Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official by William Sleeman

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18. Fergusson thought the Kutb Minar superior to Giotto's campanile
at Florence in 'poetry of design and exquisite finish of detail'. He
also held it to excel its taller Egyptian rival, the minaret of the
mosque of Hasan at Cairo, in its nobler appearance, as well as in
design and finish. To sum up, he held the Delhi monument to surpass
any building of its class in the whole world. (_Hist. of Indian and
Eastern Architecture_, ed. 1910, vol. ii, p. 206.)

19. Fergusson (ibid.) was mistaken in supposing that the Kutb Minar
was intended for anything else than a _mazina_, or tower from which
the call to prayers should be proclaimed. It is that and nothing
else. Several examples of early mosques with only one _minar_ each
are known, at Koil and Bayana, in India, as well as at Ghazni and
Cairo. The unfinished _minar_ of Alauddin near the Kutb Minar was
intended for a distinct building, namely, his addition to the
original Kutb mosque. There was no 'other _minar_' connected with the
Kutb Minar.(Cunningham, _A.S.R._ iv (1874), p. ix.)

The current name of the Kutb Minar refers to the saint Khwaja Kutb-
ud-din of Ush, who lies near the tower, and not to Sultan Kutb-ud-din
Aibak or Ibak. The _minar_ was erected, about A.D. 1232, by Sultan
Shams-ud-din Iltutmish (V. A. Smith, 'Who Built the Kutb Minar?'
_East and West_, Bombay, Dec. 1907, pp. 1200-5; B. N. Munshi, _The
Kutb Minar, Delhi_, Bombay, 1911).

All the important monuments at or near Delhi are now carefully
conserved, Lord Curzon having organized effective arrangements for
the purpose.

20. The original edition gives a coloured plate of the Kutb Minar.
The total height stated in the text, 242 feet, is said by Fergusson
(p. 205, note) to be that ascertained in 1794; the present height of
the _minar_, since the modern pavilion on the top has been removed,
is 238 feet 1 inch, according to Cunningham. (_A.S.R._, vol. i, p.
196.) Originally the building was ten, or perhaps twenty, feet
higher. The deep flutings appear to have been suggested by the
_minars_ of Mahmud at Ghazni, 'which are star polygons in plan, with
deeply indented angles'. The Kutb Minar was built by Sultan Iltutmish
alone about A.D. 1232. The statement in most books, including
Fanshawe (pp. 265-8, with plates), that it was _begun_ by Sultan
Kutb-ud-din, is erroneous.

21. The notion of the Hindoo origin of the Kutb Minar, which the
author justly stigmatizes as 'foolish', was taken up by Sir Sayyid
Ahmad Khan, the author of an Urdu work on the antiquities of Delhi,
and by Sir A. Cunningham's assistant, Mr. Beglar, who wasted a great
part of volume iv of the _Archaeological Survey Reports_ in trying to
prove the paradox. His speculations on the subject were conclusively
refuted by his chief in the Preface (pp. v-x) of the same volume. The
minar was built by Hindoo masons, and, in consequence, some of the
details, notably its overlapping or corbelled arches, are Hindoo.

22. This is correct. The Hindoo 'towers of victory' are in a totally
different style.

23. On the misnomer 'Pathans', see _ante_, previous note 6.

24. The Kutb mosque was constructed from the materials of twenty-
seven Hindoo temples. The colonnades retain much of their Hindoo
character. (Fanshawe, p. 259 and plate.)

25. The author's description of the unfinished tower is far from
accurate. The tower was begun, not by Shams-ud-din Iltutmish, but by
Ala-ud-din Muhammad Shah, in the year A.H. 711 (A.D. 1311). It is
about 82 feet in diameter, and when cased with marble, as was
intended, would have been at least 85 feet in diameter, or nearly
double that of the Kutb Minar, which is 48 feet 4 inches. The total
height of the column as it now stands is about 75 feet above the
plinth, or 87 feet above the ground level. (_A.S.R._, vol. i, p. 205;
vol. iv, p. 62, pl. vii; Thomas, _Chronicles_, p. 173, citing
original authorities.) Carr Stephen (p. 67) gives the circumference
as 254 feet, and the height as about 80 feet.

