A Ghaznavid Historical Inscription from Uḍegrām, Swāt

A Ghaznavid Historical Inscription from Uḍegrām, SwātAuthor(s): Muhammad Nazir KhanReviewed work(s):Source: East and West, Vol. 35, No. 1/3 (September 1985), pp. 153-166Published by: Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29756717 .

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A Ghaznavid Historical Inscription from Udegr?m, Sw?t

by Muhammad Nazir Khan

1. Introduction

We have little historical knowledge of the early Islamization of Sw?t. Ac?

cording to holy tradition, Mahm?d the Ghaznavid, during the first three decades

of the 11th century conquered Sw?t. He crowned his work with the conquest of the fortress of R?ja Gir?, near present-day Udegr?m, by appointing a holy man commander in chief of the troops, according to instructions he had received

in a dream. This holy man's name was Pir Kushh?l Gh?zl B?b?, and he lost his

life in the decisive attack. The mortal spoils of the brave Gh?zl are still vener?

ated in the sanctuary dedicated to him at the foot of R?ja Gir? (1). This tradition is not confirmed by sources that, although mentioning the

numerous expeditions made by Mahm?d for the purpose of conquering the Indo?

Pakistan sub-continent, never refer to Sw?t. The silence of the other sources

is compensated to some extent by some archaeological evidence of the presence of Islam in the Sw?t Valley in comparatively ancient times, e.g. the coins and

potsherds unearthed during the excavations by the Italian Archaeological Mission

in 1956-1960 (2) of the fortress built on the northwest spur of the R?ja Gir?. The local sacred tradition appears to be univocally confirmed by a document

of fundamental interest for the history of Sw?t, and of the NWFP in general. This document consists of a fine Ghaznavid inscription celebrating the foundation

of a mosque (fig. 1), accidentally discovered on the slopes of R?ja Gir?, near

Udegr?m (fig. 2), the site that Sir Aurel Stein (3) identified as the heir to the ancient Or a conquered by Alexander.

It was during one of my routine visits to the Castle at Udegr?m in April

(1) See A. Stein, An Archaeological Tour in Upper Sw?t and Adjacent Hill Tracks, MASI, 42, Calcutta 1930, p. 38; Inayat-ur-Rahman, Folk Tales of Sw?t, I, IsmeoRepMem, XIII 1, Rome 1968, pp. 8-9, figs. 24-38.

(2) U. Scerrato, 'Labyrinths in the Wooden Mosques of North Pakistan. A Problem? atic Presence', EW, 33, 1983, p. 27, fn. 13; cf. G. Gullini, 'Udegr?m', in D. Faccenna,

G. Gullini, Reports on the Campaigns 1956-1958 in Sw?t - Pakistan, IsmeoRepMem, I, Rome 1962, pp. 325-327.

(3) Stein, op. cit., pp. 38-41.

[1] 153



1984, that while descending from the Castle I sat in the shade of some ruined walls. After relaxing a while I saw a niche in a partially emerging ruined wall I had never noticed before. After examining the niche in detail I suspected that it might be the corner of a votive st?pa or something else of considerable

archaeological interest.

After removing the debris (fallen stones), the nature of the ruin became

clear ? I was standing just inside the mihr?b of a mosque. Then I went down to the village of Udegr?m where I was invited for a

cup of tea by an old friend of mine. It was there that I was informed that a few

days back someone had found a marble slab with an inscription in Arabic. This turned out to be an ancient historical inscription, probably the first of this kind discovered from this area till date. A description and a preliminary study of it are given in the following pages.

I am grateful to the Italian Archaeological Mission in Sw?t and particularly to Professor Umberto Scerrato for their help and encouragement in the prepa? ration of this article. Thanks are also due to Professors Giovanna Ventrone Vas sallo and Maurizio Taddei, both of the Istituto Universitario Orientale, Naples, the former for her guidance in the reading of the inscription, the latter for his useful suggestions in the interpretation of the S?hi relief (4).

