Administrative System of the Marathas c27.s21.8

c27.s21.8

that is still current among the native Hindus and was undoubtedly of Hindu origin. Writes Sir Thomas Roe—"Then the king descended the staires with such an acclamation of Health to the king, as would have out-cryed cannons. At the staires foote, where I met him, and shuffled to be next, one brought a mighty carpe, another a dish of white stuffe like starch, into which he put his finger, and touched the fish, and un rubbed it on his fore-head; a ceremony used presaging good fortune." In that "mighty carpe" and "a dish of white stuffe like starch" it is not difficult to identify a *Rohit* fish and a pot of 'Dadhi,' things of good omen that every orthodox Hindu likes to touch and look upon when he sets forth from his home for a new place, even to-day. The Hindu and Muhammadan had lived side by side for so many centuries that they had naturally learnt to tolerate and unconsciously imbibe each other's social customs, common beliefs and even superstitious rites, and the process must have begun long before the conquest of India by Babar and his immediate successors. Towards the close of Tughlak period, the Muhammadans of India had earned such a notoriety for their heathenish practice among their co-religionists outside India that Timur regarded his invasion of India as a real Jehad; according to him most of the Indian Muhammadans were no better than heathens. In the *Malfuzat-i-Timuri* we read that the expedition was directed mainly against "the infidels and polytheists of India." The Muhammadans were neither infidels nor polytheists but the same authority informs us that in this country "there were those who called themselves Mussalmans but had strayed from the Muhammadan fold." From a description of some heretics left by Firuz Shah Tughlak it appears that some of the Muhammadan heretics were influenced by the *Tantras* while others followed the Vedantic system of thought and yet others had taken to idolatry. See Hinduism and Muhammadan Heretics, Surendranath Sen, Calcutta Review, January 1924.