Part 40 (1/2)

6. When the author wrote the above remarks, Englishmen knew the gallant Gurkhas as enemies only; they now know them as worthy and equal brethren in arms. The recruitment of Gurkhas for the British service began in 1838. The spelling 'Gorkha' is more accurate.

7. The 'kos' varies much in value, but in most parts of the United Provinces it is reckoned as equal to two miles. According to the _N.W.P. Gazetteer_ (p. 568), the nearest approximate value for the Agra kos is 1 3/4 mile. Three kos would, therefore, be equal to about 5 1/4 miles. Muin-ud-din died in A.D. 1236. Sleeman, on I know not what authority, represents Akbar as resorting to Salim Chishti, Shaikh of Fathpur-Sikri, on the advice given by a vision accorded at Ajmer. The _Tabaqat-i-Akbari_ simply records that Akbar had visited the Shaikh, the 'very holy old man' of Sleeman, several times, and had obtained the promise of a son. That promise was fulfilled by the birth of the princes Salim and Murad, who both saw the light at Fathpur-Sikri. The pilgrimage of Akbar on foot to Ajmer, which began on Friday, Shaban (8th month) 12, A.H. 977, took place _after_ the birth of Prince Salim, which occurred on the 18th of Rabi-ul-auwwal (3rd month) of the same Hijri year. Akbar travelled at the rate of 7 or 8 _kos_ a day, and spent about 25 days on the journey (E. & D. v.

333, 334). If he had moved at the rate stated by Sleeman he would have been nearly three months on the road. He reached Ajmer about the middle of February (N.S.). Shaikh Salim Chishti died in A.D. 1572 (A.

H. 979) aged 96 lunar years.

8. Sir Thomas Roe was sent out by James I, and arrived at Jahangir's court in January, 1616. He remained there till 1618, and secured for his countrymen the privilege of trading at Surat. The best edition of his book is that by Mr. William Foster (Hakluyt Soc., 1899).

9. Fathpur-Sikri is fully described and ill.u.s.trated in the late Mr.

E. W. Smith's fine work in quarto ent.i.tled _The Moghul Architecture of Fathpur-Sikri_ (4 Parts, Allahabad Govt. Press, 1894-8), which supersedes all other writings on the subject. The double name of the town means 'Fathpur at Sikri' according to a familiar Indian practice. The name Fathpur ('City of Victory') was bestowed in A.D.

1573 to commemorate the glorious campaign in Gujarat, but building on the site had been begun in 1569. The historians usually call the town simply Fathpur, which name also is found on the coinage, from probably A.H. 977 (A.D. 1569-70). The mint was not in regular working order until eight years later (A.H. 985). Coins continued to be struck regularly at Fathpur until A.H. 989 (A.D. 1581-2). Akbar abandoned his costly foundation a little later. The only coin from the Fathpur mint of subsequent date is one of the first year of Shahjahan (Wright, _Catalogue of Coins in Indian Museum, Mughal Emperors_, 1908, p. xlvii). But Rodgers believed in the genuineness of a zodiacal gold coin of Jahangir purporting to be struck at Fathpur (_J.A.S.B._, vol. lvii (1888), Part I, p. 26).

10. Sleeman's dates and details require much correction. The mosque was completed at some time in the year A.H. 979 (May 26, 1571, to May 13, 1572, o.s.), excepting the Buland Darwaza, which was erected in A.H. 983 (1575-6). The 'old hermit', Shaikh Salim, died on February 13, 1572 (Ramazan 27, A.H. 979). E. W. Smith (_op. cit._, Part IV, p.

1) gives the correct measurements as follow: 'Exclusive of the bastions upon the angles it measures 542' from east to west to the outside of the _liwan_ or sanctuary, or 515' 3” to the outside of the west main wall (which sets back from the outer wall of the liwan) and 438' from north to south. The general plan adopted by Muhammadans for their masjids has been followed. In the centre is a vast courtyard open to the heavens, measuring 359' 10” by 438' 9”, surrounded on the north, south, and east sides by s.p.a.cious cloisters 38' 3” in depth, and on the west by the liwan itself, 288' 2” in length by 65' deep.

