Chapter 9…

Chapter 9

=Ajīt Singh attacks Nāhan.=—“In 1768 Ajit was sent against Nahan[5.9.1] and the chiefs of the snowy mountains, whom he reduced to obedience. Thence he went to the Ganges, where he performed his ablutions, and in the spring he returned to Jodhpur.

“In 1769 Shah Alam[5.9.2] went to heaven. The torch of discord was lighted by his sons, with which they fired their own dwelling. Azim-ush-shan was slain,[5.9.3] and the umbrella of royalty waved over the head of Muizzu-d-din.[5.9.4] Ajit sent the Bhandari Kaimsi to the presence, who returned with the sanad of the vice-royalty of Gujarat. In the month of Margsir 1769, he prepared an army to take possession of the Sattra-sahas,[5.9.5] when fresh dissensions broke out in the house of the Chagatai. The Sayyids slew Muizzu-d-din, and Farrukhsiyar became king.[5.9.6] Zulfikar Khan was [85] put to death,[5.9.7] and with him departed the strength of the Moguls. Then the Sayyids became headstrong. Ajit was commanded to send his son, Abhai Singh, now seventeen years of age, with his contingent, to court; but Ajit having learned that the traitor Mukund was there and in great favour, sent a trusty band, who slew him even in the middle of Delhi. This daring act brought the Sayyid with an army to Jodhpur.[5.9.8] Ajit sent off the men of wealth to Siwanah, and his son and family to the desert of Rardarra.[5.9.9] The capital was invested, and Abhai Singh demanded as a hostage for the conduct of Ajit, who was also commanded to court. To neither was the Raja inclined, but the advice of the Diwan and still more of Kesar the bard, who gave as a precedent the instance of Rao Ganga when invaded by the Lodi, Daulat Khan, who entrusted his affairs to his son Maldeo, was unanimously approved.[5.9.10] Abhai Singh was recalled from Rardarra, and marched with Husain Ali to Delhi, the end of Asarh 1770. The heir of Maru received the mansab of five thousand from the king.

“Ajit followed his son to the court, then held at Delhi. There the sight of the altars raised over the ashes of chiefs who had perished to preserve him in his infancy, kindled all his wrath, and he meditated revenge on the whole house of Timur. Four distinct causes for displeasure had Ajmall:—

“1. The Nauroza.[5.9.11]

“2. The compulsory marriage of their daughters with the king.

“3. The killing of kine.

“4. The Jizya, or capitation tax.”[5.9.12]

=Ajit Singh marries his Daughter to Farrukhsīyar, A.D. 1716.=—Here we must interrupt the narrative, in order to supply an important omission of the bard, who slurs over the hardest of the conditions demanded of Ajit on the invasion of the Sayyid, namely, the giving a daughter to Farrukhsiyar, the important political results of which are already related in the first part of this work.[5.9.13] This compulsory marriage only aggravated Ajit’s desire of vengeance, and he entered into the views of the Sayyids with the true spirit of his father; obtaining meanwhile, as the price of coalition, the compliance with the specified demands, besides others of less moment, such as “that the bell for prayer should be allowed to toll in the [86] quarters of the city allotted to the Rajputs, and that their temples should be held sacred; and last, but not least, the aggrandisement of his hereditary dominions.” Let us again recur to the chronicle.

“In Jeth 1771, having secured all his wishes, Ajit left the court, and with the renewed patent as viceroy of Gujarat, returned to Jodhpur. Through Kaimsi, his minister, the jizya was repealed. The Hindu race owed eternal obligation to the Mor (crown) of Murdhar, the sanctuary of princes in distress.

=Ajīt Singh, Viceroy of Gujarāt, A.D. 1715-16.=—“In 1772, Ajit prepared to visit this government: Abhai Singh accompanied his father. He first proceeded to Jalor, where he passed the rainy season. Thence he attacked the Mewasa:[5.9.14] first Nimaj, which he took, when the Deoras paid him tribute. Firoz Khan advanced from Palanpur to meet him. The Rao of Tharad paid a lakh of rupees. Cambay was invested and paid; and the Koli chief, Kemkaran, was reduced. From Patan, Sakta the Champawat, with Bija Bhandari, sent the year preceding to manage the province, came forth to meet him.

“In 1773, Ajit reduced the Jhala of Halwad, and Jam of Nawanagar, who paid as tribute three lacs of rupees, with twenty-five choice steeds;[5.9.15] and having settled the province, he worshipped at Dwarka, and bathed in the Gomati.[5.9.16] Thence he returned to Jodhpur, where he learned that Indar Singh had regained Nagor; but he stood not before Ajit.

=Ajīt Singh visits Delhi.=—“The year 1774 had now arrived. The Sayyids and their opponents were engaged in civil strife. Husain Ali was in the Deccan, and the mind of Abdulla was alienated from the king. Paper on paper came, inviting Ajit. He marched by Nagor, Merta, Pushkar, Marot, and Sambhar, whose garrisons he strengthened, to Delhi. From Marot he sent Abhai Singh back to take care of Jodhpur. The Sayyid advanced from Delhi to meet the Dhani (lord) of Marwar, who alighted at Allahwirdi’s sarai. Here the Sayyid and Ajit formed a league to oppose Jai Singh and the Moguls, while the king remained like a snake coiled up in a closed vessel. To get rid of their chief opponent, Zu-l-faqar Khan, was first determined [87].

“When the king heard that Ajit had reached Delhi, he sent the Hara Rao Bhim of Kotah, and Khandauran Khan to introduce him to the presence. Ajit obeyed. Besides his own Rathors, he was accompanied by Rao Bishan Singh of Jaisalmer, and Padam Singh of Derawar, with Fateh Singh, a noble of Mewar, Man Singh, Rathor, chief of Sita Mhau, and the Chandarawat, Gopal of Rampura, besides Udai Singh of Kandela, Sakat Singh of Manoharpur, Kishan of Kalchipur, and many others.[5.9.17] The meeting took place at the Moti Bagh. The king bestowed the mansab of Haft Hazari (seven thousand horse) on Ajit, and added a crore of dams to his rent-roll. He presented him with the insignia of the Mahi Muratib,[5.9.18] with elephants and horses, a sword and dagger, a diamond aigrette (sarpech) and plume, and a double string of pearls. Having left the presence, Ajit went to visit Abdulla Khan. The Sayyid advanced to meet him, and his reception, with his attendants, was distinguished. They renewed their determination to stand or fall together. Their conference caused dismay to the Moguls, who lay in ambush to put Ajit to death.

“On the second day of the bright moon of Pus, 1775 [A.D. 1718], the king honoured Ajit with a visit. Ajit seated the king on a throne formed of bags of rupees to the amount of one lakh,[5.9.19] and presented elephants, horses, and all that was precious. In the month of Phalgun, Ajit and the Sayyid went to visit the king; and after the conference wrote to Husain Ali revealing their plans, and desiring his rapid march to unite with them from the Deccan. Now the heavens assumed portentous appearances; the Disasul[5.9.20] was red and fiery; jackasses brayed unusually; dogs barked; thunder rolled without a cloud; the court, late so gay, was now sad and gloomy; all were forebodings of change at Delhi. In twenty days, Husain reached Delhi; his countenance was terrific; his drum, which now beat close to the palace, was the knell of falling greatness. He was accompanied by myriads of horse. Delhi was enveloped in the dust raised by his hostile steeds. They encamped in the north of the city, and Husain joined Ajit and his brother. The trembling king sent congratulations and gifts; the Mogul chiefs kept aloof in their abodes; even as the quail cowers in the grass when the falcon hovers over it, so did the Moguls when Husain reached Delhi.[5.9.21] The lord of Amber was like a lamp left without oil [88].

