# Bulandshahr: or Sketches of an Indian District; Social, Historical and Architectural/Chapter 2

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CHAPTER II.
HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF BULANDSHAHR, FROM ITS FOUNDATION TO THE MUTINY OF 1857 A. D.
In 1824, when the present district of Bulandshahr was first formed, the town bearing that name was selected for its capital, chiefly on account of its very convenient and central situation.
Though a place of immemorial antiquity, it had fallen into decay centuries ago and had ultimately dwindled down into a miserably mean and half-deserted village. A ragged and precipitous hill, on the western bank of the narrow winding stream of the Kálindi, was all that remained of the old Fort, or rather of the succession of Forts, that in the course of 3000 years had been built, each on the accumulated debris of its predecessor. On its summit was an unfinished mosque, commenced by Sábit Khán, the Governor of Kol, in 1730, and huddled about it were some fairly large, but mostly ruinous, brick houses, occupied by the impoverished descendants of the old proprietory community and of local Muhammadan officials, such as the Kázi and the Kánungo. The rest of the population consisted of a small colony of agricultural labourers, scavengers and other menial tribes, who had squatted in their mud huts at the foot and to the west of the hill, where low mounds and ridges of broken bricks and pot-sherds, the vestiges of former habitation, alternated with swamps and ravines that collected the drainage of all the surrounding country and passed it on to the river.
Only sixty years have since elapsed and out of such unpromising materials there has now been developed as bright, cleanly and thriving a little town as can be found anywhere in the Province. The population has increased to upwards of 17,000, but it is still of much less commercial importance than the flourishing mart of Khurjá, which is only ten miles to the south and has the further advantage of possessing a station of its own on the main line of the East Indian Railway. It is, however, a matter for congratulation that in determining the site for the head quarters of the district the larger town was not given the preference; for in point of sanitation there is no comparison between the two places, Bulandshahr by reason of its raised position and consequent facilities for drainage being as healthy as Khurjá is notoriously the reverse.
​The only ground for regret is that when the old historical site was adopted, the old historical name of Baran was not also restored. Bulandshahr, which in English characters especially—has a most cumbrous and barbaric appearance, has no literary authority. Apparently it was imposed by the Muhammadans during the reign of Aurangzeb, when the ruling power was possessed with a mania—like the modern French—for the abolition of every name that suggested recollections of an earlier dynasty. In large towns, such as Mathurá and Brindaban, where also the experiment was tried, the popular appellation was too strongly rooted in the affections of the people to admit of suppression by imperial edict; but in a little place like Baran, where too the majority of the inhabitants happened to be Muhammadans, there was no difficulty in giving effect to the official innovation. The most favourable opportunity for reviving the older and shortername has unfortunately been lost, but even now the change might be effected without causing more than a very slight and merely temporary inconvenience; for the name Baran is still perfectly familiar to the people and even officially it continues to be used as the designation both of the Pargana (or Hundred) and also of the parish, which is a very extensive one; the title Bulandshahr being applied exclusively to the town, and originally only to the Upper Town, or Fort. In meaning, it corresponds precisely with the English 'Higham,' and was suggested by the great elevation of the Castle Hill, which far overtops any other ground for many miles away. It is said by some to have been merely an Urdu rendering of the Hindi Uncha-nagar, a form that had already come into use and would bear the same signification; but, in the absence of any documentary proof of this assertion, I very strongly doubt whether the Hindus under the Delhi Emperors ever knew the place by any other name than that of Baran. There would seem to be no reason why they should substitute one indigenous name for another; while the object that the Muhammadans had, in introducing a name from their own vocabulary, is easily intelligible.
Tradition goes that in prehistoric times the town was called Banchhati—which would mean 'a forest-clearing'—and that it was founded by a Tomar, or Páṇḍava chief from Ahár, named Parmál. The site of this original settlement is the high ground now occupied by the Collector's House and the new Town Hall, and lies immediately to the west of the modern town. The spot used to be known as the 'Moti Chauk,' or 'Moti ​Bazár,' meaning of course not a market where 'pearls' (moti) were sold, but simply a 'handsome' bazar, as we might say in English, ‘a gem of a place'. The large original mound has for many years been intersected by the high road, and was also cut up by a broad and deep ravine. This latter ran down through the town to the river and was a great nuisance. I have now turned back the drainage into a tank called the 'Lál Diggi,' further to the west, near the Magistrate's Court, the overflow from which is carried by a cutting through the fields into the river higher up in its course.
In order to fill up the old ravine I levelled the ridge on its bank and, having enclosed the entire area as an adjunct to the Town Hall, am now converting it into a public garden, which—to perpetuate the old tradition—I have designated the 'Moti Bágh.' There is much vague talk of coins and solid bars of silver discovered there in former years, but in the course of my excavations I came upon nothing of much intrinsic value. Abundant proofs were, however, afforded of the interesting fact that in old times it had been occupied by Buddhists. Among my discoveries were several specimens of the curious plain stone stools, such as are figured in Plate III of Vol. XV of the Archaeological Survey. General Cunningham says they are found of the same general pattern from Taxila to Palibothra and only at Buddhist sites. They were all about 6 inches high, and a foot long; but not one was unbroken. The ground had been so often disturbed before, that it was not possible to trace any definite line of building, but the fragments of walls and pavements yielded an enormous number of large and well-burnt bricks, each measuring as much as a cubit in length by half a cubit in breadth and three inches in thickness. They were mostly marked on one side by two parallel lines drawn by the workman's finger in the damp clay. Many were broken in digging them out, but many also had been laid in a broken state, as was evident from the appearance of the fracture.
Of more exceptional interest were the remains of what would seem to have been a special local manufacture, being some scores of strange earthen-ware flask or vase-like objects. They are all alike in general shape which resembles that of a cocoanut, or fir-cone, one end being pointed like a Roman amphora, with a very small orifice at the other for a mouth. But they vary very much in the patterns with which they have been ornamented, and are of different size, weight and thickness. Some apparently had been squeezed out of shape, before the material of which they were made ​had had time to dry. The spot where they were found is evidently that where they were baked; for, besides the failures, there was also a large accumulation of broken pieces, all mixed in a deep deposit of ashes and the other refuse of a potter's kiln.
