John Martin Honigberger - Maharajah Ranjit Singh's Doctor

[intrigued 768]

Very interesting stuff!

[dallysingh101 2,869]

Is 'Seid Gunge' a reference to Gurdwara Sis Ganj in Delhi (where nauvin padshah were shaheed)? Honigberger also records his personal experience with bhang here. 

[dallysingh101 2,869]

1 hour ago, GurjantGnostic said:

It is definitely interesting bro. I would like to point out the "medical professional" here is treating this elusive and rare effect of cannabis..with...what else...leeches.

Drs today are still dangerously arrogant and ignorant. Drs then...lol...their solution to everything was blood letting and blood letting only cures ONE thing. They were quite comfortable telling you how much they knew though, while they put a used needle into your arm to drain out blood you need. 

The..hubris of drs throughout history should be a lesson to us all, and their day of ignorance is far from over today. 

I'd take a vetrenarian over an md just about any day in history...including this one...especially for apocalyptic antics. 

Only drs europe really had were burned at the stake. 

I think this extract is quite illuminating. Here Honigberger (presumably post-'annexation') states his belief that any physicians should familiarise themselves with the local systems and use them to their advantage. So he wasn't blinded by arrogance like many modern doctors are. 

[dallysingh101 2,869]

Hindu food prep (the eating something with cow poo and pishaab reminded me of the covid thing.....):

[GurjantGnostic 1,504]

10 hours ago, dallysingh101 said:

Hindu food prep (the eating something with cow poo and pishaab reminded me of the covid thing.....):

There's better ways to get juice out of grass lol. 

[dallysingh101 2,869]

On 6/23/2021 at 9:55 PM, Suchi said:

I thought he was adding crushed pearls to his cocktails. Any idea the effect of this? It's also rumoured his doctor increased the amount that led to his early demise.

 

I think the people drinking this stuff were under their own illusions. I don't think Honigberger had anything to do with Ranjit Singh's death myself, but who knows. In the book, he says he finally got leave and was travelling home. Ranjit Singh sent a messenger to him to call him back as he was ill, but Honigberger didn't receive the message in time.   

[dallysingh101 2,869]

20 hours ago, dallysingh101 said:

Is 'Seid Gunge' a reference to Gurdwara Sis Ganj in Delhi (where nauvin padshah were shaheed)? Honigberger also records his personal experience with bhang here. 

@shastarSingh Do they still give out sukha at Sis Ganj for nihungs? Do you think the Gurdwara he is mentioning is Sis Ganj?

[shastarSingh 1,288]

18 minutes ago, dallysingh101 said:

@shastarSingh Do they still give out sukha at Sis Ganj for nihungs? Do you think the Gurdwara he is mentioning is Sis Ganj?

Yes he is mentioning sis ganj Sahib in Delhi.

At present this gurdwara is under the control of DSGPC and there is no shaheedi degh there.

May be in the past, this gurdwara was under the influence/control of nihangs.

[dallysingh101 2,869]

[dallysingh101 2,869]

[dallysingh101 2,869]

Painting of 2 Sikh doctors in independent Panjab (from collection sold at Bonhams):

 

[dallysingh101 2,869]

I think the below is a darbaar record reference (from Suri's UUT) to the previously posted account of the mutilated Akali (from Honigberger's work which I reposted below also). It looks like the nihang was severely beaten too:

 

I introduced to our distinguished guests. Col. Wade and Dr. Murray, an Akalee or Nahung, whose nose, ears and hands had been cut off by order of Runjeet Sing (he had even deserved the gallows ), and whose nose had been so well restored in the mountains that we were all surprised, and confessed it could not have been better done in Europe.

As we know, from history, this operation was even in the remotest antiquity, practised by the Hindoos ; and they fermed the nose out of the cuticle of the forehead, which proceeding is now, and always will be the same. In Europe, where cutting off of noses is only in use, in exceptional cases — as when ulceration or other circumstances make it requisite — this operation is usually performed with the cuticle of the arm, and judiciously too, as, according to our custom, the head mostly is uncovered, and a scar on one's forehead, with a new nose on the face, makes rather an ugly appearance ; whilst, in the East, the scar remains hidden beneath the turban.

 

In time of peace, the Nahungs gave a great deal of trouble to Runjeet Sing. On one occasion, he was even forced to place two pieces of cannon outside the Delhi Gate of Lahore, in the vicinity of Seidgenj, where the robbers congregate, because this band dared to intercept the communication of that city. They shut themselves up in Meea-Meer, five miles distant from Lahore, thence they made their appearance as rebels, but they were defeated, and forced to depart, and from the town also, to Umritsir.

