--- title: A Sind Saint. — Folk tales of Sind and Guzarat · full text with trees description: A Sind Saint., «Folk tales of Sind and Guzarat» by C. A. Kincaid: the whole chapter, every sentence with its dependency tree and pragmatics. It begins: Sehwan is known to Englishmen chiefly as a handy station for those who wish to shoot on the Manchar lake. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg76982/7/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Folk tales of Sind and Guzarat](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg76982/) / A Sind Saint. # A Sind Saint. A Sind Saint. of «Folk tales of Sind and Guzarat» by C. A. Kincaid: the whole text, 105 sentences and 1742 words. The small number after every sentence leads to its own page with its syntax tree and pragmatics, parsed by Mova itself. Sehwan is known to Englishmen chiefly as a handy station for those who wish to shoot on the Manchar lake.[1](1/ "tree and pragmatics") In the summer it enjoys an unenviable reputation for heat.[2](2/ "tree and pragmatics") The bare rocks of Lakhi known as the Bagothoro are said to end the last struggles of the monsoon.[3](3/ "tree and pragmatics") Indeed the Lakhi pass is known locally as the gate of the infernal regions; and an often quoted Persian couplet about Sehwan runs as follows:[4](4/ "tree and pragmatics") “When both Sehwan and Sibi grill so well What good was there, O Lord, in making Hell?”[5](5/ "tree and pragmatics") \[1\][6](6/ "tree and pragmatics") But besides its fame as a sporting and a roasting centre, Sehwan has an immense reputation for sanctity.[7](7/ "tree and pragmatics") Within its confines repose in mighty state the earthly remains of the greatest saint of all Sind, worshipped alike by Musulmans and Hindus, the renowned Lal Shahbaz, the Red Peregrine Falcon of the Indus valley.[8](8/ "tree and pragmatics") Lal Shahbaz’s real name was Hazrat Sayad Usman Shah Marwandi.[9](9/ "tree and pragmatics") He was born at Marwand in Afghanistan in A.H.[10](10/ "tree and pragmatics") 538.[11](11/ "tree and pragmatics") His father Makhdum Sayad Ahmed Kabir was a powerful noble and a great friend of the king of Tabriz.[12](12/ "tree and pragmatics") From his earliest years, so it is said, the boy shewed a great leaning towards things spiritual.[13](13/ "tree and pragmatics") Before his twelfth year he had already made the blind see, the deaf hear and the dumb speak.[14](14/ "tree and pragmatics") When Lal Shahbaz reached manhood, he insisted on leaving his father’s house and started on a pilgrimage.[15](15/ "tree and pragmatics") He first went to Baghdad where he stayed at the court of the monarch Sayad Ali.[16](16/ "tree and pragmatics") When he wished to leave, Sayad Ali implored him to remain at Baghdad for ever.[17](17/ "tree and pragmatics") But the religious call was too insistent and with three friends, Sheikh Bahawaldin, Sheikh Farid Ganj Shakar and Makhdum Jalaluddin, Lal Shahbaz set off for the Persian Gulf.[18](18/ "tree and pragmatics") In an island in the Gulf lived a fakir named Sheikh Jalal whose austerities had won him supernatural gifts.[19](19/ "tree and pragmatics") Lal Shahbaz determined to reduce him to obedience and make him his disciple.[20](20/ "tree and pragmatics") No boats were available so Lal Shahbaz threw his “kishta” or begging bowl into the water and it became a boat.[21](21/ "tree and pragmatics") Into it the four friends stepped and rowed for Sheikh Jalal’s island.[22](22/ "tree and pragmatics") About half way the boat stopped dead and no matter how hard the saints plied the oar, it declined to move.[23](23/ "tree and pragmatics") At last Lal Shahbaz realised that the island fakir had cast a spell on them.[24](24/ "tree and pragmatics") But he could only have done that, if one among them was not a true anchorite and was still thinking of the joys of this world, while pretending to have given them up for ever.[25](25/ "tree and pragmatics") Lal Shahbaz told this to his friends and asked them whether they had one and all given up the world wholly.[26](26/ "tree and pragmatics") They protested their complete unworldliness.[27](27/ "tree and pragmatics") But as the boat still refused to budge, Lal Shahbaz went through their pockets.[28](28/ "tree and pragmatics") In the pocket of Sheikh Bahawaldin he found, as I regret to say, a brick of solid gold, which the saint was keeping against a rainy day.[29](29/ "tree and pragmatics") Lal Shahbaz threw it overboard.[30](30/ "tree and pragmatics") Once freed from this sordid freight, the boat began again to move.