The rich history of Bangladesh has, undoubtedly, many colourful and entertaining tales to tell. And, no doubt, also many that are tragic. It is, however, difficult to find any tales with much basis in substance, especially explorations of the great mysteries that such histories as exist leave behind, once the tale is told.
The real story of the defeat of Alexander; why Gangarian soldiers were fighting with the Roman Army in Asia Minor in the 1st century BCE; and, perhaps the greatest mystery of all, with deep significance through subsequent centuries, what happened to the Buddhist tradition of which there remains so much tangible evidence in the country? All, and more, lend themselves to tales of imagination and research.
But few, perhaps, can offer us quite the romantic potential of the story of the demise of one of the Mughal dynasty’s most celebrated sons, and the disappearance of his treasure.
Shah Shuja was born in 1616, the second son of the then heir to the imperial Mughal throne, Shah Jahan, and his wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Already, the reader should begin to feel heart beat increasing. “Imperial thrones,” and Mumtaz Mahal, for whom her husband built the immortal Taj! Here is already the stuff of legends!
That he was the “apple” not only of his father’s eye, but also that of his grandfather, the 4th Mughal Emperor, Jahangir, there is no doubt. When the boy was still young, his grandfather commissioned a portrait of the boy, a jewel encrusted, framed portrait, from the famed artist Manohar, one of few such representations of Mughal princes.
When the boy fell ill, Jahangir vowed to give up hunting, one of his favourite pursuits, if he recovered. A vow he fulfilled, which, although we know Jahangir to have been a very devout man, seems to speak volumes for his affection for Shah Shuja.
When Shah Shuja was 12 years old, his father succeeded to the Imperial throne, with Shah Shuja still very evidently a favoured son.
Only twelve years later, at the age of twenty-four, he was appointed Viceroy of Bengal, the province that his brother, Aurangzeb, was later to describe as “The Paradise of Nations” for its wealth and trade. The agricultural wealth of the province was matched only by the enormous flow of trade that had flourished in the lands of the Ganges Delta, by that time, for more than 2,000 years. Wealth, indeed, that Aurangzeb required to finance his continuous wars, as much as his predecessors had relied upon it for their own battles, and their lavish lifestyle.
In 1657, however, Shah Jahan fell ill, and Shah Shuja seized a throne to which he was probably the closest, that had, throughout its century or so of history, been the subject of regular conflict between father and son and premature seizure.
The fratricidal, internecine conflict that ensued need not distract us; suffice that, with the sick father imprisoned, the eldest son executed on trumped up charges, and Shah Shuja comprehensively defeated, Aurangzeb became the 6th Mughal emperor in 1660.
Now we reach the nub of our story. Pursued by Auragzeb’s army, Shah Shuja fled, taking with him his wives, harem, household, army, retainers and, unsurprisingly, and by all accounts, a vast treasure.
The wealth of the Mughal Emperors had long impressed visitors, including the late 16th century English merchant, Ralph Fitch, whose descriptions of the riches of the courts of Akbar are positively mouthy-watering. There can be little doubt that Shah Shuja’s treasure was almost unimaginably vast, not least because we have every reason to believe that he intended to use that treasure to recapture the Mughal throne.
At this point, one is reminded of a story that has woven its way through the history of England – a story of a fleeing prince, King John, turbulence in his realm, and an obscure and unchancy end, which includes the disappearance of his own vast treasure. A story that continues to fascinate, intrigue and resonate even today.
As one modern history puts it, “This is the story of one of England’s most incompetent and unhappy monarchs, his missing royal regalia, a mysterious and possibly murderous monk,3,000 missing soldiers and servants and, perhaps, most lethally of all, the sea.”
King John had been so comprehensively defeated by his barons and their French allies that, in 1215, he had been forced to sign the great, “Magna Carta,” the document that some say lies at the foundation of Britain’s democracy.
Defeated, but unbowed, still not giving up, he fled to the east coast town of Lynn, now known as Kings Lynn, whose residual loyalty was owed to the granting of a Charter.
Crossing the tidal bay, known as the Wash, it is said that his entourage was engulfed by the incoming tide, and treasure and men lost.
Even as recently as the 1930s, a group of wealthy American treasure hunters invested in a search for the lost treasure, which cynics say was, anyway, not lost, but sold, to finance continuing war. But the legend, like all legends of lost treasures around the world tend to, has persisted.
For whatever reason, however, the fate of Shah Shuja and his treasure never seems to have excited the same attention. And the story of his lost treasure remains untold.
But the fact remains; in 1660, the fleeing Shah Shuja sought refuge with King Sanda Thudama, the King of Arakan, known as “The Pirate King.”
Leaving Dhaka, to which he had fled as the long-time ruler, he took ship to Chittagong, then held by the Arakanese, and, from there, set out overland to reach Mrohaung, the court of the King, south of the Naf River.
The procession that left Chittagong in late May, 1660, included, it is said, 1,000 palanquins to carry the ladies of his enormous court and entourage. It can only be imagined how lengthy was the line strung out on the way along what is still the road to Cox’s Bazar and Teknaf. A road still known to some as “Shuja Road.”
What we also know is that the area behind Kolatoli Beach in today’s Cox’s Bazar became known as “Palongki Beach,” as the site is where the thousand palanquins encamped.
Since the procession must have made many stops along the way, we might ask ourselves why this stop should be marked by that name, and whether it means that the stop there was of unusual length.
No record can help us. Indeed, there seems little record of any further history of the Prince and his retinue, except court gossip reported by the VOC, the Dutch East India Company, representative in Mrohaung, made to his superiors in Batavia; a report which suggested that Shah Shuja was murdered, along with most of his people. The murder on the orders of the king, it was said, came as the result of a coup Shah Shuja attempted, following the breakdown of relations with the Arakanese King after the King’s bid to marry the Prince’s daughter was loftily rejected.
Actually, we have reason to believe that, in fact, Shah Shuja fled his undoubted falling out with the king, through the hills to Tripura, whence, still pursued by Aurangzeb’s forces, he moved on to Manipur, where he finally disappears from history.
But what happened to that enormous wealth, the great treasure with which he is widely reported to have travelled? There is no sign that it benefitted the Arakanese monarch, whose fortunes also rapidly declined. It could give rise to the suspicion that, as some believe, it lies undiscovered in one or some of the many caves in the cliffs or hills of the Bangladesh Riviera in the lands that now adjoin the Naf River, or in the hills behind. Secreted by the Prince, wary of his reception by the Arakan King.
Caves, such as that above Elephant Point, now known variously as “The King of England’s Hole” or “The British Tunnel,” which locals say runs all the way into Myanmar, 30 or 40 kilometres away. Or the famous caves in Teknaf. Or even, a little further away, around Alikadam, where the hills are said to be honeycombed by such tunnels.
Thus far, the possibility that the great treasure even existed is only mentioned in passing by few commentaries. But reason suggests that, with his background, and his still very evident potential to regain power, his train must have borne its wealth with it. There can, surely, be no doubt that it set out from Chittagong in great wagons within the entourage.
But did it ever cross the Naf River, to reach Mrohaung? There seems, certainly, in the report of the VOC representative, no mention of it. Could it be that somewhere between Chittagong and the Naf, in fact, in today’s Bangladesh, the earth still guards a very valuable secret?
Sometime, somewhere, some fortunate person may well stumble across this great treasure of the Mughal Prince, Shah Shuja. Or, if it even ever existed, perhaps not. Of such stuff are treasure tales made, to educate, inform, and entertain!