Most natives who have seen them think they were meant to hold either gunpowder or oil, which is what the shape suggests; but the material, on account of its weight, seems unsuitable for such a purpose, if the flask was to be carried about on the person; while the pointed bottom makes it awkward for storing. The idea has also been hazarded that they were meant to be filled with gunpowder and then exploded as a kind of fire-work; but, if this were their object, there would scarcely have been so much trouble spent on their ornamentation. A third theory, which has found much favour on the spot, but which at the time I was inclined to reject as altogether untenable, is that they were intended to form a balustrade for a balcony or the roof of a house. At first my own impression was that they were not at all likely to be of the same age as the bricks. The site might have been originally occupied by a fort or a monastery and then deserted for centuries before the potters came and set up their kilns on it, making use for their houses and workshops—of any old building—materials they happened to light upon. But finally I came to the conclusion that the balustrade theory was not so very far wrong, and that these curious objects were manufactured in such numbers in order to serve as finials for miniature Buddhist stupas. The dedication of such votive memorials was a recognized duty on a pilgrimage, and it would obviously be a convenience for worshippers to have an establishment for their manufacture and sale in immediate connection with the shrine. This view is strongly confirmed by the discovery on the same spot of what is unmistakeably a finial. It is of similar configuration and has a similar orifice at one end, which in this case is clearly intended for the admission of a supporting rod. But later again I found a circular flask which is of the same material and of equal weight and is ornamented in exactly the same style. It is, however, easy to grasp in the hand, and apparently was intended to hold oil or some similar fluid, for pouring out drop by drop. Thus the only definite conclusion at which it is safe to arrive is that various articles for different uses were turned out at the same factory, all being characterized by ornamentation of a peculiar local pattern.
​I sent one of these objects, through a friend in England, to the British Museum, where it was considered so curious that I was asked to supply some more. Others were exhibited at a meeting of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and were afterwards transferred to the Indian Museum in Calcutta. In his valuable Catalogue of the Archæological Collections in his charge, recently published, Dr. Anderson, the Superintendent of the Museum, quotes the following note from "Nasmyth's Autobiography," which suggests that these coniferous finials were borrowed from the Greeks:—
"In conection with the worship of the Sun and other heavenly bodies as practised in ancient times Eastern nations, it may be mentioned that their want of knowledge of the vast distances that separate them from the earth led them to the belief that these bodies were so near as to exert a direct influence upon man and his affairs. Hence the origin of Astrology, with all its accompanying mystifications; this was practised under the impression that the Sun, Moon and Planets were near to the earth. The summits of mountains and "High Places" became sacred, and were for this reason resorted to for the performance of the most important religious ceremonies.
"As the High Places could not be transported to the Temples, the cone-bearing trees, which were naturally associated with these elevated places, in a manner partook of their sacred character, and the fruit of the trees became in like manner sacred. Hence the fir-cone became a portable emblem of their sacredness; and accordingly in the Assyrian worship, so clearly represented to us in the Assyrian sculptures in our Museums, we find the fir-cone being presented by the priests towards the head of their kings as a function of beatification. So sacred was the fir-cone, as the fruit of the sacred tree, that the priest who presents it has a reticule-shaped bag, in which, no doubt, the sacred emblem was reverently deposited when not in use for the performance of these high religious ceremonies.
"The same emblem 'survived' in the Greek worship. The fir-cone was the finial to the staff of office of the Wine-god Bacchus. To this day it is employed to stir the juice of the grape previous to fermentation, and so sanctify it by contact with the fruit of the Sacred Tree. This is still practised by the Greeks in Asia Minor and in Greece, though introduced in times of remote antiquity. The fir-cone communicates to most of the Greek wines that peculiar turpentine or resinous flavour which is found in them. Although the sanctification motive has departed, the resinous flavour is all that survives of a once most sacred ceremony, as having so close a relation to the worship of the Sun and the heavenly bodies."
​Most fortunately the presiding genius of the shrine where the finials were found, has also been revealed. The sculpture was dug up some twenty years ago and since then had been kept in an adjoining garden; but several people distinctly remember its being found on the same spot where the recent excavations have been made. The stone is a square block measuring in its mutilated state 1 foot 4½ inches either way, the material being a black trap, not the sang-músa, or black marble, of Jaypur. The principal figure represents the Buddha, enveloped in a thin robe reaching to the wrists and ankles and falling over the body in a succession of narrow folds. His arms are slightly raised in front of his breast, and the thumb and fore-finger of his left hand are joined at the tips, while with his right hand he touches its middle finger, as if summing up the points of an argument. On either side of his throne is a rampant hippogriff, with its back to the sage and rearing its head over a devotee seated in an attitude of prayer. The throne is supported on two recumbent lions, flanked by Hindu caryatides with impossibly distorted limbs as usual; and at the base again are other devotees kneeling on either side of the foutstuol, the front of which is carved with the mystic wheel between two couchant deer. The upper part of the stone has been broken off, carrying with it the head of the principal figure, but what remains is in good preservation and has been well executed. On a ledge in a line with the feet is an inscription in characters apparently of the 9th or 10th century, which reads as follows:
Ye dharmmá hetu-prabhavá hetus teshán tathágato hyavadat teshám cha yo nirodha , evam-vádi mahásramanah.
This would be in English "All things that proceed from a cause, their cause as well as their destruction the Tathágata has declared: such is the dictum of the great philosopher." It is curious that a popular symbol of faith should have been framed with so much tautology in so short a compass, and also with such inadequacy of expression. For the cardinal feature of the doctrine, is, that effects can only be destroyed by destroying their causes, is not stated at all but merely implied.
