Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official

by Sir W. H. Sleeman

Notes:

1. Govardhan is a very sacred place of pilgrimage, full of temples, situated in the Mathurā (Muttra) district, sixteen miles west of Mathurā, Regulation V of 1826 annexed Govardhan to the Agra district. In 1832 Mathurā was made the head- quarters of a new district, Govardhan and other territory being transferred from Agra.

2. The Purānas, even when narrating history after a fashion, are cast in the form of prophecies. The Bhāgavat Purāna is especially devoted to the legends of Krishna. The Hindī version of the 10th Book (skandha) is known as the 'Prēm Sāgar', or 'Ocean of Love', and is, perhaps, the most wearisome book in the world.

3. This flight occurred during the struggles following the battle of Plassy in 1757, which were terminated by the battle of Buxar in 1764, and the grant to the East India Company of the civil administration of Bengal, Bihār and Orissa in the following year. Shāh Ālam bore, in weakness and misery, the burden of the imperial title from 1759 to 1806. From 1765 to 1771 he was the dependent of the English at Allahabad. From 1771 to 1803 he was usually under the control of Marāthā chiefs, and from the time of Lord Lake's entry into Delhi, in 1803 he became simply a prisoner of the British Government. His successors occupied the same position. In 1788 he was barbarously blinded by the Rohilla chief, Ghulām Kādir.

4. Akbar II. His position as Emperor was purely titular.

5. The name is printed as Booalee Shina in the original edition. His full designation is Abū Alī al-Husain ibn Abdullah ibn Sīnā, which means 'that Sīnā was his grandfather. Avicenna is a corruption of either Abū Sīnā or Ibn Sīnā. He lived a strenuous, passionate life, but found time to compose about a hundred treatises on medicine and almost every subject known to Arabian science. He died in A.D. 1037. A good biography of him will be found in Encyclo. Brit., 11th ed., 1910.

6. Otherwise called Eurasians, or, according to the latest official decree, Anglo-Indians.

7. 'Diplomatic characters' would now be described as officers of the Political Department.

8. These remarks of the author should help to dispel the common delusion that the English officials of the olden time spoke the Indian languages better than their more highly trained successors.

9. The author wrote these words at the moment of the inauguration by Lord William Bentinck and Macaulay of the new policy which established English as the official language of India, and the vehicle for the higher instruction of its people, as enunciated in the resolution dated 7th March, 1835, and described by Boulger in Lord William Bentinck (Rulers of India, 1897), chap. 8. The decision then formed and acted on alone rendered possible the employment of natives of India in the higher branches of the administration. Such employment has gradually year by year increased, and certainly will further increase, at least up to the extreme limit of safety. Indians now (1914) occupy seats in the Council of India in London, and in the Executive and Legislative Councils of the Governor- General, Provincial Governors, and Lieutenant-Governors. They hold most of the judicial appointments and fill many responsible executive offices.