Indian Epigraphy c7: Appendix: Indo-Muslim Epigraphy

Indian Epigraphy c7

Language: English

c7.s1 1. Study of the Subject — 7 parts
c7.s2 2. Nature of the Records — 4 parts
c7.s3 3. Language — 9 parts
c7.s4 4. Palaeography and Calligraphy — 15 parts
c7.s5 5. Historical Importance — 6 parts

Appendix: Indo-Muslim Epigraphy

c7.2

¹ See Z. A. Desai's survey in *Ancient India*, No. 9, pp. 224 ff.

1. Study of the Subject

The contributions of the pioneers in the study of Indo-Muslim epigraphy since the middle of the 19th century can be assessed from the list of published inscriptions compiled by J. Horovitz² about half a century ago. A large number of Arabic and Persian inscriptions were received by the Asiatic Society of Calcutta from officials in various parts of India and these were deciphered and published in the Society's journal by H. Blochmann. The *Asiatic Researches* and *Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal* did valuable work in this direction, which was followed by other periodicals such as the *Indian Antiquary*, *Journal Asiatique* and *Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland*. Among books published in the last century and dealing specially with inscriptions, mention may be made of the *Corpus Inscriptionum Bhavnagari* which is a collection of fiftyone inscriptions from Kathiawar and Gujarat, published in 1889 by the former State of Bhavnagar.

c7.s1.2

² *Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica*, 1909-1910, pp. 30-44. For the notices and copies of some inscriptions, see also Sangin Beg, *Sairu'l Manāzil* (published about 1835); Sayyid Ahmad Khan, *Āthāru'ṣ ṣanādīd* (1846), J. H. Ravenshaw, *Gaur: its Ruins and Inscriptions* (London, 1878); Saiyid Muhammad Latif, *Lahore: its History, Architectural Ruins and Antiquities* (Lahore, 1892) and *Agra: Historical and Descriptive* (Calcutta, 1896); Muhammad Akbar Jahan, *Aḥsanu's Siyar* (Agra, A. H. 1320); Raziuddin Bismil, *Kanzu't Tawārīkh* (Badaun, A. H. 1319); and M. Nur Ahmad Chishti, *Taḥqīqāt-i-Chishtī* (Lahore, A. H. 1324

c7.s1.3

A few such inscriptions were published in the *Epigraphia Indica*, a publication of the Department of Archaeology, which was, however, meant primarily to deal with epigraphs in the Sanskritic and Dravidian languages. A biennial supplement to the *Epigraphia Indica* to deal specially with Indo-Muslim inscriptions was later conceived and its issue for 1907-1908 was publisled under the editorship of E. Denison Ross. Its next issue for 1909-1910 was, however, published under the independent title *Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica* which was edited by J. Horovitz who was appointed Government Epigraphist for Muslim Inscriptions. The next issue of the periodical was edited by Ghulam Yazdani who succeeded Horovitz in the said honorary post and successfully ran the series for about quarter of a century, bringing out in all fourteen issues and one supplement, the last issue being for 1939-1940. The fifteenth issue was published as the one for 1941-1950 due to the conditions created by World War II. In 1946, the post of Assistant Superintendent for Epigraphy for Arabic and Persian inscriptions was created and the issue for 1941-1950 was published under the editorship of Muhammad Ashraf Husain who had been appointed to the post. The issues for 1951-1952 and the following years are being published under the new name *Epigraphia Indica: Arabic and Persian Supplement*.

c7.s1.4

The prominent Indian contributors to the said periodical of the Department of Archaeology, besides Yazdani, are Zafar Hasan, M. Nazim, Shamsuddin Ahmad, Ramsingh Saksena and Khwaja Muhammad Ahmad. Most of the inscriptions published in it came from the former Hyderabad State and Bombay Presidency, though many inscriptions were found also in other parts of the country.¹ From time to time, the Archaeological Survey published inscriptions in its series of Memoirs. A monograph on the Qurānic and non-historical epigraphs in the protected monuments in Delhi, edited by M. Ashraf Husain, and another on the inscriptions of Bijapur, edited by M. Nazim, were published as Memoirs Nos. 47 and 49 in 1936.

c7.s1.5

¹ Cf. J. Cumming, *Revealing India's Past*, London, 1939, p. 220; V S Bendrey, *A Study of Muslim Inscriptions* Bombay, 1944, p. 22.

