Chapter 9…

Chapter 9

=Rāna Sanga or Sangrām Singh; A.D. 1508-27=.—Sangram, better known in the annals of Mewar as Sanga (called Sanka by the Mogul historians),[4.9.1] succeeded in S. 1565 (A.D. 1509). With this prince Mewar reached the summit of her prosperity. To use their own metaphor, “he was the kalas[4.9.2] on the pinnacle of her glory.” From him we shall witness this glory on the wane; and though many rays of splendour illuminated her declining career, they served but to gild the ruin.

The imperial chair, since occupied by the Tuar descendant of the Pandus, and the first and last of the Chauhans, and which had been filled successively by the dynasties of Ghazni and Ghor, the Khilji and Lodi, was now shivered to pieces, and numerous petty thrones were constructed of its fragments. Mewar little dreaded these imperial puppets, “when Amurath to Amurath succeeded,” and when four kings reigned simultaneously between Delhi and Benares.[4.9.3] The kings of Malwa, though leagued with those of Gujarat, conjoined to the rebels, could make no impression on Mewar when Sanga led her heroes. Eighty thousand horse, seven Rajas of the highest rank, nine Raos, and one hundred and four chieftains bearing the titles of Rawal and Rawat, with five hundred war elephants, followed him into the field. The princes of Marwar and Amber[4.9.4] did him homage, and the Raos of Gwalior Ajmer, Sikri, Raesen,[4.9.5] Kalpi, Chanderi [300], Bundi, Gagraun, Rampura, and Abu, served him as tributaries or held of him in chief.

Sanga did not forget those who sheltered him in his reverses. Karamchand of Srinagar had a grant of Ajmer and the title of Rao for his son Jagmall, the reward of his services in the reduction of Chanderi.

=The Administration and Wars of Rāna Sanga.=—In a short space of time, Sanga entirely allayed the disorders occasioned by the intestine feuds of his family; and were it permitted to speculate on the cause which prompted a temporary cession of his rights and his dignities to his more impetuous brother, it might be discerned in a spirit of forecast, and of fraternal and patriotic forbearance, a deviation from which would have endangered the country as well as the safety of his family. We may assume this, in order to account for an otherwise pusillanimous surrender of his birthright, and being in contrast to all the subsequent heroism of his life, which, when he resigned, was contained within the wreck of a form. Sanga organized his forces, with which he always kept the field, and ere called to contend with the descendant of Timur, he had gained eighteen pitched battles against the kings of Delhi and Malwa. In two of these he was opposed by Ibrahim Lodi in person, at Bakrol and Ghatoli, in which last battle the imperial forces were defeated with great slaughter, leaving a prisoner of the blood royal to grace the triumph of Chitor. The Pilakhal (yellow rivulet) near Bayana became the northern boundary of Mewar, with the Sind River to the east,—touching Malwa to the south, while his native hills were an impenetrable barrier to the west. Thus swaying, directly or by control, the greater part of Rajasthan, and adored by the Rajputs for the possession of those qualities they hold in estimation, Sanga was ascending to the pinnacle of distinction; and had not fresh hordes of Usbeks and Tatars from the prolific shores of the Oxus and Jaxartes again poured down on the devoted plains of Hindustan, the crown of the Chakravartin[4.9.6] might again have encircled the brow of a Hindu, and the banner of supremacy been transferred from Indraprastha to the battlements of Chitor. But Babur arrived at a critical time to rally the dejected followers of the Koran, and to collect them around his own victorious standard.

=Invasions from Central Asia.=—From the earliest recorded periods of her history, India has been the prey of [301] the more hardy population from the central regions of Asia. From this fact we may infer another, namely, that its internal form of government was the same as at the present day, partitioned into numerous petty kingdoms, of tribes and clans, of a feudal federation, a prey to all the jealousies inseparable from such a condition. The historians of Alexander bear ample testimony to such form of government, when the Panjab alone possessed many sovereigns, besides the democracies of cities. The Persians overran it, and Darius the Mede accounted India the richest of his satrapies. The Greeks, the Parthians have left in their medals the best proofs of their power; the Getae or Yuti followed; and from the Ghori Shihabu-d-din to the Chagatai Babur, in less than three centuries, five invasions are recorded, each originating a dynasty. Sanga’s opponent was the last, and will continue so until the rays of knowledge renovate the ancient nursery of the human race,—then may end the anomaly in the history of power, of a handful of Britons holding the succession to the Mede, the Parthian, and the Tatar. But, however surprise may be excited at witnessing such rapidity of change, from the physical superiority of man over man, it is immeasurably heightened at the little moral consequence which in every other region of the world has always attended such concussions. Creeds have changed, races have mingled, and names have been effaced from the page of history; but in this corner of civilization we have no such result, and the Rajput remains the same singular being, concentrated in his prejudices, political and moral, as in the days of Alexander, desiring no change himself, and still less to cause any in others. Whatever be the conservative principle, it merits a philosophic analysis; but more, a proper application and direction, by those to whom the destinies of this portion of the globe are confided; for in this remote spot there is a nucleus of energy, on which may accumulate a mass for our support or our destruction.

To return: a descendant of the Turushka of the Jaxartes, the ancient foe of the children of Surya and Chandra, was destined to fulfil the prophetic Purana which foretold dominion “to the Turushka, the Yavan,” and other foreign races in Hind; and the conquered made a right application of the term Turk, both as regards its ancient and modern signification, when applied to the conquerors from Turkistan. Babur, the opponent of Sanga, was king of Ferghana, and of Turki race. His dominions were on both sides the Jaxartes, a portion of ancient [302] Sakatai, or Sakadwipa (Scythia), where dwelt Tomyris the Getic queen immortalized by Herodotus, and where her opponent erected Cyropolis, as did in after-times the Macedonian his most remote Alexandria. From this region did the same Getae, Jat, or Yuti, issue, to the destruction of Bactria, two centuries before the Christian era, and also five subsequent thereto to found a kingdom in Northern India. Again, one thousand years later, Babur issued with his bands to the final subjugation of India. As affecting India alone, this portion of the globe merits deep attention; but as the officina gentium, whence issued those hordes of Asii, Jats, or Yeuts (of whom the Angles were a branch), who peopled the shores of the Baltic, and the precursors of those Goths who, under Attila and Alaric, altered the condition of Europe, its importance is vastly enhanced.[4.9.7] But on this occasion it was not redundant population which made the descendant of Timur and Jenghiz abandon the Jaxartes for the Ganges, but unsuccessful ambition: for Babur quitted the delights of Samarkand as a fugitive, and commenced his enterprise, which gave him the throne of the Pandus, with less than two thousand adherents.

=Character of Bābur.=—The Rajput prince had a worthy antagonist in the king of Ferghana. Like Sanga, he was trained in the school of adversity, and like him, though his acts of personal heroism were even romantic, he tempered it with that discretion which looks to its results. In A.D. 1494, at the tender age of twelve, he succeeded to a kingdom; ere he was sixteen he defeated several confederacies and conquered Samarkand, and in two short years again lost and regained it. His life was a tissue of successes and reverses; at one moment hailed lord of the chief kingdoms of Transoxiana; at another flying, unattended, or putting all to hazard in desperate single combats, in one of which he slew five champions of his enemies. Driven at length from Ferghana, in despair he crossed the Hindu-Kush, and in 1519 the Indus. Between the Panjab and Kabul he lingered seven years, ere he advanced to measure his sword with Ibrahim of Delhi. Fortune returned to his standard; Ibrahim was slain, his army routed and dispersed, and Delhi and Agra opened their gates to the fugitive king of Ferghana. His reflections on success evince it was his due: “Not to me, O God! but to thee, be the victory!” says the chivalrous Babur. A year had elapsed in possession of Delhi, ere he ventured against the most powerful of his antagonists, Rana Sanga of Chitor.

With all Babur’s qualities as a soldier, supported by the hardy clans of the ‘cloud mountains’ (Belut Tagh) [303] of Karateghin,[4.9.8] the chances were many that he and they terminated their career on the ‘yellow rivulet’ of Bayana. Neither bravery nor skill saved him from this fate, which he appears to have expected. What better proof can be desired than Babur’s own testimony to the fact, that a horde of invaders from the Jaxartes, without support or retreat, were obliged to entrench themselves to the teeth in the face of their Rajput foe, alike brave and overpowering in numbers? To ancient jealousies he was indebted for not losing his life instead of gaining a crown, and for being extricated from a condition so desperate that even the frenzy of religion, which made death martyrdom in “this holy war,” scarcely availed to expel the despair which so infected his followers, that in the bitterness of his heart he says “there was not a single person who uttered a manly word, nor an individual who delivered a courageous opinion.”

=The Battle of Khānua, March 16, 1527.=—Babur advanced from Agra and Sikri to oppose Rana Sanga, in full march to attack him at the head of almost all the princes of Rajasthan. Although the annals state some points which the imperial historian has not recorded, yet both accounts of the conflict correspond in all the essential details. On the 5th of Kartik, S. 1584[4.9.9] (A.D. 1528), according to the annals, the Rana raised the siege of Bayana, and at Khanua encountered the advanced guard of the Tatars, amounting to fifteen hundred men, which was entirely destroyed; the fugitives carrying to the main body the accounts of the disaster, which paralysed their energies, and made them entrench for security, instead of advancing with the confidence of victory. Reinforcements met the same fate, and were pursued to the camp. Accustomed to reverses, Babur met the check without dismay, and adopted every precaution [304] that a mind fertile in expedients could suggest to reassure the drooping spirits of his troops. He threw up entrenchments, in which he placed his artillery, connecting his guns by chains, and in the more exposed parts chevaux de frise, united by leather ropes: a precaution continued in every subsequent change of position. Everything seemed to aid the Hindu cause: even the Tatar astrologer asserted that as Mars was in the west, whoever should engage coming from the opposite quarter should be defeated. In this state of total inactivity, blockaded in his encampment, Babur remained near a fortnight, when he determined to renounce his besetting sin, and merit superior aid to extricate himself from his peril: the naïveté of his vow must be given in his own words.[4.9.10] But the destruction of the wine flasks would appear only to have added to the existing consternation, and made him, as a last resort, appeal to their faith. Having addressed them in a speech of [305] manly courage, though bordering on despair, he seized the happy moment that his exhortation elicited, to swear them on the Koran to conquer or perish.[4.9.11] Profiting by this excitement, he broke up his camp, to which he had been confined nearly a month, and marched in order of battle to a position two miles in advance, the Rajputs skirmishing up to his guns. Without a regular circumvallation, his movable pallisadoes and guns chained, he felt no security. The inactivity of Sanga can scarcely escape censure, however we may incline to palliate it by supposing that he deemed his enemy in the toils, and that every day’s delay brought with it increased danger to him. Such reasoning would be valid, if the heterogeneous mass by which the prince of Mewar was surrounded had owned the same patriotic sentiments as himself: but he ought to have known his countrymen, nor overlooked the regulating maxim of their ambition, get land. Delay was fatal to this last coalition against the foes of his race. Babur is silent on the point to which the annals ascribe their discomfiture, a negotiation pending his blockade at Khanua; but these have preserved it, with the name of the traitor who sold the cause of his country. The negotiation[4.9.12] had reached this point, that on condition of Babur being left Delhi and its dependencies, the Pilakhal at Bayana should be the boundary of their respective dominions, and even an annual tribute was offered to the Rana [306]. We can believe that in the position Babur then was, he would not scruple to promise anything. The chief of Raesen, by name Salehdi, of the Tuar tribe, was the medium of communication, and though the arrangement was negatived, treason had effected the salvation of Babur.

On March 16 the attack commenced by a furious onset on the centre and right wing of the Tatars, and for several hours the conflict was tremendous. Devotion was never more manifest on the side of the Rajput, attested by the long list of noble names amongst the slain as well as the bulletin of their foe, whose artillery made dreadful havoc in the close ranks of the Rajput cavalry, which could not force the entrenchments, nor reach the infantry which defended them. While the battle was still doubtful, the Tuar traitor who led the van (harawal) went over to Babur, and Sanga was obliged to retreat from the field, which in the onset promised a glorious victory, himself severely wounded and the choicest of his chieftains slain: Rawal Udai[4.9.13] Singh of Dungarpur, with two hundred of his clan; Ratna of Salumbar, with three hundred of his Chondawat kin; Raemall Rathor, son of the prince of Marwar, with the brave Mertia leaders Khetsi and Ratna; Ramdas the Sonigira Rao; Uja the Jhala; Gokuldas Pramara; Manikchand and Chandrbhan, Chauhan chiefs of the first rank in Mewar; besides a host of inferior names.[4.9.14] Hasan Khan of Mewat, and a son of the last Lodi king of Delhi, who coalesced with Sanga, were amongst the killed.[4.9.15] Triumphal pyramids were raised of the heads of the slain, and on a hillock which overlooked the field of battle a tower of skulls was erected; and the conqueror assumed the title of Ghazi, which has ever since been retained by his descendants.

=The Death of Rāna Sanga.=—Sanga retreated towards the hills of Mewat, having announced his fixed determination never to re-enter Chitor but with victory. Had his life been spared to his country, he might have redeemed the pledge; but the year of his defeat was the last of his existence, and he died at Baswa,[4.9.16] on the frontier of Mewat, not without suspicion of poison. It is painful to record the surmise that his ministers prompted the deed, and the cause is one which would fix a deep stain on the country; namely, the purchase by regicide of inglorious ease and stipulated safety, in [307] preference to privations and dangers, and to emulating the manly constancy of their prince, who resolved to make the heavens his canopy till his foe was crushed—a determination which was pursued with the most resolute perseverance by some of his gallant successors.

=Evils resulting from Polygamy.=—Polygamy is the fertile source of evil, moral as well as physical, in the East. It is a relic of barbarism and primeval necessity, affording a proof that ancient Asia is still young in knowledge. The desire of each wife,[4.9.17] that her offspring should wear a crown, is natural; but they do not always wait the course of nature for the attainment of their wishes, and the love of power too often furnishes instruments for any deed, however base. When we see, shortly after the death of Sanga, the mother of his second son intriguing with Babur, and bribing him with the surrender of Ranthambhor and the trophy of victory, the crown of the Malwa king, to supplant the lawful heir, we can easily suppose she would not have scrupled to remove any other bar. On this occasion, however, the suspicion rests on the ministers alone. That Babur respected and dreaded his foe we have the best proof in his not risking another battle with him; and the blame which he bestows on himself for the slackness of his pursuit after victory is honourable to Sanga, who is always mentioned with respect in the commentaries of the conqueror: and although he generally styles him the Pagan, and dignifies the contest with the title of “the holy war,” yet he freely acknowledges his merit when he says, “Rana Sanga attained his present high eminence by his own valour and his sword.”

=Appearance of Rāna Sanga.=—Sanga Rana was of the middle stature, but of great muscular strength; fair in complexion, with unusually large eyes, which appear to be peculiar to his descendants.[4.9.18] He exhibited at his death but the fragments of a warrior: one eye was lost in the broil with his brother; an arm in an action with the Lodi king of Delhi, and he was a cripple owing to a limb being broken by a cannon-ball in another [308]; while he counted eighty wounds from the sword or the lance on various parts of his body. He was celebrated for energetic enterprise, of which his capture of Muzaffar, king of Malwa, in his own capital, is a celebrated instance; and his successful storm of the almost impregnable Ranthambhor, though ably defended by the imperial general Ali, gained him great renown. He erected a small palace at Khanua, on the line which he determined should be the northern limit of Mewar; and had he been succeeded by a prince possessed of his foresight and judgment, Babur’s descendants might not have retained the sovereignty of India. A cenotaph long marked the spot where the fire consumed the remains of this celebrated prince. Sanga had seven sons, of whom the two elder died in non-age. He was succeeded by the third son,

=Rāna Ratan Singh II., A.D. 1527-31.=—Ratna (S. 1586, A.D. 1530) possessed all the arrogance and martial virtue of his race. Like his father, he determined to make the field his capital, and commanded that the gates of Chitor never should be closed, boasting that “its portals were Delhi and Mandu.” Had he been spared to temper by experience the exuberance of youthful impetuosity, he would have well seconded the resolution of his father, and the league against the enemies of his country and faith. But he was not destined to pass the age always dangerous to the turbulent and impatient Rajput, ever courting strife if it would not find him. He had married by stealth the daughter of Prithiraj of Amber, probably before the death of his elder brothers made him heir to Chitor. His double-edged sword, the proxy of the Rajput cavalier, represented Ratna on this occasion.[4.9.19] Unfortunately it was kept but too secret; for the Hara prince of Bundi,[4.9.20] in ignorance of the fact, demanded and obtained her to wife, and carried her to his capital. The consequences are attributable to the Rana alone, for he ought, on coming to the throne, to have espoused her; but his vanity was flattered at the mysterious transaction, which he deemed would prevent all application for the hand of his ‘affianced’ (manga). The bards of Bundi are rather pleased to record the power of their princes, who dared to solicit and obtain the hand of the ‘bride’ of Chitor. The princes of Bundi had long been attached to the Sesodia house: and from the period when their common ancestors fought together on the banks of the Ghaggar against [309] Shihabu-d-din, they had silently grown to power under the wing of Mewar, and often proved a strong plume in her pinion. The Hara inhabited the hilly tract on her eastern frontier, and though not actually incorporated with Mewar, they yet paid homage to her princes, bore her ensigns and titles, and in return often poured forth their blood. But at the tribunal of Ananga,[4.9.21] the Rajput scattered all other homage and allegiance to the winds. The maiden of Amber saw no necessity for disclosing her secret or refusing the brave Hara, of whom fame spoke loudly, when Ratna delayed to redeem his proxy.

=Death of Rāna Ratan Singh.=—The unintentional offence sank deep into the heart of the Rana, and though he was closely connected with the Hara, having married his sister, he brooded on the means of revenge, in the attainment of which he sacrificed his own life as well as that of his rival. The festival of the Aheria[4.9.22] (the spring hunt), which has thrice been fatal to the princes of Mewar, gave the occasion, when they fell by each other’s weapons. Though Ratna enjoyed the dignity only five years, he had the satisfaction to see the ex-king of Ferghana, now founder of the Mogul dynasty of India, leave the scene before him, and without the diminution of an acre of land to Mewar since the fatal day of Bayana. Rana Ratna was succeeded by his brother,

=Rāna Bikramajīt, A.D. 1531-35.=—Bikramajit,[4.9.23] in S. 1591 (A.D. 1535). This prince had all the turbulence, without the redeeming qualities of character, which endeared his brother to his subjects; he was insolent, passionate, and vindictive, and utterly regardless of that respect which his proud nobles rigidly exacted. Instead of appearing at their head, he passed his time amongst wrestlers and prize-fighters, on whom and a multitude of ‘paiks,’ or foot soldiers, he lavished those gifts and that approbation, to which the aristocratic Rajput, the equestrian order of Rajasthan, arrogated exclusive right. In this innovation he probably imitated his foes, who had learned the superiority of infantry, despised by the Rajput, who, except in sieges, or when ‘they spread the carpet and hamstrung their steeds,’ held the foot-soldier very cheap. The use of artillery was now becoming general, and the [310] Muslims soon perceived the necessity of foot for their protection: but prejudice operated longer upon the Rajput, who still curses ‘those vile guns,’ which render of comparatively little value the lance of many a gallant soldier; and he still prefers falling with dignity from his steed to descending to an equality with his mercenary antagonist.

An open rupture was the consequence of such innovation, and (to use the figurative expression for misrule) ‘Papa Bai ka Raj’[4.9.24] was triumphant; the police were despised; the cattle carried off by the mountaineers from under the walls of Chitor; and when his cavaliers were ordered in pursuit, the Rana was tauntingly told to send his paiks.

=The Attack by Bahādur, Sultān of Gujarāt.=—Bahadur, sultan of Gujarat, determined to take advantage of the Rajput divisions, to revenge the disgrace of the defeat and captivity of his predecessor Muzaffar.[4.9.25] Reinforced by the troops of Mandu, he marched against the Rana, then encamped at Loicha, in the Bundi territory. Though the force was overwhelming, yet with the high courage which belonged to his house, Bikramajit did not hesitate to give battle; but he found weak defenders in his mercenary paiks, while his vassals and kin not only kept aloof, but marched off in a body to defend Chitor, and the posthumous son of Sanga Rana, still an infant.

There is a sanctity in the very name of Chitor, which from the earliest times secured her defenders; and now, when threatened again by ‘the barbarian,’ such the inexplicable character of the Rajput, we find the heir of Surajmall abandoning his new capital of Deolia, to pour out the few drops which yet circulated in his veins in defence of the abode of his fathers.

‘The son of Bundi,’ with a brave band of five hundred Haras, also came; as did the Sonigira and Deora Raos of Jalor and Abu, with many auxiliaries from all parts of Rajwara. This was the most powerful effort hitherto made by the sultans of Central India, and European artillerists[4.9.26] are recorded in these [311] annals as brought to the subjugation of Chitor. The engineer is styled ‘Labri Khan of Fringan,’ and to his skill Bahadur was indebted for the successful storm which ensued. He sprung a mine at the ‘Bika rock,’ which blew up forty-five cubits of the rampart, with the bastion where the brave Haras were posted. The Bundi bards dwell on this incident, which destroyed their prince and five hundred of his kin. Rao Durga, with the Chondawat chieftains Sata and Dudu and their vassals, bravely defended the breach and repelled many assaults; and, to set an example of courageous devotion, the queen-mother Jawahir Bai, of Rathor race, clad in armour, headed a sally in which she was slain. Still the besiegers gained ground, and the last council convened was to concert means to save the infant son of Sanga from this imminent peril.

=Crowning of a New Rāna.=—But Chitor can only be defended by royalty, and again they had recourse to the expedient of crowning a king, as a sacrifice to the dignity of the protecting deity of Chitor. Baghji, prince of Deolia, courted the insignia of destruction; the banner of Mewar floated over him, and the golden sun from its sable field never shone more refulgent than when the changi[4.9.27] was raised amidst the shouts of her defenders over the head of the son of Surajmall.

=The Johar.=—The infant, Udai Singh, was placed in safety with Surthan, prince of Bundi,[4.9.28] the garrison put on their saffron robes, while materials for the johar were preparing. There was little time for the pyre. The bravest had fallen in defending the breach, now completely exposed. Combustibles were quickly heaped up in reservoirs and magazines excavated in the rock, under which gunpowder was strewed. Karnavati, mother of the prince, and sister to the gallant Arjun Hara, led the procession of willing victims to their doom, and thirteen thousand females were thus swept at once from the record of life. The gates were thrown open, and the Deolia chief, at the head of the survivors, with a blind and impotent despair, rushed on his fate [312].

Bahadur must have been appalled at the horrid sight on viewing his conquest;[4.9.29] the mangled bodies of the slain, with hundreds in the last agonies from the poniard or poison, awaiting death as less dreadful than dishonour and captivity.[4.9.30] To use the emphatic words of the annalist, “the last day of Chitor had arrived.” Every clan lost its chief, and the choicest of their retainers; during the siege and in the storm thirty-two thousand Rajputs were slain. This is the second sakha of Chitor.

Bahadur had remained but a fortnight, when the tardy advance of Humayun with his succours warned him to retire.[4.9.31] According to the annals, he left Bengal at the solicitation of the queen Karnavati; but instead of following up the spoil-encumbered foe, he commenced a pedantic war of words with Bahadur, punning on the word ‘Chitor.’ Had Humayun not been so distant, this catastrophe would have been averted, for he was bound by the laws of chivalry, the claims of which he had acknowledged, to defend the queen’s cause, whose knight he had become. The relation of the peculiarity of a custom analogous to the taste of the chivalrous age of Europe may amuse. When her Amazonian sister the Rathor queen was slain, the mother of the infant prince took a surer method to shield him in demanding the fulfilment of the pledge given by Humayun when she sent the Rakhi to that monarch.

