The Great Road from Surat to Agra through MalwaAuthor(s): Ian RaesideReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Third Series, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Nov., 1991), pp. 363-381Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain andIrelandStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25182386 .Accessed: 25/09/2012 01:24

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The Great Road from Surat to Agra through Malwa

IAN RAESIDE

Jean Deloche in a series of valuable publications1 has given an overall view of the Indian

road network in the period up to about 1820 when the general pacification that followed

the collapse of the Maratha kingdom gave British engineers the chance to transform the

communications of India, first with military roads and later with railways. This

transformation was nowhere more complete than in Central India and particularly in

Malwa, the Mughal subha through which led the great road from Delhi and Agra to

Burhanpur and the Deccan -

a road which was followed by many of the European

merchants and diplomats travelling between Surat and Agra and in part by the Maratha

armies in the eighteenth century as they first raided and then conquered territory all the

way up to Delhi. The other route from Surat to the north lay through Gujarat and the

semi-deserts of Raj as than (Deloche, 1980, pp. 55-7) and will not concern us here. Our

route follows the Tapti valley east to Burhanpur, through the gap guarded by Asirgarh and then, after the unavoidable difficulties of the Narmada crossing and the climb up the

Vindhya escarpment, takes an easy line through the flat well-cultivated Malwa plateau

from Sironj to Narwar, following the grain of the country between the north-flowing

tributaries of the Chambal.

Today the main Bombay?Agra road, constructed between 1840 and i860, runs fifty

miles west of Sironj and the railway forty miles east. The city described by Finch as "

a very

great towne" (Finch,2 p. 143) is now in almost total decay, accessible by modern transport

only from east or west, the alignment of its single narrow main street the only reminder

that it once lay upon the great north road. Beyond the northern edge of Malwa the fort

of Narwar has been bypassed only a dozen miles away but is now almost entirely neglected

and unknown except to the Archaeological Survey of India.

The main stages of the road with its variable central section are well known and are

listed by Deloche (1980, pp. 54-5; notes 23-6) together with their major sources.

Nevertheless numerous problems remain in the detail of the European itineraries and even

more so of the late eighteenth-century Chahar Gulshan3 They arise from confused

orthography, from changes of name and from the apparently total disappearance of once

famous serais by which the stages of the road were punctuated (Deloche, 1968, pp. 84-90).

1 See Bibliography at Deloche for the details.

2 To save complication I have followed the abbreviations of Deloche, 1968, pp. 127-8 wherever possible. 3 Translated and partly identified in Sarkar, pp. xcvi?cxviii, 167?78.

JRAS Series 3, 1, 3 (1991), pp. 363-381 14 TRA 1

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Fig. i. Map to show route of the great road from Surat to Agra. 5s

366 Ian Raeside

There is some help to be found in the Marathi sources, unused by Deloche, which contain

a number of itineraries as well as sequences of letters giving date and place of despatch from

which the movements of the Maratha armies can be deduced.4 With these, however, there

are two additional problems. The routes given are often those of large armies sweeping

across country from one source of food and forage to another and indifferent to the

protection afforded by a main trade route with its serais and well-marked track.

Furthermore the Marathi records were originally written in the modi script which is

notoriously difficult to decipher unless one has quite a high expectation of what one will

find. The scholars of the previous generation who transcribed the published records into

devanagarT were much more adept at modT than almost anyone alive today, yet they made

constant mistakes in the names of villages which lie within thirty miles of Poona and one

can well imagine how much reliance can be placed on the form assumed by some obscure

village in the heart of Malwa. Still there is information to be gleaned from the Marathi

sources and some too from the earliest British military expeditions which are still

unpublished or only published in part. The most important of these are Upton's mission

from Kalpi to

Burhanpur and ultimately Poona in 1775?6,5 Goddard's march across India

from Kalpi through Sironj and Burhanpur to Surat in 1778-9,6 Camac's diversionary advance from Narwar to Sironj and back in 1780?17 and Malet's journey from Surat by a deliberately selected new route to negotiate with Scindia in his camp at Mathura in

1785.8

Lastly there are the journals of the Dutch merchants Van Adrichem and Ketelaar,

surprisingly ignored by Deloche, who travelled the Agra-Sironj road in 1662 and 1712

respectively.9

This article seeks, with the aid of all these sources and of the better maps that are now

available, to clear up some of the uncertainties of this famous road.

I Surat to Sironj via Barwani and Ujjain

Father Monserrate, S.J., who recorded the first Jesuit mission to Akbar, left Surat on 24

January 1580 or thereabouts.10 His party seems to have immediately crossed the Tapti to

4 See especially PD xiv, 7; xxii, 5?21; xxvii, 79; xxx, 319-20; Vad, pp. 219-59.

5 Upton's route is given in summary form in Macpherson, pp. 230-49. For the meticulously detailed journal

and itinerary of the expedition in BL Add. MS. 29213 see Smith. The map prepared by the Rev. William Smith

after his return to England is IOLR Maps D.VII.5 and is reproduced by Macpherson. 6 One copy of the map of Goddard's route, prepared by his surveyors Arthur Caldwell and Duncan Stewart

(see Phillimore, i, pp. 38-9) is IOLR Maps A.C. 53. BL Add. MS. 18109 A-B are maps, probably drawn in

England, that combine Goddard's and Upton's routes. 7

The map of his movements is BL Add. MS. 13 907: "Route of a detachment under Lieut. Colonel Camac

from Narwar to Seronge, 1781". 8

Malet's itinerary, based on the journal of Cruso the surgeon who accompanied him, was published in Forbes,

iii, pp. 459-87, iv, pp. 5-42 (in the 1834 edition of Forbes it is abridged). Malet's own official diary interspersed with letters is in Forrest, pp. 483-526, while a slightly more personal version of it, written in his own hand and

sent with a covering letter to Warren Hastings in 1787 is BL Add. MS. 29216. Finally the diary of Charles

Reynolds who accompanied Malet as surveyor is IOLR MS. Eur. B.13. 9

Van Adrichem, pp. 205-12 (Agra to Surat); Ketelaar, pp. 234-84 (Delhi to Sironj, Baroda and Broach). Another journey made in 1699 by a party including Ketelaar is summarised in Das Gupta, pp. 51-4.

