Indian Antiquary Vol 60

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

Page 43

FEBRUARY, 1931.)
SIDI ALI SHELEBI IN INDIA, 1564-1658 A.D.
the Tuesday it was thought advisable to give them sight of their monarch. A man called Molla Bi,71 who bore & striking resemblance to the late Emperor, only somowhat slighter of atature, was arrayed in the imperial robes and placed on a throne specially erected for the purpose in the large entrance hall. His faco and you were veilod. The Chamberlain Khoshhal72 Bey stood behind, and the first secretary in front of him, whilo many officers and dignitaries as well as the people from the riverside, on sooing their sovereign made joyful obeisance to the sound of festive music. The physicians were handsomely rowarded and the rocovery of the monarch was universally credited.
"I took leave of all the grandees, and with the news of the Emperor's recovery I reached Lahore about the middle of the month of Rebiul Evvel. This was on a Thursday....."
According to the translation by Diez (which is probably the more correct), it was on the day following the mook audience, that is to say, on Wednesday, that Sidi 'Ali took leave of the grandees, and next day, Thursday, in the middle of Rabi 1,73 he started on his way to Labore.
Travelling via Sonpat, Panipat, Karnal, Thânesvar, Samana, Sirhind, Macchiwara and Bajwara," and crossing the “river of Sultanpur" by boat, he reached Lahore at the beginning of Rabi II, i.e., about the middle of February 1666. A day or two earlier Akbar had formally ascended the throne at Kalanaur (on the 2nd Rabi 11,76 corresponding with 14th February).
Mirza Shah,76 the governor of Labore (who was there in the preceding August also) now refused to allow the travellers to proceed farther on the pretext that Akbar had issued orders that no one was to be allowed to go to Kabul or to Kandahar : so they had to turn back and go to Kalanaur, to obtain the young emperor's sanction. They came up with Akbar near the fortress of Mankot, where he had been watching the movements of Sikandar Khan. Akbar readily gave the required permission, as well as a guide and a lakh of rupees (perhaps an assignment on certain revenues, as seems likely from what Sidi Ali says later on), and told them to travel in the company of four Bege, whom he was sending with an escort to Kabul. Here Sidi 'Ali mentions that Shah Abu'l-ma'Ali, who had got into disgrace and had been placed under arrest," was put in charge of these Bege and taken to Lahore, where he was cast into jail.
In the middle of Rabi II Sidi Ali and his companions quitted Lahore en route for Kabul, crossing the Ravi, which he calls the river of Lahore, in boats. Another big river was then crossed on rafts (Vambéry says "of barrels and chairs"! Diez says " of planks and water pots ": they were probably ghardis) as there were no boats at hand. This was doubtless the Chenåb. The river of Bharah( $y*?) was next crossed in boats. This must, I think, be intended for the Jhelum, as Bharah seems clearly to represent the modern Bhera on the side of that river, an old and onde important site lying on the main route usually followed in early times between Afghanistan and Hindústân. Babur, who orossed the Jhelum near Bhera 18 in 1519, writes in his Memoirs of the Bharah country and the Bharah people. He tells us that the Koh-i-Jûd (the Salt Range) marched with their country for 14 miles.
71 Diez writes Menla Bikessi (Maula Bakhsh ?).
79 Diez does not call him Chamberlain. Here again Vambéry has evidently mistranslated the text. Khushḥal Bog was one of Humayun's body-guard, his bow-bender, as appears from an earlier passage in Diez. He wag in Akbar's body-guard afterwards, but later on was executed for sedition by being trampled under foot by an elephant. See Elliot, History of India, V, 322.
73 Rabi I, 963, corresponds with 14th January to 12th February 1686. The Thursday nonrest the middle of Rabi I was the 17th, corresponding to the 30th January.
74 Two miles SE. of Hoshiarpur ; now a village, but once a very important place and chief town of the district, Vambéry can only suggest a place in Oudh (Bachhrawan in the Rae Bareli district 1)
76 Rabi II, 063 A..., corresponding with 13th February to 12th March 1556.
76 This Mirza Shah, or Shah Mirza, is also mentioned by Abd'l-fajl in his Akbarndma-160 trans. by Beveridge, Bibl. Indica, II, 30. See also above, noteis.
17 Seo Albarndma, trans. Beveridge, II, 27-29, for the reasons leading up to this action.
78 Mrs. Beveridge, in her Babur-ndma, I, 379-387, transcribes the name as Bhira, but Raverty (Tabaqat-i-NAşirl, pp. 1131-32, note), writes Bharah, after comparing two Persian versions with the original Turki.