26. Ala-ud-din's additions were never completed. The sack of Delhi by
Timur Lang (Tamerlane) took place in December 1398. The Delhi sacked
by him was the city known as Firozabad.

27. The glory of the mosque is . . . the great range of arches on the
western side, extending north and south for about 385 feet, and
consisting of three greater and eight smaller arches; the central one
22 feet wide, and 53 feet high; the larger side-arches, 24 feet 4
inches, and about the same height as the central arch; the smaller
arches, which are unfortunately much ruined, are about half these
dimensions.' The great arch 'has since been carefully restored by
Government under efficient superintendence, and is now as sound and
complete as when first erected. The two great side arches either were
never completed, or have fallen down in consequence of the false mode
of construction.' (Fergusson, _Hist. of I. and E. Archit._, ed. 1910,
vol. ii, pp. 203, 204). The centre arch bears an inscription dated in
A.H. 594, or A.D. 1198 (Thomas, _Chronicles_, p. 24).

28. Most of the description of the Iron Pillar in the text is
erroneous. The pillar has nothing to do with Prithi Raj, who was
slain by the Muhammadans in A.D. 1192 (A.H. 588). The earliest
inscription on it records the victories of a Raja Chandra, probably
Chandra-varman, chief of Pokharan in Rajputana in the fourth century
A.C. (_E.H.I._, 3rd ed., 1914, p. 290, note). The pillar is by no
means 'small' when its material is considered; on the contrary, it is
very large. That material is not 'bronze, or a metal which resembles
bronze', but is pure malleable iron, as proved by analysis. It has
been suggested that this pillar must have been formed by gradually
welding pieces together; if so, it has been done very skilfully,
since no marks of such welding are to be seen. . . . The famous iron
pillar at the Kutb, near Delhi, indicates an amount of skill in the
manipulation of a large mass of wrought iron which has been the
marvel of all who have endeavoured to account for it. It is not many
years since the production of such a pillar would have been an
impossibility in the largest foundries of the world, and even now
there are comparatively few where a similar mass of metal could be
tumed out. . . . The total weight must exceed six tons.' (V. Ball,
_Economic Geology of India_, pp. 338, 339.) The metal is uninjured by
rust, and the inscription is perfect. An exact facsimile is set up in
the Indian Section of the Victoria and Albert Museum at South
Kensington, The pillar is shown, with the smaller arches of the
mosque, in _H.F.A._ fig. 232. See also Fanshawe, pp. 260, 264, and
plates. The inscription was edited by Fleet (_Gupta Inscriptions_,
1888, No. 32). The dimensions of the pillar are as follows: Height
above ground (total), 22 ft,; height below ground, 1 ft. 8 in.;
diameter at base, 16.4 in.; diameter at the capital, 12.05 in.;
height of capital, 3 1/2 ft. At a distance of a few inches below the
surface it expands in a bulbous form to a diameter of 2 ft. 4 in.,
and rests on a gridiron of iron bars, which are fastened with lead
into the stone pavement. (_A.S.R._, vol. iv, p. 28, pl. v.)

This last prosaic fact, established by actual excavation, destroys
the basis of all the current local legends and spurious traditions.

29. This name is printed Ouse in the author's text. The saint
referred to is the celebrated Kutb-ud-din Bakhtyar Kaki, commonly
called Kutb Shah, who died on the 27th of November, A.D. 1235.
Iltutmish died in April, A.D. 1236 (Beale).

30. The royal tombs are in the village of Mihrauli, close to the
Kutb. See Carr Stephen, op. cit., pp. 180-4, and Fanshawe, pp. 280-4.

31. That is to say, the revenue administration of Bengal, Bihar, and
Orissa in 1765.

32. He is now Emperor, having succeeded his father, Akbar Shah, in
1837. [W. H. S.] He is known as Bahadur Shah II. In consequence of
his having joined the rebels in 1857, he was deposed and banished. He
died at Rangoon in 1862, and with him ended the line of Emperors of
Delhi. He was born on the 24th of October, 1775, and so was in his
sixty-first year when the author met him. His father was about
seventy-eight (eighty lunar) years of age at his death.