It is said to be copied from one at Makka [Mecca], and was erected according to a chronogram over the main arch in A.D. 1571, or at the same time as Rajah Bir Bal's house.' The 'six years before his death'

of Sleeman's text should be 'six months' (Latif, _Agra_, p. 149).

11. The southern portal, known as the Buland Darwaza, or Lofty Gateway, does not match the other gateways. It was built in A.D.

1575-6 (A.H. 983), and was adorned in A.D. 1601-2 (A.H. 1010) with an inscription recording Akbar's triumphant return from his campaign in the Deccan. The date is fixed by a chronogram, preserved in Beale's work ent.i.tled _Miftah-ul-tawarikh_ (_Ann. Progr. Rep. A. S. Northern Circle_, for 1905-6, p. 34, correcting E. W. Smith). Correct measurements are:

From roadway below to pavement . . . 42 feet From pavement to top of finial . . . 134 ”

Breadth across main front . . . . 130 ”

Breadth across back facing the mosque . . 123 ”

Depth . . . . . . . . 88 1/2 feet.

Full details, with ample ill.u.s.trations, are given by E. W. Smith, op.

cit., Part IV, chap. ii. In the original edition of Sleeman a chromolithograph of the gateway is inserted. Photographs are reproduced in _H.F.A._, Pl. xcvi, and Fergusson, _History of Indian and E. Archit._ (ed. 1910), fig. 425.

12. Fergusson (ed. 1910, vol. ii, p. 297) successfully justifies the vast size of the gateway. 'The semi-dome is the modulus of the design, and its scale that by which the imagination measures its magnificence.'

The cramped staircases criticized by Sleeman are those ascending from the pavement to the roof, one on the north-west, and the other on the north-east side of the gate. Each flight has 123 steep steps.

13. See the 105th chapter of the Koran. 'Hast thou not seen how thy Lord dealt with the masters of the elephant? Did he not make their treacherous design an occasion of drawing them into error; and send against them flocks of _swallows_ which cast down upon them stones of baked clay, and rendered them like the leaves of corn eaten by cattle?' [W. H. S.] The quotation is from Sale's translation, but Sale uses the word 'birds', and not '_swallows_'. In his note, where he tells the whole story, he speaks of 'a large flock of birds like swallows'. The Arabic, Persian, and Hindustani dictionaries give no other word than 'ababil' for swallow. The word 'partadil' (purtadeel) occurs in none of them. According to Oates, _Fauna of British India_ (London, 1890), the 'ababil' is the common swallow, _Hirundo rustica_; and the 'mosque-swallow' ('masjid-ababil'), otherwise called 'Sykes's striated swallow', is the _H. erythropygia, H.

Daurica_ of Balfour, _Cyclop. of India_, 3rd ed., s.v. Hirundinidae.

This latter species is the 'little piebald thing' mentioned by the author.

14. Muh. Latif (Agra, pp. 146, 147) gives the text and English rendering of the inscription, which is in Persian, except the _logion_ ascribed to Jesus, which is in Arabic. His translation of the Jesus saying is as follows:

'So said Jeans, on whom be peace! ”The world is a bridge; pa.s.s over it, but build no house on it. He who reflected on the distresses of the Day of Judgement gained pleasure everlasting.

'”Worldly pleasures are but momentary; spend, then, thy life in devotion and remember that what remains of it is valueless”.'

Like the author, I am unable to trace the source of the quotation.

The inscription probably was recorded after Akbar's breach with Islam, which may be dated from 1579 or 1580. When he built the mosque, in 1571-5, he was still a devout Musalman, although entertaining liberal opinions. He died on October 25, 1605 (N.S.; October 15, O.S.)