Grant of Darjeeling 1835

Grant of Darjeeling

by

R.K Sprigg

I. The English version

Probably the ‘Grant of Darjeeling’ is most widely known from the version in English given in the ‘Darjeeling’ volume of the series of ‘Bengal District Gazetteers’ (A.J. Dash ed., 1947); certainly it was through this version that I first came to know of ‘the Grant’: “ The Governor General having expressed his desire for the possession of the hill of Darjeeling on account of its cool climate, for the purpose of enabling the servants of his Government, suffering from sickness, to avail themselves of its advantages, I, the Sikkimputtee Rajah, out of friendship for the said Governor General; hereby present Darjeeling to the East India Company, that is all the land South of the Great Rangit river, east of the Balasun, Kahail and Little Rangit rivers and west of Rungno (Tista) and Mahanadi rivers” (pp.37-8).

II. The Lepcha and Hindustani Versions

Later, F. Pinn, author of ‘The Road of Destiny: Darjeeling letters 1839’, published in 1986, sent me a version of that same text written in the Lepcha language followed by a version in Hindustani photographed from an original in the India Office Library, London; I have given below a facsimile of that crucial Lepcha-cum-Hindustani document, and have added a Romanization of both versions in an Appendix.

It is, of course, only right that the text of the Darjeeling Grant should be in Lepcha; for Lepcha was the language spoken by the majority of the people of Sikkim at that time (1835); but I was perplexed to find that the Lepcha text was accompanied by a version in Hidustani. I had expected to find a version of it in Tibetan; for at that time Tibetan was the language of the (seventh) Rajah of Sikkim and his Court.

These two mysteries, the presence of a Hindustani version and the absence of a Tibetan version, were solved for me when I read the chapter entitled ‘ The deed of Grant’ in ‘ The Road of Destiny’; so I will now quote from that chapter passages dealing with Major Lloyd’s reports to the Governor General, termed ‘Consultations’, [Fort William]:

‘On 25 February [1835] Lloyd was again sent for and was told by the Rajah “ if his requests were complied with, he from friendship would give Darjeeling to the British Government, but that his country was a very small one, meaning, I suppose, that he could not afford to part with any of it” ’ (“Consultations”, 6 April 1835). At the same time the Rajah in Durbar delivered a paper to Lloyd with a specific paragraph on Darjeeling:

‘Also if from friendship Dabgong from Ahma (?) Diggee north be given to me, then my Dewan will deliver to Major Lloyd the grant and agreement under my red seal of Darjeeling that he may erect houses there which I have given in charge of the said Dewan to be so delivered, dated 1891, 19th Maug, 5th February 1835’ [Ibid.]

On the 26 February Lloyd began his return to the plains. “ The Rajah delivered to his officers whom he appointed to accompany me a paper purporting to be a grant of Darjeeling to be given to me as soon as his request should be complied with” [“Consultations”, 6 April, 1835].

This original or first deed must be one of the shortest in documentary history.

‘That health may be obtained by residing there I from friendship make an offering of Durgeeling to the Governor General Sahib. 1891, 19th Maug (25th February 1835)’.

True translation

G.W.A.Lloyd, Major

[‘Consultations, 6 April 1835, Translation marked “E”].

III. A Tibetan version

A long letter dated 26 February to the Governor-General followed Lloyd, this time written in Tibetan (which had to be translated in Calcutta by Csoma de Koros) which once more dealt at great length with the various problems discussed [namely handing over to the Rajah an absconding minister and some Lepcha chiefs, and extending the western boundary of Sikkim]. The subject of Darjeeling is referred to very briefly:

“I beg your acceptance of ground for building a house at Darjeeling [Ibid].” (Pinn 1986, pp.122-3). I regret that I am not able to supply the text of the Tibetan version of this brief reference to Darjeeling.

It is interesting to note, from the above excerpts, that the Rajah corresponded with the Governor General, through Lloyd, in both Lepcha and Tibetan, the former language Lloyd was able to have translated into English immediately, whence document ‘E’; but the Tibetan text had to be sent to Calcutta for translation.

