Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c16.s2: Geology of the Aravallis
Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c16.s2
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Geology of the Aravallis
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The general character of the Aravalli is its primitive formation : ¹ granite, reposing in variety of angle (the general dip is to the east) on massive, compact, dark blue slate, the latter rarely appearing much above the surface or base of the superincumbent granite. The internal valleys abound in variegated quartz and a variety of schistous slate of every hue, which gives a most singular appearance to the roofs of the houses and temples when the sun shines upon them. Rocks of gneiss and of syenite appear in the intervals ; and in the diverging ridges west of Ajmer the summits are quite dazzling with the enormous masses of vitreous rose-coloured quartz.
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¹ [“ Oldest of all the physical features which intersect the continent is the range of mountains known as the Arāvallis, which strikes across the Peninsula from north-east to south-west, overlooking the sandy wastes of Rājputāna. The Arāvallis are but the depressed and degraded relics of a far more prominent mountain system, which stood, in Palaeozoic times, on the edge of the Rājputāna Sea. The disintegrated rocks which once formed part of the Arāvallis are now spread out in wide red-stone plains to the east ” (IGI, i. 1).]
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The Aravalli and its subordinate hills are rich in both mineral and metallic products ; and, as stated in the annals of Mewar, to the latter alone can be attributed the resources which enabled this family so long to struggle against superior power, and to raise those magnificent structures which would do honour to the most potent kingdoms of the west.
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The mines are royalties ; their produce a monopoly, increasing the personal revenue of their prince. An-Dan-Khan is a triple figurative expression, which comprehends the sum of sovereign rights in Rajasthan, being allegiance, commercial duties, mines. The tin-mines of Mewar were once very productive, and yielded, it is asserted, no inconsiderable portion of silver : but the caste of miners is extinct, and political reasons, during the Mogul domination, led to the [13] concealment of such sources of wealth. Copper of a very fine description is likewise abundant, and supplies the currency ; and the chief of Salumbar even coins by sufferance from the mines on his own estate. Surma, or the oxide of antimony, is found on the western frontier. The garnet, amethystine quartz, rock crystal, the chrysolite, and inferior kinds of the emerald family are all to be found within Mewar; and though I have seen no specimens decidedly valuable, the Rana has often told me that, according to tradition, his native hills contained every species of mineral wealth.
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The Patār Plateau.—Let us now quit our alpine station on the Aravalli, and make a tour of the Patar, or plateau of Central India, not the least important feature of this interesting region. It possesses a most decided character, and is distinct from the Vindhya to the south and the Aravalli to the west, being of the secondary formation, or trap, of the most regular horizontal stratification.
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The circumference of the plateau is best explained in the map, though its surface is most unequally detailed, and is continually alternating its character between the tabular form and clustering ridges.
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Commencing the tour of Mandalgarh, let us proceed south, skirting Chitor (both on insulated rocks detached from the plateau), thence by Jawad, Dantoli, Rampura,¹ Bhanpura, the Mukunddarra Pass,² to Gagraun (where the Kali Sind forces an entrance through its table-barrier to Eklera)³ and Margwas (where the Parbati, taking advantage of the diminished elevation, passes from Malwa to Haraoti), and by Raghugarh, Shahabad, Ghazigarh, Gaswani, to Jadonwati, where the plateau terminates on the Chambal, east; while from the same point of outset, Mandalgarh, soon losing much of its table form, it stretches away in bold ranges, occasionally tabular, as in the Bundi fortress, by Dablana, Indargarh,⁴ and Lakheri,⁴ to Ranthambhor and Karauli, terminating at Dholpur Bari.
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¹ Near this the Chambal first breaks into the Patar.
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² Here is the celebrated pass through the mountains.
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³ Here the Niwaz breaks the chain.
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⁴ Both celebrated passes, where the ranges are very complicated.
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The elevation and inequalities of this plateau are best seen by crossing it from west to east, from the plains to the level of the Chambal, where, with the exception of the short flat between Kotah and Pali ferry, this noble stream is seen rushing through the rocky barrier.
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At Ranthambhor the plateau breaks into lofty ranges, their white summits [14] sparkling in the sun; cragged but not peaked, and preserving the characteristic formation, though disunited from the mass. Here there are no less than seven distinct ranges (Satpara), through all of which the Banas has to force a passage to unite with the Chambal. Beyond Ranthambhor, and the whole way from Karauli to the river, is an irregular tableland, on the edge of whose summit are the fortresses of Utgir, Mandrel, and that more celebrated of Thun. But east of the eastern side there is still another steppe of descent, which may be said to originate near the fountain of the Sind at Latoti, and passing by Chanderi, Kanyadana, Narwar, and Gwalior, terminates at Deogarh, in the plains of Gohad. The descent from this second steppe is into Bundelkhand and the valley of the Betwa.
