Urbanity and EconomyThe Pre modetrn Dynamics in Eastern Ind,ia

Edited ByRatnabali Chatterjee

Editorial Board :Nupur DasguptaSuchandra Ghosh

Shreyasi BhattacharyaBanani Bhattacharyya

Kaushik Saha

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Urbanity and EconomyThe Pre modern Dynamics in Eastern IndiaEdited By t Ratnabali ChatterjeeEditorial Board : hlupur Dasgupta, Suchandra Ghosh,

Shreyasi Bhattacharya, I}anani BhattacharyyaKaushik Saha

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parjanya Sen

Introduction

This essay attempts to rocate the sultanate monurnent of Eengar notjust as a product *fthe disciplinary pedagogy ofarchaeorogy, but as aspace continuously rendered'live'fhrough myths and through livedexperience. Through this essay I explore how a historical site ismemorialized through local myths and how these myths and oral.narratives in turn probrematize the

'ery idea of an objectivelyrendered history that posits itself through a proto-scientific notion offacticity. The sultanate monument of Bengar, I argue, necessitates areading not as a discursively closed spftce, but rather as a riving sitememorialized through myth, forkrore and orar nan atives.

Gaur and pdndun were the 14-rs* century capital cities ofsultanate Bengal. The city of Gaur !v€r$ one of the iaigest rnedievalcites of the subcontinent, and was the erstwhile capiiar of MuslimBengal from c. 1450 cE to 1565 cE under the Iryas strani, the l{usainShdhi and the Restored Ilyis sh6hi dynasties. Located on the easremstrip of land between the Ganges and the Mahdnandi rivers, its co_ordinates are Lat. ?Ao sz' N. and Long. gg o l0' E Located south of thepresent town of Marda, the ruins cover an area nearly twenty miles inlength and four miles in breadth. The earlier name or,tne city wasLakshmandvati which was later Isramized as Lakhnawti, althoughAlexander cunningham marks the area of Lakshmandvati as locatednorth of Gaur. An inscription dated Decem&r, 1457 during the reign

-.flp.- ' l

h

158 Urbanity and Economy

of Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud Sh[h I ( 1435- 1459) on a bridge erecredby him on the road from the Kotw5li I)urwdzd (presently on theborder of the nation-states of India and Bangladesh) suggests a

possible date of transfer of the capital to Gaur from Hazrat Pdndua.P6ndud, located about twenty miles from Gaur and twelve miles fromMalda, is believed to have been the earlier capital of Bengal during thereign of Shamsuddin llyEs Shah Q342- 1358 CE), Ilyls ShAh renamedit as Firuzdbed in 1353 probably after Shamsuddin Firuz ShAh (1301-L322CE).The capital kept shifting between fhese two cities.

In this essay, I look at the published anthology and travel diaries ofMtr. Krishnakamal Sarkar, retired 'head-Master' of the MahddipurHigh School, located near the present-day site of Gaur.t The book is acollection of popular folklore and legends which were collected andantholo gized by Mr. Sarkar. Published locally, this book serves as aninteresting case-study of how what is construed as the 'popular' or theficto-historical continuously inforrns the 'historical'" Also, it serves toproblematize the very constructed-ness of 'history' and 'archaeology'

as discursively watertight spaces" The essay also affempts to showhow the local collector remains a crucial figure, not entirely co-optedby pedagogy, but one whose positionality remains crucial to theconstmction of history

Of the 'Ficto-Historical': Legends and Local Story-Tellers in theMaking of History

The seventy-nine year old Mr. Krishnakamal Sarkar was a teacherin the Mahadipur High School from 1957 till his retirement in 1992.In 1964 he became the 'head-Master' of the school. Presently residingin Malda after his retirernent, he has devoted his spare tirne tocollecting oral histories, legends and folklore of Gaur and PInduE,some of which he has published in a booh in Bengali entitled Gaur-Pdndudr Kahini o Kingbadanti ({*gends and Myths af Gawr andPandud). The rest of these oral histories remain part of his traveldiary awaiting publication, The book, published locally in 1999, bearsa foreword by his daughter, Shrirnati Charneli Sarkar (Seth) whorvrires that she grew up hearing most of these stories from her father.

