ABSTRACT
With this Persian inscription of Sulṭān ‘Alā’ Dīn [wa Dunyā’ ‘Alī Mardān Khaljī] from Sultanganj (now in Varendra Research Museum, Rajshahi University, Bangladesh), an Islamic epigraphic tradition began around 1210-1213 in the eastern hinterland of the Islamic world, historically known as Bengal. Just a decade before, it had been ruled by the Hindu dynasty of the Senas and, before that, by the Buddhist dynasty of the Pala (see Figure I.2). The mystical verses of this first Islamic epigraph in Bengal, deeply imbued in a profound spiritual message, commemorate construction of a bridge that symbolically connected this newly conquered outpost with the rest of the Islamic world. Though ornamenting a secular structure, the text carries some religious elements: divine presence in every cosmic scheme, praise of God and the transitory nature of life. In a way, this reflects the characteristic Islamic perspective which does not formally separate religious life and everyday worldly activities. Indeed most inscriptions in the Islamic world, even if affixed to secular structures, resonate with religious expressions, constituting in some way or another public statements of faith that serve to remind Muslims of aspects of their Islamic beliefs. In addition, phrases commonly found in these inscriptions often reflect the public, societal or state trends of their time. Therefore, to interpret these texts in their proper contexts
can be quite a refreshing exercise for the historian, opening up a rich, hitherto untapped, historical source. The second Islamic inscription from Bengal (from the reign of Sulṭān Giyāth al-Dīn ‘Iwaḍ dated 618/1221, discovered in a khānqāh in Sian, Birbhum, West Bengal) commemorates the construction of a khānqāh, a key institution in the spread of the teachings of Islam and its spiritual message (see Figure 3.2). The third Islamic inscription from Bengal (from the reign of Balkā Khān Khaljī, discovered in Naohata, Rahjshahi, Bangladesh, now in Varendra Research Museum, commemorates the construction of a masjid and madrasa complex, two other important institutions of Muslim religious, social and intellectual life (see Figures 2.1 and 2.2). Bengal has an epigraphic heritage extending back to the pre-Islamic period. Inscriptions of various styles are evident in this region, which was once rich in stone carving and sculpture. In the pre-Islamic period, however, artists and craftsmen did not use their skill to exhibit calligraphy as such; Sanskrit and Pali inscriptions are generally informative rather than calligraphic in intent. Inscriptions became more common after the advent of Islam to Bengal and as Bengali Muslim rulers launched into architectural projects. It is difficult to imagine a building of that period without some kind of inscription; it was as if it would have appeared naked or unfinished without. As a result, epigraphic records and inscriptions are plentiful in terms of both artistic accomplishment and historical information. Historical accounts of the Islamic dynasties in South Asia are numerous, particularly those regarding the central authorities in Delhi. A number of sourcebooks, mostly in Persian, record the deeds of sultans and emperors. Bengal, however, has a very small share of this rich heritage of historical writing. Of whatever might once have existed, very little has survived. One example of a lost source is a Persian manuscript on early Muslim rule in Bengal found by Francis Buchanan Hamilton in a shrine in Pandua in the early nineteenth century and mentioned in his book, A Geographical, Statistical and Historical Description of the District or Zilla of Dinajpur in the Province or Soubah of Bengal (Calcutta, 1833). Unfortunately, the manuscript cannot be traced. Several factors, including natural calamities such as flood and fire, may account for the lack of extant sources. The prolonged monsoons and generally humid weather in Bengal pose an additional challenge to the preservation of archives. Another important factor in accounting for the scarcity of materials on the history of Muslim Bengal was the attitude of imperial chroniclers in Delhi towards this region – very few were keen to record events there because it was so remote from the capital. What was recorded in writing usually reflected the official version of events, such as military expeditions to subdue the region, as there was always a temptation for the governors to rebel. Written in the capital, these texts exhibit not only a generally urban bias, but also the views of central government; thus, they seldom provide reliable information on the region. Though the epigraphic heritage of Bengal fills many gaps left by earlier historians, its study did not begin until the second half of the eighteenth century, when some Muslim ulamā (often known as Munshī or Mawlavī in traditional