Another very curious find was a terra cotta seal probably some 1400 years old, but as fresh and clear as if it had been baked only yesterday, and still showing the pressure of the workman's fingers who had handled the clay while it was yet damp. It was inside a closed earthen jar, which ​accounts for its excellent preservation. It is oval in shape, with a dotted rim, and is divided by two parallel lines across the centre into two equal compartments. In the upper are two devices, one of which is a conch shell, the other—which is raised on a little stand—looks like a wing, and may possibly be intended to represent the chakwá, or Bráhmani duck, so frequently introduced in old Indian painting and sculpture. In the lower compartment is the name 'Mattila, in characters of about the 5th century A. D.
It is quite possible that the Fort on the river-bank may also have been founded by Parmál, for the protection of his infant town of Banchhati. Tradition, however, ascribes it to one of his successors, who is made to bear the name of Ahi-baran, interpreted to mean 'cobra-coloured.' But this appears to me to be absolutely untenable. Baran is certainly not the Sanskrit word varna, 'colour,' but varana, ‘a hill-fort or enclosure;' and, Ahi-baran would thus mean 'snake-fort' or 'Nága fort,' in the same way as Ahi-kshetra means 'Snake-land.' No Rája Ahi-baran, I should conjecture, ever existed, though there may well have been an Ahibaran Rája, the town being so called because it was a stronghold of the Nága tribe. Nor is it impossible that the epithet 'Nága,' like the English 'reptile,' may have been attached to a Buddhist community by their Brahmanical neighbours by way of reproach. Another explanation may, however, be suggested. Some twenty-one miles to the north-east of Bulandshahr, on the right bank of the Ganges, is the small town of Ahár, which (according to local tradition) is the spot where, after Paríkshit, the successor of Rájá Yudhishṭhir on the throne of Hastinápur, had met his death by snake-bite, his son Janamejaya, to avenge his father's death, performed a sacrifice for the destruction of the whole serpent race. Though still accounted the capital of a Pargana, it is a miserably poor and decayed place with a population, according to the last census, of only 2,414. It is evidently, however, a site of great antiquity. Part of it has been washed away by the river, but heaps of brick and other traces of ruin still extend over a large area, and I found lying about in the streets several fragments of stone sculpture of early date. These I brought away with me to Bulandshahr, as also a once fine but now terribly mutilated round pillar, which I dug up on the ​very verge of the high cliff overlooking the river. This is specially noticeable as having its base encircled with a coil of serpents, which would seem to corroborate the connection of the local name with the word ahi, 'a snake'. The principal residents of the town are Nágar Bráhmans by descent, though—since the time of Aurangzeh—Muhammadans by religion, who believe that their ancestors were the priests employed by Janamejaya to conduct his sacrifice, and that in return for their services they had a grant of the township and the surrounding villages. Immediately after this event it is said that the Pandavas transferred their seat of local government from Ahár to Baran, and it may be that they then first attached the prefix ahi to the name of the town—so making it Ahibaran—in order to commemorate the circumstances of the migration. This would imply that the town was already in existence; and it might with much plausibility be identified with the Varanávata, mentioned in the 143rd chapter of the first Book of the Mahábhárat.
All this, however, is conjectural and refers to a period so remote, nearly 1400 years before Christ, that no tangible record of it could be expected to survive to the present day. To come down to somewhat later times: the Bactrian dynasty, which flourished in the centuries immediately preceding our era, and the Gupta dynasty that succeeded it, have both left traces behind them. In the rains, copper and gold coins with Greek and Páli inscriptions, used so frequently to be washed down in the debris from the high ground of the old town, at a particular point, now called 'the Manihárs' or bangle-makers' quarter,' that after any heavy storm people made it a regular business to search for them. To prevent further cutting away, the slope was built up with masonry in 1876; but even since then two copper coins of Su-Hermæus, styled Basileus Soter, a gold coin of Chandra Gupta II, and another of an intermediate dynasty, have been picked up, which I presented to the coin cabinet of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.
It may thus be concluded that the town of Baran at the commencement of the Christian era was a place of some wealth and importance; ​while the discovery of the antiquities above described clearly establishes the interesting fact that a little later, from about 400 to 800 A. D., there was a Buddhist community outside the Fort walls, occupying the site now known as the Moti Bágh. The only ancient inscriptions that have been found in the district are distinctly Brahmanical. The oldest is dated in the reign of Skanda Gupta, in the year 146, which—if the Saka era in intended—would correspond with 224 A. D. But this dynasty had an era of its own, which seems more likely to have been the one used, and an element of considerable uncertainty is thus introduced. For the commencement of the Gupta era is a very vexata quœstio among archæologists, being put by some so late as 319 A. D., by others at 190, and now by Gen. Cunningham at 167. A complete transcript and translation of the inscription, by Dr. Rájendralála Mitra, C. I. E., are given in Vol. XLIII of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. It is not in itself of great importance, being simply a provision on the part of a Bráhman, named Deva-vishņu, for the maintenance of an oil lamp, to burn in a temple of the Sun at Indra-pura. The copper-plate on which it is engraved was dug up at Indor, an artificial mound of great elevation and extent, a little off the high road from Anúpshahr to Aligarh, opposite the eighth mile-stone from the former town. As I have shewn at length in my "Mathurá," by an application of the rules laid down by the Prákrit grammarian Vararuchi, the Sanskrit Indra-pura, in the natural course of phonetic decay, must become Indor in the modern vernacular. Besides the inscription, a large number of coins, some of an older type than those of the Asoka period, together with beads, fragments of terra cotta, brass ornaments, toys and other trifles were found by Mr. Carlleyle, during his exploration of the mound. The most unimportant of them were presented to the Indian Museum; the remainder, it is presumed, are in General Cunningham's possession.
