Observations on the Mussulmauns of India: Descriptive of Their Manners, Customs, Habits and Religious Opinions Made During a Twelve Years' Residence in Their Immediate SocietyMeer Hasan Ali, Mrs.
Islamic
Observations on the Mussulmauns of India: Descriptive of Their Manners, Customs, Habits and Religious Opinions Made During a Twelve Years' Residence in Their Immediate Society
Meer Hasan Ali, Mrs.
India -- Social life and customs; Muslims -- India
These accounts I merely state as the belief of the Hindoos, and those
the least educated persons of the population. The Mussulmauns, however,
are of a different opinion; the account they give of the Deluge
resembles the Jewish, and doubtless the information Mahumud has conveyed
to his followers was derived from that source.
Some of the people are weak enough to conjecture that Kannoge was founded
by Cain.[2] It bears, however, striking features of great antiquity, and
possesses many sufficient evidences of its former extent and splendour to
warrant the belief that it has been the capital of no mean kingdom in ages
past. The remarks I was enabled to make during a residence of two years at
Kannoge may not be deemed altogether uninteresting to my readers, although
my descriptions may be 'clouded with imperfections'. I will not, therefore,
offer any useless apologies for introducing them in my present Letter.
Kannoge, known as the oldest capital of the far-famed kingdom of
Hindoostaun, is now a heap upon heap of ruins, proclaiming to the present
generation, even in her humility, how vast in extent and magnificent in
style she once was, when inhabited by the rulers of that great empire. The
earth entombs emblems of greatness, of riches, and of man's vain-glorious
possessions; buildings have been reared by successive generations on
mounds which embowelled the ruined mansions of predecessors.
The killaah[3] (castle) in which during two years we shared an abode with
sundry crows, bats, scorpions, centipedes, and other living things, was
rebuilt about seven hundred years ago, on the original foundation which,
as tradition states, has continued for more than two thousand years. The
materials of which the walls are constructed are chiefly bricks.
It is worthy of remark, that the bricks of ancient manufacture in India
give evidence of remarkable durability, and are very similar in quality to
the Roman bricks occasionally discovered in England. At Delhi I have met
with bricks that have been undoubtedly standing six or seven centuries;
and at Kannoge, if tradition speak true, the same articles which were
manufactured upwards of two thousand years ago, and which retain the
colour of the brightest red, resemble more the hardest stone than the
things we call bricks of the present day. After the minutest examination
of these relics of ancient labour, I am disposed to think that the clay
must have been more closely kneaded, and the bricks longer exposed to the
action of fire than they are by the present mode of manufacturing them;
and such is their durability, that they are only broken with the greatest
difficulty.
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