Life and Legacy of Joseph D. Beglar in India: Grandson of the Last Armenian Prince of Karabakh

· March 7, 2024

ARA A Journal of Literature and of Armenian Politics and History 16th February 1898 edited by Joseph D. Beglar (From Melik-Beglarian family of Gulistan), and published by G. Pogose 11, Wellesley Street Calcutta (Now Kolkata). Image Credits: Joseph D. Beglar and G. Pogose 11, Wellesley Street Calcutta (Now Kolkata).

BY ARUNANSH B. GOSWAMI

Zoroastrians, Jews, Armenians and Baha’is were all welcome in India. India also welcomed immigrants from Artsakh.

A royal scion from Karabakh contributed not just significantly in the documentation and preservation of Hindu and Buddhist heritage respectively but also translated into English a selection of the Office hymns from “Melodies of the Holy Apostolic Church of Armenia. Written down in modern notation, and published by Amy Apcar.” The name of the royal scion was Joseph D. Beglar (Beglarian). While in service he carried a survey of Delhi, tours in Bundelkhand, Malwa, Bengal with Bihar and Orissa, Central Provinces, and in South-east Provinces in India.

Artsakh has had historical connections with India. Members of Melik-Beglarian family of Gulistan migrated to India, and a royal scion of this family contributed significantly in discovering and preserving, Hindu and Buddhist historical sites in India. As per Indo-Armenian historian Mesrovb Jacob Seth a descendant of one of the Armenian Meliks of Karabagh, David Freedone Melik Beglar, who came out to India in 1813 as a deacon and a chorister to the Armenian Archbishop Phillippos, an envoy from the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, lies buried in the Armenian churchyard at Chinsurah in West Bengal state of India, where he died on the September 22, 1884, aged 89 years. In the epitaph on his tombstone, he is called “the son of the late Freedone Melik Beglaroff, last independent Prince of Karabakh in the Province of Tiflis, Caucasus.” His eldest son, Joseph Beglar, who died on April 24, 1907, aged 62 years, is likewise buried there.

One of the Melik family of Artsakh was that of Melik-Beglarians. Emil Sanamyan in his thesis “The Logic of Occupation in the Nagorno-Karabakh War: The Cases of Agdam and Shaumyan” mentions that “Shaumyan – known historically as Gulistan– was one of the five Karabakh Armenian statelets (melikdoms) that survived into the 18th century as part of the Persian Shah’s empire. During the intense intra-Iranian warfare of the 1790s, almost the entire population of Gulistan ended up as refugees in Georgia. Destitute and impoverished, the Melik-Beglarians of Gulistan – together with another displaced melik family from Karabakh, the Melik-Shahnazarians – set off for Saint Petersburg where they were received by Emperor Paul, who offered support. The offers materialized after Russian takeover of eastern Georgia in 1801, where the Karabakh meliks received the status of land-owning nobles.

In the 16-17th centuries, Artsakh Meliks spearheaded the liberation struggle of the Armenians against the Shah of Persia and the Sultan of Turkey. Along with the armed struggle Artsakh, meliks sent envoys to Europe and Russia asking for help from the Christian West.

Late Joseph D. Beglar the Armenian royal scion from Artsakh was Executive Engineer of the Public Works Department (PWD) and Archaeological Surveyor of Bengal in India, he was also an assistant to founder of Archaeological Survey of India, Alexander Cunningham. While Cunningham pursued his passion for tracing Buddhist monuments from the accounts of Chinese pilgrims, he was assisted by this royal scion from Artsakh. General Alexander Cunningham had advocated a nationwide mapping of India’s archaeological remains as early as 1848, he entrusted survey of Bundelkhand to Beglar. Cunningham in his Archaeological Report of the 1860s stated that Beglar prepared seventy photographic negatives of the temples he visited.

Beglar not only conserved one of the holiest pilgrimage sites of Buddhists in the world Bodh Gaya temple, but also took photographs of the ancient Bhitargaon Hindu temple near Kanpur and showed them to Cunningham, this temple was later preserved by Archaeological Survey of India. He also located several historical places in India, in Orissa and Madhya Pradesh. The antiquities of the village of Gyaraspur in Vidisha District of Madhya Pradesh were also first brought to light by him. He explored the town in 1871-72 and documented the Pathari ruins in Madhya Pradesh. He also explored monuments associated with Muslim rulers of Medieval India, Fatehpur Sikri was surveyed extensively by J.D. Beglar in the 1870s.

Situated at the site of the great Bodhi tree under which the Buddha gained enlightenment, Bodh Gaya temple is one of the most important pilgrimage site in India. Joseph Beglar was part of the archaeological survey team who conducted the restoration work. In an article in Daily News, Ven. Bhante S. Dhammika Thera mentions Joseph D. Beglar as “Architect in Bodh Gaya’s revival” he goes on to mention that “His (Joseph F. Beglar’s) contribution to uncovering, documenting and preserving India’s past was enormous although it has been largely overshadowed by his more famous colleague and superior Alexander Cunningham….In 1880, Beglar was chosen by the Bengal government to supervise repairs to the Mahabodhi Temple.”

Beglar placed a memorial stone in Bodh Gaya in which it was mentioned according to Bhante S. Dhammika that “This ancient temple of Mahabodhi, erected on the holy spot where Prince Sakya Singha became the Buddha, was repaired by the British government under Sir Ashley Eden, Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, Archaeological advisor to the government, Major General A. Cunningham, Architect Joseph David Beglar 1880.”

Arunansh B. Goswami is an Advocate in Supreme Court of India and Historian, New Delhi, India.

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