Важная крепость Джалор, охраняющая южную границу Марвара, стоит на оконечности хребта, простирающегося на север до Сиваны. Ее высота составляет от трех до четырех сотен футов; она укреплена стеной и бастионами, на некоторых из которых установлены пушки. В ней четыре ворот: те, что ведут из города, называются Сурадж-пол, а на северо-западе находятся Бал-пол («ворота Бала», бога солнца), где имеется святилище джайнского первосвященника Паршванатха. Здесь много колодцев, два значительных баори, или резервуара, с хорошей водой, а к северу — небольшое озеро, образованное запрудиванием ручьев, стекающих с холмов, но вода в нем держится редко дольше половины года. Город [298], насчитывающий три тысячи семнадцать домов, тянется с северной и восточной стороны форта, а Сукри протекает примерно в миле к востоку от него. Он обнесен круговой стеной, подобно замку, и имеет пушки для защиты; в нем проживают представители самых разных племен, хотя, как ни странно, в его пестром населении насчитывается всего пять семей раджпутов. Следующая перепись была проведена одним из моих отрядов в 1813 году н. э.:
Houses.
Malis, or gardeners 140
Telis, or oilmen, here called Ghanchi 100
Kumhars, or potters 60
Thatheras, or braziers 30
Chhipis, or printers 20
Bankers, merchants, and shopkeepers 1156
Musalman families 936
Khatiks, or butchers 20
Nais, or barbers 16
Kalals, or spirit-distillers 20
Weavers 100
Silk weavers 15
Yatis (Jain priests) 2
Brahmans 100
Gujars 40
Rajputs 5
Bhojaks[20] 20
Minas 60
Bhils 15
Sweetmeat shops 8
Ironsmiths and carpenters (Lohars and Sutars) 14
Churiwalas, or bracelet-manufacturers 4
Общая точность этой переписи была подтверждена.
Сивана. —Siwanchi is the tract between the Luni and Sukri, of which Siwana, a strong castle placed on the extremity of the same range with Jalor, is the capital. The country requires no particular description, being of the same nature as that just depicted. In former times it constituted, together with Nagor, the appanage of the heir-apparent of Marwar; but since the setting-up of the pretender, Dhonkal Singh, both have been attached to the fisc: in fact, there is no heir to Maru! Ferishta mentions the defence of Siwana against the arms of Alau-d-din.[21]
Мачола, Морсин. —Machola and Morsin are the two principal dependencies of Jalor within the Luni, the former having a strong castle guarding its south-east frontier against the [299] depredations of the Minas; the latter, which has also a fort and town of five hundred houses, is on the western extremity of Jalor.
Бхинмал, Санчор. —Bhinmal and Sanchor are the two principal subdivisions to the south, and together nearly equal the remainder of the province, each containing eighty villages. These towns are on the high-road to Cutch and Gujarat, which has given them from the most remote times a commercial celebrity. Bhinmal is said to contain fifteen hundred houses, and Sanchor about half the number.[22] Very wealthy Mahajans, or ‘merchants,’ used to reside here, but insecurity both within and without has much injured these cities, the first of which has its name, Mal (not Mahl, as in the map), from its wealth as a mart.[23] There is a temple of Baraha (Varaha, the incarnation of the hog), with a great sculptured boar. Sanchor possesses also a distinct celebrity from being the cradle of a class of Brahmans called Sanchora, who are the officiating priests of some of the most celebrated temples in these regions, as that of Dwarka, Mathura, Pushkar, Nagar-Parkar, etc.[24] The name of Sanchor is corrupted from Satipura, Sati, or Suttee’s town, said to be very ancient.
Бхадраджан. —A slight notice is due to the principal fiefs of Jalor, as well as the fiscal towns of this domain. Bhadrajan is a town of five hundred houses (three-fourths of which are of the Mina class), situated in the midst of a cluster of hills, having a small fort. The chief is of the Jodha clan; his fief connects Jalor with Pali in Godwar.
Мева. —Mewa is a celebrated little tract on both banks of the Luni, and one of the first possessions of the Rathors. It is, properly speaking, in Siwanchi, to which it pays a tribute, besides service when required. The chief of Mewa has the title of Rawal, and his usual residence is the town of Jasol. Surat Singh is the present chief; his relative, Surajmall, holds the same title, and the fief and castle of Sandri, also on the Luni, twenty-two miles south of Jasol. A feud reigns between them; they claim co-equal rights, and the consequence is that neither can reside at Mewa, the capital of the domain. Both chiefs deemed the profession of robber no disgrace, when this memoir was written (1813); but it is to be hoped they have seen the danger, if not the error, of their ways, and will turn to cultivating the fertile tracts along the ‘Salt River,’ which yield wheat, juar, and bajra in abundance.