=The Revolution at Delhi.=—“On the second day, all convened at Ajit’s tents, on the banks of the Jumna, to execute the plans now determined upon. Ajit mounted his steed; at the head of his Rathors he marched direct to the palace, and at every post he placed his own men: he looked like the fire destined to cause pralaya.[5.9.22] When the sun appears darkness flies; when the oil fails the lamp goes out: so is it with crowns and kings, when good faith and justice, the oil that feeds their power, is wanting. The crash which shivered the umbrella of Delhi reverberated throughout the land. The royal treasures were plundered. None amidst the Moguls came forward to rescue their king (Farrukhsiyar), and Jai Singh fled from the scene of destruction. Another king was set up, but in four months he was seized with a distemper and died. Then Daula[5.9.23] was placed on the throne. But the Moguls at Delhi set up Neko Shah[5.9.24] at Agra, and Husain marched against them, leaving Ajit and Abdulla with the king.[5.9.25]

=Muhammad Shah, Emperor, A.D. 1719-48.=—“In 1776, Ajit and the Sayyid moved from Delhi; but the Moguls surrendered Neko Shah, who was confined in Salimgarh. At this time the king died, and Ajit and the Sayyids made another, and placed Muhammad Shah on the throne. Many countries were destroyed, and many were made to flourish, during the dethronement of kings by Ajit. With the death of Farrukhsiyar Jai Singh’s views were crushed, and the Sayyids determined to punish him. The lord of Amber was like water carried in a platter.[5.9.26] The king reached the Dargah at Sikri, in progress to Amber, and here the chieftains sought the saran (sanctuary) of Ajit. They said the Kurma[5.9.27] was lost if he protected them not against the Sayyids. Even as Krishna saved Arjun in the Bharat, so did Ajit take Jai Singh under his protection. He sent the chiefs of the Champawats and his minister to dispel his fears; they returned with the lord of Amber, who felt like one who had escaped the doom (pralaya). Ajit placed one monarch on the throne, and saved another from destruction. The king bestowed upon him the grant of Ahmadabad, and gave him permission to visit his home. With Jai Singh of Amber, and Budh Singh Hara of Bundi, he marched for Jodhpur, and in the way contracted a marriage with the daughter of the Shaikhavat [89] chief of Manoharpur. In the month of Asin he reached Jodhagir, when the lord of Amber encamped at Sur Sagar, and the Hara Rao north of the town.

=Ajīt Singh marries his Daughter to Jai Singh.=—“The cold season had fled; the spring (basant) approached. The peacock was intoxicated with the nectar-drops distilled from the sweet-blossomed amba (mango); the rich sap exuded; the humming-bees clustered round the flowers; new leaves budded forth; songs of joy resounded; the hearts of gods, men, and women expanded with mirth. It was then the lord of Amber was bedecked in saffron robes, to espouse the ‘virgin of the sun’ (Surya Kumari), the child of Ajit. On this he had consulted the Champawats, and according to ancient usage, the Ad-Pardhan, or chief minister, the Kumpawat: likewise the Bhandari Diwan, and the Guru. But were I to dwell on these festivities, this book would become too large; I therefore say but little!

=The Assassination of the Sayyids. Ajīt Singh asserts his Independence.=—“The rains of 1777 set in, and Jai Singh and Budh Singh remained with Ajit, when a messenger arrived with tidings that the Moguls had assassinated the Sayyids, and were now on the watch for Ajit.[5.9.28] He drew his sword, and swore he would possess himself of Ajmer. He dismissed the lord of Amber. In twelve days after Ajit reached Merta. In the face of day he drove the Muslim from Ajmer and made it his own. He slew the king’s governor and seized on Taragarh.[5.9.29] Once more the bell of prayers was heard in the temple, while the bang[5.9.30] of the Masjid was silent. Where the Koran was read, the Puran was now heard, and the Mandir took the place of the Mosque. The Kazi made way for the Brahman, and the pit of burnt sacrifice (homa) was dug, where the sacred kine were slain. He took possession of the salt lakes of Sambhar and Didwana, and the records were always moist with inserting fresh conquests. Ajit ascended his own throne; the umbrella of supremacy he waved over his head. He coined in his own name, established his own gaz (measure), and ser (weight), his own courts of justice, and a new scale of rank for his chiefs, with nalkis and mace-bearers, naubats and standards, and every emblem of sovereign rule. Ajmall in Ajmer was equal to Aspati in Delhi.[5.9.31] The intelligence spread over the land; it reached even Mecca [90] and Iran, that Ajit had exalted his own faith, while the rites of Islam were prohibited throughout the land of Maru.

=Imperialist Attack on Ajmer.=—“In 1778 the king determined to regain Ajmer. He gave the command to Muzaffar, who in the rains advanced towards Marwar. Ajit entrusted the conduct of this war to his son, the ‘shield of Maru,’ the ‘fearless’ (Abhai), with the eight great vassals, and thirty thousand horse; the Champawats on the right, the Kumpawats on the left, while the Karamsots, Mertias, Jodhas, Indhas, Bhattis, Sonigiras, Deoras, Khichis, Dhondals and Gogawats,[5.9.32] composed the main body. At Amber, the Rathors and imperialists came in sight; but Muzaffar disgraced himself, and retired within that city without risking an encounter. Abhai Singh, exasperated at this display of pusillanimous bravado, determined to punish the king. He attacked Shahjahanpur, sacked Narnol, levied contributions on Patan (Tuarvati) and Rewari.[5.9.33] He gave the villages to the flames, and spread conflagration and consternation even to Allahwirdi’s Sarai. Delhi and Agra trembled with affright; the Asurs fled without their shoes at the deeds of Abhai, whom they styled Dhonkal, ‘the exterminator.’ He returned by Sambhar and Ludhana, and here he married the daughter of the chief of the Narukas.[5.9.34]

=Muhammad Shah attacks Ajīt Singh.=—“In 1779, Abhai Singh remained at Sambhar, which he strengthened, and hither his father Ajit came from Ajmer. The meeting was like that between ‘Kasyapa and Surya’;[5.9.35] for he had broken the bow of Muzaffar and made the Hindu happy. The king sent his Chela, Nahar Khan, to expostulate with Ajit; but his language was offensive, and the field of Sambhar devoured the tiger lord (Nahar Khan) and his four thousand followers. The son of Churaman the Jat[5.9.36] now claimed sanctuary with Ajit. Sick of these dissensions, the unhappy Muhammad Shah determined to abandon his crown and retire to Mecca. But, determined to revenge the death of Nahar Khan, he prepared a formidable army. He collected [the contingents of] the twenty-two Satraps[5.9.37] of the empire, and placed at their head Jai Singh of Amber, Haidar Kuli, Iradat Khan Bangash, etc. In the month of Sawan (July), Taragarh was invested; Abhai Singh marched out and left its defence to [91] Amra Singh. It had held out four months, when through the prince of Amber (Jai Singh), Ajit listened to terms, which were sworn to on the Koran by the nobles of the king; and he agreed to surrender Ajmer.[5.9.38] Abhai Singh then accompanied Jai Singh to the camp. It was proposed that in testimony of his obedience he should repair to the presence. The prince of Amber pledged himself; but the Fearless (Abhai) placed his hand on his sword, saying, ‘This is my surety!’”

=Ajīt Singh’s Heir received at the Imperial Court.=—The heir of Marwar was received by the king with the utmost honour; but being possessed of a double portion of that arrogance which forms the chief characteristic of his race (more especially of the Rathor and Chauhan, from which he sprang), his reception nearly produced at Delhi a repetition of the scene recorded in the history of his ancestor Amra at Agra. Knowing that his father held the first place on the king’s right hand, he considered himself, as his representative, entitled to the same honour; and little heeding the unbending etiquette of the proudest court in the world, he unceremoniously hustled past all the dignitaries of the State, and had even ascended a step of the throne, when, checked by one of the nobles, Abhai’s hand was on his dagger, and but for the presence of mind of the monarch, “who threw his own chaplet round his neck” to restrain him, the Divan would have been deluged with blood.

=The Murder of Ajīt Singh, A.D. 1724.=—We shall now drop the chronicles, and in recording the murder of Ajit, the foulest crime in the annals of Rajasthan, exemplify the mode in which their poetic historians gloss over such events. It was against Ajit’s will that his son went to court, as if he had a presentiment of the fate which awaited him, and which has been already circumstantially related.[5.9.39] The authors from whose records this narrative is chiefly compiled, were too polite to suffer such a stigma to appear in their chronicles, “written by desire” and under the eye of the parricide, Ajit’s successor. The Surya Prakas merely says, “at this time Ajit went to heaven”; but affords no indication of the person who sent him there. The Raj Rupaka, however, not bold enough to avow the mysterious death of his prince, yet too honest altogether to pass it over, has left an expressive blank leaf at this part of his chronicle, certainly not accidental, as it intervenes between Abhai Singh’s reception at court, and the incidents following his father’s death, which I translate verbatim, as they present an excellent picture of the results of a Rajput potentate’s demise [92].

