Sehwan is known to Englishmen chiefly as a handy station for those who
wish to shoot on the Manchar lake. In the summer it enjoys an
unenviable reputation for heat. The bare rocks of Lakhi known as the
Bagothoro are said to end the last struggles of the monsoon. Indeed the
Lakhi pass is known locally as the gate of the infernal regions; and an
often quoted Persian couplet about Sehwan runs as follows:
“When both Sehwan and Sibi grill so well
What good was there, O Lord, in making Hell?” [1]
But besides its fame as a sporting and a roasting centre, Sehwan has an
immense reputation for sanctity. Within its confines repose in mighty
state the earthly remains of the greatest saint of all Sind, worshipped
alike by Musulmans and Hindus, the renowned Lal Shahbaz, the Red
Peregrine Falcon of the Indus valley.
Lal Shahbaz’s real name was Hazrat Sayad Usman Shah Marwandi. He was
born at Marwand in Afghanistan in A.H. 538. His father Makhdum Sayad
Ahmed Kabir was a powerful noble and a great friend of the king of
Tabriz. From his earliest years, so it is said, the boy shewed a great
leaning towards things spiritual. Before his twelfth year he had
already made the blind see, the deaf hear and the dumb speak. When Lal
Shahbaz reached manhood, he insisted on leaving his father’s house and
started on a pilgrimage. He first went to Baghdad where he stayed at
the court of the monarch Sayad Ali. When he wished to leave, Sayad Ali
implored him to remain at Baghdad for ever. But the religious call was
too insistent and with three friends, Sheikh Bahawaldin, Sheikh Farid
Ganj Shakar and Makhdum Jalaluddin, Lal Shahbaz set off for the Persian
Gulf. In an island in the Gulf lived a fakir named Sheikh Jalal whose
austerities had won him supernatural gifts. Lal Shahbaz determined to
reduce him to obedience and make him his disciple. No boats were
available so Lal Shahbaz threw his “kishta” or begging bowl into the
water and it became a boat. Into it the four friends stepped and rowed
for Sheikh Jalal’s island. About half way the boat stopped dead and no
matter how hard the saints plied the oar, it declined to move. At last
Lal Shahbaz realised that the island fakir had cast a spell on them.
But he could only have done that, if one among them was not a true
anchorite and was still thinking of the joys of this world, while
pretending to have given them up for ever. Lal Shahbaz told this to his
friends and asked them whether they had one and all given up the world
wholly. They protested their complete unworldliness. But as the boat
still refused to budge, Lal Shahbaz went through their pockets. In the
pocket of Sheikh Bahawaldin he found, as I regret to say, a brick of
solid gold, which the saint was keeping against a rainy day. Lal
Shahbaz threw it overboard. Once freed from this sordid freight, the
boat began again to move. As they drew near the island, Lal Shahbaz saw
Sheikh Jalal looking at them through a window of his castle. To punish
him for stopping the boat, Lal Shahbaz made the window grow so small
that it gripped the fakir’s neck as if in a vice. Sheikh Jalal yelled
for mercy, but it was not granted him until he had owned himself beaten
and had promised to become an obedient and humble follower of Lal
Shahbaz.
The great saint acquired his appellation of Lal Shahbaz, by two
remarkable miracles. After the defeat of Sheikh Jalal, Lal Shahbaz and
his three companions went to Mecca and Medina. As they were returning
from the blessed vision of the prophet’s tomb, they halted one night in
a town on the coast of Arabia. Sheikh Farid Shakar Ganj went to buy
bread for the party. Unhappily the baker’s wife conceived an unholy
passion for the young man. Like a true ascetic he rejected her odious
advances with the icy disdain of Saint Joseph. The baker’s wife
thereupon behaved after the manner of Potiphar’s consort. She began to
scream that Sheikh Farid Shakar Ganj had tried to outrage her. The
unhappy anchorite was seized, dragged before the governor and condemned
to instant execution. Lal Shahbaz heard of it and took immediate steps
to rescue his innocent friend. He changed one of his two remaining
friends into a deer and bade him run towards the gallows. The crowd ran
madly after the deer to catch it. Lal Shahbaz turned his second friend
into a lion. It charged the executioners roaring terribly. They fled
incontinently. Lastly the Saint changed himself into a peregrine falcon
and swooping down picked up Sheikh Farid Shakar Ganj and bore him to a
place of safety. By this miracle the Saint got the name of Shahbaz, the
Sindhi word for a peregrine falcon. How did he obtain the title of Lal?