=The Rākhi.=—‘The festival of the bracelet’ (Rakhi) is in spring, and whatever its origin, it is one of the few when an intercourse of gallantry of the most delicate nature is established between the fair sex and the cavaliers of Rajasthan. Though the bracelet may be sent by maidens, it is only on occasions of urgent necessity or danger. The Rajput dame bestows with the Rakhi the title of adopted brother; and while its acceptance secures to her all the protection of a cavalière servente, scandal itself never suggests any other tie to his devotion. He may hazard his life in her cause, and yet never receive a smile in reward, for he cannot even see the fair object who, as brother of her adoption, has constituted him her defender. But there is a charm in the mystery of such connexion, never endangered by close observation, and the loyal to the fair may well attach a value [313] to the public recognition of being the Rakhi-band Bhai, the ‘bracelet-bound brother’ of a princess. The intrinsic value of such pledge is never looked to, nor is it requisite it should be costly, though it varies with the means and rank of the donor, and may be of flock silk and spangles, or gold chains and gems. The acceptance of the pledge and its return is by the kachhli, or corset, of simple silk or satin, of gold brocade and pearls. In shape or application there is nothing similar in Europe, and as defending the most delicate part of the structure of the fair, it is peculiarly appropriate as an emblem of devotion. A whole province has often accompanied the Kachhli, and the monarch of India was so pleased with this courteous delicacy in the customs of Rajasthan, on receiving the bracelet of the princess Karnavati, which invested him with the title of her brother, and uncle and protector to her infant Udai Singh, that he pledged himself to her service, “even if the demand were the castle of Ranthambhor.” Humayun proved himself a true knight, and even abandoned his conquests in Bengal when called on to redeem his pledge and succour Chitor, and the widows and minor sons of Sanga Rana.[4.9.32] Humayun had the highest proofs of the worth of those courting his protection; he was with his father Babur in all his wars in India, and at the battle of Bayana his prowess was conspicuous, and is recorded by Babur’s own pen. He amply fulfilled his pledge, expelled the foe from Chitor, took Mandu by assault, and, as some revenge for her king’s aiding the king of Gujarat, he sent for the Rana Bikramajit, whom, following their own notions of investiture, he girt with a sword in the captured citadel of his foe.[4.9.33]

The Muhammadan historians, strangers to their customs, or the secret motives which caused the emperor to abandon Bengal, ascribe it to the Rana’s solicitation; but we may credit the annals, which are in unison with the chivalrous notions of the Rajputs, into which succeeding monarchs, the great Akbar, his son [314] Jahangir, and Shah Jahan, entered with delight; and even Aurangzeb, two of whose original letters to the queen-mother of Udaipur are now in the author’s possession, and are remarkable for their elegance and purity of diction, and couched in terms perfectly accordant with Rajput delicacy.[4.9.34]

=Restoration of Bikramajīt.=—Bikramajit, thus restored to his capital, had gained nothing by adversity; or, to employ the words of the annalist, “experience had yielded no wisdom.” He renewed all his former insolence to his chiefs, and so entirely threw aside his own dignity, and, what is of still greater consequence, the reverence universally shown to old age, as to strike in open court Karamchand of Ajmer, the protector of his father Sanga in his misfortunes. The assembly rose with one accord at this indignity to their order; and as they retired, the Chondawat leader Kanji, the first of the nobles, exclaimed, “Hitherto, brother chiefs, we have had but a smell of the blossom, but now we shall be obliged to eat the fruit”; to which the insulted Pramara added, as he hastily retired, “To-morrow its flavour will be known.”

Though the Rajput looks up to his sovereign as to a divinity, and is enjoined implicit obedience by his religion, which rewards him accordingly hereafter, yet this doctrine has its limits, and precedents are abundant for deposal, when the acts of the prince may endanger the realm. But there is a bond of love as well as of awe which restrains them, and softens its severity in the paternity of sway; for these princes are at once the father and king of their people: not in fiction, but reality—for he is the representative of the common ancestor of the aristocracy—the sole lawgiver of Rajasthan.

=Death of Rāna Bikramajīt.=—Sick of these minors (and they had now a third in prospect), which in a few years had laid prostrate the throne of Mewar, her nobles on leaving their unworthy prince repaired to Banbir, the natural son of the heroic Prithiraj, and offered “to seat him on the throne of Chitor.” He had the virtue to resist the solicitation; and it was only on painting the dangers which threatened the country, if its chief at such a period had not their confidence, that he gave his consent. The step between the deposal and death of a king is necessarily short [315], and the cries of the females, which announced the end of Bikramajit, were drowned in the acclamations raised on the elevation of the changi over the head of the bastard Banbir.

-----

Footnote 4.8.1:

[The dates given in the margin are based on recently found inscriptions (Har Bilas Sarda, Maharana Kumbha: Sovereign, Soldier, Scholar, Ajmer, 1917, p. 2).]

Footnote 4.8.2:

The Raj Ratana, by Ranchhor Bhat, says: “The Mandor Rao was pardhan, or premier to Mokal, and conquered Nawa and Didwana for Mewar.”

Footnote 4.8.3:

[It is the generosity of Rāna Sanga to Muzaffar Shāh of which Abu-l Fazl speaks (Āīn, ii. 221).]

Footnote 4.8.4:

[The Musalmān historians give a different account. Ferishta says that Mahmūd stormed the lower part of Chitor, and that the Rāna fled (iv. 209). At any rate, Mahmūd erected a tower of victory at Māndu (IGI, xvii. 173). The result was probably indecisive. For Kūmbha’s pillar see Fergusson, Hist. Indian Architecture, ii. 59; Smith, HFA, 202 f.]

Footnote 4.8.5:

Pronounced Kumalmer.

Footnote 4.8.6:

[Grandson of Asoka (Smith, EHI, 192 f.).]

Footnote 4.8.7:

[For the Ābu temples see Tod, Western India, 75 ff.; Erskine iii. A. 295.]

Footnote 4.8.8:

A powerful phrase, indicating ‘possessor of the soil.’

Footnote 4.8.9:

The Rana’s minister, of the Jain faith, and of the tribe Porwar (one of the twelve and a half divisions), laid the foundation of this temple in A.D. 1438. It was completed by subscription. It consists of three stories, and is supported by numerous columns of granite, upwards of forty feet in height. The interior is inlaid with mosaics of cornelian and agate. The statues of the Jain saints are in its subterranean vaults. We could not expect much elegance at a period when the arts had long been declining, but it would doubtless afford a fair specimen of them, and enable us to trace their gradual descent in the scale of refinement. This temple is an additional proof of the early existence of the art of inlaying. That I did not see it is now to me one of the many vain regrets which I might have avoided.

Footnote 4.8.10:

Gita Govinda.

Footnote 4.8.11:

[She was daughter of Ratiya Rāna, and was married to Kūmbha in 1413. Her great work is the Rāg Gobind (Grierson, Modern Literature of Hindustan, 12; Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion, vi. 342 ff.; IA, xxv. 19, xxxii. 329 ff.; ASR, xxiii. 106). As an illustration of the uncertainty of early Mewār history, according to Har Bilas Sarda, author of the monograph on Rāna Kūmbha, Mīra Bāi was not wife of Kūmbha, but of Bhojrāj, son of Rāna Sanga. She was daughter of Ratan Singh of Merta, fourth son of Rāo Duda (A.D. 1461-62). She was married to Bhojrāj A.D. 1516, and died in 1546.]

Footnote 4.8.12:

Jagat Khunt, or Dwarka.

Footnote 4.8.13:

The darkest of the rainy months.

Footnote 4.8.14:

Jodha laid the foundation of his new capital in S. 1515 [A.D. 1459], ten years anterior to the event we are recording.

Footnote 4.8.15:

[See p. 268 above.]

Footnote 4.8.16:

He had observed that his father, ever since the victory over the king at Jhunjhunu, before he took a seat, thrice waved his sword in circles over his head, pronouncing at the same time some incantation. Inquiry into the meaning of this was the cause of his banishment.

Footnote 4.8.17:

During the rains of 1820, when the author was residing at Udaipur, the Rana fell ill; his complaint was an intermittent (which for several years returned with the monsoon), at the same time that he was jaundiced with bile. An intriguing Brahman, who managed the estates of the Rana’s eldest sister, held also the twofold office of physician and astrologer to the Rana. He had predicted that year as one of evil in his horoscope, and was about to verify the prophecy, since, instead of the active medicines requisite, he was administering the Haft dhat, or ‘seven metals,’ compounded. Having a most sincere regard for the Rana’s welfare, the author seized the opportunity of a full court being assembled on the distribution of swords and coco-nuts preparatory to the military festival, to ask a personal favour. The Rana, smiling, said that it was granted, when he was entreated to leave off the poison he was taking. He did so; the amendment was soon visible, and, aided by the medicines of Dr. Duncan, which he readily took, his complaint was speedily cured. The ‘man of fate and physic’ lost half his estates, which he had obtained through intrigue. He was succeeded by Amra the bard, who is not likely to ransack the pharmacopoeia for such poisonous ingredients; his ordinary prescription being the ‘amrit.’

Footnote 4.8.18:

[Ferishta does not mention these campaigns (iv. 236 ff.), and Ghiyāsu-d-dīn (A.D. 1469-99) is said to have spent his life in luxury and never to have left his palace (BG, i. Part i. 362 ff.).]

Footnote 4.8.19:

His name classically is Sangram Singh, ‘the lion of war.’

Footnote 4.8.20:

[Infusion of opium.]

Footnote 4.8.21:

About ten miles east of Udaipur.

Footnote 4.8.22:

Singhasan is the ancient term for the Hindu throne, signifying ‘the lion-seat.’ Charans, bards, who are all Maharajas, ‘great princes,’ by courtesy, have their seats of the hide of the lion, tiger, panther, or black antelope.

Footnote 4.8.23:

Nearly ten miles south-east of Ajmer.

Footnote 4.8.24:

Jai Singh Baleo and Jaimu Sindhal.

Footnote 4.8.25:

[A common folk-tale, told of Malhar Rāo Holkar and many other princes (Crooke, Popular Religion Northern India, ii. 142; Malcolm, Memoir of Central India, 2nd ed. i. 143 f.; E. S. Hartland, Ritual and Belief, 323 f.).]

Footnote 4.8.26:

Called the devi, about the size of the wagtail, and like it, black and white.

Footnote 4.8.27:

Chhatrdhāri.

Footnote 4.8.28:

The names of his followers were, Jasa Sindhal, Sangam (Dabhi), Abha, Jana, and a Badel Rathor.

Footnote 4.8.29:

The grant in the preamble denounces a curse on any of Prithiraj’s descendants who should resume it. I have often conversed with this descendant, who held Sodhgarh and its lands, which were never resumed by the princes of Chitor, though they reverted to Marwar. The chief still honours the Rana, and many lives have been sacrificed to maintain his claims, and with any prospect of success he would not hesitate to offer his own.

Footnote 4.8.30:

This is a genuine Hindu name, ‘the Hero’s refuge,’ from sur, ‘a warrior,’ and than, ‘an abode.’

Footnote 4.8.31:

[There is an error here: there was no contemporary Sultan of Mālwa of this name.]

Footnote 4.8.32:

Near Chitor.

Footnote 4.8.33:

‘Regent’; the title the Rana is most familiarly known by.

Footnote 4.8.34:

Thali, ‘a brass platter.’ This is the highest mark of confidence and friendship.

Footnote 4.8.35:

This compound of the betel or areca-nut, cloves, mace, Terra japonica, and prepared lime, is always taken after meals, and has not unfrequently been a medium for administering poison.

Footnote 4.8.36:

Hours of twenty-two minutes each.

Footnote 4.8.37:

Familiar contraction of Surajmall.

Footnote 4.8.38:

[Anogeissus latifolia.]

Footnote 4.8.39:

The Hindu Proserpine, or Calligenia. Is this Grecian handmaid of Hecate also Hindu, ‘born of time’ (Kali-janama)? [Καλλιγένεια, ‘bearer of fair offspring,’ has, of course, no connexion with Kāli.]

Footnote 4.8.40:

Gaunda, or Gaunra, is the name of such temporary places of refuge; the origin of towns bearing this name.

Footnote 4.8.41:

Such grants are irresumable, under the penalty of sixty thousand years in hell. This fine district is eaten up by these mendicant Brahmans. One town alone, containing 52,000 bighas (about 15,000 acres) of rich land, is thus lost; and by such follies Mewar has gradually sunk to her present extreme poverty.

Footnote 4.8.42:

[Kānthal, in Partābgarh State, is the boundary (Kāntha) between Mewār on the north, Bāgar on the west, and Mālwa on the east and south.]

Footnote 4.8.43:

[The statement in the text that Sūrajmall, son of Uda, retired to Deolia is incorrect. Sūrajmall was first-cousin, not son of Uda, and it was his great-grandson, Bīka, who conquered the Kānthal and founded the town of Deolia at least fifty years later (Erskine ii. A. 197).]

Footnote 4.8.44:

The walls of his palace are still pointed out.

Footnote 4.9.1:

[Āīn, ii. 270.]

Footnote 4.9.2:

The ball or urn which crowns the pinnacle (sikhar).

Footnote 4.9.3:

Delhi, Bayana, Kalpi, and Jaunpur.

Footnote 4.9.4:

Prithiraj was yet but Rao of Amber, a name now lost in Jaipur. The twelve sons of this prince formed the existing subdivisions or clans of the Kachhwahas, whose political consequence dates from Humayun, the son and successor of Babur.

Footnote 4.9.5:

[Sīkri, afterwards Fatehpur Sīkri, the site of Akbar’s palace; Rāēsen in Bhopāl State (IGI, xxi. 62 f.).]

Footnote 4.9.6:

Universal potentate: [“he whose chariot wheels run everywhere without obstruction”]; the Hindus reckon only six of these in their history.

Footnote 4.9.7:

[As usual, the Indian Jāts are identified with the Getae, Iutae or Iuti, Jutes of Bede.]

Footnote 4.9.8:

[The author borrows from Elphinstone, Caubul, i. 118.] The literary world is much indebted to Mr. Erskine for his Memoirs of Baber, a work of a most original stamp and rare value for its extensive historical and geographical details of a very interesting portion of the globe. The king of Ferghana, like Caesar, was the historian of his own conquests, and unites all the qualities of the romantic troubadour to those of the warrior and statesman. It is not saying too much when it is asserted, that Mr. Erskine is the only person existing who could have made such a translation, or preserved the great charm of the original—its elevated simplicity; and though his modesty makes him share the merit with Dr. Leyden, it is to him the public thanks are due. Mr. Erskine’s introduction is such as might have been expected from his well-known erudition and research, and with the notes interspersed adds immensely to the value of the original. [A new translation by Mrs. Beveridge is in course of publication.] With his geographical materials, those of Mr. Elphinstone, and the journal of the Voyage d’Orenbourg à Bokhara, full of merit and modesty, we now possess sufficient materials for the geography of the nursery of mankind. I would presume to amend one valuable geographical notice (Introd. p. 27), and which only requires the permutation of a vowel, Kas-mer for Kas-mir; when we have, not ‘the country of the Kas,’ but the Kasia Montes (mer) of Ptolemy: the Kho (mer) Kas, or Caucasus. Mir has no signification, Mer is ‘mountain’ in Sanskrit, as is Kho in Persian. [The origin of the name Kashmīr is very doubtful: but the view in the text cannot be accepted (see Stein, Rājatarangini, ii. 353, 386; Smith, EHI, 38, note; IA, xliii. 143 ff.).] Kas was the race inhabiting these: and Kasgar, the Kasia Regio of Ptolemy [Chap. 15]. Gar [or garh] is a Sanskrit word still in use for a ‘region,’ as Kachhwahagar, Gujargar. [See Elliot, Supplementary Glossary, 237.] A new edition of Erskine’s translation, edited by Professor White King, is in course of publication.

Footnote 4.9.9:

According to the Memoirs of Baber, February 11, 1527. [The battle was fought at Khānua or Kanwāha, now in the Bharatpur State, about twenty miles from Agra (Abu-l Fazl, Akbarnāma, i. 259 f.; Ferishta ii. 55), on March 16, 1527. Ferishta says that the provocation came from Rāna Sanga, who attacked Nāzim Khān, Governor of Bayāna, on which the latter appealed to Bābur (ii. 51). Bābur says that Sanga broke his engagement (Elliot-Dowson iv. 264; Badaoni, Muntakhabu-t-tawārīkh, i. 444, 470).]

Footnote 4.9.10:

"On Monday, the 23rd of the first Jemadi, I had mounted to survey my posts, and in the course of my ride was seriously struck with the reflection, that I had always resolved, one time or another, to make an effectual repentance, and that some traces of a hankering after the renunciation of forbidden works had ever remained in my heart: I said to myself, ‘O, my soul.’

(Persian Verse.)

"‘How long wilt thou continue to take pleasure in sin? Repentance is not unpalatable—taste it.

(Turki Verse.)

"‘How great has been thy defilement from sin! How much pleasure thou didst take in despair! How long hast thou been the slave of thy passions! How much of thy life hast thou thrown away! Since thou hast set out on a holy war, Thou hast seen death before thine eyes for thy salvation. He who resolves to sacrifice his life to save himself Shall attain that exalted state which thou knowest. Keep thyself far away from all forbidden enjoyments; Cleanse thyself from all thy sins.’

"Having withdrawn myself from such temptation, I vowed never more to drink wine. Having sent for the gold and silver goblets and cups, with all the other utensils used for drinking parties, I directed them to be broken, and renounced the use of wine, purifying my mind. The fragments of the goblets and other utensils of gold and silver I directed to be divided among derwishes and the poor. The first person who followed me in my repentance was Asas, who also accompanied me in my resolution of ceasing to cut the beard, and of allowing it to grow. That night and the following, numbers of Amirs and courtiers, soldiers, and persons not in the service, to the number of nearly three hundred men, made vows of reformation. The wine which we had with us we poured on the ground. I ordered that the wine brought by Baba Dost should have salt thrown into it, that it might be made into vinegar. On the spot where the wine had been poured out I directed a wāīn to be sunk and built of stone, and close by the wāīn an almshouse to be erected. In the month of Moharrem in the year 935, when I went to visit Gualiar, in my way from Dholpur to Sikri, I found this wāīn completed. I had previously made a vow, that if I gained the victory over Rana Sanka the Pagan, I would remit the Temgha (or stamp-tax) levied from Musulmans. At the time when I made my vow of penitence, Derwish Muhammed Sarban and Sheikh Zin put me in mind of my promise. I said, ‘You did right to remind me of this: I renounce the temgha in all my dominions, so far as concerns Musulmans’; and I sent for my secretaries, and desired them to write and send to all my dominions firmans conveying intelligence of the two important incidents that had occurred" (Memoirs of Baber, p. 354). [Elliot-Dowson iv. 269.]

Footnote 4.9.11:

"At this time, as I have already observed, in consequence of preceding events, a general consternation and alarm prevailed among great and small. There was not a single person who uttered a manly word, nor an individual who delivered a courageous opinion. The Vazirs, whose duty it was to give good counsel, and the Amirs, who enjoyed the wealth of kingdoms, neither spoke bravely, nor was their counsel or deportment such as became men of firmness. During the whole course of this expedition, Khalifeh conducted himself admirably, and was unremitting and indefatigable in his endeavours to put everything in the best order. At length, observing the universal discouragement of my troops, and their total want of spirit, I formed my plan. I called an assembly of all the Amirs and officers, and addressed them: ‘Noblemen and soldiers! Every man that comes into the world is subject to dissolution. When we are passed away and gone, God only survives, unchangeable. Whoever comes to the feast of life must, before it is over, drink from the cup of death. He who arrives at the inn of mortality must one day inevitably take his departure from that house of sorrow, the world. How much better it is to die with honour than to live with infamy!

"‘With fame, even if I die, I am contented; Let fame be mine, since my body is death’s.

"‘The most high God has been propitious to us, and has now placed us in such a crisis, that if we fall in the field we die the death of martyrs; if we survive, we rise victorious, the avengers of the cause of God. Let us, then, with one accord, swear on God’s holy word, that none of us will even think of turning his face from this warfare, nor desert from the battle and slaughter that ensues, till his soul is separated from his body.’

“Master and servant, small and great, all with emulation, seizing the blessed Koran in their hands, swore in the form that I had given. My plan succeeded to admiration, and its effects were instantly visible far and near, on friend and foe” (Memoirs of Baber, p. 357).

Footnote 4.9.12:

Babur says, “Although Rana Sanka (Sanga) the Pagan, when I was at Cabul, sent me ambassadors, and had arranged with me that if I would march upon Delhi he would on Agra; but when I took Delhi and Agra, the Pagan did not move” (Memoirs of Baber, p. 339).

Footnote 4.9.13:

In the translation of Babur’s Memoirs, Udai Singh is styled ‘Wali of the country,’ confounding him with Udai Singh, successor of Sanga. He was Wali (sovereign) of Dungarpur, not ‘Oodipoor,’ which was not then in existence. [Erskine, in his later work (Hist. India, i. 473, note), admits his error.]

Footnote 4.9.14:

[A list of the slain, nearly identical, is given by Abu-l Fazl, Akbarnāma, i. 265.]

Footnote 4.9.15:

[The author confuses Hasan Khān, Mewāti, an important officer (Ferishta ii. 55; Bayley, Muhammad Dynasties of Gujarāt, 278), whom Badaoni (Muntakhabu-l-tawārīkh, i. 447) calls a Jogi in form and appearance, with Hasan Khān, Lodi (Āīn, i. 503).]

Footnote 4.9.16:

[About eighty-five miles north-north-west of Jaipur city. Bābur says that he intended to pursue Sanga to Chitor, but was prevented by the defeat of his forces advancing on Lucknow (Elliot-Dowson iv. 277).]

Footnote 4.9.17:

The number of queens is determined only by state necessity and the fancy of the prince. To have them equal in number to the days of the week is not unusual, while the number of handmaids is unlimited. It will be conceded that the prince who can govern such a household, and maintain equal rights when claims to pre-eminence must be perpetually asserted, possesses no little tact. The government of the kingdom is but an amusement compared with such a task, for it is within the Rawala that intrigue is enthroned.

Footnote 4.9.18:

I possess his portrait, given to me by the present Rana, who has a collection of full-lengths of all his royal ancestors, from Samarsi to himself, of their exact heights and with every bodily peculiarity, whether of complexion or form. They are valuable for the costume. He has often shown them to me while illustrating their actions.

Footnote 4.9.19:

[The practice of sending his sword to represent the bridegroom probably originated in the desire for secrecy, and has since been observed, as among the Rāj Gonds of the Central Provinces, for the sake of convenience, and in order to avoid expense (Forbes, Rāsmāla, 624; BG, ix. Part i. 143, 145 f.; Russell, Tribes and Castes, Central Provinces, iii. 77).]

Footnote 4.9.20:

Surajmall.

Footnote 4.9.21:

The Hindu Cupid, implying ‘incorporeal,’ from anga, ‘body,’ with the privative prefix ‘an.’

Footnote 4.9.22:

I have given the relation of this duel in the narrative of my journeys on my visit to the cenotaph of Ratna, erected where he fell. It was the pleasure of my life to listen to the traditional anecdotes illustrative of Rajput history on the scenes of their transactions.

Footnote 4.9.23:

The Bhakha orthography for Vikramaditya.

