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MAY, 1924]
MUHAMMAD AN SAINTS AND SHRINES IN THE UNITED PROVINCES 97
This evidence from place-names, apart from the geological one, warrants the conclusion that the Arabian Sea extended to the above localities in ancient times very far remote from the time of the Periplus or even the time of Megasthenes. Was it ten thousand years ago? Do these place-names date from those ancient days? If they do, we have in them Dravidian words of extreme antiquity.
NOTES ON SOME MUHAMMADAN SAINTS AND SHRINES IN THE
UNITED PROVINCES.
BY THE LATE DR. W. CROOKE, O.I.E., D.C.L., F.B.A.
I. THE SHRINES OF THE SABIRIA BRANCH OF THE CHISHTI ORDER AT PIRAN KALIYAR, IN THE SAHARANPUR DISTRICT.
1. Piran Kaliyar. 'Alâ-ud-dîn Sâbir, whose shrine is close to Rurkî, in the Saharanpur District, is said to have been the only son of the sister of Bâba Farîd Shakarganj's mother.1 Of this latter saint it is told that his mother was very devout and it was she who bade him practise austerities. After twelve years of askesis, he asked her to test his power, but when she pulled his hair he cried out, and she bade him begin anew, as he had not yet got rid of the passions of humanity. For the next twelve years he hung himself in a well, and kept his gaze rivetted on the Heavens above. Though crows tore his flesh he made no moan, but when one tried to pluck out his eyes, he exclaimed:
Kága rê, tû hkdiyo chun chun mert más:
Do naina mat chheriyo, piyd milan kî ás.
"O crow! You may eat my flesh, choosing as you will.
But spare my eyes, my only hope of beholding my Beloved."
As he sojourned in a forest where caravans were constantly passing, he once, though this was not his habit, asked a miserly Bânia what goods his camels were carrying. The reply was:-Mitt sitt hai ('tis only earth). So the saint said: May thy earth prosper' and lo! the sugar with which the camels had been laden became earth. But on the merchant's supplication the saint turned it back to sugar.
As the mother of 'Ala-ud-din was poor and he was growing up a weakling from underfeeding, she sent him to her wealthy sister, the mother of Farid. But though she offered him food, he lived on the fruits of the wild, and gave what he received to the poor.. In the fulness of time he came to the village of Piran Kaliyar, where dwelt a Raja, by name Karan, who claimed the jus prima noctis at all his subjects' weddings. The saint protested in vain, and the Raja threatened him with death for his interference. Then the saint (not condescending to deal with the matter himself) bade his disciple Kilkili overturn the Raja's city. This Kilkili did by reversing a peg stuck in the ground in front of the hermitage. The saint was buried at Piran Kaliyar, and near his tombs grows a fig-tree, whose leaves Musulmans carry home to use as charms.
1 As to whom, see Crooke, Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India, I, pp. 2146;
In a Panjabi version of this miracle the sugar is turned into stones.
3 The inscription on this tomb reads -
Qasime az lutf izo dar gable Hazratash,
Bud gum namo kunûn andar do 'Alam nam ya ft. Rozaye Makhdum Ahmad, Mir Ald-ud-din 'All. Chun bind o zamana himmatash anjam yaft. Sal tartkhash bapurstdam sa pire agla guft, In bind andar hazdro si wa haft tamam yaft.
"Qasim, the builder of this tomb, was not in favour with the Saint: he too was going astray, but since he set up this tomb he has found fame in the two worlds. The tomb of Mir 'Ala-ud-din 'All was built by his generosity. To the wise elders I say that it was completed in the year 1037 of the Hijra."— Ram Gharib Chaube,
