India of Aurangzeb
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SANYAL & Co., WiTH THE INDIA OF WITH EXTRACTS FROM AND THE CHASAB TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED BY JADUNATH SARKAR, M.A, OF EKGLJSH LITERATURE, PATNA COLLEGE. ABBREVIATIONS. A.VThe Ain-i-Akbari, trans, by Blochmann and Jarret Ain) (Bibliotheca IndicaV A... The Indian Atlas (see p. 167 . A. & C. Gaz. ...The Agra and Calcutta Gazetteer, 4 vols. (Calcutta 1842). Al-Badaoni...The Muntakhabu t~Tawarikh trans, Rankini } by and Lowe (Bibliotheca Indica). Eayley... Gujarat. (W. H. Allen, 1886). C...The Chahar Gulshan Cunningham... History of the Sikhs> 2nd ed., 1853. Dora... History of the Afghans, 2 pts. (O. T. F., 1829-36). Duff- History of the Mahrattas, 3 vols. (1826). Elliot... History of India, by Elliot and Dowson, 8 vols. Ferishta...Briggs's translation, 4 vols. (1829). /. G. or Gars. ...The Gazetteer India 2nd Imp. Imperial of , edition. K...The Khulasatii-t Tawarikh. * , \ . .Letts's Atlas. Y Popular Malcolm... History of Persia, 2 vols. (1829; m... miles. m...mahals. ... footnote. ...Tod's Rajasthan^ Rajasthan, 2 vols (Indian Publication Society, Tod J Calcutta, 1897-99) Rev. Res. ...The Revenue Resources the of Mughal Empire\ by E. Thomas. Stein... Memoir on Maps of Ancient Kashmir (Asiatic Society of Bengal). Stewart...History of Bengal, (Calcutta, 1847). Tieff. ...Tieffenthaler's Geographic de /' Indoustan (being Vol. I. of Bernoulli's Description de f Inde, Berlin, 1786). IX C H A P T SCOPE AND MATERIALS. Nobody can be more sensible of the imperfections of this book than the author. But he hopes that nobody . , . _. Author's apology. , who knows what it is to translate a Persian work bristling with obscure geographical names from a single and incorrectly transcribed manuscript, will be hard upon him for these imperfections. In antiquities continual supersession is the rule. The path of the Indian antiquarian is, moreover, beset with peculiar difficulties. It is seldom that the requisite materials are all accessible to him. He has to settle the texts of his authorities, few of which have been printed and fewer still edited. He is expected to correct and identify wrongly-spelt proper names, though he has often no second manuscript to collate with the one lying before him. Then, again, he can expect very little help from brother-antiquarians, because the field is large and the labourers few Pandits and Maulavis are of little assistance except in throwing light on the grammar or explaining the pro- bably meaning of the text. They are ignorant of historical criticism the usual materials on which the ; antiquarian works being obscure books and not classics, they arc never studied as text-books or even read for pleasure by our Pandits arid Maulavis. The historical student in India is thrown almost entirely on his own resources. He may, therefore, claim a partial, if not a plenary, pardon for his sins. To expect perfection in such a branch of study is hardly more reasonable than to ask a goldsmith to give a proof of his professional skill by prospecting for gold, digging the mine, extracting and refining the ore, and then making the ornament. often one. Our task is, therefore, a thankless The very nature of the subject precludes any high degree of excellence, at least what would be regarded as excellence by those familiar with the brilliant results achieved by the students of European and the Indian for all his is rewarded history ; antiquarian pains X INDIA OF AURANGZIB. [I. with censure. In spite of the great risk of failure, I have been tempted to step into the field, by the importance of the subject treated here. A contribution to our knowledge of it, thougb im- perfect, may still have its value. The Ain-i-Akban gives "the Administration Report and Statistical Return of Akbar's government as " lt in of was IS94 A D '' with a minuteness aetail and accuracy of information which leave little to be desired. But, for the remaining century and a half during which the Ikjghal Empire lasted, we have no statistical record in English. With the consolidation of the British Power in India we again emerge into light. We have the works of Rennell, Buchanan-Hamilton and other explorers of the early British period. The East India Company was renowned for its liberal patronage of literature dealing with India, and we are in no want of materials for a statistical study of India even before the publication of Hamilton's East India Gazetteer (c. 1830.) There is, thus, a gap in our knowledge of Indian topography and statistics for the period extending from 1595 to 1760 A. D. This to be filled for there is of gap ought up, no wajjit materials for a