But to come to the point. At the time of its publication I read the Archaeological Survey Report of 1919–20, and learned that Shahji-ki-Dheri had been returned to cultivation.The news was not as distressing to me as I would have imagined and after some consideration I realised that I didn’t truly believe the Circlet is there (though, yes, when in Peshawar I had great hopes). I was in some state of agitation when I came to Peshawar — wanting to believe impossible things — and I must apologise if in that state of mind I said or did anything that led you to believe, and hold on to, falsehoods. Of course you were just a child then. But how can the Assistant of Peshawar Museum (BA) really imagine that an artefact (circa 515 BC) from Caria, last heard of during the Hecatomnid era which ended in 334 BC, might come to be buried in Peshawar during the visit of Sung-Yun somewhere between ad 515 and ad 520? (There is only so much we can lay at Alexander’s door.) I can only assume Mr Hargreaves shares this view else there would be no need for a privately funded dig.
Don’t allow me to lead you astray any further. You are at a most privileged place and time in the history of archaeology. Concentrate your mind on what can realistically be sought after, and found.
Yrs.
Vivian Rose Spencer
15 March 1929
Najeeb Gul
Taxila Museum
Taxila
Qayyum Gul
Rose Door House
Next door to Hari Das Cobbler’s
Off Lahori Gate Road
Peshawar
15 March 1929
Lala
Thank you for sending the letter from England to me. Yes, the sender Miss V. R. Spencer is Miss Spencer from long ago. She is the one who I had hoped would lease the land at Shahji-ki-Dheri, but it seems it isn’t just girls who grow into women as caterpillars grow into butterflies but in the case of the English when the butterflies age they enter a cocoon. I will try once more to convince her, but I’m not hopeful.
I know you don’t understand why this means so much to me. How can I explain how it feels to hold an ancient object and feel yourself linked to everyone through whose hand it passed. All these stories which happened where we live, on our piece of earth — how can you stay immune to them? Every day here in Taxila I dig up a new story. And, yes, I’m grateful to the English for putting this spade in my hands and allowing me to know my own history. But to you history is something to be made, not studied, so how can you understand?
I have received permission from Mr Hargreaves to stay with the dig in Taxila a little longer so will not return to Peshawar until the end of the month. I hope all the wedding celebrations are going well.
Your brother
15 March 1929
Najeeb Gul
Taxila Museum
Taxila
Miss V. R. Spencer
Senior Lecturer
University College
London
15 March 1929
Dear Miss Spencer
I write to you from Taxila where a museum has recently opened to house the great findings of our excavations. I am here for a few weeks to advise on some teething problems, and am also taking the opportunity to participate in a dig. It is truly a privileged position to work both on the excavation and the curation of Gandhara artefacts. They are undoubtedly the most beautiful statuary created by human hands.
In your letter you asked how I can imagine that an artefact from Caria, lost to history in 334 BC, might come to be buried in Peshawar eight centuries later. This is how:
From Caria, Alexander took the Circlet with him to India, and gave it as a gift to Nearchus after the latter followed Scylax’ route down the Indus. After Alexander’s death, in the wars fought between his generals, Nearchus found himself on the opposite side to Seleucus Nicator who, following his victory over Nearchus’ forces at Gaza, claimed the Circlet for himself. A few years later, when Seleucus lost control over most of Alexander’s territory in India, he was forced into a treaty with the king Sandracottas who demanded the Circlet as part of the treaty terms. Sandracottas — or Chandragupta Maurya — was, as I’m sure you know, the grandfather of the great Buddhist king Asoka. When Asoka converted to Buddhism he had stupas built all across the length and breadth of his kingdom; each Buddhist stupa had a treasury, and the energy of the stupa was derived from the objects in the treasury. Is it unreasonable to think that he might have sent the Circlet from the palace treasury to a stupa treasury? And there it stayed through the centuries as Buddhism flourished in Gandhara and beyond — until the White Huns under Mihirakula overran Gandhara, burning stupas, pillaging their treasuries. Hearing of the approach of the Huns, a bhikkuni (that’s a Buddhist nun) called Maya escaped from a stupa complex, carrying the treasure of the great Asoka, determined to save it from the marauders. She travelled to the Great Stupa of Kanishka, and there she met the Chinese traveller Sung-Yun. When he refused to take the Circlet to safety, she buried it beneath the Great White Statue of Shahji-ki-Dheri, trusting that the soil of that sacred place would be an even safer hiding place than its treasury if ever the Huns should attack it. And watching her was a young boy who took the story with him and kept it alive in the world until, centuries later, it reached Kallistos — but that is a story for another time.
What is history without imagination, as Herodotus teaches us? I hope this might convince you to lay out the funds for leasing Shahji-ki-Dheri.
Yours sincerely
Najeeb
18 March 1929
18 March 1929
Peshawar.
Najeeb
Of all the fantastic tales you’ve ever told none is more fantastic than that of the kindly English who dig up our treasures because they want you to know your own history. Your museums are all part of their Civilising Mission, their White Man’s Burden, their moral justification for what they have done here. As for the spade they place in your hand, the honours they shower on you — the English are too few, we too many and so they see that it is necessary for there to be a class of Indian who will revere them, feel honoured by them, benefit from their presence and, ultimately, serve them because if our numbers turn against them to say ‘Leave’ there is no way for them to stay. Our numbers are turning, brother — and even while I rejoice at this I fear for you who will one day wake from your illusions and see you are nothing but a subject, a yoked Pashtun who thinks the yoke is a silk cravat and that a silk cravat is as much yours to wear as a turban.
I bear no hatred for the English. It is our weakness that is responsible for the state we are in. How dishonoured a people we were to allow the men of a small island who burn at the touch of the sun to come here and be our masters. And when the English leave, as they must, I will welcome them back into our house as visitors and show them all the courtesy and hospitality of the Pashtuns.