It was this way: A certain Murshid once challenged Shahbaz’s friends to
bathe in a caldron of boiling oil. They not unnaturally declined the
challenge, whereupon the Murshid mocked them as unworthy impostors.
They sorrowfully told their master of their discomfiture. On the
instant he accepted the challenge and going to the Murshid’s house,
leapt into the boiling oil. He stayed so long at the bottom of the
cauldron that his rival owned himself beaten. “Come out,” he cried,
“you are indeed a Lal among Lals (a ruby among rubies)”. The master
rose triumphantly out of the oil. He had suffered no harm from the
immersion, but the heat of the oil had turned his robe crimson. That
robe he wore to his dying day and was in the end buried in it. So he
came to be known as Lal Shahbaz.
After his journey to Mecca and Medina, Lal Shahbaz came to Sind. He
wandered until he came to a spot still called ‘Lal jo Bagh’ or the
garden of the ruby, two miles from Sehwan. Sehwan was, however, already
a holy town and its worldly minded fakirs dreaded that the advent of so
famous a mendicant would reduce their earnings. They sent him a cup
full to the brim of milk, that he might know that just as the cup could
hold no more milk, so Sehwan could hold no more anchorites. Lal Shahbaz
sent to those worldly minded ones a fitting answer. He made a flower
float on the milk and returned the cup, thereby shewing to the fakirs
that there was still room for yet another holy man and that the
newcomer meant to be above the others, even as the flower was above the
milk. After this event Lal Shahbaz spent most of his time in Sehwan.
His friend Sheikh Bahawaldin left him and went to Multan. Before
leaving he offered to Lal Shahbaz and the latter accepted the hand of
his daughter. Not long afterwards Lal Shahbaz learnt in a trance of the
death of his prospective father-in-law. He went to Multan and asked
Sheikh Bahawaldin’s son, Sadaruddin for his betrothed. Sadaruddin
refused. The Saint thereupon cursed him and vowed that the girl should
wed no one else, but would find an instant resting place in paradise.
Shortly afterwards the poor girl died and Lal Shahbaz returned to
Sehwan. He died on the 21st of the month of Shaban 650 A.H. at the ripe
age of 112; and the anniversary of his death is kept as a great
festival. From all quarters of Sind come fakirs and musicians and
dancing girls to dance before the shrine of the mighty anchorite. The
chief feature of the celebration is the marriage of Lal Shahbaz to his
lost bride.
Now why do Hindus worship at his shrine? That is perhaps the strangest
part of the story. In 56 B.C. lived the great king Vikramaditya of
Dharmanagar or Ujjain, the Arthur of Hindu historical legends. At his
court lived the nine gems of learning and his valour and his arms
reduced all India to subjection. Once upon a time he resolved to
disguise himself and see with his own eyes how his viceroys governed
his provinces. He appointed to be his regent during his absence his
younger brother Brartrahari. One day the Goddess Parvati gave to a
devout old couple in Ujjain an apple, that conferred immortality on
anyone who ate it. The old couple preferring riches to immortality sold
the apple to the regent for a great price. The regent gave it to his
youngest and prettiest wife. She unfortunately had a lover and she gave
the apple to him. He in turn presented it to a dancing girl, who sold
it back to Brartrahari. The regent thereby discovered his wife’s
infidelity. In a rage he flung away the apple and abandoning his
office, became an anchorite. According to the local legend, he wandered
until he came to Sind, where he became a devoted worshipper of Shiva.
He called his abiding place Shivisthan or the place of Shiva. From
Shivisthan has come the modern name Sehwan. Brartrahari lived at Sehwan
until he died and by his life and death made the spot holy. The
Musulman invasion swept away the temple of Shiva, but the memory of the
pious recluse lingered on; and when Lal Shahbaz came and worked
miracles at the spot where Brartrahari had lived, the Hindus declared
that Lal Shahbaz was his reincarnation.
The miraculous powers of Lal Shahbaz did not die with him. After his
death streams of molasses, sugar and milk are said to have spurted from
the wall of his tomb. These articles he meant for the use of the poor
of Sehwan only. Nor did he mean that any should take more than one
helping in any one day. Sad to relate, his pious wishes were brought to
nought by the greed of the townspeople. Poor and rich alike rushed to
profit by the dead saint’s bounty and none confined himself to a single
helping. In disgust the dead saint bade the streams dry up and all that
now remains of them is a group of stones that look exactly like
petrified sugar molasses and milk. These the guardians of the shrine
shew to wondering pilgrims as proof positive of the legend’s truth.