Балотра, Тилвара. —Balotra, Tilwara, are two celebrated names in the geography of this region, and have an annual fair, as renowned in Rajputana as that of Leipsic in Germany. Though called the Balotra mela (literally, 'an assemblage, or [300] concourse of people'), it was held at Tilwara, several miles south,[25] near an island of the Luni, which is sanctified by a shrine of Mallinath, ‘the divinity of the Malli,’ who, as already mentioned, is now the patron god of the Rathors. Tilwara forms the fief of another relative of the Mewa family, and Balotra, which ought to belong to the fisc, did and may still belong to Awa, the chief noble of Marwar. But Balotra and Sandri have other claims to distinction, having, with the original estate of Dunara, formed the fief of Durgadas, the first character in the annals of Maru, and whose descendant yet occupies Sandri. The fief of Mewa, which includes them all, was rated at fifty thousand rupees annually. The Pattayats with their vassalage occasionally go to court, but hold themselves exempt from service except on emergencies. The call upon them is chiefly for the defence of the frontier, of which they are the Simiswara, or lord-marchers.
Индхавати. —This tract, which has its name from the Rajput tribe of Indha, the chief branch of the Parihars (the ancient sovereigns of Mandor), extends from Balotra north, and west of the capital, Jodhpur, and is bounded on the north by the thal of Guga. The thal of Indhavati embraces a space of about thirty coss in circumference.
Гугадео ка Тхал. —The thal of Guga, a name celebrated in the heroic history of the Chauhans, is immediately north of Indhavati, and one description will suit both. The sand-ridges (thal-ka-tiba) are very lofty in all this tract; very thinly inhabited; few villages; water far from the surface, and having considerable jungles. Tob, Phalsund, and Bimasar are the chief towns in this rui. They collect rain-water in reservoirs called tanka, which they are obliged to use sparingly, and often while a mass of corruption, producing that peculiar disease in the eyes called rataundha (corrupted by us to rotunda) or night-blindness,[26] for with the return of day it passes off.
Тарарои. —The thal of Tararoi intervenes between that of Gugadeo and the present frontier of Jaisalmer, to which it formerly belonged.[27] Pokaran is the chief town, not of Tararoi only, but of all the desert interposed between the two chief capitals of Marusthali. The southern part of this thal does not differ from that described, but its northern portion, and more especially for sixteen to twenty miles around the city of Pokaran, are low disconnected ridges of loose rock, the continuation of that on which stands the capital of the Bhattis, which give, as we have already said, to this oasis the epithet of Mer, or rocky. The name of Tararoi is derived from tar, which signifies moisture, humidity [301] from springs, or the springs themselves, which rise from this rui. Pokaran, the residence of Salim Singh (into the history of whose family we have so fully entered in the Annals of Marwar), is a town of two thousand houses, surrounded by a stone wall, and having a fort, mounting several guns on its eastern side. Under the west side of the town, the inhabitants have the unusual sight in these regions of running water, though only in the rainy season, for it is soon absorbed by the sands. Some say it comes from the Sar of Kanod, others from the springs in the ridge; at all events, they derive a good and plentiful supply of water from the wells excavated in its bed. The chief of Pokaran, besides its twenty-four villages, holds lands between the Luni and Bandi rivers to the amount of a lakh of rupees. Dunara and Manzil, the fief of the loyal Durgadas, are now in the hands of the traitor Salim. Three coss to the north of Pokaran is the village of Ramdeora, so named from a shrine to Ramdeo, one of the Paladins of the desert, and which attracts people from all quarters to the Mela, or fair, held in the rainy month of Bhadon.[28] Merchants from Karachi-bandar, Tatta, Multan, Shikarpur, and Cutch here exchange the produce of various countries: horses, camels, and oxen used also to be reared in great numbers, but the famine of 1813, and anarchy ever since Raja Man’s accession, added to the interminable feuds between the Bhattis and Rathors, have checked all this desirable intercourse, which occasionally made the very heart of the desert a scene of joy and activity.
