Bhambura

Bhambura was an ancient ruined city in Lower Sindh, Pakistan. It was capital of Bhambu Raja in about the tenth century. It was deserted in about A.D. 1250 on account of the failure of the Ghara river, which was the most westerly branch of the Indus. Alexander Cunningham has identified Bhambura with the town of Barke, which Alexander built on his return up the river.

Variants of name

• Bambhor
• Bambhora
• Banbhore
• Barbarike
• Bhambhor
• Bhambhura
• Bhambur/Bhambúr
• Bhambura
• Bhambore - See in separate article

Location

Bhambore (Urdu: بنبهور‎) Banbhore is an ancient city dating to the 1st century BC located in Sindh, Pakistan. The city ruins lie on the N-5 National Highway, east of Karachi. Banbhore is situated on the northern bank of Gharo creek, about 65 km east of Karachi in the Thatta District of Sindh, Pakistan. The city ruins are located on the N-5 National Highway between Dhabeji and Gharo.

Jat clan

• Bhambu

Alexander Cunningham on Bhambura

Alexander Cunningham writes about Barbarike-Emporiam, or Bhambura:

[p. 294]: The ruined town of Bambhora, or Bhambura, is situated at the head of the Ghara creek, which is "supposed by the natives to be the site of the most ancient seaport in Sindh." ¹ "Nothing now remains but the foundations of houses, bastions, and walls," but about the tenth century Bhambhura was the capital of a chief named Bhambo Raja. According to the traditions of the people, the most westerly branch of the Indus once flowed past Bhambura. It is said to have separated from the main river just above Thatha, and M'Murdo² quotes the ' Tabakat-i-Akbari ' for the fact that in the reign of Akbar it ran to the westward of Thatha. To the same effect Sir Henry Elliot; ³ quotes Mr. N. Crow, who was for many years the British Resident at Thatha. Writing in A.D. 1800, Crow says, "By a strange turn that the river has taken within these five-and-twenty years just above Tatta, that city is flung out of the angle of the inferior Delta, in which it formerly stood, on the main land towards the hills of Biluchistan." From these statements it would appear that the Ghara river was the most westerly branch of the Indus down to the latter half of the last century. But long before that time,

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1 Eastwick, ' Handbook of Bombay,' p. 481.

2 Journ. Royal Asiat. Soc, i. 25. See Map No. IX.

3 Muhammadan Historians of India, Dowson's edition, i. 399.

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[p. 295]: according to M'Murdo, it had ceased to be a navigable stream, as both. Bhambur and Debal were deserted about A.D. 1250, on account of the failure of the river. ¹ My own inquiries give the same date, as Debal was still occupied when Jalaladdin of Khwarazm invaded Sindh in A.D. 1221, ² and was in ruins in A.D. 1333, when Ibn Batuta visited Lahari Bandar, which had succeeded Debal as the great port of the Indus.

M'Murdo quotes native authors to show that this western branch of the Indus was called the Sagara river, which, he thinks, may .be identified with the Sagapa Ostium of Ptolemy, which was also the most westerly branch of the Indus in his time. It is therefore quite possible, as supposed by M'Murdo, that this was the very branch of the Indus that was navigated by Alexander. From the latest maps, however, it appears that about midway between Thatha and Ghara this channel threw off a large branch on its left, which flowed parallel to the other for about 20 miles, when it turned to the south and joined the main channel just below Lari-bandar. Now this channel passes about 2 or 3 miles to the south of Bhambura, so that the town was also accessible from the Piti, the Phundi, the Kyar; and the Pintiani mouths of the river. I am therefore inclined to identify Bhambura not only with the town of Barke, which Alexander built on his return up the river, as stated by Justin, but also with the Barbari of Ptolemy, and the Bar- barike Emporium of the author of the 'Periplus.' The last authority describes the middle branch of the

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1 Jonrn. Royal Asiat. Soc, i. 25 and 232.

2 Rashid-ud-din in Elliot, Dowson's edition, i. 26.

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[p. 296]: Indus as the only navigable channel in his time up to Barbarike¹ all the other six channels being narrow and full of shoals. This statement shows that the Ghara river had already begun to fail before A.D. 200. The middle mouth of the river, which was then the only navigable entrance, is called Khariphon Ostium by Ptolemy. This name I would identify with the Kydr river of the present day, which leads right up to the point where the southern branch of the Ghara joins the main river near Lari-bandar.

From this discussion I conclude that the northern channel of the Ghara was the western branch of the Indus, which was navigated by Alexander and Nearchus ; and that before A.D. 200, its waters found another channel more to the south, in the southern Ghara, which joins the main stream of the Indus just below Lari-bandar. By this channel, in the time of the author of the ' Periplus,' the merchant vessels navigated the Indus up to Barbarike, where the goods were unloaded, and conveyed in boats to Minnagar, the capital of the country. But after some time this channel also failed, and in the beginning of the eighth century, when the Arabs invaded Sindh, Debal had become the chief port of the Indus, and altogether supplanted Bhambura, or the ancient Barbarike. But though the Ghara river was no longer a navigable channel, its waters still continued to flow past the old town down to the thirteenth century, about which time it would appear to have been finally deserted.

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1 Hudson, Geogr. Vet., i. 22.

Sir H. M. Elliot on Bhambúr-Barbarike

Sir H. M. Elliot writes about Bhambúr-Barbarike:

Bhambúra, or Bhambúr, is not named in our oldest works on Sind; but it is mentioned in a modern native historian as having been captured during the Khalifat of Hárúnu-r Rashíd. It is the scene of many legendary stories of Sind; and, according to one of them, owes its destruction in a single night to the divine wrath which its ruler's sins drew down upon it. Its ruins skirt the water's edge for about a quarter of a mile, and cover a low hill almost surrounded by a plain of sand, a little to the right of the road from Karáchí to Ghára, and about two miles from the latter place. There are evident marks of its having been at one time flourishing and populous; and even now, after heavy rains, coins, ornaments, and broken vessels are found among the debris of the fort.

Coupling these manifest signs of antiquity, with the fact that the natives commonly considered Bhambúr as the oldest port in Sind, and that the legend at page 332, proves its connection with the main stream of the Indus, it may possibly represent the Barbarik Emporium of the Periplus, and the Barbari of Ptolemy; the easy conversion from the native Bhambúr into the more familiar Barbari being a highly probable result of the wanton mispronunciation to which the Greeks were so much addicted. But opposed to this is the statement of Arrian, that Barbarike was on the centre stream of the Delta, which would make Láhorí-bandar its more likely representative. Perhaps in Arrian's time there may have been direct communication between the main channel and Bhambúr.

Jat History

According to Bhim Singh Dahiya A city named Bhambura in Lower Sindh is mentioned by Alexander Cunningham as capital of a king, named Bhambu Raja in tenth century AD.

See also

• Bhambore

References

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