c7.s1.6

Amongst epigraphical works recently published by scholars unconnected with the Department of Archaeology, mention may be made of *Important Inscriptions of the Baroda State*, Vol. II, edited by G. Yazdani and R. G. Gyani and a monograph containing fiftynine inscriptions, mostly from Ahmedabad, with facsimiles of 46 out of them, edited and published by M. A. Chaghtai in the *Bulletin of the Deccan College Research Institute*, Vol. III, No. 2, 1942.¹ A few inscriptions studied by different scholars have also appeared in Indian periodicals like the *Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal*, *Indian Historical Quarterly* and *Oriental College Magazine* (Lahore). V. S. Bendrey’s *Study of Muslim Inscriptions* (Bombay, 1944) deals specially with the inscriptions published in the *Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica* from 1907 to 1938 and contains summaries of epigraphs, arranged chronologically, with four appendices. The introductory portion of the work explains the principles on which a methodical study of epigraphical material should be based and contains suggestions to be followed by the students of Indo-Muslim epigraphy.

c7.s1.7

¹ The article has been separately printed under the title *History of Muslim Monuments of Ahmedabad through their Inscriptions*, Poona, 1942.

2. Nature of the Records

c7.s2.1

Indo-Muslim inscriptions in Arabic and Persian are available in India from the last decade of the 12th century A.D. The earliest epigraphs were found in the Qutb premises at Delhi, the Arhai Din ka Jhonpra at Ajmer and the tomb of Shāh Ni'matu'llāh Shahīd at Hansi. The number of records of the subsequent centuries is large; but it is the largest in the 16th and 17th centuries. Later inscriptions in Arabic and Persian are not so numerous. Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal, Bombay and Hyderabad are comparatively rich in Indo-Muslim inscriptions, while Madras is the poorest. Among single places yielding a large number of inscriptions mention may be made of Bijapur, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Fatehpur Sikri and Agra, Ajmer, Gulbarga, Hansi, Gaur, Biharsharif, and Pandua and Malda.

c7.s2.2

Indo-Muslim inscriptions are generally found on mosques, tombs and similar religious buildings and give the date of their construction or repairs often with the names of the reigning monarch and the builder or repairer. There are some deeds of endowment made in favour of mosques and other religious institutions for their maintenance. Occasionally we find them removed from their original places. Epitaphs sometimes appear on mosques and inscriptions relating to mosques on graves. Another kind of Indo-Muslim epigraphs are those recording the construction or repairs of forts, bastions, fort-walls, gateways, roads, granaries, etc. There are also some administrative records containing orders or mandates proclaiming the abolition of taxes and prohibition of undesirable practices or relating to the amelioration of public grievances. A few inscriptions appear on stones indicating boundaries or on slabs commemorating the visit of eminent personages or their halt at particular places. Some such stone slabs of Akbar’s time, mostly carved by Mīr Muḥammad Ma’ṣum Nāmbī of Bakkar, commemorate the Mughal emperor’s expedition to and conquest of Khandesh and the Deccan as well as his halts at various places in the course of his journeys. Some inscriptions are also found on slabs attached to tanks, wells, schools, palaces, gardens, bridges, caravansarais, etc.

c7.s2.3

Besides stone inscriptions and, of course, also the legends on coins, there are inscriptions on arms, seals, signets, vases, precious stones, etc. A few inscriptions on guns and swords have been published. The Muslim rulers did not generally engrave their records on copper plates, though a few copper-plate inscriptions are also available.¹

c7.s2.4

¹ For a copper-plate record of the time of Farrukhsiyar, see *A. R. Ep.*, 1952-53, No. A 15.

