The previous image shows the route taken by Shams to Multan in green. The one river that can be traversed to Multan is the Chenab from the west, yet Uch is due south of Multan. The other is the Panjnad drainage in the south, a channel o f five rivers into which the Chenab also falls just before Uch, which finally flows into the Indus a further forty five miles downstream. It easy to misinterpret the Panjnad as the Indus, especially for foreigners, due to the vast amount of water it carries, which is probably the reason that a Multani anecdote recalls the river involved in the boat event as the Indus. Physically, Uch lies just a few miles from the Panjnad, which is where the journey began according to local folklore. When one tallies the descriptions o f Shams’s movements recorded in Uch with the map above it makes a lot of geographic sense. If Shams first came to Sitpur from Khurasan and managed to set up a successful da’wa from there, he would be physically unmolested as Uch city proper, Qabacha’s capital, would lie across the Panjnad. In fact if one is to take a closer look at the area around Sitpur, a triangular island-like formation can be seen between the Panjnad, the Chenab before it flows into it and the Indus to the
west. This area would be physically cut off from both the centres, i.e. Multan and Uch, by these vast undammed rivers o f the medieval era. This is probably the region where Shams very successfully managed his initial da’wa which so aggrieved the orthodox clergy and Qabacha in Uch, and upset Zakariya’s balancing act in Multan.
In this scenario the skinning event must have involved some deception, an act o f betrayal, or stumbling across the Panjnad into Uch proper, o f which no mention is found in recorded hagiography. Shams necessarily needed to be taken captive from across the Panjnad to be made subject to the heresy charge and the skinning,218 There is no desert in the west o f Uch city, within or beyond the Sitpur triangle, as it is now all agrarian land run through with rivers, with some retrospective similarity in Shams’s time. The only desert nearby is in the region across the Panjnad, to the south and east o f Uch, which extends into Rajasthan. Chronologically, the skinning and leaving o f Shams for dead on the outskirts o f a desert can only be here, from where he returned back to Uch after his spiritual flight two and a half years later, collected his few loyal followers, and sailed back across the Panjnad to the physical safety o f the Sitpur triangle. This geographical analysis also explains how a significant Buddhist principality survived in the heart o f the lower Punjab region in the era o f post-Ghaznavid Turkic rule.
Added support to this chronology reconstructed from the local folk traditions is given by some ginans that mention Shams’s early dialogues with Buddhist monks in the region, who might eventually have become his followers. This is in addition to the Buddhist Queen mentioned in Satvarani Vadi who became his devotee, and who was undoubtedly Ska Rani o f Sitpur or ‘Samaiya.’ There is also the unexplored hagiography o f Shams in Rajasthan which is yet to be frilly researched by scholars, but the skinning and the desert events do connect with this phenomenon also. Without the folkloric reportage recorded in Uch, there is no evidence o f Shams ever having reached Rajasthan, yet the modern Indian
218 Satvarani Vadi contains references to som e o f Shams’s secret lodges in an area w hich resembles Sitpur in its allegorical description. This in the latter half o f the ginan, yet the fact that they were secret must date them to the early da’wa in Uch/Sitpur, as Shams was obviously too strong in the Multan period to have to resort to secrecy. There is mention o f a city called ‘Samaiya’, with reference to the Buddhist queen and her followers mentioned on p .132 ff> who became Shams’s devotees, which locals have identified as an older name for Sitpur.
State is rife with his mention in anecdote, with all the related stories mentioned in similar fashion as in the Indus Valley.219
The most important surviving evidence o f the start o f the boat journey very close to Uch, and hence through the Panjnad channel, as opposed to any other river near Multan, is its celebration through a religious icon used in Moharram ceremonies in that city. There is no such ceremonial remembrance o f the boat event near Multan, or anywhere else in the region. The commemorative ceremonies for ‘Ashura or the Tenth of the Islamic month of Moharram in Uch involving the boat event icon have a certain distinctness about them like the ceremonial found at Shams’s shrine. They probably date back to Shams’s death and must have been set up as a way o f remembering him by his followers, for his torment and the victory against Qabacha and the orthodox clergy. Their continued presence also serves to explain the rest o f the chronology o f events deciphered from the Uch folklore, when stripped of supernatural descriptions.
The Shams Taziya: An Icon remembering Shams in the Shia legacy o f the Suhrawardi Order in Uch
The most striking feature o f the Moharram ceremonies in Uch is the use o f music in litanies and self flagellation practices, and a specific taziya220, which is fashioned as a boat. Moharram ceremonies were first choreographed and managed en masse with state patronage in Fatmid Egypt as opposed to their being Twelver Shia in origin. In the sub continent, these ceremonies are especially colourful, and most o f them date back to the second Ismaili era inaugurated by Shams’s da’wa.221 Ismaili missionaries drew upon local iconographic traditions for the representation o f their faith to native converts. Hollister records the first large scale use o f the pictures of AH in Ismaili lodges for proselytising locals in India in his book Shia o f India, which the da’is represented as the
219 Khan (Sila) 1997, pp.71-74.
220 I.e. a replica, that which refreshes the past through commemoration; a standard Shia symbol for Moharram globally.
tenth incarnation o f Vishnu (to Vaishnavites).222 This representation must have used the multi-faith astrological mechanism o f the Sathpanth propagated by Pir Shams for the purpose, as local Hindu denominations were highly dependant on astrology and planetary rulership o f the days o f the week for their rituals and worship.
The Moharram ceremonies in question are conducted under the patronage o f the local Bukhari clan, the descendants o f the Suhrawardi Order in Uch. These ceremonies are an integral part o f the religious life o f the city. During the Moharram season, the Bukharis oversee the assembly o f a life size boat taziya the structure of which is fashioned entirely out of ropes, rags and old cloth, built around a central mast which is actually an ‘alam or the replica standard o f the third Shia Imam Husain. The framework is then clad and wrapped with higher quality material and decoration to complete the outer skin. The taziya is ritually started on an auspicious date before all the other preparations for Moharram get underway. A similar taziya is also organised by the Gilanis in the city, who are actually Sunni Sufis but have obviously taken on the practice after their arrival in Uch in the 15th century.223