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TO SIR BARTLE FRERE.
“5th December 1842.—My dear Sir—I have much pleasure in replying to your
letter of the 3d instant ; and I beg you to assure the honourable the
Governor, that any reference of a similar character will at any time
meet with my promptest attention. It was in the year 1835 that I
repaired to Puttun Somnath with a view to an investigation of its
antiquities and traditions ; and since that time I have had many
opportunities of comparing the result of my observations and inquiries
with the notices which I have observed in the Muhammadan histories, and
the narratives of other visitors. Mr. Westergaard, a learned Dane who
has been sent to this country on a literary mission under the auspices
of his Sovereign, and who is at present staying under my roof, visited
the place a few months ago ; and I learn from his account that matters
connected with the temples there remain nearly in the same state in
which they were at the time of my visit.
“The town of Puttun is now in a condition very different from that in
which it was when it was assaulted by Muhammad of Ghuznil As mentioned
by Sir John Malcolm, it is described by Persian historians I as being a
lofty castle,’ ‘ on a narrow peninsula, with its three sides defended by
the sea,’ and it was famous as a stronghold of power as well as the seat
of a celebrated shrine. The difficulties encountered by Muhammad in its
attack clearly prove that this was the case. At present, however, there
is nothing connected with it deserving the name of a fortification,
though part of the town, which is very inconsiderable in point of size,
is enclosed within a wall. Verawul, in its neighbourhood, is a port
where mercantile transactions are pretty extensive, and where a body of
respectable Banyas and Jain merchants are to be found.
“There are only two temples belonging to the Hindoos of any consequence
at Somnath. One of these is that built some fifty years ago by Alya Bai,
the famous Ivanee of the Holkar family, of whom such interesting
accounts are published in Sir John Malcolm’s History of Central India.
The other is that which is declared by all the natives of the place to
have been the special object of the anti-polytheistic ire of Muhammad.
The latter is now utterly forsaken by the natives as a place of worship.
There was much filth accumulated in it when I saw it. It was traversed
by the village swine, the common scavengers of India, which were
attracted to it by its being occasionally a place of resort by the
natives after their morning meal. The greater part of the building,
which is of oolite sandstone, is still standing ; and the remains of its
external ornaments, though much defaced by the violence of the
Mussulmans, bear witness to a respectable state of advancement in the
art of sculpture at the time that they were formed. The name of the
temple, as well as its construction, indicates its connection with the
god Shiva. The idol destroyed by Muhammad is declared by the natives to
have been a ling a, and of this fact there can be no doubt entertained
by any person who attends to the form of the temple. The principal
notices of the destruction of the idol taken by the Mussulman historians
are the following: -‘The temple in which the idol of Somnath stood,’
says the Rauzat-as-Safci, ‘ as of considerable extent, both in length
and breadth, and the roof was supported by fifty-six pillars in rows.
The idol was of polished stone ; its height was about five cubits, and
its thickness in proportion : two cubits were below ground. Muhammad
having entered the temple broke the stone Somnath with a heavy mace;
some of the fragments he ordered to be conveyed to Ghuzni, and they were
placed at the threshold of the old mosque.’ In the TabJcat-Akbari, a
history of the Emperor Akbar, we have the following passage agreeing on
the point referred to with that now quoted :—
“‘Muhammad,’ says Eerislita, who is evidently guilty of gross
exaggeration in his general account of Somnath, ‘entered Somnath
accompanied by his sons, and a few of his nobles and principal
attendants. On approaching the temple he saw a superb edifice built of
hewn stone. Its lofty roof was supported by fifty-six pillars, curiously
carved and set with precious stones. In the centre of the hall was
Somnath, a stone idol five yards in height, two of which were sunk in
the ground. The king, approaching the image, struck off its nose, lie
ordered two pieces of the idol to be broken oif and sent to Ghuzni, that
one might be thrown at the threshold of the public mosque, and the other
at the court door of his own palace. These identical fragments are to
this day (now 600 years ago) to be seen at Ghuzni. Two more fragments
were reserved to be sent to Mecca and Medina.’
“In the second of these extracts it is declared that the temple was ‘
levelled with the ground.’ The Rauzat-as-Safa, the more respectable
authority, however, does not notice this circumstance. The unanimous
testimony of the natives of Somnath, so far as I could read it, is in
favour of the representations of those who say that Muhammad contented
himself with the destruction of the idol and the partial injury of the
shrine.
