Indian Antiquary Vol 60

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 18

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
JANUARY, 1031
termination of the war. It appears from a passage later on that the services of Sidi 'Ali and his companions were enlisted by Shah Husain, and that they actually took part in the siege of Tatta. One interesting item of information is given in this connexion, namely, that Tatta was at that time situated upon an island, which can only mean that it was surrounded by ttro branches of the Indus. Mirza Shah Husain's forces bad, we know, come down from the north. We are told that his artillery was ranged up on the bank of the river opposite the town, but the distance was so great that it could make no effect upon the defences. We may fairly conclude from this, perhaps, that what is now known as the Kålrî channel was then (1555) a broad river, flowing round the town on the north and north-west, 40 while the Baghår channel enclosed it on the east and south.
The war between Shah Husain and Muhammad 'Isa lasted about a month, when a com promise was effected (cluc, according to the text followed by Diez, to the intercession of our author). Sidi 'Ali writes that in the first days of Jumada I (962 A.H.) Sultan Mahmud (the governor of Bukkur, who was commanding the king's forces) returned with the troops towards Bukkur by land, while the old king himself started back by river with all the boats, but died on the third day of the voyage.*1 According to this account the death of Shah Husain must have taken place during the first half of Jumuda I, that is to say between the 24th March und 7th April, 1555. Ma'sům, however, specifies Monday, the 12th Rabi I (corresponding with the 4th February) as the date of the king's death. The discrepancy is marked, but it may be found that our author is the more correct. 2 At all events Shah Husain was alive in the first months of 1555, and did not die in 1554, as some authors had supposed.
Sidi 'Ali and his companions seem to have travelled with the king's fleet on the way towards Sehwan. When Shah Husain died, his body was sent back to Tatta with 50 boats. Sidi Ali's party were attacked by "Chaghtais"-apparently marauders out for pillage, who were beaten off by gun-fire, and they then proceeded upstream, reaching Nașrpur 43 in ten days. Here news way received that Mirza Muhammad 'Isa and his son, Mîr salih, were coming north from Tatta, in pursuit of Sultan Mahmûd, and Sidi Ali deemed it his best policy to turn back to meet tbem. He does not tell us why; but the reason seems fairly obvious : *Isa was evidently the rising sun. On the third day, going downstream, they fell in with Mir Salih, and again turned and came upstream with him. After another ten days they arrived at a village called Sind,*+ where Sidi 'Ali had an interview with 'Îsá. The latter seems to have treated him generously, accepting his explanation of the part ho had played on Shah Husain's side at Tatta, and letting him have seven boats, with sailors, and an official to
40 See Haig, The Indus Delta Country, Map III, facing p. 30; also p. 77, where the author suggests that the Kalri must have been a perennial stream in the fourteenth century, as otherwise the Sammås would not have chosen a site on its bank for their chief town; also p. 85, where he quotes Ma'sum as stating that in 1519 "the bulk of the river (i.e., Indus) flowed (through the channel) to the north of Thata." It may be noted also that Walter Peyton, master of the vessel that carried Sir R. Sherley on his way back to Persia in 1613, anchored at the inouth of the Tudus, and on a rough sketch map, now in the British Museum (the existence of which has been brought to my notice by Sir William Foster, C.I.E.) shows both Tatta and "Diule Sinde "as situated on the eastern, or left, bank of the "River Sinde."
41 Jamal, in his Tarkhannama, says Shah Husaip died on the 12th Rabi I at the village of Aliputra, 20 kos from Tatta. Ma'sum (trans. Malet) gays "at the village of Naleo Potruh. On the 1871 Survey sheet there is a village Haleypotra inarked some 5 or 6 miles N. by E. of Tando Muhammad Khan, and about 50 miles from Tatta. This is probably the site referred to ; and this indicates the course of the river in 1568.
43 Sidi 'Ali left Rädhanpur on the 1st Rabi I (24th January 1555). It took him the best part of a month to reach Buge-iFath; then the fighting lasted about anothor month; so that, according to his nar. rative, the death of Shah Husain inust have taken place, as he states, in the first half of Jumdda I, and not in Rabi I, as Ma'sum says.
43 Náşirpur ( 66), according to Diez. This is the Nasarpur of the modern Survey sheets, 18 miles NE. by E. from Hyderabad, an ancient site and a place of much importance in and before Sidi All's days, lying on the bank of the Indus until about the middle of the eighteenth century, when the river shifted its channel to the west and flowed close to the site on which Hyderabad was founded in 1768.
44 I suspect this should road Sann, in the vicinity of which the boats should have arrived.