The 'Local' and the 'Historical': Gaur as told through Legend 159

Chameli Sarkar writes that as a child these stories about the history ofher hometown were what made the very discipline of history seernless 'dry' and 'nearer to the heart',' We here witness a fore-groundingof both the local as well as the famitial. The local collector-historianbecomes important as a repertoire of information about the history ofthe place. Consequently, the history is claimed as familial through animrnediacy of association and physical nearness as a denizen of thearea' It has rendered these collected stories of Krishnakarnal Sarkaras 'our history'or'our legend'.

What is also interesting is an extension and spill-over of thediscourse of history into the realrn of the rnythological or what canperhaps be termed as the 'ficto-historical', This is particularly the casewith some of the legends which have made their way intoKrishnakamal Sarkar's book. The book proves an interesting case inpoint through the constant blurring of genres between history mythand fables, between ancient (sanskrit or Persian) source materials,existing oral narratives which he has collected from various places,and legends and folklore. For example, in narrating the story of PirJalaluddin Makhdum ShAh or the 'Bard Pir' of Pdndud and hisencounter with RAje Lakshmana Sen, Krishnakamal Sarkar invokesthe Sanskrit text called Shaikh Shubhodayd written by Hal6yudhMisrd, the court scribe of Lakshmana Sen. Krishnakamal Sarkar'saccount does not, however, merely reiterate the Sanskrit text inBengali but intersperses it with 'ficto-historical' accounts of themiraculous powers of the 'Bara Pir'. Thus, he narrates one such storywhere Um[pati Dhar, the chief minister of R6ja Lakshmand Sen,sends four men feigning blindness to Pir Jaldluddin Makhdurn ShAh.As instructed by the minister who wishes to humiliate the Pir, they askMakhdurn Shah to cure them of their blindness. Krishnakamal Sarkarthen narrates trow Makhdurn ShAh, by exercising his super-naturalabilities, actually blinds these four men, and later, when their wivesplead before him, he restores their eyesight. In another such story,Sarkar narrates how Makhdum ShAh revives a dying man by piercinghim with a red hot iron rod.

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160 Urbanity and Economy

Apart from their very obviously 'ficto-historical' nature, these

accounts seem to hint at an alternate history of the Islamization ofBengal. Sarkar writes that these rniracles performed by MakhdumShAh drew the oppressed lower caste and superstitious Hindus to himand many of them eyentually ernbraeed Islam under his influence" He

mentions in his book that to these people Islam was presented as a

faith where there was no discrimination on the basis of caste, wealth

and social status; where there was only the notion of a universal

brotherhood. Sarkar's book aisq) prcvides the name of the firstconvert, an elderly man by the namt *f Kdlu Ghosh.

Riehard M. Eaton in his bclok The ftfse af Islam and the Bengal

Frontier, 1204- 1760 examines the ramifications of such encounters

between the Sufis, whorn he clescribes as 'Muslim mystics and holyrnen',' and the existing Bengatri e uiture of tire time. Eaton thus writes:

' Bengal's earliest sustained cc*tact with Islamic civilizationoccurred in the e ontext of the gecpolitical convulsions that had

driven large numbers erf Turkish-speaking groups fromCentral Asia into the lranian plateau and India, Whether as

military slaves, as adventurers, or as refugees fleeing before

the Mongol advance, Turks gravitated not only to the oldercenters of the Islamic world Baghdad, Cairo, Samarkand but

also to its ftinges, including Bengal. trmmigrant groups were

often led by a rnan called alp or alp-eren, identified as "the

heroic figure of old Turkic sag&, the warrior-adventurer whose

exploits alone justified his way of life." Migrating Turks also

grouped themselves into Islamic mystical fraternities.typically organized around Sufi leaders who combined the

characteristics of the "heroic figure of old Turkic saga," the

alp, and the pre-Islamic Turkish shaman that is, a charismatic

holy rnan believecl to possess magical powers and to have

intirnate contac{ with the ui}seen world. It happenetl,

moreover, ttiat the strict authority structure that had evolvedfor transrnitting trslamic rlrystie;al knowledge frorn master(nrurshid) to disciple (murid) proved remarkably well suited

for binding retainers io charismatic leaclers. This, too, trent

force to the Turkish drive lo th* Bengai frontier.t

T

\-

\The 'Lscall and the 'Historical': Gaur as told through Legend XSI

Eaton's historical account of the influence of the se alp*erew fanthus be productively juxtaposed with Sarkar's 'ficto-hisfcrical'account of the 'BarE Pir' of P[rrduE. The latter becomes particularlysignificant as it foregrounds those very storiesloral histories *f theFir's miracles which Eaton's account mentions. Also, it foregrcalndsthe role agd significance of the local collector/ native historian wh$ssaccounts, although they never attain the status of pratc-s*ientifichistorical discoveies, nevertheless remain important s$ur*s$ ofCissernrnation of ttre past"

