Retracing the footsteps of Alexander the
Great, Sir Aurel Stein finds his way into
Swat.
We reached Kotah, the first village of the
Miangul's territory and a large place
surrounded by rice-fields, in drizzling
rain, and felt glad to find camp duly
pitched some distance off, outside a small
fort of true mediaeval appearance. Like
others along the main route up the valley,
it had been recently constructed, visible
evidence of the ruler's correct perception
of his subjects' still somewhat unsettled
allegiance. I was delighted to find myself
welcomed there, on behalf of the 'Badshah',
by Shah Alam, the nephew of Raja Pakhtun
Wali and my former guide and protector in
Darel and Tangir. I still remembered with
pleasure how well this attractive young
scion of the Khushwakt race, ever alert in
body and mind, had looked after our safety
and comfort when, in 1913, at the start of
my third Central Asian journey, I passed
through those alpine valleys to the north of
the Indus which his uncle, Raja Pakhtun Wali,
had carved into a new kingdom for himself.
No European had ever visited them before...
Many a good talk we had together on the long
tramps that I devoted to ruined 'Gumbats' or
domes, i.e. Stupas, and other ancient
remains during the next few days. There was
much rain during the first two of them, but
this did not prevent some interesting
surveys. A heavy rain storm during most of
the night that followed our arrival at
Nawekala, 'the new castle', of Kotah,
threatened to turn our camping ground into a
bog and made me feel very sorry for the
Badshah's men-at-arms posted as sentries
around our tents here as at all subsequent
camps. Fortunately they managed to secure
'charpoys' or strung rope cots on which to
crouch while keeping their watch.
Fortunately, too, I could let the Surveyor
and Naik seek shelter within the fort, dark
and uninviting as its quarters looked. The
rain continued to pour through the greater
part of the morning and made it difficult to
attend to anything but drainage operations
around the soaked tents. Later on, however,
I was able to set out, under misty skies and
occasional heavy showers, for the 'old
mansions' (manrai). They could be seen
crowning a succession of low ridges, which
descend into the broad valley from the east
slopes of the Landakai spur.On all of them
we found ruins of ancient dwellings ranged
one above the other on small terraces along
the narrow crest of the ridges...
This arrangement, as also the very massive
masonry of the walls enclosing the quarters
or small outside courts, made it clear
enough that defence was the main
consideration. The windows piercing the
walls of the rooms suggested the same
purpose, where they could be traced. They
were all very narrow on the outside, like
loopholes, but splayed out within to give
the maximum of light permitted by such a
safeguard. The narrow doorways still showed
the square holes where heavy wooden
cross-bars had been fitted on the inside. In
spite of the heavy debris encumbering on
most of the interior, it was possible to
trace here and there the small neatly walled
underground pits, which had served for the
storage of grain.
There could be no doubt that these
defensible structures were here and
elsewhere intended to provide safety for
their occupants when danger threatened,
whether from outside or from local enemies.
The construction of such massive
dwelling-places, difficult of access and far
away from cultivable level ground, must have
involved an outlay of labour incomparably
greater than that required to build the
rubble-and-mud houses that satisfy even the
well-to-do among the present Pathan
population of Swat. It was evident,
therefore, that such dwellings could have
been built only by local headmen and other
people of substance. It seemed safe, too, to
conclude that conditions of insecurity must
have been frequent during Buddhist times,
notwithstanding all the pious devotion that
prevailed throughout the Swat region at that
period, as the many ruined sanctuaries and
the records of our Chinese pilgrims attest.
On the other hand it would be quite wrong to
suppose that these defensive towers
indicated a particularly bellicose character
in the population of this tract, as they do
at the present day on certain parts of the
north-western borderland, say amongst
Afridis or Wazirs. Against such a mistake I
was warned by recollections of the
westernmost marches of China proper. There,
in Kansu, I had seen not only every village,
but every single outlying farm or hamlet,
surrounded by high thick walls of stamped
clay. But those who tried to protect
themselves by these defences of quite
impressive appearance were all peaceable
Chinese folk - and in scarcely any instance
had their formidable walls helped to save
them from the devastating hordes of the last
great Tungan rebellion. The scarcity of
broken pottery among these ruined Swat
mansions was perhaps a more puzzling
feature. Was its absence a sign that these
defensible structures had served only as
places of occasional refuge while their
owners in ordinary times preferred to dwell
lower down nearer to water and their lands?
Only the systematic excavation of more than
one such site could furnish a definite
answer.
* * * * *
As its name, the 'domes', had suggested, we
found there a whole group of ruined Stupas
nestling between two small spurs which an
offshoot of the high range to the north
sends down to the river. This sheltered nook
in the hill-side immediately overlooks the
track that here leads along the right bank
of the river and must have formed an
attractive place of pilgrimage for the
pious. On an artificially widened plateau
above the alluvial flat rises a large but
badly injured Stupa, resembling that of Top-dara
in size and type. By the side of it a high
and massive square base is to be seen, which
may once have carried a shrine or Vihara,
while the remains of two much broken Stupas
of smaller size could be traced near the
foot of the big one. All these structures
had been burrowed into a long time ago for
'treasure' and probably more than once; thus
the large Stupa, besides having its square
base tunnelled into from the west, showed a
wide shaft sunk down the centre from the
top. Yet in spite of all the ravages of time
and the hand of man, parts of the drum and
dome still retained layers of the hard
cement-like plaster that probably once
covered the outside of all such pious
monuments.
Rain forced us later to seek shelter in the
mosque. The ancient walled-up terrace on
which it stands rises some fifty feet above
the Stupa plateau and was once, no doubt,
occupied by monastic buildings, like the
neighbouring ground on which the hovels of
the hamlet are built. Fortunately a small
circular shrine, in a narrow ravine a short
distance above the mosque and near a fine
spring, had fared better. The little
rotunda, with an interior diameter of about
fifteen feet, still carries a rather flat
dome on its high massive walls. The
debris-filled interior may well hide remains
of the stucco images of Buddhist divinities
that probably once stood in the shrine. The
existence of a spring in this picturesque
gully and the fine view right across the
wide valley may have had much to do with the
selection of this spot by pious tradition as
one of the many hallowed by the Buddha's
visit to ancient Uddiyana.
Just as I stood by the spring, the sun came
out at last and illuminated a beautiful
landscape. Across the wide flood-beds of the
river to the south-west the rugged hill of
Bir-kot rose boldly in striking isolation;
it was soon to become a familiar landmark
for us all and for me one of no small
historical interest. Behind it, far away,
showed the snow-covered slopes of Mount Ilam,
dominating from its height of some 9,200
feet the greater portion of Swat as well as
of Buner. The head of the fine dome-shaped
peak was hidden by clouds. Twenty-eight
years before, I had first sighted it from
the Buner side. I knew that popular legends
even now clustered round it, as they did in
the old days when Hsuan-tsang, ever eager in
his delightfully naive piety to gather
wondrous tales, had heard and recorded them.
So I made obeisance to it from afar, with a
firm resolve that I should be the first
European to tread its heights. And then up
the river to the west I caught sight of the
glittering dome of the Shankardar Stupa, a
great monument of Buddhist worship, of which
reports had reached me many years before.
Sir Aurel Stein
(1862-1943) was a British archaeological
explorer in the early 1900's, who had the
reputation of conducting 'daring and
adventurous raids upon the ancient world'.
This book is a personal narrative of
explorations in the North-West Frontier in
the earlier part of the 20th century by Sir
Aurel Stein. It tells the story of the
places he visited, the hardships he faced
and the discoveries he made. |
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