Footnote 4.9.24:

The government of Papa Bai, a princess of ancient time, whose mis-managed sovereignty has given a proverb to the Rajput. [Major Luard informs me that Pāpa Bāi is said to have been the daughter of a Rājput of Siddal. She and Shiral Seth, a corn-merchant who, in return for his penances, asked to be made a king for three ghatikas (twenty-four minutes each), and gave indiscriminately alms to rich and poor, are bywords for foolish extravagance. She is worshipped at a shrine in Ujjain by all who desire good crops, especially sugar. Another name for such a period of misrule is Harbong kā rāj (Elliot, Supplemental Glossary, 466 ff.).]

Footnote 4.9.25:

Taken by Prithiraj and carried to Rana Raemall, who took a large sum of money and seven hundred horses as his ransom.

Footnote 4.9.26:

We have, in the poems of Chand, frequent indistinct notices of firearms, especially the nal-gola or tube-ball; but whether discharged by percussion or the expansive force of gunpowder is dubious. The poet also repeatedly speaks of “the volcano of the field,” giving to understand great guns; but these may be interpolations, though I would not check a full investigation of so curious a subject by raising a doubt. Babur was the first who introduced field guns in the Muhammadan wars, and Bahadur’s invasion is the first notice of their application in sieges, for in Alau-d-din’s time, in the thirteenth century, he used the catapult or battering-ram, called manjanik. To these guns Babur was indebted for victory over the united cavalry of Rajasthan. They were served by Rumi Khan, probably a Roumeliot, or Syrian Christian. The Franks (Faringis), with Bahadur, must have been some of Vasco di Gama’s crew. [For the use of artillery in Mogul times see the full account by Irvine (Army of the Indian Moghuls, 113 ff.). Manjanīk is the Greek μάγγανον. Rūmi Khān was an Ottoman Turk, called Khudāwand Khān, who learned the science in Turkish service (Erskine, Hist. of India, ii. 49; Āīn, i. 441). Akbar is said to have used Chinese artillery, and to have employed English gunners from Surat (Manucci, i. 139; Irvine, op. cit. 152).]

Footnote 4.9.27:

The Changi, the chief insignia of regality in Mewar, is a sun of gold in the centre of a disc of black ostrich feathers or felt, about three feet in diameter, elevated on a pole, and carried close to the prince. It has something of a Scythic cast about it. What changi imports I never understood. [Probably Pers. chang, ‘anything bent.’]

Footnote 4.9.28:

The name of the faithful Rajput who preserved Udai Singh, Chakasen Dhundera, deserves to be recorded.

Footnote 4.9.29:

The date, “Jeth sudi 12th, S. 1589,” A.D. 1533, and according to Ferishta A.H. 949, A.D. 1532-33. [Chitor was taken in 1534. The Mirāt-i-Sikandari states that on March 24, 1533, Bahādur received the promised tribute, and moved his camp from Chitor (Bayley, Muhammadan Dynasties of Gujarāt, 372).]

Footnote 4.9.30:

From ancient times, leading the females captive appears to have been the sign of complete victory. Rajput inscriptions often allude to “a conqueror beloved by the wives of his conquered foe,” and in the early parts of Scripture the same notion is referred to. The mother of Sisera asks: “Have they not divided the prey; to every man a damsel or two?” (Judges v. 30.)

Footnote 4.9.31:

[Ferishta ii. 75 f. Badaoni says that Humāyūn hesitated to interfere because Bahādur was attacking an infidel (Muntakhabu-t-tawārīkh, i. 453 f.).]

Footnote 4.9.32:

Many romantic tales are founded on ‘the gift of the Rakhi.’ The author, who was placed in the enviable situation of being able to do good, and on the most extensive scale, was the means of restoring many of these ancient families from degradation to affluence. The greatest reward he could, and the only one he would, receive, was the courteous civility displayed in many of these interesting customs. He was the Rakhi-band Bhai of, and received ‘the bracelet’ from, three queens of Udaipur, Bundi, and Kotah, besides Chand Bai, the maiden sister of the Rana; as well as many ladies of the chieftains of rank, with whom he interchanged letters. The sole articles of ‘barbaric pearl and gold,’ which he conveyed from a country where he was six years supreme, are these testimonies of friendly regard. Intrinsically of no great value, they were presented and accepted in the ancient spirit, and he retains them with a sentiment the more powerful, because he can no longer render them any service. [The Rākhi (Skt. raksha, ‘protection’) is primarily a protective amulet assumed at the full moon of Sāwan (July-August) (Forbes, Rāsmāla, 609). It was worn on this date to avert the unhealthiness of the rainy season. Jahāngīr and Akbar followed the custom, introduced by their Hindu ladies (Jahangir, Memoirs, 246; Badaoni, op. cit. ii. 269).]

Footnote 4.9.33:

[Probably policy, rather than romance, caused Humāyūn to interfere.]

Footnote 4.9.34:

He addresses her as “dear and virtuous sister,” and evinces much interest in her welfare. We are in total ignorance of the refined sentiment which regulates such a people—our home-bred prejudices deem them beneath inquiry; and thus indolence and self-conceit combine to deprive the benevolent of a high gratification.

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Chapter 10

=Rāna Banbīr Singh, A.D. 1535-37.=—A few hours of sovereignty sufficed to check those ‘compunctious visitings’ which assailed Banbir ere he assumed its trappings, with which he found himself so little encumbered that he was content to wear them for life. Whether this was the intention of the nobles who set aside the unworthy son of Sanga, there is abundant reason to doubt; and as he is subsequently branded with the epithet of ‘usurper’ it was probably limited, though unexpressed, to investing him with the executive authority during the minority of Udai Singh. Banbir, however, only awaited the approach of night to remove with his own hands the obstacle to his ambition.

=The Escape of Udai Singh, the Heir.=—Udai Singh was about six years of age. “He had gone to sleep after his rice and milk,” when his nurse was alarmed by screams from the rawala,[4.10.1] and the Bari[4.10.2] coming in to take away the remains of the dinner, informed her of the cause, the assassination of the Rana. Aware that one murder was the precursor of another, the faithful nurse put her charge into a fruit basket and, covering it with leaves, she delivered it to the Bari, enjoining him to escape with it from the fort. Scarcely had she time to substitute her own infant in the room of the prince, when Banbir, entering, inquired for him. Her lips refused their office; she pointed to the cradle, and beheld the murderous steel buried in the heart of her babe [316]. The little victim to fidelity was burnt amidst the tears of the rawala, the inconsolable household of their late sovereign, who supposed that their grief was given to the last pledge of the illustrious Sanga. The nurse (Dhai) was a Rajputni of the Khichi tribe, her name Panna, or ‘the Diamond.’ Having consecrated with her tears the ashes of her child, she hastened after that she had preserved. But well had it been for Mewar had the poniard fulfilled its intention, and had the annals never recorded the name of Udai Singh in the catalogue of her princes.

The faithful barber was awaiting the nurse in the bed of the Berach River, some miles west of Chitor, and fortunately the infant had not awoke until he descended the city. They departed for Deolia, and sought refuge with Singh Rao, the successor to Baghji, who fell for Chitor; who dreading the consequence of detection, they proceeded to Dungarpur. Rawal Askaran then ruled this principality, which, as well as Deolia, was not only a branch, but the elder branch, of Chitor. With every wish to afford a shelter, he pleaded the danger which threatened himself and the child in such a feeble sanctuary. Pursuing a circuitous route through Idar, and the intricate valleys of the Aravalli, by the help and with the protection of its wild inmates, the Bhils, she gained Kumbhalmer. The resolution she had formed was bold as it was judicious. She demanded an interview with the governor, Asa Sah his name, of the mercantile tribe of Depra,[4.10.3] and a follower of the theistical tenets of the Jains. The interview being granted, she placed the infant in his lap, and bid him “guard the life of his sovereign.” He felt perplexed and alarmed: but his mother, who was present, upbraided him for his scruples. “Fidelity,” said she, “never looks at dangers or difficulties. He is your master, the son of Sanga, and by God’s blessing the result will be glorious.” Having thus fulfilled her trust, the faithful Panna withdrew from Kumbhalmer to avoid the suspicion which a Rajputni about a Srawak’s[4.10.4] child would have occasioned, as the heir of Chitor was declared to be the nephew of the Depra.

=The Boyhood of Udai Singh.=—Suspicions were often excited regarding Asa’s nephew; once, especially, on the anniversary (samvatsara) of the governor’s father, when “the Rajput guests being in one rank, and the men of wealth in another, young Udai seized a vessel of curds, which no intreaty could prevail on him to relinquish, deriding their threats” [317]. Seven years elapsed before the secret transpired; at length self-revealed, from the same independent bearing. On occasion of a visit from the Sonigira chief, Udai was sent to receive him, and the dignified manner in which he performed the duty convinced the chief ‘he was no nephew to the Sah.’ Rumour spread the tale, and brought not only the nobles of Mewar, but adjacent chiefs, to hail the son of Sanga Rana. Sahidas of Salumbar, the representative of Chonda, Jaga of Kelwa, Sanga of Bagor, all chiefs of the clans of Chondawat; the Chauhans of Kotharia and Bedla, the Pramar of Bijolia Akhiraj (Sonigira), Prithiraj of Sanchor, and Lunkaran Jethawat, repaired to Kumbhalmer, when all doubt was removed by the testimony of the nurse, and of her coadjutor in the preservation of the child.

=Installation of Rāna Udai Singh, A.D. 1537-72.=—A court was formed, when the faithful Asa Sah resigned his trust and placed the prince of Chitor ‘in the lap of the Kotharia Chauhan,’ as the ‘great ancient’[4.10.5] among the nobles of Mewar, who was throughout acquainted with the secret, and who, to dissipate the remaining scruples which attached to the infant’s preservation, ‘ate off the same platter with him.’ The Sonigira Rao did not hesitate to affiance to him his daughter, and it was accepted by his advisers, notwithstanding the interdict of Hamir to any intermarriage with the Sonigira, since the insult of giving the widow to his bed. Udai received the tika of Chitor in the castle of Kumbha, and the homage of nearly all the chiefs of Mewar.

The tidings soon reached the usurper, who had not borne his faculties meekly since his advancement; but having seized on the dignity, he wished to ape all the customs of the legitimate monarchs of Chitor, and even had the effrontery to punish as an insult the refusal of one of the proud sons of Chonda to take the dauna from his bastard hand.

=The Dauna, a Recognition of Legitimacy.=—The dauna, or daua, is a portion of the dish of which the prince partakes, sent by his own hand to whomsoever he honours at the banquet. At the rasora, or refectory, the chiefs who are admitted to dine in the presence of their sovereign are seated according to their rank. The repast is one of those occasions when an easy familiarity is permitted, which, though unrestrained, never exceeds the bounds [318] of etiquette, and the habitual reverence due to their father and prince. When he sends, by the steward of the kitchen, a portion of the dish before him, or a little from his own kansa, or plate, all eyes are guided to the favoured mortal, whose good fortune is the subject of subsequent conversation. Though, with the diminished lustre of this house, the dauna may have lost its former estimation, it is yet received with reverence; but the extent of this feeling, even so late as the reign of Arsi Rana, the father of the reigning prince, the following anecdote will testify. In the rebellion during this prince’s reign, amongst the ancient customs which became relaxed, that of bestowing the dauna was included; and the Rana conferring it on the Rathor prince of Kishangarh, the Bijolia chief, one of the sixteen superior nobles of Mewar, rose and left the presence, observing, “Neither the Kachhwaha nor the Rathor has a right to this honour, nor can we, who regard as sanctified even the leavings of your repast, witness this degradation; for the Thakur of Kishangarh is far beneath me.” To such extent is this privilege even yet carried, and such importance is attached from habit to the personal character of the princes of Mewar, that the test of regal legitimacy in Rajasthan is admission to eat from the same plate (kansa) with the Rana: and to the refusal of this honour to the great Man Singh of Amber may be indirectly ascribed the ruin of Mewar.[4.10.6]

It may therefore be conceived with what contempt the haughty nobility of Chitor received the mockery of honour from the hand of this ‘fifth son of Mewar’; and the Chondawat chief had the boldness to add to his refusal, “that an honour from the hand of a true son of Bappa Rawal became a disgrace when proffered by the offspring of the handmaid Sitalseni.” The defection soon became general, and all repaired to the valley of Kumbhalmer to hail the legitimate son of Mewar. A caravan of five hundred horses and ten thousand oxen, laden with merchandise from Cutch, the dower of Banbir’s daughter, guarded by one thousand Gaharwar Rajputs, was plundered in the passes: a signal intimation of the decay of his authority, and a timely supply to the celebration of the nuptials of Udai Rana with the daughter of the Rao of Jalor. Though the interdict of Hamir was not forgotten, it was deemed that the insult given by Banbir Sonigira was amply effaced by his successor’s redemption of the usurpation of Banbir Sesodia. The marriage was solemnized at Bali, within the limits of Jalor, and the [319] customary offerings were sent or given by all the princes of Rajasthan. Two chiefs only, of any consequence, abstained from attending on their lawful prince on this occasion, the Solanki of Maholi and Maloji of Tana. In attacking them, the bastard was brought into conflict; but Maloji was slain and the Solanki surrendered.

=Deposition of Rāna Banbīr Singh.=—Deserted by all, Banbir held out in the capital; but his minister admitted, under the garb of a reinforcement with supplies, a thousand resolute adherents of the prince: the keepers of the gates were surprised and slain, and the an of Udai Singh was proclaimed. Banbir was even permitted to retire with his family and his wealth. He sought refuge in the Deccan, and the Bhonslas of Nagpur are said to derive their origin from this spurious branch of Chitor.[4.10.7]

=Rāna Udai Singh, A.D. 1537-72.=—Rana Udai Singh ascended the throne in S. 1597 (A.D. 1541-2). Great were the rejoicings on the restoration of this prince. ‘The song of joy,’[4.10.8] which was composed on the occasion, is yet a favourite at Udaipur, and on the festival of Isani (the Ceres of Rajasthan), the females still chant in chorus the ‘farewell to Kumbhalmer.’[4.10.9] But the evil days of Mewar which set in with Sanga’s death, and were accelerated by the fiery valour of Ratna and the capricious conduct of Bikramajit, were completed by an anomaly in her annals: a coward succeeding a bastard to guide the destinies of the Sesodias. The vices of Ratna and his brother were virtues compared to this physical defect, the consequences of which destroyed a great national feeling, the opinion of its invincibility.

=His Character.=—“Woe to the land where a minor rules or a woman bears sway!” exclaims the last of the great bards[4.10.10] of Rajasthan; but where both were united, as in Mewar, the measure of her griefs was full. Udai Singh had not one quality of a sovereign; and wanting martial virtue, the common heritage of his race, he was destitute of all. Yet he might have slumbered life away in inglorious repose during the reign of Humayun, or the contentions of the Pathan usurpation; but, unhappily for Rajasthan, a prince was then rearing who forged fetters for the Hindu race which enthralled them for ages; and though the corroding hand of time left but their fragments, yet even now, though emancipated, they bear the indelible marks of the manacle; not like the galley slave’s, physical and exterior, but deep mental scars, never to be effaced. Can a nation which has run its long career of glory be [320] regenerated? Can the soul of the Greek or the Rajput be reanimated with the spark divine which defended the kunguras[4.10.11] of Chitor or the pass of Thermopylae? Let history answer the question.

=Birth of Akbar.=—In the same year that the song of joy was raised in the cloud-capped[4.10.12] palace of Kumbhalmer for the deliverance of Udai Singh, the note of woe was pealed through the walls of Umarkot, and given to the winds of the desert, to proclaim the birth[4.10.13] of an infant destined to be the greatest monarch who ever swayed the sceptre of Hindustan. In an oasis of the Indian desert, amidst the descendants of the ancient Sogdoi[4.10.14] of Alexander, Akbar first saw the light; his father a fugitive, the diadem torn from his brows, its recovery more improbable than was its acquisition by Babur. The ten years which had elapsed since Humayun’s accession were passed in perpetual strife with his brothers, placed according to custom in subordinate governments. Their selfish ambition met its reward; for with the fall of Humayun their own was ensured, when Sher Shah displaced the dynasty of Chagatai for his own, the Pathan (or Sur).

=Defeat and Flight of Humāyūn, A.D. 1540.=—From the field of battle at Kanauj, where Humayun left his crown, his energetic opponent gave him no respite, driving him before him from Agra to Lahore. Thence, with his family and a small band of adherents, alternately protected and repelled by Hindu chieftains, he reached the valley of Sind, where he struggled to maintain himself amidst the greatest privations, attempting in succession each stronghold on the Indus, from Multan to the ocean. Foiled in every object, his associates made rebels by distress, he abandoned them for the more dubious shelter of the foes of his race. Vain were his solicitations to Jaisalmer and Jodhpur; and though it cannot be matter of wonder that he found no commiseration from either Bhatti or Rathor, we must reprobate the unnational conduct of Maldeo, who, the Mogul historian says, attempted to make him captive. From such inhospitable treatment the royal exile escaped by again plunging into the desert, where he encountered, along with the tender objects of his solicitude, hardships of the most appalling description, until sheltered by the Sodha prince of Umarkot. The high courage and the virtues of this monarch increase that interest in his sufferings which royalty in distress never fails to awaken by its irresistible influence [321] upon our sympathies; and they form an affecting episode in the history of Ferishta.[4.10.15] Humayun, though more deeply skilled in the mysteries of astrology than any professed seer of his empire, appears never to have enjoyed that prescience which, according to the initiated in the science, is to be obtained from accurate observation:

And coming events cast their shadows before;

for, could he, by any prophetic power, have foreseen that the cloud which then shaded his fortunes, was but the precursor of glory to his race, he would have continued his retreat from the sheltering sand-hills of Umarkot with very different sentiments from those which accompanied his flight into Persia [322].

=Early Years of Akbar.=—Humayun educated the young Akbar in the same school of adversity in which he had studied under Babur. Between the Persian court and his ancient patrimony in Transoxiana, Kandahar, and Kashmir, twelve years were passed in every trial of fortune. During this short period, India, always the prize of valour, had witnessed in succession six[4.10.16] kings descended from the Pathan ‘Lion’ (sher), of whom the last, Sikandar, was involved in the same civil broils which brought the crown to his family. Humayun, then near Kashmir, no sooner observed the tide of events set counter to his foe, than he crossed the Indus and advanced upon Sirhind, where the Pathan soon appeared with a tumultuous array. The impetuosity of young Akbar brought on a general engagement, which the veterans deemed madness. Not so Humayun, who gave the command to his boy, whose heroism so excited all ranks, that they despised the numbers of the enemy, and gained a glorious victory. This was the presage of his future fame; for Akbar was then but twelve years of age,[4.10.17] the same period of life at which his grandfather, Babur, maintained himself on the throne of Farghana. Humayun, worthy of such a son and such a sire, entered Delhi in triumph; but he did not long enjoy his recovered crown. His death will appear extraordinary, according to the erroneous estimate formed of Eastern princes: its cause was a fall from the terrace of his library;[4.10.18] for, like every individual of his race, he was not merely a patron of literature, but himself a scholar. Were we to contrast the literary acquirements of the Chagatai princes with those of their contemporaries of Europe, the balance of lore would be found on the side of the Asiatics, even though Elizabeth and Henry IV. of France were in the scale. Amongst the princes from the Jaxartes are historians, poets, astronomers, founders of systems of government and religion, warriors, and great captains, who claim our respect and admiration.

=Akbar’s Struggle for the Empire.=—Scarcely had Akbar been seated on the throne, when Delhi and Agra were wrested from him, and a nook of the Panjab constituted all his empire: but by the energetic valour of the great Bairam Khan, his lost sovereignty was regained with equal rapidity, and established by the wisdom of this Sully[4.10.19] of Hindustan on a rock. Kalpi, Chanderi, Kalanjar, all Bundelkhand and Malwa, were soon attached to the empire, and at the early age of eighteen Akbar assumed the uncontrolled [323] direction of the State. He soon turned his attention towards the Rajputs; and whether it was to revenge the inhospitality of Maldeo towards his father, he advanced against the Rathors, and stormed and took Merta, the second city in Marwar. Raja Biharimall [or Bahar Mall] of Amber anticipated the king, enrolled himself and son Bhagwandas amongst his vassals, gave the Chagatai a daughter to wife, and held his country as a fief of the empire. But the rebellions of the Usbek nobles, and the attempts of former princes to regain their lost power, checked for a time his designs upon Rajasthan. These matters adjusted, and the petty sovereigns in the East (to whom the present monarch of Oudh is as Alexander) subjected to authority, he readily seized upon the provocation which the sanctuary given to Baz Bahadur of Malwa and the ex-prince of Narwar afforded, to turn his arms against Chitor.[4.10.20]

=Comparison of Akbar with Rāna Udai Singh.=—Happy the country where the sovereignty is in the laws, and where the monarch is but the chief magistrate of the State, unsubjected to those vicissitudes which make the sceptre in Asia unstable as a pendulum, kept in perpetual oscillation by the individual passions of her princes; where the virtues of one will exalt her to the summit of prosperity, as the vices of a successor will plunge her into the abyss of degradation. Akbar and Udai Singh furnish the corollary to this self-evident truth.

The Rana was old enough to philosophize on ‘the uses of adversity’; and though the best of the ‘great ancients’ had fallen in defence of Chitor, there were not wanting individuals capable of instilling just and noble sentiments into his mind: but it was of that common character which is formed to be controlled by others; and an artful and daring concubine stepped in, to govern Udai Singh and Mewar.

Akbar was not older when he came to the throne[4.10.21] of Delhi than Udai Singh when he ascended that of Mewar. Nor were his hopes much brighter; but the star which beamed upon his cradle in the desert, conducted to his aid such counsellors as the magnanimous Bairam, and the wise and virtuous Abu-l Fazl. Yet it may be deemed hardly fair to contrast the Rajput with the Mogul: the one disciplined into an accurate knowledge of human nature, by experience of the [324] mutability of fortune; the other cooped up from infancy in a valley of his native hills, his birth concealed, and his education restricted.[4.10.22]

Akbar was the real founder of the empire of the Moguls, the first successful conqueror of Rajput independence: to this end his virtues were powerful auxiliaries, as by his skill in the analysis of the mind and its readiest stimulant to action, he was enabled to gild the chains with which he bound them. To these they became familiarized by habit, especially when the throne exerted its power in acts gratifying to national vanity, or even in ministering to the more ignoble passions. But generations of the martial races were cut off by his sword, and lustres rolled away ere his conquests were sufficiently confirmed to permit him to exercise the beneficence of his nature, and obtain by the universal acclaim of the conquered, the proud epithet of Jagad Guru, or ‘guardian of mankind.’ He was long ranked with Shihabu-d-din, Ala, and other instruments of destruction, and with every just claim; and, like these, he constructed a Mimbar[4.10.23] for the Koran from the altars of Eklinga. Yet he finally succeeded in healing the wounds his ambition had inflicted, and received from millions that meed of praise which no other of his race ever obtained.

The absence of the kingly virtues in the sovereign of Mewar filled to the brim the bitter cup of her destiny. The guardian goddess of the Sesodias had promised never to abandon the rock of her pride while a descendant of Bappa Rawal devoted himself to her service. In the first assault by Ala, twelve crowned heads defended the ‘crimson banner’ to the death. In the second, when conquest led by Bajazet[4.10.24] came from the south, the chieftain of Deolia, a noble scion of Mewar, “though severed from her stem,” claimed the crown of glory and of martyrdom. But on this, the third and grandest struggle, no regal victim appeared to appease the Cybele of Chitor, and win her to retain its ‘kunguras’[4.10.25] as her coronet. She fell! the charm was broken; the mysterious tie was severed for ever which connected [325] Chitor with perpetuity of sway to the race of Guhilot. With Udai Singh fled the “fair face” which in the dead of night unsealed the eyes of Samarsi, and told him “the glory of the Hindu was departing”:[4.10.26] with him, that opinion, which for ages esteemed her walls the sanctuary of the race, which encircled her with a halo of glory, as the palladium of the religion and the liberties of the Rajputs.