10 There are discrepancies in the dates probably due to the change from old to new style. See Hosten, p. 551

n.3.

From Surat to Agra 367

Rander and travelled for eight days on the north bank to Sultanpur, the now ruined city

NE of Shahada. Although his narrative mentions nothing in between these two places, his

map and the list of towns with their longitudes and latitudes as computed by him - neither

of which are included in the translation by Hoyland and Banerjee ?

name Vyara, Dhaita,

Kukarmunda and Taloda, amongst others which are less certainly identifiable; the

presence of the first two suggesting that he may not after all have stuck to the north bank

throughout this part of the journey, but have crossed back to part of the route described

in the next section and used by all subsequent travellers. From Sultanpur the party took

four days to cross the "Avazus" range to "

Cenduanum" -

Avazi iugum transvecti

Cenduanum quatriduo venerunt ?

and after an excursus on the tribes of these dense jungles,

clearly the Bhils, whose chief city was also called Avazus, Monserrate talks of reaching

"Surana" not far from which the Narmada was crossed. Two days later they reached

Mandu (Hosten, pp. 552?3). Just west of "Surana" Monserrate's map shows "bamanqga"

("Bamanque gam" in the list) and "confluxus". Hosten followed by Banerjee has taken

Cenduanum to represent Sindwa by which he presumably understands Sendhwa11 on the

main Bombay?Agra road. Avazus clearly represents Avasgarh, the hill-fort that was the

original capital of Barwani State until it was moved to Barwani around 1650 (Gaz. Malwa,

PP- 557?8). Surana is a village ESE of Anjad close to the Narmada while the "village of

brahmans" with its nearby sangam might be any one of the numerous sacred spots along

the Narmada12 and not necessarily the Brahmangaon just south of Mandu.

Though Cenduanum is doubtless Sendhwa, it is odd to find two villages named

Sindvani on two of the short rivers that run north to the Narmada from the Satpuda ridge

on either side of the fort of Toranmal, the first in Akrani Mahal of Dhulia District on the

left bank of the Titoli Nadi and the other just east of the Jharkal which now forms the

boundary between Maharasthra and West Nimar District of Madhya Pradesh. Evidence

from other parts of India indicates that repetition of a place-name often reveals the

persistence of an old regional name13 and one wonders whether sindavana or something

like it was once the name of the whole settled area that lies between the Satpudas and the

Narmada roughly from 74 to 75 East. The Sindvanis and perhaps Sendhwa itself could

well be adjectival residues of names such as [Borgaon] Sindvani - the Borgaon which is in

Sindvana ? a type of village name that can be found all over India.

The remainder of Monserrate's route is straightforward. In his narrative he mentions

Ujjain, Sarangpur, Pipaldhar (Pimpaldarus)14 and Sironj, at which point all routes come

together, while his list and his map name in addition Dikthan, Sunera and Berasia. On the

return journey he mentions only "Angertum" (Monserrate, p. 186) which comes

between crossing the Narmada and the Avazus range again. Anjad seems to be clearly

indicated here.

11 Variously spelled Sindva or Sindwa. I follow throughout the spelling of the i: 250,000 series. For family

names like Scindia (Sinde in Marathi) I keep to the form used by the family today. 12

Perhaps even the sacred confluence of Kapila Sangam. See Gaz. Malwa, p. 555. 13

For example the two Kanand rivers SW of Poona. See Raeside, "A note on the 'Twelve Mavals' of Poona

District", Modern Asian Studies xii, 3, 1978, p. 408 n.78. 14

A village 17 miles NE of Berasia at 230 45' N, 770 39" E.

368 Ian Raeside

Note finally that as Deloche points out (Deloche, 1968, p. 51) this is the only acount of

this short-cut from the middle Tapti valley to Mandu and Ujjain. We can only guess that

in 1580 it was relatively less hazardous than it later became.

II Surat to Burhanpur

This road was travelled and its stages noted by Finch, Jourdain, Roe with Ravesteyn,15

Mundy, Thevenot (in part), Tavernier, Van Adrichem and, a century later, by Goddard

in his dash to Surat. Its main stages are listed by Deloche (1980, p. 54 n. 23), but are not

quite as clear as he makes out. Everyone went through Vyara but the early seventeenth

century travellers Finch, Jourdain and Roe, all within the same five years 1610?15, got there

via Mota and Kadod keeping north closer to the Tapti, while later in the century (Mundy,

Tavernier, Thevenot, Van Adrichem) the route went through Bardoli and Valod.

Presumably political or geographical factors had brought about the change in the

intervening years.

The next stage is invariably "Curka" about five kos from Vyara, described by Finch

as "a great village with a river on the south side" (p. 136), by Jourdain as "Corka a

ragged

towne" (p. 142), "Carckga" for van Ravesteyn (Roe, p. 66), "Kirka" for Mundy, "a

poore Towne, half burnt upp and almost voyd of Inhabitants, the most part fledd, the rest

dead, lyeing in the Streets and on the Tombes" (Mundy, p. 40). It is "Charca" in

Thevenot (p. 102) and finally "

Kerkoa "

for Tavernier, "

or as they now call it the Begam's

caravansarai" (Tavernier, p. 41). The only reason for entering into this detail is, of course,

that there is no sign of such a place

on any modern map and Crooke's note (Tavernier,

p. 41 n. 1) is incomprehensible referring as it does to "the modern Kirka...near Behana"

where Behana is a misprint repeated from Ball's 1989 edition for Behara, an old spelling

of Vyara. In fact this large village or small town can only be an earlier name for whatever

centre of habitation lay beneath the fort of Songarh, exactly the right distance east of

Vyara. Songarh (sonagada) is a typical Marathi name and the fort only emerges into history with its capture, traditionally from a Bhil chieftain, by the founder of the Gaikwad family around 1720.16 The period is ill-documented and there is no trace of any earlier name in

the Marathi sources, but the existence of Kukada-dongri (Kukara-on-the-hill) about five

miles south is almost certainly a relic of the name.

