ARCHAEOLOGY AND COINS
Fig. 73. Group of Chamba Temples.
Hindu and Buddhist Remains.—The scholar who ended his study of Indian history with the close of the first millennium of the Christian era would expect to find a fruitful field for the study of ancient monuments of the Hindu faith in the plains of the Panjáb. He would look for a great temple of the Sun God at Multán, and at places like Lahore and Kángra, Thanesar and Pihowa, for shrines rich with graven work outside and with treasures of gold and precious stones within. But he would look in vain. The Muhammadan invaders of the five centuries which elapsed between Mahmúd of Ghazní and the Moghal Bábar were above all things idol-breakers, and their path was marked by the destruction and spoliation of temples. Even those invaders who remained as conquerors deemed it a pious work to build their mosques with the stones of ruined fanes. The transformation, as in the case of the great Kuwwat ul Islám mosque beside the Kutb Minár, did not always involve the complete obliteration of idolatrous emblems. Kángra was not too remote to be reached by invading armies, and the visitor to Nurpur on the road from Pathánkot to Dharmsála can realize how magnificent some of the old Hindu buildings were, and how utterly they were destroyed. The smaller buildings to be found in the remoter parts of the hills escaped, and there are characteristic groups of stone temples at Chamba and still older shrines dating from the eighth century at Barmaur and Chitrádí in the same state. The ruins of the great temple of the Sun, built by Lálitáditya in the same period, at Mártand[7] near Islámábád in the Kashmír State are very striking. The smaller, but far better preserved, temple at Payer is probably of much later date. Round the pool of Katás, one of Şiva's eyes, a great place of Hindu pilgrimage in the Salt Range, there is little or nothing of antiquarian value, but there are interesting remains at Malot in the same neighbourhood. It is possible that when the mounds that mark the sites of ancient villages come to be excavated valuable relics of the Hindu period will be brought to light. The forces of nature or the violence of man have wiped out all traces of the numerous Buddhist monasteries which the Chinese pilgrims found in the Panjáb. Inscriptions of Aşoka? graven on rocks survive at Sháhbázgarhí and Mansehra in the North-West Frontier Province. Two pillars with inscriptions of the Missionary Emperor stand at Delhi. They were brought from Topra near the Jamna in Ambála and from Meerut by Firoz Sháh. The traveller by train from Jhelam to Ráwalpindí can see to the west of the line at Mankiála a great stúpa raised to celebrate the self-sacrifice of the Bodhisattva who gave his life to feed a starving tigress. There is a ruined stúpa at Suí Vihár in the Baháwalpur State. The Chinese pilgrims described the largest of Indian stúpas built by Kanishka near Pesháwar to enshrine precious relics of Gautama Buddha and a great monastery beside it. Recent excavations have proved the truth of the conjecture that the two mounds at Sháhjí kí dherí covered the remains of these buildings, and the six-sided crystal reliquary containing three small fragments of bone has after long centuries been disinterred and is now in the great pagoda at Rangoon. In the Lahore museum there is a rich collection of the sculptures recovered from the Pesháwar Valley, the ancient Gandhára. They exhibit strong traces of Greek influence. The best age of Gandhára sculpture was probably over before the reign of Kanishka. The site of the famous town of Táxila is now a protected area, and excavation there may yield a rich reward.
Fig. 74. Payer Temple.
Fig. 75. Reliquary.
Fig. 76. Colonnade in Kuwwat ul Islám Mosque.
Muhammadan Architecture.—The Muhammadan architecture of North-Western India may be divided into three periods:
| (a) | The Pathán | 1191-1320 |
| (b) | The Tughlak | 1320-1556 |
| (c) | The Moghal | 1556-1753 |
Fig. 77. Kutb Minár.