“Sir John Malcolm, I may here ’mention, attributes the destruction of
the temple to Sultan Mahmoud Begoda, who came to the throne of Goojarat
in the year 877 of the Hijra, ‘he marched,’ he says, ‘against Somnath,
razed the temple to the ground, and with the bigoted zeal of a
Muhammadan conqueror, built a mosque on the spot where it stood.’ He
adds, ‘The mosque has fallen into ruin, and Alya Bai, the widow of a
prince of the Maratha family of Holkar, has lately erected a new temple
on the exact spot where it stood.’ This last statement appears to me
incredible, for Somnath has remained in the hands of the Mussulmans ever
since the days of Malimoud Begoda, and for long they were so much
addicted to obstruct the Hindoos in their worship that the British
Government begged on their behalf the freedom of pilgrimage from the
Joonagurh State, to which the town of Somnath belongs. The natives of
Somnath, so far as I could learn, universally declare that the site of
Alya Bai’s temple is not that of the ancient temple, and that the temple
to which I have already alluded as forsaken is the ancient temple. In a
case of this kind I am disposed to lay considerable stress on the local
tradition. Alya Bai’s misguided zeal for Hindooism could find many spots
near the ancient Somnath where it could find its expression without its
selecting the ruins of a mosque. The whole neighbourhood, indeed, is
sacred, according to the Hindoo mythology. It is the reputed field of
one of the most celebrated engagements mentioned in the Mahabharata. The
god Krishna, according to the Bhagawata, received his mortal wound at a
spot not very far distant from its enclosure.
“In the course of my reading I have found no notice in any of the
Mussulman histories of ‘gates’ having been taken from the temple of
Somnath. If such articles formed part of the trophies of Muhammad of
Ghuzni, it is probable that they were connected with the ancient fort of
the town, for it is not likely that the Mussulmans would devote an
article contaminated by idolatry to an ornamental purpose connected with
either their mosques or tombs, though they might dispose of them for any
purpose of degradation that might occur to them. The author of the
Rauzat-as-Safa, as we have seen, says expressly that it was some
‘fragments’ of the idol which were ordered to be sent to Ghuzni, and
that ‘they were placed at the threshold of the great mosque.’ The author
of the Tabkat-Akbari speaks of one ‘fragment’ of stone having been sent
to Ghuzni, ‘ where it was laid at the threshold of the principal mosque,
and was there many years,’ With these testimonies that of Eerishta
agrees. The story of the gates has originated, it appears to me, with
some of our late travellers ; perhaps with erroneous information given
to Mr. Elphinstone.
“The ancient temple of Sonlnath was devoted to Shiva. The distinctive
followers of this god in Kathiawar are now few and uninfluential. There
are no Brahmans in charge of the old temple to which I have referred.
That of Alya Bai is under the care of the Sompada Brahmans, one of the
smallest of the eighty-fonr sects into which the Goojarat Brahmanhood is
divided, and who are seldom met with elsewhere than at Somnath, from
which they derive their name. The great body of the pure Hindoos in the
province are now Yaishnavas. It is the legends relative to Krishna, who
is one of the incarnations of Vishnoo, that principally attract the
Hindoo pilgrims to Somnath, and neither the celebrity nor supposed
sanctity of the old or the new temple. The Sompada Brahmans exist
principally by the practice of mendicity. They are the Poojarees of the
temple.
“Somnath, as I have already hinted, belongs to the Mussulman State of
Joonagurh. That State has claims for zortalabi, or black mail,
recognised by us, upon most of the petty States of the peninsula. It is
at present particularly well affected to the British Government, as I
saw last year when residing in Kathiawar, but it is jealous of the
Gaikwar and some of the British and Baroda Hindoo tributaries. I
question if it will cordially welcome the gates should they ever enter
its boundaries. The Mussulmans throughout India will, I believe, be not
a little hurt in their feelings by their public exhibition on their
progress, and they, of all classes of the community, require to have
their feelings most conciliated on this occasion.
“On reflecting on the present circumstances of Somnath, I see not how
the gates can be conveniently disposed of, even should they reach
Somnath, unless it be by planting them in some triumphal arch or
monument entirely disconnected with any of the sacred edifices of the
Hindoos. The Hindoos, so far as they would make any interpretation of
their being presented to any of their temples, would conclude that the
gift is the voluntary homage of the British Government to their
religion, and a token of our espousal of their cause against the
Mussulmans, their former foes. This cannot be the design of the Right
Honourable the Governor-General. His grand object is to consecrate the
spolia opima to the commemoration of British and Indian valour. From
what I have observed of the Natives during the most intimate intercourse
with them for fourteen years, I am led to the opinion that his
Lordship’s desires of benefit from tbe disposal of the gates can be
accomplished only by their being kept entirely distinct from the
temples. From his Lordship’s late exemplary recognition of divine
Providence in connection with our successes in Afghanistan and the
preservation of our troops, and the bounty of God toward our native
subjects in general, I am sure that his Lordship would revolt from
inadvertently originating any measure which would appear to him to be in
any way derogatory to our holy Faith, or adverse to that gradual
divorcement from superstitious observances wliich is now becoming
apparent throughout the bounds of our Eastern Empire.
“I respectfully beg you to ask the Governor to pardon my venturing on a
single allusion extending beyond the inquiries of your letter. It
proceeds from one who has no common desire to witness the continuance of
the distinguished prosperity of my Lord Ellenborough’s
administration—the blessing of peace which, under God, his Lordship has
been so instrumental in earning for us, and his expressed determination
nobly to consecrate the principal resources of India to its own
improvement and social and moral elevation.” |