Five kos further on Ravesteyn's "Criali" (Roe, p. 66 n. 3) remains a mystery and this

stage also presents two alternative routes not recognised in the editions. Crooke's note

(Tavernier, p. 41 n. 3) suggests that "Navapoura or

Narayanpura" are variants of the same

name, but Narayanpur is seven miles NW of Navapur and once again it seems that the

earlier travellers kept further north through Narayanpur (Narampore -

Finch, Nar

ranporte -Jourdain, Narampora -

Roe), while the later ones passed through Navapur

(Nouapore -

Mundy, Naoupoura -

Thevenot, Navapoura -

Tavernier). Everyone then

went via Dhaita ?

"a great towne" (Finch, p. 136) though now forgotten ?

and Bhadvad

15 Pieter Gillis van Ravesteyn was a Dutch merchant who fell in with Roe's ambassadorial party as far as

Burhanpur. Supplementary information from his narrative is given by Foster in the footnotes to Roe. 16

Gaz. Baroda, p. 169; V. G. Dighe (ed.), The Maratha Supremacy (Bombay, 1977), p. 280.

From Surat to Agra 369

to Nandurbar, with the exception of Tavernier who seems to have forgotten these

intermediate places and gives an impossibly short distance

? nine kos from Navapur

- to

what he calls "Nasarbar".17 From Nandurbar the normal route was Nimgul, Sindkhed,

Thalner, but Mundy crossed the Tapti earlier at Tekvada (Mundy, p. 46) and missed out

Sindkhed while Tavernier names "Dol-Medan" two thirds of the way from Nandurbar

to Sindkhed. I would take this to be a common noun representing tala maidana ?

"camping ground", except that Van Adrichem names "Dauwelmedaan" halfway

between Nandurbar and Thalner (p. 211) and Francois Martin in his journey from

Pondicherry to Surat also joined the Tapti valley route east of Nandurbar at a place he calls

"Daoulmedan, une grande peuplade" (Martin, ii, p. 263). Dondaicha, a fairly modern

town, is in the right place but one can scarcely derive one name from the other.

The remainder of the route through Chopda and Yaval needs no comment, for the

names mentioned by all European travellers are readily identifiable. It might be added that

the eighteenth-century maps and itineraries are of little help in this section. They use the

current names, for instance "Sonegurr" and "Doondatch" in Goddard. Du Perron in

1758 seems to have been the first European who noticed Songarh as a fortified place:

"Songuer, grande ville situee au pied des montagnes, entouree de murs et precedee d'un

Fauxbourg".18

Ill Burhanpur to Sironj via Mandu

This section was travelled in its entirety by Finch and Jourdain, and Fitch too went this

way but gives no details of the route (Fitch, p. 17). Roe went only as far as Mandu before

heading north to join Jahangir's camp at Ajmer. He was no longer accompanied by van

Ravesteyn and was obviously himself too weak after his illness in Burhanpur to do much

more than record rough distances: Rahipur, Borgaon, Bhikangaon, Akbarpur where he

crossed the Narmada at the usual ford and Mandu (Roe, pp. 80-1). A fairly lucid sequence of the mainly incomprehensible Chahar Gulshan gives what appears to be a section of this

route: Bhikangaon, "Ghoragaon" (perhaps Ghogaon at 210 55' N, 750 45' E), Multhan,

Akbarpur (Sarkar, pp. 168-9).19 Finch and Jourdain, however, went further west through

Mogargaon and Khargon to "Berkul" (Finch, p. 140; "Becull", Jourdain, p. 147) which

is no doubt correctly identified as Balkher, and so by Akbarpur and Tarapur to Mandu.

The distances given for this section are conflicting and, in Jourdain's case, far too small.

Finch's "Barre" and "Camla" which come between Asirgarh and Mogargaon cannot be

identified with any certainty except to say that Barre is perhaps Baroda at 210 38' N,

760 09' E rather than Borgaon, and Camla, four kos before Mogargaon by a "bad way"

(Finch, p. 140) probably lies in the group of villages in the next valley east. Jamli at

210 44' N, 75?56' E is just possible.

17 Tavernier, p. 41. It is also "Nazarbar" in the Mirat-i-Ahmadi (Lokhandwala, pp. 49-50). 18 Zend-Avesta, ouvrage de Zoroastre...traduit en Francais... par M. Anquetil du Perron. Tome Premier, premiere

partie, qui comprend Yintroduction au Zend-Avesta, formee principalement de la relation du voyage du traducteur aux Indes

Orientates (Paris, 1771), p. cclxi. 19

The Comte de Modave, travelling south to Burhanpur over this stretch, came through Multhan, " Kineca"

(Bhikangaon highly garbled?), Gaula and Dhulkot (Modave, pp. 507?8).

370 Ian Raeside

The first stage after Mandu ?

four kos ?

is "

Luneheira "

in Finch (p. 142), "

Connyhier "

in Jourdain (p. 149), clearly Kaneria 18 miles W by S of Mhow. There is no Lunera as

given by Foster. The following stages: Depalpur, Ujjain, Kanasia, Sunera are no trouble,

but then complications set in. Finch gives ten kos from Sunera to "Pimpelgom" adding

"at 4 c. end of this way lyeth Sarampore, a great towne with a castle on the south west

side" then "7 c. to Cuckra, a great countrey towne...at 4 c. lyeth Berroul a great aldea"

(Finch, p. 143). Finch's distances are very consistent throughout this stretch and the only

feasible interpretation of this is that his party turned due east from Sunera, that he is

describing Sarangpur as being four kos off the route (it would be about six miles north at

the nearest point), that "Pimpelgom" is Piplod and "Cuckra" and "Berroul" are

respectively Khokara Kalan at 230 25' N, 760 57' E and Behrawal five and a half miles west

of it. Foster's suggestions of Kakarwar, presumably Kankarwal, and Bora are too far north.

