Echoes 3

“What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do. ”
― Alan Bennett

An article on the Vizag observatory

For those interested in knowing more about the observatory in Vizag, here's the link to an article written by N. Kameswara Rao, A. Vagiswari and Christina Birdie in Current Science, Vol. 100, No. 10., published in May this year.

It's titled, "Early Pioneers of Telescopic Astronomy in India: G.V. Jaggarow and his Observatory" and is a detailed account of the founder of the observatory and those who ran it after him, the setting up of the observatory, the equipment acquired, the work carried out there, and its fading away. All this information is skillfully placed in the context of contemporary astronomical research in India and abroad.

Thomas Bowrey: The Inspiration Behind the Vizag Factory?

The origins of Vizag’s European settlements date back to the mid-to-late 1600s according to the Vizagapatam Gazeteer, W. Francis. “The settlement was founded in 1682. In February of that year the Directors wrote to Fort St. George that an interloper (unauthorized trader) was designed for Metchelepatam or Gyngerlee (i.e., Mausulipatam or Vizagapatam) and left it to the Madras authorities to decide whether a factory should not be established at the latter place. The Madras consultations of the 1st August 1682 say that ‘The Company having resolved to make some investments this year at Gingerly & given order to send down some persons to further the same, as likewise to hinder and defeat any Interlopers that shall come there, resolved that Mr. George Ramsden doe proceed for this year as Chiefe there, his Second in Council being one Clement du Jardin. Thus it is clear that it was largely fear of the rivalry of the ubiquitous interloper which led the Company to first settle in Vizagapatam.”

Thomas Bowrey’s name occurs in a footnote to this text, but it is not clear whether this ‘interloper’ who inspired the English to set up a factory at Vizag was Thomas Bowrey or not. He does seem to have had some connection with this episode: one of his ship’s mates, Clement Jordan (who later changed his name to du Jardin) became one of the key persons in setting up the factory in Vizag. The links, though, are difficult to pin down based on my current reading.

Captain Bowrey (as Thomas was commonly known in English records) did, however, describe the coast around Vizag (Gingalee) in his book “A Geographical Account of the Countries Around the Bay of Bengal”. He calls this area “Certainly the most pleasant and Commodious Sea Coast that India affordeth, pleasant in many respects, beinge a most delicate Champion Land, and one of the most fertile lands in the Universe, and Commodious for Navigation’s Sake, enjoying many pleasant and good harbours, very well populated, and of a reasonable good Extent.”

Thomas Bowrey’s life (or whatever could be put together by Lt. Col. R.C. Temple in his introduction to the above-mentioned book) is an interesting one.

He sailed for the East from England while still in his teens. During his 19 years in the Eastern Hemisphere, he mainly traded in pepper, cloth and tea, but his time there was a far cry from the mundane buying and selling of goods. It was also full of adventure: he was imprisoned and put in irons and was witness to mutiny in Ceylon and a massacre in the Mergui archipelago (in southern Burma). He also drew charts and pictures of various places he visited, the best known being his chart of the Hoogli river.

In 1688, he left Fort St George (Chennai), apparently for good, and set sail for England. On his long journey back home, he put his time to good use and put together material for an English-Malayo (a far Eastern language) dictionary, which was published in 1701. He later married and probably still traded, possibly in the Western part of the New World.

When he was well into his 50s, his wanderings came in useful for Daniel Defoe (author of the widely read Robinson Crusoe), who gathered from Bowrey information on which to base his book -- “A General History of the Pyrates”, in particular information about piracy in Madagascar and Indian waters from 1695 to 1705.

References:

1. Thomas Bowrey -- "A geographical account of countries round the Bay of Bengal, 1669 to 1679" -- Edited by Lt. Col. R. C. Temple; C.I.E., Haklyut Society; 1905


2. Francis, W. – “Vizagapatam District Gazeteer”; Asian Educational Services; first published, Madras 1907


3. Daniel Defoe – “A General History of the Pyrates” – Edited by Manuel Schonhorn; Dover Publicatio; 1999

What's gingelly got to do with it?

