Mandu

“ Fidá el-Asra, thou hast been in Mandu, in my service, scarce half a year as yet; but because thou art of high birth and noble training, I repose confidence in thee. I cannot take thee with me upon my campaign, because I should fear to lose thee in the north. But, in leaving thee behind, I am about to place thee in a position of great trust. Manava, whom thou seest standing upon my right hand, is, in my absence, to be part ruler of Mandu. To Kasya here, my faithful eunuch, I intrust the guardianship of my women. ”

“ MUHAMMADAN ARCHITECTURE AT MANDU, JAUNPUR, AHMADĀBĀD, AND GAUR
Many other remarkable monuments of the Afghan rule in India are found at Mandu, the former capital of the Sultanate of Mālwā founded by Dīlāwar Shah in the beginning of the fifteenth century, when Timūr's bloody raid into India gave him an opportunity of renouncing his allegiance to the Sultans of Delhi.
Mandu, built upon a grand plateau overlooking the valley of the Narbadā river, was in its time one of the most formidable of the hill fortresses of India. ”

“ MANDU, or Mandogarh, a ruined city in the Dhar state of Central India, the ancient capital of the Mahommedan kingdom of Malwa. The city is situated at an elevation of 2079 ft. and extends for 8 m. along the crest of the Vindhyan mountains. ”

“ On entering this vast city in its present state of solitude (the natives call it the "dead town") we all experienced a peculiar feeling, not unlike the sensation of a man who enters Pompeii for the first time. Everything shows that Mandu was once one of the wealthiest towns of India. The town wall is thirty-seven miles long. Streets ran whole miles, on their sides stand ruined palaces, and marble pillars lie on the ground. Black excavations of the subterranean halls, in the coolness of which rich ladies spent the hottest hours of the day, peer from under dilapidated granite walls. ”

“ Malati’s, where the young Bhavani, Rai-Khizar-Pál’s only son, the heir of Mandu, lodged with his mother; Bhimeg’s [Pg 45] the Kshatriya woman’s; and those of Chundoor, the despised Sudra wife. At the end of the wing, farthest from the palace, lived the women slaves; and beyond was a separate house for the eunuchs. Such was the zenana, in the days of Indian rule in Mandu: a place full of life and color and sound; of interminable jealousy, strife, and bitterness; a place which only one man ever entered ”

“ Its date is probably that of the pillars of the mosques where it is found, and from their style they probably belong to the 10th or 11th centuries.
The site on which the city of Mandu is placed is one of the noblest occupied by any capital in India. It is an extensive plateau, detached from the mainland of Malwa by a deep ravine about 300 to 400 yards across, where narrowest, and nowhere less than 200 ft. in depth. This is crossed by a noble causeway, defended by three gateways, and flanked by tombs on either hand. ”

“ The north pavilion, through the clear fresh air of the hill-top, looks over the entire stretch of Mándu from the high shoulder of Songad in the extreme south-west across rolling tree-brightened fields, past the domes, the tangled bush, and the broad gray of the Sea Lake, to the five-domed cluster of Hoshang’s mosque and tomb, on, across a sea of green tree tops, to the domed roof-chambers of the Jaház and Tapela palaces, through the Dehli gateway, and, beyond the deep cleft of the northern ravine, to the bare level and the low ranges of the Málwa plain. ”

“ Mandu itself was little more than a heap of ruins. Its highest recommendation was that it was a strong position, but its fortifications, however useful they might be for the purposes of a post of observation such as Jehangir contemplated, offered no suitable shelter for the great train of nobles and Court functionaries, to say nothing of the horde of camp followers who ministered to the multifarious needs of the imperial camp.
Roe was so fortunate as to be able to establish himself in a deserted mosque which he found on the outskirts of the ruined city. ”