"Coucra" with a brick fort five kos SW of Duraha is also described by Tieffenthaler (p.

350).

Jourdain too is confusing at this point. After "Sunearra" he went on "to Pimplgang,

ten coses, but being a ragged place I went further four coses to a cittye called

Serampore,...a great cittye and castle". From there seven kos more to "Cuckra"

(Jourdain, p. 150). It seems that he mixed up his notes and it was Sunera that was too

ragged for comfort so that his party went out of their way to Sarangpur.

Ketelaar travelled part of this way in the reverse direction in 1713 but only gives details

of the section between Ujjain and Sarangpur where he names Sumrakhera, Palduna,

Kanasia, Samgi, "Sooerkotha Patterki" which remains unidentified, Shajapur, Sunera and

Ukaota (Ketelaar, pp. 270-2). It is of some interest that Shajapur, apparently unknown to

the seventeenth-century travellers, has now come up in the world. In the same way when

Malet went this way in 1785 his first stage after Ujjain was Tarana, a Holkar town that

clearly had newly risen to prominence under the Marathas, then "

Shah Jehanpore "

and "

Sarungpore ". This last place, he says, "which was formerly a place of great consequence,

is much broke and the inhabitants speak their ill-will to the Mahrattas with much

freedom" (Malet, fol 5v).

Malet, intent on seeing hitherto unknown country, went NNE from Sarangpur via

Rajgarh and Raghugarh to rejoin the traditional route at Badarwas (see below), but the

Finch/Jourdain route through Khokara was the main one and presumably came into the

Handia-Sironj road at Duraha although the next stage that they both mention is Dillaud

(Delout -

Finch, p. 143 ; Delute -Jourdain, p. 150). It is Tieffenthaler who gives us a very

plausible etymology of Duraha, which he spells "Dorah", as "two roads", being the fork

for the two roads to the Deccan, one to Ujjain and one to Burhanpur via the "

Toumbriachandia Gath" (Tieffenthaler, p. 350). From Dillaud it is seven kos to Burrow/Burrou and a further seven to Sukesera/Suckerra

and nine more to Syrange/Sarrange (Finch, p. 143, Jourdain, p. 151). Finch and Jourdain are in perfect accord. The first is probably Barrai,20 as Foster says, and the second at the

crossing of Sagar Nadi where the village of Sukha appears close to a serai and ford at

20 "Sarel Barel" (TiefFenthaler, p. 350), otherwise obscure, is very likely a misreading of Sarai Barai.

From Surat to Agra 371

23? 52' N, 770 44' E. Monserrate's Pipaldhar is midway between these two stages. From

the Sagar Nadi crossing Sironj is about 18 miles -

reasonable for 9 kos.

IV Burhanpur to Sironj via the Handia Ghat

It is possible to identify almost every town and village named on the western route to

Sironj, but the eastern route travelled by Mundy in 1630, Manucci in 1656, Dircq van

Adrichem in 1662 and Tavernier several times between 1641 and 1666 presents more

problems. The communications of the gap in the Satpura range north of Asirgarh have

been completely altered by the road and railway through Khandwa and the modern maps

are thinly sprinkled with village names, half of them marked "deserted". It is difficult

enough to trace the routes of Goddard and Upton through this region and even some of

the names on Malcolm's map of 1820 cannot be found, so it is hardly surprising that many

of Tavernier's place-names, often those of serais, must remain conjectural. This applies

with even greater force to the garbled lists of the Chahar Gulshan (Sarkar, cxiv, pp. 168-9). What is fairly clear is that, led astray by the modern lines of communication, the editors

of these texts have placed their guesses too far west. Temple (Mundy, p. 52) followed by Crooke (Tavernier, p. 45 n. 3) have come up with the ubiquitous Borgaon for

"Burghkheesara"/"Balki-sera" and Sehara (presumably Sihada 4 miles NE of Khandwa) for "Naysara"/"Nevelki-sera", but there is no evidence that this was the normal way

before the nineteenth century. Sarkar's Mandwa for Tavernier's "Pander" is slightly more

plausible especially as van Adrichem clearly names

" Manduwa" and "Neuwe Sarra" as

the stages north of Burhanpur, but Balwara (13 miles SE of Khandwa) for "Balki-sera"

is too far north. One would expect the seventeenth-century travellers to have taken

roughly the same route as that along which both Upton and Goddard were guided in the

reverse direction to that described here: that is following the Tapti NE for about 15 miles,

then via Siwal and Piplod to Chainpur on the Agni river at 210 53' N, 76' 44' E. Here

Mundy and Tavernier come together and begin to agree remarkably well on Charwa,

Bicchola, Handia. Charwa was an important place under the Marathas and head of its

paragana (PD, xiv, 7). Described in 1779 as "a pretty village on the road... also a new fort

almost finished of brick" (Goddard, Journal, p. 16), it is unlikely that the fort was totally new. Bicchola is on the banks of the Ajnal, a tributary of the Narmada, nine miles SW

of the Handia ford. The village just west of it is still called Kali Sarai.

Reverting to the "empty quarter", in my view Tavernier's "Pander" is not Mandwa

but some lost village on the Pandhar Nadi which joins the Tapti near Ratagarh - most

rivers in the area are named after the principal village through which they flow.

Tavernier's "Balki-sera" and Mundy's "Burghkeesara" is most probably Bhilkheri Sarai

at 210 37' N, 760 26' E, and "Naysara"/"Nevelki-sera"/"Neuwe Sarra" to be sought

somewhere on the Bham river north of Piplod.

This area was still "very wild and jungly" in 1870 (Forsyth, p. 343) and the Rev.

