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A Note on an Early Topographical Work of Sayyid Aḥmad Khān: Āsār al-Ṣanādīd

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Christian W. Troll
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Extract

Among the pre-Mutiny writings of Sayyid Aḥmad Khān (1817–1898), the Indian Muslim reformer, Āsār al-ṣanādīd, a history and description of Delhi, and its principal buildings and monuments, is a most impressive achievement. From the day of its publication onwards it has repeatedly been acknowledged as an important contribution to our knowledge of the history and archaeology of Delhi. However, on the whole, and in spite of recent re-editions of the work, no due attention has been paid to the fact that as early as 1854, i.e. only seven years after the first edition, Sayyid Aḥmad Khān published a second one remarkably different in form and content. We should like, in what follows, to present some evidence that may help to explain why and how this significantly altered second edition came about. This will also contribute to a better knowledge of Sayyid Aḥmad Khān's early intellectual development.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 104 , Issue 2 , April 1972 , pp. 135 - 146
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Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1972

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References

1 “It is impossible, however, to write the archaeology of India, without being under deep obligation to the invaluable researches of General Cunningham; and he who undertakes to write the archaeology of Delhi must constantly seek for light in the pages of Syed Ahmed Khan's interesting work on that subject. To both these gentlemen I am under great obligation” (Stephen, Carr, The archaeology and monumental remains of Delhi, Simla, 1876, i)Google Scholar. Cf. Raverty, H. G., Tabaḳāt-i-Nāṣirī, Eng. tr., London, 1881, 718Google Scholar. Already in April 1847 Qirān al-sa‘dain, II, 10, 200, commented: “This book is excellent and is of great importance to the Society that has been founded in Delhi for the furtherance of researches into the old buildings of the past”. Qirān al-sa‘dain was the Urdu periodical of Delhi College, published under the auspices of Dr. A. Sprenger.

2 For details of the various editions and reprints of the work see n. 6 below.

3 We know of a number of purely professional writings of Sayyid Aḥmad Khān: (a) Dam al-akhawain. Cf. A. H. Ḥālī, Ḥayāt-i javēd, repr. Lahore, Ā'īn-i Adab, 1966, 93.

(b) Faiṣalajāt-i ṣadr-i sharqī kā tarjuma, 3 vols. In a letter of Sayyid Aḥmad Khān (4th June, 1849) we read that by that date the first volume had been printed and the printing of the second was under way. Cf. Maktūbāt-i Sar Sayyid, ed. I. Pānīpatī, Lahore, Majlis-i taraqqī-i adab, 1959, 4–6.

(c) MS of a History of the District of Bijnor prepared in response to a Circular Letter by the Ṥadr Board in Agra. Reported by Ḥālī to have been lost during the “Mutiny”.

4 In his Catalogue of the Bibliotheca Sprengeriana (Giessen, 1857), no. 235, A. Sprenger lists the first edition of Āsār al-ṣanādīd and adds: “compiled at my suggestion by Aḥmad”. Cf. JASB, XX, 4, 1851, 353Google Scholar, and also idem, Das Leben und die Lehre des Moḥammad, I, Berlin, 1869, vii, n. 2.Google Scholar

5 “The account of the people of Shāhjānābād”. The major part of this ch. iv has been published twice in separate form in recent years: (a) Qāẓī Aḥmad Miān Akhtar (ed.), Tazkira-i ahl-i Dihlī, Karachi, Anjuman-i taraqqī-i Urdu, 1955, with a substantial introduction; (b) Ismā‘īl Pānīpatī (ed.), Maqālāt-i Sar Sayyid, XVT, Lahore, Majlis-i taraqqī-i adab, 1965, 209–500. In both cases valuable explanations and additional biographical details have been added.

6 The various editions and reprints of Āsār al-ṣanādid were:

1st ed.: 1847, 8vo, 4 pts., pp. 238, 44, 72, 246, with 134 ill., lith.; Delhi, Maṭba‘ Sayyid al-akhbār, a.h. 1263/a.d. 1847. In ch. iv, p. 225, section on the muṣavvirān, the author states that the illustrations of the book have been made by Faiẓ ‘ Alī Khān and Mirzā Shāh Rukh Bēg. Both these artists are dealt with in this very chapter.

2nd ed.: 1854, 8vo, 3 pts., title page and preface in Urdu and English, short biographical notice and “A brief account of the minaret which stands at the Kootub” in English, pp. i, ii and 4; pp. 6, 48; 53; 10, 108; 62 pp. of inscriptions; no ill.; lith. Urdu title page: Āsār … etc., Dihlī, Maṭba‘ Sulānī, 1269/1852; Eng. title page: Asar-oos-sunnadeed: A History of Old and New Rules, or Governments, and of Old and New Buildings, in the District of Delhi, Delhi, Printed at the Indian Standard Press, by William Demonte, 1854. The p. opening the section with the 62 inscriptions says: Kitabahā, maṭbū‘a maṭba‘-i Aḥmadī vāqi‘ Dihlī, ihtimām Shaikh afar Ghanī, 1270/1853.