33. 'Basant' means the spring. The full name of this festival of the
spring time is the Basant Panchami.

34. According to Harcourt (_The New Guide to Delhi_, 1866), the tomb
of Iltutmish was erected by his children, the Sultanas Rukn-ud-din
and Razia, who reigned in succession after him for short periods,
that is to say, Rukn-ud-din Firoz Shah for six months and twenty-
eight days, and the Empress Razia for about three years, from A.D.
1236 to 1239. (See Carr Stephen, p. 73.) Iltutmish died in April,
A.D. 1236, not in 1235. Fergusson observes that this tomb is of
special interest as being the oldest Muhammadan tomb known to exist
in India. He also remarks (p. 509) that the effect at present is
injured by the want of a roof, which, 'judging from appearance, was
never completed, if ever commenced'. Harcourt (p. 120) states that
'Firoz Shah, who reigned from A.D. 1351 to A.D. 1385 [_sic_, 1388],
is said to have placed a roof to the building, but it is doubtful if
there ever was one, as there are no traces of the same. Cunningham
and Carr Stephen (p. 74) both find sufficient evidence remaining to
satisfy them that a dome once existed. Fanshawe (p. 269) says 'that
the chamber was intended to be roofed is clear from the remains of
the lowest course of a dome on the top of the south wall; but, if it
was built for her father by Sultan Raziya, as seems probable, it is
quite possible that the dome was never completed'. The interior, a
square of 29 1/2 feet, is beautifully and elaborately decorated, and
in wonderful preservation considering its age and the exposure to
which it has been subjected. The walls are over seven feet thick, the
principal entrance being to the east. The tomb is built of red
sandstone and marble; the sarcophagus is in the centre, and is of
pale marble.

35. Sultan Ghiyas-ud-din Balban reigned from February, A.D. 1266 to
1286. I cannot discover any authority for the statement that he
finished the Kutb Minar, and 'added the church'. It is not clear
which 'church', or mosque, the author refers to. For a notice of
Balban's tomb and buildings, see Carr Stephen, pp. 79-81, He
certainly did not finish the Kutb Minar.

36. See _A.S.R._, vol. i, p. 199. '_Top of the Kutb Minar_.--This
octagonal stone pavilion was put up in A.D. 1826 over the Minar by
Major Smith, of the Engineers, who had the superintendence of the
repairs of the Kutb, but it was taken down by the order of
Government' (Harcourt, _The New Guide to Delhi_, p. 123). This
'grotesque ornament' was removed in 1848 by order of Lord Hardinge,
and bereft of its wooden pavilion, which had carried a flag-staff
(Carr Stephen, p. 64; Fanshawe, p. 266). It has now been moved
farther and more out of sight.

37. This alleged outrage does not appear to have really occurred. The
author seems to have been misinformed about the position of Ala-ud-
din's tomb, which still exits in the central room of a building, the
eastern wall of which is in part identical with the western wall of
the extension of the Kutb Mosque, built by Iltutmish (Carr Stephen,
op. cit., p. 88). Fanshawe agrees (p. 272).

38. The tomb desecrated by Mr. Blake is on the right of the road
leading from the Kutb Minar to the village of Mihrauli, and is either
that of Adham Khan, whom Akbar put to death in A.D. 1562 for the
murder of Shams-ud-din Muhammad Atgah Khan, one of the Emperor's
foster fathers, or the neighbouring 'family grave enclosure' of his
brothers, known as the _Chaunsath Khambha_, or Hall of Sixty-four
Pillars. Adham Khan's tomb is still, or was until recently, used as a
rest-house (Fanshawe, pp. 14, 228, 242, 256, 278; Carr Stephen, pp.
31, 200, pl. ii). The best-known of the 'kokahs', or foster-brothers,
of Akbar is Aziz, the son of Shams-ud-din above mentioned. Aziz
received the title of Khan-i-Azam (Von Noer, _The Emperor Akbar_,
transl. by Beveridge, vol. i, pp. 78, 95; and Blochmann, _Ain-t-
Akbari_, vol. i, pp. 321, 323, &c.). The young chief of Jaipur died
in 1834, and in the course of disturbances which followed, the
Political Agent was wounded, and Mr. Blake, his assistant, was killed
(D. Boulger, _Lord William Bentinck_, 'Rulers of India' series, p.
143). I cannot find mention in any authority of Imam Mashhadi. Mr.
Fraser's murder has been fully described _ante_ chapter 64.

