76
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
mans of Bengal rendered some resistance neces sary that forts would be built and garrisoned so far away from the capital, nor in the earlier times had the Oriya race penetrated so far to
[MARch 1, 1872.
banks of the Sã n-G ang a or God a vari. Even to this day the course of trade from the ports of Orissa tends more towards Madras than
Bengal.
the north as to have settlements on the banks of the Sub a r n are k h a.
APPEND Ix.
After returning from Räibaniyan I received the
On the other hand, if we cannot place the
following note from the Revd. J. Phillips, the
date of the erection of these forts earlier than
well-known missionary to the Sonthals, whose settlement is at Sāntipur, two miles south of Räibaniyan :-
1550, we cannot assign to them any later date.
After the ravages of the terrible Kālāpahār"
“Camp Baládshihá, Dec. 11, 1871. “On the 2nd instant we were at D e ill g a on, about 7 miles to the north-west of Sán tip ur,
Orissa sank into a condition of anarchy and dis organisation. Neither the invaders from Bengal nor the national rulers had any interest in keep ing up forts at a place which was no longer im portant to either, and we find the Afghans in mediately afterwards, and for a long period, firmly established at the strong post of G a rh p a d d a, fifteen miles to the south of Räibaniyan.
where are the remains of an old stone fort.
It is
75 paces long and 60 broad inside the walls. The walls are 12 feet in height composed of the common laterite, hewn as are the stones in Ră i baniyan. The walls are perforated on all sides with loopholes near the top, and there were entrances on the four sides with bastions over the gateways. In one corner
An important result follows from the above
of the enclosure there is a small tank and a walled
considerations, namely, that the Oriya language is not—as a certain party among the Bengalis would persuade us--an offshoot of their own tongue, but an independent variety of Aryan speech. We have every reason to believe that the march, or frontier between the two provinces, was oc cupied by a dense forest peopled by non-Aryan tribes, and that there was absolutely no commu nication between Orissa and Bengal in that direction; when the forest was penetrated and the communication opened, the Oriya language was
up well in the opposite corner. A large laterite stone was pointed out to me as containing inscriptions, but if such ever existed, it had become quite too much defaced to be at all
legible. Two large stone images of horses with their riders, cut from solid blocks of the “Mugani” stone (chlorite), stand near the centre of the fort. When we were there two years ago these lay par tially covered with rubbish, but have since been ex humed, and now they receive some attention, though I did not discover signs of their being worshipped. The natives told us that these were living animals in the Sātya Yug, and engaged in battle, and pointed
already formed, and Up en dra B hanj and D in Krish n a D as had written many of their still celebrated poems. Orissa had more inti mate dealings with her southern neighbours, and one at least of her dynasties came from the
out scars and
bullet marks on
their
mutilated
bodies. The fact of gunpowder being a modern
invention seemed no obstacle to their theory as far as I saw.”
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF GRANDEES OF THE MUGHUL COURT. By H. BLOCHMANN, M.A., CALCUTTA MADRASAH.
THE greater part of the following notes, which
(No. CIII. of Morley's Catalogue); the Asia tic Society of Bengal has two, of which one
I hope to continue, are taken from a Persian work entitled Madsir ul Umará, or the “Deeds of the
(MS. No. 77) is very excellent. It is so free from errors and so carefully corrected, that it
Amirs,’ by Shah Nawāz Khán of Aurangābād, whose family had come, during the reign of Akbar, from Khawāf in Khurásán.
looks like an autograph. “The biographies,” says Mr. Morley, “are very ably written, and full of important historic detail; and, as they
The work
underwent several editions. The original com pilation was enlarged by the renowned Ghulām 'Ali A'zād, and the third edition, which contains the lives of 730 nobles, was written in A. H. 1194, or A. D. 1780, by 'Abdul Hai Khān
Çamgám-ul Mulk, son of Shah Nawāz Khán. MSS. are very rare. The library of the Royal Asiatic Society of London possesses one
include those of all the most eminent men who |
flourished in the time of the Mongol Emperors of the house of Timur, down to A. H. 1194
(A. D. 1780), the Madsir ul Umará must always hold its place as one of the most valuable books
of reference for the student of Indian history.” There are but few notices of the Amirs who
- Wide ante p. 47.