IV. Lloyd’s texts (the Lepcha and Hindustani versions)

At this point I wish to return to the English version that I have given in section (I) above and the corresponding Lepcha and Hindustani versions given in facsimile. I had, naturally, presumed that the Lepcha and Hindustani versions had originally been written on the orders of the Rajah and then dispatched by him to Lloyd, who had in turn employed translators to translate them into the English version given in section (I); but I now realized, thanks to ‘The Road of Destiny’, that it was, in fact, not the Rajah but Lloyd who had had the Lepcha version written: ‘ I wrote to the Rajah and enclosed him a copy of what I conceived he ought to write as a grant of the place, in which I stated the boundaries as well as I could ascertain, and requested him to substitute this or a similar paper for the one (he) had delivered to his officers which latter was too vague to be acceptable’ (Pinn, p. 289).

The Rajah later returned this important Lepcha document to Lloyd; and he reported to Government as follows: ‘I beg leave to report that in August last (1835) the Sikkim Rajah’s officers forwarded to me the grant of Darjeeling in the form in which I had requested him to draw it out, in fact, the very paper I had forwarded to him was returned with his seal affixed as I had requested he would do and is now in my possession ---(“Consultations”, 9 November 1835 (dated 31 October 1835)’ (Pinn, p.126).

Pinn takes up the story again after an interval of five months as follows: ‘Lloyd immediately forwarded the precious document with an accompanying letter: The Rajah’s letter in reply I have the honour toenclose (together with a translation into Hindooee and thence into English)’(p.128), the English version given in section (I) above.

From this correspondence, then, I now realized that the original text must have been drafted in English, by Lloyd, and translated into the Lepcha language of the Lepcha version, reproduced above in facsimile, by a Lepcha translator employed by Lloyd, as a model for the Rajah to follow in making his gift; this document the Rajah then endorsed, with his red seal, and returned it to Lloyd without change. Lloyd then added the Hindustani translation, in the lower half of the facsimile above, which was then further translated to English.

V. Lepcha Translators

The role of the Lepcha translator in this rather complicated exchange of documents, in four different languages, English, Lepcha, Tibetan, and Hindustani, was, therefore, pivotal; so it is unfortunate that nothing is known about him. His style of handwriting has a conspicuous peculiarity: he writes the letter in a single stroke, as or, not with two strokes, as it is usually written these days. The two-stroke form of the letter can be clearly seen in the calligrapher Dup Shuzong Tamsang’s rendering of the first syllable of on the cover of this journal.

I have, however, found a reference to two early Lepcha translators in ‘Gazetteer of Sikkim’ (1894/1972): ‘it may be interesting to note that Doobgye (Tendook’s father), though Jongpen of Barmie, went to Nagri as captain in the Sikhimese army, fought there against the Nepalese [in 1814], and assisted Major Latter to lay down the present boundary between Sikkim and Nepal. He had two wives: by the elder, a daughter of the Pad-gLing Lama, he had two sons, Dawa Sring and Yit-tam Sring, now a Jongpen in Nepal; by the younger wife, who was the daughter of the hGu-ling Jongpen, a Barphongpuso by family, he had three sons who lived to grow up, viz., hBrug-brTan-hDsin, Bahadur, and Tendook Pulger. Doobgye had also two illegitimate sons, Rabden Tshering and Rinchen Long-dol, Jongpen of Pachim, both of them have served as interpreters to Government’ (p.34). Since their father Dubgye was young enough to fight at Nagri, in 1814, one of other of these twoGovernment interpreters could have been of an age to translate Lloyd’s ‘model’ Darjeeling Grant document from English (or, perhaps, from Hindustani) into Lepcha in 1835, twenty years after the battle.

The first official reference to an ‘Interpreter, Lepcha Language’, is to be found thirty years after the translating of Lloyd’s Darjeeling-Grant document into Lepcha, in ‘Thacker’s Post Office Directory’. In the ‘Darjeeling’ section of the ‘Directory’ for the year 1865 this post was filled by one ‘Galoony’ (perhaps meant for Gelong); his salary is given as Rs. 25 a month.

