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Salome
Zajadacz-Hastenrath writesabout the
Chaukandi tombs.
Shortly after the turn of the twentieth
century, attention was attracted by a
peculiar type of cemetery in the south of
Balochistan and Sindh, in which the tombs
differ in their unusual degree of
elaboration and unique shape from the grave
mounds of earth, boulders, and rough stone
otherwise found in the region.
The tombs are made of carefully hewn thick
stone slabs, often with additional
decoration made by the stonemason. Set on a
low base, there is usually a
sarcophagus-like box or casket consisting of
several vertically assembled slabs, which is
covered from above with horizontal slabs.
Often, two or even three of these caskets
are stacked one on top of one another to
form a kind of steep, stepped pyramid,
capped with several layers of horizontal
slabs tapering upwards on all four sides,
with one slab sometimes ending in two
buttonshaped structures on the two narrower
edges.
The tomb is crowned with a vertical slab, at
one end of which there is sometimes a short
post or boss jutting upwards. In some of the
tombs, the lowest casket is perforated to
form an arcade structure. In addition to
ornamental stonemasonry work, some of the
tombs feature relief depiction of riders,
while others are decorated with
representations of jewellery.
The tombs are found singly or in groups on a
common (raised) platform, sometimes
surrounded by enclosures, and chattris -
stone domes resting on supports - are
occasionally erected over them to form a
canopy.
A cemetery of this type was discovered at
the turn of the century in Hinidan by Major
M.A. Tighe, Political Agent in southern
Balochistan. J.P. Vogel was the first to
investigate this and other cemeteries -
including Karpasan (a plateau south of
Hinidan), Gundar (a village near Dinga,
south of Hinidan), and Mangho Pir (an oasis
to the north-west of Karachi) and he drew
attention to another cemetery discovered by
Captain Showers, Political Agent in Kalat,
lying between the Hub River and Sonmiani
(probably the one in the vicinity of Bhawani
Serai).
Vogel recognized that the tombs were
Islamic, as indicated by the use of the
Arabic script and the alignment of the
monuments. According to Islamic custom, the
dead are laid to rest in such a way that
they are aligned towards Makkah over their
right shoulder. Makkah lies approximately to
the west of Sindh; the longitudinal axis of
the tombs accordingly lies more or less in a
north-south direction, with the head always
lying in the north.
Vogel attempted to explain the use of
figurative depictions - an aspect that runs
counter to strict Islamic views - with
reference to the subcontinent's Hindu
traditions, and mentioned the depictions of
the dead on the sati stones often seen in
the Himalayan region.
* * * * *
Following a 1959 article by Zaffar Hassan
summarizing the available information, Henry
Field, in 1962, published some photographs
of the Chaukandi cemetery taken during a
visit, along with some remarks he had
requested from Arthur Udham Pope - largely
of a general nature - concerning the
illustrations. Field gives the date for the
tombs' origins as the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, or in some cases the
nineteenth. At the exhibition '5000 Years of
Art in Pakistan', shown in West Germany in
1962-63, several slabs from the caskets or
plinths of Chaukandi tombs were shown, with
scenes showing several figures of horsemen;
a suggested dating of the fifteenth to
sixteenth centuries was given. In his
introduction to the exhibition catalogue,
N.B. Baluch dated these reliefs to the
fifteenth century.
In 1968, Muhammad Abdul Ghafur devoted a
section of his book to the Chaukandi tombs,
describing them as originating in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; the same
date was given by Mumtaz Hasan in the same
year for the tombs in the Chaukandi
cemetery. By contrast, also in the same
year, an unsigned article in Pakistan
Archaeology stated the view that the
cemeteries in Chaukandi, Malir, Karachi, and
Raj Malik dated from the eighteenth century.
More recently, nearby residents or
caretakers of various cemeteries have
propagated the view that the tombs are the
last resting place of fallen soldiers from
the army of Mohammed bin Qasim, the first
Islamic conqueror, who entered Sindh in the
eighth century of the Christian era. This
legend is not mentioned anywhere in the
earlier literature, and appears to be of
very recent origin...
As the literature summarized here shows, the
origin, age, and history of the Chaukandi
tombs is still entirely unclear. The tombs
are often referred to as 'Baluch tombs'- a
name based on local traditions linking the
tombs to various tribal groups, namely the
Burfat, Kalmati, Jakhara, and Jokhiya. The
fact that the cemeteries lie in an area in
which the Balochis are either the only
ethnic group or live alongside other tribes
provides support for this description.
However, the area across which the
cemeteries are spread is by no means
identical with that of the Balochis, but
includes only a tiny fraction of it. For
this reason, the term 'Baloch tombs' does
not appear very accurate. It suggests the
conclusion that this type of tomb is a
peculiarity of the Baloch and might be
explained in some way through the common
culture and history of the tribe as a whole
- although there is no evidence of this. It
would seem to make better sense to assign to
the tombs the name of the subgroup of the
tribe to which they can genuinely be traced
- assuming that this could be identified
with any precision. Similar difficulties
arise when one attempts to attribute the
tombs to any tribe other than the Baloch.
Since all questions relating to this topic
are still open, the preference here will be
given to the other established and more
neutral-term 'Chaukandi tombs'. Mumtaz Hasan
investigated the meaning of the word 'Chaukandi',
and found that the term is used in the
source texts to describe a four-cornered or
four-pillared pavilion. He, therefore,
believes that the name 'Chaukandi', which
has attached itself to the village,
originally referred to the canopy structures
- chattris or chaukandis - in the cemetery.
The use of the word in this sense is still
common locally: when searching for this type
of canopy in Mangho Pir, we found that local
residents referred to it not as 'chattri',
but as 'chaukandi'. Since the Chaukandi
cemetery contains four canopy structures in
all - which are also very prominent and
visible from a distance - the naming of the
village after them appears quite plausible.
However, it does not seem possible to
establish a convincing connection between
the word 'chaukandi' and the tombs
themselves. Admittedly, the word is also
used to refer to other square structures -
for example, the Chaukandi Stupa in Sarnath.
The Chaukandi tombs themselves are also
'square', in contrast to the round or oval
tombs that are also seen in Sindh and
Balochistan; but, as a characteristic, this
lacks the striking quality that might
justify the use of this name for them. In
the present study, the term 'Chaukandi
tombs' will be used in the sense of 'tombs
resembling those found at the cemetery in
Chaukandi.
Salome
Zajadacz-Hastenrath did her PhD from the
University of Cologne and studied Islamic
architecture in Sindh from 1970 to 1976 when
she stayed in Karachi.
This is the English translation of
Chaukhandigraber: Studien zur Grabkunst in
Sind und Baluchistan (1978). It is a
systematic, typological study and analysis
of above-ground funerary structures in the
subcontinent. Found in southern Pakistan,
the Chaukandi tombs are unique in the
Islamic world. |
