932 AH. OCT. 18th 1525 TO OCT. 8th 1526 AD. 4&3
obey whoever occupies it" As for instance, before the reign of Nasrat Shah's father 'Alau'u'd-dln, an Abyssinian (Habshi, named Muzaffar Shah) had killed his sovereign (Mahmud Shah llyas), mounted the throne and ruled for some time. 'Alau'u'd-d m killed that Abyssinian, seated himself on the throne and became ruler. When he died, his son (Nasrat) became ruler by inheritance. Another Bengali custom is to regard it as a disgraceful fault in a new ruler if he expend and consume the treasure of his predecessors. Qn coming to rule he must gather treasure of his own. To amass treasure Bengalis regard as a glorious distinction. Another custom in Bengal is that from ancient times parganas have been assigned to meet the charges of the treasury, stables, and all royal expenditure and to defray these charges no impost is laid on other lands.
These five, mentioned above, were the great Musalman rulers, honoured in Hindustan, many-legioned, and broad-landed. Of the Pagans the greater both in territory and army, is the Raja of Bijanagar.1
The second is Rana Sanga who in these latter days had grown great by his own valour and sword. His original country was ChilPr; in the downfall from power of the Mandau sultans, he became possessed of many of their dependencies such as Rantanbur, Sarangpur, Bhilsan and Chandin. Chandlrl I stormed in 934 AH. (l 528 A.D.)2 and, by God's pleasure, took it in a few
hours ; in it was Rana Sanga's great and trusted man Midnl
P
him, reigned in his stead. ' A jubilee is proclaimed throughout his dominions at the end of 12 years, and a tent is pitched for him in a spacious plain, and a great feast is celebrated for 10 or 12 days with mirth and jollity, guns firing night and day, so, at the end of the feast, any four of the guests that have a mind to gain a throne by a desperate action in fighting their way through 30 or 40,000 of his guards, and kill the Samorin in his tent, he that kills him, succeeds him in his empire.' See Hamilton's New Account of the East Indies vol. i. p. 309. The attempt was made in 1695, ar>d again a very few years ago, but without success" (Erskine p. 311).
The custom Babur writes of it is one dealt with at length in Frazer's Golden Bough would appear from Blochmann's Geography and History of Bengal (JASB '873 p. 286) to have been practised by the Habshi rulers of Bengal of whom he quotes Faria y Souza as saying, '' They observe no rule of inheritance from father to fon, but even slaves sometimes obtain it by killing their master, and whoever holds it three days, they look upon as established by divine providence. Thus it fell out that in 40 years space they had 13 kings successively."
1 No doubt this represents Vijayanagar in the Deccan.
* This date places the composition of the Description of Hindustan in agreement with Shaikh Zain's statement that it was in writing in 935 AH.