It would have been pleasing to be able to conclude this account of the part played by the Lepcha language in the negotiations for exchanging Darjeeling by reporting that Government had responded to the Rajah’s generosity in parting with such a large portion of his country, ‘about thirty miles long, from north to south, and from six to ten broad’ by Lloyd’s own account, with at least equal generosity; but there was no such response. On the contrary Government rejected the Rajah’s proposal:

‘With these conditions it appears to the Governor-General-in-Council to be impracticable to comply. Darjeeling is an uninhabited tract and it would have been unobjectionable to make over to Sikkim in a similar tract in the plains in exchange for it, but Dabgong is a fertile and populous district which was settled with (?) inhabitants with the Rajah of Julpye Gooree in the year 1828——.’ (‘Ibid.no. 104’) (Pinn, p.125).2

Notes

1. Hope Namgyal, the then Maharani of Sikkim, has also made use of this document of the year 1835 in her article ‘ The Sikkimese view of land-holding and the Darjeeling Grant’ (1966, p. 50); but she has given as signature, ‘A.A. Campbell, Superintendent’. Campbell did not become Superintendent, Darjeeling, until three or four years after Lloyd had received this document back from the Rajah, and forwarded it to Government (‘Consultations’, 8 February 1836, No. 85, dated 5 January 1836) (Pinn, p.128); so Campbell’s signature in the Namgyal article seems to be at odds with the date of Lloyd’s model of how heconceived the deed of grant should be drafted: 29th Maugh, Sambat 1891. A.D. 1st February 1835 (Namgyal 1966, p.50).

2. The Darjeeling tract was not, however, entirely ‘ uninhabited’; while it is true that Col. Lloyd had failed in his efforts to persuade ‘the Lepcha refugee Cazee (chief) [the Terring Cazee] and his followers’ to return from Nepal to their former homes in the Darjeeling area, Lloyd dispatched to Fort William a list of Lepchas who had remained in the tract:

‘Name of place of residence: (4 names)

Name of settler: (23 names)——

Number of persons in the family: males 51, females 37’ [‘1 June-Consultations, Fort William 10 July 1839, No. 103’ Pinn 1986, p. 173].

References

Dash, A.J. (ed.)., 1947. Darjeeling (Bengal District Gazetteers) (Alipore: Superintendent of Government printing, Bengal Government Press)

Namgyal, H., 1966. ‘ The Sikkimese theory of land-holding and the Darjeeling Grant’, Bulletin of Tibetology (Gangtok,) III, 2,47-60.

Pinn, F., 1986. The Road of Destiny : Darjeeling letters 1839 (Calcutta: OUP)

Risely, H.H. (ed)., 1894. Gazetteer of Sikkim (Calcutta Bengal Government Secretariat) (reprinted 1972 ( Delhi: Oriental Publishers).

Thacker’s Post-Office Directory, 1865, ‘Darjeeling’

Appendix

1. Lepcha version

Shir-shir-shir lá-kró sá-hyep tím-bo-nun. dor-zi-líng rók sa-zóng sâ-tshóm-ká sá-hyep júng-sa sáp-shí dók-bám-bo-pang tá-bá tho-gang-na kró-sang ‘o-re-ká ‘úl-bám-pá ‘ân go shir-shir-shí-kyím pa-no-nun shir-shir-shir sá-hyep tím-bo-sa ‘yeng-zóng-lóm-ká. dor-zi-líng rók-ká ríng-git ‘úng tim-bo-sa ‘á-mil. ‘ ân bá-lá-sán úng-sa ke-hyel ‘ân ríng-git ‘úng-kup-sa ‘á-tsún. ‘âr má-há-no-dí ‘úng-sa ro-no-sa ‘á-pín mí shir-shir-shir kom-pa-ní (‘o-re-na) bá-ha-dúr-ká phu-tho-ma ‘o.