The next inscribed memorial is some centuries later in date, but from exposure to rough usage is in a far less perfect state of preservation and is for the most part illegible. It is an oblong block of stone, measuring 29 inches by 10 by 10, which I brought into the station from the well adjoining the tomb of Khwája Lál Barani, which lies across the Kálindi, and close by the side of the Shikárpur road, about half a mile due east of the town of Bulandshahr. There are two inscriptions, one opposite the other, ​in characters of different size, but of the same period, probably about 1200 A. D. Both are records of grants for religious purposes, and the stone must have been intended for deposit among the archives of the temple for which the endowments were provided. But it can never have been actually set up, as it is difficult to imagine a position in which both sides could be conveniently read; it is also evident that preparations had been made for splitting it up into two separate slabs of equal thickness. One of the two inscriptions opens with an invocation of Krishna, in the words Om Namo Bhagavate Vásudeváya. I have had it deposited, in the Indian Museum, Calcutta.
Of far greater significance is a copper-plate inscription, which was dug up in 1867 at the village of Mánpur, in the Agota Pargana, about eight miles to the north of the town of Bulandshahr. Natives, even of the higher and more educated classes, have a childish notion, of which it is quite impossible to disabuse them, that these old copper-plate inscriptions always refer to some buried treasure. Thus the Council of the Mahárája of Jaypur, on hearing of the Mánpur find, at once put in a claim for anything of value that might be discovered; on the plea that Mánpur had been founded by Rája Mán Siñh of the Jaypur line. The absurdity of the claim was in this case enhanced by the confusion of chronological ideas; for Mán Siñh was a contemporary of Akbar's, while the plate is anterior to the reign of Prithi Ráj. It was sent to the Asiatic Society in Calcutta, and a translation of it into Nágari and English by Pandit Pratápa Chandra Ghosh, appeared in Vol. XXXVIII of the Journal of the Calcutta Asiatic Society. By a strange fatality, the three most important words in the whole record, viz, those which give the name of the reigning family, the name of the country, and the century of the date, are the most doubtful and illegible. The year which is written at full length, in words-ends with 'thirty-three,' but the initial letters have been obliterated by rust. The century, however, must be either the eleventh or twelfth, for the characters belong to the period immediately succeeding that of the Kutila inscriptions. The date may thus be confidently accepted as either 1133 or 1233 Samvat, i. e, either 1076 or 1176 of the Christian era. The earlier of the two seems the more probable.
​The grant—which confers a village named Gandavá on a certain Gaur Bráhman—was made by a Rája Ananga, in whose description a word occurs which the Calcutta Pandit first took to be 'Kalinga.' But the only country so-called is an extensive tract far away on the sea-coast, south of Bengal. It was never owned by a single sovereign—which in itself creates a difficulty—and it is further inconceivable how a plate relating to so distant a region could have found its way into the Doáb. The word is very indistinct and ambiguous and (as the Pandit has remarked) may with equal probability be read kanishṭha, which will also give an intelligible sense to the passage. The suggestion of 'Kalinga' seems therefore to have been an unnecessary importation of a somewhat gratuitous difficulty. It might perhaps be Kolánsa. This is given in Monier Williams's Dictionary as the name of a district, placed by some in Gangetic Hindustán, with Kanauj for its capital, but which it would seem more natural to identify with the country round about Kol, the modern Aligarh.
The name of the family was read by the Pandit as 'Rodra'; but only with great hesitation, and with the admission that it seemed to be something different, though he could not exactly say what. It is really Ḍoṛ, the name of an almost extinct Rájput tribe, who once were very notable people in these parts, though a Sanskrit scholar in Bengal may well be pardoned for not remembering them. They claim to be a branch of the great Pramár clan, which in ancient times was the most powerful of all the Rájput tribes; "The world is the Pramár's" being quoted by Col. Tod as a proverbial saying to illustrate their extensive sway. They represent their ancestor to have been a Pramár Rája of Mainpuri, who cut off his own head for a sacrifice to the divinity; whence his descendants were styled Ḍunḍ, 'the headless,' afterwards corrupted into Ḍoṛ. But this is obviously a mere etymological fable. Chand in the Prithiráj-Rásá celebrates a Ḍoṛ chief of Kasondi, a locality which cannot now be identified with certainty, though probably it was a place that still bears the same name near Ajmer. The Ḍoṛs are also mentioned in a Sanskrit inscription of the time of Prithiráj, which was found by Colonel Sumner at Hánsi. This forms the basis for a rhapsody by Col. Tod in his usual enthusiastic vein, which is published in Vol. I of the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society. In the body of the article the tablet is described as commemorating a victory obtained over the Ḍoṛs, but what purports to be a more or less literal summary of the ​inscription is given at the end of the narrative, and all that can be gathered from this is, that in the course of the concluding stanzas the Ḍoṛs are mentioned, but in what character, whether as foes or allies, does not appear. The summary unfortunately is most inadequate; but the main object of the inscription would seem to have been to record the date not of any victory, but of the extension of a fort at Ảsi, which presumably was the older name of Hánsi. This work is said to have been executed by a General named Hammíra in conjunction with the Gahlot chief Kilhana, who is described— in Tod's translation— as Prithiráj's maternal uncle. But here lies a difficulty: for Prithiráj's mother was Kamala-Devi, one of the daughters of King Anangpál, who was a Tomar not a Gahlot, and who had no male issue. The date of this Hánsi inscription is Sambat 1224 (1168 A. D.). It was found in 1818 and presented to Lord Hastings; but in 1824, the date of Tod's article, it was not known what had become of it. In fact, a singular fatality seems to attend all the records of this ancient Hindu clan—once so considerable, now virtually extinct—for I find, on enquiry in Calcutta, that the Mánpur inscription also has disappeared and cannot be traced.
This grant enumerates fourteen successive Rájas, beginning with Chandraka, the founder of the particular family. The seventh in descent was Haradatta, who was succeeded first by his brother, secondly by a nephew, and only in the third place by his son, who was subsequently deposed by a Bráhman minister, who both secured the throne for himself and bequeathed it to his son. The parentage of the thirteenth Rája is not distinctly stated, as it is in every other case, and hence it may be surmised that he was not related to his immediate predecessor, but belonged to the original Ḍoṛ stock. This is the more probable, because if he and his son Ananga had been descendants of the Bráhman usurper, the introduction of the Ḍoṛ pedigree would be altogether out of place.