French tr. of chs. ii and iii of this 2nd ed., with information from ch. i inserted, by J. H. Garcin de Tassy: “Description des monuments de Delhi en 1852, d'après le texte Hindoustani de Saiyid Ahmad Khan”, JA, Ve sér., XV, 1860, 508–36; XVI, 1860, 190–254, 392–451, 521–43; XVIII, 1861, 77–97. Ed. of this tr. in one vol., Paris, Imprimerie Impériale, 1861. Introducing this translation Garcin de Tassy explained: “Je n‘ai traduit de l'original que la partie descriptive des monuments, c‘est-à-dire le second et le troisième livre et je me suis servi seulement par occasion du premier, qui n'est, en réalité, que l'introduction des deux autres, lesquelles forment la matière spéciale du travail original”. Garcin had already published a review of the 2nd ed. in JA, Ve sér., VIII, 1856, 532–36.

3rd ed.: 1876, 4 to, 4 pts., pp. 98, 23, 32, 132, with 152 ill., most of them badly redrawn from 1st ed., lith.; text is repr. of full text of 1st ed.; Lucknow, Newal Kishore Press, 1293/1876. K. A. C. Cresswell, A bibliography of the architecture, arts and crafts of Islam to 1st Jan. 1960, Cairo, 1960, col. 174, gives a wrong date for this ed. The 1900 ed. (Lucknow) which he lists is probably a repr. of this 1876 ed. by the same publisher.

4th ed.: 1904, 8vo, 3 pts., repr. of full text, including appendix with inscriptions, of 2nd ed. together with the 134 ill. of 1st. ed.; pp. 3, 4, 46; 54; 10, 108, 88, 4. Eng. title page: Asar-oos-Sanadid, i.e. The first literary venture of Jawad-ud-dowla Arif-i-Jang Dr. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, the respective merits of the first and second edition of which have now been collected in this edition by Mohammad Rahmatullah Rad. Printed in The Nami Press, Cawnpore, 1904.

Delhi, 1965: ed. Khālid Naṣīr Hāshmī, Central Book Depot, Jāmi‘ Masjid, 1965. Photorepr. of 4th ed. (Cawnpore) with alterations: marginal notes transferred to foot of p. and continuous pagination. With omission of Eng. title p. and prefaces and addition of pt. 4 of 1st ed. In cases where the 1904 ed. had cut ill. to smaller size the original form of the 1847 ed. is given. Eulogies and ẓamima of the 1847 ed. Index.

Karachi, 1966: ed. Dr. S. Moinul Haq, Pakistan Historical Society, 1966, lith. Repr. of full text of 1st ed., no ill. but 15 photographic pl.

7 See n. 6 above (2nd ed.).

8 A. Ḥ. Ḥālī, Ḥayāt-i javēd, 1st ed., Cawnpore, 1901, 398.

9 1st ed., pt. 3, 35–6; 2nd ed., ch. iii, 70–1. Square brackets in the tr. from the 1st ed. mark passages omitted in the 2nd ed.

10 Yet the passage about Urdu in ch. i of the 1st ed. reappears in a totally altered form at the very end of the 2nd ed. The two passages are reprinted in I. Pānīpatī, Maqālāt-i Sar Sayyid, VII, 249–57.

11 Repr. in Māqālāt-i Sar Sayyid, ed. I. Pānīpatī, VI, Lahore, Majlis-i taraqqī-i adab, 1962, 166–231.

12 English preface to 2nd ed. of the Āsār.

13 Cf. Thomas's remark about Sayyid Aḥmad Khān and the Āsār in The chronicles of the Pathan kings of Delhi, Trübner, 1871, 20: “In further illustration of these Numismatic memorials, I propose to insert, as occasion offers, selected specimens of the monumental inscriptions of the Pathan dynasty, which I had prepared for publication as long ago as 1855. For the majority of these records, I was originally indebted to Syud Ahmad Khán's excellent Archaeological History of Dehli, the ‘Aśár-as-Sunnadeed’, but the more complicated epigraphs were re-examined and patiently tested, both by that enthusiastic antiquary and myself, under the very shadow of the buildings upon whose walls they were engraved.”

14 Silsilat al-mulūk, repr. in Maqālāt-i Sar Sayyid, VI, 168.

15 Rieu, Catalogue of Persian MSS in the British Museum, I, 285. The MS was completed in May 1839 and lithographed in 1840 in Agra. Cf. Elliot-Dowson, vol. VII, 430. Print of the work in Maqālāt-i Sar Sayyid, XVI, 13–73.