“Abhai, a second Ajit, was introduced to the Aspati; his father heard the news and rejoiced. But this world is a fable—a lie. Time will sooner or later prey on all things. What king, what raja can avoid the path leading to extinction? The time allotted for our sojourn here is predetermined; prolong it we cannot. The decree penned by the hand of the Creator is engraven upon each forehead at the hour of birth. Neither addition nor subtraction can be made. Fate (honhar) must be fulfilled. It was the command of Govinda[5.9.40] that Ajit (the Avatar of Indra) should obtain immortality, and leave his renown in the world beneath. Ajit, so long a thorn in the side of his foe, was removed to Parloka.[5.9.41] He kept afloat the faith of the Hindu, and sunk the Muslim in shame. In the face of day, the lord of Maru took the road which leads to Paradise (Vaikuntha). Then dismay seized the city; each looked with dread in his neighbour’s face as he said, ‘Our sun has set!’ But when the day of Yamaraj[5.9.42] arrives, who can retard it? Were not the five Pandus enclosed in the mansion of Himala?[5.9.43] Harchand escaped not the universal decree; nor will gods, men, or reptiles avoid it, not even Vikrama or Kama; all fall before Yama. How then could Ajit hope to escape?

“On Asarh, the 13th, the dark half of the moon of 1780, seventeen hundred warriors of the eight ranks of Maru, for the last time marched before their lord.[5.9.44] They placed his body in a boat,[5.9.45] and carried him to the pyre,[5.9.46] made of sandal-wood and perfumes, with heaps of cotton, oil, and camphor. But this is a subject of grief: how can the bard enlarge on such a theme? The Nazir went to the Rawala[5.9.47] and as he pronounced the words ‘Rao siddhi āyē,’ the Chauhani queen, with sixteen damsels in her suite, came forth: ‘This day,’ said she, ‘is one of joy; my race shall be illustrated; our lives have passed together, how then can I leave him?’[5.9.48]

=The Sati.=—“Of noble race was the Bhattiani queen, a scion (sakha) of Jaisal, and daughter of Birjang. She put up a prayer to the Lord who wields the discus.[5.9.49] ‘With joy [93] I accompany my lord; that my fealty (sati) may be accepted, rests with thee.’ In like manner did the Gazelle (Mrigavati) of Derawal,[5.9.50] and the Tuar queen of pure blood,[5.9.51] the Chawara Rani,[5.9.52] and her of Shaikhavati, invoke the name of Hari, as they determined to join their lord. For these six queens death had no terrors; but they were the affianced wives of their lord: the curtain wives of affection, to the number of fifty-eight, determined to offer themselves a sacrifice to Agni.[5.9.53] ‘Such another opportunity,’ said they, ‘can never occur, if we survive our lord; disease will seize and make us a prey in our apartments. Why then quit the society of our lord, when at all events we must fall into the hands of Yama, for whom the human race is but a mouthful? Let us leave the iron age (Kaliyuga) behind us.’ ‘Without our lord, even life is death,’ said the Bhattiani, as she bound the beads of Tulsi[5.9.54] round her neck, and made the tilak with earth from the Ganges. While thus each spoke, Nathu, the Nazir,[5.9.55] thus addressed them: ‘This is no amusement; the sandal-wood you now anoint with is cool: but will your resolution abide, when you remove it with the flames of Agni? When this scorches your tender frames, your hearts may fail, and the desire to recede will disgrace your lord’s memory. Reflect, and remain where you are. You have lived like Indrani,[5.9.56] nursed in softness amidst flowers and perfumes; the winds of heaven never offended you, far less the flames of fire.’ But to all his arguments they replied: ‘The world we will abandon, but never our lord.’ They performed their ablutions, decked themselves in their gayest attire, and for the last time made obeisance to their lord in his car. The ministers, the bards, the family priests (Purohits), in turn, expostulated with them. The chief queen (Patrani) the Chauhani, they told to indulge her affection for her sons, Abhai and Bakhta; to feed the poor, the needy, the holy, and lead a life of religious devotion. The queen replied: ‘Kunti, the wife of Pandu, did not follow her lord; she lived to see the greatness of the five brothers, her sons; but were her expectations realized?[5.9.57] This life is a vain shadow; this dwelling one of sorrow; let us accompany our lord to that of fire, and there close it.’

“The drum sounded; the funeral train moved on; all invoked the name of [94] Hari.[5.9.58] Charity was dispensed like falling rain, while the countenances of the queens were radiant as the sun. From heaven Uma[5.9.59] looked down; in recompense of such devotion she promised they should enjoy the society of Ajit in each successive transmigration. As the smoke, emitted from the house of flame, ascended to the sky, the assembled multitudes shouted Kaman! Kaman! ‘Well done! Well done!’ The pile flamed like a volcano; the faithful queens laved their bodies in the flames, as do the celestials in the lake of Manasarovar.[5.9.60] They sacrificed their bodies to their lord, and illustrated the races whence they sprung. The gods above exclaimed, ‘Dhan Dhan[5.9.61] Ajit! who maintained the faith, and overwhelmed the Asuras.’ Savitri, Gauri, Sarasvati, Ganga, and Gomati[5.9.62] united in doing honour to these faithful queens. Forty-five years, three months, and twenty-two days, was the space of Ajit’s existence, when he went to inhabit Amarapura, an immortal abode!”

=Character of Ajīt Singh.=—Thus closed the career of one of the most distinguished princes who ever pressed the ‘cushion’ of Maru; a career as full of incident as any life of equal duration. Born amidst the snows of Kabul, deprived at his birth of both parents, one from grief, the other by suicidal custom; saved from the Herodian cruelty of the king by the heroism of his chiefs, nursed amidst the rocks of Abu or the intricacies of the Aravalli until the day of danger passed, he issued forth, still an infant, at the head of his brave clans, to redeem the inheritance so iniquitously wrested from him. In the history of mankind there is nothing to be found presenting a more brilliant picture of fidelity than that afforded by the Rathor clans in their devotion to their prince, from his birth until he worked out his own and his country’s deliverance. It is one of those events which throw a gleam of splendour upon the dark picture of feudalism, more prolific perhaps in crime than in virtue. That of the Rajputs, indeed, in which consanguinity is superadded to the other reciprocal [95] ties which bind a feudal body, wears the more engaging aspect of a vast family. How affecting is the simple language of these brave men, while daily shedding their blood for a prince whom, until he had attained his seventh year, they had never beheld! “Without the sight of our lord, bread and water have no flavour.” And how successfully does the bard portray the joy of these stern warriors, when he says, “As the lotus expands at the sunbeam, so did the heart of each Rathor at the sight of their infant sovereign; they drank his looks even as the papiha in the month of Asoj sips the drops of amrita (ambrosia) from the Champa.”

The prodigality with which every clan lavished its blood, through a space of six-and-twenty years, may in part be learned from the chronicle; and in yet more forcible language from the cenotaphs scattered over the country, erected to the manes of those who fell in this religious warfare. Were other testimony required, it is to be found in the annals of their neighbours and their conquerors; while the traditional couplets of the bards, familiar to every Rajput, embalm the memory of the exploits of their forefathers.

Ajit was a prince of great vigour of mind as well as of frame. Valour was his inheritance; he displayed this hereditary quality at the early age of eleven, when he visited his enemy in his capital, displaying a courtesy which can only be comprehended by a Rajput. Amongst the numerous desultory actions, of which many occurred every year, there were several in which the whole strength of the Rathors was led by their prince. The battle of Sambhar, in S. 1765, fought against the Sayyids, which ended in a union of interests, was one of these; and, for the rest of Ajit’s life, kept him in close contact with the court, where he might have taken the lead had his talent for intrigue been commensurate with his boldness. From this period until his death, Ajit’s agency was recognized in all the intrigues and changes amongst the occupants of Timur’s throne, from Farrukhsiyar to Muhammad. He inherited an invincible hatred to the very name of Muslim, and was not scrupulous regarding the means by which he was likely to secure the extirpation of a race so inimical to his own. Viewing the manifold reasons for this hatred, we must not scrutinize with severity his actions when leagued with the Sayyids, even in the dreadful catastrophe which overwhelmed Farrukhsiyar, to whom he owed the twofold duty of fealty and consanguinity.