Anq:ther account whieh Haton mentions and whieh finris a

tryperbolie rsmanticized treatrnent in Sarkar's bcak is th* narrativeof RfrjE Ganesh and his son Jadu who embraced Islam and assurg?ed

the name of Jalal al:Din" Aceording tc Eatsfi, alttrough the I::C*-r*i-l--,-t^.:

-! !i'uriasir ctyrtasty in Bengai drew {heir poiiticai and ruiing id**i*g;,'frc,rn Central Asia, they *ften strategicallS' cs-CIpted th* H*::gati; uling elite- a ffilCIve tllat was c,f,ten virutrenttry opposed

-by th* 5;ufis ';'fttre Chisti and Firdausi *rder. Aft*r ths death of Sultan Shihftb-ai *iiri1411-L4i, RAjE GanesXr who wielded considerablc political pc?\r{"er:

during the Sultan's time, is believed to have seized p{rwsr andusurped the throne. The various historical accounts wlii*ti Hatr:ncites differ in their version of whether R"AjA Ganesh actuatrly sat *nthe throne of Bengal or rnerely served as proxy-king for seven yriars"

RAje Ganesh was succeeded in 1415 by his son Jadu, whoconverted to Islam and adopted the nams of Jalal-al-Din, Eaton'saccount states that "in what appears to have been a compr*rniseformula worked out between political brokers for ttre Eengati andTurkish factions, he converted to trslam' was renarned Sultan Jatfll al-Din Muhammad, and was then allowed to reign as a Muslirn king,,o'u fxr

Sarkar's account, however, the same episode r*ceives a l'lighi3'rolnanticized treatrnent whers fadu, then a yoltng lad cf *ighg**n ri;"

nineteofi, spies the bearitiful princess Asmfrn'FfrrF, daughter *f Azts:lShah, on his way r:n horseback to Sat6sh-glaae"a" It is tire ensuing aft ai r

between tlte twcr which receives a sensationalized treafmexrt inSarkar's accounil and is *ited as the prrimary rea.$oyr f';r.!aCri'salienation fr*rn his father and iris eventual embraclng q]fl [strnir;.'

r

16? Urbanity and Econt:my

In the accounts of bottr Eaton and Krishnakamal Sarkar the figureof Shaikh Nur Qutb-i 'Alam assumes central importance --_ albeit indifferent ways. Shaikh Nur Qutb-i 'Alam, whose darg6h in presentday Pfuidu6 is locally referred to as the 'Chhot6 Dargahr', was one ofthe most influential Pirs of early fifteenth cenfury BengaX" Bcrh theaccounts mention Nur Qutb-i'Alam's political prowess and his letterwritten to Ibrahim Sharqi, ttre Sultan of neighboring .Iaunpur, asking

t

him to invade Bengal and rescue Islam by dethroning the usurpingREjA Ganesh" In Krishnakamal Sarkar's version, heiwever, Nur Qutb-i'Alam becomes a rnuch Inore rCImanticized figure and the majaractant wtro mobiiizes his foltrowers and is responsibie fcrr unrting Sadu

and AsmEn T6rE and reeuperating Jadul Jalal-al-Din's ixnage as a'Sultan of Islam'"