“ The years passed in peace and well-doing until the Rajah attained his five and thirtieth year. Then came an event which, for a long time, seemed to have turned the severely upright ruler quite out of his course, and to have made him a man of men, erring and weak. From some distant land, none knew where, there came to Mandu one of those purely Indian characters, known long before the time of the great Buddha: a religious courtesan, a woman of supreme beauty and magnetic power, [Pg 336] by name Zenaide. How, by what means, she got her first audience of Bhavani, no one knew. ”

“ It is not known if in the inhabited world there exists another such place as Mandu for sweetness of air and for the pleasantness of the locality and the neighbourhood, especially in the rainy season. In this season, which lasts for months and extends up to the hot weather, one cannot sleep inside houses without coverlets, and in the day the temperature is such that there is no need for a fan or for change of place. ”

“ Profligate succeeded profligate, and the degeneracy of his Mahomedan rulers was the Hindu's opportunity. The power passed into the hands of Hindu officers, who were even suffered to take unto themselves mistresses from among the Mahomedan women of the court. The end came, after many vicissitudes, with Baz Bahadur, chiefly known for his passionate devotion to the fair Hindu, Rup Mati, for whom he built on the very crest of the hill, so that from her windows she might worship the waters of the sacred Nerbudda, the only palace now surviving in Mandu which bears a definite impress of Hinduism. ”

“ As I had made up my mind to proceed to the Deccan, I gave an order to ʿAbdu-l-Karīm Maʿmūrī, to go to Mandu and prepare a new building for my private residence and repair the buildings of the old kings. On the 3rd day the offerings of Rāja Bīr Singh Deo were laid before me and one ruby, some pearls, and one elephant had the honour of being accepted. On the 4th day the mansab of Mustafā K͟hān was increased by 500 personal and 200 horse to 2,000 personal [281] and 250 horse. On the 5th I gave a standard and drums to Iʿtimādu-d-daulah, and an order was given him to beat his drums. ”

“ The Mandu architects had the same initiation to the Hindu forms in the mosques at Dhar; and there must have been innumerable Jaina temples to furnish materials to a far greater extent than we find them utilised, but we neither find them borrowing nor imitating, but adhering steadily to the pointed-arch style, which is the essential characteristic of their art in foreign countries. It is easy to understand, on the other hand, why in Bengal the trabeate style never was in vogue. The country is practically without stone, or any suitable material for forming either pillars or beams. ”

“ The Mandula is a very imposing person, as he sits in a conspicuous place, surrounded by paper packets piled up all round him. His method of advertising his medicines is to take the packets one by one, and, after opening them and folding them up, to make a fresh pile. As he does so, he may be heard repeating very rapidly, in a sing-song tone, " Medicine for rheumatism," etc. Mandulas are sometimes to be seen close to the Moore Market in the city of Madras, with their heaps of packets containing powders of various colours. ”

“ The Mandans (people of the pheasants) were the first people created in the world, and they originally lived inside of the earth; they raised many179 vines, and one of them had grown up through a hole in the earth, over head, and one of their young men climbed up it until he came out on the top of the ground, on the bank of the river, where the Mandan village stands. He looked around, and admired the beautiful country and prairies about him—saw many buffaloes—killed one with his bow and arrows, and found that its meat was good to eat. ”

“ The Mandan tribe of Indians has always been more or less of a mystery to those historians who have tried to figure where the people inhabiting the country at the time of the discovery of America, and its later development, originally came from. They were of a much lighter hue than any of the other Indians, and, while some students have declared their positive belief that they must have sprung from the lost tribe of Israel, others claim to see certain similarities in customs and even language between the Mandans and the Welsh. ”

“ One of love and woman's power,
To Mandalla's sleeping hour.
Joyless and dark was his jewelled throne
When Mandalla awakened and found him alone.
He drank the perfume that around him swept,
'Twas not sweet as the sigh he drank as he slept;
There was music, but where was the voice, at whose thrill
Every pulse in his veins was throbbing still?
Dim was the home at his native star
While the light of woman and love was afar;
And lips of the rosebud, and violet eyes
Are the sunniest flowers in Paradise. ”