=His Conduct to Durgadās.=—There is one stain on the memory of Ajit which, though unnoticed in the chronicle [96], is too well ascertained to be omitted in a summary of his character, more especially as it illustrates that of the nation and of the times, and shows the loose system which holds such governments together. The heroic Durgadas, the preserver of his infancy, the instructor of his youth, the guide of his manhood, lived to confirm the proverb, “Put not thy faith in princes.” He, who, by repeated instances of exalted self-denial, had refused wealth and honours that might have raised himself from his vassal condition to an equality with his sovereign, was banished from the land which his integrity, wisdom, and valour had preserved. Why, or when, Ajit loaded himself with this indelible infamy was not known; the fact was incidentally discovered in searching a collection of original newspapers written from the camp of Bahadur Shah,[5.9.63] in one of which it was stated, that “Durgadas was encamped with his household retainers on the banks of the Pichola Lake at Udaipur, and receiving daily five hundred rupees for his support from the Rana; who when called on by the king (Bahadur Shah) to surrender him, magnanimously refused.” Imagining that Ajit had been compelled to this painful sacrifice, which is not noticed in the annals, the compiler mentioned it to a Yati deeply versed in all the events and transactions of this State. Aware of the circumstance, which is not overlooked by the bards, he immediately repeated the couplet composed on the occasion—

_Durgo desām kādhiyo Golām Gāmgāni!_

Durga was exiled, and Gamgani given to a slave.[5.9.64]

Gamgani, on the north bank of the Luni, was the chief town of the Karanot fief, of which clan Durga was the head. It is now attached to the Khalisa, or fisc, but whether recently, or ever since Durga, we know not. The Karanots still pay the last rites to their dead at Gamgani, where they have their cenotaphs (chhatris). Whether that of the noble Durga stands there to serve as a memorial of princely ingratitude, the writer cannot say; a portrait of the hero, in the autumn of his days, was given to him by the last lineal descendant of Ajit, as the reader is already aware.[5.9.65] Well may we repeat, that the system of feudality is the parent of the most brilliant virtues and the darkest crimes. Here, a long life of uninterrupted fidelity could not preserve Durga from the envenomed breath of slander, or the serpent-tooth [97] of ingratitude: and whilst the mind revolts at the crime which left a blank leaf in the chronicle, it is involuntarily carried back to an act less atrocious, indeed, than one which violates the laws of nature, but which in diminishing none of our horror for Abhai Singh, yet lessens our sympathy for the persecutor of Durgadas.

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Footnote 5.9.1:

[Now known as Sirmūr, a Hill State in the Panjāb, on the W. bank of the Jumna, and E. of Simla (IGI, xxiii. 3).]

Footnote 5.9.2:

[Kutbu-d-dīn Shāh ‘Alam, Bahādur Shah I., died at Lahore, February 17, 1712.]

Footnote 5.9.3:

[Azīmu-sh-shān was drowned in the river Rāvi, after the battle between Jahāndār Shāh and his other brothers, in February 1712.]

Footnote 5.9.4:

[Muizzu-d-dīn Jahāndār Shāh, crowned Emperor at Lahore, April 10, 1712, was murdered in 1713, and was buried at Humāyūn’s tomb, Delhi.]

Footnote 5.9.5:

The “seventeen thousand” towns of Gujarat.

Footnote 5.9.6:

[On January 9, 1713.]

Footnote 5.9.7:

[Zulfikār Khān, Nasrat Jang, was strangled in January 1713.]

Footnote 5.9.8:

[The chronicler is reticent about this campaign which was carried out by Husain Ali Khān and the emperor’s maternal uncle Shāista Khān. It was caused by the expulsion of Mughals from Mārwār by Ajīt Singh (Khāfi Khān in Elliot-Dowson vii. 446 f.).]

Footnote 5.9.9:

The tract west of the Luni.

Footnote 5.9.10:

They slur over the most important demand—a daughter to wife to the king—it is at this Ajit hesitates, and for which the precedent is given.

Footnote 5.9.11:

See Vol. I. p. 400.

Footnote 5.9.12:

Described Vol. I. p. 441.

Footnote 5.9.13:

Vol. I. p. 468.

Footnote 5.9.14:

Mewasa is a term given to the fastnesses in the mountains, which the aboriginal tribes, Kolis, Minas, and Mers, and not unfrequently the Rajputs, make their retreats; and in the present instance the bard alludes to the Mewasa of the Deoras of Sirohi and Abu, which has annoyed the descendants of Ajit to this hour, and has served to maintain the independence of this Chauhan tribe.

Footnote 5.9.15:

[Tharād in Pālanpur Agency, Bombay (IGI, xix. 346); Halwad in Kāthiāwār (ibid. viii. 13); Nawanagar in Kāthiāwar, the ruler, known as the Jām (Yule, Hobson-Jobson, 447), being a Jādeja Rājput (IGI, xviii. 419 ff.).]

Footnote 5.9.16:

This is all in the district of Okha (Okhamandala), where the Vadhels fixed themselves on the migration of Siahji from Kanauj. It would have been instructive had the bard deigned to have given us any account of the recognition which this visit occasioned, and which beyond a doubt caused the “books of Chronicles and Kings” to be opened and referred to.

Footnote 5.9.17:

This list well exemplifies the tone now assumed by the Rathors; but this grand feudal assemblage was in virtue of his office of viceroy of Gujarat. Each and all of these chieftainships the author is as familiar with as with the pen he now holds.

Footnote 5.9.18:

[The fish symbol, for which see Sleeman, Rambles, 137 f. James Skinner, who recovered Mahādāji Sindhia’s order in a fight with the Rājputs, speaks of it as “a brass fish with two chources (chaunri, horse-hair or yak tails) hanging to it like mustachios” (Irvine, Army of the Indian Moghuls, 33).]

Footnote 5.9.19:

£10,000 to £12,000.

Footnote 5.9.20:

Omen of the quarter.

Footnote 5.9.21:

[For an account of these transactions see Keene, Sketch of the History of Hindustan, 287 ff.]

Footnote 5.9.22:

The final doom.

Footnote 5.9.23:

[Farrukhsīyar was murdered in prison, and two sickly youths were placed in succession on the throne by the Sayyids—Rafiu-d-darajāt and Rafiu-d-daula—the first of whom died on May 31, the second on September 6, 1719.]

Footnote 5.9.24:

[Nekosīyar, son of Muhammad Akbar, youngest son of Aurangzeb, who was defeated and taken prisoner by the Sayyids (Keene, op. cit. 299).]

Footnote 5.9.25:

This is both minutely and faithfully related, and fully as much so as the Muhammadan record of this black deed. We have already (Vol. I. p. 475) described it, and given a translation of an autograph letter of the prince of Amber, written on this memorable day. The importance of the transaction, as well as the desire to show the Bardic version, will justify its repetition.

Footnote 5.9.26:

In allusion to his vacillation, for which the Mirza Rāja was notorious.

Footnote 5.9.27:

[That is to say, the Kachhwāha Rāja.]

Footnote 5.9.28:

[For this revolution see Elliot-Dowson vii. 474 ff.]

Footnote 5.9.29:

The Star Fort, the castle of Ajmer.

Footnote 5.9.30:

The call to prayer of the Muslim.

Footnote 5.9.31:

This exact imitation of the manners of the imperial court is still strictly maintained at Jodhpur. The account of the measures which followed the possession of Ajmer is taken from the chronicle Surya Prakas; the only part not entirely translated from the Raj Rupak Akhyat. Ajmall is a licence of the poet, where it suits his rhyme, for Ajit. Aspati, ‘lord of steeds,’ is the common epithet applied to the emperors of Delhi. It is, however, but the second degree of paramount power—Gajpati, ‘lord of elephants,’ is the first.

Footnote 5.9.32:

The two latter tribes are amongst the most ancient of the allodial chieftains of the desert: the Dhondals being descendants of Rao Gango; the Gogawats, of the famous Goga [or Gūga] the Chauhan, who defended the Sutlej in the earliest Muslim invasion recorded. Both Goga and his steed Jawadia are immortal in Rajasthan. The Author had a chestnut Kathiawar, called Jawadia; he was perfection, and a piece of living fire when mounted, scorning every pace but the antelope’s bounds and curvets.

Footnote 5.9.33:

[Pātan in Jaipur State; Narnol in Patiāla; Rewāri in Gurgaon District, Panjāb.]

Footnote 5.9.34:

One of the great clans of Amber; of whom more hereafter.

Footnote 5.9.35:

[The tortoise (Kachhwāha) and the sun (the sun-born tribes).]

Footnote 5.9.36:

Founder of the Bharatpur State.

Footnote 5.9.37:

The Bāīsa, or ‘twenty-two’ viceroys of India.

Footnote 5.9.38:

[This was in 1723. The chronicler disguises the defeat of Ajīt Singh.]

Footnote 5.9.39:

See p. 857.

Footnote 5.9.40:

The sovereign judge of mankind [Krishna].

Footnote 5.9.41:

‘The other world’; lit. ‘another place.’