Gingelly grains

A previous blog of mine (see link), in tracing Vizag's history, mentions that European traders referred to the coast between the Godavari and Puri as Gingerlee. I kept wondering where in the world that word came from. Some light crept into my sleepy brain last night as I looked through the Hobson-Jobson dictionary. The book says the word possibly originated from the Portuguese word for sesame seeds “Gergelim”; the English too called the sesame seed oil gingelly oil.


Hobson-Jobson says: “The following quotations show that Gingerlee or Gergelin was a name for part of the E. coast of India, and Mr. Whiteway conjectures that it was so called because the oil was produced there.

“1680-81 – ‘The form of the pass given to ships and vessels, and Register of Passes given (18 in all), bound to Jafnapatam, Manilla, Mocha, Gingerlee, Tenasserim, & c.’ Fort St. Geo. Cons. Notes and Exts., App. No. iii. P.47


“1701 – The Carte Marine depuis Suratte jusq’au Detroit de Malaca, par le R. Pere P.P. Tachard, shows the coast tract between Vesagapatam and Iagrenate as Gergelin.


“1753 – ‘Some authors give the Coast between the points of Devi and Gaudaweri, the name of the Coast of Gergelin. The Portuguese give the name of Gergelim to the plant which the Indians call Ellu, from which they extract a kind of oil.” – D’Anville, 134.


“(Mr. Pringle [Diary Fort St. Geo. 1st ser. iii. 170] identifies the Gingerly Factory with Vizagapatam).”


References:

Thomas Bowrey -- "A geographical account of countries round the Bay of Bengal, 1669 to 1679")


Henry Yule, A.C. Burnell, and William Crooke – “Hobson-Jobson – A glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases”

Copper “dubs” from Bheemili

A Dutch-minted Mughal copper coin - 1719-48



I’m now sure that Bheemli had a mint, but am unable to find any reliable source that gives the details. Some entries on the forum, www.worldofcoins.eu, say that the Dutch did issue copper dubs (check out the resemblance to the Telugu word for money: “dabbu”) in Machilipatam, Jaggernaikpur (Kakinada), and Bimlipatam. The dubs were a continuation of a type of coin introduced by the Mughal emperor, Aurangazeb Alamgir.

The entries say the mint in Bimlipatam was established under authority of a grant by the Raja of Vizianagaram; it is supposed to have minted copper dubs at least up to 1794.

These entries also mention an English mint in Vizagapatam, which started minting dubs in 1797 and continued to do so on and off until 1809, when it was shut down.

Bheemili's Copper Purchases

According to the book “The Intra-Asian Trade in Japanese Copper by the Dutch East India Company” by Ryuto Shimada, Bimlipatam bought 50,000-100,000 Dutch pounds of Dutch-imported Japanese copper in 1700-02 and over 100,000 Dutch pounds of copper in 1740-42, figuring among the largest buyers of Dutch-imported copper in South Asia.


What was it doing with all this copper? Did it have a mint?

What's this War that Ravaged Bheemili?

While reading an article from the Oriental Herald (dated October 1829) by James Silk Bukingham, I came across the following passage about Bimilipatam:
“After some little detention at the warehouse in dispatching off to the ship some bales of punjum (calico) which we were to take to Bengal I found a conveyance ready to take me to Mr Suter's house which was nearly four miles in the country. In passing along the skirts of the town the ravages of war were most apparent and among a number of buildings seemingly battered down by cannon was a large edifice with a highly ornamented facade which had been probably the residence of the former Dutch governors. Several still larger buildings, probably barracks and military store houses, were also seen in ruins and the place looked to us if it had been once abandoned and but now recently peopled again. This settlement having formerly belonged to the Dutch had come into our possession during the late war and had been restored again to the Dutch by the English East India Company.”

I wonder which war is being referred to here: a war whose battle or battles destroyed Bheemli and the Dutch colony there. Is it one of the Anglo-Dutch wars that the English and Dutch fought to control trade in Asia? If so, the last one was fought in 1780-84, and it’s hard to imagine that the town had this ravaged look more than 40 years after whatever battles were fought there.

