صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

D.-Coinage.

His coins bore the distich :

Sikkah zad, az fazl-i-Haqq, bar sim o zar,

Padshah-i-bahr-o-bar, Farrukhsiyar.

By the grace of the True God, struck coin on silver and gold,
"The emperor of land and sea, Farrukhsiyar."

A parody of these lines was current at the time in Dihli :-
Sikkah zad bar gandum o moth o mattar

Bādsḥāh-i-dānah-kash, Farrukhsiyar,

"Struck coin on wheat, lentils and peas,

The grain gathering emperor, Farrukhsiyar."1

There are 116 coins of this sovereign in the three collections, at the British Museum, in Lahor, and in Calcutta ; of gold, 18 (14 of the large and 4 of the small issue), and of silver, 98 (circular 97, square, that is, the dirham-i-shara'i or legal dirham, 1). One hundred and - twelve are dated by the regnal year. Each year of the reign is represented, 1st (8 coins), 2nd (17), 3rd (9), 4th (7), 5th (19), 6th (19), 7th (29), 8th (4). All except 6 coins (3 places not identified, 2 forged, 1 mint illegible) can be classed under the Subahs in which their mints were situated. These 110 coins belong to 23 mints in 15 out of the 21 Şubahs-those unrepresented being Kabul, Kashmir, Ajmer, Allahābād, Bidar and Barar. The number of coins from each mint is Lāhor (16), Multān (7), Taṭṭah (1), Dihlí, 33 (Shāhjahānābād 27, Bareli 2, Sihrind 4), Gujarāt, 7 (Sūrat 7), Akbarābād, 11 (Akbarābād 6, Iṭāwah 3, Gwaliyār 2), Audh, 1 (Lakhnau 1), Mālwah, 2 (Ujjain 2), Bahār, 8 (Paṭnah ‘Azīmābād 8), Bengal, 7 (Murshidābād, 6, Jahāngirnagar Dhākah, 1), Orissa, 3 (Kaṭak 3), Khandesh, 4 (Burhanpur 4), Aurangābād (1),

1

1 Sayyad Mahomed Latif, "History of the Punjab," 189, note, and KulliyātiJa'far, Zaṭalli, p. 57 at end. The Malaḥat-i-maqāl of Rão Dalpat Singh, B.M. Or. 1828, fol. 74a, attributes these lines to Mirzā Ja'far, Zațalī of Nārnol, and states that for writing them he was condemned to death (see Beale, 189). The first line has mung instead of moth, and the second line is given as Bādshāh-i-tasmahkash, (strap-stretching) Farrukhsiyar. "The Coins of the Moghul Emperors in the B. M.," 1892, p. 179-190, "Coins of the Mogul Emperors" by C. J. Rodgers (Calcutta, 1893) and "Coins of the Indian Museum" by the same (Calcutta, 1894). Mr. M. Longworth Dames "Some Coins of the Mughal Emperors,” (Numismatic Chronicle, II, 275 or 309, London 1902), has added Aḥmadābād and Ajmer and Kambāyal to the unit towns. Khushḥäl Cand, 396a.

J. I. 46

Bijapur (1), Ḥaidarabad, 8 (Arkāṭ 3, Adoni 1, Chinapatan 3, Gūti 1). This distribution represents the facts fairly well: Kabul was practically lost, but the absence of coins from Kashmir, Ajmer, Allahābād and two of the Dakhin Subahs, is difficult to account for.

The square silver "legal drachma" or dirham-i-shara‘ī is a curious coin, and to all appearance unique. By its weight it holds the proportion to a rupee of about one-fourth (exactly it is 23, or 3 annas and 8 pie, taking the standard rupee to have weighed 176 grains). From an analysis of the weights of the 97 circular rupees, I find more than half (54) range between 175 and 177 grains, the lowest weight (1) is 166.5 and the highest (4) is 187 grains. These latter coins come from the Katak and Murshidābād mints, and are probably a local variation. The diameters range from 80 of an inch to 1.1 inch; there are 60 of •85, 34 of 90, 11 of 95 and 9 of 10. Judging from the above facts, it is probable that the standard rupee was 176 grains in weight, and 90 of an inch in diameter.

From a farmān dated the 5th Rabi' I. of the 4th year, we obtain the following details as to Farrukhsiyar's seals. There were two; the first one was round, with a diameter of 4 inches, the second square, inches each way.

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]

The words in the centre are not in the above order on the seal. On the square seal the words appear on six lines, in the following order :

[blocks in formation]

We hear of only two principal wives-(1) Fakhr-un-nissä Begam, daughter of Sādāt Khān; (2) the Rathor princess, the daughter of Mahārājah Ajit Singh, whose Hindu name seems to have been Bae Indar Kunwar. The father of the former was one Mir Muḥammad Taqqi, entitled first Hasan Khan and then Sādāt Khan, son of Sādāt Khan, He is called a Ḥusaini by race, and the family came from the Persian province of Mazandaran, on the south shore of the Caspian Sea; it had emigrated to India after having been for a time settled at Iṣfahan. He married a daughter of Ma'sum Khan, Safawi, and if this lady was the mother of Fakhr-un-nissa, this Şafawi connection would account for the daughter's selection as a prince's bride. Ṣādāt Khān was wounded on the 9th Rabi' II, 1131 H., the day of Farrukhsiyar's deposition, and died two or three days afterwards. He was over eighty years of age. The following table shows his family :

[blocks in formation]

1 Tawārīkh-i-Märwär of Murārī Dās, B. M. Or. 5838, vol. 2, fol. 80b.

2 The Ma,āṣir-al-umarā, III, 524, calls him Mir Buzurg-i-Mara'shi. I do not know thę explanation of these epithets.

8 T-i-Mḥdī, year 1128 H., Ma,āşīr-ul-umarā, II, 670-76, Mīrzā Muḥammad, 174. The Ma,ägir-ul-umară III, 524, calls her Gühar-un-nissa Begam.