William Smith in his journal of Upton's march records day after day "totally a wild jungle of long grass, small wood and trees... an entire jungle of grass, underwood and trees

throughout the whole day's journey ...the country continued one wild dreary jungle,

372 Ian Raeside

having scarcely a spot cultivated" (Smith, fol 19). Forsyth's account of his attempts to

draw up a list of villages when making the settlement sheds more light on the difficulties

of identifying place-names in this area:

There were old pergunnah lists, called Dehjaras, in which the names of mouzahs (villages) were

entered under the usual heads... but many of these were mere names, and could not be recognised

in the field. Others had changed their names during the Mahomedan period, when the Dehjaras were

drawn up, and had gone back to their original ones again in the Mahratta time (Forsyth, p. 149).

There are further uncertainties on the road north from Handia, for the route once again

passes through a string of villages in rough forested country long abandoned by the

modern main roads. Tavernier's "Onquenas 4 coss" is perhaps Kankaria, a village at a

major crossing of tracks ten miles due north of the Narmada ford at Handia. Five kos

further on "Tiquery" is almost certainly Thikria, a deserted village just under the scarp

of the Vindhyas at 220 50' N, 760 57' E. Mundy (p. 54) has "Tombree" nine kos from

Handia and van Adrichem "Tommery" at 12 kos (p. 209), and although there is no sign of any such name on any map, new or old, that I have seen, Tieffenthaler's reference to

the "

Toumbriachandia Gath", already quoted, suggests that something like Tumri may have been the name of the pass up the escarpment. Tavernier's "Toolmeden" looks like

another tola maidana (see above), a camping ground where the caravans halted at the foot

of the hills, and it is followed by yet another "New Serai" (Tavernier, p. 45; Van

Adrichem, p. 208; PD, xxx, 319; Vad, p. 259).

The rest of Tavernier's stages are clear: Icchawar, Sehore, Shaikhpura, Duraha,

Hatiakhera, Dillaud and "

San-kaira", the last probably Barha Shamkhera four miles west

of Berasia at a junction of six tracks. On this section after "Tombree" Mundy names

Icchawar and Sehore followed by a "Towne" which must be Duraha, then Dillaud and

seven kos further on "Barowe", by which time we have joined the route from Mandu.

Finally nine kos later Mundy stopped at "Pomareea", that is Pamaria at 230 49'N,

770 43' E. After Sehore van Adrichem has Hatiakhera ("Hatykeserra"), "Beloor" (just

conceivably Barrai) and "Couwaria Sara" for which Kempers suggests Khumbaria (Van

Adrichem, p. 208) although there is no sign of such a village

on the map. Malcolm's map,

however, has a "Kooareah" on the road from Bhilsa to Sironj just north of Seu.

Manucci also took the road through "Andia" to Sironj, but gives no other details of

this or any other section of his route (Manucci, i, pp. 65-70).

V Sironj to Narwar

Sironj was a major halting-place. "A very great towne" for Finch, a "Cittie" for Mundy,

apart from Burhanpur the only place between Surat and Agra to be dignified with such

a name, it was still a big place in 1778, having escaped the worst ravages of the Maratha

armies through being a settled revenue-paying possession of the Peshwa at least from

1742.21 Tavernier describes its trade and manufacture of chintz (Tavernier, p. 46) and

Smith's brief description of the town is as follows:

21 Gordon, p. 25. It was under the control of the Peshwa from 1736, handed over to the Holkars in 1754 and

acquired by Amir Khan in 1798 to become part of the State of Tonk.

From Surat to Agra 373

Encamped on a large pleasant tope; the town Seronge bears from N. to S., is nearly semi-circular

and about half a mile distant. It is a very extensive and populous place, walled round, and one of

the most regular and best built towns in India. The houses are built with stone, two and three stories

high, and with a small flight of well built stone stairs up to the first floor; many of them have

balconies, balustraded and ornamented something in the European taste. The bazar is a clean, neat

long range of buildings; the floor is raised with stone, and ascended by four or five steps and covered

in the form of a piazza (Smith, fol 16).

The tope outside the town is the site of the present Dak bungalow. Mundy mentions

a "goodly Tanck" outside the south gate, which still exists, and Ketelaar camped beside

it (Mundy, p. 56; Ketelaar, p. 268).

From Sironj north the various stages of the road have mostly been correctly identified

by the editors of the various texts. We have Finch, Jourdain, Tavernier, Mundy and van

Adrichem; Ketelaar in the early eighteenth century and at the end of it Upton's itinerary with Smith's journal and also the map of Camac's operations between Narwar and Sironj,

beautifully drawn but not in fact much help. The following places are still dubious. "

Paulki-sera" (Tavernier, p. 47) given as two kos beyond Mughal Sarai and three

before Kachnar (" Kasariki-sera ") must be a serai close to Chipon which is actually named

by Ketelaar "Dsjpaun" (Ketelaar, p. 267). The Chahar Gulshan has a "

Serai-Afghan "

in

this position.

"Puttatalaw, a Towne by which is a great lake or Tancke, where they saye the kinge,

in his passage from Agra to Brampore... doth usuallie pitch his Tent to take his pleasure

of fowlinge and fishinge, there beinge great store of both in the said Tancke" (Mundy,

pp. 56-7). Temple's explanation of this as patthara-talava -

"the stone tank" is a good one

but his identification of this with Pathari, a village west of the road, is most dubious. The

lake at Bamori, described by Smith as "a small lake of water with many wild ducks and

teal" (Smith, fol 16) is another candidate.

"Abdul Hasenca Sara" (Mundy, p. 57) is unlikely to be Hasanpur, well east of the usual

road, but a serai at the crossing of the Sind river. This corresponds better with Mundy's

distances, very accurate over this section, and is supported by one of the hitherto

unidentified names of the Chahar Gulshan: "Serai Abul Hassan Aknapi (?)" which comes

immediately after "Kalabagh" (Sarkar, p. 170). The inference is strong that this was a serai

close to the Akhai crossing and it was in the Sind that Mundy watched the fishes playing and leaping.22

Burha Dongar is first mentioned by Ketelaar (p. 266) which rather suggests that this

fortified village came to importance only in the eighteenth century. Tieffenthaler mentions

it also (p. 179) and the Chahar Gulshan perhaps in the garbled form of "

Tumadu-nagar "

(Sarkar, pp. cxv-vi). Malet gives it a few lines:

Boura Doongre is a small eminence on which stands a Caravansary, being a square stone building of good strength for defence... The villagers here inform me that Calorees (Kolaras), five Coss from

hence, is the North Boundary of Malwar. I had understood it to be Seronge (Malet, fol 6v).

