SEAL.
(Signed) F. Currie.
” H. M. Lawrence.
By order of the Right Honorable the Governor-General of India.
(Signed) F. Currie,
Secretary to the Government of India, with the Governor-General.
Note on the Genealogy of the divine Rajas of Nagyr (given to me by Raja Habibulia Khan of Nagyr in 1886).—At Doyur, near Gilgit, on the mountain-top, three fairy-brothers shot at a calf, which only the youngest (Azru) hit and was induced to eat, thereby losing his fairy-hood. The two others flew away and settled on another mountain, but the crowing of a cock betrayed them to the people of Gilgit who made one of them, Tura Khan, Raja of Gilgit; the other, Chalis Khan, becoming Raja of Nagyr. [This account is incorrect as Azru became Raja of Gilgit, because he had become man by eating meat (incarnation), but it is interesting as showing the desire of Nagyris to be connected with the Historical Legend of the origin of the neighbouring and more civilized Gilgit. Some say that Chalis Khan had no son, but that the Rajas of Nagyr are the descendants of the Makpon rulers of Little Tibet (from which the Makpon-i-Shang-rong—[see page 107]—takes its name). Others say that Alladad was a son of Chalis Khan: at all events, the founders of the Hunza-Nagyr Dynasty, Girkis-Mogholot, two brothers, whether descended from Mogholot or Chalis, are called Mogholoti, Girkis becoming the Tham of Hunza, and Mogholot that of Nagyr. As for Alladad, he was succeeded by Kamal, whom Rahim and Babar (or tiger) followed in turn. Babar’s son was Ferdûs, and his son Alif Khan was the father of the present reigning Chief, Zafar Khan, whose progeny is very numerous]. [The above account, although very deficient and confused, supplements, as regards Hunza-Nagyr, the important “historical legend of the origin of Gilgit,” which will be found on [pages 9 to 16], and which chronicles the change in the Shîn rule in Dardistan. The mystery in the Hunza-Nagyr dynasty fitly entitles it to be called “ayeshó,” or “heavenly.” I can quite understand that the Chief of Hunza, unable to convince European disbelievers of his divine origin, should have claimed a descent from Alexander the Great, faute de mieux, since the more terrestrial chiefs of Badakhshan and other neighbouring countries claim to be descended from that conqueror.] (See note on [page 55] and [page 69].)
Colonel Biddulph gives the following interesting version of the above story:
“The ruling family of Hunza is called Ayeshé (heavenly), from the following circumstance. The two States of Hunza and Nager were formerly one, ruled by a branch of the Shahreis, the ruling family of Gilgit, whose seat of government was Nager. Tradition relates that Mayroo Khan, apparently the first Mahommedan Thum of Nager, some two hundred years after the introduction of the religion of Islam in to Gilgit, married a daughter of Trakhan of Gilgit, who bore him twin sons, named Moghlot and Girkis. From the former the present ruling family of Nager is descended. The twins are said to have shown hostility to one another from their birth. Their father, seeing this, and unable to settle the question of succession, divided his State between them, giving to Girkis the north, and to Moghlot the south, bank of the river.
Age did not diminish their enmity, and Girkis, while out hunting, was one day killed by an adherent of Moghlot, a native of Haramosh, named Mogul Beg, who, under pretence of a quarrel with Moghlot, took service with Girkis, and persuading him to look up at some game on the cliff above him, drove an arrow into his throat. Girkis left only a daughter, who, according to the custom of the country, became Queen or Ganish of Hunza. Her first care was to avenge her father’s death. The tradition relates that having sworn to tear the murderer’s liver with her teeth, she carried out her vow to the letter. Left without a chaperon, she was not long without getting into a scrape, as young ladies in similar circumstances are apt to do. The young prince Kamal Khan of Nager, a younger son of Moghlot, crossed the river by night, serenaded her and won her heart. Night after night the lovers met, unknown to the rest of the world, till serious consequences ensued; and one fine day it was announced in Hunza that, though Providence had not yet provided the princess with a husband, it had seen fit to bless her with a son. Morals in Hunza are not of the strictest even now, so that few questions were asked, and the good people generally contented themselves with beating their drums, dancing, and the usual festivities proper on the occasion of the birth of the Prince Chiliss Khan. Kamal Khan seems to have ‘behaved badly’ all through, as the above story is concealed in Hunza under the fiction that a prince of Shighnan became the husband of the princess, but that his name being forgotten he is known only as Ayeshó (Heaven-sent), from which the present ruling family of Hunza takes the name. The present Thum of Hunza is Ghazan Khan” (1880).