2. Side A of Marble Block with foundation Inscription (fig. 1)

This inscription is carved on the reverse side of a white block of reutilized marble bearing a carved S?hi decoration on the other side (see section 3, infra). The marble is white and contained large crystals, brightly visible at the points of fracture; the block measures 36.5 X 36 cm. and varies in thickness from 6 _to 6.5 cm. at the edges, and 15 cm. at the centre. The text of the inscription is six lines long and is enclosed by a simple straight-line frame. It is written in cursive

script (nashi) with diacritical marks and vowels. Here is the text:

1) ^ ^ <u\

2) jy^ y\ v^U-l jv.Nl y\

3) JljjJ <dJ! fbl <?cU J$cJ^y p]

4) JLrt-*? <j ts*cl ^j^b J<>*~1\ IIa b

5) 4?! JIaJ tfU ?Jj)j Jyuj\ 4JL^

6) aIaI* j^J-j 41*

(4) In Fall 1985 the Italian Archaeological Mission has undertaken the excavation of the mosque on the slopes of R?ja Gir?, under the direction of Prof. Umberto Scerrato.

154 [2]



Fig. 1 - Marble block from R?ja Gir? Mosque: side A with inscription (Dep. CS Neg. L. 15276/24a; F. Noci).



SKETCH PLAN OF L /^l ROWED STRONGHOLD ^

f%^-r~7v R?JA-GIR?'S CASTLE ]: P>4 ? , . -

u- ;?*' ******. ? ?

UQE - GRAM 1Vr-*^???? o

scale ^C,-: ;^f""**. UeU-*.

Fig. 2 - Sketch plan of R?ja Gir? after Stein, op. cit.



Translation:

1) In the dement and merciful name of God

2) Has ordered the prince (al-amlr) the chamberlain (al-hagtb) Abu Mans?r

3) N?stegin the charitable (al-hairl), may God make his satisfaction (his prosperity) last,

4) the construction of this mosque and doors (? al-b?wab [sic]) in the months

5) of the year 440 (1048-1049); may God accept (them)

6) from him and appreciate his efforts.

Fairly common formulas are used in the inscription, e.g.:

3-4) ?mara \bi\bin? 'has ordered to be built', or 'the construction of;

3) ?d?ma ?ll?hu taufigatahu 'may God make his prosperity last';

5-6) laqabbaia ?ll?hu minhu 'may God accept from him', while a rarer

formula is

6) wa sakara sa 'iahu 'and appreciate his efforts'.

There are also a number of inaccuracies of a grammatical nature in 1.4; what appears is *L , while the verb ?mara requires the construction with ^ , or it should have read 1~j ; there are also lexical errors: in 1.4 we find the word although it might refer to the root ̂ and the word ^1j= 'door'; it is nevertheless an unusual plural.

In the top left corner we find a few curved lines that, although they could be interpreted as alphabetic signs, should, I think, be considered as ornamental

elements since a reading of man iamaru 'he who commands', would

be incorrect, and should be , which would be hard to justify in this

particular text.

Although not of excellent quality, the cursive script used in the inscription was executed by a sure hand. Since it is a foundation inscription of the mid

11th century, kufic script would have appeared more likely. However, it must

not be overlooked that we are in a frontier region where expert calligraphers would have been difficult to find. Careful scrutiny of the inscription reveals a

number of palaeographic characters, e.g. several links, recalling a model of docu?

mentary script rather than a 'monumental' model. Unfortunately, no other local

evidence is available on which to make a comparison. The only ancient Arabic

inscription known in the whole NWFP, i.e. that of the Tochi Valley (Shakur no. 49A), is very carelessly executed in an airy angular Kufic script and is a

good two centuries older, dated as it is 13 Gum?d? I of 243/ 7 September 847

[5] 157



(D

+0.98 +2.85

Ma>k Oliven, from KJ.O, (DpXsj34Z4)

Plan of the R?ja Gir? Mosque.