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Distinguished as is this elevated region of the surface of Central India, its summit is but little higher than the general elevation of the crest of the Vindhya, and upon a level with the valley of Udaipur and base of the Aravalli. The slope or descent, therefore, from both these ranges to the skirts of the plateau is great and abrupt, of which the most intelligible and simple proof appears in the course of these streams. Few portions of the globe attest more powerfully the force exerted by the action of waters to subdue every obstacle, than a view of the rock-bound channels of these streams in this adamantine barrier. Four streams—one of which, the Chambal, would rank with the Rhine and almost with the Rhone—have here forced their way, laying bare the stratification from the water's level to the summit, from three to six hundred feet in perpendicular height, the rock appearing as if chiselled by the hand of man. Here the geologist may read the book of nature in distinct character; few tracts (from Rampura to Kotah) will be found more interesting to him, to the antiquarian, or to the lover of nature in her most rugged attire.
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The surface of this extensive plateau is greatly diversified. At Kotah the bare protruding rock in some places presents not a trace of vegetation; but where it bevels off to the banks of the Par it is one of the richest and most productive soils in India, and better cultivated than any spot even of British India. In its indented sides are glens of the most romantic description (as the fountain of ‘the snake King’ near Hinglaj), and deep dells, the source of small streams, where many treasures of art,¹ in temples and ancient dwellings, yet remain to reward the traveller [15].
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¹ I have rescued a few of these from oblivion to present to my countrymen.
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This central elevation, as before described, is of the secondary formation, called trap. Its prevailing colour, where laid bare by the Chambal, is milk-white : it is compact and close-grained, and though perhaps the mineral offering the greatest resistance to the chisel, the sculptures at the celebrated Barolli evince its utility to the artist. White is also the prevailing colour to the westward. About Kotah it is often mixed white and porphyritic, and about Shahabad of a mixed red and brown tint. When exposed to the action of the atmosphere in its eastern declivity the decomposed and rough surface would almost cause it to be mistaken for gritstone.
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This formation is not favourable to mineral wealth. The only metals are lead and iron ; but their ores, especially the latter, are abundant. There are mines, said to be of value, of sulphuret of lead (galena) in the Gwalior province, from which I have had specimens, but these also are closed. The natives fear to extract their mineral wealth ; and though abounding in lead, tin, and copper, they are indebted almost entirely to Europe even for the materials of their culinary utensils.
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Without attempting a delineation of inferior ranges, I will only further direct the reader's attention to an important deduction from this superficial review of the physiognomy of Rajwara.
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The Mountain System of Central India.—There are two distinctly marked declivities or slopes in Central India : the chief is that from west to east, from the great rampart, the Aravalli (interposed to prevent the drifting of the sands into the central plains, bisected by the Chambal and his hundred arms) to the Betwa ; the other slope is from south to north, from the Vindhya, the southern buttress of Central India, to the Jumna.
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Extending our definition, we may pronounce the course of the Jumna to indicate the central fall of that immense vale which has its northern slope from the base of the Himalaya, and the southern from that of the Vindhya mountains.
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It is not in contemplation to delineate the varied course of the magnificent Nerbudda, though I have abundant means ; for the moment we ascend the summit of the tropical¹ Vindhya, to descend into the valley of the Nerbudda, we abandon Rajasthan and the Rajputs for the aboriginal races, the first proprietors of the land. These I shall leave to others, and commence and end with the Chambal, the paramount lord of the floods of Central India [16].
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¹ Hence its name, Vindhya, ‘the barrier,’ to the further progress of the sun in his northern declination. [Skr. root, bind, bid, ‘to divide.’]
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The Chambal River.—The Chambal has his fountains in a very elevated point of the Vindhya, amidst a cluster of hills on which is bestowed the local appellation of Janapao. It has three co-equal sources from the same cluster, the Chambal, Chambela, and Gambhir; while no less than nine other streams have their origin on the south side, and pour their waters into the Nerbudda.
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The Sipra from Pipalda, the little Sind¹ from Dewas, and other minor streams passing Ujjain, all unite with the Chambal in different stages before he breaks through the plateau.
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¹ This is the fourth Sind of India. We have, first, the Sind or Indus; this little Sind; then the Kali Sind, or ‘black river’; and again the Sind rising at Latoti, on the plateau west and above Sironj. Sin is a Scythic word for river (now unused), so applied by the Hindus. [Skr. Sindhu, probably from the root syand, ‘to flow.’]