study of this period from the point of view indicated above First, there are the professed attempts at the description of India made in contemporary Persian works, like the Khulasdtu-t- Tawdrikh and the Chahdr Gulshan* extracts from which have been here translated. Unfortunately, these are the only con- temporary works of the class we need. Elliot names another, the Hadiqatu-l-Aqalim, but it is much later in date. Secondly, M A there arc incidental mentions of facts that are (6) Side-lights, important for our study, in the Persian histories of India. But they are so scattered and the books in which they occur have been so seldom I , correctly edited, that have not been able, within the time at my command, to work these materials up ,with anything like fulness. Indeed, an exhaustive study of 'these side-lights on Indian topography would, in the present state *] INDIA OF AURANGZIB. XI of our materials, take up decades. Lastly, we have the works . _ . of accessible to our , Europeanr travellers mostlyy (c) Travels. readers, Bernier and Tavernier, Mannucci, and Tieffenthaler. The Geography of Hindustan of the last is very valuable, being based on several Persian topographical works and the author's own observation during his long residence in India its extreme French have made ; but scarcity and garb* it less known in India than Bernier's Trawls. From these works we get, among other things, details of the Mughal revenue which have been embodied by Thomas in his Revenue Resources of the Mughal Empire. Rcnnell's Atlas (Folio, 1781), invaluable as it It of otherwise is, does not strictly fall into this class. treats British India. The Khulasatu-t-tawarikh. Elliot calls the author "Subhan Rai Khattri, an inhabitant of Asiatic Pattiala." (viii, 5) In the Bengal Society's Catalogue of Persian Works> he is named Sujan Rai But on the last page of the Society's MS. D. 156 (which 1 call the A-text), the author's name is spelt carelessly and looks like "Sajan Rai Nahdari.''f Among the pious founders of Batala, our author mentions a "Sujan Singh 1 ' Qanongo (p 85 of my translation), but we cannot know for certain whether that person was the same as our author. His birthplace was mistaken by Elliot for Pattiala, whereas it was really Batala, a town in the Gurdaspur district of the Panjab. (p 83 of translation). From internal evidence the date of composition seems to have been some year between 1695 and 1699 A. D. Date. (i) On page 12 we read * La Geographic de>l Indouslan^ ecrite en Latir Le Pere Joseph TieiTenthaler, being the ist vol. oft et geographique DE L'INDE," by M. Jean Ber t He is here described as "an inhabitant of Bat: Persian, and Sanskrit learning, and was the absolu1 epoch in pleasantness of style and literary skill," xii INDIA OF AURANGZIB. [i. intervened between the death of the Saint Mahiu-d-din Abdul Gilani A and the of this book. This Qadir (in 561 H.) , writing gives 1 1 ! i A. H (1699 A. D.) as the date of the work, (ii) On p. 81 we are told that the book was written more than 40 years "after the commencement." If we take the expression to mean the commencement of Aurangzib's reign, the date would be later than 1107 A H. (1695 A. D.) But if it means the commencement of the work of embanking the Ravi at Lahor (in the 4th year of i e , the reign), the date would be 3 years later, 1698 A. D. (iii) On p. 90 we are told that the book was written in the 23rd year of the pontificate of Guru Govind. i. e., in the 4Oth year of Aurangzib's reign (1107 A H., 1695 A D.) Col. Lees writes, "The author brings his narrative down to the end of the year 1107 A. H. " It was continued for some years later by another hand (Elliot viii. 8.) I find that MS. D 156 ends with the death of Auraiigzib, evidently an addition by a copyist. Elliot tells us, "It was written in 1107 A. JT. (,1695-6 A. D) and occupied two years in its composition" (viii 5) and also that the author wrote in the 4Oth year of the reign of Aurangzib. Its style is the corrupt one characteristic of an age of decadence. It is rhetorical without ceasing Style. to be the prosaic ; embellishments have a tinsel glitter. The author has borrowed certain set phrases which he uses every now and then. Assonance, which is the vice of most Persian writers, degenerates into mere jingle in his hands. Hence the repetitions which in the translation may strike the reader as meaningless "It is a well-known general history. The opening chapters which arc the best portion of the work, give a Scope- good account of the products of Hindustan, and its geography, as known in the time of Aurangzib." The author's account of the early kings of Delhi is brief, and that of the first four Mughal Emperors copious.