Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official by William Sleeman

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'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,' in governments as well
as in landscapes; and if the people of India, instead of the living
proofs of what perilous things native governments, whether Hindoo or
Muhammadan, are in reality, were acquainted with nothing but such
pictures of them as are to be found in their histories and in the
imaginations of their priests and learned men (who lose much of their
influence and importance under our rule), they would certainly, with
proneness like theirs to delight in the marvellous, be far from
satisfied, as they now are, that they never had a government so good
as ours, and that they never could hope for another so good, were
ours removed.[31]

For the advantages which we derive from leaving them independent, we
are, no doubt, obliged to pay a heavy penalty in the plunder of our
wealthy native subjects by the gangs of robbers of all descriptions
whom they foster; but this evil may be greatly diminished by a
judicious interposition of our authority to put down such bands.[32]

In Bundelkhand, at present, the government and the lands of the
native chiefs are in the hands of three of the Hindoo military
classes, Bundelas, Dhandelas, and Pawars. The principal chiefs are of
the first, and their feudatories are chiefly of the other two. A
Bundela cannot marry the daughter of a Bundela; he must take his wife
from one or other of the other two tribes; nor can a member of either
of the other two take his wife from his own tribe; he must take her
from the Bundelas, or the other tribe. The wives of the greatest
chiefs are commonly from the poorest families of their vassals; nor
does the proud family from which she has been taken feel itself
exalted by the alliance; neither does the poorest vassal among the
Pawars and Dhandels feel that the daughter of his prince has
condescended in becoming his wife. All they expect is a service for a
few more yeomen of the family among the retainers of the sovereign.

The people are in this manner, from the prince to the peasant,
indissolubly linked to each other, and to the soil they occupy; for,
where industry is confined almost exclusively to agriculture, the
proprietors of the soil and the officers of Government, who are
maintained out of its rents, constitute nearly the whole of the
middle and higher classes. About one-half of the lands of every state
are held on service tenure by vassals of the same family or clan as
the chief; and there is hardly one of them who is not connected with
that chief by marriage. The revenue derived from the other half is
spent in the maintenance of establishments formed almost exclusively
of the members of these families.

They are none of them educated for civil offices under any other
rule, nor could they, for a generation or two, be induced to submit
to wear military uniform, or learn the drill of regular soldiers.
They are mere militia, brave as men can be, but unsusceptible of
discipline. They have, therefore, a natural horror at the thought of
their states coming under any other than a domestic rule, for they
could have no chance of employment in the civil or military
establishments of a foreign power; and their lands would, they fear,
be resumed, since the service for which they had been given would be
no longer available to the rulers. It is said that, in the long
interval from the commencement of the reign of Alexander the third to
the end of that of David the second,[33] not a single baron could be
found in Scotland able to sign his own name. The Bundelkhand barons
have never, I believe, been quite so bad as this, though they have
never yet learned enough to fit them for civil offices under us. Many
of them can write and read their own language, which is that common
to the other countries around them.[34]

Bundelkhand was formerly possessed by another tribe of Rajputs, the
proud Chandels, who have now disappeared altogether from this
province. If one of that tribe can still be found, it is in the
humblest rank of the peasant or the soldier; but its former strength
is indicated by the magnificent artificial lakes and ruined castles
which are traced to them; and by the reverence which is still felt by
the present dominant classes of [_sic_] their old capital of Mahoba.
Within a certain distance around that ruined city no one now dares to
beat the 'nakkara', or great drum used in festivals or processions,
lest the spirits of the old Chandel chiefs who there repose should be
roused to vengeance;[35] and a kingdom could not tempt one of the
Bundelas, Pawars, or Chandels to accept the government of the parish
['mauza'] in which it is situated. They will take subordinate offices
there under others with fear and trembling, but nothing could induce
one of them to meet the governor. When the deadly struggle between
these two tribes took place cannot now be discovered.[36]

In the time of Akbar, the Chandels were powerful in Mahoba, as the
celebrated Durgavati, the queen of Garha Mandla, whose reign extended
over the Sagar and Nerbudda territories and the greater part of
Berar, was a daughter of the reigning Chandel prince of Mahoba. He
condescended to give his daughter only on condition that the Gond
prince who demanded her should, to save his character, come with an
army of fifty thousand men to take her. He did so, and 'nothing
loth', Durgavati departed to reign over a country where her name is
now more revered than that of any other sovereign it has ever had.
She was killed above two hundred and fifty years ago, about twelve
miles from Jubbulpore, while gallantly leading on her troops in their
third and last attempt to stem the torrent of Muhammadan invasion.
Her tomb is still to be seen where she fell, in a narrow defile
between two hills; and a pair of large rounded stones which stand
near are, according to popular belief, her royal drums turned into
stone, which, in the dead of night, are still heard resounding
through the woods, and calling the spirits of her warriors from their
thousand graves around her. The travellers who pass this solitary
spot respectfully place upon the tomb the prettiest specimen they can
find of the crystals which abound in the neighbourhood; and, with so
much of kindly feeling had the history of Durgavati inspired me, that
I could not resist the temptation of adding one to the number when I
visited her tomb some sixteen years ago.[37]

