Indian Antiquary Vol 03

SR No.: 032495
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 420
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 321

OCTOBER, 1874.]
Bombay or Mumbai before the arrival of the Portuguese. Ovington, however, who wrote in 1689, makes Bombay known to the Greeks and described by Ptolemy under the designation of Milizigeris. t
WORDS AND PLACES IN AND ABOUT BOMBAY.
Bombay, notwithstanding its ancient pagodas, its sand-lingas of yore, and its glorious wars with the terrible Mubaraka, can lay no claim to ancient political distinction, nor can it boast of any royal charter or parchments of nobility. Of heraldry it has hardly any, except perhaps a little dark-greyish slab with the arms of Portugal engraven on it, which, according to Portuguese travellers, used to adorn, some years ago, one of the gates of the Fort. It was left for British intelligence and enterprise to raise Bombay from its humble condition to that of a capital of one of the great Presidencies of India. But of this hereafter.
If we turn our attention to the times when the Portuguese took possession of Bombay, we shall find, both from the indigenous bakhars (chronicles) and tradition, as well as from a few manuscripts left by the Portuguese themselves, that Bombay, properly so called, was simply one of a cluster of rocky and mountainous islets scattered in the waters of a muddy estuary. Such a group of parched and desolate
See A Voyage to Suratt by F. Ovington, M.A., page
129.
No faith can be placed in the Greek nomenclature of Indian towns and places, for, besides numberless mutilations undergone in the mouths of the Greeks, they are not unfrequently made victims to the caprice of copyists. (De Saint-Martin, Etude sur la Géographie grecque, &c. p. 4.) If Ptolemy, from his depending altogether on the journals of early navigators and itineraries of caravans, was liable to frequent error, his commentators have unfortunately erred still oftener. As an instance, Mr. R. H. Major, in his introduction to India in the Fifteenth Century, has identified the Musiris of Ptolemy and Arrian with the modern Mangalur. Now this I fancy is a grave mistake. Every student of the ancient geography of India is, or at any rate should be, aware that about the beginning of the Christian era a commercial port of some importance, by name Masuri (H), was exist. ing on the western coast of India, a little to the north of Malwan, the vestiges of which, in spite of all changes, are even yet visible. This was the place with which the ancient Egyptians used to carry on an active trade; a port distinctly mentioned by the author of the Periplus of the Erythraan Sea, where the famous Hippalus (who first discovered or practically tested the use of the Monsoon, or South-West winds, in navigation, and gave it his name) landed after a perilous passage from the Arabian Gulf. When writers so erudite and careful as Mr. Major expose themselves to correction, I should infer that the identification of such places under classical names is a matter of almost insuperable difficulty, and Ovington's theory, I am afraid, must be rejected.
This castle was built by the Portuguese soon after the conquest, and its description is given by Fryer in his New Account of East India and Persia, pp. 63, 64.
§ At the rate which Mr. Peile adopts, viz. 4 souls to a
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islands as they then appeared to be, although worthy of the study of a geologist, could not have at all excited the ambition of a conqueror, and consequently their political history has from the beginning merged in that of the adjacent mainland, with which, and with the more im portant islands lying to the north, it has shared the vicissitudes of conquest, and the rule of numerous dynasties and chieftains.
During the Portuguese period, although Bombay could boast of a fine castle commanded by a petty Governor, a couple of churches under the pious Franciscans, and about 400 huts said by early writers to contain 10,000 inhabitants,§ it was still a mere dependency of the great "Court of the North," or Bassein, || and one of the eight divisions subject to its jurisdiction under a military government whose head was named the "Capitao Môr," or General, of the North.
From the annals I have been able to collect and peruse, as well as from tradition, it is to be concluded that the primitive condition of Bombay was that of a sandy and uncultivated island circumscribed within very narrow limits, traversed by innumerable creeks, and partly overflowed by the sea, to such an extent that even so late as the time Fryer wrote (1675) about 40,000 acres of the island were under water.
house, this population appears too large for the estimated number of huts.-ED.
The eight divisions that were under the jurisdiction of the "Court of the North" are found enumerated in an official Portuguese document of the 16th century, which I append. It contains some words which have now become quite obsolete; while others, which were probably invented for the occasion, have even ceased to find a place in Portuguese lexicons:
1st-Bagaim, the capital, called also the Saibana de Baçaim, including one town (villa), a caçabé, with 16 pacarias and 8 hortas. The caçabé of Agaçaim, with 20 pacarias and 10 hortas. The pragana Salga, with 18 aldeas (villages) and 3 terras. The pragana Hera, with 20 aldeas. The pragana Cama, with 25 aldeas and two sarretores. The pragana Anjor, with 18 aldeas and 7 sarretores. 2ndThe caçabé of Tanam, with 8 pacarias. 3rd-The isle of Salcete, consisting of one pragana, with 95 aldeas. 4thThe isle of Caranja, with its caçabé and terra of Bendolac and 3 islands, viz. Ne vem, Seveon. and Elefante. 5th-The isle of Bella Flor de Sambayo, with the pragana Panechana of 30 aldeas. The pragana Cairana, with 17 aldeas, and the pragana of Sambayo, with 17 aldeas. 6th-The pragana of Manora, with 42 aldeas and one sarretor. 7th-The pragana Asserim, with 38 aldeas and 6 pacarias. 8th-The island of Bombay with the rocks
near it.
It will not have escaped the attention of the reader that Mahim is not included in the above list; the reason is that the Portuguese at first, by a freak of transposition that cannot be easily accounted for, made Mahim a dependency of the city of Daman, passing over the court of Bassein, though almost contiguous;, but at later times better sense seems to have prevailed, and it was afterwards, at the time of the cession, a dependency of Bombay.