Indian Antiquary Vol 53

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 39

FEBRUARY, 1924)
THE SEIGE AND CONQUEST OF THE FORT OF ASIRGARH
33
THE SIEGE AND CONQUEST OF THE FORT OF ASIRGARH
BY THE EMPEROR AKBAR.
(Described by an Eye-Witness.)
By Rev. H. HERAS, S.J., A.M. Two of the Muhammadan historians of the siege and surrender of the fort of Asirgarh were oye-witnesses of tho ovent; but some passages of their narrativo seemed to bo quite absurd and incrodible, until a third eye-witness was brought on to the stage by Dr. Vincent Smith, in his work on Akbar the Great Mogul. This new historian of the conquest of Asirgårh was Fr. Jerome Xavier, & Spanish Jesuit of the Lahore Mission, who accompanied Akbar in his campaign through tho Deccan. His account is quite different from that of the Mub &mmadans, and for the most part quite irreconcilable. Dr. Smith, who was the first to cxamine critically the Jesuit narrative, prefers it to the official account of Abu-l Fazl and Faizi Sirhindi. It was to their interest to conceal tho perfidy and military failure of Akbar, while the Jesuit had no reason to be afraid of telling the truth to his Superiors either in Goa or Europe.
But Smith knew only the narrative of Xavier through the famous work of Fr. Du Jarric, Thesaurus Rerum Indicarum, and affirms twice in the same chapter that the letters of Xavier are still unpublishod. This statoment is somewhat strango, considering that he was acquainted with Guerreiro's Relación anual de las cosas que han hecho los Padres de la Compañia de Jesis en la India Oriental y Japón, en los años de 600 y 601, Spanish version from the Portuguese, printed at Valladolid in 1604. It is ourtain that Du Jarrio had no other source, when writing the account of the conquest of Asirgarh, than either the original Portuguose work or this Spanish translation. These yearly relations published by the Por. tuguese Jesuits were not gonoral accounts based on the letters of the Missionaries, būt consisted of a collection of those very letters, each of them being published as a different chapter of the book, with the address and the signature omitted. One can still recognise the different styles of the writers in the various chapters of the work, even in the Spanish translation. Moreover, some Missionaries speak of themselves in the third person-as Fr. Monserrat does in his well known Mongolicae Legationis Commentarius 3,-while others write in the first person. This means that the editor did not trouble to unify his work, but (fortunately) inserted the letters just as they stood.
The copy of this raro volume seen by Smith is in All Souls Library, Oxford; there is arlother copy in the British Museum mentioned by Maclagan, who says that such col. lections published by Fr. Guorreiro “are first-rate authorities ". Fortunately we have worked through a third copy of the same edition in the Goethals Indian Library, at St. Xavier's College, Caleutta, from which we have translated the following account..
This great King (Akbar) left Lahore for the kingdoms of Deccan followed by a numerous army for enlarging his own kingdom. He sent before him one of his oaptains
1 Smith, Akbar The Great Mogul. Chap. x, p. 177, No. 2 (Oxford, 1919). * cf. p. 282, note 6 and p. 189, noto l. 8 Fr. Xavior writes in this way in the narrative translated below.
4 Such is the habit of Fr. Piñeiro, for instance ; "The time of the suppor came, I took two or three morsels," etc.
6 JASB., Vol. LXV, p. 45.
6.The original language of the letter of Fr. Xavier must have been either Spanish or Portuguese; Anyhow the lattor published in Guerreiro's work supposes one or two translations.
He lot the capital for Agra late in 1598, after a prolonged residence of thirteen years in the Punjab.