Footnote 5.9.42:

‘Lord of hell.’

Footnote 5.9.43:

Hima, ‘ice,’ and ālaya, ‘an abode.’

Footnote 5.9.44:

Both head and feet are uncovered in funeral processions.

Footnote 5.9.45:

Id est, a vehicle formed like a boat, perhaps figurative of the sail crossing the Vaitarani, or Styx of the Hindu.

Footnote 5.9.46:

For the mode of conveying princes to their final abode, I refer the reader to a description at vol. i. p. 152, Trans. Royal Asiatic Society.

Footnote 5.9.47:

The queen’s palace.

Footnote 5.9.48:

This is the lady whom Ajit married in his non-age, the mother of the parricide.

Footnote 5.9.49:

Krishna [Chakrāyudha, Krishna, or Vishnu].

Footnote 5.9.50:

Ancient capital of the Bhattis.

Footnote 5.9.51:

Descended from the ancient dynasty of the Hindu kings of Delhi.

Footnote 5.9.52:

Tribe of the first dynasty of Anhilwara Patan.

Footnote 5.9.53:

The fire.

Footnote 5.9.54:

[The sacred basil, Ocymum sanctum.]

Footnote 5.9.55:

The Nazir (a Muslim epithet) has the charge of the harem.

Footnote 5.9.56:

The queen of heaven.

Footnote 5.9.57:

[Kunti escaped the fire and protected the children of Mādri, the other wife of Pāndu, who was burnt with him.]

Footnote 5.9.58:

Hari Krishna is the mediator and preserver of the Hindu Triad; his name alone is invoked in funeral rites (see p. 621). The following extract from Dr. Wilkins’ translation of the Gīta will best disclose his attributes:—Krishna speaks: “I am the journey of the good; the comforter; the creator; the witness; the resting-place; the asylum; and the friend. I am generation and dissolution; the place where all things are deposited, and the inexhaustible soul of all nature. I am death and immortality; I am never-failing time; the preserver, whose face is turned on all sides. I am all grasping death; and I am the resurrection of those who are about to die.”

Footnote 5.9.59:

A name of Durga, the Hindu Juno.

Footnote 5.9.60:

The sacred lake in Tibet. [See C. A. Sherring, Western Tibet and the British Borderlands, 259 ff.]

Footnote 5.9.61:

Dhan is ‘riches,’ but is here used in the sense of glory; so that riches and glory are synonymous in term with the Hindu, as in practice in the west; the one may always command the other, at least that species of it for which nine-tenths of mankind contend, and are satisfied with obtaining.

Footnote 5.9.62:

Celestial queens.

Footnote 5.9.63:

Discovered by the author amongst the Rana’s archives.

Footnote 5.9.64:

[Dr. Tessitori writes that the correct version is:

“_Mahārāja Ajmāl ri Jad parkha jāni. Durgo Saphara dāgajē, Golām Gāmgāni._”

“The mind of Mahārāja Ajīt Singh then became known (when he saw) Durgadās burned on the banks of the Sipra River and Gāmgāni bestowed on slaves.” According to tradition, the exiled Durgadās died at Ujjain, near which the Sipra flows.]

Footnote 5.9.65:

Vol. I. p. 451.

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Chapter 10

=Mahārāja Abhai Singh, A.D. 1724-50.=—The parricidal murder of Ajit is accounted the germ of destruction, which, taking root in the social edifice of Marwar, ultimately rent it asunder. Bitter has been the fruit of this crime, “even unto the third and fourth generation” of his unnatural sons, whose issue, but for this crime, would in all human probability have been the most potent princes in India, able single-handed to have stopped Mahratta aggrandisement.

“It was in 1781 (says the bard) Ajit went to heaven. With his own hand did the emperor Muhammad Shah put the tika on the forehead of Abhai Singh, girded him with the sword, bound the turah[5.10.1] on his head, placed a dagger set with gems [98] in his girdle, and with Chaunris, Naubats, and Nakkaras,[5.10.2] and many valuable gifts, invested the young prince in all the dignities of his father. Even Nagor was resumed from the son of Amra and included in his sanad. With these marks of royal favour, he took leave of the court, and returned to his paternal dominions. From village to village, as he journeyed homeward, the kalas was raised on the head.[5.10.3] When he reached Jodhpur, he distributed gifts to all his chiefs, and to the Bardais (bards and Charans), and lands to the family priests (Purohits).”

A day at the court of the desert king, related in the phraseology of the chronicle, would be deemed interesting as a picture of manners. It would also make the reader more familiar with Karna, the most celebrated bard in the latter days of Rajput independence: but this must be reserved for an equally appropriate vehicle,[5.10.4] and we shall at present rest satisfied with a slight sketch of the historian of Maru.

=Karan, the Bard.=—Karna-Kavya, or simply Karna, who traced his descent from the last household bard of the last emperor of Kanauj, was at once a politician, a warrior, and a scholar, and in each capacity has left ample proofs of his abilities. In the first he took a distinguished part in all the events of the civil wars; in the second, he was one of the few who survived a combat almost without parallel in the annals even of Rajput chivalry; and as a scholar, he has left us, in the introduction to his work,[5.10.5] the most instructive proof, not only of his inheriting the poetic mantle of his fathers, but of the course he pursued for the maintenance of its lustre. The bare enumeration of the works he had studied evinces that there was no royal road to Parnassus for the Rajput Kaviswar,[5.10.6] but that, on the contrary, it was beset with difficulties not a little appalling. The mere nomenclature of works on grammar and historical epics, which were to be mastered ere he could hope for fame, must have often made Kama exclaim, “How hard it is to climb the steeps” on which from afar he viewed her temple. Those who desire to see, under a new aspect, an imperfectly known but interesting family of the human race, will be made acquainted with the qualifications of our bardic historians, and the particular course of studies which [99] fitted Karna “to sit in the gate[5.10.7] of Jodhagir,” and add a new book to the chronicles of its kings.

These festivities of the new reign were not of long duration, and were succeeded by warlike preparations against Nagor, which, during the contentions between Ajit and the emperor, had been assigned to the descendant of the ancient princes of Mandor.

“When Ajmer was invested by the collective force of the empire,[5.10.8] Iradat Khan (Bangash), collector of the Jizya,[5.10.9] took the Indha by the arm, and seated him in Nagor.[5.10.10] But as soon as the Holi[5.10.11] was past, the ‘Avatars of Jawalamukhi’[5.10.12] were consecrated: goats were sacrificed, and the blood, with oil and vermilion, was sprinkled upon them. The tents were moved out. Hearing this, Rao Indra produced the imperial patent, with the personal guarantee of Jai Singh of Amber. Abhai heeded not, and invested Nagor; but Indra left his honour and his castle to the Fearless,[5.10.13] who bestowed it on Bakhta his brother. He received the congratulations of Mewar, Jaisalmer, Bikaner, and Amber, and returned to his capital amidst the rejoicings of his subjects. This was in S. 1781.

“In S. 1782 he was employed in restraining the turbulent Bhumias on the western frontiers of his dominions; when the Sindhals, the Deoras, the Balas, the Boras, the Balechas, and the Sodhas were compelled to servitude.

=Abhai Singh summoned to Delhi, A.D. 1726.=—“In S. 1783 a farman of summons arrived, calling the prince to attend the Presence at Delhi. He put it to his head, assembled all his chiefs, and on his passage to court made a tour of his dominions, examining his garrisons, redressing [100] wrongs, and adjusting whatever was in disorder. At Parbatsar[5.10.14] he was attacked by the small-pox: the nation called on Jagrani[5.10.15] to shield him from evil.

“In 1784 the prince reached Delhi. Khandauran, the chief noble of the empire, was deputed by the emperor to conduct him to the capital; and when he reached the Presence, his majesty called him close to his person, exclaiming, ‘Welcome, Khushbakht,[5.10.16] Maharaja Rajeswar,[5.10.17] it is long since we met; this day makes me happy; the splendour of the Ammkhass is redoubled.’ When he took leave, the king sent to his quarters, at Abhaipur, choice fruits of the north, fragrant oils, and rose-water.”

The prince of Maru was placed at the head of all the nobility. About the end of S. 1784, Sarbuland Khan’s rebellion broke out,[5.10.18] which gave ample scope for the valour of the Rathors and materials for the bard, who thus circumstantially relates it:

“The troubles in the Deccan increased. The Shahzada Jangali[5.10.19] rebelled, and forming an army of sixty thousand men, attacked the provincial governors of Malwa, Surat, and Ahmadpur, slaying the king’s lieutenants, Girdhar Bahadur, Ibrahim Kuli,[5.10.20] Rustam Ali, and the Mogul Shujaat.