A Page 3 Party at Vizag in 1828

“On the 22nd of May a splendid entertainment, consisting of a dinner, a dance, and a supper, was given by Goday Sooria Narrain Row, a distinguished and opulent native, to the ladies and gentlemen of the European portion of the community, on the occasion of the marraiges of his son and daughter…” begins an article in the Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany, Vol. 25. The Sooria Narrain Row (Gode Suryanarayana Rao) mentioned here is the father of Mr. Jagga Rao of our observatory fame (see blog January 29, 2010). The marriages had earlier been performed in the Indian style, and this party was chiefly a reception for the European crowd.

The reception was held at Mr. Row’s mansion, where a pandal was erected, leading to the garden house; dinner was served in a brilliantly lit hall with ‘superb mirrors’ at either end of it and decorated with European engravings. A lamp with ‘richly painted moons’ hung over the table. As for the dinner, it had “every dainty usually served up at an English entertainment, an excellent desert, choice wines and other beverage.” And as if this were not sumptuous enough, at midnight, supper was served, which “might well have done duty for a dinner.”

While some of the crowd danced, “others were amused by the exhibition of a fine set of native dancing-girls, and a display of blue lights and fireworks... Amongst the novelties of the evening was the exhibition of a Highland piper in the service of his Highness (the Rajah of Vizianagaram who was among the guests), who, in full costume, played reels, pibrochs and laments, and who was no contemptible performer on the pipes of his nation. ”

“The ladies retired at rather an early hour, occasioned probably by the great heat: but many gentlemen tarried over the bottle in due respect to the exertions to please their hospitable entertainer, and retired not until pleasure was in danger of becoming a fatigue.”

The guest list included around fifty Europeans from Vizagapatam and neighbouring stations and the Rajah of Vizianagaram.

Source: The Asiatic Journal and Montly Miscellany, Vol. 25.


About the Asiatic Journal
“The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany” has some “miscellaneous” stories about the East India Company-dominated areas of Asia. It was published twice a year and I imagine its contemporary readership included people in Asia who wanted to know what was happening to their kin in the region and people in Britain who had Indian or Asian connections.

It gave details of births, marriages, deaths, appointments and transfers of people of British origin living in the East, which items were probably read as we read obituaries, wondering if we’ll find in them the announcement that someone we distantly know had died.

As far as Vizag goes, there are few entries, four or five announcements about deaths, births etc. per issue and occasionally, maybe once in three years, an article about some event of importance in the settlement. The few entries breathe life into the wood and clay characters of history.

Where the monks meditated

Here’s a link to a blog with beautiful pictures of Thotlakonda . Very atmospheric !

http://huqelberry.com/bavikonda-and-thotlakonda#!/

Vizag Fort and a Couple of Paintings

The Vizagapatam Gazette mentions that a fort was built in Vizagapatam in the 1700s, but says that no traces of it remain at the time of the publication of the Gazette (1903).


I later came across a pen-and-ink and water-colour drawing of Dolphin’s Nose in the British Library’s Web site, which has what looks like the ruins of a fort wall in the foreground. Also in the picture is a boat similar to ones that can be found on Bhimli beach even today. Amazing given that the painting is dated 1795. It was painted by James Tillyer Blunt (1765-1834) as part of a set of 31 drawings of landscapes in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Madras and Mysore done between 1788 and 1800.

In this series, there is also a drawing called “North View of the Walled City of Vizagapatam” by Elisha Trapaud (1750-1828). This one too has the Dolphin’s Nose in the background. In the middle ground are the three hills with the Venkateswara temple, the dargah and Ross Hill chapel, below which lie what looks like the barracks surrounded by fort walls. From the looks of it, my guess is that this place is somewhere around the area of St. Aloysius School.

Following are the links:

Painting 1 : http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/apac/other/019wdz000000156u00025000.html

Painting 2:
http://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/92037/987C940B91371E9B65802BC3BFD71068F66C8DDE.html?start=8

Echoes 2

"...and deep beneath the rolling waves
In labyrinths of coral caves
The echo of a distant tide
Comes billowing across the sand..."
--Pink Floyd

The Battle of Vizagapatam

Ripples of the Napoleonic War were felt in Vizagapatam in September 1804, when a French squadron led by Contre-Admiral, Charles-Alexandre Durand Linois, attacked the British Royal Navy’s ship HMS Centurion and two East Indiamen (armed merchant ships) led by Captain James Lind and anchored in the harbour. On the British side, one man died, two of the three ships engaged in battle were damaged, and one was captured, while on the French side, five men died, six were wounded, and all three ships that fought in the battle suffered severe damage.