[ocr errors]

(2) Ma,ăşir-ul-amarā, II, 524.

(1) T-i-Mḥdi and Kāmwar Khan, 166.

The daughter of Ajit Singh was married on the 29th Ramazan 1127 H. (27th September, 1715) in the fourth year of the reign. She seems to have had no issue. After Farrukhsiyar's deposition and death, she was brought out of the imperial harem on the 29th Sha'bān 1131 H. (16th July, 1719), and made over to her father with the whole of her property. She returned to Jodhpur and we hear no more of her.

[ocr errors]

Another wife or concubine, the daughter of the hill Rajah of Kashtwar, entered the harem on the 24th Rajab 1129 H. (3rd July, 1717.)1

F-Farrukhsiyar's children.

The following table shows all the children that are recorded :

[graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

(1) Jahangir Shah was born at Patnah on the 18th Zü,lqa‘dah 1123 H. (27th December, 1711). He died of smallpox a few months afterwards, on the 17th Rabi' II, 1125 (12th May, 1713).8

(2) Jahān Murad Shah was born on the 16th Zū,lqa‘dah 1129 H.1 (October, 21st, 1717) and died on the 22nd Jamādī II, 1130 H. (May, 22nd, 1718.) The mother was Sādāt Khan's daughter.

(3) Badshah Begam. This child was also born of Sādāt Khan's daughter. She married the Emperor Muhammad Shah in 1133 H. (1720-1) and was known as Malikah-uz-zamānī, "Queen of the Age." She took a prominent part in securing the accession of Aḥmad Shāh in 1161 H. and died in 1203 H. (1788-9).5

G.—Note on Mirzā Ja'far, Zaṭalī, Nārnolī.

The poetical title of Zațali, under which Mirzā Ja'far wroțe, comes from zatal, Hindi, "chattering,- quibbling, idle-talk," (Shakespear,

1 Kāmwar Khản, 172-3, Thornton, 506, Kishtwär, a town on the southern slope of the Himalaya, situated in a small plain on the left bank of the Chenab, 5,000 feet above the sea; Lat. 33° 18', long. 75° 46'.

? B.M. Or. 1690, fo. 156b.

8 Kāmwar Khan 135. The B.M. Or. 1690, fol. 164b says he died in Jamādī 1.

4 Mirzā Muḥammad, 328 and 358. Kāmwar Khan has 15th instead of 16th.
Francklin, "Shah Aulum," 205.

1212). There are several printed editions of his works. A copy of the edition of 1853, now in the Königliche Bibliothek at Berlin, belonged to Dr. Sprenger. (see his Catalogue, p. 8, No. 1638.) Beale, p. 189, says he was executed by Farrukkhsiyar's orders for parodying the couplet on the coin of that emperor. The historians make no mention of this; but the fact is possible, when we remember that 'Abd-ul-jalil, Bilgrāmi, wāqi'ah-navis of Siwistan was recalled, and deprived of his appointment, for a very innocent report. There are some further details about Zațali in a little Urdu work Zar-i-Ja'fari, yaʼni siwāniḥ-i'umrī-i-Mīr Ja'far, Zatalli, by “Hindustani Speculator" (published by Jān Muḥammad and Muḥammad Isma'il, Kashmiri Bāzār, Lāhor, 1890, 36 pp. litho.). From this we learn that his ancestors came to India with Humāyūn, when that monarch returned to it and fought Hemū, They obtained a jāgir and were in favour during Jahangir's reign, but in Shāhjahān's time the grant was resumed, and the poet's father Mir 'Abās, was forced to open a shop. Ja'far is said to have been born about the time of 'Alamgir's accession (1658). The other children were two daughters and a son, Safdar; the latter, the youngest of the family, being about five-and-a-half years younger than his brother. Their father died when all of them were young. One Mir Sarwar sent Ja'far to school along with his own son, Akbar. In the end Sarwar embezzled the family property; and they were reduced to poverty again. Ja'far was over sixty when he died, but no year is given. In one of his ruba'āt in his Kulliyāt he says that when he wrote it he was over sixty. The following Persian lines in praise of tobacco are by him:

Turfah-i-shaghle shaghal-i-tambākā,
Kih z'in shaghal gham faru gardad:
Ham-dam ast in, ba waqt-i-tanhāi,
Tabāi'-i-bādī az ū nikū gardad.
"Smoking tobacco is a rare pastime,
“An occupation decreasing gloom ;
"A friend it is in time of solitude,

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

But his more characteristic style is a macaronic mixture of Persian

and Hindi.

}

« السابقةمتابعة »