22 Akhai, Tavernier's

" Akmate" (p. 48), was the usual crossing of the Sind between Kala Bag and Badarwas.

374 Ian Reside

The comment is interesting as revealing the very hazy ideas about Central India still held

by the British in 1785.

Rijoda, six miles south of Kolaras, is possibly the Rajhula of the Chahar Gulshan (Sarkar,

p. 170). Close by, in a triangle formed by the road and two converging nullas, is Deharda,

the site of Camac's night attack on Scindia's camp on 25 March 1781,23 an event

commented upon by all of Malet's party. "

Sansele" (Tavernier, p. 49) must be Sipri, modern Shivpuri,24 from the distances given ?

six kos from Kolaras and four from Dongri ?

but there is a chance that he confused the

name with that of Sesai, a walled village and serai which attracted the attention of the

eighteenth-century travellers and where Ketelaar stayed (p. 261).

"Gate" (Tavernier, pp. 49-50) is the steep descent to the Sind west of the bridge

(Ketelaar, PL XVII) which was apparently built just after his time (Deloche, 1973, pp.

35-6). Smith calls it "Lellymudge Nukau Gotty (?)" whose situation "is such, between

high rocks and hills, that it is impassible on all sides, but through the stone walled

gateway" (Smith, fol 15). In 1775 the bridge itself was already in the condition described

by Cunningham (pp. 325?7) with its south end washed away by floods and standing detached from the bank. Tieffenthaler (p. 178) mentions this as well.

VI Narwar

All roads led to Narwar, passing through the" thriving town at the foot of the great fort.

The only exception was Malet's party which, doubtless in pursuit of his deliberate policy of seeking out new routes, went due north from Sipri close to the line of the modern main

road. Upton came to it from the east, from Datia, and was privileged to visit the fort

which Jourdain was already describing as decayed in 1611. Tieffenthaler of course lived in

the fort on and off for 18 years and has left us a brief description and a map of it

(Tieffenthaler, pp. 175?8)). The account in Smith's journal of what Upton's party were

allowed to see is worth reproducing in full. Detailed descriptions of the decor of the time

are rare enough.

Rajah Ram Sing, an independent Rajah of the country, resides so close in the fort, that he never

comes down, but on very extraordinary occasions. The ascent up the hill to the fort is steep and long,

through three large strong gates, well barred and plated with iron, and spiked with great nails having

their points projecting eight or ten inches on the outside. The Rajah received us in a small room

about 18 feet square, which, though unfinished, had a very neat elegant appearance, notwithstanding

the side walls were only about ten feet high, and upon them a low Dome or cupola. Fronting the

public, but small, door in the middle of the western side, and about twelve feet right forward, is

23 The site, quite clear from Camac's map and Reynolds'Journal (Reynolds, p. ioo), is named on the i" map.

Confusingly the 250,000 map shows only some other Deharda, five miles east across the Sind. For a sparse account of this forgotten battle which led ultimately to the treaty of Salbye see Memoirs of the War in Asia... by an Officer of Col. Baillie's Detachment. 2nd ed. (London, 1789), pp. 344-6.

24 Shivpuri is a relatively recent Sanskritisation of the name which is siparT in the Marathi sources and Seepree

or some similar spelling in English right up to the end of the nineteenth century. Only Tieffenthaler spells it "

Scheupori" (p. 178) which, since he was almost a local, may indicate that the more learned form was beginning to emerge around 1770.

From Surat to Agra 375

erected a small eminence of stone, something in the taste of an old-fashioned English wooden arm

chair, with a low back; it was plastered with chunam, painted white, and has an ascent of one step

up to the seat; this was the throne. On the north and south were two other small doors, with silk

pardas let down before them, and which seem to lead into private appartments; the floor was

covered with a pretty figured carpet; the side walls were set all round from the floor to the height

of four feet, with plates and large looking glasses, taken out of their frames, and very neatly joined

with strong cement. The side walls above these, and the dome, were covered with ising-glass, and

over this, was raised an embossed lattice work, painted white except, over the doors, were a square

grope [sic] of embossed figures, and a circular one in the middle of the cupola, executed rather

heavily, and with as little judgement in the disposition and contrast of the figures. The whole of these

embossments were to be gilt with gold. Directly behind the throne is a wide arched entrance into

another room, adorned much in the same manner, except with plates of looking-glass, and the

embossments are to be gilt with silver. Opposite this arched entrance is a little door, leading into a

small veranda from whence there is a very extensive and pleasing view towards the east; directly

below is a small deer park, with an agreeable contrast of vistas, tanks, and the town on the left...

From this place we were conducted into an elegant Roman Catholic Chappel; for people of this

persuasion, as well as arminians, gentoos etc. reside here. No other particulars of the fort were

permitted to be taken notice of (Smith, fol 14).

VII Narwar to Gwalior

The route ran east of the chain of hills in which iron ore was mined. Cruso, Malet's

surgeon, gives an account of the techniques employed (Forbes, iv, pp. 26-9). Ketelaar (pp.

256-7) gives a number of names over this section that are not in the other itineraries which

limit themselves to Palaichha, Barki Sarai and Antri. Ketelaar adds Magroni (Ketelaar, PI.

XVb, is a photograph of the extant serai), "Degonry" (unidentified unless it is Digwas,

roughly in the right place), Shiampur, Garajar, Nonki Sarai (cf. Tieffenthaler, p. 180; "Serai Nun" in Chahar Gulshan) and Gharsondi.