I should mention that the Raja of Samthar in Bundelkhand.[38] is by
caste a Gujar;[39] and he has not yet any landed aristocracy like
that of the Bundelas about him. One of his ancestors, not long ago,
seized upon a fine open plain, and built a fort upon it, and the
family has ever since, by means of this fort, kept possession of the
country around, and drawn part of their revenues from depredations
upon their neighbours and travellers. The Jhansi and Jalaun chiefs
are Brahmans of the same family as the Peshwa.

In the states governed by chiefs of the military classes, nearly the
whole produce of the land goes to maintain soldiers, or military
retainers, who are always ready to fight or rob for their chief. In
those governed by the Brahmanical class, nearly the whole produce
goes to maintain priests; and the other chiefs would soon devour
them, as the black ants devour the white, were not the paramount
power to interpose and save them. While the Peshwa lived, he
interposed; but all his dominions were _running into priesthood_,
like those in Sagar and Bundelkhand, and must soon have been
swallowed up by the military chiefs around him, had we not taken his
place. Jalaun and Jhansi are preserved only by us, for, with all
their religious, it is impossible for them to maintain efficient
military establishments; and the Bundela chiefs have always a strong
desire to eat them up, since these states were all sliced out of
their principalities when the Peshwa was all-powerful in Hindustan.

The Chhatarpur Raja is a Pawar. His father had been in the service of
the Bundela Raja; but, when we entered upon our duties as the
paramount power in Bundelkhand, the son had succeeded to the little
principality seized upon by his father; and, on the principle of
respecting actual possession, he was recognized by us as the
sovereign.[40] The Bundela Rajas, east of the Dasan river, are
descended from Raja Chhatarsal, and are looked down upon by the
Bundela Rajas of Orchha, Chanderi, and Datiya, west of the Dasan, as
Chhatarsal was in the service of one of their ancestors, from whom he
wrested the estates which his descendants now enjoy. Chhatarsal, in
his will, gave one-third of the dominion he had thus acquired to the
strongest power then in India, the Peshwa, in order to secure the
other two-thirds to his two sons Hardi Sa and Jagatraj, in the same
manner as princes of the Roman empire used to bequeath a portion of
theirs to the emperor.[41] Of the Peshwa's share we have now got all,
except Jalaun. Jhansi was subsequently acquired by the Peshwa, or
rather by his subordinates, with his sanction and assistance.[42]

Notes:

1. December, 1835.

2. In the Orchha State. This seems to be the same town which the
author had already visited on his way to Tehri on the 7th December.
_Ante_, Chapter 19 note [15].

3. _Ante_, Chapter 12 following note [9].

4. Sodora in the author's text; see _ante_, Chapter 19, note 11.

5. 'Bow-sacrifice.'

6. The tradition is that a prince of this military class was sporting
in a river with his thousand wives, when Renuka, the wife of
Jamadagni, went to bring water. He offended her, and her husband
cursed the prince, but was put to death by him. His son Parasram was
no less a person than the sixth incarnation of Vishnu, who had
assumed the human shape merely to destroy these tyrants. He vowed,
now that his mother had been insulted, and his father killed, not to
leave one on the face of the earth. He destroyed them all twenty-one
times, the women with child producing a new race each time. [W. H.
S.] The legend is not narrated quite correctly.