[31](31/ "tree and pragmatics") As they drew near the island, Lal Shahbaz saw Sheikh Jalal looking at them through a window of his castle.[32](32/ "tree and pragmatics") To punish him for stopping the boat, Lal Shahbaz made the window grow so small that it gripped the fakir’s neck as if in a vice.[33](33/ "tree and pragmatics") Sheikh Jalal yelled for mercy, but it was not granted him until he had owned himself beaten and had promised to become an obedient and humble follower of Lal Shahbaz.[34](34/ "tree and pragmatics") The great saint acquired his appellation of Lal Shahbaz, by two remarkable miracles.[35](35/ "tree and pragmatics") After the defeat of Sheikh Jalal, Lal Shahbaz and his three companions went to Mecca and Medina.[36](36/ "tree and pragmatics") As they were returning from the blessed vision of the prophet’s tomb, they halted one night in a town on the coast of Arabia.[37](37/ "tree and pragmatics") Sheikh Farid Shakar Ganj went to buy bread for the party.[38](38/ "tree and pragmatics") Unhappily the baker’s wife conceived an unholy passion for the young man.[39](39/ "tree and pragmatics") Like a true ascetic he rejected her odious advances with the icy disdain of Saint Joseph.[40](40/ "tree and pragmatics") The baker’s wife thereupon behaved after the manner of Potiphar’s consort.[41](41/ "tree and pragmatics") She began to scream that Sheikh Farid Shakar Ganj had tried to outrage her.[42](42/ "tree and pragmatics") The unhappy anchorite was seized, dragged before the governor and condemned to instant execution.[43](43/ "tree and pragmatics") Lal Shahbaz heard of it and took immediate steps to rescue his innocent friend.[44](44/ "tree and pragmatics") He changed one of his two remaining friends into a deer and bade him run towards the gallows.[45](45/ "tree and pragmatics") The crowd ran madly after the deer to catch it.[46](46/ "tree and pragmatics") Lal Shahbaz turned his second friend into a lion.[47](47/ "tree and pragmatics") It charged the executioners roaring terribly.[48](48/ "tree and pragmatics") They fled incontinently.[49](49/ "tree and pragmatics") Lastly the Saint changed himself into a peregrine falcon and swooping down picked up Sheikh Farid Shakar Ganj and bore him to a place of safety.[50](50/ "tree and pragmatics") By this miracle the Saint got the name of Shahbaz, the Sindhi word for a peregrine falcon.[51](51/ "tree and pragmatics") How did he obtain the title of Lal?[52](52/ "tree and pragmatics") It was this way: A certain Murshid once challenged Shahbaz’s friends to bathe in a caldron of boiling oil.[53](53/ "tree and pragmatics") They not unnaturally declined the challenge, whereupon the Murshid mocked them as unworthy impostors.[54](54/ "tree and pragmatics") They sorrowfully told their master of their discomfiture.[55](55/ "tree and pragmatics") On the instant he accepted the challenge and going to the Murshid’s house, leapt into the boiling oil.[56](56/ "tree and pragmatics") He stayed so long at the bottom of the cauldron that his rival owned himself beaten.[57](57/ "tree and pragmatics") “Come out,” he cried, “you are indeed a Lal among Lals (a ruby among rubies)”.[58](58/ "tree and pragmatics") The master rose triumphantly out of the oil.[59](59/ "tree and pragmatics") He had suffered no harm from the immersion, but the heat of the oil had turned his robe crimson.[60](60/ "tree and pragmatics") That robe he wore to his dying day and was in the end buried in it.[61](61/ "tree and pragmatics") So he came to be known as Lal Shahbaz.[62](62/ "tree and pragmatics") After his journey to Mecca and Medina, Lal Shahbaz came to Sind.[63](63/ "tree and pragmatics") He wandered until he came to a spot still called ‘Lal jo Bagh’ or the garden of the ruby, two miles from Sehwan.[64](64/ "tree and pragmatics") Sehwan was, however, already a holy town and its worldly minded fakirs dreaded that the advent of so famous a mendicant would reduce their earnings.[65](65/ "tree and pragmatics") They sent him a cup full to the brim of milk, that he might know that just as the cup could hold no more milk, so Sehwan could hold no more anchorites.[66](66/ "tree and pragmatics") Lal Shahbaz sent to those worldly minded ones a fitting answer.[67](67/ "tree and pragmatics") He made a flower float on the milk and returned the cup, thereby shewing to the fakirs that there was still room for yet another holy man and that the newcomer meant to be above the others, even as the flower was above the milk.[68](68/ "tree and pragmatics") After this event Lal Shahbaz spent most of his time in Sehwan.[69](69/ "tree and pragmatics") His friend Sheikh Bahawaldin left him and went to Multan.