Bengali society) began to take a scholarly interest in deciphering the texts. The first scholar to realize the importance of epigraphic evidence for dynastic history and to use it as a source for dating different historical monuments and architectural remains was Sayed Ghulam Hussein Salim Zayedpuri (d. 1817). He lived in Ingrezbazar (Malda) near Gaur, the ruined early Muslim capital of Bengal which abounded in inscriptions. He was a pioneer of Islamic epigraphy who examined for the first time inscriptions with a great academic interest as early as in the mid-eighteenth century. While compiling Riyāḍ al-Salāṭīn – the history of Bengal – (completed in 1788, published in Calcutta by the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1893), he studied the epigraphic materials of Gaur and used them in constructing a chronology of Bengal’s ruling dynasties. However, it was Sayyid Munshī Ilāhī Bakhsh al-Ḥusaynī Awrangzebādī – an indirect disciple of Sayed Ghulam Hussein – who systematically examined a significant number of the Islamic inscriptions of Gaur, Pandua and adjacent areas. In total, he deciphered forty-two inscriptions with astonishing accuracy, most of them for the first time. He used this epigraphic evidence in writing the history of Muslim rule in Bengal, which formed a substantial part of his ambitious project of writing the history of the world. Part of this monumental Persian work – Khūrshīd-i-Jahān Numā – covered the history of Muslim rule in Bengal, and was edited and published, with an English translation by Henry Beveridge, in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1895. Interestingly, one of Munshī Ilāhī Bakhsh’s students, Abid Ali Khan, also took a great interest in the inscriptions of Gaur and Pandua as is evident in both of his works Short Notes on the Ancient Monuments of Gaur and Pandua (Malda, 1913) and Memoirs of Gaur and Pandua (edited by H. E. Stapleton, Calcutta, 1931). Early in the nineteenth century British collectors began to take an interest in these inscriptions, motivated principally by their visual appeal. For many of them, colonizing of lands and peoples also meant colonizing their arts, architecture, archaeological heritage and even interpretation of their history and culture. Most of the private as well as museum collections of this period were built upon works removed from their context and often illegally or improperly acquired. As interest in Oriental antiquities and art objects developed in the West, many Europeans set out to explore ancient sites in search of them. Cities such as Gaur and Pandua attracted a number of such adventurers, many of whom were little more than plunderers, or at best antique collectors. Some, however, left accounts and diaries of their experience, most of them now preserved in the India Office Library in London, which provide a rich source for materials on inscriptions that no longer exist. Foremost among the British scholars pioneering this field is Sir Henry Creighton who lived in and around Gaur for twenty years (1786-1807), and wrote a book, The Ruins of Gaur (London, 1817) illustrated with fabulous sketches and architectural drawings. He often refers to inscriptions he found in the old Islamic monuments of the area. Another celebrated British collector of Oriental antiquities was Major William Franklin, who visited Gaur at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Both of his diaries, Journal of a Route from
Rajmahal to Gaur and The Ruins of Gaur, preserved in the India Office Library (MSS nos 19 and 285), give a clear description of the archaeological remains in the region and record a number of inscriptions. The collection that he took with him to England consisted of many monumental inscriptions, some of which he gave to the British Museum. The most elegant piece in this collection, however, found its way through antique dealers to the United States, where it ended up in the museum of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Franklin was accompanied on his tour by a local guide named Munshī Shayām Prasād, a scholar of Arabic and Persian. At Franklin’s request, he prepared a report on the archaeological remains of the area. It, too, has become a valuable source for the epigraphy of the region (MS 2841 in the India Office Library, later published by A. H. Dani as an appendix to his book, Muslim Architecture of Bengal, Dhaka: Asiatic Society of Pakistan, 1961). Another contemporary archaeologist, named Orme, also left a brief report, The Ruins of Gaur, now in the India Office Library (MS 65: 25), which describes a few inscriptions. Francis Buchanan Hamilton was another early nineteenth century scholar who noted a number of inscriptions during his tour of the district of Dinajpur in 1807-1808. He mentions some of them in his work A Geographical, Statistical and Historical Description of the District or Zilla of Dinajpur (Calcutta, 1833). In the second half of the nineteenth century, the investigation of the art and archaeology of the region became more scholarly. One of the first studies of this period was by Captain W. N. Lees, who published an Arabic inscription of Sultan Bārbak Shāh in the JASB in 1860. Among the important studies of that time is Gaur, its Ruins and Inscriptions by J. H. Ravenshaw (London, 1878), which is particularly rich in illustrations and texts. The formation