7. Rama Chandra, son of Dasaratha.

8. When Ram set out with his army for Ceylon, he is supposed to have
worshipped the little tree called 'cheonkul', which stood near his
capital of Ajodhya. It is a wretched little thing, between a shrub
and a tree; but I have seen a procession of more than seventy
thousand persons attend their prince to the worship of it on the
festival of the Dasahara, which is held in celebration of this
expedition to Ceylon. [W. H. S.] 'As Arjuna and his brothers
worshipped the shumee-tree, the _Acacia suma_, and hung up their arms
upon it, so the Hindus go forth to worship that tree on the festival
of the Dasahara. They address the tree under the name of Aparajita,
the invincible goddess, sprinkle it with five ambrosial liquids, the
'panchamrit', a mixture of milk, curds, sugar, clarified butter, and
honey, wash it with water, and hang garments upon it. They light
lamps and burn incense before the symbol of Aparajita, make
'chandlos' upon the tree, sprinkle it with rose-coloured water, and
set offerings of food before it' (Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed.,
s.v. 'Dasahara'). The 'cheonkul' is the _chhonkar_ or _chhaunkar
(Prosopis spicigera_, Linn.), described by Growse as follows:--

'Very common throughout the district; occasionally grows to quite a
large tree, as in the Dohani Kund at Chaksauli. It is used for
religious worship at the festival of the Dasahara, and considered
sacred to Siva. The pods (called _sangri_) are much used for fodder.
Probably _chhonkar_ and _sangri_, which latter is in some parts of
India the name of the tree as well as of the pod, are both
dialectical corruptions of the Sanskrit _sankara_, a name of Siva;
for the palatal and sibilant are frequently interchangeable' ('List
of Indigenous Trees' in _Mathura, A. District Memoir_, 3rd ed.,
Allahabad, 1883, p. 422). Sundry leguminous trees are used in
Dasahara ceremonies in the different parts of India, under varying
local names.

9. _Credo quia impossibile_.

10. This comparison is not a happy one. The elements in some of the
Hindoo myths specially repulsive to European taste are their
monstrosity, their inartistic and hideous exaggeration, their
accumulation of sanguinary horrors, and their childish triviality.
Few of the classical myths exhibit these characteristics. The vanity
or policy of Tiberius and Alexander in believing themselves to be, or
wishing to be believed, divine, has nothing in common with the
grotesque imagination of Puranic Hinduism.

11. The roots of Hinduism are so deeply fixed in a thick soil of
custom and inherited sentiment, the growth of thousands of years,
that English education has less effect than might be expected in
loosening the bonds of beliefs which seem to every one but a Hindoo
the merest superstition. Hindoos who can read English with fluency,
and write it with accuracy, are often extremely devout, and Hindoo
devoutness must ever appear to an outsider, even to a European as
sympathetic as the author, to be no better than superstition. A
Hindoo able to read English with ease has at his command all the rich
stores of the knowledge of the West, but very often does not care to
taste them. Enmeshed in a web of ritual and belief inseparable from
himself, he remains as much as ever a Hindoo, and uses his skill in
English merely as an article of professional equipment. 'Good works
of history and fiction' do not interest him, and he usually fails to
digest and assimilate the physical or biological science administered
to him at school or college. In fact, he does not believe it. The
monstrous legends of the Puranas continue to be for his mind the
realities; while the truths of science are to him phantoms, shadowy
and unsubstantial, the outlandish notions of alien and casteless
unbelievers. These observations, of course, are not universally true,
and a few Hindoos, growing in number, are able to heartily accept and
thoroughly assimilate the facts of history and the results of
inductive science. But such Hindoos are few, and it may well be
doubted if it is possible for a man really to believe the amount of
history and science known to an ordinary English schoolboy, and still
be a devout Hindoo. The old bottles cannot contain the new wine. The
Hindoo scriptures do not treat of history and science in a merely
incidental way; they teach, after their fashion, both history and
science formally and systematically; grammar, logic, medicine,
astronomy, the history of gods and men, are all taught in books which
form part of the sacred canon. Inductive science and matter-of-fact
history are absolutely destructive of, and irreconcilable with,
veneration for the Hindoo scriptures as authoritative and infallible
guides. It is impossible, within the narrow limits of a note, to
discuss the problems suggested by the author's remarks. Enough,
perhaps, has been said to show that the many-rooted banyan tree of
Hinduism is in little danger of overthrow from the attacks either of
history or of science, not to speak of 'good works of fiction'.

12. A 'dug-out' canoe is rather a shaky craft. When two or three are
lashed together, and a native cot (_charpai_) is stretched across,
the passenger can make himself very comfortable. The boats are poled
by men standing in the stern.

13. _Ante_, Chapter 24, note 1.

14. This prince is not included in the authentic dynastic lists given
in the Chandel inscriptions. He was probably a younger son, who never
reigned. The principal authorities for the history of the Chandel
dynasty are _A.S.R._, vol. ii, pp. 439-51; vol. xxi, pp. 77-90, and
V. A. Smith, 'Contributions to the History of Bundelkhand', in
_J.A.S.B._ vol. 1 (1881), Part I, p. 1; and 'The History and Coinage
of the Chandel (Chandella) Dynasty' in _Ind. Ant._, 1908, pp. 114-48.
A brief summary will be found in _Early History of India_, 3rd ed.
(1914), pp. 390-4. Most of the great works of the dynasty date from
the period A.D. 950-1200.