=Rebellion of Sarbuland Khan. Scene at the Imperial Court.=—“Hearing this, the king appointed Sarbuland Khan to quash the rebellion. He marched at the head of fifty thousand men, having a crore of rupees for their subsistence; but his advanced army of ten thousand men being defeated in the first encounter, he entered into terms with the rebels, and agreed to a partition of the country.”

It was at this time the prince of Marwar begged permission to retire to his hereditary dominions. The bard’s description of the court, and of the emperor’s distress on this occasion, though prolix, deserves insertion:

“The king was seated on his throne, attended by the seventy-two grand Omras of the empire, when tidings reached him of the revolt of Sarbuland. There was the wazir Kamaru-din Khan, Itimadu-Daula, Khandauran, commander-in-chief [101] (Mir Bakhshi), Samsamu-d-daula, the Amiru-Umara, Mansur Ali, Roshanu-d-daula, Tura Baz Khan, the Lord Marcher (Sim ka Bakhshi); Rustam Jang, Afghan Khan, Khwaja Sayyidu-d-din, commandant of artillery (Mir Atish); Saadat Khan,[5.10.21] grand chamberlain (Darogha Khawass), Burhanu-l-Mulk, Abdul Samad Khan, Dalil Khan, Zafariyab Khan, governor of Lahore, Dalel Khan, Mir Jumla, Khankhanan; Zafar Jang, Iradat Khan, Murshid Kuli Khan, Ja’far Khan, Allahwirdi Khan,[5.10.22] Muzaffar Khan, governor of Ajmer. Such and many more were assembled in the Presence.

“It was read aloud that Sarbuland had reduced Gujarat, and proclaimed his own an; that he had ground the Kolis to dust; that he had vanquished the Mandalas, the Jhalas, the Chudasamas, the Baghels, and the Gohils, and had nearly exterminated the Balas; that Halar had agreed to pay tribute, and that such was the fire of this Yavan, that the Bhumias of themselves abandoned their strongholds to seek sanctuary with him whom the ‘seventeen thousand’[5.10.23] now called sovereign; that he had set himself up a king in Ahmadabad, and made a league with the ‘Southron.’

“The emperor saw that if this defection was not quelled, all the viceroys would declare themselves independent. Already had Jagaria Khan in the north, Saadat Khan in the east, and the Mlechchha Nizamu-l-mulk in the south, shown the blackness of their designs. The tap (verve) of the empire had fled.

“The bira was placed on a golden salver, which the Mir Tajik bore in his extended arms, slowly passing in front of the nobles ranged on either side of the throne, mighty men, at the sight of whose faces the rustic would tremble: but in vain he passed both lines; no hand was stretched forth; some looked awry; some trembled; but none cast an eye upon the bira.

“The ‘almighty monarch’ (Parameswar Padshah), who could make the beggar an Omra of twelve thousand, and the noble of twelve thousand a beggar, was without resource. ‘Who,’ said one, ‘would grasp the forked lightning, let him engage Sarbuland!’ Another exclaimed, ‘Who would seize the vessel, and plunge with her in the whirlpool, he may contend with Sarbuland.’ And a third, ‘Whoever [102] dare seize the forked tongue of the serpent, let him engage Sarbuland.’ The king was troubled; he gave a sign to the Mir Tajik to return the bira to him.

“The Rathor prince saw the monarch’s distress, and as he was about to leave the Ammkhass, he stretched forth his hand, and placed the bira in his turban, as he said, ‘Be not cast down, O king of the world; I will pluck down this Sarbuland:[5.10.24] leafless shall be the boughs of his ambition, and his head (sar) the forfeit of his arrogant exaltation (buland).’

“When Abhai Singh grasped the bira, the breasts of the mighty were ready to burst with the fulness of envy, even like the ripe pomegranate, as the king placed the grant of Gujarat into the hands of the Rathor. The Shah’s heart was rejoiced, as he said, ‘Thus acted your ancestors in support of the throne; thus was quelled the revolt of Khurram and Bhim in the time of Jahangir; that of the Deccan settled; and in like manner do I trust that by you the honour and the throne of Muhammad Shah will be upheld.’

“Rich gifts, including seven gems of great price, were bestowed upon the Rathor; the treasury was unlocked and thirty-one lakhs of coin were assigned for the troops. The guns were taken from the arsenals, and with the patent of the vice-royalties of Ahmadabad and Ajmer, in the month of Asarh (1786), Abhai took leave of the king.”[5.10.25]

=Abhai Singh starts for Gujarat, A.D. 1730.=—The political arrondissement of Marwar dates from this period; for the rebellion of Sarbuland was the forerunner of the disintegration of the empire. It was in June A.D. 1730 that the prince of Marwar left the court of Delhi. He had a double motive in proceeding direct to Ajmer, of which province he was viceroy; first, to take possession of his stronghold (the key not only of Marwar but of every State in Rajputana); and second, to consult with the prince of Amber on the affairs of that critical conjuncture. What was the cause of Jai Singh’s presence at Ajmer the chronicle says not; but from circumstances elsewhere related, it may be conjectured that it was for the purpose of celebrating “the rites of the Pitrideva” (manes of his ancestors) at Pushkar. The bard gives a most prolix account of the meeting, even to the pagtar, ‘or foot-clothes’ spread for “the kings of the Hindus” to walk on, “who feasted together, and together plotted the destruction of the [103] empire”: from which we perceive that Karna, the bard, had a peep behind the curtain.

Having installed his officers in Ajmer, Abhai Singh proceeded to Merta, when he was met by his brother, Bakhta Singh, on which occasion the grant of Nagor was bestowed upon the latter. The brothers continued their route to the capital, when all the chiefs were dismissed to their homes with injunctions to assemble their vassals for the ensuing campaign against Sarbuland. At the appointed time, the Kher (feudal array) of Marwar assembled under the walls of Jodhpur. The occasion is a delightful one to the bard, who revels in all “the pomp and circumstance of war”: from the initiatory ceremony, the moving out the tents, to the consecration of the ‘mighty tubes’ (balwannal), the ‘volcanos of the field,’ or, as he terms them, the ‘crocodile-mouths’ (magarmukhan), ‘emblems of Yama,’ which were sprinkled abundantly with the blood of goats slain under their muzzles. He describes each clan as it arrives, their steeds, and caparisons.

=Abhai Singh attacks Sirohi.=—Instead, however, of proceeding direct to the main object of the war, Abhai Singh took advantage of the immense army thus placed under his command, as viceroy of Gujarat, to wreak his own vengeance upon his neighbour, the gallant prince of Sirohi, who, trusting to his native strength, had spurned every compromise which involved his independence. This resolution he maintained by his natural position, strengthened by alliances with the aboriginal races who hemmed his little State on all sides, excepting that towards Marwar.

These Minas, the mountaineers of the Aravalli, had given offence to Abhai Singh; for while the prince, between his arrival at Jodhpur and the assemblage of the Kher, gave himself up to indolence and opium, they carried off the whole cattle of the train to the mountains. When this was reported to Abhai Singh, he coolly said, “Let them go, they knew we were short of forage, and have only taken them to their own pastures in the mountains.” Strange to say, they did return them, and in excellent condition, as soon as he prepared to march. When he heard of this, he observed, “Did I not tell you these Minas were faithful subjects?”

The order to march was now given, when the bard enumerates the names and strength of the different Rajput princes, whose contingents formed this array, in which there were only two Muhammadan leaders of distinction: “The Haras of Kotah and Bundi; the Khichis of Gagraun; the Gaurs of Sheopur; the Kachhwahas of [104] Amber, and [even] the Sodhas of the desert, under their respective princes or chiefs, were under the command of the Marwar prince. His native retainers, the united clans of Marwar, formed the right wing of the whole army, headed by his brother Bakhta.

“On the 10th Chait (Sudi) S. 1786, Abhai marched from Jodhpur, by Bhadrajun and Malgarh, Siwana and Jalor. Rewara was assaulted; the swords of the enemy showered, and the Champawat fell amidst heaps of slain. The Deoras abandoned the hill and fled. The trees were levelled to the summit; a garrison was posted, and the array moved on to Pusalia. Then Abu shook with affright. Affliction seized Sirohi; its prince was in despair when he heard Rewara and Pusalia were destroyed.[5.10.26] The Chauhan preferred decking his daughter in the bridal vestments to arraying his army to oppose Abhaimall.”