2. Hindustani version

Shrí-shrí-shrí bará lát sáheb báhádurne darjiling páhár áb háwá sardke sabab josarkárká naukarlog bimár honese usjagemo áwonese árám pánegá iswáste cáhetehaim so hám mahárájá shrí shrí sikímpati shrí shrí shrí bará sáheb mausuphke sáth dostike sabab darjiling páhár jobará ringítká dakhin wo bálásan wo kahel wochotáringit nadiká púrb wo mahánandawi ranonadiká pachimsaihai shrí shrí shrí kampani imsne báhádurko caráyáiti san 1891 sál tárikh 29 mágh.

(I have Sri. A.K. Pandey, M.A.,B.Ed., Senior Hindi Master at Dr. Graham’s Homes, to thank for helping me with identifying letters in this text that are written in an unusual way and also for help with unusual spellings. For example, as regards letter shapes the first syllable of both cáhte and caráyaiti is written with the Newari letter for c (a) not the Devanagari, and the letter for the b – of báhádur and the –b of sáheb and áb are written with the Newari b and –b – the same shape as the Devanagari w- and –w while the w – of háwá and áwone are written with the Devanagari w – with a dot underneath. As regards mis-spellings bahádur and pahár, for example, have been mis-spelt báhádur and páhár, and hawá has been given the Nepali spelling háwá). Introducing Major (later Colonel) Lloyd and his proclamation

Regular readers of Aachuley were introduced to Major Lloyd in its July1998 issue (Vol.2, no.2) through the article ‘The Lepcha text of the deed of Grant of Darjeeling .’ The Lepcha who translated this important document, dated 29 Magh 1891 (25 Feb., 1835 A.D.), for Maj Lloyd had a rather distinctive style of handwriting; we find his handwriting again, three years later, in the Lepcha version of a proclamation by Lloyd, now promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. By the 12th of October 1838 A.D., the date of this proclamation, the Colonel had begun to establish his authority over the Darjeeling Tract, which he described as about 30 miles long from north to south and from six to ten miles broad (the area concerned can be seen, like an island in the middle of southern Sikkim, in a map of the year 1848 reproduced on page 11 of that same July issue of Aachuley).

It is Mr. Arthur Foning, the well-known author of Lepcha; my vanishing tribe (1987), whom I have to thank for allowing me to photo-copy the proclamation, which he told me he had been given in Darjeeling; it consists of a Lepcha version followed by versions in three other languages, Persian, the diplomatic language of the Mogul Empire (1526-1857), Hindustani, and Bengali ( I have given all four versions in facsimile).

Lloyd’s intentions

To his masters in Calcutta, the Governor General’s Council, Lloyd has summarized the purpose of his proclamation as follows:

‘ As long as it appeared uncertain whether we should occupy the place permanently or not, I did not think it of material consequence to take any steps to inform persons who should come to inhabit and cultivate the hills which had become ours further than by casual mention in conversation that they must consider themselves subjects of the East India Company. But now that the measures and intentions of Government are quite decided as to the occupation of the grant, I have issued a proclamation to the people who settled themselves on various parts of the same, informing them that they thereby become our subjects and are no longer under the orders or laws of Sikkim, directing them to pay their revenue to me, and in case of their requiring justice, it should be afforded them on their application to me at Dorjiling,……..’ (‘Consultations, Fort William, 16 January 1839, No. 61’, quoted by F. Pinn in his highly informative book The Road of Destiny: Darjeeling Letters 1839, 1986, p. 12).

The Darjeeling Lepchas and their reaction to the proclamation

Having stated Lloyd’s intentions I come now to a brief account of some aspects of the manner of life of the people who were at the receiving end of his new scheme, the Lepchas, and of their response to this sudden change of administration. For both these topics I am again able to draw on The Road of Destiny, the chapter entitled ‘Visit to a Lepcha Village.’ In this chapter Pinn has quoted in full a contribution by ‘A Wanderer’ to the Calcutta newspaper The Englishman dated 3 March 1839 ( Pinn1987, pages 82-91); but I have restricted myself to a few passages that I find especially revealing.