15. The long ridges of quartz traversing the gneiss are marked
features in the scenery of Bundelkhand.

16. The author always uses the phrase Central India as a vague
geographical expression. The phrase is now generally used to mean an
administrative division, namely, the group of Native States under the
Central India Agency at Indore, which deals with about 148 chiefs and
rulers of various rank. Central India in this official sense must not
be confounded with the Central Provinces, of which the capital is
Nagpur.

17. On this lake theory, see _ante_, Chapter 14, note 13.

18. During a residence of six years in Bundelkhand the editor came to
the conclusion that most of the ancient artificial lakes were not
constructed for purposes of irrigation. The embankments seem
generally to have been built as adjuncts to palaces or temples. Many
of the lakes command no considerable area of irrigable ground, and
there are no traces of ancient irrigation channels. In modern times
small canals have been drawn from some of the lakes.

19. The desolation of the ravines of the rivers of Central India and
Bundelkhand offers a very striking spectacle, presenting to the
geologist a signal example of the effects of sub-aerial denudation.

20. This pretty custom is also described, in Tod's _Rajasthan_; and
is still common in Alwar, and perhaps in other parts of Rajputana
(_N.I. Notes and Queries_, vol. ii (Dec. 1892), p. 152), It does not
seem to be now known in the Gangetic valley.

21. Principalities, and the estates of the talukdars of Oudh also
descend to the eldest son. The author states (_ante_, Chapter 10, see
text before note [10].) that the same rule applied in his time to the
small agricultural holdings in the Sagar and Nerbudda territories.

22. This statement is inexact; Hindoo daughters, as a rule, inherit
nothing from their fathers; a Muhammadan daughter takes half the
share of a son.

23. But it is only the smaller local ministerial officers who are
secure in their tenure of office under native Governments; those on
whose efficiency the well-being of village communities depends. The
greatest evil of Governments of the kind is the feeling of insecurity
which pervades all the higher officers of Government, and the
instability of all engagements made by the Government with them, and
by them with the people. [W. H. S.]

24. _Ante_, Chapter 23, text at note [8].

25. In the Gwalior territory, the Maratha 'amils' or governors of
districts, do the same, and keep gangs of robbers on purpose to
plunder their neighbours; and, if you ask them for their thieves,
they will actually tell you that to part with them would be ruin, as
they are their only defence against the thieves of their neighbours.
[W. H. S.] These notions and habits are by no means extinct. In
October, 1892, a force of about two hundred men, cavalry and
infantry, was sent into Bundelkhand to suppress robber gangs. Such
gangs are constantly breaking out in that region, in most native
states, and in many British districts. See _ante_, chapter 23, text
following note [13].

26. My poor guide had as little sympathy with the prime ministers,
whom the Tehri Raja put to death, as the peasantry of England had
with the great men and women whom Harry the Eighth sacrificed. [W. H.
S.] _Ante_, Chapter 23, beginning to note [9].

27. The cruel practice of impressment for the royal navy is
authorized by a series of statutes extending from the reign of Philip
and Mary to that of George III. Seamen of the merchant navy, and,
with few exceptions, all seafaring men between the ages of eighteen
and thirty-five, are liable, under the provisions of these harsh
statutes, to be forcibly seized by the press-gang, and compelled to
serve on board a man-of-war. The acts legalizing impressment were
freely made use of during the Napoleonic wars, but since then have
been little acted on, and no Government at the present day could
venture to use them, though they have never been repealed. The fleet
sent against the Russians in 1855 was the first English fleet ever
manned without recourse to forcible impressment: see the article
'Impressment' by David Hannay, in _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 11th
ed., 1910. The work by J. B. Hutchinson entitled _The Press-gang
Afloat and Ashore_ (London: Nash, 1913) gives copious details of the
infamous proceedings.

28. The Brahman chief of Jhansi was originally a governor under the
Peshwa. The treaty of November 18, 1817, recognized the then chief
Ramchand Rao, his heirs and successors, as hereditary rulers of
Jhansi. Ramchand Rao was granted the title of Raja by the British
Government in 1832, and died without issue on August 20, 1835
(_N.W.P. Gazetteer_, 1st ed., vol. i, p. 296). See _post_, Chapter
29.

