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A History of Agriculture in India v2.c82.s5: Restoration of Firoz Shah's Canal

A History of Agriculture in India v2.c82.s5

Language
English

Restoration of Firoz Shah's Canal

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Though his primary interest was in architecture and buildings, Shah Jahan also improved irrigation facilities in northern India. He restored the West Jamuna Canal, which had been dug by Firoz Shah, and brought a channel from it to Shahjahanabad. 'Inayat Khan, author of *Shah Jahan-nama*, thus describes how it happened.

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'The canal that Sultan Firoz Shah Khilji, during the time he reigned at Dehli, had made to branch off from the river Jamuna, in the vicinity of *pargana* Khizrabad, whence he brought it in a channel 30 Imperial *kos* long to the confines of *pargana* Safidun, which was his hunting-seat, and had only a scanty supply of water, had, after the Sultan's death, become in the course of time ruinous. Whilst Shahabu-d din Ahmad Khan held the government of Dehli, during the reign of the Emperor Akbar, he put it in repair and set it flowing again,. . .to fertilize the places in his *jagir*, and hence it was called Nahr-i Shahab; but for want of repairs, however, it again stopped flowing. At the time when the sublime attention was turned to the building of this fort and palace, it was commanded that the aforesaid canal from Khizrabad to Safidun should be repaired, and a new channel excavated from the latter spot to the regal residence, which also is a distance of 30 Imperial *kos*. After it was thus prolonged, it was designated the Nahr-i Bihisht.'³

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³ Inayat Khan, *Shah Jahan-nama*, in Elliot and Dowson, *The History of India*..., Vol. VII, p. 86

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FIG. 55. The Shalimar Garden, Lahore.

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FIG. 56. Tobacco crop was introduced into Andhra before 1600 and had become a significant crop in that region by 1620.

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FIG. 57. By the middle of the eighteenth century pineapple cultivation spread in Bengal.

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