16 On Prinsep's impact on Indian studies and his ability to rouse archaeological interest in many Civil Servants of this period cf. Abu Imam, “Sir Alexander Cunningham and the beginnings of Indian Archaeology”, Ph.D. thesis, London, 1963, 52 ff. In the late 40's and 50's Cunningham became increasingly aware of the need to employ Indian scholars in archaeological research and this in view of the planned Archaeological Survey.

17 Our only source of information about this Society is the two numbers of the Journal of the Archaeological Society of Delhi of 1850 and 1853 (both printed at the Delhi Gazette Press). The 1853 number seems to be very rare. We came across a copy, by chance, in the Library of the R.A.S.

18 J. Arch. Soc. Delhi, 1850, Appendix, p. i.

19 ibid., 60–63.

20 ibid., 74.

21 J. Arch. Soc. Delhi, 1853, 68.

22 ibid., 71–72.

23 ibid., 72.

24 ibid., 73.

25 ibid., 49 51.

26 ibid., 74. The 2nd ed. of the Āsār gives, after the English preface on pp. (2)–(4) “A brief account of the minaret which stands at Kootub”. This is, presumably, the English translation of the Urdu paper Sayyid Aḥmad Khān read before the Society.

27 cf. nn. 6, 10 above.

28 cf. Sangīn Bēg b.'Alī Akbar Bēg, Sair al-manāzil (a topographical account of the principal buildings of Shāhjahānābād and Old Delhi), Rieu, Catalogue, I, 431. Cf. also a related MS by Ḥafī al-dīn Aḥmad, giving the inscriptions of the principal buildings of Shāhjahānābād (Rieu, Persian MSS in the B.M., Supplement, 264: Or. 4595). There is no evidence to support the view that Sayyid Ahmad made direct use of these MSS, but other MSS of the second work still exist in Delhi.

29 cf. Sayyid Ahmad Khān's letter to (Sir) Henry M. Elliot of 7th Sept., 1847, in which he gives detailed information about certain Persian historical works and offers his help in procuring further books. This letter is preserved in the Elliot Collection in the B.M. (Or. 2065). A free translation of the letter is in Ashraf Ali Khan, “A letter of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan”, Muslim Univ. J., Aligarh, 2, 1935, 169–73.

30 cf. e.g. the quotation of Persian translations of Sanskrit works and of various numbers of JASB and JRAS.

31 Sayyid Aḥmad Khān did not possess at this time an active knowledge of English. In the meetings of the Archaeological Society of Delhi he presented his papers in Urdu. It is difficult to detect how good his working knowledge of English was by that time or whether it considerably improved later. Interesting in this context is a passage in a letter from G. Palmer, Joint Magistrate of Bijnor, to Radha Kishen: “I send you an extract from a letter from Mr. Muir at Agra, with recent news. Translate it to them” (i.e., from the context of the letter, to Mahomed Remat Khan and the Sudder Ameen, Sayyid Aḥmad Khān). The letter is dated 19th August, 1857. Cf. Sir Sayyid Aḥmad Khān, Sarkashī-i ẓil'i Bijnor, ed. Dr. S. Moinul Haq, Karachi, Salmān Academy, 1962, 287–90.

32 B. A. Dar writes with reference to the 1st ed. of the Āsār: “In one of his chapters he relates with great fervour the reformist zeal of Sayyid Ahmad Brelvi and his noble companions. This chapter he had to delete from the book's second edition in 1854 as by that time the political situation had entirely changed. The time demanded that the Muslims must eschew political activities” (The religious thought of Sayyid Aḥmad Khan, 2nd ed., Lahore, Institute of Islamic Culture, 1971, 81). More perceptive is the explanation given on p. 134 of the same work: “When the second edition of Athar al-Sanadid was printed, the whole chapter dealing with these martyrs was missing. It was a pointer to the change going on in the mind of the author. He seems to feel that in the atmosphere of Rationalism prevalent in those days any reconstruction of society on the basis of mystic approach would be totally unsuitable.” Cf. also Dr. Maḥmūd Ḥusain: “This part [i.e. ch. iv of the 1st ed. of the Āār] was left out from subsequent editions, probably for political reasons” (“Sar Sayyid bi-ḥaisiyat-i mu'arrikh”, Nigār-i Pakistan, Sar Sayyid nambar, pt. 2, Jan.-Feb. 1971, 182). Cf. also Sayeed, Khalid B., Pakistan: the formative phase, 1857–1948, O.U.P., 1968, 14, n. 4.Google Scholar

33 The 1876 ed. reprinted the full and unchanged text of ch. iv. Sayyid Aḥmad Khān may well have known of this beforehand.