The names stand as follows:
    1. Chandraka.
    2. Dharani-varáha.
    3. Prabhása.
    4. Bhairava
    5. Rudra
6. Govinda-rája (surnamed Yasopara). :
| 7. Hara-datta. | 7. Hara-datta. | | |
| 10. Vikramáditya. | 10. Vikramáditya. | 9. Srikuláditya. | 9. Srikuláditya. |
| 11. Bhúpati, surnamed Padmáditya, Bráhman Minister. ||||||
| 12. Bhojadeva. ||||||
| 13. Sahajáditya. ||||||
| 14. Ananga. ||||||
The above genealogy is of very exceptional interest, because it is known from other sources that at the time of the invasion of India by Mahmúd of Ghazni in 1017 A. D., Merath, Baran and Kol were all held by the Ḍoṛs and that Har-datt was the name of their Rája, who had his principal residence at Baran. He is mentioned as follows by the Muhamadan Chronographer: "When the Sultan marched on the fortress of Merath, its Raja, who bore the name of Hardatt, made it over to trusty persons and himself left it for another part of his dominions (probably Baran). The garrison perceived that they had no power of resistance, so they offered as a tribute 1,000,000,000 darhams, which amount to Rs. 2,50,000, and 30 elephants and obtained terms." His cowardly flight and the disgrace that he thus incurred may very probably be the explanation of the fact briefly stated in the Mánpur inscription that his son was twice passed over in the succession to the throne and was eventually deposed.
Before these events there is reason to conclude that Har-datt was the most important chief in all this part of the country between Kanauj and Thanesar. For Delhi, though refounded by the Rája Dháva of the Iron Pillar about 319 A. D. and again rebuilt in 731 by Anang Pál, the first Tomar Rája of that name, is not once mentioned either by the Chinese Pilgrims or by Al Utbi, and was probably at this period a small, unfortified and quite unimportant village; the capital of the Tomars being at Kanauj. When that city was taken by Chandra Deva, the founder of the ​Rahtor dynasty, about 1050 A. D., Anang Pál II retired to Delhi and there established himself. But at the beginning of the eleventh century, Har-datt, the Rája of Baran, though nominally a feudatory of Kanauj. appears to have been the virtual sovereign of all the country now included in the districts of Aligarh, Bulandshahr, Merath and Delhi, with parts of Murádabád, Mathurá and Eta.
His name is still perpetuated by Hápur, a corruption of Hara-pur, now the head-quarters of the Stud Depôt, of which town he is the traditional founder, and all the fragments of stone sculpture that have been discovered at Bulandshahr may be assigned to his time. As might have been expected from its nearness to Delhi, the Muhammadans have made a clean sweep of the district and razed to the ground every building, secular or religious, that had been erected by its former Hindu rulers. I have been over every part of it, but the sum total of all the antiquities I have been able to collect may be very briefly enumerated. An unusually lofty column is one of a pair that were dug up in some low ground at the entrance to the town from the Chola Railway Station. Though long since brought under cultivation, the field is still called 'the Sarovar,' and is the traditional site of a large masonry 'tank' which Har-datt is said to have constructed. The companion column is at Merath, where it was sent by the Sardár Bahádur, into whose hands it had come, and has been worked up into a house he has built there. The one now in my possession I rescued from his stables, where it had been thrown on the ground and was used by his grass-cutters to sharpen their tools on. Six short pillars of the same period were found buried under the steps of a small mosque on the highest part of the old town. In digging the foundations of a house on the opposite side of the same street I recovered a curious stone, sculptured with a representation of three miniature temples. These are of such different design that, if they had been found separately, I might have been inclined to refer them to different architectural epochs. But the excessively archaic type of one must be attributed to the influence of religious conservatism: similar forms may be seen in conjunction on the front of the temples of Khajuráho, which are known to be of the tenth century A. D. A circular pillar, with a coil of human-headed snakes at the base, is, as already mentioned, from Ahár, as also a medieval door-jamb and a block carved with rows of temple facades in the style of the Násik caves. This last is ​probably the oldest of the group. Another door-jamb, found in the courtyard of the mosque at Bulandshahr, is comparatively modern.
The Sarovar, or Tank, field, of which I have spoken above, is bounded on the north by an extensive mound, on which now stands the stable for Government stallions, and in levelling part of it I came upon two curious terra cotta figures, both alike, 5¼ inches high, representing a woman with a parrot, which she is about to feed with a fruit she holds in one hand. She has enormous ornaments in her ears and a variety of chains and bracelets about her. Another fragment—a head only—shows a chignon of most prodigious dimensions. In the absence of stone, the potter's art seems to have been largely developed for decoration and religious purposes, as is further indicated by a clay statue of the four-armed Krishna, which I discovered in breaking down an old well in the upper town. The exact date of these figures cannot be determined.
The Mánpur inscription gives Vikram-áditya as the name of Haradatta's son, and he is probably the same person as a Rája Vikram Sen of Baran, who figures in an Aligarh pedigree. The capital of that branch of the Ḍoṛ family is said to have been transferred from Jaláli to Kol by Buddh Sen, who was the son of Bijay Rám (brother of Dasarath Siñh, who built the fort at Jalesar) the son of Náhar Siñh, (founder of the Sambhal Fort) the son of Gobind Siñh, who was the son of Mukund Sen, the son of Rája Vikram Sen of Baran, Mangal Sen, who succeeded his father, the above-mentioned Buddh Sen, at Kol, is said to have given his daughter Padmávati in marriage to the heir of Rája Bhím of Mahrára and Etáwa, who soon after his accession was murdered by his younger brothers. The widow then returned to Kol, where her father built for her the tower, which was wantonly destroyed by the local authorities in 1860. It is, however, more commonly believed that the tower was erected by the Muhammadans in 1274 on the site of the principal Hindu temple, to commemorate the final reduction of the town in the reign of Násir-ud-dín Mahmúd. Possibly it had been built by the Rája and was only enlarged or otherwise altered by the conquerors.