North of Antri Ketelaar names "Sjajaenpoer" (obviously some Shahjahanpur) and

"Marhi" one and a half kos beyond, a village "Cotha" on the River Morar after a similar

interval and "Mohel" to the east of the road just south of the serai "Candhaura" in which

he stayed in Gwalior. This last might be the same as the Chahar Gulshan's "Serai

Jandwaran". Vogel failed to identify any of these on the ground and they have almost

certainly been swallowed up in the growth of modern Gwalior and Lashkar.

VIII Gwalior to Agra

Once again many of the villages and stages have been satisfactorily identified by the editors

of the various texts, especially Vogel's edition of Ketelaar who is very detailed on this

section.

The following corrections or supplementations

are offered:

"Paterki-sera", three kos from Gwalior (Tavernier, pp. 52-3). Ketelaar's "een groote

steenen serra Patter gen[aem]t" (p. 254). Vogel suggests that it lay near Bamaur. The

bridge that Tavernier describes erroneously here was not over the Kunwari which was

376 Ian Raeside

never bridged, pace Crooke, but clearly was the bridge over the Sank (Tavernier's

"Lanike")25 at Nurabad, referred to by all subsequent travellers and still in existence

(Ketelaar, p. 253, PL XHIb; Tieffenthaler, p. 187; Malet, fol 8r; Deloche, 1973, p. 36,

Pl.IV). "Mendaker" 9 kos from Gwalior (Finch, p. 145) is obviously the same as "Mandabarr

"

or "Madakarre sarraye" (Jourdain, p. 153), "Mende Sara" (Mundy, p. 63) and " Men thy

"

(Ketelaar, p. 251). It was probably at the crossing of the Asan river as Vogel says. There

is no trace on the maps of the Mundiakhera proposed by Temple. Malet camped at

Chaunda after crossing the river (Malet, fol 8r).

"Quary" (Ketelaar, p. 248) is the same as Tavernier's "

Quariqui-sera" (pp. 52-3) and

takes its name from the Kunwari river. "

Serra Tsjola "

(Ketelaar, p. 248), unknown to Vogel, is named on the maps as Chholaki

Sarai, three miles east of the Chambal ford at Kethari (Ketelaar's "Hindri") where Malet

also crossed. It perhaps also appears in garbled form in the Chahar Gulshan's "Serai

Rajhula" (Sarkar, p. 170). The route then followed the left bank of the Chambal for some

miles before reaching the fort and suburbs of Dholpur (Mundy, pp. 63-4). Jourdain's reference to "a faire bridge of stone" (p. 153) here must either be a

bridge over some

minor river within Dholpur or due to confusion with the bridge at Jajau.

"Fatihabad" (Sarkar, p. 170) is confirmed by Ketelaar's "

Fettiaibaat" (p. 247) and is

now presumably absorbed by Dholpur. The name does not appear on any map. Ketelaar's

"Sanda", a village two kos further on and "onbekend" by Vogel, is however, named.

Jajau. The bridge of twenty arches over the Gambhir or Utangan river just south of

Jajau is first mentioned by Mundy (pp. 64-5), then Tavernier (p. 53) but surprisingly not

by Ketelaar who only refers to the serai which still stands (Ketelaar, Pl.XIV). Possibly in

1712 it had already been abandoned by its river, leaving it in the condition described by

Malet 73 years later:

About seven miles from Munea crossed the Bed of the River Gumbur. Broad and sandy but no

Water. A fine Bridge of twenty Arches marks its former course which is now totally diverted and

the Bridge is useless... (To) Jajow at which there is a very beautiful Serai. Seven miles from hence

passed another River with a Bridge in ruins. This River is brackish (Malet, fol 9r).

This second bridge was noticed by Ketelaar, close to "serra Ossera" (p. 246) and

apparently last seen in 1822 (Lloyd, i, pp. 16?17). The serai was probably not at Bisehra,

as Vogel suggests, but Usara two miles further downstream on the right bank of the Khari

Nadi.

There seems to be no trace of either bridge today. Since they both lay on the line of the

railway line from Dholpur to Agra they were probably swept away during its

construction just as the old fort at Handia mostly went to make ballast for the Central

Railway.

"Serra Malaekstjeen" (Ketelaar, p. 246), "sarra Moloecksient" in Van Adrichem (p.

205) 4 kos from Agra, the last problem before Agra, looks as though it might be the same

25 Or "Lantke" which is the reading of at least one French edition, that of 1682.

From Surat to Agra 377

as the Chahar Gulshan s "

Serai Mulukchand" (Sarkar, p. 170). There is of course little hope of identifying anything on the ground in the area now invaded by the modern city. Indeed

it was probably too late even in 1785. Famine, war and the ravages of the Jats (Wendel,

pp. 19?20) had by then already brought about the scene described by Malet:

The whole Country, which is open, flat and a neat white Soil, is scattered with Villages, most of

them with Mud Walls, others with Gurries, but it is impossible to conceive the Desolation that

prevails through the whole; scarce ten Families remaining in the largest Villages, the Consequence

of the late terrible Famine... On approaching the City [from Kothawali, his last halt] the most

melancholy Objects of former Grandeur presented themselves on all Sides; Mosques, Palaces,

Gardens, Mausoleums and Caravanserais mingled in one general Ruin" (Malet, fol 9r).

IX The Maratha roads

We have seen how the line of the preferred route to the north varied over certain sections

at certain periods, presumably in response to both political and geographical factors. No

one is known to have repeated Monserrate's route past Avasgarh; the route between Surat

and Vyara seems to have changed within a few decades in the seventeenth century and the

Narmada crossing at Akbarpur was

apparently replaced by the Handia route by Mundy's

time (Deloche, 1968, p. 56 n. 1). These are merely indications and the amount of testimony

that has survived is far too small for anyone to be dogmatic on the subject.

The same may be said for a further hypothesis advanced by Raghubir Sinh (pp. 328?9) and repeated by Deloche, though with the caveat that "l'auteur cependant

a neglige de

signaler, pour chaque route, les sources qu'il

a utilisees" (Deloche, 1980, p. 62). This is that

once the Marathas were established in SW Malwa at Ujjain and Indore by the mid

eighteenth century, they mainly used the western crossings of the Narmada at Akbarpur

and Barwaha and practically abandoned the Handia ford because it led into hostile

territory such as Bhopal.