of the Archaeological Survey of India in 1861 brought a revolutionary change to the archaeological study of South Asia. Its first director general, Sir Alexander Cunningham, and his subsequent colleagues, took systematic steps to record all existing inscriptions. Other scholars to discover Islamic inscriptions of Bengal during this period were Dr James Wise, E. Vesey Westmacott, Hili and Walter M. Bourke. Many of the rubbings they collected were sent to the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta, where scholars such as Henry Blochmann deciphered and published them. Among other scholars to contribute to this field in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were R. D. Banerji, Henry Beveridge, H. E. Stapleton, S. Aulad Husain, Rahmat Ali Taish, Hamid Allah Khan and Khan Sahib Moulvi Abdul Wali. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Archaeological Survey of India established a separate section for epigraphy and began to publish a journal, Epigraphia Indica. With the passage of time, a more specialized series came out under the name Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica that was devoted entirely to the Arabic and Persian inscriptions of India. Eminent scholars such as Ghulam Yazdani, Paul Horn, Denison Ross and J. Horvitz either participated in its editing or contributing scholarly articles. Its first volume was published in 1907-1908. After independence from the British, its name changed to Epigraphia Indica, Arabic and Persian Supplement. Scholars such as Ziauddin
Desai published a number of inscriptions from Bengal. Two important works were published before the independence of Bangladesh and certainly provided models for a comprehensive epigraphic study of the region. The first was Bibliography of Muslim Inscriptions of Bengal by A. H. Dani published as an appendix to Journal of the Asiatic Society of Pakistan, vol. 2 (1957), and the other Inscriptions of Bengal by an eminent twentieth century epigraphist, Maulvi Shamsud-Din Ahmed (Rajshahi: Varendra Research Museum, 1960). Among recent publications, Corpus of Arabic and Persian Inscriptions of Bihar (Patna: Jayaslal Research Institute, 1973), by Qeyamuddin Ahmad, and Corpus of the Arabic and Persian Inscriptions of Bengal (Dhaka: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 1992), by Abdul Karim, a prominent historian of Bangladesh, are indeed important additions to this genre. Recent publication of two monumental books, the first one in Arabic (Riḥla ma‘a al-Nuqūsh al-Kitābiyya fī ’l-Bangāl)2 and the second one in Urdu (Mashriq men Islāmī Tahzīb ke Athār: Bangāl ke ‘Arbī wa Fārsī Katbāt)3 are important additions to this field as they contain an elaborate discussion of almost 400 inscriptions. All of these works have enriched the field of epigraphy of the region. However, much still remains to be explored in the history and epigraphy of Bengal, and the task is challenging. The present work takes a different approach from the previous works in the field as it aims towards an interpretive study of the Arabic and Persian epigraphic texts of Bengal in the wider context of the rich epigraphic tradition of the Islamic world. While focusing on previously untapped sources, the book takes a fresh look into Islamic inscriptions to examine the inner dynamics of the social, intellectual and cultural transformations of this eastern region of South Asia. It explores many new inscriptions including the two earliest Persian epigraphs that appeared within the first three decades of the Muslim rule in the region, indicating an early introduction of Persian language and culture in Bengal under the patronage of Khalji rulers coming from Khurasan. Previously published works did not recognize the importance of some inscriptions from the formative period of Mughal rule in Bengal, particularly during Akbar’s era. This present work is the first to discuss a number of inscriptions from the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar. It also focuses on numerous other previously unnoticed inscriptions from Sultanate as well as Mughal periods that somehow found their way to different newly built mosques in distant remote rural areas of Bangladesh and West Bengal, including the famous Nim Darwaza inscription of Barbak Shah at Miyaneh Dar in Gaur Citadel, dated 871 (1466-1467). In addition to deciphering and editing the epigraphic texts anew, I have analysed the information derived from them in detail in this book to help develop an understanding of the political, administrative, social, religious and cultural setting of that period. In addition, the cursory information available in these inscriptions about the monuments they belonged to has been used to reconstruct the architectural history of the region. The chapter on Islamic calligraphy examines these inscriptions as art in detail. It discusses a few extremely distinctive calligraphic creations through a regional style, namely Bengali ṭughrā’, in addition to considering the artistic merit of other popular styles, such as Kufi, thulth, naskh, riqā’, rayḥānī, muḥaqqaq and Bihārī.
