districts and five divisions. An ordinary Panjab district has an area of 2000 to 3000 square miles and contains from 1000 to 2000 village estates. Devon, the third in size of the English counties, is about equal to an average Panjab district.

Branches of Administration.—The provincial governments of India are organized in three branches, Executive, Judicial, and Revenue, and a number of special departments, such as Forests and Irrigation. Under "Judicial" there are two subdivisions, civil and criminal. The tendency at first is for powers in all three branches to be concentrated in the hands of single individuals, development tends to specialization, but it is a matter of controversy how far the separation of executive and magisterial functions can be carried without jeopardy to the common weal.