To traditions such as these, history is indebted for the noblest deeds recorded in her page; and in Mewar they were the covert impulse to national glory and independence. For this the philosopher will value the relation; and the philanthropist as being the germs or nucleus of resistance against tyrannical domination. Enveloped in a wild fable, we see the springs of their prejudices and their action: batter down these adamantine walls of national opinion, and all others are but glass. The once invincible Chitor is now pronounced indefensible. “The abode of regality, which for a thousand years reared her head above all the cities of Hindustan,” is become the refuge of wild beasts, which seek cover in her temples; and this erst sanctified capital is now desecrated as the dwelling of evil fortune, into which the entrance of her princes is solemnly interdicted.

=Akbar besieges Chitor, September, A.D. 1567.=—Ferishta mentions but one enterprise against Chitor, that of its capture; but the annals record another, when Akbar was compelled to relinquish the undertaking.[4.10.27] The successful defence is attributed to the masculine courage of the Rana’s concubine queen, who headed the sallies into the heart of the Mogul camp, and on one occasion to the emperor’s headquarters. The imbecile Rana proclaimed that he owed his deliverance to her; when the chiefs, indignant at this imputation on their courage, conspired and put her to death. Internal discord invited Akbar to reinvest Chitor; he had just attained his twenty-fifth year, and was desirous of the renown of capturing it. The site of the royal Urdu,[4.10.28] or camp, is still pointed out. It extended from the village of Pandauli[4.10.29] along the high road to Basai, a distance of ten miles. The headquarters of Akbar are yet marked by a pyramidal column of marble, to which tradition has assigned the [326] title of Akbar ka diwa, or ‘Akbar’s lamp.’[4.10.30] Scarcely had Akbar sat down before Chitor, when the Rana was compelled (say the annals) to quit it; but the necessity and his wishes were in unison. It lacked not, however, brave defenders. Sahidas, at the head of a numerous band of the descendants of Chonda, was at his post, ‘the gate of the sun’; there he fell resisting the entrance of the foe, and there his altar stands, on the brow of the rock which was moistened with his blood. Rawat Duda of Madri led ‘the sons of Sanga.’[4.10.31] The feudatory chiefs of Bedla and Kotharia, descended from Prithiraj of Delhi—the Pramar of Bijolia—the Jhala of Sadri—inspired their contingents with their brave example: these were all home chieftains. Another son of Deolia again combated for Chitor, with the Sonigira Rao of Jalor—Isaridas Rathor, Karamchand Kachhwaha,[4.10.32] with Duda Sadani,[4.10.33] and the Tuar prince of Gwalior, were distinguished amongst the foreign auxiliaries on this occasion.

=Jaimall and Patta.=—But the names which shine brightest in this gloomy page of the annals of Mewar, which are still held sacred by the bard and the true Rajput, and immortalized by Akbar’s own pen, are Jaimall of Badnor and Patta of Kelwa, both of the sixteen superior vassals of Mewar. The first was a Rathor of the Mertia house, the bravest of the brave clans of Marwar; the other was head of the Jagawats, another grand shoot from Chonda. The names of Jaimall and Patta are ‘as household words,’ inseparable in Mewar, and will be honoured while the Rajput retains a shred of his inheritance or a spark of his ancient recollections. Though deprived of the stimulus which would have been given had their prince been a witness of their deeds, heroic achievements such as those already recorded were conspicuous on this occasion; and many a fair form threw the buckler over the scarf, and led the most desperate sorties [327].

When Salumbar[4.10.34] fell at the gate of the sun, the command devolved on Patta of Kelwa. He was only sixteen:[4.10.35] his father had fallen in the last shock, and his mother had survived but to rear this the sole heir of their house. Like the Spartan mother of old, she commanded him to put on the ‘saffron robe,’ and to die for Chitor: but surpassing the Grecian dame, she illustrated her precept by example; and lest any soft ‘compunctious visitings’ for one dearer than herself might dim the lustre of Kelwa, she armed the young bride with a lance, with her descended the rock, and the defenders of Chitor saw her fall, fighting by the side of her Amazonian mother. When their wives and daughters performed such deeds, the Rajputs became reckless of life. They had maintained a protracted defence, but had no thoughts of surrender, when a ball struck Jaimall, who took the lead on the fall of the kin of Mewar. His soul revolted at the idea of ingloriously perishing by a distant blow. He saw there was no ultimate hope of salvation, the northern defences being entirely destroyed, and he resolved to signalize the end of his career. The fatal Johar was commanded, while eight thousand Rajputs ate the last ‘bira’[4.10.36] together, and put on their saffron robes; the gates were thrown open, the work of destruction commenced, and few survived ‘to stain the yellow mantle’ by inglorious surrender. Akbar entered Chitor, when thirty thousand of its inhabitants became victims to the ambitious thirst of conquest of this ‘guardian of mankind.’ All the heads of clans, both home and foreign, fell, and seventeen hundred of the immediate kin of the prince sealed their duty to their country with their lives. The Tuar chief of Gwalior appears to have been the only one of note who was reserved for another day of glory.[4.10.37] Nine queens, five princesses (their daughters), with two infant sons, and the families of all the chieftains not at their estates, perished in the flames or in the assault of this ever memorable day. Their divinity had indeed deserted them; for it was on Adityawar, the day of the sun,[4.10.38] he shed for the last time a ray of glory on Chitor. The rock of their strength was despoiled; the temples, the palaces dilapidated: and, to complete her humiliation and his triumph, Akbar bereft her of all the symbols of [328] regality: the nakkaras,[4.10.39] whose reverberations proclaimed, for miles around, the entrance and exit of her princes; the candelabras from the shrine of the ‘great mother,’ who girt Bappa Rawal with the sword with which he conquered Chitor; and, in mockery of her misery, her portals, to adorn his projected capital, Akbarabad.[4.10.40]

Akbar claimed the honour of the death of Jaimall by his own hand: the fact is recorded by Abu-l Fazl, and by the emperor Jahangir, who conferred on the matchlock which aided him to this distinction the title of Sangram.[4.10.41] But the conqueror of Chitor evinced a more exalted sense, not only of the value of his conquest, but of the merits of his foes, in erecting statues to the names of Jaimall and Patta at the most conspicuous entrance of his palace at Delhi; and they retained that distinction even when Bernier was in India.[4.10.42]

=The Sin of the Capture of Chitor.=—When the Carthaginian gained the battle of Cannae, he measured his success by the bushels of rings taken from the fingers of the equestrian Romans who fell in that memorable field. Akbar estimated his, by the quantity of cordons (zunnar) of [329] distinction taken from the necks of the Rajputs, and seventy-four mans and a half[4.10.43] are the recorded amount. To eternize the memory of this disaster, the numerals ‘74½’ are talak, or accursed.[4.10.44] Marked on the banker’s letter in Rajasthan it is the strongest of seals, for ‘the sin of the slaughter of Chitor’[4.10.45] is thereby invoked on all who violate a letter under the safeguard of this mysterious number. He would be a fastidious critic who stopped to calculate the weight of these cordons of the Rajput cavaliers, probably as much over-rated as the trophies of the Roman rings, which are stated at three and a half bushels. It is for the moral impression that history deigns to note such anecdotes, in themselves of trivial import. So long as ‘74½’ shall remain recorded, some good will result from the calamity, and may survive when the event which caused it is buried in oblivion.

=Escape of Rāna Udai Singh: Foundation of Udaipur.=—When Udai Singh abandoned Chitor, he found refuge with the Gohil in the forests of Rajpipli. Thence he passed to the valley of the Giro in the Aravalli, in the vicinity of the retreat of his great ancestor Bappa, ere he conquered Chitor. At the entrance of this valley, several years previous to this catastrophe, he had formed the lake, still called after him Udai Sagar, and he now raised a dyke between the mountains which dammed up another mountain stream. On the cluster of hills adjoining he raised the small palace called Nauchauki, around which edifices soon arose, and formed a city to which he gave his own name, Udaipur,[4.10.46] henceforth the capital of Mewar.

=Death of Rāna Udai Singh.=—Four years had Udai Singh survived the loss of Chitor, when he expired at Gogunda, at the early age of forty-two; yet far too long for his country’s honour and welfare. He left a numerous issue of twenty-five legitimate sons, whose descendants, all styled Ranawat, pushed aside the more ancient stock, and form that extensive clan distinctively termed the Babas, or ‘infants,’ of Mewar, whether Ranawats, Purawats, or Kanawats. His last act was to entail with a barren sceptre contention upon his children; for, setting aside the established laws of primogeniture, he proclaimed his favourite son Jagmall his successor.

=Jagmall proclaimed Rāna.=—In Mewar there is no interregnum: even the ceremony of matam (mourning) is held at the [330] house of the family priest while the palace is decked out for rejoicing. On the full moon of the spring month of Phalgun, while his brothers and the nobles attended the funeral pyre, Jagmall took possession of the throne in the infant capital, Udaipur: but even while the trumpets sounded, and the heralds called aloud “May the king live for ever!” a cabal was formed round the bier of his father.

=Jagmall deposed in favour of Rāna Partāp Singh.=—It will be borne in mind that Udai Singh espoused the Sonigira princess; and the Jalor Rao, desirous to see his sister’s son have his right, demanded of Kistna, the ‘great ancient’ of Mewar and the leader of the Chondawats, how such injustice was sanctioned by him. “When a sick man has reached the last extreme and asks for milk to drink, why refuse it?” was the reply; with the addition: “The Sonigira’s nephew is my choice, and my stand by Partap.” Jagmall had just entered the Rasora, and Partap was saddling for his departure, when Rawat Kistna entered, accompanied by the ex-prince of Gwalior. Each chief took an arm of Jagmall, and with gentle violence removed him to a seat in front of the ‘cushion’ he had occupied; the hereditary premier remarking, “You had made a mistake, Maharaj; that place belongs to your brother”: and girding Partap with the sword (the privilege of this house), thrice touching the ground, hailed him king of Mewar. All followed the example of Salumbar. Scarcely was the ceremony over, when the young prince remarked, it was the festival of the Aheria, nor must ancient customs be forgotten: “Therefore to horse, and slay a boar to Gauri,[4.10.47] and take the omen for the ensuing year.” They slew abundance of game, and in the mimic field of war, the nobles who surrounded the gallant Partap anticipated happier days for Mewar [331].

-----

Footnote 4.10.1:

The seraglio, or female palace.

Footnote 4.10.2:

Bari, Nai, are names for the barbers, who are the cuisiniers of the Rajputs. [The special duty of the Bāri is making leaf-platters from which Hindus eat: he is also a domestic servant, but does not, like the Nāi, work as a barber.]

Footnote 4.10.3:

[Dr. Tessitori states that the true form of the name is Dahīpra or Dahīpura, and they seem to be the same as the Depla of Gujarāt, where they are said to have been originally Lohānas (BG, ix. Part i. 122).]

Footnote 4.10.4:

The laity of the Jain persuasion are so called [srāvak, meaning ‘a disciple’].

Footnote 4.10.5:

Bara ‘great,’ būrha ‘aged’; the ‘wise elder’ of Rajasthan, where old age and dignity are synonymous.

Footnote 4.10.6:

[On the privilege of eating with the Rāna see p. 213 above.]

Footnote 4.10.7:

[There seems no basis for this tradition. The Bhonslas sprang from a Marātha headman of Deora in Sātāra (IGI, xviii. 306).]

Footnote 4.10.8:

Suhaila.

Footnote 4.10.9:

Kumbhalmer bidaona.

Footnote 4.10.10:

Chand, the heroic bard of the last Hindu emperor. [Cf. Ecclesiastes, x. 16.]

Footnote 4.10.11:

Battlements.

Footnote 4.10.12:

Badal Mahall.

Footnote 4.10.13:

November 23, A.D. 1542.

Footnote 4.10.14:

The Sodhas, a branch of the Pramaras, see p. 111.

Footnote 4.10.15:

"Humaioon mounted his horse at midnight and fled towards Amercot, which is about one hundred coss from Tatta. His horse, on the way, falling down dead with fatigue, he desired Tirdi Beg, who was well mounted, to let him have his; but so ungenerous was this man, and so low was royalty fallen, that he refused to comply with his request. The troops of the raja being close to his heels, he was necessitated to mount a camel, till one Nidim Koka, dismounting his own mother, gave the king her horse, and, placing her on the camel, ran himself on foot by her side.

"The country through which they fled being an entire sandy desert, the troop began to be in the utmost distress for water. Some ran mad, others fell down dead; nothing was heard but dreadful screams and lamentations. To add, if possible, to this calamity, news arrived of the enemy’s near approach. Humaioon ordered all those who could fight to halt, and let the women and baggage move forward. The enemy not making their appearance, the king rode on in front to see how it fared with his family.

"Night, in the meantime, coming on, the rear lost their way, and in the morning were attacked by a party of the enemy. Shech Ali, with about twenty brave men, resolved to sell his life dear. Having repeated the creed of martyrdom, he rushed upon the enemy, and the first arrow having reached the heart of the chief of the party, the rest were by the valour of his handful put to flight. The other Moguls joined in the pursuit, and took many of the camels and horses. They then continued their march, found the king sitting by a well which he had fortunately found, and gave him an account of their adventure.

"Marching forward the next day from this well, they were more distressed than before, there being no water for two days’ journey. On the fourth day of their retreat they fell in with another well, which was so deep, that the only bucket they had took a great deal of time in being wound up, and therefore a drum was beat to give notice to the caffilas when the bucket appeared, that they might repair by turns to drink. The people were so impatient for the water, that as soon as the first bucket appeared, ten or twelve of them threw themselves upon it before it quite reached the brim of the well, by which means the rope broke, and the bucket was lost, and several fell headlong after it. When this fatal accident happened, the screams and lamentations of all became loud and dreadful. Some lolling out their tongues, rolled themselves in agony on the hot sand; while others, precipitating themselves into the well, met with an immediate, and consequently an easier death. What did not the unhappy king feel, when he saw this terrible situation of his few faithful friends!

"The next day, though they reached water, was not less fatal than the former. The camels, who had not tasted water for several days, now drank so much that the greatest part of them died. The people, also, after drinking, complained of an oppression of the heart, and in about half an hour a great part of them expired.

"A few, with the king, after this unheard-of distress, reached Amercote. The raja, being a humane man, took compassion on their misfortunes: he spared nothing that could alleviate their miseries, or express his fidelity to the king.

“At Amercote, upon Sunday the fifth of Rigib, in the year nine hundred and forty-nine, the prince Akber was brought forth by Hamida Banu Begum. The king, after returning thanks to God, left his family under the protection of Raja Rana, and, by the aid of that prince, marched against Bicker.” Dow’s Ferishta [2nd ed. ii. 136 ff. Compare that of Briggs ii. 93 ff.].

Footnote 4.10.16:

[Four are usually reckoned: Islām Shāh, Muhammad Shāh Ādil, Ibrāhīm Shāh, and Sikandar Shāh.]

Footnote 4.10.17:

A.D. 1554.

Footnote 4.10.18:

[At the Sher Mandal in Purāna Kila, Delhi, on January 24, 1556.]

Footnote 4.10.19:

There are excellent grounds for a parallel between Akbar and Henry IV. and between Bairam and Sully, who were, moreover, almost contemporaries. The haughty and upright Bairam was at length goaded from rebellion to exile, and died by assassination only four years after Akbar’s accession. [January 31, 1561.] The story is one of the most useful lessons of history. [The life of Akbar has been fully told, with much new evidence, by V. A. Smith, Akbar the Great Mogul, 1917.]

Footnote 4.10.20:

A.H. 975, or A.D. 1567.

Footnote 4.10.21:

A.D. 1556; both were under thirteen years of age.

Footnote 4.10.22:

If we argue this according to a Rajput’s notions, he will reject the compromise, and say that the son of Sanga should have evinced himself worthy of his descent, under whatever circumstances fortune might have placed him.

Footnote 4.10.23:

The pulpit or platform of the Islamite preachers.

Footnote 4.10.24:

Malik Bāyazīd was the name of the Malwa sovereign ere he came to the throne, corrupted by Europeans to Bajazet. He is always styled ‘Baz Bahadur’ in the annals of Mewar.

Footnote 4.10.25:

Battlements.

Footnote 4.10.26:

The last book of Chand opens with this vision.

Footnote 4.10.27:

[Ferishta ii. 299 ff. “It does not appear when that attempt was made, and it is difficult to find a place for it in Abu-l Fazl’s chronology, but there is also difficulty in believing the alleged fact to be an invention” (Smith, Akbar, the Great Mogul, 81).]

Footnote 4.10.28:

Of which horde is a corruption.

Footnote 4.10.29:

There are two villages of this name. This is on the lake called Mansarowar on whose bank I obtained that invaluable inscription (see No. 2) in the nail-headed character, which settled the establishment of the Guhilot in Chitor, at a little more than (as Orme has remarked) one thousand years. To the eternal regret of my Yati Guru and myself, a barbarian Brahman servant, instead of having it copied, broke the venerable column to bring the inscription to Udaipur.

Footnote 4.10.30:

It is as perfect as when constructed, being of immense blocks of compact white limestone, closely fitted to each other; its height thirty feet, the base a square of twelve, and summit four feet, to which a staircase conducts. A huge concave vessel was then filled with fire, which served as a night-beacon to this ambulatory city, where all nations and tongues were assembled, or to guide the foragers. Akbar, who was ambitious of being the founder of a new faith as well as kingdom, had tried every creed, Jewish, Hindu, and even made some progress in the doctrines of Christianity, and may have in turn affected those of Zardusht, and assuredly this pyramid possesses more of the appearance of a pyreum than a ‘diwa’; though either would have fulfilled the purport of a beacon. [Mr. V. A. Smith, quoting Kavi Rāj Shyāmal Dās, ‘Antiquities at Nagari’ (JASB, Part i. vol. lvi. (1887), p. 75), corrects the statements in this note. There was no interior staircase, and more accurate measurements are: height, 36 ft. 7 in.; 14 ft. 1 in. square at base; 3 ft. 3 in. square at apex. The tower is solid for 4 ft., then hollow for 20 ft., and solid again up to the top. The building may be very ancient, though used by Akbar as alleged by popular tradition; probably a wooden ladder gave access to the chamber and to the summit. The original purpose of the building, which stands near Nagari, some six miles N.E. of Chitor, is uncertain (Akbar the Great Mogul, 86, note).]

Footnote 4.10.31:

The Sangawats, not the sons of Rana Sanga, but of a chieftain of Chonda’s kin, whose name is the patronymic of one of its principal subdivisions, of whom the chief of Deogarh is now head (see p. 188).

Footnote 4.10.32:

Of the Panchaenot branch.

Footnote 4.10.33:

One of the Shaikhavat subdivisions.

Footnote 4.10.34:

The abode of the Chondawat leader. It is common to call them by the name of their estates.

Footnote 4.10.35:

[He must have been older, as he left two sons, and had already served in defence of Merta (Smith, op. cit. 88).]

Footnote 4.10.36:

The bira, or pan, the aromatic leaf so called, enveloping spices, terra japonica, calcined shell-lime, and pieces of the areca nut, is always presented on taking leave.

Footnote 4.10.37:

[His name appears to have been Sālivāhan, and as he had married a Sesodia princess, he was bound to fight for the Rāna (ASR, ii. 394).]

Footnote 4.10.38:

“Chait sudi igārahwān, S. 1624,” 11th Chait, or May, A.D. 1568. [The Musalmān writers give February 23, 1568 (Akbarnāma, ii. 471; Elliot-Dowson v. 327; cf. Badaoni ii. 111).]

Footnote 4.10.39:

Grand kettle-drums, about eight or ten feet in diameter.

Footnote 4.10.40:

The tija sakha Chitor ra, or ‘third sack of Chitor,’ was marked by the most illiterate atrocity, for every monument spared by Ala or Bayazid was defaced, which has left an indelible stain on Akbar’s name as a lover of the arts, as well as of humanity. Ala’s assault was comparatively harmless, as the care of the fortress was assigned to a Hindu prince; and Bayazid had little time to fulfil this part of the Mosaic law, maintained with rigid severity by the followers of Islamism. Besides, at those periods, they possessed both the skill and the means to reconstruct: not so after Akbar, as the subsequent portion of the annals will show but a struggle for existence. The arts do not flourish amidst penury: the principle to construct cannot long survive, when the means to execute are fled; and in the monumental works of Chitor we can trace the gradations of genius, its splendour and decay. [There is no good evidence that Akbar destroyed the buildings (Smith, op. cit. 90).]

Footnote 4.10.41:

"He (Akber) named the matchlock with which he shot Jeimul Singram, being one of great superiority and choice, and with which he had slain three or four thousand birds and beasts" (Jahangir-namah). [Ed. Rogers-Beveridge 45; Āīn, i. 116, 617; Badaoni ii. 107.]

Footnote 4.10.42:

“I find nothing remarkable at the entry but two great elephants of stone, which are in the two sides of one of the gates. Upon one of them is the statue of Jamel (Jeimul), that famous raja of Cheetore, and upon the other Potter (Putta) his brother. These are two gallant men that, together with their mother, who was yet braver than they, cut out so much work for Ekbar; and who, in the sieges of towns which they maintained against him, gave such extraordinary proofs of their generosity, that at length they would rather be killed in the outfalls (sallies) with their mother, than submit; and for this gallantry it is, that even their enemies thought them worthy to have these statues erected to them. These two great elephants, together with the two resolute men sitting on them, do at the first entry into this fortress make an impression of I know not what greatness and awful terror” (Letter written at Delhi, 1st July 1663, from edition printed in London in 1684, in the author’s possession). [Ed. V. A. Smith, 256.] Such the impression made on a Parisian a century after the event: but far more powerful the charm to the author of these annals, as he pondered on the spot where Jaimall received the fatal shot from Sangram, or placed flowers on the cenotaph that marks the fall of the son of Chonda and the mansion of Patta, whence issued the Sesodia matron and her daughter. Every foot of ground is hallowed by ancient recollections. [For the question of these statues see V. A. Smith, HFA, 426; ASR, i. 225 ff.; Manucci, ii. 11.]

In these the reader may in some degree participate, as the plate gives in the distance the ruins of the dwellings both of Jaimall and Patta on the projection of the rock, as well as ‘the ringlet on the forehead of Chitor,’ the column of victory raised by Lakha Rana.

Footnote 4.10.43:

The man is of four seers: the maund is forty, or seventy-five pounds. Dow, calculating all the captured wealth of India by the latter, has rendered many facts improbable. [The man in the Āīn was 55½ lbs.]

Footnote 4.10.44:

[Sir H. M. Elliot proved that the use of 74½ is merely a modification of the figures 74¹⁰⁄₁₆, meaning apparently 84, a sacred number (Supplemental Glossary, 197). In the Central Provinces it is said that it originated in Jahāngīr’s slaughter of the Nāgar Brāhmans, when 7450 of them threw away their sacred cords and became Sūdras to save their lives (Russell, Tribes and Castes, ii. 395).]

Footnote 4.10.45:

‘Chitor marya ra pap’: ra is the sign of the genitive, in the Doric tongue of Mewar, the ka of the refined.

Footnote 4.10.46:

Classically Udayapura, the city of the East; from udaya (oriens), the point of sunrise, as asta (west) is of sunset.