 

The individual just alluded to as deserving the gallows, had cut off the arm of a sentinel, for having prevented him from entering the tent of the king by a private entrance. The Nahung had a servant with him, who underwent no punishment, because he did not behave in an aggressive manner ; but the offender, by the order of Runjeet Singh, lost his ears, nose, and hands, by the same sabre with which he had so skilfully cut off the arm of the soldier on royal duty.

After the sad execution, he ran to drown himself in a well, but was prevented by the people who were accidentally present. When the king was informed of the fact, the culprit was sent to me, and put under my care and medical attendance, with strict orders to watch him, to prevent his committing suicide, and to present him, when cured, to the king. According to his own statement, he was drunk with bhang ( hemp ) when he committed the crime, and his only intention for intruding on the king had been to ask a gapa ( gift ). These robbers do not like to enter military service ; they prefer begging, and living by pillage.

[S1ngh 1,927]

Another interesting book that i read long time ago..  https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Man_Who_Would_Be_King.html?id=R2Q51iIenvEC

 

The Man Who Would Be King is the riveting story that inspired Kipling's classic tale and a John Huston movie

In the year 1838, a young adventurer, surrounded by his native troops and mounted on an elephant, raised the American flag on the summit of the Hindu Kush in the mountainous wilds of Afghanistan. He declared himself Prince of Ghor, Lord of the Hazarahs, spiritual and military heir to Alexander the Great.

The true story of Josiah Harlan, a Pennsylvania Quaker and the first American ever to enter Afghanistan, has never been told before, yet the life and writings of this extraordinary man echo down the centuries, as America finds itself embroiled once more in the land he first explored and described 180 years ago.

Soldier, spy, doctor, naturalist, traveler, and writer, Josiah Harlan wanted to be a king, with all the imperialist hubris of his times. In an extraordinary twenty-year journey around Central Asia, he was variously employed as surgeon to the Maharaja of Punjab, revolutionary agent for the exiled Afghan king, and then commander in chief of the Afghan armies. In 1838, he set off in the footsteps of Alexander the Great across the Hindu Kush and forged his own kingdom, only to be ejected from Afghanistan a few months later by the invading British.

Using a trove of newly discovered documents and Harlan's own unpublished journals, Ben Macintyre's The Man Who Would Be King tells the astonishing true story of the man who would be the first and last American king.

[dallysingh101 2,869]

6 hours ago, S1ngh said:

Another interesting book that i read long time ago..  https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Man_Who_Would_Be_King.html?id=R2Q51iIenvEC

 

The Man Who Would Be King is the riveting story that inspired Kipling's classic tale and a John Huston movie

In the year 1838, a young adventurer, surrounded by his native troops and mounted on an elephant, raised the American flag on the summit of the Hindu Kush in the mountainous wilds of Afghanistan. He declared himself Prince of Ghor, Lord of the Hazarahs, spiritual and military heir to Alexander the Great.

The true story of Josiah Harlan, a Pennsylvania Quaker and the first American ever to enter Afghanistan, has never been told before, yet the life and writings of this extraordinary man echo down the centuries, as America finds itself embroiled once more in the land he first explored and described 180 years ago.

Soldier, spy, doctor, naturalist, traveler, and writer, Josiah Harlan wanted to be a king, with all the imperialist hubris of his times. In an extraordinary twenty-year journey around Central Asia, he was variously employed as surgeon to the Maharaja of Punjab, revolutionary agent for the exiled Afghan king, and then commander in chief of the Afghan armies. In 1838, he set off in the footsteps of Alexander the Great across the Hindu Kush and forged his own kingdom, only to be ejected from Afghanistan a few months later by the invading British.

Using a trove of newly discovered documents and Harlan's own unpublished journals, Ben Macintyre's The Man Who Would Be King tells the astonishing true story of the man who would be the first and last American king.

I read a book about this guy years ago too. I think the author was a yank and there were antiSikh sentiments throughout the book. If it's the same one, I think he even called M. Ranjit Singh a gandu, and he is all doe-eyed about afghanistanis, which is ironic because they still have dancing boys to this day like proper gandus.   

[GurjantGnostic 1,504]

We are all born into families with a variety of "generational curses". Most will continue and some will break them entirely.