=Submission of Sirohi to Abhai Singh.=—Rao Narayan Das, through the intervention of a Rajput chieftain, named Mayaram, of the Chawara tribe, made overtures to the Rathor, proposing his niece (daughter of Man Singh his predecessor) in marriage.[5.10.27] “In the midst of strife ‘the coco-nut,’ with eight choice steeds and the price of four elephants, were sent and accepted. The drum of battle ceased; the nuptials were solemnized, and in the tenth month Ram Singh was born at Jodhpur.” The bard, however, lets us into the secret, and shows that the Rajputs had ‘secret articles,’ as well as the more polished diplomacy of Europe; for besides the fair Chauhani, the Rao consented to pay Peshachchanni a ‘concealed tribute.’

The Deora chiefs united their contingents to the royal army, for the subjugation of Sarbuland, and the march recommenced by Palanpur and Siddhpur, or the Sarasvati. Here they halted, and “an envoy was dispatched to Sarbuland, summoning him to surrender the imperial equipments, cannons, and stores; to account for the revenues, and to withdraw his garrisons from Ahmadabad and all the strongholds of the province.” The reply was laconic and dignified; “that he himself was king, and his head was with Ahmadabad” [105].

A grand council of war was convened in the Rajput camp, which is described con amore by the bard. The overture and its reception were communicated, and the debates and speeches which ensued thereon, as to the future course of proceeding, are detailed. The bard is, however, satisfied with recording the speeches of ‘the chiefs of the eight grades of Maru.’

“First spoke the chief of the children of Champa, Kusal, son of Harnath of Awa, whose seat is on the right of the throne. Then Kanairam of Asop, leader of the Kumpawats, whose place is on the left: ‘let us, like the Kilkila,[5.10.28] dive into the waters of battle.’ He was followed by Kesari, the Mertia Sarmor—then by the veteran who led the Udawats: old and brave, many a battle had he seen. Then the chief of Khanua, who led the clan of Jodha, protested he would be the first to claim the immortal garland from the hand of the Apsaras:[5.10.29] ‘Let us stain our garments with saffron, and our lances with crimson, and play at ball with this Sarbuland.’[5.10.30] Fateh the Jethawat, and Karnavat Abhaimall, re-echoed his words. All shouted ‘battle!’ ‘battle!’ while some put on the coloured garments, determined to conquer Bhanuloka. Kama, the Champawat, said aloud, ‘With sparkling cup the Apsaras will serve us in the mansion of the sun.’[5.10.31] Every clan, every chief, and every bard re-echoed ‘battle!’

“Then Bakhta stood up to claim the onset, to lead the van in battle against Sarbuland, while his brother and prince should await the result in his tents. A jar of saffron-water was placed before the prince, with which he sprinkled each chief, who shouted, ‘They would people Amarapur.’”[5.10.32]

The bard then describes the steeds of the Rajput chivalry, in which the Bhimthadi [106][5.10.33] of the Deccan takes precedence; he is followed by the horses of Dhat and Rardara in Marwar, and the Kathiawar of Saurashtra.

=The Battle with Sarbuland.=—Sarbuland’s plans of defence are minutely detailed. At each gate he posted two thousand men and five guns, “manned by Europeans,” of whom he had a body of musketeers round his person. The cannonade had been kept up three days on both sides, in which the son of Sarbuland was killed. At length, Bakhta led the storm, when all the ots and awats performed prodigies of valour. The Champawat Kusal was the first to be carried to the “immortal abode”; but though “the sun stood still to see the deeds of the son of Harnath” we cannot particularize the bard’s catalogue of heroes transferred to Suryaloka[5.10.34] on this day, when the best blood of Rajputana was shed on the walls of Ahmadabad. Both the princely brothers had their share in “the play of swords,” and each slew more than one leader of note. Amra, who had so often defended Ajmer, slew five chiefs of the grades of two and three thousand horse.

“Eight gharis of the day remained, when Sarbuland fled; but Aliyar, the leader of his vanguard, made a desperate resistance, until he fell by the hand of Bakhta Singh. The drum of victory sounded. The Nawab left his pani in the Rankund.[5.10.35] The ‘would-be-king’ was wounded; his elephant showed the speed of the deer. Four thousand four hundred and ninety-three were slain, of whom one hundred were Palkinishins, eight Hathinishins,[5.10.36] and three hundred entitled to the Tazim on entering the Diwan-i-amm.[5.10.37]

“One hundred and twenty of Abhai Singh’s chieftains of note, with five hundred horse, were slain, and seven hundred wounded.

“The next morning, Sarbuland surrendered with all his effects. He was escorted towards Agra, his wounded Moguls dying at every stage; but the soul of the ‘Fearless’ was sad at the loss of his kin.[5.10.38] Abhaimall ruled over the seventeen [107] thousand towns of Gujarat, and the nine thousand of Marwar, besides one thousand elsewhere. The princes of Idar, of Bhuj, of Parkar, of Sind, and of Sirohi, the Chalukya Ran of Fatehpur, Jhunjunu, Jaisalmer, Nagor, Dungarpur, Banswara, Lunawara, Halwad, every morning bowed the head to Abhaimall.

“Thus, in the enlightened half of the moon, on the victorious tenth[5.10.39] (S. 1787, A.D. 1731), the day on which Ramachandra captured Lanka, the war against Sarbuland, an Omrah (lord) of twelve thousand, was concluded.”[5.10.40]

Having left a garrison of seventeen thousand men for the duties of the capital and province, Abhai Singh returned to Jodhpur with the spoils of Gujarat, and there he deposited four crores of rupees, and one thousand four hundred guns of all calibres, besides military stores of every description. With these, in the declining state of the empire, the desert king strengthened his forts and garrisons, and determined, in the general scramble for dominion, not to neglect his own interests [108].

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Footnote 5.10.1:

[A plumed crest worn on the turban.]

Footnote 5.10.2:

[Fly-flappers, bands of music, kettledrums.]

Footnote 5.10.3:

The kalas is a brazen vessel, of household use. A female of each family, filling one of these with water, repairs to the house of the head of the village, when, being all convened, they proceed in a body to meet the person to whom they render honour, singing the suhaila, or ‘song of joy.’ The presenting water is a token of homage and regard, and one which the author has often had paid to him, especially in Mewar, where every village met him in this way.

Footnote 5.10.4:

I hope some day to present a few of the works of the great bard Chand, with a dissertation on the Bardais, and all the ‘sons of song.’ [Karan flourished about A.D. 1730: see Grierson, Modern Vernacular Literature of Hindustan, 98.]

Footnote 5.10.5:

Entitled the Surya Prakas, of 7500 stanzas.

Footnote 5.10.6:

Kāvīswar, or kāvya-īswara, ‘lord of verse,’ from kāvya, ‘poesy,’ and īswara, ‘lord.’

Footnote 5.10.7:

The portal of the palace appears to have been the bard’s post. Pope gives the same position to his historic bards in ‘the Temple of Fame’:

“Full in the passage of each spacious gate, The sage Historians in white garments wait; Grav’d o’er their seats the form of Time was found, His scythe revers’d, and both his pinions bound.” [l. 145-8.]

Footnote 5.10.8:

In the original, “by the bāīsa,” the ‘twenty-two,’ meaning the collective force of the twenty-two subahdars, ‘or satraps of the provinces.’

Footnote 5.10.9:

Capitation tax.

Footnote 5.10.10:

The poet calls it by its classic appellation, Nāgadurga, the ‘castle of the serpent’ [rather Nāgapura, capital of the Nāga sept of Rājputs].

Footnote 5.10.11:

For this festival see p. 661.

Footnote 5.10.12:

Jawalamukhi, the ‘mouth of flame,’ the cannon, which are thus consecrated before action. They are called avatars, or ‘incarnations’ of Jawalamukhi, the Etna of India, at the edge of whose crater the Hindu poet very properly places the temple of Jawali Rani, ‘the terrific’ Kali Ma, the Hindu Hecate. [Jawālamukhi in the Kāngra District, Panjāb (IGI, xiv. 86 f.).]

Footnote 5.10.13:

Abhai, the name of the prince, means ‘fearless,’ from bhai, ‘fear,’ and privative prefix.

Footnote 5.10.14:

[On the Kishangarh border, N.E. of Jodhpur State.]

Footnote 5.10.15:

Jagrani (I write all these phrases exactly as pronounced in the western dialect), ‘Queen of the world.’ Sitala Mata is the common name for the goddess who presides over this scourge of infancy.