In yet another story, Krishnakarnal Sarkar narrates h*w the

f,s * ser:t day 'Lattan fo{asjid' in Gaur receiverJ its narns from thefarnous Lattan B6i or lMeera BAi, who was the rnistress qlf Sleams al-Din Yusuf Shah dI47481) of the 'Restored llyas Shahi Dynasry'"Rajanikanta Chakraborty's book Gsurer trtihas mention$ that the'Lattan Masjid' of Gaur was commissioned by a dancer named Natuor Meerfl BAi and the present-day estate, known as 'Meera Taluk',derives its name from her.t Within Krishnakamal Sarkar's narrative,Lattan BAi becomes a romanticized martyr figure, a 'I:[indu woman'by the name of Amrita from the village of Chakla who is rnarried offto a Brahmin named Amar Nath" A few years later, after she hasgiven birth to a son named Kflsinath, she is tricked and abducted bythe kotwdl of Yusuf Shah who is mesmerized by her beauty.Thereafter, she becomes a booty of the Sultan himself who has thekotwdl killed and buili-is a garden house wherein he keeps his belovedrnistress who he lavingly addresses as Meerd Bai or Lattan BAi.Lattan BAi, a connoisseur of the arts, entertains the Sultan with hermusie and dance. Sarkar then narrates how following a sudden fancywhich takes hold of trer, she desires to imnrortalize her nants andasks Yusuf ShAh to commission a rnosque for her" T"hus, 'LattanMasjicl' is built ancl a klmt&d is read there in the nanle of the Suitan.Still not satisfiecl, Lattan SAi dcrnands a khulisd bs read in her narne

The 'Local' and the 'Historical': Gaur as told through l.egend 163

and when the kitg deciines, she has it read in secret. Angered by thishumiliation, Yusuf ShAh has Lattan Bai murdered. Sarkar's narrativeends with the repentant Amar Nath digging up her il;t-J;;y andcremating it and narrating to his son KasinAth the story of hisunfortunate mother.n

A few questions are inevitably brought up here. Wrat value andmeaning do we ascribe to these proto-histoncal accCIunts such as theones anthologized by Krishnakamal Sarkar? And how do we position afigure like Krishnakamal Sarkar as a collector and narrator of the pastsof Gaur and PEnduE? Eaton's account can be assigned the status ofproto-scientific historical discourse which draws up on variaushagiographical accounts that include a sixteenth-century biography ofSufi saints ealled the SrWr al-'arifin, contempcrary accounts byChinese traveler$, cCIurt chronlcles and also eoins minted under theregimes of the various lTlonarchs" Krishnakarnal Sarkar's narratives,on the other hand, show how these episoeles exist within popularimagination and are passed down as oral tristories throughgenerations" The tlvo accounts are by no means separated frorn eachother by any elear boundaries between the historical and the legendaryboth can be seen to stand at the cusp of the divide, rnarking thecontinuous slippage of events/personages that can be named andverified as 'historicaf into the domain of popular mernory and localstory-telling" The departures and additions in Sarkar's anthologizedstories of Gaur and P[ndud are interesting precisely because theypoint to the continuous process by which the 'popular' services thehistorical' and becomes an important 'living' repository of historywithin a cornmunity and locality. What also becomes interesting is thedifferent deployrnent of rhetoric in the two accounts of Richarrj Eatonand Krishnakamal Sarkar" Whereas a proto-scientific historicalaccount such as the one by Eaton deploys an objective language ('dry'in the words of Chameli Sarkar as mentioned in the fcreword tcKrishnakamal Sarkftr's baok), whereby historical 'facts' beccnlrloadeC with a truth value, Sarkar's narratives cteploy thc famiiial trope s

of exaggeration and x"olnantic-ization, nletaphors arrC h,vperl:ole" "ilhe

'.

164 Urbanity and EconorTry

free license of imagination enjoyed by the latter account becomes adeterminant of where and how knowledge of the past leaves thedomain of the'historical'and enters the realrn of the popular"

What is also crucial here is the semi-professional position ofKrishnakamal Sarkar. Tapati Guha-Thakurtft, in the chapter'Interlocuting Texts and Monuments: The Coming af Age of the*'Native" Scholar' in her book Monufttents, Objects, Histories:Institutions of Art in Colonial and Postcclonial India. has shown whatwas involved in the self-fashioning of the figure r:f the colonial andrnodern lndian archaeologist" It required that their status 5e offset bya garnut of indigenous/ local figures who wern presented as 'starkcontrasts', such as '*the ignorant villager, the superstitiogs templepriest, and the vandalizing raja or Zaminilar, pelpie who pilferedruins and relics, retnained oblivious cf their historical vaiue, andoften actively obstructed the work of Euro$)eilrl excavators.',to Guha-T"hakurta writes that "such figures f,ormed a i-*erirrent motif in thestory of colonial archaeology, underlining fhe urgency andimportAnce af Western intenrention.," t