3. Language

c7.s3.1

The majority of Indo-Muslim inscriptions are written in Persian. Many of them are in Arabic and some partly in Arabic and partly in Persian. There is another kind of bilingual records which are written in Arabic or Persian on the one hand and Sanskrit or a regional language like Marāṭhī, Kannaḍa or Telugu on the other.² Inscriptions in more languages than wo are also known.¹

c7.s3.2

² For some bilingual records, see *A. R. Ep.*, 1952-53, Nos. A 15 (C-87); B 55-A, 192-A(C-78), 623-A(C-107), 566-A(C-16c); 1954-55, Nos. B 89-A(C-90); 513(C-136), 517 (C-155), 521 (G-71). The language of one such record is Hindī written in both Persian and Devanāgarī characters

c7.s3.3

¹ For an inscription in Persian, Sanskrit and Gujarātī, see Bull. Baroda Mus., 1953-55, pp. 73 ff.

c7.s3.4

The earliest Indo-Muslim inscriptions are in Arabic except the epigraph in the Quwwatu’l Islām mosque at Delhi, which is written in Arabic and Persian. Its date is 1191-92 A.D., though it may have been set up some years later. Arabic continued to be the language of Indo-Muslim epigraphy till the latest decades of the 13th century. But, with the rise of the Khaljīs, from about the beginning of the 14th century, Persian is found more frequently in epigraphical records and its popularity gradually increased, though Arabic was not totally ousted since religious inscriptions continued to be written in that language. Arabic was more popular than Persian in Bengal. With the establishment of Mughal rule in India in the 16th century, Persian began to be generally used in State records as well as in inscriptions and, in the first half of the 18th century, it ousted Arabic almost completely. There is an Urdū inscription of the middle of the 18th century.²

c7.s3.5

² Ep. Indo-Mosl., 1909-1910, p. 31. A chronogram, supposed to be in old Urdū, giving the date of the erection of a mosque at Ahmedabad, is found in an inscription dated 1555-56 A.D. See ibid., 1935-1936, p. 51. For some versified Urdū inscriptions of the 19th century, see A. R. Ep., 1953-54, Nos. C 36, 53, 63, 65.

c7.s3.6

With few exceptions, the Arabic inscriptions are in prose. Of the versified records in Arabic, one dated 1313-14 A.D. from Tribeni (Hooghly District, West Bengal) is the earliest of its kind in India. It also provides the earliest chronogram among Indo-Muslim inscriptions.³ Earlier Persian inscriptions are generally in prose. The earliest dated inscription in Persian verse is the Hansi epigraph⁴ of ‘Alāu’ddīn Khaljī. Versified Persian inscriptions became more common at a later date. The majority of the inscriptions are not good literary compositions and exhibit grammatical inaccuracy and disregard for the rules of prosody.

c7.s3.7

³ Ep. Indo-Mosl., 1917-1918, pp. 33-34

c7.s3.8

⁴ Ibid., p. 19. For a fragmentary inscription from Mathura, see ibid., 1937-1938, p. 60.

c7.s3.9

(Important Inscriptions of the Baroda State, Vol. II, pp. 10-11; IHQ, Vol .XXI, p. 66).

4. Palaeography and Calligraphy

c7.s4.1

As in other parts of the Muslim world,¹ Arabic and Persian epigraphy in India is interesting from the historical and paleographic points of view. It exhibits a diversity of scripts often beautifully executed and ingeniously ornamented. As specimens of extraordinary calligraphy, some of the inscriptions can favourably compete with certain records on paper.

c7.s4.2

¹ Cf. ibid., 1913-1914, Appendix C, p. 46. For illustrations of a few inscriptions from foreign countries, see M. Ziauddin, *Moslem Calligraphy*, Calcutta, 1936.

c7.s4.3

The scripts principally used in the Muslim epigraphs are Kūfic, Nasta'līq, and Naskh including its variety called Thulth. Each of these writings was executed with its distinctive conventional style which varied according to the period and locality as well as the ingenuity of particular calligraphists.² We have only a few inscriptions in Kūfic which was written in a simple and an ornamental style.³ The inscriptions of the pre-Mughal period are mostly written in Naskh.⁴ The characters are vigorous, rigid and also bold at times. The Naskh script, as used in such areas as those under the Sulṭāns of Bengal and Gujarat, developed an individuality of its own. The decorative Tughrā style of Bengal, which is also noticed in a large number of records from Gujarat, exhibits distinctive ornamentation.⁵ In this style of writing, the elongated shafts and curves of the letters are arranged so as to form different motifs. The arrangement of the curved letters across the arrow-headed ones representing the motif of bow and arrow is commonly found, so that some scholars prefer to call it 'the bow-and-arrow style'. A slightly modified form of this motif is that of the arches or railings.⁶ Another motif represents the parade or march of an army with raised banners, 'the flags being either conspicuous or disturbed by the intervention of a row of knotted ropes representing the halters sometimes hung below banner heads, the cluster of letters at the foot of the straight-drawn vertical lines presenting the thick mass of soldiers which in old times formed an interwoven group during a march.¹

c7.s4.4

² See *Ancient India*, No. 9, Plates CXIII and CXIV.