This is a distinct oversimplification. Traditionally the Marathas used three main routes

to the north: the western through Ujjain due north over the Mukundwara pass to Kota;

the central through Sironj, and the eastern from Khandesh through Bhilsa and Sagar, taken

in 1738, direct to Bundelkhand. The evidence scattered through the numerous published

documents suggests only that the routes that they chose and the Narmada fords where they

crossed depended largely on where they started from (for instance Berar in PD, xiii, 9) and

where they thought it most advantageous to begin their loot or revenue collecting. It is

true that once the Holkars and Pawars were established at Indore and Dewas and Dhar the

western fords were obviously the most convenient for them as they moved between their

lands and the nominal centre of government in Poona. At this time the route from Thalner

over the pass to Sendhwa and Maheshwar became of major importance. We find

Raghobadada using it when he took the western way to Delhi in 1753 with the confederate

army in which Holkars and Scindias and Pawars all played their part (PD, xxvii, 79, pp.

70-1).

It should not be forgotten, however, that although the Peshwa's own lands in

comparison with the blocks of territory that Holkar and Scindia had acquired in Malwa

378 Ian Raeside

were perhaps "very trifling" (Dairymple, i, p. 259), they were all strung out strategically

along the Handia road or close beside it. North of Burhanpur he held Charwa and

Kalibhita, originally extracted from the hill state of Makrai which itself remained tributary to him (Gaz. Hoshangabad, p. 326). He had garrisons at Harda and Chipaner (Smith, fols

18-19). From 1745 at least he was drawing revenues from Ashta, Ichhawar, Sehore,

Duraha and Bhilsa, and north of Sironj from Mughal Sarai, Kachnar, Shahdara, Nai Sarai

and Kala Bag, and off to the west Miana (Gordon, pp. 19-25; PD, xxi, 10; Malet, fol 6v).

North of the Sind the Jadhavs who held Kolaras and Sipri before losing them to Scindia

owed allegiance directly to the Peshwa. It is inconceivable that the communications and

revenue collection for all these lands should not have been effected via the Handia ford or

those further east like Chipaner, but instead have been allowed to pass through territory controlled by Holkar and the other great barons in SW Malwa. However, any evidence

that may exist is still buried in the unpublished mass of the Peshwa Daftar. The portion that has been published relates mainly to campaigns rather than to the subsequent

administration of the acquired territory, and it is here that can be found a number of

itineraries that are undoubtedly the source of some of the lines drawn boldly across

country on Sinh's map (reproduced in Deloche, 1980, Fig. IX) and captioned "Additional

roads opened by the Marathas". The route starting near Sindkhed and running through

Sendhwa, Khargon, Maheshwar and Indore to Ujjain is that of Raghoba's march already

mentioned, but it is at least a plausible enough road apart from being drawn through

Bijagarh instead of Nagalvadi. The line running north from Asirgarh to Ashta through almost trackless country and without a single named place upon it I suspect to be a piece

of guesswork loosely based on the itinerary of PD, xiv, 7. On the northern border of

Malwa the west-east route shown from Kota to Shivpuri (Sipri) is of the utmost

implausibility, cutting across the grain of the country and a whole series of difficult rivers.

It could never have been a route to the north and yet its presence on Sinh's maps has led

Deloche to propose that "les armees marathes... qui allaient a Dehli faisaient un crochet,

vers l'Est de Kota, a SivpurT" (Deloche, 1980, p. 62). It would be very strange if this ever

happened and I suspect once again that the line has been sketched in somewhat cavalierly

on the misinterpreted evidence of Raghoba's return itinerary when he cut across from

Pushkar, visited for devotional purposes, to undertake the abortive siege of Pohari which

lies west of Shivpuri (PD, xxvii, 79, pp. 76-7). This was not a road but the once-only route

of a large army cutting across country, no doubt with local guides. The only east?west

road mentioned by Tieffenthaler is from Shivpuri to Karahal and Sheopur (Tieffenthaler,

p. 181).

In short Sinh's map should be used with caution. Even though large armies, as has been

said, are not necessarily confined to the roads used by common travellers, the great road

to Agra was still the best way for the Peshwa's troops in 1760. When Bhausaheb marched

to reconquer Delhi he wrote from just south of Burhanpur on 2 April to say that he would

come "by the middle way" (MIS, i, p. 171). He came by Handia, Sironj and Narwar to

the fords of the Chambal at Dholpur. This then is probably as much as one may hope to discover about the middle way from

the maps and published documents. It is unlikely too that there is much more to be found

From Surat to Agra 379

on the ground, although there are perhaps still traces on the less frequented sections of the

road. All the same it would be nice to be certain. Given the speed with which quite substantial ruins can disappear in India it would be reassuring to know that everything still recordable had been recorded. On the other hand some of the speculations in which

I have indulged ?

about the fleeting popularity of Monserrate's route, about the

appearance of new names like Tarana and Burha Dongar ?

only serve to underline how

little we really know about the political history and economic links of the region. Stewart

Gordon provided a valuable introductory study on the basis of a selection of documents

from the Peshwa Daftar, but it is still far from clear when and by what stages the Maratha

barons established their fiefs at Dhar and Dewas and all their other strongholds north of

the Narmada. The underused Maratha records, even the small proportion that were

published in Selections from the Peshwa Daftar, constitute a more rewarding terra incognita

than the abandoned road from Surat to Agra.

Bibliography and Abbreviations

Camac: Route of a detachment under Lieut. Colonel Camac from Narwar to Seronge, 1781. [B. L. Add.

MS. 13907]

Clunes: Clunes, J., Itinerary and directory for Western India being a collection of routes through the provinces

subject to the Presidency of Bombay and the principal roads in the neighbouring states. Pt. 1 (Calcutta,

1826).

Cunningham: Cunningham, A., Archaeological Survey of India, Reports II 1862?65 (Simla, 1871).

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