‘A few days after our arrival the Foujdar of the Lepchas, with a great number of followers, paid a visit to Colonel Lloyd; he was a short, stout man, with Tartar feature, and the Chinese costume; he appeared intelligent and lively, and his followers were fine, active men; many of them extremely well dressed, and all bearing long knives, some also carried bows and arrows; one of the latter gave us a specimen of his woodcraft by splitting a piece of wood, almost nine inches by three, that was lying on the side of the fort hill, at a distance of full three hundred yards from the verandah of Colonel Lloyd’s house from whence he discharged the arrow, and that without in the least resting on his aim.

Being desirous of seeing something of the domestic manners of these people, called there Lepchas, we engaged the services of one of the race who understood Hindoostani as interpreter, and left Darjeeling under his guidance. The descent towards their village was to the east, passing Sero’s hill, — and after a journey of about three hours duration [we] arrived at the Dingpun’s house at Pudumtam.

The houses of this village are few in number and scattered; those of the Dingpun, where we were, were a fair sample of the rest, which are of superior construction to those commonly met with in the plains. .***LINE*** The men always wear a short knife, varying from a foot and a half to two feet in length, and from one and a half to two inches broad, terminating in a point; this is made of very finely tempered metal brought from Nepal, and is used for all purposes from cutting up a chilly to felling an oak tree;

While resting there, we had a sample of the activity of the Lepchas in wood cutting. A young girl who had come down with our party for mere amusement, borrowed the knife from the Dingpun, and climbing a moderate sized tree overhanging a steep precipice, whence we were enjoying the prospect of the falls of the Rungeet, in an almost incredibly short space of time, lopped off every branch. We had also a specimen of their native music. While reclining on the sward to rest himself, the Dingpun took out a short flute or pipe of bamboo, having four holes as stops, called a pullit, with which he really discoursed most excellent music, and amused us for some time with a series of wild airs, bearing a striking resemblance to the Highland pibrochs-. ***LINE*** While at Pudumtam we witnessed a scene which strongly illustrated the independence and hospitable character of the Lepchas. Two official chuprassees, deputed by Colonel Lloyd, arrived at the Dingpun’s house with a copy of the proclamation, announcing the taking possession by the British Government of all the territory between the Balasun and Mahananda, ceded by the Sikkim Rajah, but by some omission or mischance, this British proclamation was unaccompanied by corresponding announcement from the Rajah to the people of the portion ceded. The Dingpun received the men hospitably, and being unable, from our residence with him, to find them accommodation in his own house, he loaded them with rice, Indian corn, chillies, tobacco, etc. almost enough for a fortnight’s supply, and sent them to a neighbour. But he positively refused to receive the proclamation, and on the following morning repeated the refusal, declining even to allow of its being posted against the wall of his house, although he read and explained it to his neighbours, whom he summoned for the purpose. His argument against receiving it was plainly and boldly set forth, grounded on the fact that heand his father before him, had duly and faithfully served the Maharajah, from whom they have received favours, and that therefore he could receive no other master without the Rajah’s orders. Besides, he added, “ when I go to visit my Maharaj, he receives me gladly and feeds me well; but if ever I pay the Colonel sahib, he gives me nothing to put in my mouth; although, when the sahib log or their visitors come to my village, I give them what I can and pay them every attention.” ***LINE*** I really, Mr. Editor, felt humbled at this simple declaration of the Dingpon. It grieved me that one of so open and hospitable a disposition, should not have been better understood than to have been so negligently received on his visits to the station, as to have grounds for making such an assertion. This will show you what might be expected from the Lepchas by a conciliatory and considerate mode of treatment, that they have even been carelessly regarded is, I well know, only from oversight, and so good is the disposition towards them expressed by the authorities at Darjeeling, that I have no doubt they will soon be brought in to offer us that aid and intercourse which is so necessary for the welfare of the station and the comfort of its visitors and residents’ (Pinn 1986, pages 82-90)

References

Consultations, Fort William, January 1839, No. 61

***LINE***Foning, A.R., 1987. Lepcha: My vanishing tribe (New Delhi: Sterling)

***LINE***Pinn, F., 1986. The Road of Destiny: Darjeeling Letters 1839 (Calcutta: OUP)

***LINE***Sprigg, R.K., 1948 ‘The Lepcha text of the deed of Grant of Darjeeling’, Aachuley 2, 2, 4-11.