1904.] 
William Irvine —The Later Muakals. 
57 
heads with green grass. 1 He announced publicly that he had bestowed 
the city of Amber on the Brahmans as a sacred gift ( dan and arthan). 
He had marched as far as parganah Todah Tank, about eighty miles 
south-west of Agrab, and there waited to see which way events would 
turn. He was watched by a force under Sayyad Dilawar ‘All Khan, 
which barred his further advance northwards. 8 
Maharajah Ajit Singh had offered himself as mediator, but hi3 
leisurely procedure, protracted in the way usual to him and his fellow- 
rajahs, did not accord with the fiery temperament of Husain ‘All Khan 
It was with a view to bring this matter to a head that an advance from 
Fathpur Sikri towards Ajmer was proposed. A few marches were 
made to places in the neighbourhood, but no real start was attempted. 
The camp was between Malikpur and Muminabad on the 24th Zu,l 
Qa‘dah (7th October, 1719) and here Husain ‘All Khan came in from 
Fathpur to pay his respects. Another stage was travelled on the 26th 
(9th October). 3 
On the 1st Zu,l Hijjah (14th October, 1719) the emperor’s mother, 
now styled Nawab Qudsiyah, and other women of the harem, who had 
been sent for from Dihll arrived in camp. The Begam had acted most 
warily, avoiding everything that could arouse the suspicions of the 
Sayyads. When the messengers of the Sayyads came to DilhI to fetch 
her son, she bestowed on them, on the men who were to accompany 
him, and on all office-holders at Dihll, the customary dresses of honour. 
But learning that this assumption of authority had displeased the 
Sayyads, she sent away all subsequent applicants. In the same man¬ 
ner, when she arrived in camp, she warned all persons who had any 
connection with her late husband, Jahan Shah, to abstain from appear¬ 
ing on the road to greet or escort her. She studied the susceptibili¬ 
ties of the Sayyads in every particular. A sum of fifteen thousand 
rupees monthly was set apart for her expenses and those of the other 
women. 4 
1 I read gyahe, “grass,” in Muhammad Qisim, but Tod, I, 506, speaks of 
their wearing on such occasions the maur or bridal crown, which is probably 
much the same thing in other words—John Christian, “ Behar Proverbs,” p. 197, 
No. 426, tells ns that the bridegroom’s head-dress “ is made of talipot leaves and 
in some places of date (palm) leaves.” That it is sometimes actually made of 
grass may be inferred from W. Crooke’s “Tribes and Castes of the N,-W. Pro¬ 
vinces,” Yol. II, p. 62, sixth line from foot. 
S Muhammad Qasim, Lahori, 282, 297, Tod, “ Annals,” I, 3S0. 
3 Muhammad Qasim, Lahori, 294. There is a Malikpur about five miles east 
of Fathpur, Indian Atlas, Sheet 50; Muminabad, I am unable to trace. 
4 Kamwar Khan, 214, KhafI Khan, II, 841. 
J. i. 8 