c7.s4.5

³ Cf. ibid., Plate CXIII-A. Kūfic took its name from the town of Kūfa on the Euphrates, which was famous for its copyists (D. C. Phillott, *Higher Persian Grammar*, p. 35).

c7.s4.6

⁴ For its different forms, cf. *Ancient India*, No. 9, Plates CXIII-B and CXIV-C.

c7.s4.7

⁵ See ibid., Plate CXIV-A.

c7.s4.8

⁶ *Ep. Indo-Mosl.*, 1935-1936, Plate XXXVI-a.

c7.s4.9

¹ Ibid., 1923-1924, p. 18 and Plate VII.

c7.s4.10

In the Tughrā style, sometimes the letters look like the outlines of birds and animals, the forms being intended to serve as a security against evil. The lion and tiger, which are the symbols of the valour of 'Alī, 'the Lion of God', are often found carved on forts in the Deccan, which were rebuilt in the 15th and 16th centuries by the Muslim kings of the Shiite faith. Such inscriptions generally contain a prayer comprising a religious text or a passage quoted from the holy Qurān, the Nād-i-'Alī being a frequent quotation.²

c7.s4.11

² Ibid., 1935-1936, p. 44, Plate XXX-a.

c7.s4.12

Nasta'līq is seen in inscriptions from the first half of the 16th century A.D. It is a beautiful combination of the Naskh (the ordinary hand) and the Ta'līq or the 'hanging' writing which is the elegant court hand of the Persians.³ During the following two centuries, it almost entirely replaced Naskh, although the latter's artistic variety known as Thulth was used for religious epigraphs in Arabic exactly as Kūfic was employed in the earlier period.

c7.s4.13

³ D. C. Phillott, op. cit., p. 36.

c7.s4.14

Inscriptions in beautiful Thulth and Nasta'līq have been found in all parts of the country.⁴

c7.s4.15

⁴ Cf. Ancient India, No. 9, Plates CXIII-C and CXIV-B. The Shikasta or 'broken' hand is the name of the cursive writing, in which the dots are omitted and the letters are joined together so that it is difficult to read (D. C. Phillott, op. cit., p. 36).

5. Historical Importance

c7.s5.1

From the historical point of view, the Indo-Muslim inscriptions are not as important as the epigraphs in the Sanskritic and Dravidian languages, bacause there is no dearth of historical works dealing with the activities and achievements of the Muslim monarchs. Moreover, State documents of the Muslim rulers, such as *farmāns* and *sanads*, were written generally on paper. Nevertheless, inscriptions as well as coins sometimes supply valuable data for the reconstruction of political, social and religious history. In some cases, they supply the missing links in the chronology of rulers¹ and throw light on events and personages unknown from literary sources.² At times they also correct anachronism or incongruity and settle the dates of historical events in cases where the information from literary sources happen to be confusing or conflicting.³ Although, in most of the cases, they merely corroborate the statements in historical works, sometimes they offer details left out in the chronicles and provide links in the reconstruction of the succession of public officials and the history of noble families.⁴ Often they give the correct names of places and persons, thus correcting the wrong or conflicting spellings found in the manuscripts of the chronicles.⁵ The inscriptions on buildings are important to the student of the history of architecture.

c7.s5.2

¹ That Kaikā’ūs, son of Nāṣiruddīn Bughrā Khān, actually ruled over Bengal is not indicated by the Persian historians and is only known from inscriptions (*Ep. Indo-Mosl.*, 1917-1918, pp. 8-15). Inscriptions have shown that Maḥmūd Tughlaq was a ruling king in A. H. 795 (1392-93 A.D.) and did not begin to rule in the following year as stated in the chronicles (ibid., 1919-1920, pp. 12-15; 1933-1934, Supp., pp. 22-23). Cf. also the evidence of a Sanskrit inscription referring to Muḥammad bin Tughlaq (believed to have ascended the throne in 1325 A.D.) but dated June 3, 1324 A. D. (*Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXXV, p. 141).