+ 0.14

+0.32

0 5 10m



A.D. C). Comparison with the epigraphic monuments of Ghazni is pointless since,

although consisting of works of excellent quality carried out in the very capital of the empire, it was here that, about the mid 11th century, the use of nashi in

monumental epigraphy began to spread, as is shown by a fine, hitherto unpub? lished, foundation inscription re-utilized in the mihr?b of the Masgid-e 'Idgah of

Ghazni, by the name of sultan Mawd?d, i.e. roughly the same period as our

inscription The Udegram inscription is in any case one of the earliest 'monu?

mental' Arabic foundation inscriptions to be written in cursive script. The year mentioned in the epigraph, i.e. 440/1048-1049 A.D., falls in a

time of great crisis for the Ghaznavid empire. The year 440 is probably that of the death of Mawd?d. The latter was followed by three kings in rapid succession:

Mase?d II, rAli and rAbd ar-RasId ?440-?443 / ? 1049-1052 (r). This al-amlr al-h?gib Ab? Mans?r Nustegin al-hairi is not explicitly mentioned

by the available sources, although he was, in all likelihood, one of the several

Anustegin mentioned in Ghaznavid sources of the time (8). Tentatively, we could consider him as the Nustegin h?gib that was later appointed by cAbd ar-Rasid as governor of the Indian territories east of the Indus (9), perhaps the same person

who played an important part in eliminating the usurper Toghril Beg, thus sup?

porting the ascent to power of Farruh-Z?d (443-451 / 1052-1059 A.D.) (10). The two titles accompanying the name, al-amir and al-h?gib, were frequently

used in Ghaznavid times. The first was often followed by an attribute and the

second denotes a general or a commander. According to GardizI, the latter was

already in use at the time of Mahm?d for this category The title of al-h?gib is found also in the inscription on the tomb of Sabuktegin, which actually bears

the words al-h?gib al-ag?l (cf. RCEA, no. 2059). The name Nustegin or Anustegin was common among the Turkish military

slaves and is composed of two fairly usual elements, a Turkish one ? tegin, and

(5) A.H. Dani, H. Humbach & R. Gobi, Tochi Valley Inscriptions in the Peshawat

Museum', Ancient Pakistan, I, 1964, pp. 126-131. See M.A. Shakoor, A Handbook to the

Inscriptions Gallery in the Peshawar Museum, Peshawar 1946, no. 49. (6) I wish to thank Prof. Umberto Scerrato for this information. The epigraph in

the name of Mawd?d is being published by Prof. Giovanna Ventrone Vassallo. For the use of Kufic in Ghaznavid monumental inscriptions during the second half of the 9th

century at Ghazni, see those corresponding to the time of Ibrahim (451-492/1059-1099 A.D.). Cf. S. Flury, 'Le decor epigraphique des monuments de Ghazna', Syria, VI, 1925,

pp. 72-75, pis. XI, fig. 1; XIII, fig. 1. (7) C.E. Bosworth, The Later Ghaznavids: Splendour and Decay, Edinburgh 1977.

(8) Bosworth, op. cit., p. 46.

(9) Ferishta, History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, trans. J. Briggs, I, repr. New Delhi 1981, pp. 76-77; Bosworth, op. cit., pp. 39, 63.

(10) Bosworth, op. cit., p. 46.

(n) C.E. Bosworth, The Titulature of the Early Ghaznavids', Oriens, 15, 1962, p. 223.

160 [8]



an Iranian one ? nus/anus, from anos immortal; the name would thus mean more or less 'immortally-born prince' (rz).

3. The Mosque

According to the indications given by the chance discoverer of the inscrip? tion, the site in which the find was made is situated on the lower slopes of the R?ja Gir? to the north of the circle of walls enclosing a large number of ruins related to the outer part of the inhabited area of the ancient city-fortress. In?

cluded among the latter, situated on a terrace some hundred or so metres from the north bastion of the fortress, there is a rectangular construction marked on

Stein's map (fig. 2) (13). This construction has the appearance of an enclosure built of typical Gandharan masonry, consisting of blocks of stone held firmly in place by thin schist wedges. The enclosure has an east-west orientation, with an entrance on the east side (figs. 3-5). On the west side there is a deep square niche (fig. 4). In the corners of the niche in the central position there are re? cesses for the small angular columns. The niche is covered by a false-domed pointed vault.