Eighty years before the fall of Kol, viz., in 1193, the Ḍoṛ line of Rájas at Baran had come to an end in the person of Chandra Sen, who was killed while defending his fort against the army of Shaháb-ud-dín Muham​mad Ghori. Before he fell, an arrow from his bow had slain one of the leaders of the invading force, a certain Khwája Lál Ali, whose tomb across the Kálindi is still reverenced as that of a martyr. The gate was opened to the enemy by two traitors, one a Bráhman named Híra Siñh, the other Ajaypál, himself a Ḍoṛ, who probably hoped by this act of perfidy to secure recognition as the future head of the family and the most fitting person to continue its hereditary honours. All, however, that he actually obtained from the conqueror was the subordinate post of Chaudhari, with the sonorous title of Malik Muhammad Daráz Kadd; the latter being the reward for his profession of Islám; while the administration of the new province was conferred upon a fellow-countryman of the victorious General, Kázi Núr-ud-din of Ghazni. The descendants of this, the first Muhammadan Governor of Baran, still occupy a respectable position in the town and retain their ancestor's title of Kázi. Similarly, Ajaypál's decendants still style themselves Chaudharis; though the name by which they are more commonly designated is Tánṭas, or Mischief-makers. These unworthy representatives of a long line of independent princes form a fairly numerous section of the community but are badly off and of ill-reputation. They are one and all Muhammadans. During the raid of the Sikhs in 1780 they opened the gate of the town to them, in imitation of their recreant forefather; and again in the Mutiny of 1857 they were the first to plunder the bazar. The social distinction of the old family has been better transmitted in the female line by a daughter of the house, who was given in marriage to the Bargújar chief Pratáp Siñh, who came up from Rájaur, now in the Jaypur State, to join Prithi Ráj of Delhi in his attack on Mahoba. After the conquest he returned no more to his own country, but settled down at Pahásu, where he is now represented by his direct descendant Nawab Sir Faiz Ali Khán, K. C. S. I.
To sum up the Hindu Annals of Baran. It was founded about a thousand years before Christ by Tomar chiefs from Delhi: under the Indo-Scythian and Gupta dynasties, at the commencement of our era, it ​was a place of some wealth and importance; and for a considerable period, up to the ninth or tenth century, it included in its population a community of Buddhists. About the year 800 A. D. the Ḍoṛ Rájputs rose to power, and their leader Chandraka, having established himself as a Rája, made Baran his capital. His descendant in the sixth degree, Hara-datta, founded the town of Hápur and ruled an extensive tract of country including Merath and Kol; but, in 1017, being hard-pressed by Mahmúd's invading force, he submitted to terms, which lost him the confidence of his people. On the withdrawal of the conqueror, domestic disturbances ensued, but—after a temporary usurpation—the old dynasty was eventually restored and occupied the throne till the year 1193, when Rája Chandra Sen, the last of the line, was defeated and killed by the army of Kutb-ud-dín, and the Fort then passed into the hands of the Muhammadans.
Under the new administration it would seem to have been still considered a place of military importance. On the accession of Kai Kubád in 1286 A. D. Malik Tuzáki, a man of high rank and importance in Balban's reign and Muster-master General (Áriz-i-mamálik) held the fief of Baran; and after he had been got rid of by the favourite Nizám-ud-dín, his appointments were conferred upon Jálal-ud-dín, who in 1290 became Emperor. His murderer and successor Alá-ud-dín, also made it for some days his head-quarters before he marched upon Delhi, and it was here that he received the submission of all the principal nobles, whom he bought over from the cause of the rightful heir by a lavish distribution of the treasure that he had captured at Deogiri; the leaders receiving twenty, thirty, and some even fifty mans of gold, and all their soldiers 300 tankas each. He is described as holding his levy in the open space before the town mosque. The present Jama Masjid was not built till 440 years later, but an earlier structure probably preceded it on the same site. This is on the verge of the hill; but in front of the main gate there is an area of considerable extent, which is fairly level, though now completely covered by a labyrinth of narrow lanes, with mud hovels reaching up to the very walls of the Mosque enclosure and even built on to the staircase, which is its only approach. As the claim for compensation cannot involve any very large outlay, I am anxious to pull down some of these miserable tenements, and ​again open out a small square in front of what is the principal religious building in the place. That such encroachments should have been allowed, or rather committed, by the Muhammadan guardians of the Mosque is an illustration of the carelessness with which the citizens of an Indian town ordinarily administer their own public institutions.
The new Governor, Mayid-ul-Mulk, whom Alá-ud-din put in charge of Baran,—though of no celebrity himself—is noteworthy as the father of the only distinguished literary character that the town has produced. This was Zia-ud-dín, called Barani from the place of his birth, who wrote the history entitled 'the Chronicles of Firoz Shah.' It is brought down to the year 1356, at which time the author was 74 years of age. His grave, according to local tradition, is at the spot called the Kálá Ảm—from an old mango tree that once stood there—at the junction of the six roads near the District Courts. Every Thursday evening a cloth is spread over it and lamps are lit at its head, but there is no monument nor inscription. Indeed, it is asserted by some authorities that he was not buried at Bulandshahr at all, but at Delhi, in the Nizám-ud-dín cemetery, near his friend, the poet Amir Khusro, who died in 1325. Prof. Blochmann, a thoroughly competent critic, speaks of him as a most miserable writer, so far as style is concerned; his language being Hindi literally translated into Persian. As regards matter, however, which in an historical authority is the point of most importance, he is by no means devoid of merit. Despite his literary defects, Prof. Dowson describes him as a vigorous, plain-spoken writer, who may unhesitatingly be indicated as the one most acceptable to a general reader, and whose pages may be read without that feeling of weariness and oppression which the writings of his fellows too commonly produce. His work was intended as a continuation of the Tabakát-i-Násiri of Minhaj-ud-dín Jurjáni. It contains the history of eight kings, Balban, Kai-Kubád, the three Khiljis, the two Tughlaks and Firoz Sháh. The history of the last reign, though the one which gives its title to the book, is incomplete and of less interest than the other portions, the value of the narrative being affected by a strain of excessive adulation. He is said to have died in such poverty that even a proper shroud could not be provided for his body which had to be wrapt up in a piece of coarse matting. But the truth of this tradition may be questioned; the continuer of his history expressly states that his death was greatly regretted by the Emperor, and both his father ​and uncle had occupied important positions at Court, the latter, Alá-ul-Mulk having been the Kotwál, or Police Magistrate, of Delhi.