CHAPTER 68

New Delhi, or Shahjahanabad.

On the 22nd of January, 1836, we went on twelve miles to the new city
of Delhi, built by the Emperor Shahjahan, and called after him
Shahjahanabad; and took up our quarters in the palace of the Begam
Samru, a fine building, agreeably situated in a garden opening into
the great street, with a branch of the great canal running through
it, and as quiet as if it had been in a wilderness.[1] We had
obtained from the Begam permission to occupy this palace during our
stay. It was elegantly furnished, the servants were all exceedingly
attentive, and we were very happy.

The Kutb Minar stands upon the back of the sandstone range of low
hills, and the road descends over the north-eastern face of this
range for half a mile, and then passes over a level plain all the way
to the new city, which lies on the right bank of the river Jumna. The
whole plain is literally covered with the remains of splendid
Muhammadan mosques and mausoleums. These Muhammadans seem as if they
had always in their thoughts the saying of Christ which Akbar has
inscribed on the gateway at Fathpur Sikri: 'Life is a bridge which
you are to pass over, and not to build your dwellings upon.'[2] The
buildings which they have left behind them have almost all a
reference to a future state--they laid out their means in a church,
in which the Deity might be propitiated; in a tomb where leaned and
pious men might chant their Koran over their remains, and youth be
instructed in their duties; in a serai, a bridge, a canal built
gratuitously for the public good, that those who enjoyed these
advantages from generation to generation might pray for the repose of
their souls. How could it be otherwise where the land was the
property of Government, where capital was never concentrated or safe,
when the only aristocracy was that of office, while the Emperor was
the sole recognized heir of all his public officers?

The only thing that he could not inherit were his tombs, his temples,
his bridges, his canals, his caravanserais. I was acquainted with the
history of most of the great men whose tombs and temples I visited
along the road; but I asked in vain for a sight of the palaces they
occupied in their day of pride and power. They all had, no doubt,
good houses agreeably situated, like that of the Begam Samru, in the
midst of well-watered gardens and shrubberies, delightful in their
season; but they cared less about them--they knew that the Emperor
was heir to every member of the great body to which they belonged,
the _aristocracy of office_; and might transfer all their wealth to
his treasury, and all their palaces to their successors, the moment
the breath should be out of their bodies.[3] If their sons got
office, it would neither be in the same grades nor in the same places
as those of their fathers.

How different it is in Europe, where our aristocracy is formed upon a
different basis; no one knows where to find the tombs in which the
remains of great men who have passed away repose; or the churches and
colleges they have founded; or the serais, the bridges, the canals
they formed gratuitously for the public good; but everybody knows
where to find their 'proud palaces'; life is not to them 'a bridge
over which they are to pass, and not build their dwellings upon'. The
eldest sons enjoy all the patrimonial estates, and employ them as
best they may to get their younger brothers into situations in the
church, the army, the navy, and other public establishments, in which
they may be honourably and liberally provided for out of the public
purse.