29. The chiefs of Jalaun also were officers under the Maratha
Government of the Peshwa up to 1817. In consequence of gross
misgovernment, an English superintendent was appointed in 1838, and
the state lapsed to the British Government, owing to failure of
heirs, in 1840 (ibid. p. 229).

30. _Ante_ Chapter 23, note 13.

31. Lapse of years has increased the distance and the enchantment, so
that modern agitators and sentimentalists discover marvellous
excellences in the native Governments of the now remote past. The
methods of government in the existing native states have been so
profoundly modified by the influence of the Imperial Government that
these states are no longer as instructive in the way of contrast as
they were in the author's day.

32. The author consistently held the views above enunciated, and
defended the policy of maintaining the native states. He was of
opinion that the system of annexation favoured by Lord Dalhousie and
his Council 'had a downward tendency, and tended to crush all the
higher and middle classes connected with the land'. He considered
that the Government of India should have undertaken the management of
Oudh, but that it had no right to annex the province, and appropriate
its revenues (_Journey through the Kingdom of Oude_, p. 22, &c.).
Since 1858 the policy of annexation has been repudiated. See Sir W.
Lee-Warner, _The Protected Princes of India_ (Macmillan, 1894), and
_The Native States of India_ (1910).

33. A.D. 1249 to A.D. 1371.

34. The Hindi spoken in different parts of Bundelkhand comprises
several distinct dialects: see Kellogg, _A Grammar of the Hindi
Language_, 2nd ed., 1893; and Grierson, _Linguistic Survey_, vol. vi
(1904), pp. 18-23, where the dialects of Eastern Bundelkhand are
discussed. Bundeli, the speech of Bundelkhand proper, will be treated
as a dialect of Western Hindi in a volume of the _Survey_ not yet
published. Sir G. Grierson has favoured me with perusal of the
proofs, and has used materials collected by me in the Hamirpur
District nearly forty years ago. Bundeli has a considerable
literature.

35. The editor was told of a case in which two chiefs suffered for
beating their drums in Mahoba.

36. See _ante_, Chapter 23 note 11, and Chapter 26 note 14, and the
authorities there cited. The Chandel history occupies an important
place in the mediaeval annals of India. Several important
inscriptions of the dynasty have been correctly edited in the
_Epigraphia Indica_. Mahoba is not now a 'ruined city'; it is a
moderately prosperous country town, with a tolerable bazaar, and
about eleven thousand inhabitants. It is the head-quarters of a
'tahsildar', or sub-collector, and a station on the Midland Railway.
The ruined temples and places in and near the town are of much
interest. For many miles round the country is full of remarkable
remains, some of which are in fairly good preservation. The published
descriptions of these works are far from being exhaustive. The author
was mistaken in supposing that the power of the Chandels was broken
by the Bundelas. The last Chandel king, who ruled over an extensive
dominion, was Paramardi Deva, or Parmal. This prince was defeated in
a pitched battle, or rather a series of battles, near the Betwa
river, by Prithiraj Chauhan, king of Kanauj, in the year 1182. A few
years later, the victor was himself vanquished and slain by the
advancing Muhammadans. Mahoba and the surrounding territories then
passed through many vicissitudes, imperfectly recorded in the pages
of history, and were ruled from time to time by Musalmans, Bhars,
Khangars, and others. The Bundelas, an offshoot of the Gaharwar clan,
did not come into notice before the middle of the fourteenth century,
and first became a power in India under the leadership of Champat
Rai, the contemporary of Jahangir and Shah Jahan, in the first half
of the seventeenth century. The line of Chandel kings was continued
in the persons of obscure local chiefs, whose very names are, for the
most part, forgotten. The story of Durgavati, briefly told in the
text, casts a momentary flash of light on their obscurity. The
principal nobleman of the Chandel race now occupying a dignified
position is the Raja of Gidhaur in the Mungir (Monghyr) district of
Bengal, whose ancestor emigrated from Mahoba.

The war between the Chandels and Chauhans is the subject of a long
section or canto of the Hindi epic, the _Chand-Raisa_, written by
Chand Bardai, the court poet of Prithiraj, of which the original MS.
in 5,000 verses still exists. It was subsequently expanded to 125,000
verses (_E.H.I._, 3rd ed., 1914, p. 387 note). The war is also the
theme of the songs of many popular rhapsodists. The story is, of
course, encrusted with a thick deposit of miraculous legend, and none
of the details can be relied on. But the fact and the date of the war
are fully proved by incontestable evidence.