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
After each heavy fall of rain, the peasantry and children are observed
minutely searching among the ruins for valuables washed out with the loose
earth and bricks by the force of the streams, and, I am told, with
successful returns for their toil; jewels, gold and silver ornaments,
coins of gold and silver, all of great antiquity, are thus secured; these
are bought by certain merchants of the city, by whom they are retailed to
English travellers, who generally when on a river voyage to or from the
Upper Provinces, contrive, if possible, to visit Kannoge to inspect the
ruins, and purchase curiosities.
There is a stately range of buildings at no great distance from the
killaah (castle), in a tolerable state of preservation, called 'Baallee
Peer Kee Durgah'.[6] The entrance is by a stone gateway of very superior
but ancient workmanship, and the gates of massy wood studded with iron. I
observed that on the wood framework over the entrance, many a stray
horseshoe has been nailed, which served to remind me of Wales, where it is
so commonly seen on the doors of the peasantry.[7] I am not aware but that
the same motives may have influenced the two people in common.
To the right of the entrance stands a large mosque, which, I am told, was
built by Baallee himself; who, it is related, was a remarkably pious man
of the Mussulmaun persuasion, and had acquired so great celebrity amongst
his countrymen as a perfect durweish, as to be surnamed peer[8] (saint).
The exact time when he flourished at Kannoge, I am unable to say; but
judging from the style of architecture, and other concurring circumstances,
it must have been built at different periods, some parts being evidently
of very ancient structure.
There are two mukhburrahs,[9] within the range, which viewed from the main
road, stand in a prominent situation: one of these mukhburrahs was built
by command, or in the reign (I could not learn which), of Shah Allumgeer
[10] over the remains of Ballee Peer; and the second contains some of the
peer's immediate relatives.
From the expensive manner in which these buildings are constructed, some
idea may be formed of the estimation this pious man was held in by his
countrymen. The mausoleums are of stone, and elevated on a base of the
same material, with broad flights of steps to ascend by. The stone must
have been brought hither from a great distance, as I do not find there is
a single quarry nearer than Delhi or Agra. There are people in charge of
this Durgah who voluntarily exile themselves from the society of the world,
in order to lead lives of strict devotion and under the imagined presiding
influence of the saint's pure spirit; they keep the sanctuary from
pollution, burn lamps nightly on the tomb, and subsist by the occasional
contributions of the charitable visitors and their neighbours.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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