In the Pathán period the royal builders drew their inspiration from Ghazní, but their work was also much affected by Hindu influences for two reasons. They used the materials of Hindu temples in constructing their mosques and they employed masons imbued with the traditions of Hindu art. The best specimens of this period are to be found in the group of buildings in Old Delhi or Kila' Rai Pithora, close to Mahraulí and eleven miles to the south of the present city. These buildings are the magnificent Kuwwat ul Islám (Might of Islam) Mosque (1191-1225), with its splendid tower, the Kutb Minár (1200-1220), from which the mu'azzin called the faithful to prayer, the tomb of the Emperor Altamsh (1238), and the great gateway built in 1310 by Alá ud dín Khaljí. In the second period, named after the house that occupied the imperial throne when it began, all traces of Hindu influence have vanished, and the buildings display the austere and massive grandeur suited to the faith of the desert prophet unalloyed by foreign elements. This style in its beginning is best seen in the cyclopean ruins of Tughlakábád and the tomb of the Emperor Tughlak Sháh, and in some mosques in and near Delhi. Its latest phase is represented by Sher Sháh's mosque in the Old Fort or Purána Kila'. To some the simple grandeur of this style will appeal more strongly than the splendid, but at times almost effeminate, beauty of the third period. Noted examples of Moghal architecture in the Panjáb are to be found in Sháhjahári's red fort palace and Jama' Masjid at New Delhi or Sháhjahánábád, Humáyun's tomb on the road from Delhi to Mahraulí, the fort palace, the Bádsháhí and Wazír Khán's mosques, at Lahore, and Jahángír's mausoleum at Sháhdara. A very late building in this style is the tomb of Nawáb Safdar Jang (1753) near Delhi. A further account of some of the most famous Muhammadan buildings will be found in the paragraphs devoted to the chief cities of the province. The architecture of the British period scarcely deserves notice.
Fig. 78. Tomb of Emperor Tughlak Sháh.
Fig. 79. Jama Masjid, Delhi.
Fig. 80. Tomb of Emperor Humáyun.
Fig. 81. Bádsháhí Mosque, Lahore.
Coins.—Among the most interesting of the archaeological remains are the coins which are found in great abundance on the frontier and all over the Panjáb. These take us back through the centuries to times before the invasion of India by Alexander, and for the obscure period intervening between the Greek occupation of the Frontier and the Muhammadan conquest, they are our main source of history. The most ancient of the Indian monetary issues are the so-called punch-marked coins, some of which were undoubtedly in existence before the Greek invasion. Alexander himself left no permanent traces of his progress through the Panjáb and Sindh, but about the year 200 B.C., Greeks from Bactria, an outlying province of the Seleukidan Empire, once more appeared on the Indian Frontier, which they effectively occupied for more than a century. They struck the well-known Graeco-Bactrian coins; the most famous of the Indo-Greek princes were Apollodotos and Menander. Towards the close of this dynasty, parts of Sindh and Afghánistán were conquered by Sáka Scythians from Central Asia. They struck what are termed the Indo-Scythian and Indo-Parthian coins bearing names in legible Greek legends—Manes, Azes, Azilises, Gondophares, Abdagases. Both Greeks and Sákas were overthrown by the Kusháns. The extensive gold and copper Kushán currency, with inscriptions in the Greek script, contains the names of Kadphises, Kanishka, Huvishka, and others. In addition to the coins of these foreign dynasties, there are the purely Indian currencies, e.g. the coins of Táxila, and those bearing the names of such tribes as the Odumbaras, Kunindas, and Yaudheyas. The White Huns overthrew the Kushán Empire in the fifth century. After their own fall in the sixth century, there are more and more debased types of coinage such as the ubiquitous Gadhiya paisa, a degraded Sassanian type. In the ninth century we again meet with coins bearing distinct names, the "bull and horseman" currency of the Hindu kings of Kábul. We have now reached the beginning of the Muhammadan rule in India. Muhammad bin Sám was the founder of the first Pathán dynasty of Delhi, and was succeeded by a long line of Sultáns. The Pathán and Moghal coins bear Arabic and Persian legends. There were mints at Lahore, Multán, Háfizábád, Kalanaur, Deraját, Pesháwar, Srínagar and Jammu. An issue of coins peculiar to the Panjáb is that of the Sikhs. Their coin legends, partly Persian, partly Panjábí, are written in the Persian and Gurmúkhí scripts. Amongst Sikh mints were Amritsar, Lahore, Multán, Dera, Anandgarh, Jhang, and Kashmír.
Fig. 82. Coins.