1 Shah Abul Maal the
2 first Moghal viceroy of
3 Lahore.
4 The accident to Tii-
5 mayitin which cost him
6 his life, 1555,
7 This brriak
8 »
9 e 4
10 .
11 Tis character.
12 134 HISTORY OF THE PANJAB.
13 fifteen years. He appointed Shah Abul Madli his viceroy of the Panjab with
14 instructions to bunt out the fugitives. Bahram Khan Turkoman received the
15 highest honours in the State ; ‘lardi Beg Khan was appointed governor of
16 Delhi, Sikandar Khan Uzbak, governor of Agra, and Ali Kuli Khan of
17 Mirath and Sanbhal. ; _
18 Humayin ascended the throne of Hindostén only to die in possession,
19 for, in less than a year, he met with an accident which cost him his life.
20 On the evening of January 21st, 1556, he was walking on the terrace of his
21 library, in the new citadel built by him, to which he had given the name
22 Din Pandh* (the Asylum of the Faithful) for the purpose of recreation,
23 when he sat down to inhale the fresh breeze from the river side and the
24 open plain opposite, As the time for evening prayer approached, he
25 desceuded the steps to go below and offer up prayers. While he was in
26 the act of descending, the Moazsan, or “ Crier,” announced the hour in the
27 usual manner from the royal chapel. The emperor paused to repeat the
28 creed, and sat down on the second step, till the call to service was over.
29 When the Crier had done, he endeavoured to rise, with the assistance
30 of the staff which he usually carried, but the pointed end of the staff slipped
31 along the marble pavement, as the king was leaning on it, and his majesty
32 fell headlong over into the palace below. He was picked up unconscious
33 and placed in his bed, and, although he recovered his speech, the injuries he
34 had received were mortal, and, after some days of suffering, he died on Janu-
35 ary 25th, 1556.f He was buried in the new city, on the banks of the Jamna,
36 and the splendid marble mausoleum raised over his remains by his son,
37 Akber, is in perfect preservation to this day and admired by travellers as one
38 of the most beautiful and elegant architectural monuments of early Moghal
39 times in India. Htmdaytn was fifty-one years old when he died and he had
40 reigned fifty-five years in Kabul and India.
41 Though inferior in capacity to his great father, Baber, he was yet endow-
42 ed with a natural goodness of heart, generosity and candour, and his simple
43 and genial habits, good humour and courtesy, won for him the affection and
44 esteem of all around him. In person he was of a bronze complexion and of
45 elegant figure. He was himself a poet and was fond of the company of
46 learned men. He professed the Sunni persuasion and was strict in his
47 devotions and ablutions, so that he never uttered the name of God without
48 first performing the latter ceremony. Ferishta narrates that once, having
49 occasion to call out to one Mir Abdul Hye, he called him only “ Abdul,”
50 omitting the word “Hye” (“God”), because he had not performed his
51 ablutions, and when the man came, the king apologised to him, giving reasons
52 for having so acted. |
53 Humdyén was not without military talents, and his many reverses in
54 India and Afghanistén were partly due to his clemency to his brothers, who
55 ill-deserved it. He was passionately fond of his wife and child. It is
56 greatly to the credit of Humdytin that in his numerous victories not a single
57 instance can be found of his having tainted his hands with blood, and if he
58 blinded his ungrateful brother, Kamran, after the fashion of the time, it was
59 after repeated trials and merely to save him from death. The history of few
60 Hastern kings exceeds in interest that of the noble-hearted Humdydn. His
61 early misfortunes, the reverses which he met with in Sindh, his adventures
62 _
63 _ * This citadel was built by Htimdytin on the banks of the Jamna in 1533, before his expedi-
64 tion to Sarangptr and Malwa :
65 - %
66 ‘t The words * glas} els 5} glagls oe lop,” ‘King Hiiméytin fell down from the ter-
67 race,” give the date of his death.
68 Sri Satguru J agjit Singh Ji eLibrary NamdhariElibrary@ gmail.com