In view of the orientation of the niche on the qibla and its central position on the wall (i.e. it can be identified as the mihr?b), the construction is believed to be a mosque. The prayer hall probably had naves, parallel to the qibli wall and with a flat roof, probably supported by wooden pillars. It probably occupied about half or one third of the enclosure; the remaining part consisted of the

sahn, although we do not know whether this was colonnaded or not. It is rather small: 21.60 m. wide and 28 m. long, with a ratio of three to

four, i.e. with a somewhat oblong ground plan. It is not known whether this

type of layout was the result of ground conditions, or whether an Abbasid-Samar ran construction had been used as a model (H), i.e. the same one as had probably been used in the sultan's mosques of Ghazni. The ancient mosque of Banbhore had an almost square ground plan, i.e. 39 X 37 m. C); the measurements of the much larger mosque of Mansura (16) are not known, although it too is believed to

(12) Cf. Bosworth, The Later Ghaznavids, cit., pp. 153-154. (13) Stein, op. cit., pi. 6.

(14) K.A.C. Creswell, A Short Account of Early Muslim Architecture, Harmondsworth 1958, figs. 57-58.

(15) S.M. Ashfaque, The Grand Mosque of Banbhore', Pakistan Archaeology, 6, 1969, p. 186, fig. 26 ('128 feet east to west and 122 feet north to south in external dimension'), p. 187.

(16) Cf. H. Cousens, 'Brahmanabad-Mansura in Sind', ASIAR, 1903-1904, pp. 131-144; Id., 'Excavations at Brahmanabad-Mansura, Sind', ASIAR, 1908-1909, pp. 79-87. Exca?

vations are being carried out in the impoitant monument by the Archaeological Depart? ment of Pakistan directed by Dr Muhammad Ishtiaq Khan.

[9] 161



Fig. 3 - Mosque at R?ja Glr? (Dep. CS Neg. L. 15309/18; U. Scerrato).

Fig. 4 - Mosque at R?ja Gir?: the mihr?b (Dep. CS Neg. L. 15309/20; U. Scerrato).



have been square in shape. The rectangular mihr?b was of the oriental type (,7) and is certainly in the pre-Seljuk style.

In the absence of archaeological testing, it is difficult to say whether it was

a building that had been modified or a new construction.

The 440 A.H. inscription seems to have been found in the vicinity of, or even inside, the building. In all probability, it refers to the mosque that has

recently been discovered. This would thus be the oldest mosque to be dated so far in Pakistan, after those of Banbhore and Mansura.

It is more difficult to identify the reference in the inscription to the build?

ing of doors, probably in the form of defensive works to protect this part of the outskirts of the fortified complex of R?ja Glr?.

Fig. 5 - Mosque at R?ja Glr? (Dep. CS Neg. L. 15309/23; U. Scerrato).

(17) Creswell, op. cit., p. 277.

[11] 163



4. Side B of Marble Block (figs. 6-7)

It is a white marble panel, almost entirely occupied by a full-blown lotus

flower showing two rows of petals, each row consisting of eight petals. The

edge of the panel is beaded; the corners are decorated with a scroll-like motif that

unrolls round a beaded plaque partially hidden by the lotus flower.

Only one of the smaller sides of the slab preserves a portion of a tenon. The

other tenons, or other devices for holding the panel in position, if there were

any, have been lost, probably chiselled away when the slab was re-used as a

support for the Arabic inscription. The type of scroll-like decoration in our panel has its roots in such Gupta

prototypes as the Dh?mek Stupa at S?rn?th or the haloes of the main Buddha

images from the Ganges Valley, but the comparative crudeness of the work and

the simplification of the motif, along with the use of white marble, make this

panel a very clear example of S?hi sculpture. One may suggest a date approxi?

mately in the 8th or 9th century A.D. (l8). The importance of the panel lies in its being an architectural piece, pre?

sumably part of a frieze (a 'metope', if we want to use a Greek word, only partly

appropriate in this context) from a Hindu temple. Actually there is no reason

to dismiss the hypothesis that this panel belongs to a Buddhist rather than a

Hindu monument, though one has to keep in mind that S?hi art in marble is almost

exclusively Hindu. But architectural marble pieces from this period are ex?

tremely rare, in any case.