Кхавар. —This thal, lying between Jaisalmer and Barmer, and abutting at Girab into the desert of Dhat, is in the most remote angle of Marwar. Though thinly inhabited, it possesses several considerable places, entitled to the name of towns, in this ‘abode of death.’ Of these, Sheo and Kotra are the most considerable, the first containing three hundred, the latter five hundred houses, situated upon the ridge of hills, which may be traced from Bhuj to Jaisalmer. Both these towns belong to chiefs of the Rathor family, who pay a nominal obedience to the Raja of Jodhpur. At no distant period, a smart trade used to be carried on between Anhilwara Patan and this region; but the lawless Sahariyas plundered so many kafilas, that it is at length destroyed. They find pasture for numerous flocks of sheep and buffaloes in this thal.
Маллинатх, Бармер. —The whole of this region was formerly inhabited by a tribe called Malli or Mallani, who, although asserted by some to be Rathor in origin, are assuredly Chauhan, and of the same stock as the ancient lords of Juna Chhotan. Barmer was reckoned, before the last famine, to contain one [302] thousand two hundred houses, inhabited by all classes, one-fourth of whom were Sanchora Brahmans.[29] The town is situated in the same range as Sheo-Kotra, here two to three hundred feet in height. From Sheo to Barmer there is a good deal of flat intermingled with low tibas of sand, which in favourable seasons produces enough food for consumption. Padam Singh, the Barmer chief, is of the same stock as those of Sheo Kotra and Jasol; from the latter they all issue, and he calculates thirty-four villages in his feudal domain. Formerly, a dani (which is, literally rendered, douanier) resided here to collect the transit duties; but the Sahariyas have rendered this office a sinecure, and the chief of Barmer takes the little it realizes to himself. They find it more convenient to be on a tolerably good footing with the Bhattis, from whom this tract was conquered, than with their own head, whose officers they very often oppose, especially when a demand is made upon them for dand; on which occasion they do not disdain to call in the assistance of their desert friends, the Sahariyas. Throughout the whole of this region they rear great numbers of the best camels, which find a ready market in every part of India.
Кхердхар. —‘The land of Kher’[30] has often been mentioned in the annals of these States. It was in this distant nook that the Rathors first established themselves, expelling the Gohil tribe, which migrated to the Gulf of Cambay, and are now lords of Gogha and Bhavnagar; and instead of steering ‘the ship of the desert’ in their piracies on the kafilas, plied the Great Indian Ocean, even “to the golden coast of Sofala,” in the yet more nefarious trade of slaves. It is difficult to learn what latitude they affixed to the ‘land of Kher,’ which in the time of the Gohils approximated to the Luni; nor is it necessary to perplex ourselves with such niceties, as we only use the names for the purpose of description. In all probability it comprehended the whole space afterwards occupied by the Mallani or Chauhans, who founded Juna-Chhotan, etc., which we shall therefore include in Kherdhar. Kheralu, the chief town, was one of the ‘nine castles of Maru,’ when the Pramar was its sovereign lord. It has now dwindled into an insignificant village, containing no more than forty houses, surrounded on all sides by hills “of a black colour,” part of the same chain from Bhuj.
Юна Чхотан. —Juna Chhotan, or the ‘ancient’ Chhotan, though always conjoined in name, are two [303] distinct places, said to be of very great antiquity, and capitals of the Hapa sovereignty. But as to what this Hapa Raj was, beyond the bare fact of its princes being Chauhan, tradition is now mute. Both still present the vestiges of large cities, more especially Juna, ‘the ancient,’ which is enclosed in a mass of hills, having but one inlet, on the east side, where there are the ruins of a small castle which defended the entrance. There are likewise the remains of two more on the summit of the range. The mouldering remnants of mandirs (temples), and baoris (reservoirs), now choked up, all bear testimony to its extent, which is said to have included twelve thousand habitable dwellings! Now there are not above two hundred huts on its site, while Chhotan has shrunk into a poor hamlet. At Dhoriman, which is at the farther extremity of the range in which are Juna and Chhotan, there is a singular place of worship, to which the inhabitants flock on the tij, or third day of Sawan of each year. The patron saint is called Alandeo, through whose means some grand victory was obtained by the Mallani. The immediate objects of veneration are a number of brass images called Aswamukhi, from having the ‘heads of horses’ ranged on the top of a mountain called Alandeo. Whether these may further confirm the Scythic ancestry of the Mallani, as a branch of the Asi, or Aswa race of Central Asia, can at present be only matter of conjecture.
