BURHANPUR

This article appears in Volume V04, Page 823 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: BUN-CAL

BURHANPUR , a town of British India in the Nimar

district

DISTRICT

of the Central Provinces, situated on the north bank of the river Tapti, 310 m. N.E. of Bombay, and 2 M. from the

Great

GREAT

Indian Peninsula railway station of Lalbagh. It was founded in A.D. 1400 by a Mahommedan prince of the Farukhi dynasty of Khandesh, whose successors held it for 200 years, when the Farukhi kingdom was annexed to the empire of Akbar. It formed the

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

seat of the government of the Deccan provinces of the Mogul empire till Shah Jahan removed the

capital

CAPITAL (i.e. capital stock or fund)
CAPITAL (Lat. caput, head)

to Aurangabad in 1635. Burhanpur was plundered in 1685 by the Mahrattas, and repeated battles were fought in its neighbourhood in the struggle between that race and the Mussulmans for the supremacy of India. In 1739 the Mahomm.edans finally yielded to the demand of the Mahrattas for a fourth of the revenue, and in 176o the Nizam of the Deccan ceded Burhanpur to the peshwa, who in 1778 transferred it to Sindhia. In the Mahratta War the army under General Wellesley, afterwards the duke of

Wellington

, took Burhanpur (1803), but the treaty of the same year restored it to Sindhia. It remained a portion of Sindhia's dominions till 186o-1861, when, in consequence of certain territorial arrangements, the town and surrounding estates were ceded to the British government. Under the Moguls the city covered an area of about 5 sq. m., and was about rot- m. in circumference. In the Ain-i-Akbari it is described as a " large city, with many gardens, inhabited by all nations, and abounding with handicraftsmen." Sir Thomas Roe, who visited it in 1614, found that the houses in the town were " only mud cottages, except the prince's

house

HOUSE
HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
Gothic
- GOTHIC
it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)

, the chan's and some few others." In 18651866 the city contained 8000 houses, with a population of 34,137, which had decreased to 33,343 in 1901. Burhanpur is celebrated for its muslins, flowered silks, and brocades, which, according to Tavernier, who visited it in 1668, were exported in

great

GREAT

quantities to Persia, Egypt, Turkey, Russia and Poland. The gold and silver wires used in the manufacture of these fabrics are

drawn

DRAWN

with considerable care and skill; and in order to secure the purity of the metals employed for their composition, the wire-drawing under the native rule was done under government inspection. The town of Burhanpur and its manufactures were long on the decline, but during

recent

RECENT

times have made a slight recovery. The buildings of

interest

INTEREST

in the town are a palace, built by Akbar, called the Lal Kila or the Red Fort, and the Jama Masjid or Great Mosque, built by Ali Khan, one of the Farukhi dynasty, in 1388.. A consider-able number of Boras, a class of commercial Mahommedans, reside here.

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