History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes
50 HISTORY OF THE PARSIS. [CHAP. I.
The Parsi settlement at Surat’ is not so old as those at other places in Gujarat, but it was there that
1 Anquetil du Perron thus gives the origin of the city of Surat as he heard it from Narbez, the librarian of the last Mahomedan Subedar of Ahmedabad.
“Tn the reign of Mahmoud Begada, fifth King of Ahmedabad, who flourished about the close of the fifteenth century, there were (in the vicinity of a place where, in 1760, stood the house of Fares Khan, hakim of the town) several huts of fishmongers, who had at their head a man of their profession, named Suratji. This chief paid the dues of his little village to the Hakim (7. to the Governor) of Rander (a small town situate on the northern bank of the Tapti), who ruled the country on behalf of the King of Ahmedabad. The Portuguese, in their incursions, having plundered the banks of that river, Suratji, whose people were without any means of defence, and who had suffered considerably, carried his complaints to the King of Ahmedabad. This prince, having inquired what the land of these fishermen could produce, ordered Khodavand Khan, Governor of Rander, to erect a fortress, which might place the town of Suratji under shelter from every insult, Khodavand Khan at first chose the site on the place where there now is his tomb, near the house of Fares Khan and that of Fakir Kheirulla ; but as it was at some distance from the river, the choice of it was abandoned. He then pitched upon another site near Bagh Talao, where there now are shroffs (bankers) about half a coss from the river. ‘This was also abandoned for the same reason, it being found difficult to carry water from the river to that distance, in order to fill up the ditches with which he intended to surround the fortress. At last its foundations were laid in the place where it now stands ; and Khodayand Khan promised Suratji to give the latter’s name to this city, as a reward for the site which he ceded to him (Khodavand Khan). This city was then called Surat after Suratji. An inscription informs us that the fortress was completed only in 931 Hijri (a.p. 1524). The town rose with the times; in 1666 it had yet only some walls of earth in very bad state. The first enceinte was constructed some years after, and the second some more than fifty years ago, under the nabobship of Hyder Kuli Khan: each has twelve gates, and is adorned with round towers where some guns are to be seen.” —Translation of extracts from the Zend-Avesta of Anquetil du Perron, by Kavasji Edalji Kanga.