In the reign of Firoz's predecessor, Muhammad Tughlak, (1325 to 1351 A. D.) the town of Baran suffered dearly for its proximity to Delhi, being one of the first places where that sanguinary tyrant diverted himself with his favourite spectacle of an unprovoked massacre. In the great famine of 1344, after the removal of the Capital to Deogiri, the country of the Doáb—to use the language of the local historian—"was brought to great distress by heavy taxation and numerous cesses. The Hindus burnt their corn-stacks and turned their cattle out to roam at large. Under the orders of the Sultán the Collectors and Magistrates laid waste the country, killing some of the land-owners and village chiefs and blinding others. Such of the unhappy inhabitants as escaped formed themselves into bands and took refuge in the jungles. So the country was ruined. The Sultán then proceeded on a hunting excursion to Baran, where—under his directions the whole of that neighbourhood was plundered and laid waste and the heads of the Hindus were brought in and hung upon the ramparts of the Baran Fort." Though it was a matter of impossibility to collect the revenue, the Hindu Governor was put to death for his failure to do so, and a vast number of his kinsmen, a Baniya clan called Baran-wálas, whose ancestors, had been settled in the town by its first founders, were driven into exile. Some of them emigrated to Murádabád, while others fled as far as Azamgarh and Gházipur, in both which districts they are now more numerously represented than in their original home.
Of those who remained at Baran, one family in the reign of Akbar acquired for themselves the post of hereditary Kánungo; and one of their descendants, Shaikh Roshan, who was converted to Islám by the persuasive arguments of Aurangzeb, founded the suburb—as it then was—called Shaikh Sarae, which now by the increase of population has become a very central locality. Of the same stock are Munshi Shaháb-ud-dín, the builder of the large mosque, which from its lofty situation is the most conspicuous feature in any general view of the town, and the late Masúm Ali Khán of Murádabád, whose son Munawar Ali Khán, being of weak intellect, is under the charge of the Court of Wards. The handsome range of shops, in the market-place, built in 1882, is part of his estate.
​Of the Baranwálas, who adhered to the old faith, the most conspicuous person in the present century was Sítal Dás, who about the year 1830, built that portion of lower Bulandshahr which is known as Sítal Ganj, and is now the property of his son Prem-sukh Dás.
In spite of the massacre and famine and wholesale expulsion of the inhabitants that took place in 1344. Zia-ud-dín relates that his native town rapidly revived under the more benign sway of Firoz Sháh. At some time during his reign, which lasted from 1351 to 1388, that Emperor founded Khurja, which has become the largest commercial mart in the neighbourhood; a part of it is still called Firoz Ganj. More than a century later, Sikandar Lodi, about the year 1500, founded what are now the two considerable towns of Sikandarabád and Shikárpur, at which latter place—as the name indicates—he had a small hunting-box for occasional residence. The only two other towns of any size in the district, Anúpshahr and Jahángirabád, were founded later still, in the reign of Jahangir; which shows, how essentially modern the present centres of population are, excepting only Bulandshahr itself and Dibhái: the latter is occasionally mentioned by the early Muhammadan historians as a muster-place for troops.
The prosperity which the country had enjoyed during the long and settled reign of Firoz was followed by a series of fratricidal struggles between his sons and grandsons for the possession of the throne, and then by the ruin and rapine of foreign invasion. On the capture of Delhi by the Mughals in 1398, the puppet Emperor Mahmúd fled away to Gujarat, while the Regent, Ikbal Khán, took refuge in the fort of Baran. Tímúr soon returned home with his plunder to Samarkand, and on his departure Nusrat Sháh—also one of Firoz's grandsons—marched up from Merath and reoccupied the ruins of the capital, whence he sent a large force "under Shahab Khán to Baran to overpower Ikbál. On the way, a band of Hindu foot-soldiers fell upon him in the night and killed him and dispersed his followers. As soon as Ikbál heard of this, and that the elephants also ​had been abandoned, he hastened to the spot and secured them. From that time his power and renown increased daily, and forces gathered round him, while Nusrat Khán grew weaker and weaker, so that after a stay of ten months he was able to leave Baran and recover possession of Delhi." He also got into his hands the person of the Sultán Mahmúd, whom he afterwards took to Kanauj and left there, while he himself reigned as the real sovereign of the country, till 1405, when he fell in battle at Multán.
Two years later, viz., in 1407, Ibráhim Sháh, the king of Jaunpur, marched up against Delhi, where Mahmúd was then enthroned; but hearing of disturbances at home he hastened back, leaving Marhaba Khán, a protegé of Ikbál's, with a small force, at Baran. After six months Mahmúd marched from Delhi against Baran, and Marhaba Khán came out to meet him; but in the battle that ensued he was beaten and driven back into the fort, where the Imperial troops followed and killed him.
The next mention of Baran is in 1421, during the reign of Khizr Khán, the first of the Saiyid dynasty, when the Vazir, Táj-ul-Mulk, marched through it on his way to suppress a rebellion in Kol and Etáwa. Again, in 1434, after the assassination of Khizr's successor, Mubárak Sháh, an army of the Hindu Vazír's, Sarwar-ul-Mulk, under the command of Kamál-ud-dín, proceeding against Allah Dád, the chief of the insurgents, halted at Baran, the half-way station between the Jamuná and the Ganges. Allah Dád withdrew to Ahár, where the two generals came to an understanding and turned their combined forces against the Vazír, whom they besieged in the fort of Delhi, where shortly afterwards he was slain in an attempt on the life of the Emperor Muhammad Sháh.