Footnote 4.10.47:

Ceres—The Aheria, or Mahurat ka Shikar, will be explained in the Personal Narrative, as it would here break the connexion of events.

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Chapter 11

=Rāna Partāp Singh, A.D. 1572-97.=—Partap[4.11.1] succeeded to the titles and renown of an illustrious house, but without a capital, without resources, his kindred and clans dispirited by reverses: yet possessed of the noble spirit of his race, he meditated the recovery of Chitor, the vindication of the honour of his house, and the restoration of its power. Elevated with this design, he hurried into conflict with his powerful antagonist, nor stooped to calculate the means which were opposed to him. Accustomed to read in his country’s annals the splendid deeds of his forefathers, and that Chitor had more than once been the prison of their foes, he trusted that the revolutions of fortune might co-operate with his own efforts to overturn the unstable throne of Delhi. The reasoning was as just as it was noble; but whilst he gave loose to those lofty aspirations which meditated liberty to Mewar, his crafty opponent was counteracting his views by a scheme of policy which, when disclosed, filled his heart with anguish. The wily Mogul arrayed against Partap his kindred in faith as well as blood. The princes of Marwar, Amber, Bikaner, and even Bundi, late his firm ally, took part with Akbar and upheld despotism. Nay, even his own brother, Sagarji,[4.11.2] deserted him, and received, as the price of his treachery, the ancient capital of his race, and the title which that possession conferred [332].

=Rāna Partāp Singh resists the Moguls.=—But the magnitude of the peril confirmed the fortitude of Partap, who vowed, in the words of the bard, “to make his mother’s milk resplendent”; and he amply redeemed his pledge. Single-handed, for a quarter of a century did he withstand the combined efforts of the empire; at one time carrying destruction into the plains, at another flying from rock to rock, feeding his family from the fruits of his native hills, and rearing the nursling hero Amra, amidst savage beasts and scarce less savage men, a fit heir to his prowess and revenge. The bare idea that “the son of Bappa Rawal should bow the head to mortal man,” was insupportable; and he spurned every overture which had submission for its basis, or the degradation of uniting his family by marriage with the Tatar, though lord of countless multitudes.

The brilliant acts he achieved during that period live in every valley; they are enshrined in the heart of every true Rajput, and many are recorded in the annals of the conquerors. To recount them all, or relate the hardships he sustained, would be to pen what they would pronounce a romance who had not traversed the country where tradition is yet eloquent with his exploits, or conversed with the descendants of his chiefs, who cherish a recollection of the deeds of their forefathers, and melt, as they recite them, into manly tears.[4.11.3]

Partap was nobly supported; and though wealth and fortune tempted the fidelity of his chiefs, not one was found base enough to abandon him. The sons of Jaimall shed their blood in his cause, along with the successors of Patta—the house of Salumbar redoubled the claims of Chonda to fidelity; and these five lustres of adversity are the brightest in the chequered page of the history of Mewar. Nay, some chiefs, attracted by the very desperation of his fortunes, pressed to his standard, to combat and die with Partap. Amongst these was the Delwara chief, whose devotion gained him the prince’s ‘right hand.’

=The Vow of Rāna Partāp Singh.=—To commemorate the desolation of Chitor, which the bardic historian represents as a ‘widow’ despoiled of the ornaments to her loveliness, Partap interdicted to himself and his successors every article of luxury or pomp, until the insignia of her glory should be redeemed. The gold and silver dishes were laid aside [333] for pattras[4.11.4] of leaves; their beds henceforth of straw, and their beards left untouched. But in order more distinctly to mark their fallen fortune and stimulate to its recovery, he commanded that the martial nakkaras, which always sounded in the van of battle or processions, should follow in the rear. This last sign of the depression of Mewar still survives; the beard is yet untouched by the shears; and even in the subterfuge by which the patriot king’s behest is set aside, we have a tribute to his memory: for though his descendant eats off gold and silver, and sleeps upon a bed, he places the leaves beneath the one and straw under the other.[4.11.5]

Often was Partap heard to exclaim, “Had Udai Singh never been, or none intervened between him and Sanga Rana, no Turk should ever have given laws to Rajasthan.” Hindu society had assumed a new form within the century preceding: the wrecks of dominion from the Jumna and Ganges had been silently growing into importance; and Amber and Marwar had attained such power, that the latter single-handed coped with the imperial Sher Shah; while numerous minor chieftainships were attaining shape and strength on both sides the Chambal. A prince of commanding genius alone was wanting, to snatch the sceptre of dominion from the Islamite. Such a leader they found in Sanga, who possessed every quality which extorts spontaneous obedience, and the superiority of whose birth, as well as dignity, were admitted without cavil, from the Himalaya to Rameswaram.[4.11.6] These States had powerful motives to obey such a leader, in the absence of whom their ancient patrimony was lost; and such they would have found renewed in Sanga’s grandson, Partap, had Udai Singh not existed, or had a less gifted sovereign than Akbar been his contemporary.

With the aid of some chiefs of judgment and experience, Partap remodelled his government, adapting it to the exigencies of the times and to his slender resources. New grants were issued, with regulations defining the service required. Kumbhalmer, now the seat of government, was strengthened, as well as Gogunda and other mountain fortresses; and, being unable to keep the field in the plains [334] of Mewar, he followed the system of his ancestors, and commanded his subjects, on pain of death, to retire into the mountains. During the protracted contest, the fertile tracts watered by the Banas and the Berach, from the Aravalli chain west to the eastern tableland, were be chiragh, ‘without a lamp.’

Many tales are related of the unrelenting severity with which Partap enforced obedience to this stern policy. Frequently, with a few horse, he issued forth to see that his commands were obeyed. The silence of the desert prevailed in the plains; grass had usurped the place of the waving corn; the highways were choked with the thorny babul,[4.11.7] and beasts of prey made their abode in the habitations of his subjects. In the midst of this desolation, a single goatherd, trusting to elude observation, disobeyed his prince’s injunction, and pastured his flock in the luxuriant meadows of Untala, on the banks of the Banas. After a few questions, he was killed and hung up in terrorem. By such patriotic severity Partap rendered ‘the garden of Rajasthan’ of no value to the conqueror, and the commerce already established between the Mogul court and Europe, conveyed through Mewar from Surat and other ports, was intercepted and plundered.

=Akbar attacks Rāna Partāp Singh, A.D. 1576.=—Akbar took the field against the Rajput prince, establishing his headquarters at Ajmer. This celebrated fortress, destined ultimately to be one of the twenty-two subahs of his empire and an imperial residence, had admitted for some time a royal garrison. Maldeo of Marwar, who had so ably opposed the usurper Sher Shah, was compelled to follow the example of his brother prince, Bhagwandas of Amber, and to place himself at the footstool of Akbar: only two years subsequent to Partap’s accession, after a brave but fruitless resistance in Merta and Jodhpur, he sent his son, Udai Singh, to pay homage to the king.[4.11.8] Akbar received him at Nagor, on his route to Ajmer, on which occasion the Raos of Mandor were made Rajas; and as the heir of Marwar was of uncommon bulk, the title by which he was afterwards known in Rajasthan was Mota Raja,[4.11.9] and henceforth the descendants of the kings of Kanauj had the ‘right hand’ of the emperor of the Moguls. But the Rathor was greater in his native pride than with all the accession of dignity or power which accrued on his sacrifice of Rajput principles [335]. Udai ‘le gros’ was the first of his race who gave a daughter in marriage to a Tatar. The bribe for which he bartered his honour was splendid; for four provinces,[4.11.10] yielding £200,000 of annual revenue, were given in exchange for Jodh Bai,[4.11.11] at once doubling the fisc of Marwar. With such examples as Amber and Marwar, and with less power to resist the temptation, the minor chiefs of Rajasthan, with a brave and numerous vassalage, were transformed into satraps of Delhi, and the importance of most of them was increased by the change. Truly did the Mogul historian designate them “at once the props and the ornaments of the throne.”

=Rāna Partāp Singh deserted by Rājput Princes.=—But these were fearful odds against Partap: the arms of his countrymen thus turned upon him, derived additional weight from their self-degradation, which kindled into jealousy and hatred against the magnanimous resolution they wanted the virtue to imitate. When Hindu prejudice was thus violated by every prince in Rajasthan (that of Bundi alone excepted[4.11.12]), the Rana renounced all alliance with those who were thus degraded; and in order to carry on the line, he sought out and incorporated with the first class of nobles of his own kin the descendants of the ancient princes of Delhi, of Patan, of Marwar, and of Dhar. To the eternal honour of Partap and his issue be it told, that to the very close of the monarchy of the Moguls, they not only refused such alliance with the throne, but even with their brother princes of Marwar and Amber. It is a proud triumph of virtue to record, from the autograph letters of the most powerful of their princes, Bakhta Singh and Jai Singh, that whilst they had risen to greatness from the surrender of principle, as Mewar had decayed from her adherence to it, they should, even while basking in court favour, solicit, and that humbly, to be readmitted to the honour of matrimonial intercourse—‘to be purified,’ ‘to be regenerated,’ ‘to be made Rajputs’: and that this was granted only on condition of their abjuring the contaminating practice which had disunited them for more than a century; with the additional stipulation, that the issue of marriage with the house [336] of Mewar should be the heirs to those they entered: conditions which the decline of the empire prevented from being broken.

=Rāja Mān Singh and Rāna Partāp Singh.=—An anecdote illustrative of the settled repugnance of this noble family to sully the purity of its blood may here be related, as its result had a material influence on its subsequent condition. Raja Man, who had succeeded to the throne of Amber, was the most celebrated of his race, and from him may be dated the rise of his country. This prince exemplified the wisdom of that policy which Babur adopted to strengthen his conquest; that of connecting his family by ties of marriage with the Hindus. It has been already related, that Humayun espoused a daughter of Bhagwandas, consequently Raja Man was brother-in-law to Akbar.[4.11.13] His courage and talents well seconded this natural advantage, and he became the most conspicuous of all the generals of the empire. To him Akbar was indebted for half his triumphs. The Kachhwaha bards find a delightful theme in recounting his exploits, from the snow-clad Caucasus to the shores of the ‘golden Chersonese.’[4.11.14] Let the eye embrace these extremes of his conquests, Kabul and the Paropanisos of Alexander, and Arakan (a name now well known) on the Indian Ocean; the former reunited, the latter subjugated, to the empire by a Rajput prince and a Rajput army. But Akbar knew the master-key to Hindu feeling, and by his skill overcame prejudices deemed insurmountable, and many are the tales yet told of their blind devotion to their favourite emperor.

Raja Man was returning from the conquest of Sholapur to Hindustan when he invited himself to an interview with Partap, then at Kumbhalmer, who advanced to the Udaisagar to receive him. On the mound which embanks this lake a feast was prepared for the prince of Amber. The board was spread, the Raja summoned, and Prince Amra appointed to wait upon him; but no Rana appeared, for whose absence apologies alleging headache were urged by his son, with the request [337] that Raja Man would waive all ceremony, receive his welcome, and commence. The prince, in a tone at once dignified and respectful, replied: "Tell the Rana I can divine the cause of his headache; but the error is irremediable, and if he refuses to put a plate (kansa) before me, who will?" Further subterfuge was useless. The Rana expressed his regret; but added, that “he could not eat with a Rajput who gave his sister to a Turk, and who probably ate with him.” Raja Man was unwise to have risked this disgrace: and if the invitation went from Partap, the insult was ungenerous as well as impolitic; but of this he is acquitted. Raja Man left the feast untouched, save the few grains of rice he offered to Anndeva,[4.11.15] which he placed in his turban, observing as he withdrew: “It was for the preservation of your honour that we sacrificed our own, and gave our sisters and our daughters to the Turk; but abide in peril, if such be your resolve, for this country shall not hold you”; and mounting his horse he turned to the Rana, who appeared at this abrupt termination of his visit, “If I do not humble your pride, my name is not Man”: to which Partap replied, “he should always be happy to meet him”; while some one, in less dignified terms, desired he would not forget to bring his ‘Phupha’ [father’s sister’s husband], Akbar. The ground was deemed impure where the feast was spread: it was broken up and lustrated with the water of the Ganges, and the chiefs who witnessed the humiliation of one they deemed apostate, bathed and changed their vestments, as if polluted by his presence. Every act was reported to the emperor, who was exasperated at the insult thus offered to himself, and who justly dreaded the revival of those prejudices he had hoped were vanquished; and it hastened the first of those sanguinary battles which have immortalised the name of Partap: nor will Haldighat be forgotten while a Sesodia occupies Mewar, or a bard survives to relate the tale.

=Salīm’s Campaign, A.D. 1576.=—Prince Salim, the heir of Delhi,[4.11.16] led the war, guided by the counsels of Raja Man and the distinguished apostate son of Sagarji, Mahabat Khan. Partap trusted to his native hills and the valour of twenty-two thousand Rajputs to withstand the son of Akbar. The divisions of the royal army encountered little opposition at the exterior defiles by which they penetrated the western side of the [338] Aravalli, concentrating as they approached the chief pass which conducted to the vulnerable part of this intricate country.

=Battle of Haldīghāt or Gogūnda, June 18, 1576.=—The range to which Partap was restricted was the mountainous region around, though chiefly to the west of the new capital. From north to south, Kumbhalmer to Rakhabhnath,[4.11.17] about eighty miles in length; and in breadth, from Mirpur west to Satola east, about the same. The whole of this space is mountain and forest, valley and stream. The approaches to the capital from every point to the north, west, and south are so narrow as to merit the term of defile; on each side lofty perpendicular rocks, with scarcely breadth for two carriages abreast, across which are those ramparts of nature termed Col in the mountain scenery of Europe, which occasionally open into spaces sufficiently capacious to encamp a large force. Such was the plain of Haldighat, at the base of a neck of mountain which shut up the valley and rendered it almost inaccessible.[4.11.18] Above and below the Rajputs were posted, and on the cliffs and pinnacles overlooking the field of battle, the faithful aborigines, the Bhil, with his natural weapon the bow and arrow, and huge stones ready to roll upon the combatant enemy.

At this pass Partap was posted with the flower of Mewar, and glorious was the struggle for its maintenance. Clan after clan followed with desperate intrepidity, emulating the daring of their prince, who led the crimson banner into the hottest part of the field. In vain he strained every nerve to encounter Raja Man; but though denied the luxury of revenge on his Rajput foe, he made good a passage to where Salim commanded. His guards fell before Partap, and but for the steel plates which defended his howda, the lance of the Rajput would have deprived Akbar of his heir. His steed, the gallant Chetak, nobly seconded his lord, and is represented in all the historical drawings of this battle with one foot raised upon the elephant of the Mogul, while his rider has his lance propelled against his foe. The conductor, destitute of the means of defence, was slain, when the infuriated animal, now without control, carried off Salim. On this spot the carnage was immense: the Moguls eager to defend Salim; the heroes of Mewar to second their prince, who had already received seven wounds [339].[4.11.19] Marked by the ‘royal umbrella,’ which he would not lay aside, and which collected the might of the enemy against him, Partap was thrice rescued from amidst the foe, and was at length nearly overwhelmed, when the Jhala chief gave a signal instance of fidelity, and extricated him with the loss of his own life. Mana seized upon the insignia of Mewar, and rearing the ‘gold sun’ over his own head, made good his way to an intricate position, drawing after him the brunt of the battle, while his prince was forced from the field. With all his brave vassals the noble Jhala fell; and in remembrance of the deed his descendants have, since the day of Haldighat, borne the regal ensigns of Mewar, and enjoyed ‘the right hand of her princes.’[4.11.20] But this desperate valour was unavailing against such a force, with a numerous field artillery and a dromedary corps mounting swivels; and of twenty-two thousand Rajputs assembled on that day for the defence of Haldighat, only eight thousand quitted the field alive.[4.11.21]

=The Escape of Rāna Partāp Singh.=—Partap, unattended, fled on the gallant Chetak, who had borne him through the day, and who saved him now by leaping a mountain stream when closely pursued by two Mogul chiefs, whom this impediment momentarily checked. But Chetak, like his master, was wounded; his pursuers gained upon Partap, and the flash from the flinty rock announced them at his heels, when, in the broad accents of his native tongue, the salutation Ho! nila ghora ra aswar, ‘Ho! rider of the blue horse,’ made him look back, and he beheld but a single horseman: that horseman his brother.

Sakta, whose personal enmity to Partap had made him a traitor to Mewar, beheld from the ranks of Akbar the ‘blue horse’ flying unattended. Resentment was extinguished, and a feeling of affection, mingling with sad and humiliating recollections, took possession of his bosom. He joined in the pursuit, but only to slay the pursuers, who fell beneath his lance; and now, for the first time in their lives, the brothers embraced in friendship. Here Chetak fell, and as the Rana unbuckled his caparison to place it upon Ankara, presented to him by his brother, the noble steed expired. An altar was raised, and yet marks the spot, where Chetak[4.11.22] died; and the entire scene may be seen painted on the walls of half the houses of the capital [340].

The greeting between the brothers was necessarily short; but the merry Sakta, who was attached to Salim’s personal force, could not let it pass without a joke; and inquiring “how a man felt when flying for his life?” he quitted Partap with the assurance of reunion the first safe opportunity. On rejoining Salim, the truth of Sakta was greatly doubted when he related that Partap had not only slain his pursuers, but his own steed, which obliged him to return on that of the Khorasani. Prince Salim pledged his word to pardon him if he related the truth; when Sakta replied, “The burthen of a kingdom is on my brother’s shoulders, nor could I witness his danger without defending him from it.” Salim kept his word, but dismissed the future head of the Saktawats. Determined to make a suitable nazar on his introduction, he redeemed Bhainsror by a coup de main, and joined Partap at Udaipur, who made him a grant of the conquest, which long remained the chief abode of the Saktawats;[4.11.23] and since the day when this, their founder, preserved the life of his brother and prince against his Mogul pursuers, the birad of the bard to all of his race is Khorasani Multani ka Agal, ‘the barrier to Khorasan and Multan,’ from which countries were the chiefs he slew.

On the 7th of Sawan, S. 1632 (July, A.D. 1576), a day ever memorable in her annals, the best blood of Mewar irrigated the pass of Haldighat. Of the nearest kin of the prince five hundred were slain: the exiled prince of Gwalior, Ramsah, his son Khanderao, with three hundred and fifty of his brave Tuar clan, paid the debt of gratitude with their lives. Since their expulsion by Babur they had found sanctuary in Mewar, whose princes diminished their feeble revenues to maintain inviolable the rites of hospitality.[4.11.24] Mana, the devoted Jhala, lost one hundred and fifty of his vassals, and every house of Mewar mourned its chief support.

=Siege of Kumbhalmer.=—Elate with victory, Salim left the hills. The rainy season had set in, which impeded operations, and obtained for Partap a few months of repose; but with the spring the foe returned, when he was again defeated,[4.11.25] and took post in Kumbhalmer, which was invested by the Koka, Shahbaz Khan. He here made a gallant and [341] protracted resistance, and did not retire till insects rendered the water of the Naugun well, their sole resource, impure.[4.11.26] To the treachery of the Deora chief of Abu, who was now with Akbar, this deed is imputed. Partap thence withdrew to Chawand,[4.11.27] while Bhan, the Sonigira chief, defended the place to the last, and was slain in the assault. On this occasion also fell the chief bard of Mewar, who inspired by his deeds, as well as by his song, the spirit of resistance to the ‘ruthless king,’ and whose laudatory couplets on the deeds of his lord are still in every mouth. But the spirit of poesy died not with him, for princes and nobles, Hindu and Turk, vied with each other in exalting the patriot Partap, in strains replete with those sentiments which elevate the mind of the martial Rajput, who is inflamed into action by this national excitement.

=Further Imperialist Advance.=—On the fall of Kumbhalmer, the castles of Dharmeti and Gogunda were invested by Raja Man. Mahabat Khan took possession of Udaipur; and while a prince of the blood[4.11.28] cut off the resources furnished by the inhabitants of Oghna Panarwra, Khan Farid invaded Chappan, and approached Chawand from the south. Thus beset on every side, dislodged from the most secret retreats, and hunted from glen to glen, there appeared no hope for Partap: yet, even while his pursuers deemed him panting in some obscure lurking-place, he would by mountain signals reassemble his bands, and assail them unawares and often unguarded. By a skilful manœuvre, Farid, who dreamed of nothing less than making the Rajput prince his prisoner, was blocked up in a defile and his force cut off to a man. Unaccustomed to such warfare, the mercenary Moguls became disgusted in combating a foe seldom tangible; while the monsoon swelled the mountain streams, filling the reservoirs with mineral poisons and the air with pestilential exhalations. The periodical rains accordingly always brought some respite to Partap.

Years thus rolled away, each ending with a diminution of his means and an increase to his misfortunes. His family was his chief source of anxiety: he dreaded their captivity, an apprehension often on the point of being realised. On one occasion they were saved by the faithful Bhils of Kava, who carried them in wicker baskets and concealed them in the tin mines of Jawara, where they guarded [342] and fed them. Bolts and rings are still preserved in the trees about Jawara and Chawand, to which baskets were suspended, the only cradles of the royal children of Mewar, in order to preserve them from the tiger and the wolf. Yet amidst such complicated evils the fortitude of Partap remained unshaken, and a spy sent by Akbar represented the Rajput and his chiefs seated at a scanty meal, maintaining all the etiquette observed in prosperity, the Rana bestowing the dauna to the most deserving, and which, though only of the wild fruit of the country, was received with all the reverence of better days. Such inflexible magnanimity touched the soul of Akbar,[4.11.29] and extorted the homage of every chief in Rajasthan; nor could those who swelled the gorgeous train of the emperor withhold their admiration. Nay, these annals have preserved some stanzas addressed by the Khankhanan,[4.11.30] the first of the satraps of Delhi, to the noble Rajput, in his native tongue, applauding his valour and stimulating his perseverance: “All is unstable in this world: land and wealth will disappear, but the virtue of a great name lives for ever. Patta[4.11.31] abandoned wealth and land, but never bowed the head: alone, of all the princes of Hind, he preserved the honour of his race.”

But there were moments when the wants of those dearer than his own life almost excited him to frenzy. The wife of his bosom was insecure, even in the rock or the cave; and his infants, heirs to every luxury, were weeping around him for food: for with such pertinacity did the Mogul myrmidons pursue them, that “five meals have been prepared and abandoned for want of opportunity to eat them.” On one occasion his queen and his son’s wife were preparing a few cakes from the flour of the meadow grass,[4.11.32] of which one was given to each; half for the present, the rest for a future meal. Partap was stretched beside them pondering on his misfortunes, when a piercing cry from his daughter roused him from reflection: a wild cat had darted on the reserved portion of food, and the agony of hunger made her shrieks insupportable. Until that moment his fortitude had been unsubdued. He had beheld his sons and his kindred fall around him on the field without emotion—“For this the Rajput was born”; but the lamentation of his children for food “unmanned him.” He cursed the name of royalty, if only to be enjoyed on such conditions, and he demanded of Akbar a mitigation of his hardships [343].