“ Those purple mountains lay on the horizon, then, for certain; and the dresses of these peasant girls, who wear a great, knobbed, silver pin like an English "life-preserver" through their hair behind, can hardly be much changed. The hopeful feeling of so bright a morning, and so exquisite a sunrise, can have been no stranger, even to an exiled lover's breast; and Mantua itself must have broken on him in the prospect, with its towers, and walls, and water, pretty much as on a common-place and matrimonial omnibus. ”

“ Sauti said, "There is a mountain of name Mandara adorned with peaks like those of the clouds. It is the best of mountains, and is covered all over with intertwining herbs. There no end of birds pour forth their melody, and there beasts of prey roam about. The gods, the Apsaras, and the Kinnaras visit this place. Upwards it riseth eleven thousand yojanas, and descendeth downwards as much. The gods failed to tear it up and they came to Vishnu and Brahma who were sitting, and said, 'devise you some efficient scheme. Consider, ye gods, how Mandara may be upraised for our good." ”

“ Leaving the mercantile and moneyed classes, and coming to the rank and file, there are in Mandalay some thousands of natives from many different parts of India, speaking many languages, and engaging in a great variety of callings. Europeans often think of India as a country, but it is really a continent, and has as great, if not a far greater, variety of peoples and tribes than Europe presents. There is the Bengalee Baboo, probably a clerk, the Hindustanee doorkeeper or messenger, the Tamil overseer or coolie. Even in our Sepoy army in Mandalay one sees great variety. ”

“ GHOST LORE.
§ 338. The Mandan believe that each person has several spirits dwelling within him; one of which is black, another brown, and a third light-colored, the last alone returning to the Lord of Life. They think that after death they go to the south, to several villages which are visited by the gods; that their existence there is dependent on their course of life while in this world; that the brave and kind-hearted carry on the same occupation, eat similar food, have wives, and enjoy the pleasures of war and the chase. ”

“ The Mandan tribe differed materially in its habits and customs from the Indians to the north, who supported themselves mainly, if not entirely, by hunting, who cared very little for agriculture, and moved continually like nomads over great stretches of country, living chiefly in tents or temporary villages. The Mandans, on the other hand, were a people who practised agriculture, and had permanent and well-constructed towns. ”

“ The Mandan belief in a future state is connected with the tradition of their origin: The whole nation resided in one large village under ground, near a subterraneous lake. Some of the people climbed up to this earth by means of a grape-vine, which broke when a corpulent woman essayed to climb it. Therefore the rest of the people remained in the subterranean village. When the Mandan die they expect to return to the original seats of their forefathers, the good reaching the ancient village by means of the lake, which the burden of the sins of the wicked will not enable them to cross. ”

“ Notwithstanding the long familiarity in which they have lived with the Mandans, and the complete adoption of most of their customs, yet it is almost an unaccountable fact, that there is scarcely a man in the tribe who can speak half a dozen words of the Mandan language ”

“ And after that he was King of Idumea after King Esau, and when he was king he was clept Jobab. And in that kingdom he lived after 170 year. And so he was of age, when he died, 248 year.
In that land of Job there ne is no default of no thing that is needful to man’s body. There be hills, where men get great plenty of manna in greater abundance than in any other country. This manna is clept bread of angels. And it is a white thing that is full sweet and right delicious, and more sweet than honey or sugar. And it cometh of the dew of heaven that falleth upon the herbs in that country. ”

“ At Mantua the tide of his feelings has turned again, and by one of those natural reactions which he himself takes note of he wakes up unaccountably happy, "and all this day an unaccustom'd spirit lifts him above the ground with cheerful thoughts." ”

“ They believe, as we do, in a Spirit of spirits, a supreme God, who rules over everything and all things, and the Indians of the north-west call him the “Great Manitou.” He appears to be a power without the peculiar moral attributes. They also believe in a number of lesser Manitous, or divinities, and it seems to me that, as regards their theology, they are rather Pantheists than Monotheists. They behold a transformed divinity in the forest, in stones, in animals, in everything which lives or which evinces an indwelling power. ”