The attack was one in a series of French raids against East India Company vessels. In 1803, before war was declared, Napoleon had ordered a squadron to sail under Linois into the Indian Ocean to set up garrisons in the French and Dutch colonies in the region and to attack British merchant ships that were lightly protected. Linois attacked British ships in the South China Sea (South of Mainland China and Taiwan and west of the Phillipines), in the Mozambique Channel (between Madagascar and Africa), off Ceylon (Sri Lanka), along the Indian coast of the Bay of Bengal, and Pulo Aura (east of Malaysia) before he engaged in the battle at Vizagapatam.

Both sides claimed victory, though Napoleon privately admonished Linois for abandoning the battle too early. When Linois wrote that he cut short the battle to minimize damage to his ships, Napoleon replied, “France cares more for honour, not for a few pieces of wood.”

Source: Wikipedia.org

 

Engraving by Thomas Sutherland after a painting by Sir James Lind

Defence of the Centurion in Vizagapatam Road, Sept 15th 1804, dated 1818, source National Maritime Museum

  Picture sourced from: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

I've constructed a timeline of important events in Vizag's history, based on the Vizagapatam District Gazeteer by W. Francis. It gives some perspective on how the place developed and how different sets of people and rulers viewed and made use of the city.  It also helps me get to know the gaps in my knowledge.

I've had to list out the events in my timeline here, as I do not know how to export an excel timeline into the blog's format.

6th and 7th century BC


Visakha referred to in Brahmanical and Buddhist texts, assigned by Professors Macdonell and Rhys David to the 6th and 7th century BC

4th centry BC

Visakha referred to by Katyayana and Panini

260 BC

Ashoka conquers Kalinga; important because Vizag is believed to have been part of the Kalinga kingdom

6th century AD

Chalukyas conquer Kalinga; Vengi Kingdom established

1078 AD

Anantavarman-Choda-Ganga's 72-year rule begins -- (Inscriptions from this king found in Vizagapatam)

1089 AD

Simhachalam inscription of Koluttunga I of Chola dynasty confirms the success of his invasion of Kalinga

1267-68 AD

Ganga king, Narasimha I builds mukhamandapam, natyamandapam, enclosing arcade of Simhachalam temple

1385-86 AD

Inscription of Reddi kings of Kondavidu in Guntur dist. who penetrated to Simhachalam

1434-35 AD

Ganga king, Banudeva IV's minister usurps throne and establishes Gajapati dynasty

1515 AD

Krishnadevaraya invades Gajapati kingdom, halts at Simhachalam, sets up victory pillar at Potnuru

1559-60

Mukunda Harichandana, a Telugu by birth, seizes the throne from the Gajapatis





1568

Muslims of Golconda seize control of Harichandana''s territory -- the 5 Northern Circars

1634
English get the Golden Firman for trade in the Sultanate of Golconda.

1662

Dutch settlement at Bheemili

1682

English settlement at Vizagapatam

1686

Aurangazeb defeats Golconda kings; Northern Circars under Mughal rule, at least in name





1754

Bussy appoints Ibrahim Khan as Faujdar of Chicacole.

1756

Rebellion and defeat of Ibrahim Khan by Bussy

1758-59

Captain Forde, sent by Clive, captures French dominated Northern CIrcars with help from Ananda Razu of Vizianagaram.

1765

Clive obtains from the Mughal emperor a firman granting the 5 Northern Circars to the East India Company

1769

Vizagapatam made capital of the district

1780

Sepoys mutiny in Vizagapatam

1840

Printing press set up in Vizagapatam

1845

Smaller vernacular missionary schools closed; one central Anglo-vernacular school started, which eventually developed into a high school


REFERENCES: Francis, W.; Vizagapatam District Gazeteer; Asian Educational Services; first published, Madras 1907

Echoes 1

It is possible to think yourself into the past; you just cannot have too much faith in your conclusions.
- Lars Fogelin; Archaeology of Early Buddhism; 2006; Altamira Press. p. 75