=Submission of Rāna Partāp Singh.=—Overjoyed at this indication of submission, the emperor commanded public rejoicings, and exultingly showed the letter to Prithiraj, a Rajput compelled to follow the victorious car of Akbar. Prithiraj was the younger brother of the prince of Bikaner,[4.11.33] a State recently grown out of the Rathors of Marwar, and which, being exposed in the flats of the desert, had no power to resist the example of its elder, Maldeo. Prithiraj was one of the most gallant chieftains of the age, and like the Troubadour princes of the west, could grace a cause with the soul-inspiring effusions of the muse, as well as aid it with his sword: nay, in an assembly of the bards of Rajasthan, the palm of merit was unanimously awarded to the Rathor cavalier. He adored the very name of Partap, and the intelligence filled him with grief. With all the warmth and frankness of his nature, he told the king it was a forgery of some foe to the fame of the Rajput prince. “I know him well,” said he; “for your crown he would not submit to your terms.” He requested and obtained permission from the king to transmit by his courier a letter to Partap, ostensibly to ascertain the fact of his submission, but really with the view to prevent it. On this occasion he composed those couplets, still admired, and which for the effect they produced will stand comparison with any of the sirventes of the Troubadours of the west.[4.11.34]

"The hopes of the Hindu rest on the Hindu; yet the Rana forsakes them. But for Partap, all would be placed on the same level by Akbar; for our chiefs have lost their valour and our females their honour. Akbar is the broker in the market of our race: all has he purchased but the son of Uda; he is beyond his price. What true Rajput would part with honour for nine days (nauroza); yet how many have bartered it away? Will Chitor come to this market, when all have disposed of the chief article of the Khatri? Though Patta has squandered away wealth, yet this treasure has he preserved. Despair has driven man to this mart, to witness their dishonour: from such infamy the descendant of Hamir alone has been preserved. The world asks, whence the concealed aid of Partap? None but the soul of manliness and his sword: with it, well has he maintained the Khatri’s pride. This broker in the market [344] of men will one day be overreached; he cannot live for ever: then will our race come to Partap, for the seed of the Rajput to sow in our desolate lands. To him all look for its preservation, that its purity may again become resplendent."

=Rally of Rāna Partāp Singh.=—This effusion of the Rathor was equal to ten thousand men; it nerved the drooping mind of Partap, and roused him into action: for it was a noble incentive to find every eye of his race fixed upon him.

=The Nauroza.=—The allusion of the princely poet in the phrase, “bartering their honour on the Nauroza,” requires some explanation. The Nauroza, or ‘New Year’s Day,’ when the sun enters Aries, is one of great festivity among the Muhammadan princes of the East; but of that alluded to by Prithiraj we can form an adequate idea from the historian Abu-l Fazl.[4.11.35]

It is not New Year’s Day, but a festival especially instituted by Akbar, and to which he gave the epithet Khushroz, ‘day of pleasure,’ held on the ninth day (nauroza), following the chief festival of each month. The court assembled, and was attended by all ranks. The queen also had her court, when the wives of the nobles and of the Rajput vassal princes were congregated. But the Khushroz was chiefly marked by a fair held within the precincts of the court, attended only by females. The merchants’ wives exposed the manufactures of every clime, and the ladies of the court were the purchasers.[4.11.36] “His majesty is also there in disguise, by which means he learns the value of merchandise, and hears what is said of the state of the empire and the character of the officers of government.” The ingenuous Abu-l Fazl thus softens down the unhallowed purpose of this day; but posterity cannot admit that the great Akbar was to obtain these results amidst the Pushto jargon of the dames of Islam, or the mixed Bhakha of the fair of [345] Rajasthan. These ‘ninth day fairs’ are the markets in which Rajput honour was bartered, and to which the brave Prithiraj makes allusion.[4.11.37]

=Akbar and Rajput Ladies.=—It is scarcely to be credited that a statesman like Akbar should have hazarded his popularity or his power, by the introduction of a custom alike appertaining to the Celtic races of Europe as to these the Goths of Asia;[4.11.38] and that he should seek to degrade those whom the chances of war had made his vassals, by conduct so nefarious and repugnant to the keenly cherished feelings of the Rajput. Yet there is not a shadow of doubt that many of the noblest of the race were dishonoured on the Nauroza; and the chivalrous Prithiraj was only preserved from being of the number by the high courage and virtue of his wife, a princess of Mewar, and daughter of the founder of the Saktawats. On one of these celebrations of the Khushroz, the monarch of the Moguls was struck with the beauty of the daughter of Mewar, and he singled her out from amidst the united fair of Hind as the object of his passion. It is not improbable that an ungenerous feeling united with that already impure, to despoil the Sesodias of their honour, through a princess of their house under the protection of the sovereign. On retiring from the fair, she found herself entangled amidst the labyrinth of apartments by which egress was purposely ordained, when Akbar stood before her: but instead of acquiescence, she drew a poniard from her corset, and held it to his breast, dictating, and making him repeat, the oath of renunciation of the infamy to all her race. The anecdote is accompanied in the original with many dramatic circumstances. The guardian goddess of Mewar, the terrific Mata, appears on her tiger in the subterranean passage of this palace of pollution, to strengthen her mind by a solemn denunciation [346], and her hand with a weapon to protect her honour. Rae Singh, the elder brother of the princely bard, had not been so fortunate; his wife wanted either courage or virtue to withstand the regal tempter, and she returned to their dwelling in the desert despoiled of her chastity, but loaded with jewels; or, as Prithiraj expresses it: “She returned to her abode, tramping to the tinkling sound of the ornaments of gold and gems on her person; but where, my brother, is the moustache[4.11.39] on thy lip?”

=Adventures of Rāna Partāp Singh.=—It is time to return to the Aravalli, and to the patriot prince Partap. Unable to stem the torrent, he had formed a resolution worthy of his character; he determined to abandon Mewar and the blood-stained Chitor (no longer the stay of his race), and to lead his Sesodias to the Indus, plant the ‘crimson banner’ on the insular capital of the Sogdoi, and leave a desert between him and his inexorable foe. With his family, and all that was yet noble in Mewar, his chiefs and vassals, a firm and intrepid band, who preferred exile to degradation, he descended the Aravalli, and had reached the confines of the desert, when an incident occurred which made him change his measures, and still remain a dweller in the land of his forefathers. If the historic annals of Mewar record acts of unexampled severity, they are not without instances of unparalleled devotion. The minister of Partap, whose ancestors had for ages held the office, placed at his prince’s disposal their accumulated wealth, which, with other resources, is stated to have been equivalent to the maintenance of twenty-five thousand men for twelve years. The name of Bhama Sah is preserved as the saviour of Mewar. With this splendid proof of gratitude, and the sirvente of Prithiraj as incitements, he again “screwed his courage to the sticking-place,” collected his bands, and while his foes imagined that he was endeavouring to effect a retreat through the desert, surprised Shahbaz in his camp at Dawer, whose troops were cut in pieces. The fugitives were pursued to Amet, the garrison of which shared the same fate. Ere they could recover from their consternation, Kumbhalmer was assaulted and taken; Abdulla and his garrison were put to the sword, and thirty-two fortified posts in like manner carried by surprise, the troops being put to death without mercy. To use the words of the annals: "Partap made a desert of Mewar; he made an [347] offering to the sword of whatever dwelt in its plains": an appalling but indispensable sacrifice. In one short campaign (S. 1586, A.D. 1530), he had recovered all Mewar, except Chitor, Ajmer, and Mandalgarh; and determining to have a slight ovation in return for the triumph Raja Man had enjoyed (who had fulfilled to the letter his threat, that Partap should “live in peril”), he invaded Amber, and sacked its chief mart of commerce, Malpura.

Udaipur was also regained; though this acquisition was so unimportant as scarcely to merit remark. In all likelihood it was abandoned from the difficulty of defending it, when all around had submitted to Partap; though the annals ascribe it to a generous sentiment of Akbar, prompted by the great Khankhanan, whose mind appears to have been captivated by the actions of the Rajput prince.[4.11.40] An anecdote is appended to account for Akbar’s relaxation of severity, but it is of too romantic a nature even for this part of their annals.

=Mewār left in Peace by the Imperialists.=—Partap was indebted to a combination of causes for the repose he enjoyed during the latter years of his life; and though this may be ascribed principally to the new fields of ambition which occupied the Mogul arms, we are authorized also to admit the full weight of the influence that the conduct of the Hindu prince exerted upon Akbar, together with the general sympathy of his fellow-princes, who swelled the train of the conqueror, and who were too powerful to be regarded with indifference.

Repose was, however, no boon to the noblest of his race. A mind like Partap’s could enjoy no tranquillity while, from the summit of the pass which guarded Udaipur, his eye embraced the Kunguras of Chitor, to which he must ever be a stranger. To a soul like his, burning for the redemption of the glory of his race, the mercy thus shown him, in placing a limit to his hopes, was more difficult of endurance than the pangs of fabled Tantalus. Imagine the warrior, yet in manhood’s prime, broken with fatigues and covered with scars, from amidst the fragments of basaltic ruin[4.11.41] (fit emblem of his own condition!), casting a wistful eye to [348] the rock stained with the blood of his fathers; whilst in the ‘dark chamber’ of his mind the scenes of glory enacted there appeared with unearthly lustre. First, the youthful Bappa, on whose head was the ‘mor he had won from the Mori’:[4.11.42] the warlike Samarsi, arming for the last day of Rajput independence, to die with Prithiraj on the banks of the Ghaggar: again, descending the steep of Chitor, the twelve sons of Arsi, the crimson banner floating around each, while from the embattled rock the guardian goddess looked down on the carnage which secured a perpetuity of sway. Again, in all the pomp of sacrifice, the Deolia chiefs, Jaimall and Patta; and like the Pallas of Rajasthan, the Chondawat dame, leading her daughter into the ranks of destruction: examples for their sons’ and husbands’ imitation. At length clouds of darkness dimmed the walls of Chitor: from her battlements ‘Kungura Rani’[4.11.43] had fled; the tints of dishonour began to blend with the visions of glory; and lo! Udai Singh appeared flying from the rock to which the honour of his house was united. Aghast at the picture his fancy had portrayed, imagine him turning to the contemplation of his own desolate condition, indebted for a cessation of persecution to the most revolting sentiment that can assail an heroic mind—compassion; compared with which scorn is endurable, contempt even enviable: these he could retaliate; but for the high-minded, the generous Rajput, to be the object of that sickly sentiment, pity, was more oppressive than the arms of his foe.

=The Last Days of Rāna Partāp.=—A premature decay assailed the pride of Rajasthan; a mind diseased preyed on an exhausted frame, and prostrated him in the very summer of his days. The last moments of Partap were an appropriate commentary on his life, which he terminated, like the Carthaginian, swearing his successor to eternal conflict against the foes of his country’s independence. But the Rajput prince had not the same joyful assurance that inspired the Numidian Hamilcar; for his end was clouded with the presentiment that his son Amra would abandon his fame for inglorious repose. A powerful sympathy is excited by the picture which is drawn of this final scene. The dying hero is represented in a lowly dwelling; his chiefs, the faithful companions of many a glorious day, awaiting round his pallet the dissolution of their prince, when a groan of mental anguish made Salumbar inquire [349], “What afflicted his soul that it would not depart in peace?” He rallied: “It lingered,” he said, “for some consolatory pledge that his country should not be abandoned to the Turk”; and with the death-pang upon him, he related an incident which had guided his estimate of his son’s disposition, and now tortured him with the reflection that for personal ease he would forgo the remembrance of his own and his country’s wrongs.

On the banks of the Pichola, Partap and his chiefs had constructed a few huts[4.11.44] (the site of the future palace of Udaipur), to protect them during the inclemency of the rains in the day of their distress. Prince Amra, forgetting the lowliness of the dwelling, a projecting bamboo of the roof caught the folds of his turban and dragged it off as he retired. A hasty emotion, which disclosed a varied feeling, was observed with pain by Partap, who thence adopted the opinion that his son would never withstand the hardships necessary to be endured in such a cause. “These sheds,” said the dying prince, “will give way to sumptuous dwellings, thus generating the love of ease; and luxury with its concomitants will ensue, to which the independence of Mewar, which we have bled to maintain, will be sacrificed: and you, my chiefs, will follow the pernicious example.” They pledged themselves, and became guarantees for the prince, “by the throne of Bappa Rawal,” that they would not permit mansions to be raised till Mewar had recovered her independence. The soul of Partap was satisfied, and with joy he expired.

Thus closed the life of a Rajput whose memory is even now idolized by every Sesodia, and will continue to be so, till renewed oppression shall extinguish the remaining sparks of patriotic feeling. May that day never arrive! yet if such be her destiny, may it, at least, not be hastened by the arms of Britain!

It is worthy the attention of those who influence the destinies of States in more favoured climes, to estimate the intensity of feeling which could arm this prince to oppose the resources of a small principality against the then most powerful empire of the world, whose armies were more numerous and far more efficient than any ever led by the Persian against the liberties of Greece. Had Mewar possessed her Thucydides or her Xenophon, neither the wars of the Peloponnesus nor the retreat of the ‘ten thousand’ would have yielded more diversified incidents for [350] the historic muse, than the deeds of this brilliant reign amid the many vicissitudes of Mewar. Undaunted heroism, inflexible fortitude, that which ‘keeps honour bright,’ perseverance,—with fidelity such as no nation can boast, were the materials opposed to a soaring ambition, commanding talents, unlimited means, and the fervour of religious zeal; all, however, insufficient to contend with one unconquerable mind. There is not a pass in the alpine Aravalli that is not sanctified by some deed of Partap,—some brilliant victory or, oftener, more glorious defeat. Haldighat is the Thermopylae of Mewar; the field of Dawer her Marathon.

-----

Footnote 4.11.1:

[Partāp Singh is usually called by the Muhammadans Rāna Kīka, Kīka (in Mārwār gīga, in Mālwa Kūka), meaning ‘a small boy’ (Āīn, i. 339; Elliot-Dowson v. 397, 410).]

Footnote 4.11.2:

Sagarji held the fortress and lands of Kandhar. His descendants formed an extensive clan called Sagarawats, who continued to hold Kandhar till the time of Sawai Jai Singh of Amber, whose situation as one of the great tatraps of the Mogul court enabled him to wrest it from Sagarji’s issue, upon their refusal to intermarry with the house of Amber. The great Mahabat Khan, the most intrepid of Jahangir’s generals, was an apostate Sagarawat. They established many chieftainships in Central India, as Umri Bhadaura, Ganeshganj, Digdoli; places better known to Sindhia’s officers than to the British. [It is remarkable that the author believed that Mahābat Khān was a Rājput. This man, the De Montfort of Jahāngīr, had such close Hindu affinities and associations that he was thought to be a Hindu. He was a Musulmān, Zamāna Beg of Kābul, best known for his arrest of Jahāngīr in 1628. He died in 1644. (Jahāngīr, Memoirs, Rogers-Beveridge i. 24; Āīn, i. 337 f., 347, 371, 414; Elphinstone, Hist. of India, 567.)]

Footnote 4.11.3:

I have climbed the rocks, crossed the streams, and traversed the plains which were the theatre of Partap’s glory, and conversed with the lineal descendants of Jaimall and Patta on the deeds of their forefathers, and many a time has the tear started in their eye at the tale they recited.

Footnote 4.11.4:

The first invented drinking cup or eating vessel being made from the leaf (pat) of particular trees, especially the palasa (Butea frondosa) and bar (Ficus religiosa). The cups of a beautiful brown earthenware, made at Kotharia, are chiefly pateras, of a perfectly classical shape. Query, the Roman patera>, or the Greek ποτήρ, or Saxon pot>? [patera, pateo, ‘to lie open’; pot. O.E. pott>, Lat. potus, ‘drinking.’]

Footnote 4.11.5:

[For some further details see Rāsmāla, 307.]

Footnote 4.11.6:

The bridge of Rama, the southern point of the peninsula [IGI, xxi. 173 ff.]

Footnote 4.11.7:

Mimosa [Acacia] Arabica.

Footnote 4.11.8:

A.H. 977, A.D. 1569. [Āīn, i. 429 f.]

Footnote 4.11.9:

There is less euphony in the English than in the French designation, Udai ‘le Gros.’ [Erskine (iii. A. 58) with less probability says it may mean ‘great, potent, good.’]

Footnote 4.11.10:

Godwar, Rs. 900,000; Ujjain, 249,914; Debalpur, 182,500; Badnawar, 250,000.

Footnote 4.11.11:

The magnificent tomb of Jodh Bai, the mother of Shah Jahan, is at Sikandra, near Agra, and not far from that in which Akbar’s remains are deposited. [Jodh Bāi is a title, meaning ‘Jodhpur lady.’ There were some doubts about her identity, but she was certainly daughter of Udai Singh and wife of Jahāngīr (Āīn, i. 619). For her tomb see Sleeman, Rambles, 348.]

Footnote 4.11.12:

The causes of exemption are curious, and are preserved in a regular treaty with the emperor, a copy of which the author possesses, which will be given in The Annals of Bundi.

Footnote 4.11.13:

[Akbar married a daughter of Rāja Bihāri Mall and sister of Bhagwāndās (Āīn, i. 310, 339). There is no evidence of the marriage of Humāyūn into this family.]

Footnote 4.11.14:

When Raja Man was commanded to reduce the revolted province of Kabul, he hesitated to cross the Indus, the Rubicon of the Hindu, and which they term Atak, or ‘the barrier,’ as being the limit between their faith and the barbarian. On the Hindu prince assigning this as his reason for not leading his Rajputs to the snowy Caucasus, the accomplished Akbar sent him a couplet in the dialect of Rajasthan:—

“Sabhi bhūmi Gopāl kī Jā men Atak kaha, Jā ke man men atak he, Soī Atak raha.”

“The whole earth is of God, In which he has placed the Atak. The mind that admits impediments Will always find an Atak.”

[Dr. Tessitori, whose version is given, remarks that the popular form of the third line is: Bhītar tāti pāp ki.] This delicate irony succeeded when stronger language would have failed.

Footnote 4.11.15:

The Hindus, as did the Greeks and other nations of antiquity, always made offering of the first portion of each meal to the gods. Anndeva, ‘the god of food.’

Footnote 4.11.16:

[This is impossible, because Salīm, afterwards the Emperor Jahāngīr, was only in his seventh year. The generals in command were Mān Singh and Āsaf Khān.]

Footnote 4.11.17:

[Rakhabhdev, with a famous Jain temple, forty miles south of Udaipur city (Erskine ii. A. 118).]

Footnote 4.11.18:

Whoever has travelled through the Oberhasli of Meyringen, in the Oberland Bernois, requires no description of the alpine Aravalli. The Col de Balme, in the vale of Chamouni, is, on a larger scale, the Haldighat of Mewar.

Footnote 4.11.19:

Three from the spear, one shot, and three by the sword.

Footnote 4.11.20:

The descendants of Mana yet hold Sadri and all the privileges obtained on this occasion. Their kettle-drums beat to the gate of the palace, a privilege allowed to none besides, and they are addressed by the title of Raj, or royal.

Footnote 4.11.21:

[The battle fought on June 18, 1576, is known to Musalmān historians as the battle of Khamnaur or Khamnor, twenty-six miles north of Udaipur city (Badaoni ii. 237; Akbarnāma, iii. 244 ff.; Elliot-Dowson v. 398; Āīn, i. 339; Smith, Akbar the Great Mogul, 151 ff.).]

Footnote 4.11.22:

‘Chetak ka Chabutra’ is near to Jharol.

Footnote 4.11.23:

The mother of Sakta was the Baijiraj, ‘Royal Mother’ (Queen Dowager) of Mewar. She loved this son, and left Udaipur to superintend his household at Bhainsror: since which renunciation of rank to affection, the mothers of the senior branch of Saktawat are addressed Baijiraj. [Bhainsror is now held by a Chondāwat Rāwat.]

Footnote 4.11.24:

Eight hundred rupees, or £100 daily, is the sum recorded for the support of this prince.

Footnote 4.11.25:

The date of this battle is Magh Sudi 7, S. 1633, A.D. 1577.

Footnote 4.11.26:

[For the career of Shāhbaz Khān, known as Koka or ‘foster-brother,’ who died in 1600, see Āīn, i. 399 ff. Kūmbhalmer was captured in 1578-9 (Elliot-Dowson v. 410, vi. 58). “About 1578” (Erskine ii. A. 116).]

Footnote 4.11.27:

A town in the heart of the mountainous tract on the south-west of Mewar, called Chappan, containing about three hundred and fifty towns and villages, peopled chiefly by the aboriginal Bhils.

Footnote 4.11.28:

Called Ami Sah in the Annals.

Footnote 4.11.29:

[Akbar was anxious to destroy Partāp, but he could not carry on a guerilla campaign in Rājputana, and he had work to do elsewhere (Smith, Akbar the Great Mogul, 153).]

Footnote 4.11.30:

[Mirza Abdu-r-rahīm, son of Bairām Khān (Āīn, i. 334).]

Footnote 4.11.31:

A colloquial contraction for Partap.

Footnote 4.11.32:

Called Mol.

Footnote 4.11.33:

[Rāē Singh (1571-1611).]

Footnote 4.11.34:

It is no affectation to say that the spirit evaporates in the lameness of the translation. The author could feel the force, though he failed to imitate the strength, of the original.

Footnote 4.11.35:

[Āīn, i. 276 f.; Memoirs of Jahāngīr, trans. Rogers-Beveridge, 48 f.]

Footnote 4.11.36:

At these royal fairs were also sold the productions of princely artisans, male and female, and which, out of compliment to majesty, made a bounteous return for their industry. It is a fact but little known, that most Asiatic princes profess a trade: the great Aurangzeb was a cap-maker, and sold them to such advantage on these ‘ninth day’ fairs, that his funeral expenses were by his own express command defrayed from the privy purse, the accumulation of his personal labour. A delightful anecdote is recorded of the Khilji king Mahmud, whose profession was literary, and who obtained good prices from his Omrahs for his specimens of calligraphy. While engaged in transcribing one of the Persian poets, a professed scholar, who with others attended the conversazione, suggested an emendation, which was instantly attended to, and the supposed error remedied. When the Mullah was gone, the monarch erased the emendation and re-inserted the passage. An Omrah had observed and questioned the action, to which the king replied: “It was better to make a blot in the manuscript than wound the vanity of a humble scholar.” [Ferishta tells the story of Nāsiru-d-dīn Mahmūd, i. 246.]

Footnote 4.11.37:

[Compare the later accounts of these fairs by Bernier 272 f.; and Manucci i. 195. Aurangzeb transferred the Nauroz rejoicings to the coronation festival in Ramazān (Jadunath Sarkar, Life of Aurangzib, iii. 93). The ladies of the Mughal court usually spoke, not Pushto, but Turki.]

Footnote 4.11.38:

This laxity, as regards female delicacy, must have been a remnant of Scythic barbarism, brought from the banks of the Jaxartes, the land of the Getae, where now, as in the days of Tomyris, a shoe at the door is a sufficient barrier to the entrance of many Tatar husbands. It is a well-known fact, also, that the younger son in these regions inherited a greater share than the elder, which is attributed to their pastoral habits, which invited early emigration in the elder sons. This habit prevailed with the Rajput tribes of very early times, and the annals of the Yadus, a race allied to the Yuti-Getae, or Jāt, afford many instances of it. Modified it yet exists amongst the Jarejas (of the same stock), with whom the sons divide equally; which custom was transmitted to Europe by these Getic hordes, and brought into England by the Jut brothers, who founded the kingdom of Kent (kanthi, ‘a coast’ in Gothic and Sanskrit), where it is yet known as Gavelkind. In English law it is termed borough-English. In Scotland it existed in barbarous times, analogous to those when the Nauroza was sanctioned; and the lord of the manor had privileges which rendered it more than doubtful whether the first-born was natural heir: hence, the youngest was the heir. So in France, in ancient times; and though the ‘droit de Jambage’ no longer exists, the term sufficiently denotes the extent of privilege, in comparison with which the other rights of ‘Noçages,’ the seigneur’s feeding his greyhounds with the best dishes and insulting the bride’s blushes with ribald songs, were innocent. [The ethnological views in this note do not deserve notice.]

Footnote 4.11.39:

The loss of this is the sign of mourning. [There is naturally no confirmation of these anecdotes in the Musalmān historians, but they possibly may be true.]

