Indian Antiquary Vol 04

SR No.: 032496
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 410
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MAY, 1875.
were a 'refuso garland, smeared with pan-juice spit Ubool Fuzl, Ukbur, Udhum Khan, Taj Muhul, Vifrom the mouth, and a dirty robe'!
kramadit, &c. will supplant the better known and
TALIB-UL-ILM. more accurate Abul Fazl, Akbar, Adham Khan, TERACKER'S HAND-BOOKS of HINDOSTAX.-A HAND-BOOK
&c. These Hand-books are just what the visitor for Visitors to AGR and its neighbourhood, by H. G. requires: they point out all that is really worth Keene. (12mo, 160 pp.) Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co. 1671.
seeing in and all around the two cities, and describe A HAX-BOOK for Visitors to DEBLT and its neighbour- the buildings in brief compass, with intelligence, hond, by H G. Kecue. (12mo, 79 pp.) Calcutta: Thacker, Spiuk & Co. 1874.
thorough appreciation, and rare accuracy, These little books are revised editions of the author's Guidc-books, already pretty well known ORIGIN of the DURGA PUJA, by Pratápa Chandra Ghosha, to visitors to the old royal cities of Upper India. B.A. (67 pp. 12mo.) Calcutta, 1874. In his preface to the first the author modestly This paper, originally published in the Hindu states that although ho "has used his best en- Patriot, was scarcely worth reprinting. As to deavours to render his information accurate by the Origin of the Durgå festival the writer says verifying it from the best and most original
at the outset-" When it was first established the sources, yet he has abstained from controversy, memory of man, it seems, runneth not to." Instead and does not desire to be regarded as an antiqua
of carefully collecting and arranging the materials rian authority." Mr. Kcene intersperses his in.
that exist in Hindu literature bearing upon the teresting notos with extracts from the architec
subject in hand, this very excursive writer flics tural remarks of Fergusson, the eloquent descrip
off to theories and generalizations. "To a nation," tions of Bayard Taylor, the quaint accounts of
he says, " to which language is cosmos, to which Bernier, Finch, and De Laet, and with quotations
beauty was better expressed in words than in the from whatever almost has been written worth
objects described, to which the flower was lovelier quoting in reference to the objects he describes,
when it was clothed with the tints of the imaginacarefully correcting them wherever they have
tion than when it appeared in its pristine shape, fallen into even a trifling inaccuracy. And his grammar was the basis of knowledge and religion. intimate acquaintance with what he describes, and Words consequently exercised greater influence his attention to native history and to inscriptions,
upon the Hindu mind than the works of nature enables him to add interesting items to our know
or of man." Words have evidently a greater in. ledge. Thus, for example, the Mosque at Agra,
fluence with this author than his subject, and so which has been attributed to Akbar, he notices as
he affirms that "the Durga Puja of to-day is an having, "from the obvious evidence of the inscrip
evolution of many mutations, and that "in the tion over the main archway," been built by Shah early days when the Aryans lived somewhere Jehan in the year 1053 H. (A.D. 1644), and to have near the plateau of the Belur Tagh, its vernal form taken five years to complete." The Boland Dar. the Vasanti Pujå was in vogue." waza, or great gate to the Mosque at Fathepur He concludes that Durgå" is a grand developSikri, he notes was built as 'a triumphai arch'
ment of a primeval Vedic idea, produced in un. a good many years after the Dargah or sacred questioned and unquestionable Words, which in quadrangle, and bears an inscription beginning
their turn have been transformed into various thus: "His Majesty, king of kings, Heaven of forms and attributes by the authors of the Tantras the Court, shadow of God, Jalál uddin Muhammad and Purdnas, and at last imbedded in the present Khin the Emperor. He conquered the kingdom system of worship." of the south, and Dandes, which was formerly The teaching of this little book, if it teaches called Khåndeg, in the divine 46th, corre- anything, is pantheistic; but the author's hold of sponding to the Hijirah year 1010. Having reach- facts, as of theories, is very indefinite, and hazily ed Fathepur he proceeded to Agia." The Mosque hid in grandiloquent verbiage. It is a pity to find bears the date Hijirah 979, i.e. A.D. 1571.
young Hindus with abilities and learning like the To the Agra Hand-book the author hag added writer of this pamphlet taking so little care to edua brief history of the Mughul Empire from A.D. cate themselves in habits of closer thought and more 1526, and an appendix on Hindustani Architec- industrious research, and so rushing into print ture, which will be read with interest. To the with the most baseless day-dreams, mistaking Dehli one, a 'Note' on the Slave and Khilji dynas- them for the results of scientific research. Yet ties, and others on the Elephant Statues, Firuz this is not the case with Hindus only: some EuroLåt, &c. Mr. Keene has a passion for spelling peans have set them examples they have not yet Oriental names his own way-which is anrivalled, nor are likely soon to do, in the bulk attempt to render what may be called the vulgar and pretentiousness of their publications, and the system more uniform ; but we much doubt if I want of any foundation in fact for their theories.