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The Kali Sind, from Bagri, and its petty branch, the Sodwia, from Raghugarh; the Niwaz (or Jamniri), from Morsukri and Magarda; the Parbati, from the pass of Amlakhera, with its more eastern arm from Daulatpur, uniting at Pharhar, are all points in the crest of the Vindhya range, whence they pursue their course through the plateau, rolling over precipices,² till engulfed in the Chambal at the ferries of Nunera and Pali. All these unite on the right bank.
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² The falls of the Kali Sind through the rocks at Gagraun and the Parbati at Chapra (Gugal) are well worthy of a visit. The latter, though I encamped twice at Chapra, from which it was reputed five miles, I did not see.
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On the left bank his flood is increased by the Banas, fed by the perennial streams from the Aravalli, and the Berach from the lakes of Udaipur; and after watering Mewar, the southern frontier of Jaipur, and the highlands of Karauli, the river turns south to unite at the holy Sangam,³ Rameswar. Minor streams contribute (unworthy, however, of separate notice), and after a thousand involutions he reaches the Jumna, at the holy Triveni,⁴ or ‘triple-allied’ stream, between Etawa and Kalpi.
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³ Sangam is the point of confluence of two or more rivers, always sacred to Mahadeva.
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⁴ The Jumna, Chambal, and Sind [triveni, ‘triple braid’].
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The course of the Chambal, not reckoning the minor sinuosities, is upwards of five hundred miles ; ¹ and along its banks specimens of nearly every race now existing in India may be found : Sondis, Chandarawats, Sesodias, Haras, Gaur, Jadon, Sakarwal, Gujar, Jat,² Tuar, Chauhan, Bhadauria, Kachhwaha, Sengar, Bundela ; each in associations of various magnitudes, from the substantive state of the little republic communes between the Chambal and Kuwari ³ [17].
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¹ [650 miles.]
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² The only tribes not of Rajput blood.
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³ The ‘ virgin ’ stream.
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The Western Desert. — Having thus sketched the central portion of Rajasthan, or that eastward of the Aravalli, I shall give a rapid general ⁴ view of that to the west, conducting the reader over the ‘ Thal ka Tiba,’ or ‘ sand hills ’ of the desert, to the valley of the Indus.
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⁴ I do not repeat the names of towns forming the arrondissements of the various States; they are distinctly laid down in the boundary lines of each.
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The Luni River. — Let the reader again take post on Abu, by which he may be saved a painful journey over the Thal.⁵ The most interesting object in this arid ‘ region of death ’ is the ‘ salt river,’ the Luni, with its many arms falling from the Aravalli to enrich the best portion of the principality of Jodhpur, and distinctly marking the line of that extensive plain of ever-shifting sand, termed in Hindu geography Marusthali, corrupted to Marwar.
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⁵ Thal is the general term for the sand ridges of the desert. [Skr. sthala, ‘ firm ground.’]
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The Luni, from its sources, the sacred lakes of Pushkar and Ajmer, and the more remote arm from Parbatsar to its embouchure in the great western salt marsh, the Rann, has a course of more than three hundred miles.
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In the term Eirinon of the historians of Alexander, we have the corruption of the word Ran or Rann,⁶ still used to describe that extensive fen formed by the deposits of the Luni, and the equally saturated saline streams from the southern desert of Dhat. It is one hundred and fifty miles in length ; and where broadest, from Bhuj to Baliari, about seventy : ⁷ in which direction the caravans cross, having as a place of halt an insulated oasis in this mediterranean salt marsh. In the dry season, nothing meets the eye but an extensive and glaring sheet of salt, spread over its insidious surface, full of dangerous quicksands: and in the rains it is a dirty saline solution, up to the camels' girths in many places. The little oasis, the Khari Kaba, furnishes pasture for this useful animal and rest for the traveller pursuing his journey to either bank.
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⁶ Most probably a corruption of aranya, or desert; [or irina, īrina, ‘ desert, salt soil ’], so that the Greek mode of writing it is more correct than the present.
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⁷ [The area of the Rann is about 9000 square miles : its length 150, breadth, 60 miles. Bhuj lies inland, not on the banks of the Rann.]
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The Mirage.—It is on the desiccated borders ¹ of this vast salt marsh that the illusory phenomenon, the mirage, presents its fantastic appearance, pleasing to all but the wearied traveller, who sees a haven of rest in the embattled towers, the peaceful hamlet,² [18] or shady grove, to which he hastens in vain; receding as he advances, till “the sun in his might,” dissipating these “cloud-capp’d towers,” reveals the vanity of his pursuit.
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¹ It is here the wild ass (gorkhar) roams at large, untamable as in the day of the Arabian Patriarch of Uz, “whose house I have made the wilderness, the barren land (or, according to the Hebrew, salt places), his dwelling. He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regardeth he the crying of the driver” (Job xxxix. 6, 7).