What I find significant is the way this earlier nexus of insritutionaland disciplinary authorities that took shape in the colonial periodcontinues to inform the present day structures of claims andentitlements over the monuments and pasts of Gaur and pdndu6. Thefigure of the modern urban archaeologist has to still actively contendwith a set of local figures who continually threaten to clisptace andsubvert his&er authority be it collectors/vandals, the ignorantvillagers who are often employed as labourers for the pr*r**atioryconservation of the monument, or the native scholar likeKrishnakamal Sarkar who remains one of the primary livingrepositories of the forgotten histories and legends of the sites. Sarkar,soccupation, as the local schoolteacher/heactr-mastsr, provides hin: aspecial scholarly status in these local cire uits of knCIwl*dge-production, And aecords hirn a pswerful intsrn"i*stiary g:*sition, bothdernographieatty as tvell as scholarly, between the igncranr villagerfigure and the figure of the urban archaeclogist. F{* then b*e q:mes themost crucial subject position, one not cornpl*t*ly r:cl ilpteC by th*

T?ee 'Local' and the 'Flistorical': Gaur as toiej. rhrough Legend 165

disciplines of history and archaeology, yet $ne that has to becontinuously tapped into in order to sustain the sources ofinformation of these disciplines.

I will refer here to another instance of how, within populanconsciousness, the'historical' gets producti vely rnediated through the'local'" Krishnakamal Sarkar, in narrating the story of Chaitanya'svisit to RErnkeli in his book, writes how two brothers, Roop andSanatan ernbraced the cult of Vaishnavisrn, renoilnced domestie lifeand f*itr*wed the great sage to Vrind[van5." AxnarnAth Goswftmi{Sanatan} served as tFre Ddbir Khds or'private s*r:retary'to Sultan AISarc3-*in F{osain Shah (1493-1519) and Santosh Gosurarni iRcop}serv*C *s his chief advisor and royal treasurer. A,e q.:*rding to Sapkar'sruarrative" Chaitanya visited R6mkeli around Jun*, 1513 A.D"; a visitwhlc?a is esmmernorated every year in t}:e nr+ntl: +f June sn tg*c'cc*si*gi *f Jyc{sths Sankr{rnti when hundreCs *f piigrixns es weltr esBaieis and Fakirs visit the village of R.6mkeli anei thc site *f,TemagXtai*whes'e R**p and San6tan are said tc have firsg mct the great sage,Chaiianya, who sat underneath a sprawtring banyan tree"Krishnakarnal Sarkar mentions that the roots of the great tree are stiilvisible today and in the shrine adjacent to it is housed the footprinr *fChaitanye himself. The icon (or relic) presents a major attraction forthe pilgrin^rs as well as for tourists.

Hrhat is interesting to note, here, is how & sirrrilar, yefchronolagically older relic, the Qad'm Rasul (cr footprint of theprophet Muhammad), housed in the Qad'm Rasul shriile adjacent tcthe Chik6 Monument, was pcssibly already existent in Gaur at thetime of Chaitanya's visit. We witness here a very intcr*sting case oficon*graphic spill-over between the contending areri co-existingrelics of Vaishnavism and trslarn, in these ci:-culating popularnarr*tirres *f the devotional sanetity of thc sitcs, 'X'hil

Qa*i'nr R.asulr*lic can hareily b* dcscribed as a'purely historic,ti'i"r,Iic;, r:wing tr: tirr::pie;-tl;v fii:titi*us nature of the mrytlas surrgunctrireg tiii. st*ry r.*f its'r:lrigirt', ecquisitinn and preservation as 'reiic'" Y*i, rt is this rciie:rvhii:h most *iisily icnds itself to appropriation. As nani'at*d tr.vIt ri:shnak;ima! S;:i kar. and as also m*ntiq:ncri ;n {}ftfl ci= iilr:

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r55 Urbanify and Economy

contemporary accounts of Chaitanya's life, the Chaitanya Bhagavata( 1535) written by vrindEvan DEs ( r 507- t 5s9), chaitanya's foJtprintat Tam[ltala becornes one such unique instance of trans*culfural/trans-religious re-appropriation. Not only is there a importof iconographical content, but there is a simultaneous carry-over ofepistemological meaning. The 'historical' monument, thusdisseminated and re-appropriated into popular consciousness, beginsto inform local legends and lore. Conversely, the'popular'becomes animportant repository for the 'historical', inhabiting the liminal spacebetween scientific history and fiction, becoming part of thecontinuous process through which the filonument is rnemorialized.

