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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
A visit in October–November 1985 to northern Pakistan provided me with the chance of observing and recording certain types of village grave. Since enquiries revealed that some types are no longer being constructed, and some of the most interesting graves are falling into decay, it seems appropriate to publish these fragmentary observations in the hope that awareness may be stimulated, and that other and more leisured travellers may be able to make more detailed observations while the material is still available.
1 A conspectus of the typology of graves and graveyards of the “Greater Tradition” in India is given, with references, in my article in the India section s.v. Maḳbara in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edition. The Caukhaṇḍī graves are the subject of detailed and excellent study in Zajadacz-Hastenrath, Salome, Chaukhandi gräber: Studien zur Grabkunst in Sind und Baluchistan, Wiesbaden, 1978.Google Scholar
2 Sharīf, Ja'far, Qānūn-i Islām, available as Herklots' Islam in India, ed. Crooke, W., Oxford, 1921, p. 99.Google Scholar
3 The qibla in these regions is almost exactly south-west; since the face of the corpse should be towards the qibla, the implied longitudinal axis of the grave should be north-west-south-east. In practice there was noticeable variation in the axis in all the sites observed, even adjacent tombs sometimes differing by as much as 15 degrees. For convenience I continue to refer to the head end of the grave simply as the north.
4 Burgess, J., The Muhammadan architecture of Ahmadabad, i (= ASI, NIS xxiv), pp. 39–40Google Scholar and Plates; also illustrated in Commissariat, M. S., History of Gujarat, i, Bombay 1938, plates facing pp. 112,Google Scholar 130.
5 Herklots' Islam in India, p. 103,Google Scholar quoting Masson, Charles (Narratives of various journeys, London 1844, ii, p. 275)Google Scholar and Rose, H. A. (Glossary of the tribes and castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province, Lahore 1911–1919, iii, pp. 182),Google Scholar refers to “engraving of shields, swords or lances marking the profession of the deceased” on graves in Afghanistan, and “occasionally a piece of wood, two foot long by six inches broad, is substituted for a tombstone, and in some cases these are rudely carved and decorated with figures of birds” in the graves of Orakzai Pathans.
6 Tod, J., Annals and antiquities of Rajasthan, ii, p. 319;Google Scholar here he is considering aspects of horse or bridle worship.