Нагар Гурха. —Between Barmer and Nagar-Gurha on the Luni is one immense continuous thal, or rather rui, containing deep jungles of khair, or kher, khejra, karil, khep, phog,[31] whose gums and berries are turned to account by the Bhils and Kolis of the southern districts. Nagar and Gurha are two large towns on the Luni (described in the itinerary), on the borders of the Chauhan raj of Suigam, and formerly part of it.
На этом мы завершаем наши замечания о тхалах западного Марвара, который, будучи столь бесплодным по воле природы, претерпел завершение своих бедствий из-за голода, свирепствовавшего повсеместно в этих краях в самват 1868 году (1812 г. н. э.) и какового [32] идет уже третий год. Беспорядки, описанные нами как царившие в резиденции правительства на протяжении последних тридцати лет, отдали эти отдаленные земли всецело на милость племен пустыни [304] или их собственных, едва ли менее беззаконных владык; по сути, вызывает лишь изумление то, как человек может прозябать в такой земле, которая не имеет ничего, кроме нескольких сар, или соленых озер, приносящих хоть какой-то доход владельцам, да превосходных верблюжьих пастбищ, особенно в южных районах, дающих лучшую породу в пустыне.
1. Дневники всех этих маршрутов вместе с другими по Центральной и Западной Индии составляют одиннадцать томов среднего формата in-folio, на основе которых можно составить путеводитель по этим регионам. У меня было намерение составить по ним более совершенную и подробную карту, но мое здоровье не позволяет мне это сделать. Сейчас они хранятся в архивах Компании и могут послужить, при разумном использовании, для заполнения единственного пробела на великой карте Индии, составленной по ее приказам.
2. [Канод Мохиндаргарх в штате Патиала (IGI, xvii. 385).]
3. Он вышел из Дели 13 октября 1808 года.
4. «Наши переходы, — говорит г-н Эльфинстон, — редко были очень длинными. Самый длинный составлял двадцать шесть миль, а самый короткий — пятнадцать; но усталость, которую испытывали наши люди, никак не соотносилась с расстоянием. Наша колонна при движении в самом плотном строю имела длину в две мили. Тропа, по которой мы шли, сильно петляла, обходя песчаные холмы. Она была слишком узкой, чтобы два верблюда могли идти вровень; и если какое-нибудь животное ступало в сторону, оно увязало в песке как в снегу» и т. д. — Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, ed. 1842, vol. i. p. 11.
5. [В Синде, на северном берегу Большого Ранна, примерно в 10 милях от Нагар-Паркара.]
6. Трикута, эпитет, присвоенный скале, на которой воздвигнут замок Джайсалмер.
7. Название, часто даваемое Инду Феришта.
8. [Как уже отмечалось, сахария не имеет никакой связи с арабским сахра — «пустыня».]
9. [Джал, разновидности которого бывают большой и малой: Salvadora persica и S. oleoides.]
10. Когда я писал эту предположительную этимологию, я не знал, что по поводу этого слова высказывались какие-либо догадки; однако я обнаружил, что покойный М. Лангле предложил производить слово оазис (по-разному записываемое греками как αὔασις, ἴασις и υἅσις, ὄασις, [причем αὔασις — единственная другая признанная форма]) от арабского واح; а д-р Уэйт в серии интересных этимологий (см. Asiatic Journal, May 1830) предлагает васи (वसि) от вас (वस), «обитать». Васи и ὕασις, как бы vasis, практически идентичны. Мой друг, сэр У. Оусли, дал мне почти такое же значение слова وادي (Wadi), какое приведено в издании Ричардсона у Джонсона, а именно: долина, пустыня, русло реки — река; وادي (wadi-al-kabir), «великая река», искаженное в Гвадалквивир (Guadalquiver), каковой пример также приводится у д’Эрбело (см. Vadi Gehennem) и Томпсоном, который прослеживает слово water во всех языках Европы — саксонское waeter, греческое ὕδωρ, исландское udr, славянское wod (откуда woder и oder — «река»): все они, по-видимому, выводятся из арабского wad — «река», или санскритского wah; и если д-р У. обратится к стр. 1322 Путеводителя, то найдет удивительное подтверждение своей этимологии в слове бас (в классическом варианте — вас), применяемом к одному из таких обитаемых мест. Слово басти, также часто там встречающееся, происходит от басна — населять; васи — житель; или вас — жилище, возможно, происходящее от wah, столь необходимого для оазиса! [New English Dict. приводит латинское oasis, греческое ὄασις, по-видимому, египетского происхождения; ср. коптское ouahe (откуда египетско-арабское wāh), «жилище, оазис», от ouih — «обитать».]