[70](70/ "tree and pragmatics") Before leaving he offered to Lal Shahbaz and the latter accepted the hand of his daughter.[71](71/ "tree and pragmatics") Not long afterwards Lal Shahbaz learnt in a trance of the death of his prospective father-in-law.[72](72/ "tree and pragmatics") He went to Multan and asked Sheikh Bahawaldin’s son, Sadaruddin for his betrothed.[73](73/ "tree and pragmatics") Sadaruddin refused.[74](74/ "tree and pragmatics") The Saint thereupon cursed him and vowed that the girl should wed no one else, but would find an instant resting place in paradise.[75](75/ "tree and pragmatics") Shortly afterwards the poor girl died and Lal Shahbaz returned to Sehwan.[76](76/ "tree and pragmatics") He died on the 21st of the month of Shaban 650 A.H. at the ripe age of 112; and the anniversary of his death is kept as a great festival.[77](77/ "tree and pragmatics") From all quarters of Sind come fakirs and musicians and dancing girls to dance before the shrine of the mighty anchorite.[78](78/ "tree and pragmatics") The chief feature of the celebration is the marriage of Lal Shahbaz to his lost bride.[79](79/ "tree and pragmatics") Now why do Hindus worship at his shrine?[80](80/ "tree and pragmatics") That is perhaps the strangest part of the story.[81](81/ "tree and pragmatics") In 56 B.C. lived the great king Vikramaditya of Dharmanagar or Ujjain, the Arthur of Hindu historical legends.[82](82/ "tree and pragmatics") At his court lived the nine gems of learning and his valour and his arms reduced all India to subjection.[83](83/ "tree and pragmatics") Once upon a time he resolved to disguise himself and see with his own eyes how his viceroys governed his provinces.[84](84/ "tree and pragmatics") He appointed to be his regent during his absence his younger brother Brartrahari.[85](85/ "tree and pragmatics") One day the Goddess Parvati gave to a devout old couple in Ujjain an apple, that conferred immortality on anyone who ate it.[86](86/ "tree and pragmatics") The old couple preferring riches to immortality sold the apple to the regent for a great price.[87](87/ "tree and pragmatics") The regent gave it to his youngest and prettiest wife.[88](88/ "tree and pragmatics") She unfortunately had a lover and she gave the apple to him.[89](89/ "tree and pragmatics") He in turn presented it to a dancing girl, who sold it back to Brartrahari.[90](90/ "tree and pragmatics") The regent thereby discovered his wife’s infidelity.[91](91/ "tree and pragmatics") In a rage he flung away the apple and abandoning his office, became an anchorite.[92](92/ "tree and pragmatics") According to the local legend, he wandered until he came to Sind, where he became a devoted worshipper of Shiva.[93](93/ "tree and pragmatics") He called his abiding place Shivisthan or the place of Shiva.[94](94/ "tree and pragmatics") From Shivisthan has come the modern name Sehwan.[95](95/ "tree and pragmatics") Brartrahari lived at Sehwan until he died and by his life and death made the spot holy.[96](96/ "tree and pragmatics") The Musulman invasion swept away the temple of Shiva, but the memory of the pious recluse lingered on; and when Lal Shahbaz came and worked miracles at the spot where Brartrahari had lived, the Hindus declared that Lal Shahbaz was his reincarnation.[97](97/ "tree and pragmatics") The miraculous powers of Lal Shahbaz did not die with him.[98](98/ "tree and pragmatics") After his death streams of molasses, sugar and milk are said to have spurted from the wall of his tomb.[99](99/ "tree and pragmatics") These articles he meant for the use of the poor of Sehwan only.[100](100/ "tree and pragmatics") Nor did he mean that any should take more than one helping in any one day.[101](101/ "tree and pragmatics") Sad to relate, his pious wishes were brought to nought by the greed of the townspeople.[102](102/ "tree and pragmatics") Poor and rich alike rushed to profit by the dead saint’s bounty and none confined himself to a single helping.[103](103/ "tree and pragmatics") In disgust the dead saint bade the streams dry up and all that now remains of them is a group of stones that look exactly like petrified sugar molasses and milk.[104](104/ "tree and pragmatics") These the guardians of the shrine shew to wondering pilgrims as proof positive of the legend’s truth.[105](105/ "tree and pragmatics") - ← previous: [Folk Tales of Sind and Guzarat.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg76982/6/) - next →: [Udero Lal.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg76982/8/) - ↑ back to [Folk tales of Sind and Guzarat](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg76982/)