About half-way between the great tower and the new city, on the left-
hand side of the road, stands the tomb of Mansur Ali Khan, the great-
grandfather of the present King of Oudh. Of all the tombs to be seen
in this immense extent of splendid ruins, this is perhaps the only
one raised over a subject, the family of whose inmates are now in a
condition even to keep it in repair. It is a very beautiful
mausoleum, built after the model of the Taj at Agra; with this
difference, that the external wall around the quadrangle of the Taj
is here, as it were, thrown back, and closed in upon the tomb. The
beautiful gateway at the entrance of the gardens of the Taj forms
each of the four sides of the tomb of Mansur Ali Khan, with all its
chaste beauty of design, proportion, and ornament.[4] The quadrangle
in which this mausoleum stands is about three hundred and fifty yards
square, surrounded by a stone wall, with handsome gateways, and
filled in the same manner as that of the Taj at Agra, with cisterns
and fruit-trees. Three kinds of stones are used--white marble, red
sandstone, and the fine white and flesh-coloured sandstone of Rupbas.
The dome is of white marble, and exactly of the same form as that of
the Taj; but it stands on a neck or base of sandstone with twelve
sides, and the marble is of a quality very inferior to that of the
Taj. It is of coarse dolomite, and has become a good deal discoloured
by time, so as to give it the appearance, which Bishop Heber noticed,
of _potted meat_. The neck is not quite so long as that of the Taj,
and is better covered by the marble cupolas that stand above each
face of the building. The four noble minarets are, however, wanting.
The apartments are all in number and form exactly like those of the
Taj, but they are somewhat less in size. In the centre of the first
floor lies the beautiful marble slab that bears the date of this
small pillar of a _tottering state_, A.H. 1167;[5] and in a vault
underneath repose his remains by the side of those of one of his
grand-daughters. The graves that cover these remains are of plain
earth strewed with fresh flowers, and covered with plain cloth. About
two miles from this tomb to the east stands that of the father of
Akbar, Humayun, a large and magnificent building. As I rode towards
this building to see the slab that covers the head of poor Dara
Shikoh, I frequently cast a lingering look behind to view, as often
as I could, this very pretty imitation of the most beautiful of all
the tombs of the earth.[6]

On my way I turned in to see the tomb of the celebrated saint, Nizam-
ud-din Aulia, the defeater of the Transoxianian army under Tarmah
Shirin in 1303, to which pilgrimages are still made from all parts of
India.[7] It is a small building, surmounted by a white marble dome,
and kept very clean and neat.[8] By its side is that of the poet
Khusru, his contemporary and friend, who moved about where he pleased
through the palace of the Emperor Tughlak Shah the First, five
hundred years ago, and sang extempore to his lyre while the greatest
and the fairest watched his lips to catch the expressions as they
came warm from his soul. His popular songs are still the most
popular; and he is one of the favoured few who live through ages in
the every-day thoughts and feelings of many millions, while the
crowned heads that patronized them in their brief day of pomp and
power are forgotten, or remembered merely as they happened to be
connected with them. His tomb has also a dome, and the grave is
covered with rich brocade,[9] and attended with as much reverence and
devotion as that of the great saint himself, while those of the
emperors, kings, and princes that have been crowded around them are
entirely disregarded. A number of people are employed to read the
Koran over the grave of the old saint (_scil._ Nizam-ud-din), who
died A.H. 725 [A.D. 1324-5], and are paid by contributions from the
present Emperor, and the members of his family, who occasionally come
in their hour of need to entreat his intercession with the Deity in
their favour, and by the humble pilgrims who flock from all parts for
the same purpose. A great many boys are here educated by those
readers of their sacred volume. All my attendants bowed their heads
to the dust before the shrine of the saint, but they seemed
especially indifferent to those of the royal family, which are all
open to the sky. Respect shown or neglect towards them could bring
neither good nor evil, while any slight to the tomb of the _crusty
old saint_ might be of serious consequence.

In an enclosure formed by marble screens beautifully carved is the
tomb of the favourite son of the present Emperor,[10] Mirza Jahangir,
whom I knew intimately at Allahabad in 1816,[11] when he was killing
himself as fast as he could with Hoffman's cherry brandy. 'This ', he
would say to me, 'is really the only liquor that you Englishmen have
worth drinking, and its only fault is that it makes one drunk too
soon.' To prolong his pleasure, he used to limit himself to one large
glass every hour, till he got dead drunk. Two or three sets of
dancing women and musicians used to relieve each other in amusing him
during this interval. He died, of course, soon, and the poor old
Emperor was persuaded by his mother, the favourite sultana, that he
had fallen a victim to sighing and grief at the treatment of the
English, who would not permit him to remain at Delhi, where he was
continually employed in attempts to assassinate his eldest brother,
the heir apparent, and to stir up insurrections among the people. He
was not in confinement at Allahabad, but merely prohibited from
returning to Delhi. He had a splendid dwelling, a good income, and
all the honours due to his rank.[12]