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² Purwa.
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Such phenomena are common to the desert, more particularly where these extensive saline depositions exist, but varying from certain causes. In most cases, this powerfully magnifying and reflecting medium is a vertical stratum; at first dense and opaque, it gradually attenuates with increased temperature, till the maximum of heat, which it can no longer resist, drives it off in an ethereal vapour. This optical deception, well known to the Rajputs, is called sikot, or ‘winter castles,’ because chiefly visible in the cold season: hence, possibly, originated the equally illusory and delightful ‘Chateau en Espagne,’ so well known in the west.³
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³ I have beheld it from the top of the ruined fortress of Hissar with unlimited range of vision, no object to diverge its ray, save the miniature forests; the entire circle of the horizon a chain of more than fancy could form of palaces, towers, and these airy ‘pillars of heaven’ terminating in turn their ephemeral existence. But in the deserts of Dhat and Umrasumra, where the shepherds pasture their flocks, and especially where the alkaline plant is produced, the stratification is more horizontal, and produces more of the watery deception. It is this illusion to which the inspired writer refers, when he says, “the mock pool of the desert shall become real water” [Isaiah xxv. 7]. The inhabitants of the desert term it Chitram, literally ‘the picture,’ by no means an unhappy designation.
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The Desert.—From the north bank of the Luni to the south, and the Shaikhavat frontier to the east, the sandy region commences. Bikaner, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer are all sandy plains, increasing in volume as you proceed westward. All this portion of territory is incumbent on a sandstone formation : soundings of all the new wells made from Jodhpur to Ajmer yielded the same result : sand, concrete siliceous deposits, and chalk.
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Jaisalmer is everywhere encircled by desert; and that portion round the capital might not be improperly termed an oasis, in which wheat, barley, and even rice are produced. The fortress is erected on the extremity of a range of some hundred feet in elevation, which can be traced beyond its southern confines to the ruins of the ancient Chhotan erected upon them, and which tradition has preserved as the capital of a tribe, or prince, termed Hapa, of whom no other trace exists. It is not unlikely that this ridge may be connected with that which runs through the rich province of Jalor; consequently an offset from the base of Abu.
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Though all these regions collectively bear the term Marusthali, or ‘region of death’ (the emphatic and figurative phrase for the desert), the restrictive definition applies to a part only, that under the dominion of the Rathor race [19].
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From Balotra on the Luni, throughout the whole of Dhat and Umrasumra, the western portion of Jaisalmer, and a broad strip between the southern limits of Daudputra and Bikaner, there is real solitude and desolation. But from the Sutlej to the Rann, a space of five hundred miles of longitudinal distance, and varying in breadth from fifty to one hundred miles, numerous oases are found, where the shepherds from the valley of the Indus and the Thal pasture their flocks. The springs of water in these places have various appellations, tar, par, rar, dar, all expressive of the element, round which assemble the Rajars, Sodhas, Mangalias, and Sahariyas,¹ inhabiting the desert.
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¹ Sehraie [in the text], from sahra, ‘desert.’ Hence Sarrazin, or Saracen, is a corruption from sahra, ‘desert,’ and zadan, ‘to strike,’ contracted. Rāhzani, ‘to strike on the road’ (rāh). Rāhbar, ‘on the road,’ corrupted by the Pindaris to labar, the designation of their forays. [The true name is Sahariya, which has been connected with that of Savara, a tribe in Eastern India. Saracen comes to us from the late Latin Saraceni, of which the origin is unknown; it cannot be derived from the Arabic Sharqi, ‘eastern’ (see New English Dictionary, s.v.).]
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I will not touch on the salt lakes or natron beds, or the other products of the desert, vegetable or mineral; though the latter might soon be described, being confined to the jasper rock near Jaisalmer, which has been much used in the beautiful arabesques of that fairy fabric, at Agra, the mausoleum of Shah Jahan’s queen.
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Neither shall I describe the valley of the Indus, or that portion eastward of the stream, the termination of the sand ridges of the desert. I will merely remark, that the small stream which breaks from the Indus at Dara, seven miles north of the insulated Bakhar, and falls into the ocean at Lakhpat, shows the breadth of this eastern portion of the valley, which forms the western boundary of the desert. A traveller proceeding from the Khichi or flats of Sind to the east, sees the line of the desert distinctly marked, with its elevated tibas or sand ridges under which flows the Sankra, which is generally dry except at periodical inundations. These sand-hills are of considerable elevation, and may be considered the limit of the inundation of the ‘sweet river,’ the Mitha Maran, a Scythic or Tatar name for river, and by which alone the Indus is known, from the Panjnad ¹ to the ocean [20].
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¹ The confluent arms or sources of the Indus.