§ 11. Legends about Afzal Khan.
The tragic fate of Afzal Khan has most profoundly stirred the popular imagination in his own country and in that of his enemy. At his village of Afzalpura, close to Bijapur city, the gloomy legend sprang up that before starting on this fatal expedition, he had a premonition of his coming end, and killed and buried all his 63 wives, lest they should share another's bed after his death. The peasants still point to the height from which these hapless victims of man's jealousy were hurled into a deep pool of water, the channel through which their drowned bodies were dragged out with hooks, the place where they were shrouded, and the 63 tombs, of the same shape, size and age, standing close together in regular rows on the same platform, where they were laid in rest. Utter desolation has settled on the spot. Where his mansion once stood with its teeming population, the traveller now beholds a lonely wilderness of tall grass, brambles and broken buildings, the fittest emblem of his ruined greatness. The only form of life visible is the solitary bird, startled by the unwonted presence of a human visitor.*[1] Other traditions tell us that ill-omens dogged his steps from the very outset of his campaign against Shivaji. (Shed. 24; Powadas, 7, 11.)
- ↑ * This was the appearance of Afzalpura when I visited it in Oct., 1916.