Conciusion

Through this essay, I have thus tried to juxtapose a 'historicatr,accsunt cf Gaur with lccal legends and folklore as ihey exist witirinpopular imagination and as they have been anthologized byKrishnakamal Sarkar, I have tried to explCIre how the site lends itselfto varying forrns of memorialization and how these, in turn, serve tocontinuously render the site as a 'live' space. What is construed as the'purely historical' is informed by the popular and the local. Also, Ihave attempted to show how the local scholar remains a crucial figurewho' although he inhabits a position of liminality between the urbanhistorian/ archaeologist and the local people versed in garbled forrnsof oral narratives, nevertheless remains a significant repertoire oflocal histories and legends.

Refe rences:

1. For a detailed history of ttre ruling monarchies ancl the shift of the capital citieslook up Richard M. Eaton, The Rise af Islarn and the Bengal Frontier; IZ04-I 760,New Delhi, Oxford, l9g7 .

The monuments presently visible in situ at Gaur include the Kotwdli Durwazf,,now dividing India and Bangladesh, the Bar[ Son[ or rhe B6radw6ri Masjid,the Firuz Mintr, the Dekhil Durwfiz[, the ChikA rnonument, the Baisgazi wall

r

The 'Local' and ttre 'Historical': Gaur as told through I ege*d i6T

and the central palace area, The Qad'm Rasul and Fattr Shdh,s Tornb, thcLukachuri Durwaze,the Gunmant Masjid, the Tlntipara Masjid and the LattanMasjid in India; and the Darasbari Mosque and Madrflsa, the Chhota Son6Masjid and the Dhunichowk Masjid in Bangladesh. The monurnents visible jnsitu at P[ndufl include the AdinE Masjid, the Eklakhi Mausoleurn, the Chhot5Darg[h or the Dargdh of Nur Qutb*i 'Alarn and the Bar6 Darg5h or the Dargdhof Shah Jalal and the Qut'b Shahi Masjid. Larer day rnonumenrs (norgeographically located within the cities but dated to Sultanate Gaur) include theJdhniyan orJhanjhaniyd Masjid and the Samadhi of Ankhi Sir6juddin,

2" It needs to be mentioned here that although the monuments of Gaur themselvesfall under the custodianship of the Arctraeological Survey of tndia (ASI), thearea comprising of the erstwhile city of Gaur is populateri with people whosepredominant occupation is farming" The two prorninenr villages *tri.h flankthe site are Mahadipur and REmkeli"

3. Chameli Sarkar (Seth), 'Preface', Krishnakarnal Sarkar; Gsur-pdnduar Kdhinio Kingbadanti,Malda, Model Book Depot. lggg"

4' Richard M. Eaton,'Introduction'. The Rise of trslant and the Bengal Frontier;1204- 1760,New Delhi, Cxford , lgg7,pp. xxv

5. Richard M. Eaton,TheRlse of Islarn and the Bertgal Frontier;pp. 71"5. Richard M. Eaton,TheRlse of Islanz and the Bengal Frontietpp. 52-53,7' Krishnakamal Sarkar, Gaur-Panduar Kiihini o Kingbadanti, Malda, Model

Book Depor, Iggg,pp. 39-51.8' Rajanikanta Chakraborty, Gourer ltihas, Kolkata, Dey's publishing House,

i999, pp. 320.9" Krishna Kamal Sarkar, Gaur-Pcnduar Kahini o Kingbadanti,pp. 56-65.

10. Tapati Guha-Thakurta, 'Interlocuting Texts and Monuments: The Coming ofAge of the "Native" Scholar,' Monrtments, Objects, Histories, New Delhi,Permanenr Black, 200 7, pp. 87 .

l? Tapati Guha-Thakurta,'lnterlocuting Texts and Monuments.' pp. 87.13- Krishna Kamal Sarkar, GaurPdndttar Kdhini o Kingbadanti,pp. 82-89.