Footnote 4.11.40:

[See p. 398, above.]

Footnote 4.11.41:

These mountains are of granite and close-grained quartz; but on the summit of the pass there is a mass of columnar rocks, which, though the author never examined them very closely, he has little hesitation in calling basaltic. Were it permitted to intrude his own feelings on his reader, he would say, he never passed the portals of Debari, which close the pass leading from Chitor to Udaipur, without throwing his eye on this fantastic pinnacle and imagining the picture he has drawn. Whoever, in rambling through the ‘eternal city,’ has had his sympathy awakened in beholding at the Porta Salaria the stone seat where the conqueror of the Persians and the Goths, the blind Belisarius, begged his daily dole,—or pondered at the unsculptured tomb of Napoleon upon the vicissitudes of greatness, will appreciate the feeling of one who, in sentiment, had identified himself with the Rajputs, of whom Partap was justly the model.

Footnote 4.11.42:

[A pun on maur, ‘a crown,’ and the Maurya tribe.]

Footnote 4.11.43:

‘The queen of battlements,’ the turreted Cybele of Rajasthan.

Footnote 4.11.44:

This magnificent lake is now adorned with marble palaces. Such was the wealth of Mewar even in her decline. [The lake is said to have been constructed by a Banjāra at the end of the fourteenth century, and the embankment was built by Rāna Udai Singh in 1560. The lake is 2¼ miles long, and 1¼ broad, with an area of over one square mile. In the middle stand the island palaces, the Jagmandir and the Jagniwās (Erskine ii. A. 109).]

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Chapter 12

=Rāna Amar Singh I., A.D. 1597-1620.=—Of the seventeen sons of Partap, Amra, who succeeded him, was the eldest. From the early age of eight to the hour of his parent’s death, he had been his constant companion and the partner of his toils and dangers. Initiated by his noble sire in every act of mountain strife, familiar with its perils, he entered on his career[4.12.1] in the very flower of manhood, already attended by sons able to maintain whatever his sword might recover of his patrimony.

Akbar, the greatest foe of Mewar, survived Partap nearly eight years.[4.12.2] The vast field in which he had to exert the resources of his mind, necessarily withdrew him from a scene where even success ill repaid the sacrifices made to attain it. Amra was left in perfect repose during the remainder of this monarch’s life, which it was not wisdom to disturb by the renewal of a contest against the colossal power of the Mogul. An extended reign of more than half a century permitted Akbar to consolidate the vast empire he had erected, and to model the form of his [351] government, which displays, as handed down by Abu-l Fazl, an incontestable proof of his genius as well as of his natural beneficence. Nor would the Mogul lose, on being contrasted with the contemporary princes of Europe: with Henry IV. of France, who, like himself, ascended a throne weakened by dissension; with Charles V., alike aspiring to universal sway: or the glorious queen of our own isle, who made advances to Akbar and sent him an embassy.[4.12.3] Akbar was fortunate as either Henry or Elizabeth in the choice of his ministers. The lofty integrity, military genius, and habits of civil industry, for which Sully was distinguished, found their parallel in Bairam; and if Burleigh equalled in wisdom, he was not superior in virtue to Abu-l Fazl, nor possessed of his excessive benevolence. Unhappily for Mewar, all this genius and power combined to overwhelm her. It is, however, a proud tribute to the memory of the Mogul that his name is united with that of his rival Partap in numerous traditionary couplets honourable to both; and if the Rajput bard naturally emblazons first on his page that of his own hero, he admits that none other but Akbar can stand a comparison with him; thereby confirming the eulogy of the historian of his race, who, in summing up his character, observes that, “if he sometimes did things beneath the dignity of a great king, he never did anything unworthy of a good man.” But if the annalist of the Bundi State can be relied upon, the very act which caused Akbar’s death will make us pause ere we subscribe to these testimonies to the worth of departed greatness, and, disregarding the adage of only speaking good of the dead, compel us to institute, in imitation of the ancient Egyptians, a posthumous inquest on the character of the monarch of the Moguls. The Bundi records are well worthy of belief, as diaries of events were kept by her princes, who were of the first importance in this and the succeeding reigns: and they may be more likely to throw a light upon points of character of a tendency to disgrace the Mogul king, than the historians of his court, who had every reason to withhold such. A desire to be rid of the great Raja Man of Amber, to whom he was so much indebted, made the emperor descend [352] to act the part of the assassin. He prepared a ma’ajun, or confection, a part of which contained poison; but, caught in his own snare, he presented the innoxious portion to the Rajput and ate that drugged with death himself.[4.12.4] We have a sufficient clue to the motives which influenced Akbar to a deed so unworthy of him, and which were more fully developed in the reign of his successor; namely, a design on the part of Raja Man to alter the succession, and that Khusru, his nephew, should succeed instead of Salim. With such a motive, the aged emperor might have admitted with less scruple the advice which prompted an act he dared not openly undertake, without exposing the throne in his latter days to the dangers of civil contention, as Raja Man was too powerful to be openly assaulted.

=The Administration of Rāna Amar Singh.=—Let us return to Mewar. Amra remodelled the institutions of his country, made a new assessment of the lands and distribution of the fiefs, apportioning the service to the times. He also established the gradation of ranks such as yet exists, and regulated the sumptuary laws even to the tie of a turban,[4.12.5] and many of these are to be seen engraved on pillars of stone in various parts of the country.

The repose thus enjoyed realized the prophetic fears of Partap, whose admonitions were forgotten. Amra constructed a small palace on the banks of the lake, named after himself ‘the abode of immortality,’[4.12.6] still remarkable for its Gothic contrast to the splendid marble edifice erected by his successors, now the abode of the princes of Mewar.

=Jahāngīr attacks Mewār.=—Jahangir had been four years on the throne, and having overcome all internal dissension, resolved to signalize his reign by the subjugation of the only prince who had disdained to acknowledge the paramount power of the Moguls; and assembling the royal forces, he put them in motion for Mewar.

Amra, between the love of ease and reputation, wavered as to the conduct he should adopt; nor were sycophants wanting who

Counselled ignoble ease and peaceful sloth, Not peace:

and dared to prompt his following the universal contagion, by accepting the imperial farman. In such a state of mind the chiefs found their prince, when [353] they repaired to the new abode to warn him, and prepare him for the emergency. But the gallant Chondawat, recalling to their remembrance the dying behest of their late glorious head, demanded its fulfilment. All resolved to imitate the noble Partap,

... preferring Hard liberty before the easy yoke Of servile pomp.

=Chief of Salūmbar intervenes.=—A magnificent mirror of European fabrication adorned the embryo palace. Animated with a noble resentment at the inefficacy of his appeal to the better feelings of his prince, the chieftain of Salumbar hurled ‘the slave of the carpet’[4.12.7] against the splendid bauble, and starting up, seized his sovereign by the arm and moved him from the throne. “To horse, chiefs!” he exclaimed, “and preserve from infamy the son of Partap.” A burst of passion followed the seeming indignity, and the patriot chief was branded with the harsh name of traitor; but with his sacred duty in view, and supported by every vassal of note, he calmly disregarded the insult. Compelled to mount his steed, and surrounded by the veterans and all the chivalry of Mewar, Amra’s passion vented itself in tears of indignation. In such a mood the cavalcade descended the ridge, since studded with palaces, and had reached the spot where the temple of Jagannath now stands, when he recovered from this fit of passion; the tear ceased to flow, and passing his hand over his moustache,[4.12.8] he made a courteous salutation to all, entreating their forgiveness for this omission of respect; but more especially expressing his gratitude to Salumbar, he said, “Lead on, nor shall you ever have to regret your late sovereign.” Elevated with every sentiment of generosity and valour, they passed on to Dawer, where they encountered the royal army led by the brother of the Khankhanan, as it entered the pass, and which, after a long and sanguinary combat, they entirely defeated.[4.12.9]

=Defeat of the Imperialists.=—The honours of the day are chiefly attributed to the brave Kana, uncle to the Rana, and ancestor of that numerous clan called after him Kanawats. A truce followed this battle, but it was of short duration; for another and yet more murderous conflict took place in the spring of 1666, in the pass of the sacred Ranpur [354], where the imperial army, under its leader Abdulla, was almost exterminated;[4.12.10] though with the loss of the best and bravest of the chiefs of Mewar, whose names, however harsh, deserve preservation.[4.12.11] A feverish exultation was the fruit of this victory, which shed a hectic flush of glory over the declining days of Mewar, when the crimson banner once more floated throughout the province of Godwar.

=Jahāngīr establishes Sagra as Rāna.=—Alarmed at these successive defeats, Jahangir, preparatory to equipping a fresh army against Mewar, determined to establish a new Rana, and to instal him in the ancient seat of power, Chitor, thus hoping to withdraw from the standard of Amra many of his adherents. The experiment evinced at least a knowledge of their prejudices; but, to the honour of Rajput fidelity, it failed. Sagra, who abandoned Partap and went over to Akbar, was selected;[4.12.12] the sword of investiture was girded on him by the emperor’s own hands, and under the escort of a Mogul force he went to reign amidst the ruins of Chitor. Her grandeur, even in desolation, is beautifully depicted at this very period by the chaplain to the embassy from Elizabeth to Jahangir, the members composing which visited the capital of the Sesodias in their route to Ajmer.[4.12.13]

For seven years Sagra had a spurious homage paid to him amidst this desolation, the ruined pride of his ancestors. But it is gratifying to record, that not even by this recreant son of Chitor could the impressions formed in contemplating such scenes be resisted; and Sagra, though flinty as the rock to a brother and nephew, could not support the silent admonition of the altars of the heroes who had fallen in her defence. The triumphal column raised for victory over a combination of [355] kings, was a perpetual memento of his infamy; nor could he pass over one finger’s breadth of her ample surface, without treading on some fragment which reminded him of their great deeds and his own unworthiness. We would be desirous of recording, that a nobler remembrancer than ‘coward conscience,’ animated the brother of Partap to an act of redeeming virtue; but when the annals tell us, that “the terrific Bhairon (the god of battle) openly manifested his displeasure,” it is decisive that it was not less the wish for greatness, than the desire to be “without the illness should attend it”; and sending for his nephew, he restored to him Chitor, retiring to the isolated Kandhar.[4.12.14] Some time after, upon going to court, and being upbraided by Jahangir, he drew his dagger and slew himself in the emperor’s presence: an end worthy of such a traitor.[4.12.15]

=Conquests of Rāna Amar Singh I.=—Amra took possession of the seat of his ancestors; but wanting the means to put it in defence, the acquisition only served to increase the temporary exultation. The evil resulting from attaching so much consequence to a capital had been often signally manifested; as to harass the enemy from their mountains, and thereby render his conquests unavailing, was the only policy which could afford the chance of independence. With Chitor the Rana acquired, by surrender or assault, possession of no less than eighty of the chief towns and fortresses of Mewar: amongst them Untala, at whose capture occurred the patriotic struggle between the clans of Chondawat and Saktawat for the leading of the vanguard, elsewhere related.[4.12.16] On this memorable storm, besides the leaders of the rival bands, five of the infant clan Saktawat, consisting but of sixteen brave brothers, with three of the house of Salumbar, perished, struggling for the immortality promised by the bard. We may here relate the rise of the Saktawats, with which is materially connected the future history of Mewar.

=Sakta and the Saktāwats.=—Sakta was the second of the twenty-four sons of Udai Singh. When only five years of age, he discovered that fearless temperament which marked his manhood [356]. The armourer having brought a new dagger to try its edge by the usual proof on thinly spread cotton, the child asked the Rana “if it was not intended to cut bones and flesh,” and seizing it, tried it on his own little hand. The blood gushed on the carpet, but he betrayed no symptom of pain or surprise. Whether his father admitted the tacit reproof of his own want of nerve, or that it recalled the prediction of the astrologers, who, in casting Sakta’s horoscope, had announced that he was to be “the bane of Mewar,” he was incontinently commanded to be put to death, and was carried off for this purpose, when saved by the Salumbar chief, who arrested the fiat, sped to the Rana, and begged his life as a boon, promising, having no heirs, to educate him as the future head of the Chondawats. The Salumbar chief had children in his old age, and while wavering between his own issue and the son of his adoption, the young Sakta was sent for to court by his brother Partap. The brothers for a considerable time lived on the most amicable footing, unhappily interrupted by a dispute while hunting, which in time engendered mutual dislike. While riding in the ring, Partap suddenly proposed to decide their quarrel by single combat, “to see who was the best lancer.” Not backward, Sakta replied, “Do you begin”; and some little time was lost in a courteous struggle for the first spear, when, as they took their ground and agreed to charge together, the Purohit[4.12.17] rushed between the combatants and implored them not to ruin the house. His appeal, however, being vain, there was but one way left to prevent the unnatural strife: the priest drew his dagger, and plunging it in his breast, fell a lifeless corpse between the combatants. Appalled at the horrid deed, ‘the blood of the priest on their head,’ they desisted from their infatuated aim. Partap, waving his hand, commanded Sakta to quit his dominions, who bowing retired, and carried his resentments to Akbar. Partap performed with the obsequies of this faithful servant many expiatory rites, and made an irrevocable grant of Salera to his son, still enjoyed by his descendants, while a small column yet identifies the spot of sacrifice to fidelity. From that hour to the memorable day when the founder of the Saktawats gained the birad of the race ‘Khurasan Multan ka Aggal,’ on the occasion of his saving his sovereign flying from the field, the brothers had never beheld each other’s face [357].

Sakta had seventeen sons, all of whom, excepting the heir of Bhainsror,[4.12.18] attended his obsequies. On return from this rite they found the gates barred against them by Bhanji, now chief of the Saktawats, who told them “there were too many mouths,” and that they must push their fortunes elsewhere while he attended his sovereign with the quota of Bhainsror. They demanded their horses and their arms, if such were his pleasure; and electing Achal as their head (whose wife was then pregnant), they took the route to Idar, which had recently been acquired by a junior branch of the Rathors of Marwar.[4.12.19] They had reached Palod when the pangs of childbirth seized the wife of Achal; and being rudely repulsed by the Sonigira vassal of Palod, who refused her shelter at such a moment, they sought refuge amidst the ruins of a temple.[4.12.20] It was the shrine of Mata Janavi, ‘the mother of births,’ the Juno Lucina of the Rajputs. In a corner of the sanctuary they placed the mother of a future race; but the rain, which fell in torrents, visibly affected the ruin. A beam of stone gave way, which but for Bala would have crushed her: he supported the sinking roof on his head till the brothers cut down a babul tree, with which they propped it and relieved him. In this retreat Asa (Hope) was born, who became the parent of an extensive branch known as the Achalis Saktawats.

The ‘Great Mother’ was propitious. The parent of ‘Hope’ was soon enabled to resume her journey for Idar, whose chief received them with open arms, and assigned lands for their support. Here they had been some time when the Rana’s prime minister passed through Idar from a pilgrimage to Satrunjaya.[4.12.21] A violent storm would have thrown down the tent in which was his wife, but for the exertion of some of the brothers; and the minister, on learning that it was to the near kin of his sovereign he was indebted for this kindness, invited them to Udaipur, taking upon him to provide for them with their own proper head, which they declined without a special invitation. This was not long wanting; for Amra [358] was then collecting the strength of his hills against the king, and the services of the band of brothers, his kinsmen, were peculiarly acceptable. The first act of duty, though humble, is properly recorded, as ennobled by the sentiment which inspired it, and the pictured scene is yet preserved of Bala and Jodha collecting logs of wood for a night fire in the mountain bivouac for their kinsman and sovereign. In the more brilliant exploit which followed Bala took the lead, and though the lord of Bhainsror was in camp, it was Bala who obtained the leading of the vanguard: the commencement of that rivalry of clanship from whence have resulted some of the most daring, and many of the most merciless deeds in the history of Mewar. The right to lead in battle belonged to the Chondawats, and the first intimation the chieftain had of his prince’s inconsiderate insult was from the bard incessantly repeating the ‘birad’ of the clan, until ‘the portal of the ten thousand’ of Mewar deemed him mad. “Not so,” replied he; “but it is, perhaps, the last time your ears may be gratified with the watchword of Chonda, which may to-morrow be given as well as the Harawal to the Saktawats.” An explanation followed, and the assault of Untala ensued, which preserved the rights of the Chondawats, though nobly contested by their rivals. The vassal of Bakrol carried the tidings of the successful assault to the Rana, who arrived in time to receive the last obeisance of Bala, whose parting words to his prince were seized on by the bard and added to the birad of the clan: and although, in sloth and opium, they now “lose and neglect the creeping hours of time,” yet whenever a Saktawat chief enters the court of his sovereign, or takes his seat amongst his brother chiefs, the bards still salute him with the dying words of Bala:

"_Dūna dātār. Chauguna junjhār, Khurāsān Multān ka āggāl._"[4.12.22]

Then passing the hand over his moustache, for a moment the escalade of Untala flits before his vision, where Bala, Achalis, Jodha, Dilla, and Chaturbhan, five of the seventeen sons of Sakta, fell for the maintenance of the post of honour [359]. Bhanji soon after performed a service which obtained him the entire favour of his prince, who, returning from Ratlam, was insulted by the Rathors of Bhindar, which was punished by the Saktawat, who took the town by assault, expelling the aggressors. Amra added it to his fief of Bhainsror, and since the latter was bestowed on the rival clan, Bhindar has continued the chief residence of the leader of the Saktawats. Ten chiefs[4.12.23] have followed in regular succession, whose issue spread over Mewar, so that in a few generations after Sakta, their prince could muster the swords of ten thousand Saktawats; but internal feuds and interminable spoliation have checked the progress of population, and it might be difficult now to assemble half that number of the ‘children of Sakta’ fit to bear arms.

=Renewed Attack by Jahāngīr. Battle of Khāmnor.=—To return. These defeats alarmed Jahangir, who determined to equip an overwhelming force to crush the Rana. To this end he raised the imperial standard at Ajmer, and assembled the expedition under his immediate inspection, of which he appointed his son Parvez commander, with instructions on departure “that if the Rana or his elder son Karan should repair to him, to receive them with becoming attention, and to offer no molestation to the country.”[4.12.24] But the Sesodia prince little thought of submission: on the contrary, flushed with success, he gave the royal army the meeting at a spot oft moistened with blood, the pass of Khamnor,[4.12.25] leading into the heart of the hills. The imperial army was disgracefully beaten, and fled, pursued with great havoc, towards Ajmer. The Mogul historian admits it to have been a glorious day for Mewar. He describes Parvez entangled in the passes, dissensions in his camp, his supplies cut off, and under all [360] these disadvantages attacked; his precipitate flight and pursuit, in which the royal army lost vast numbers of men.[4.12.26] But Jahangir in his diary slurs it over, and simply remarks: “Fearing that Khusrau’s affair might be prolonged, I ordered my son Parwīz to leave some of the Sardārs to look after the Rānā, and to come to Agra with Āsaf Khān and a body of those nearly connected with him in the service.”[4.12.27]

This son, tutored by the great Mahabat Khan, fared no better than Parvez; he was routed and slain. But the Hydra was indestructible; for every victory, while it cost the best blood of Mewar, only multiplied the number of her foes. Seventeen pitched battles had the illustrious Rajput fought since the death of his father: but the loss of his experienced veterans withered the laurels of victory, nor had he sufficient repose either to husband his resources or to rear his young heroes to replace them. Another and yet more mighty army was assembled under Prince Khurram, the ablest of the sons of Jahangir, and better known in history as Shah Jahan, when emperor of the Moguls.

Again did the Rana with his son Karan collect the might of their hills; but a handful of warriors was all their muster to meet the host of Delhi, and the ‘crimson banner,’ which for more than eight hundred years had waved in proud independence over the heads of the Guhilots, was now to be abased to the son of Jahangir. The Emperor’s own pen shall narrate the termination of this strife.

"My chief object, after my visit to the Khwāja [the tomb of Mu’īnu-d-dīn Chishti, the saint of Ajmer] was to put a stop to the affair of the rebel Rānā. On this account I determined to remain myself at Ajmīr and send on Bābā Khurram, my fortunate son. This idea was a very good one, and on this account, on the 6th of Day [tenth month of the solar year] at the hour fixed on, I dispatched him in happiness and triumph. I presented him with a qabā (outer coat) of gold brocade with jewelled flowers and pearls round the flowers, a brocaded turban with strings of pearls, a gold woven sash with chains of pearls, one of my private elephants called Fath Gaj, with trappings, a splendid horse, a jewelled sword, with a phūl katāra (dagger). In addition to the men first appointed to this duty under the leadership of Khān A’zam, I sent 12,000 more horse with my son, and honoured their khil’at (wearing robes of honour) leaders."[4.12.28]

On 14th Isfandārmuz [twelfth month of the solar year] "a representation came from my son Bābā Khurram that the elephant ‛Ālam Gumān [‘arrogant of the earth’], of which the Rānā was very fond, together with seventeen ‛Ālamgumān other elephants, had fallen into the hands of the victorious army."[4.12.29] Jahāngīr rode this elephant on the second day of the New Year, which began on 21st March 1614.[4.12.30]

"In the month of Bahman [eleventh solar month] there came pieces of good news, one after the other. The first was that the Rānā Amar Singh had elected for obedience and service to the Court. The circumstances of this affair are these. Sultān Khurram, by dint of placing a great many posts, especially in some places where most people said it was impossible to place them on account of the badness of the air and water and the wild nature of the localities, and by dint of moving the royal forces one after another in pursuit, without regard to the heat or excessive rain, and making prisoners of the inhabitants of that region, brought matters with the Rānā to such a pass that it became clear to him that if this should happen to him again he must either fly the country or be made prisoner. Being without remedy, he chose obedience and loyalty, and sent to my fortunate son his maternal uncle Subhkaran, with Haridās Jhālā, who was one of the two men in his confidence, and petitioned that if that fortunate son would ask forgiveness for his offences and tranquillize his mind, and obtain for him the auspicious sign-manual (panja,[4.12.31] the mark of the Emperor’s five fingers), he would himself wait on my son, and would send his son and successor, Karan Singh, or he, after the manner of other Rājas, would be enrolled among the servants of the Court and do service. He also begged that he himself might be excused from coming to Court on account of his old age. Accordingly, my son sent them in company with his own Dīwān, Mullā Shukru-llah, whom after the conclusion of this business I dignified with the title of Afzal Khān, and Sundar Dās, his major-domo, who, after the matter was settled, was honoured with the title of Rāy Rayān, to the exalted Court, and represented the circumstances. My lofty mind was always desirous, as far as possible, not to destroy the old families. The real point was that as Rānā Amar Singh and his fathers, proud in the strength of the hilly country and their abodes, had never seen or obeyed any of the kings of Hindustan, this should be brought about in my reign. At the request of my son, I forgave the Rānā’s offences, and gave a gracious farmān that should satisfy him, and impressed on it the mark of my auspicious palm. I also wrote a farmān of kindness to my son that if he could arrange to settle the matter I should be much pleased. My son also sent them [perhaps the uncle and Haridās, or the farmāns] with Mullā Shukru-llah and Sundar Dās to the Rānā to console him and make him hopeful of the royal favour. They gave him the gracious farmān with the sign-manual of the auspicious hand, and it was settled that on Sunday, the 26th of the month Bahman, he and his sons should come and pay their respects to my son."[4.12.32]

"In the end of this month, when I was employed in hunting in the environs of Ajmīr, Muhammad Beg, an attendant on my fortunate son Sultān Khurram, came and brought a report from that son, and stated that the Rānā had come with his sons and paid his respects to the prince: the details would be made known by the report. I immediately turned the face of supplication to the Divine Court, and prostrated myself in thanksgiving. I presented a horse, an elephant, and a jewelled dagger to the aforesaid Muhammad Khān, and honoured him with the title of Zu-l-faqār Khān [‘Lord of the sword’]."[4.12.33]

"From the report it appeared that on Sunday the 26th Bahman, the Rānā paid his respects to my fortunate son with the politeness and ritual that servants pay their respects, and produced as offerings a famous large ruby that was in his house, with some decorated articles and seven elephants, some of them fit for the private stud, and which had not fallen into our hands, and were the only ones left him, and nine horses. My son also behaved to him with perfect kindness. When the Rānā clasped his feet and asked forgiveness for his faults, he took his hand and placed it on his breast, and consoled him in such a manner as to comfort him. He presented him with a superb dress of honour, a jewelled sword, a horse with a jewelled saddle, and a private elephant with silver housings, and as there were not more than 100 men with him who were worthy of complete robes of honour, he gave 100 sarupā [dresses] and 50 horses and 12 jewelled khapwā [daggers]. As it is the custom of the Zamīndārs[4.12.34] that the son who is the heir-apparent should not go with his father to pay his respects to a king or prince,[4.12.35] the Rānā observed this custom, and did not bring with him Karan, the son who had received the tīkā [forehead mark of inauguration]. As the hour (fixed by astrology) of his departure of that son of lofty fortune from that place was the end of that same day, he gave him leave, so that, having himself gone, he might send Karan to pay his respects. To him also he gave a superb dress of honour, a jewelled sword and dagger, a horse with a gold saddle, and a special elephant, and on the same day, taking Karan in attendance, he proceeded towards the illustrious Court."[4.12.36]

"In my interview with Sultan Khurram on his arrival at Ajmer,[4.12.37] he represented that if it was my pleasure he would present the prince Karan, whom I accordingly desired him to bring. He arrived, paid his respects, and his rank was commanded to be, at the request of my son, immediately on my right hand, and I rewarded him with suitable khilats. As Karan, owing to the rude life he had led in his native hills, was extremely shy, and unused to the pageantry and experience of a court, in order to reconcile and give him confidence I daily gave him some testimonies of my regard and protection, and in the second day of his service I gave him a jewelled dagger, and on the third a choice steed of Irak with rich caparisons; and on the same day, I took him with me to the queen’s court, when the queen, Nur Jahan, made him splendid khilats, elephant and horse caparisoned, sword, etc. The same day I gave him a rich necklace of pearls, another day an elephant, and it was my wish to give him rarities and choice things of every kind. I gave him three royal hawks and three gentle falcons trained to the hand,[4.12.38] coat of mail, chain and plate armour, and two rings of value; and, on the last day of the month, carpets, state cushions, perfumes, vessels of gold, and a pair of the bullocks of Gujarat.[4.12.39]

"10th year.[4.12.40] At this time I gave prince Karan leave to return to his jagir;[4.12.41] when I bestowed on him an elephant, horse, and a pearl necklace valued at 50,000 rupees (£5000); and from the day of his repairing to my court to that of his departure, the value of the various gifts I presented him exceeded ten lakhs of rupees (£125,000), exclusive of one hundred and ten horses, five elephants, or what my son Khurram gave him. I sent Mubarik Khan along with [364] him, by whom I sent an elephant, horse, etc., and various confidential messages to the Rana.