The earliest Persian inscription in Bulandshahr is a tablet let into the wall of the Ỉd-gáh, which records the construction of a mosque by Nek-bakht Khán, in the year 943 Hijri (1536 A. D.) in the reign of the Emperor Humáyun and during the governorship "of the chaste Báno Begam." The fact of a female Governor is somewhat curious. At Til Begampur, fifteen miles north-west of Bulandshahr, is a bathing-well (or báoli) with an inscription dated only two years later, viz., 1538, in which the local Governor's name is given as Amír Fakír Ali Beg. As an Ỉd-gáh would not be styled a mosque, the stone must have been brought from elsewhere, but probably from the immediate neighbourhood. Fragments of an Arabic inscription ​in Cufic characters have also been inserted in the same wall at regular distances, to serve as decorative panels, and the later Persian inscription seems to have been utilized with simply the same object. The appearance of this building, with its blackened and crumbling masonry, is scarcely creditable to the Muhammadan community, who should take some steps to clean and repair it.
About 100 yards to the east of the Íd-gáh and the adjoining English cemetery, is a square-domed tomb of substantial brick masonry and some size, but no particular architectural merit, with a Persian inscription. This records its completion during the reign of the Emperor Akbar, in the year 1006 Hijri (1597 A. D.) as a monument to the memory of Miyán Bahlol Khán Bahádur. He belonged to the Bahlím clan of Shaikhs, and descendants continued in possession of an extensive tract of freehold land in the suburbs, till 1857, when they forfeited it by their complicity with the mutineers. One of the outlying hamlets, included in the straggling parish of Baran, still bears the name of Bahlímpura.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, and probably for some years later, Baran continued to be the capital of a dastúr, or district, in the Home Sarkár, or Division, of the Delhi Súba, or Province. But the town must have rapidly sunk into insignificance, and eventually it became a dependency of Kol. It receives no further mention in any historical record after the Ain-i-Akbari, and the only event of even local interest, that forms a landmark in the later Muhammadan period, is the foundation of the Jama Masjid in 1730. This was built by Sábit Khán, who achieved special distinction as Governor of Kol. There he is commemorated by his restoration of the old Fort, which he called Sábit-gaṛh; by a dargáh, bearing date 1707; and still more by the great mosque in the centre of the town, which he completed in 1728. His tomb is in the garden now known as Kinloch-ganj. The Bulandshahr mosque is of much less pretension and, being unfinished at the time of his death, remained so till more than a hundred years later. His lineal descendants at Aligarh, however poor their circumstances, and most of them are mere labourers, are distinguished by the personal title of Nawáb, in remembrance of their ancestor. In Bulandshahr his success as a proselytizer is evidenced by several families—originally Thákurs of the Bargújar clan—who were led by him to adopt Muhammadanism and who have ever since borne the name of Sábit-kháni.
​Fifty years later, viz., in 1780, Baran had its final fall, being then abandoned even by the Amil, or subordinate revenue official, who had hitherto made it his head-quarters. The spot that he selected in preference was on the opposite side of the river, some six miles to the north. The village had previously been known as Rathora; but the new Fort was placed by its founder, the Ámil Hak-dád Khán, under the patronage of a saint, popularly styled Málamál, who had a shrine close by, and it received the name of Málagarh. In 1857 Hak-dád's grandson, Walidád Khán, put himself at the head of the revolt and proved a formidable opponent. He was connected with the royal family of Delhi—his sister's daughter having been married to one of the king's sons—and he had thus obtained from Muhammad Bahádur a formal grant appointing him Súbadar of this part of the Doáb. Málagarh became the resort of all the disaffected from far and near; his troops overran the whole neighbourhood, fought several sharp engagements, and for a few days occupied the town of Bulandshahr. On the 28th of September they were driven out, and their leader escaped across the Ganges. The demolition of his fort at Málagarh, which took place a few days later, was accompanied by a deplorable accident. The officer who fired the mine was Lieut. Home of the Engineers, one of the heroes of the Kashmir Gate, and he was killed by the explosion. His body was interred in the Station Cemetery, where a handsome stone monument forms a conspicuous object and records the untimely death of the first V. C. in India.
MARKET SQUARE, BULANDSHAHR.
* ↑ Dr. Hœrnle has suggested to me that it might be read 'Hattiya.’
* ↑ General Cunningham proposes to identify with the Varanávata of the Mahábhárata a village, now called Barnáwa, in the Merath district. It has not yet been explored, and it is therefore uncertain whether it is really an ancient site or not.
* ↑ This historical site had been for many years in a very neglected condition. It is now being enclosed with an ornamental brick wall at a cost of about Rs. 1000 contributed by the Muhammadan residents of the town.
* ↑ The MSS. give the name as Harwat: in Persian characters d and w are easily interchangeable.
* ↑ In order to secure a blessing on their labours, the dancing girls of the town, before entering on the regular practice of their profession, generally make a vow to perform their first dance in front of this tomb. It is largely visited by the people of the neighbourhood on the festival of the Bakr-Íd, and on that day a venerable nim tree, which overshadows it, is said to show forth an annual miracle, its naturally bitter leaves becoming quite sweet.
* ↑ The tanka is the name for the current coinage of the time, the exact value of which uncertain. Fifty mans of gold would be more than 35 cwt.!
* ↑ Dibhái is a corruption of the Sanskrit Darbhavati. There is an old town in the Bombay Presidency, in the territory of the Gackwár of Baroda, which bears the same name a little differently spelt, Dabhoi, which is a somewhat closer approximation to the original form. The substitution of i for a is one of the most marked peculiarities of up-country speech.
* ↑ Tárikh i Mubárak Sháh of Yahya bin Ahmad.