In another enclosure of the same kind are the Emperor Muhammad
Shah,[13]--who reigned when Nadir Shah invaded Delhi--his mother,
wife, and daughter; and in another close by is the tomb which
interested me most, that of Jahanara Begam, the favourite sister of
poor Dara Shikoh, and daughter of Shah Jahan.[14] It stands in the
same enclosure, with the brother of the present Emperor on one side,
and his daughter on the other. Her remains are covered with a marble
slab hollow at the top, and exposed to the sky--the hollow is filled
with earth covered with green grass. Upon her tomb is the following
inscription, the three first lines of which are said to have been
written by herself:-

Let no rich canopy cover my grave.
This grass is the best covering for the tombs
of the poor in spirit.
The humble, the transitory Jahanara,
The disciple of the holy men of Chisht,
The daughter of the Emperor Shah Jahan.'

I went over the magnificent tomb of Humayun, which was raised over
his remains by the Emperor Akbar. It stands in the centre of a
quadrangle of about four hundred yards square, with a cloistered wall
all round; but I must not describe any more tombs.[15] Here, under a
marble slab, lies the head of poor Dara Shikoh, who, but for a little
infirmity of temper, had perhaps changed the destinies of India, by
changing the character of education among the aristocracy of the
countries under his rule, and preventing the birth of the Maratha
powers by leaving untouched the independent kingdoms of the Deccan,
upon whose ruins, under his bigoted brother, the former rose. Secular
and religions education were always inseparably combined among the
Muhammadans, and invited to India from Persia by the public offices,
civil and military, which men of education and courtly manners could
alone obtain. These offices had long been exclusively filled by such
men, who flocked in crowds to India from Khorasan and Persia. Every
man qualified by secular instruction to make his way at court and
fill such offices was disposed by his religions instruction to assert
the supremacy of his creed, and to exclude the followers of every
other from the employments over which he had any control. The
aristocracy of office was the ocean to which this stream of
Muhammadan education flowed from the west, and spread all over India;
and had Dara subdued his brothers and ascended the throne, he would
probably have arrested the flood by closing the public offices
against these Persian adventurers, and filling them with Christians
and Hindoos. This would have changed the character of the aristocracy
and the education of the people.[16]

While looking upon the slab under which his head reposes, I thought
of the slight 'accidents by flood and field', the still slighter
thought of the brain and feeling of the heart, on which the destinies
of nations and of empires often depend--on the discovery of the great
diamond in the mines of Golconda--on the accident which gave it into
the hands of an ambitions Persian adventurer--on the thought which
suggested the advantage of presenting it to Shah Jahan--on the
feeling which made Dara get off, and Aurangzeb sit on his elephant at
the battle of Samugarh, on which depended the fate of India, and
perhaps the advancement of the Christian religion and European
literature and science over India.[17] But for the accident which
gave Charles Martel the victory over the Saracens at Tours,[18]
Arabic and Persian had perhaps been the classical languages, and
Islamism the religion of Europe; and where we have cathedrals and
colleges we might have had mosques and mausoleums; and America and
the Cape, the compass and the press, the steam-engine, the telescope,
and the Copernican System, might have remained still undiscovered;
and but for the accident which turned Hannibal's face from Rome after
the battle of Cannae, or that which intercepted his brother
Asdrubal's letter, we might now all be speaking the languages of Tyre
and Sidon, and roasting our own children in offerings to Siva or
Saturn, instead of saving those of the Hindoos. Poor Dara! but for
thy little jealousy of thy father and thy son, thy desire to do all
thy work without their aid, and those occasional ebullitions of
passion which alienated from thee the most powerful of all the Hindoo
princes, whom it was so much thy wish and thy interest to cherish,
thy generous heart and enlightened mind had reigned over this vast
empire, and made it, perchance, the garden it deserves to be made.