"On the 8th Safar[4.12.42] of the 10th year of the H. 1024 Karan was elevated to the dignity of a Mansabdar[4.12.43] of five thousand, when I presented him with a bracelet of pearls, in which was a ruby of great price.

"24th Muharram,[4.12.44] 10th year (A.D. 1615), Jagat Sing, son of Karan, aged twelve years, arrived at court and paid his respects, and presented the arzis of his father and grandfather, Rana Amra Singh. His countenance carried the impression of his illustrious extraction,[4.12.45] and I delighted his heart with presents and kindness.

"On the 10th Shaban,[4.12.46] Jagat Singh had permission to return to his house. At his departure I presented him with 20,000 rupees, a horse, elephant, and khilats [365]; and to Haridas Jhala, preceptor of Prince Karan, 5000 rupees, a horse, and khilat; and I sent by him six golden images[4.12.47] to the Rana.

"28th Rabiu-l-Ākhir,[4.12.48] 11th year. The statues of the Rana and Karan, sculptured in white marble, I desired should have inscribed the date in which they were prepared and presented, and commanded they should be placed in the gardens at Agra.[4.12.49]

"In the 11th year of my reign an arzi from Itimad Khan acquainted me that Sultan Khurram had entered the Rana’s country, and that prince and his son had both exchanged visits with my son; and that from the tribute, consisting of seven elephants, twenty-seven saddle horses, trays of jewels, and ornaments of gold, my son took three horses and returned all the rest, and engaged that Prince Karan and fifteen hundred Rajput horse should remain with him in the wars.

"In the 13th year Prince Karan repaired to my court, then at Sindla, to congratulate me on my victories and conquest of the Deccan, and presented 100 mohars,[4.12.50] 1000 rupees, nazarana, and effects in gold and jewels to the amount of 21,000 rupees, hardy elephants and horses; the last I returned, but kept the rest, and next day presented him a dress of honour; and from Fatehpur gave him his leave, with elephant, horse, sword, and dagger, and a horse for his father.

"14th year of my reign. On the 17th Rabiu-l-awwal,[4.12.51] 1029 H., I received intelligence of the death of Rana Amra Singh.[4.12.52] To Jagat Singh, his grandson, and Bhim Singh, his son, in attendance, I gave khilats, and dispatched Raja Kishordas[4.12.53] with the farman conferring benefits and with the dignity of Rana, the khilat of investiture, choice horses, and a letter of condolence suitable to the occasion to Prince Karan. 7th Shawwal.[4.12.54] Biharidas Brahman I dispatched with a [366] farman to Rana Karan, desiring that his son with his contingent should attend me."

=Treatment of the Rāna by Jahāngīr.=—To have generalized this detail of the royal historian would have been to lessen the interest of this important period in the annals of Mewar. Jahangir merits to have his exultation, his noble and unostentatious conduct, described by his own pen, the extreme minuteness of which description but increases the interest. With his self-gratulation, he bears full testimony to the gallant and long-protracted resistance of the Rajputs; and while he impartially, though rather erroneously, estimates their motives and means of opposition, he does Amra ample justice in the declaration, that he did not yield until he had but the alternative of captivity or exile; and with a magnanimity above all praise, he records the Rajput prince’s salvo for his dignity, “that he would hold himself excused from attending in person.” The simple and naïve declaration of his joy, "his going abroad on ‛Alam Guman," the favourite elephant of the Rana which had been captured, on learning his submission, is far stronger than the most pompous testimony of public rejoicing. But there is a heart-stirring philanthropy in the conduct of the Mogul which does him immortal honour; and in commanding his son “to treat the illustrious one according to his heart’s wishes,” though he so long and so signally had foiled the royal armies, he proved himself worthy of the good fortune he acknowledges, and well shows his sense of the superiority of the chief of all the Rajputs, by placing the heir of Mewar, even above all the princes of his own house, ‘immediately on his right hand.’ Whether he attempts to relieve the shyness of Karan, or sets forth the princely appearance of Jagat Singh, we see the same amiable feeling operating to lighten the chains of the conquered. But the shyness of Karan deserved a worthier term: he felt the degradation which neither the statues raised to them, the right hand of the monarch, the dignity of a ‘commander of five thousand,’ or even the restoration of the long-alienated territory could neutralize, when the kingdom to which he was heir was called a fief (jagir), and himself, ‘the descendant of a hundred kings,’ a vassal (jagirdar) of the empire, under whose banner, which his ancestors had so signally opposed, he was now to follow with a contingent of fifteen hundred Rajput horse.

Seldom has subjugated royalty met with such consideration; yet, to a lofty mind like Amra’s, this courteous condescension but increased the severity of endurance [367]. In the bitterness of his heart he cursed the magnanimity of Khurram, himself of Rajput blood[4.12.55] and an admirer of Rajput valour, which circumstance more than the force of his arms had induced him to surrender; for Khurram demanded but the friendship of the Rajput as the price of peace, and to withdraw every Muhammadan from Mewar if the Rana would but receive the emperor’s farman outside of his capital. This his proud soul rejected; and though he visited Prince Khurram as a friend, he spurned the proposition of acknowledging a superior, or receiving the rank and titles awaiting such an admission. The noble Amra, who—

Rather than be less, Cared not to be at all—

took the resolution to abdicate[4.12.56] the throne he could no longer hold but at the will of another. Assembling his chiefs, and disclosing his determination, he made the tīka on his son’s forehead; and observing that the honour of Mewar was now in his hands, forthwith left the capital and secluded himself in the Nauchauki:[4.12.57] nor did he from that hour cross its threshold, but to have his ashes deposited with those of his fathers.

=Character of Rāna Amar Singh.=—All comment is superfluous on such a character as Rana Amra. He was worthy of Partap and his race. He possessed all the physical as well as mental qualities of a hero, and was the tallest and strongest of all the princes of Mewar. He was not so fair as they usually are, and he had a reserve bordering upon gloominess, doubtless occasioned by his reverses, for it was not natural to him; he was beloved by his chiefs for the qualities they most esteem, generosity and valour, and by his subjects for his justice and kindness, of which we can judge from his edicts, many of which yet live on the column or the rock [368].

-----

Footnote 4.12.1:

S. 1653, A.D. 1597.

Footnote 4.12.2:

[It has now been established by Mr. V. A. Smith that Akbar died on October 17, O.S., October 27, N.S., 1605 (IA, xliv. November 1915).]

Footnote 4.12.3:

The embassy under Sir Thomas Roe was prepared by Elizabeth, but did not proceed till the accession of James. He arrived just as Mewar had bent her head to the Mogul yoke, and speaks of the Rajput prince Karan, whom he saw at court as a hostage for the treaty, with admiration. [The embassy was in India from 1615 to 1619. Roe’s Journal has been edited by W. Foster, Hakluyt Society, 1899.]

Footnote 4.12.4:

[The question has been discussed in the Būndi Annals, below.]

Footnote 4.12.5:

The Amrasahi pagri, or turban, is still used by the Rana and some nobles on court days, but the foreign nobility have the privilege, in this respect, of conforming to their own tribes.

Footnote 4.12.6:

Amara mahall.

Footnote 4.12.7:

A small brass ornament placed at the corners of the carpet to keep it steady.

Footnote 4.12.8:

This is a signal both of defiance and self-gratulation.

Footnote 4.12.9:

S. 1664, A.D. 1608.

Footnote 4.12.10:

Phalgun 7th, S. 1666, the spring of A.D. 1610. Ferishta [Dow iii. 37] misplaces this battle, making it immediately precede the invasion under Khurram. The defeats of the Mogul forces are generally styled ‘recalls of the commander.’

Footnote 4.12.11:

Dudo, Sangawat of Deogarh, Narayandas, Surajmall, Askarn, all Sesodias of the first rank; Puran Mall, son of Bhan, the chief of the Saktawats; Haridas Rathor, Bhopat the Jhala of Sadri, Kahirdas Kachhwaha, Keshodas Chauhan of Bedla, Mukunddas Rathor, Jaimallot, of the blood of Jaimall.

Footnote 4.12.12:

[When Partāp was attacked by Akbar, Sakra, as he is called, paid his respects at court, and was appointed Commander of 200 (Āīn, i. 519).]

Footnote 4.12.13:

“Chitor, an antient great kingdom, the chief city so called, which standeth upon a mighty hill flat on the top, walled about at the least ten English miles. There appear to this day above a hundred ruined churches, and divers fair palaces, which are lodged in like manner among the ruins, besides many exquisite pillars of carved stone, and the ruins likewise of a hundred thousand stone houses, as many English by their observation have guessed. There is but one ascent unto it, cut out of a firm rock, to which a man must pass through four (sometime very magnificent) gates. Its chief inhabitants at this day are Ziim and Ohim, birds and wild beasts; but the stately ruins thereof give a shadow of its beauty while it flourished in its pride. It was won from Ramas, an ancient Indian prince, who was forced to live himself ever after on high mountainous places adjoining to that province, and his posterity to live there ever since. Taken from him it was by Achabar Padsha (the father of that king who lived and reigned when I was in these parts) after a very long siege, which famished the besieged, without which it could never have been gotten.” [E. Terry, A Voyage to East-India, 1777, p. 77 f.]

Footnote 4.12.14:

An isolated rock in the plain between the confluence of the Parbati and Chambal, and the famous Ranthambhor. The author has twice passed it in his travels in these regions.

Footnote 4.12.15:

It was one of his sons who apostatized from his faith, who is well known in the imperial history as Mahabat Khan, beyond doubt the most daring chief in Jahangir’s reign [see p. 386, above]. This is the secret of his bond of union with prince Khurram (Shah Jahan), himself half a Rajput. It was with his Rajputs Mahabat did that daring deed, making Jahangir prisoner in his own camp, in the zenith of his power.

Footnote 4.12.16:

Page 175, above.

Footnote 4.12.17:

Family priest.

Footnote 4.12.18:

I have visited the cenotaphs of Sakta and his successors at the almost insulated Bhainsror on the Chambal. The castle is on a rock at the confluence of the black Bamani and the Chambal.

Footnote 4.12.19:

[Idar was not occupied by the Rāthors till 1728 (IGI, xiii. 325).]

Footnote 4.12.20:

Probably the identical temple to the Mother, in which I found a valuable inscription of Kumarpal of Anhilwara Patan, dated S. 1207. Palod is in the district of Nimbahera, now alienated from Mewar, and under that upstart Pathan, Amir Khan.

Footnote 4.12.21:

One of the five sacred mounts of the Jains, of whose faith was the minister. Of these I shall speak at length in the Personal Narrative. [IGI, xix. 316 ff.]

Footnote 4.12.22:

‘Double gifts, fourfold sacrifice.’ Meaning, with increase of their prince’s favour the sacrifice of their lives would progress; and which, for the sake of euphony probably, preceded the birad won by the founder, ‘the barrier to Khurasan and Multan.’

The Birad of the Chondawats is: Das sahas Mewār ka bar Kewār, ‘the portal of the ten thousand [towns] of Mewār.’ It is related that Sakta, jealous of so sweeping a birad, complained that nothing was left for him: when the master bard replied, he was Kewār ka aggal, the bar which secures the door (Kewār).

Footnote 4.12.23:

Sakta.—17 sons. │ Bhanji. ┌──────────────┬──────────┬───────────┬────────────┐ │ │ │ │ │ Dayāl. Ber. Man. Gokuldās. Pūran Mall. │ Sabal Singh. │ Mokham Singh. │ Amar Singh. │ Prithi Singh. │ Jeth Singh. │ Ummed Singh. │ Kushāl Singh. │ Zorāwar,

[to whom succeeded in order Hamīr Singh, Madan Singh, Kesari Singh, and Mādho Singh, the present Mahārāja, who succeeded in 1900 (Erskine ii. A. 99).]

Footnote 4.12.24:

A.D. 1611.

Footnote 4.12.25:

Translated ‘Brampoor’ in Dow’s Ferishta, and transferred to the Deccan; and the pass (bāla-ghāt) rendered the Bālaghāt mountains of the south. There are numerous similar errors. [The Author seems to be mistaken. Dow (iii. 39) speaks of “Brampour, the capital of the Rana’s dominions.” Khāmnor is in W. Mewār, a little distance south of Nāthdwāra.]

Footnote 4.12.26:

The details of battles, unless accompanied by exploits of individuals, are very uninteresting. Under this impression, I have suppressed whatever could impair the current of action by amplification, otherwise not only the Rajput bard, but the contemporary Mogul historian, would have afforded abundant matter; but I have deemed both worthy of neglect in such cases. Ferishta’s history is throughout most faulty in its geographical details, rendered still more obscure from the erroneous orthography, often arising from mistaken punctuation of the only translation of this valuable work yet before the public. There is one gentleman (Lieut.-Col. Briggs) well qualified to remedy these defects, and who, with a laudable industry, has made an entire translation of the works of Ferishta, besides collating the best MSS. of the original text. It is to be hoped he will present his performance to the public. [This appeared in four volumes, 1829; reprinted, Calcutta, 1908.]

Footnote 4.12.27:

[Memoirs of Jahāngīr, trans. Rogers-Beveridge, p. 70. The incorrect versions of this and other passages in the text have been replaced from the recent translation and that in Elliot-Dowson.]

Footnote 4.12.28:

[Memoirs, 256.]

Footnote 4.12.29:

[Ibid. 259.]

Footnote 4.12.30:

[Ibid. 260.]

Footnote 4.12.31:

The giving the hand amongst all nations has been considered as a pledge for the performance or ratification of some act of importance, and the custom amongst the Scythic or Tatar nations, of transmitting its impress as a substitute, is here practically described. I have seen the identical Farman in the Rana’s archives. The hand being immersed in a compost of sandalwood, is applied to the paper, and the palm and five fingers (panja) are yet distinct. In a masterly delineation of Oriental manners (Carne’s Letters from the East) is given an anecdote of Muhammad, who, unable to sign his name to a convention, dipped his hand in ink, and made an impression therewith. It is evident the Prophet of Islam only followed an ancient solemnity, of the same import as that practised by Jahangir.

Footnote 4.12.32:

[Memoirs, 272 ff.]

Footnote 4.12.33:

[Ibid. 275.]

Footnote 4.12.34:

[The Rāna is purposely treated as a mere landowner under the State.]

Footnote 4.12.35:

This was to avoid treachery. I have often had the honour to receive the descendant princes, father and son, ‘of these illustrious ones’ together (note by the Author).

Footnote 4.12.36:

[Memoirs, 275 f.]

Footnote 4.12.37:

[The remaining part of the narrative is fairly correct, and has been allowed to stand, with necessary corrections in transliteration of proper names.]

Footnote 4.12.38:

Baz and Tura.

Footnote 4.12.39:

[On the famous oxen of Gujarat see Forbes, Rāsmāla, 540; Watt, Comm. Prod. 733 ff.]

Footnote 4.12.40:

Of his reign.

Footnote 4.12.41:

Such was now the degraded title of the ancient, independent sovereign Mewar. Happy Partap, whose ashes being mingled with his parent earth, was spared his country’s humiliation!

Footnote 4.12.42:

[The second month of the Musalmān calendar.]

Footnote 4.12.43:

With this the annals state the restoration of many districts: the Kherar, Phulia, Badnor, Mandalgarh, Jiran, Nimach, and Bhainsror, with supremacy over Deolia, and Dungarpur.

Footnote 4.12.44:

[The first month of the Muhammadan year.]

Footnote 4.12.45:

It must have been this grandson of Amra of whom Sir Thomas Roe thus writes: “The right issue of Porus is here a king in the midst of the Mogul’s dominions, never subdued till last year; and, to say the truth, he is rather bought than conquered: won to own a superior by gifts and not by arms. The pillar erected by Alexander is yet standing at Delhi, the ancient seat of Rama, the successor of Porus” (Extract of a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, dated at Ajmere, January 29, 1615).

Copy of a letter written by the great Mogul unto King James, in the Persian tongue, here faithfully translated, which was as follows:

"Unto a king rightly descended from his ancestors, bred in military affairs, clothed with honour and justice, a commander worthy of all command, strong and constant in the religion which the great prophet Christ did teach, King James, whose love hath bred such an impression in my thoughts as shall never be forgotten; but as the smell of amber, or as a garden of fragrant flowers, whose beauty and odour is still increasing, so, be assured, my love shall still grow and increase with yours.

"The letters which you sent me in the behalf of your merchants I have received, whereby I rest satisfied of your tender love towards me, desiring you not to take it ill, that I have not wrote to you heretofore: this present letter I send to you to renew our loves, and herewith do certifie you, that I have sent forth my firmaunes throughout all my countries to this effect, that if any English ships or merchants shall arrive in any of my ports, my people shall permit and suffer them to do what they please, freely in their merchandising causes, aiding and assisting them in all occasion of injuries that shall be offered them, that the least cause of discourtesie be not done unto them; that they may be as free, or freer than my own people.

"And as now, and formerly, I have received from you divers tokens of your love; so I shall still desire your mindfulness of me by some novelties from your countries, as an argument of friendship betwixt us, for such is the custom of princes here.

"And for your merchants, I have given express order through all my dominions, to suffer them to buy, sell, transport, and carry away at their pleasure, without the lett or hinderance of any person whatsoever, all such goods and merchandises as they shall desire to buy; and let this my letter as fully satisfie you in desired peace and love, as if my own son had been messenger to ratifie the same.

"And if any in my countries, not fearing God, nor obeying their king, or any other void of religion, should endeavour to be an instrument to break this league of friendship, I would send my son Sultan Caroom, a souldier approved in the wars, to cut him off, that no obstacle may hinder the continuance and increase of our affections.

"When your majesty shall open this letter, let your royal heart be as fresh as a small garden, let all people make reverence at your gate. Let your throne be advanced higher. Amongst the greatness of the kings of the prophet Jesus, let your majesty be the greatest; and all monarchs derive their wisdom and counsel from your breast, as from a fountain, that the law of the majesty of Jesus may receive, and flourish under your protection.

“The letters of love and friendship which you sent me, the present tokens of your good affection towards me, I have received by the hands of your ambassadour, Sir Thomas Row, who well deserveth to be your trusty servant, delivered to me in an acceptable and happy hour; upon which mine eyes were so fixed, that I could not easily remove them unto any other objects, and have accepted them with great joy and delight, etc.”

The last letter had this beginning: “How gracious is your majesty, whose greatness God preserve. As upon a rose in a garden, so are mine eyes fixed upon you. God maintain your estate, that your monarchy may prosper and be augmented; and that you may obtain all your desires worthy the greatness of your renown; and as the heart is noble and upright, so let God give you a glorious reign, because you strongly defend the law of the majesty of Jesus, which God made yet more flourishing, for that it was confirmed by miracles, etc.” (Della Valle, p. 473).

Footnote 4.12.46:

[Sha’bān, the eighth month.]

Footnote 4.12.47:

There are frequent mention of such images (putlis), but I know not which they are. [The word in the original is Shoshpari, ‘golden maces.’]

Footnote 4.12.48:

[The fourth month.]

Footnote 4.12.49:

[On these statues see Smith, HFA, 426 ff.]

Footnote 4.12.50:

Golden suns, value £1 : 12s.

Footnote 4.12.51:

[The third month.]

Footnote 4.12.52:

[He died in 1620.]

Footnote 4.12.53:

Increasing the respect to the Ranas by making a prince the bearer of the farman.

Footnote 4.12.54:

[The tenth month.]

Footnote 4.12.55:

Khurram was son of a Rajput princess of Amber [whose name, according to Beale, was Balmati] of the Kachhwaha tribe, and hence his name was probably Kurm, synonymous to kachhwa, a tortoise. The bards are always punning upon it. [The Persian word khurram, ‘glad, joyful,’ has, of course, no connexion with Hindi kurm, ‘a tortoise.’]

Footnote 4.12.56:

Surrendered S. 1672, A.D. 1616 (according to Dow, S. 1669, A.D.. 1613); died 1621 [1620. There seems to be no corroboration of his abdication.]

Footnote 4.12.57:

It must have been here that Sultan Khurram visited the Rana. The remains of this palace, about half a mile without the city wall (north), on a cluster of hills, are yet in existence. It was built by Udai Singh on the banks of a lake, under which are gardens and groves, where the author had the Rana’s permission to pitch his tents in the hottest months. [When Khurram was in revolt against his father, he stayed at first in the Rāna’s palace; but as his followers little respected Rājput prejudices, he removed to the Jagmandir, and the island became his home till shortly before his father’s death (Erskine ii. A. 109).]

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