تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 10.12
English (machine translation) 10.12
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10.12.1
When I left this shaykh, I saw people hurrying from our camp, some of our companions among them. I asked them: 'What is the news?' They told me that an infidel of Hind had died and a fire had been kindled to burn him, and that his wife would burn herself with him. When the two had burned, my companions came back and told me that she had embraced the dead man until she was burned with him. Afterwards in those lands I used to see an infidel woman of Hind, adorned and mounted, followed by people both Muslim and infidel, with drums and trumpets before her and the Brahmans, who are the notables of Hind, with her. If this took place in the sultan's territory, they asked the sultan's permission to burn her; he gave them permission, and they burned her.
10.12.2
Then it happened some time later that I was in a town, most of whose inhabitants were infidels, called Amjarī, whose amīr was a Muslim of the Sāmira of Sind, and near it were rebel infidels. One day they cut the road, and the Muslim amīr went out to fight them, and his subjects, Muslims and infidels, went out with him. A fierce battle took place between them in which seven of the infidel subjects died, and three of them had three wives, who agreed to burn themselves. Among them the burning of a woman after her husband is a recommended act, not an obligatory one; but when a woman burns herself after her husband, her household gains honour by it and is credited with fidelity, whereas one who does not burn herself puts on coarse clothes and lives with her family wretched and despised for her lack of fidelity; yet she is not compelled to burn herself. When the three women we mentioned had pledged to burn themselves, they spent three days beforehand in singing, merriment, eating and drinking, as though bidding farewell to the world, and women came to them from every quarter. On the morning of the fourth day each of them was brought a horse, and she mounted it, adorned and perfumed, holding in her right hand a coconut which she played with and in her left a mirror in which she looked at her face. The Brahmans surrounded her, her relatives were with her, and before her were drums, trumpets and horns. Every one of the infidels would say to her: 'Give my greetings to my father, or my brother, or my mother, or my friend!' and she would say 'Yes,' and laugh at them. I rode with my companions to see how they went about the burning. We went with them about three miles and came to a dark place with much water and many trees, its shade dense, and among its trees were four domed shrines, in each of which was an idol of stone. Between the shrines was a water tank over which the shade was thick and the trees crowded, so that the sun did not pass through them, and it was as though that place were a spot of Hell — God preserve us from it! When we reached those shrines, they went down into
10.12.3
the tank and plunged into it, stripped off the clothes and ornaments they had on and gave them away as alms. Each of them was brought an unsewn garment of coarse cotton, and she tied part of it around her waist and part over her head and shoulders. The fires had been lit near that tank in a low-lying spot, and rawghan kunjut, that is, sesame oil, had been poured on them, which increased their blaze. There were about fifteen men there holding bundles of thin firewood, and with them about ten holding large logs, and the drummers and trumpeters stood waiting for the woman to come. The fire had been screened off by a sheet held by the men in their hands, so that the sight of it should not frighten her. I saw one of them, when she reached that sheet, pull it violently from the men's hands and say to them:
10.12.4
'Mārā mī tarsānī az āṭash? Man mī dānam ū āṭash āst, rahā kunī mārā,' laughing as she said it. The meaning of these words is: 'Do you frighten me with fire? I know that it is a burning fire!' Then she joined her hands above her head in obeisance to the fire and threw herself into it. At that the drums, horns and trumpets were sounded, the men threw the firewood in their hands onto her, and the others put those logs on top of her so that she could not move. The voices rose and the clamour grew. When I saw this I nearly fell from my horse, had not my companions quickly brought me water; they washed my face and I went away. The people of Hind likewise practise drowning: many of them drown themselves in the river Gang, which is the place to which they go on pilgrimage and into which the ashes of those who are burned are thrown; they say it is from Paradise. When one of them comes to drown himself he says to those present: 'Do not think that I drown myself for some worldly matter or for lack of wealth; my purpose is only to draw near to Kusāy' — Kusāy, with u after the k and with unpointed s, is the name of God, mighty and glorious, in their language. Then he drowns himself, and when he is dead they take him out, burn him and throw his ashes into the aforesaid river.
10.12.5
Let us return to our former account. We travelled from the town of Ajūdahan and, after a journey of four days from it, reached the town of Sarastī. Its name is spelt with two s's with a, between them an r without vowel, then a
10.12.6
t with two dots with i, and y. It is a large town with much rice, and its rice is good and is carried from it to the capital Dihlī. It yields a very large revenue; the chamberlain Shams al-Dīn al-Būshanjī told me its amount, but I have forgotten it.
10.12.7
Then we travelled from it to the town of Hānsī — its name is spelt with a after unpointed ḥ, then alif, n without vowel, unpointed s with i, and y. It is one of the finest, best built and most populous of towns, and it has a mighty wall whose builder, they say, was one of the great infidel sultans called Tūra — with u after the dotted t and a after the r — about whom they have stories and tales. From this town come Kamāl al-Dīn Ṣadr al-Jahān, chief qāḍī of Hind, and his brother Quṭlū Khān, the Sultan's tutor, and their two brothers Niẓām al-Dīn and Shams al-Dīn, who devoted himself to God and lived near the sanctuary at Mecca until he died.
10.12.8
Then we travelled from Hānsī and after two days reached Masʿūd Ābād, which is ten miles from the capital Dihlī, and we stayed there three days. Hānsī and Masʿūd Ābād both belong to the exalted malik Hūshanj — with u after the h, a after the dotted sh, n without vowel, and then j — son of Malik Kamāl Gurg, with two hard k's, the first with u, which means 'the wolf'; he will be mentioned later.
10.12.9
The Sultan of Hind, whose capital we were making for, was absent from it in the region of the city of Qanūj, which is ten days from the capital Dihlī. In the capital were his mother, called al-Makhdūma Jahān — jahān is the word for 'the world' — and also his vizier Khwāja Jahān, named Aḥmad b. Iyās, a Rūmī by origin. The vizier sent his men to meet us, and appointed to receive each of us someone of his own rank. Among those he appointed to receive me were Shaykh al-Basṭāmī, al-Sharīf al-Māzandarānī, who is the chamberlain of foreigners, and the jurist ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn al-Multānī, known as Qunnara, with u after the q and a doubled n with a. He wrote to the Sultan with news of us and sent the letter by al-dāwa, which is the foot post, as we have described. It reached the Sultan, and the reply came to him during those three days that we stayed at Masʿūd Ābād.
10.12.10
After those days the qāḍīs, the jurists, the shaykhs and some of the amīrs came out to meet us — they call amīrs "maliks", so that where the people of Egypt and elsewhere say "amīr" they say "malik" — and Shaykh Ẓahīr al-Dīn al-Zanjānī, who holds high rank with the Sultan, came out to meet us.
10.12.11
Then we set out from Masʿūd Ābād and halted near a village called Pālam (with Persian p and a after the l), which belongs to the noble sayyid Nāṣir al-Dīn Muṭahhar al-Awharī, one of the Sultan's boon companions and one of those who enjoy his complete favour.
10.12.12
On the following day we reached the capital Dihlī, the metropolis of the land of Hind — its name is vocalised with i after the d, no vowel on the h, and i after the l. It is a city of great importance, vast, combining beauty and strength, and it is surrounded by a wall whose equal is not known anywhere in the world. It is the greatest city of Hind, indeed of all the cities of Islam in the East.
Linked texts (1)
- تحفة النظار في غرائب الأمصار وعجائب الأسفار — Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Arabic