Since our panel is a separate piece, complete in itself, which was certainly

part of a larger composition (perhaps a frieze), it is not easy to imagine what

such a composition would be like. It may well have been something similar

to the ceiling decoration in the Markul? Devi Temple at M?rul, L?hul, attributed

by H. Goetz to the middle of the 11th century (u>). In this case, one slab in?

cludes several panels, both with figural groups and floral (lotus) decoration ('"),

(18) For the marble production in the S?hi period, the reader is referred to Sh.

Kuwayama, 'The Turki S?his and Relevant Brahmanical Sculptures in Afghanistan', EW,

26, 1976, pp. 375-407, and the earlier literature cited therein. More recent contributions

are the following: G. Verardi, 'Ganesa Seated on a Lion: a New S?hi Marble', EW, 27, 1977, pp. 277-83; P. Bernard & F. Grenet, 'Dicouverte d'une statue du dieu solaire S?rya

dans la region de Caboul', Studia Iranica, 10, 1981, pp. 127-46.

(19) H. Goetz, 'The Mediaeval Sculpture of Kashmir'.. M?rg, VIII 2, 1955, pp. 65 ff.

(repr. in H. Goetz, Studies in the History and Art of Kashmir and the Indian Himalaya, Wiesbaden 1969, pp. 68-76). The M?rul frieze is reproduced in pi. XXV (top) of the

reprint.

(20) The slab reproduced by Goetz includes four large square panels (above) with

figure groups, and five minor panels (below), three of which (a longer one in the middle, two smaller ones on the sides) also contain figures, while the other two are 'metopes'

with full-blown lotus flowers.

164 [12]



Fig. 6 - Marble block from R?ja Gir? Mosque: side B

(Dep. CS Neg. L. 15276/14a; F. Noci).

^^^^^^^^ ^

Fig. 7 - Marble block from R?ja Gir?: a detail of side B (Dep. GS Neg. L. 15276/17a; F. Noci).



although it is quite reasonable to surmise that, in larger friezes, each of the lotus

panels was made out of a separate slab.

Even if the composition to which the Udegram panel belonged was of a com?

pletely different kind, the great similarity between this and the lotus flowers in the M?rul ceiling relief is nevertheless a safely reliable comparison from a typo?

logical and stylistic point of view. Another possibility is that we are dealing with the central slab of a 'Kash

miri'-type ceiling, such as the one in the temple at P?ndreth?n near Srinagar If we accept this possibility, we must also surmise that our slab is the result of a thorough reworking, in the course of which large portions of the original piece were removed. Indeed, the slab as it is now apparently does not lend itself to acting as a keystone in a 'Kashmiri' roofing or, for that matter, in a ceiling of any type.

* * *

In conclusion, this chance discovery on the slopes of R?ja GM is extremely important because it provides us with excellent proof of the Ghaznavid conquest of Sw?t, as well as being the earliest Islamic epigraphic monument in the region. Indeed, this has allowed us to identify a mosque that is almost certainly of the same period. The latter document is all the more significant in view of the fact

that, as mentioned at the beginning of this note, there is so little certain knowledge about the early Islamization of this area.

Furthermore, we have come across a fine S?hi sculpture, whose importance lies in the fact that it is a piece of marble architectural decoration, probably from a temple, i.e. belonging to a monumental class for which there is little evidence in this period.

(21) R. Ch. Kak, Ancient Monuments of Kashmir, London 1933 (repr., New Delhi 1971), pp. 112 f., pi. LXVI.

166 [14]



Documents

A Ghaznavid Historical Inscription from Uḍegrām, Swāt