पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

80 PANIPAT 1761
and a temple of his household gods, but there was no trace of the fort at
least in 1935—nor was the fact of its previous existence known to the in-
habitants there. The Gazetteer writer, we take it, must have copied the infor-
mation from some local report, or the description given by some previous
traveller in the locality. As the mound in question is a prominent object in
that low-lying river basin, it could have been very effectively used militarily
by placing long-range guns on it and guarding or attacking the passage of the
Jamuna near that point. As Ahmad Shah Abdali had moved his camp along
the river front just opposite to this mound on the other side of it during the
second stage of the Panipat beleaguerment, the military use of such a promi-
nent height is not an impossibility. But the idea of the Marathas making use
of it during the Panipat beleaguerment presupposes that the Maratha line of
communication into the Doab was intact during the earlier part of the Panipat
siege, or alternately, the Maratha contingents detached by Bhau for cutting
off Abdali's line of supply through the Doab, had approached up to this point,
though there is very little likelihood of such a thing happening. As the data on
which the Gazetteer writer based his statement are not before us, it is not pos-
sible for us now to decide the point.
II WAS THE IMPERIAL CANAL TO THE WEST OF PANIPAT FLOWING
DURING THE PANIPAT CAMPAIGN?
Most of the historians, depending upon the information supplied by
such sources as Gazetteers whose information is not historically sifted, have
taken the Imperial Canal as having stopped flowing eighty years before 1820,
when it was again repaired by the British. Imp. Gaz. Vol. XIV, p. 234 (1908),
under the heading "Jumna Canal (Western)," supplies the information that
there were ancient bridges over the canal at Karnal and Safidon and that the
Delhi branch ceased to flow sometime during 1753 to 1760. This informa-
tion the Gazetteer has copied from the Persian chronicles, giving an account of
the civil war between the Emperor Ahmad Shah and his Wazir Safdar Jang.
The canal formed the property of the Wazir and with a view to stopping his
income from that source, the canal was broken up by his enemies. But what
has been overlooked by the Gazetteer has been now brought to light by the
deep researches of Dr. T. G. P. SPEAR of St. Stephen's College, Delhi. Writ-
ing in the Journal of Indian History (Vol. XIX, Pt. III, No. 57, p. 326, Dec.
1940), he says that the canal was broken up in 1754 in the civil war no doubt,*
but was repaired by Ahmad Shah. But thereafter sometime, somehow, it was
neglected. Taking into consideration the position of Bhau's camp, the major
portion of which was situated to the north-west of Panipat, and the descrip-
tion found in the local Bhau ballad,¹ which supplies the information that
Bhau's 700 elephants were stationed at the village of Gharaunda, ten miles to
the north of Panipat, we assume that the canal was definitely flowing during
this period. For elephants require a copious water supply which would be
available only in a place like the bank of a river or a flowing canal. That it
was flowing can also be guessed from the fact of the mention of the sojourn of
¹ BDCRI 4.173.