Harking Back: Barefoot fakir, spy, deserter and archaeologist

As one researches the history of Lahore, strange characters keep popping out from the shadows. My interest this last week has been in a deserter from the East India Company’s army whom Maharajah Ranjit Singh tried to recruit and in all probability used as a ‘spy’ and ‘information provider’.

This soldier basically rebelled against the wanton killings of the EIC as it expanded its military and economic control over India. He was more interested in archaeology and numismatics, and ended up producing the first archaeological records of Afghanistan’s Buddhist excavations, besides being the person who ‘discovered’ the Buddha of Bamiyan. His collection of rare coins and other rare objects from sites in Bagram and from the bazaars of Kabul are the finest till date. He was also the very first man to report the thousands of brick mounds at two different sites at Mohenjo Daro and Harappa. They were officially discovered as the Indus Valley Civilisation 38 years after him.

This mysterious person was James Lewis, who used the name Charles Masson and deserted after the gruesome Siege of Bharatpur in January 1826. The unwarranted killing of over 4,000 captured Rajputs had a devastating effect on him. When his regiment returned to Agra, one night along with a friend Richard Potter, they deserted by walking away into the barren desert initially in a north-western direction, then crossed the Bikaner Desert towards the River Indus, reaching the eastern bank and entering Sikh-ruled Punjab.

My interest in this strange man took root while visiting the Fitzwilliam Museum of Cambridge, when an archivist informed me that it had parts of the Charles Masson Collection which originally were part of the Lahore Toshakhana collection. Masson was an expert on Afghan and Sikh affairs who had warned the British against undertaking activities that ultimately led to The First Afghan War massacre. When Masson reached Lahore, Maharajah Ranjit Singh listened to his story in silence. He offered him a post in his army. His friend accepted but Masson refused and merely wanted to travel westward. The savvy ruler told him to disguise as a ‘fakir’, cut his blonde hair, dye his beard with henna and when the occasion arose to do a bit of begging. Otherwise he would be killed, said the maharajah. Masson followed his advice and set off westward.

He walked along the Indus and reached Peshawar. Then up the Khyber Pass he went and reached Kabul. He walked towards Kandahar and then returned to Lahore. Here Maharajah Ranjit Singh questioned him for two whole days. What we do know is that from Lahore he moved towards Karachi by boat along the Ravi. From there Masson sailed to Busehr, an old trading port in the Persian Gulf on the Iranian south-western coast.

In Busehr he was questioned by officials of the East India Company, and according to Sir Gordon Whitteridge’s book on him, he was clearly identified as a “suspected intelligence agent of the Sikhs”. However, the savvy Masson convinced the EIC officials in Iran that he was an American who had travelled through Europe reaching Russia and then heading southwards to Afghanistan and then reached Iran. They accepted his story and were so impressed by his archaeological wishes that the British representative to Iran, John Campbell, provided him with enough money to research Afghanistan’s ancient history. All along he maintained an American accent which ultimately cemented his story in the minds of doubters.

After spending ten months with EIC officers in Iran, he was taken to Iraq and then by boat to Basra and back to Busehr. From there he trekked to Kalat from Sindh and then on to Kandahar and Kabul. Whitteridge describes him, using old manuscripts of a Muslim agent in Kabul as a source, as “an Englishman named Masson who speaks fluent Persian, has some books in a strange language, and carries a compass, a map and an astrolabe. He is shabbily dressed and has no servant, no horse or even a mule”. This Agent described Masson as having “grey eyes, a red beard, no hair on his head, no socks or shoes, a green fakir cap and a drinking cup slung over his shoulder”.

Once in Afghanistan he explored the land surveying for the first time the Buddhist caves of Bamiyan in 1832. That manuscript is available to researchers in the British Library. He collected an array of rare coins and artefact and by 1833 was bold enough to request the EIC Resident in Kutch for funds for further research. He presented them with rare objects which were all sent to the EIC India Museum in London. The few that I managed to see at Cambridge were part of that initial collection.

In 1834 a British agent by the name of Wade managed to identify the EIC deserter Masson. He faced the death penalty, but the authorities held back because, as EIC documents state: “His archaeological abilities are recognised and he has very useful geographical, political and social information that would be of great assistance in the future”. He was forcibly appointed an EIC ‘news writer’ in Kabul even though they ignored his pleadings as trouble brewed there in the 1830s. He warned them time and again and was transferred to Peshawar. A few months later the First Afghan War broke out and the entire British mission and force, except for a doctor, were massacred. It was then that his reasoning and opinions were truly appreciated.

But then he abruptly resigned as British bureaucrats tried to outdo each other for minor gains. He quietly left and headed towards Sindh and got caught up in the siege of Kalat. There he, along with the British Political Agent, were imprisoned and the official was killed. He, however, managed to escape thanks to his ability to speak fluent Baluchi and Persian. He was released and he rushed to Bombay and sailed for England in 1842.

In London he spent his days writing and recollecting his findings on his coin collection and his archaeological discoveries. His entire works were housed in the Indian Museum of London, and portions of which were given to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. He passed away in London on the 5th of November, 1853 and the official record says that he died “from an uncertain brain disease”.

But this great man, an alleged yet unconfirmed spy of the Lahore Darbar, a deserter who would today be called a ‘conscientious objector’, archaeologist and traveller, is never given credit for his archaeological discoveries and astute political analysis. He had in his lifetime excavated over 50 Buddhist sites all over Afghanistan and parts of northern Pakistan. His collection of bones, ornaments, stones and beads continue to be analysed. His Kushan period findings still remain the finest ever discovered.

His discovery of an entire ancient city just north of Kabul confirmed the place Alexander the Great had built. A major part of his findings are today, sadly, buried beneath the US airbase at Bagram. His numismatic collection, mostly from the bazaars of Kabul, has led experts to piece together the history of Afghanistan. It was Masson who pointed and deciphered the Greek script on these coins and unlocked the till then unknown Kharosthi script. Copies of those rock inscriptions today can be seen in the Royal Asiatic Society of London.

It was the work of Charles Masson that helped decipher the inscriptions on the rocks of Asoka (273-32 BC), which much later led to a lot of scholarship on the subject. His greatest contribution is the deciphering of the script that in later years was seen, though this is disputed, as an off-spring of Pratik and Old Punjabi which triggered the founding of Sanskrit. In later years Masson’s immensely accurate topographical descriptions of his travels - all from memory - has amazed many an expert.