Footnote 5.10.16:

‘Of happy fortune.’

Footnote 5.10.17:

Mahārāja-Rājeswar, the pompous title of the kings of Maru; ‘great Raja, lord of Rajas.’

Footnote 5.10.18:

[Sarbuland Khān was Governor of Gujarāt, A.D. 1724, and was removed from office in 1730 because he consented to pay Chauth or blackmail to the Marāthas. He opposed the installation of Abhai as his successor, and defeated him at Adālaj (Beale, Dict. Oriental Biography, s.v.; Grant Duff 217).]

Footnote 5.10.19:

In none of the Muhammadan histories of this period is it mentioned, that there was an imperial prince at the head of the first Mahratta irruption; probably he was a mere tool for the purposes of others. [The ‘Boorish Prince,’ as the name implies, was a nickname of Hāmid Khān Bahādur, uncle of Nizāmu-l-mulk, Āsaf Jāh (Grant Duff 217; BG, i. Part i. 303 ff.).]

Footnote 5.10.20:

[Girdhar Bahādur was a Nāgar Brāhman; Ibrāhīm Kuli, son of Shujā’at Khān.]

Footnote 5.10.21:

Afterwards Wazir of Oudh, a State founded and maintained by consummate treason.

Footnote 5.10.22:

Nawab of Bengal, another traitor.

Footnote 5.10.23:

This number of cities, towns, and villages constituted the kingdom of Gujarat under its ancient sovereigns.

Footnote 5.10.24:

Sar, ‘the head,’ buland, ‘exalted, high, arrogant.’ I write the name Sirbullund, being the orthography long known.

Footnote 5.10.25:

In the original, the emperor is called the Aspati, ‘lord of swords,’ or perhaps Aswapati, ‘lord of steeds.’

Footnote 5.10.26:

Both these places are famous in the Mewasa, or fastnesses of Sirohi, and gave the Author, who was intrusted with its political affairs, much trouble. Fortunately for the Deora prince, descendant of Rao Narayan Das, the Author knew their history, and was enabled to discriminate the claims which Jodhpur asserted over her in virtue of such attacks as this; in short, between the claims of ‘the princes of Marwar,’ and the king’s lieutenants of Gujarat. In these negotiations wherein Jodhpur advanced its pretensions to suzeraineté over Sirohi, which as stoutly denied the right, he clearly distinguished the claims of the princes of Jodhpur, in their capacities of viceroys of the empire, and argued that claims conceded by Sirohi in that character guaranteed none to them, in their individual capacity, as chiefs of Marwar, a distinction which they affected not to comprehend, but which was at length fully recognized and acted on by the paramount power. Sirohi is maintained in its ancient independence, which but for this previous knowledge must have been inevitably lost.

Footnote 5.10.27:

[It was Rāo Mān Singh III. (A.D. 1705-49) who gave his daughter in marriage to Abhai Singh. The Sirohi records contain no mention of a Rāo named Nārāyan Dās (Erskine iii. A. 243).]

Footnote 5.10.28:

The kilkila is the bird we call the kingfisher.

Footnote 5.10.29:

The maids of war, the Valkyries of Rajput mythology.

Footnote 5.10.30:

Another jeu-de-mots on the name Sarbuland, with whose head (sar) the Jodha chief proposes to play at ball.

Footnote 5.10.31:

The young chieftain of Salumbar, the first of the nobles of Mewar, was sitting with me, attentively listening as I was translating the war against Sarbuland, read by my old tutor. His family possess an hereditary aversion to ‘the cup,’ which is under solemn prohibition from some cause which I forget, and so far did his grandfather carry his antipathy, that a drop falling upon him at an entertainment, he cut out the contaminated part with his dagger. Aware of this, I turned round to the young chief and said: “Well, Rawatji, would you accept the cup from the hand of the Apsaras or would you refuse the munawwar (pledge)?” “Certainly I would take it; these are very different cups from ours,” was his reply. “Then you believe that the heavenly fair carry the souls of those who fall in battle to the Mandal of Surya?” “Who dare doubt it? When my time comes, I will take that cup!” a glorious creed for a soldier! He sat for hours listening to my old tutor and friend; for none of their bards expounded like him the bhujanga (serpentine verse) of the poet. I have rated the Rawat for being unable to repeat the genealogy of his house from Chonda to himself; but the family bard was dead and left no progeny to inherit his mantle. This young chief is yet (A.D. 1820) but twenty-two, and promises to be better prepared.

Footnote 5.10.32:

‘The city of immortality.’

Footnote 5.10.33:

[The Bhīmthadi or Bhīvarthadi horses, which take their name from a division of the Poona District in the valley of the Bhīma River, were highly esteemed by the Marāthas, being middle-sized, strong, good-looking, generally dark bay with black legs (BG, xviii. Part i. 61). It was on a horse of this breed that Mahādāji Sindhia escaped after the battle of Pānīpat (Elliot-Dowson viii. 156).]

Footnote 5.10.34:

The abode of heroes, the Valhalla of the Rajput mythology.

Footnote 5.10.35:

Rankund is the ‘fountain of battle,’ and pāni is applied, as we use the word water, to the temper or spirit of a sword: a play on words.

Footnote 5.10.36:

Chiefs entitled to ride in palkis and on elephants.

Footnote 5.10.37:

A long list of names is given, which would only fatigue the reader; but amongst them we select a singular one, Nolakh Khan Anglez, ‘Nolakh the Englishman.’

Footnote 5.10.38:

The bard enumerates with the meed of praise each vassal who fell, whether Rathor or of the contingents of the other principalities serving under the prince of Marwar. The Champawats bore the brunt, and lost Karan of Pali, Kishan Singh of Sandri, Gordhan of Jalor, and Kalyan. The Kumpawats lost also several leaders of clans, as Narsingh, Surthan Singh, Padma, son of Durjan. The Jodha tribe lost three leaders, namely, Hayatmall, Guman, and Jogidas. The brave Mertias also lost three: Bhum Singh, Kusal Singh, and Gulab, son of Hathi. The allodial chieftains, the Jadons, the Sonigiras, the Dhondals, and Khichis, had many brave men “carried to Bhanuloka,” and even bards and purohits were amongst the slain.

Footnote 5.10.39:

Vijaya daswin.

Footnote 5.10.40:

With this battle the Raj Rupaka and Surya Prakas terminate. [All the rhetoric of the bard cannot disguise what was really a Rājput defeat. Their force advanced to Adālaj, about eight miles from Ahmadābād, and was defeated. Abhai Singh took up a new position, and a still more bloody engagement followed, in which each side tried to kill the opposing commander; but as both Mubārizu-l-mulk, who was known as Sarbuland Khān, and Abhai Singh fought in disguise, neither party succeeded. The Rāthors were finally pursued as far as Sarkhej, and it was only on Mubārizu-l-mulk receiving a lakh of rupees (£6666) that he was induced to go to Agra. See Khāli Khan’s account in Elliot-Dowson vii. 530, and BG, i. Part i. 310 f.]

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Chapter 11

=Jealousy of Abhai Singh to Bakht Singh.=—The tranquillity which for a while followed the campaign in Gujarat was of no long duration. The love of ease and opium, which increased with the years of Abhai Singh, was disturbed by a perpetual apprehension of the active courage and military genius of his brother, whose appanage of Nagor was too restricted a field for his talents and ambition. Bakhta was also aware that his daring nature, which obtained him the suffrages, as it would the swords, of his turbulent and easily excited countrymen, rendered him an object of distrust, and that without great circumspection, he would be unable to maintain himself in his imperium in imperio, the castle and three hundred and sixty townships of Nagor. He was too discreet to support himself by foreign aid, or by fomenting domestic strife; but with the aid of the bard he adopted a line of policy, the relation of which will develop new traits in the Rajput character, and exemplify its peculiarities. Karna, after finishing his historical chronicle, concluding with the war against Sarbuland, abandoned “the gate of Jodhpur for that of Nagor.” Like all his tribe, the bard was an adept in intrigue, and his sacred character forwarded the secret means of executing it. His advice was to embroil their common sovereign with the prince of Amber, and an opportunity was not long wanting [109].

=Abhai Singh attacks Bīkaner.=—The prince of Bikaner,[5.11.1] a junior but independent branch of Marwar, had offended his yet nominal suzerain Abhai Singh, who, taking advantage of the weakness of their common liege lord the emperor, determined to resent the affront, and accordingly invested Bikaner, which had sustained a siege of some weeks, when Bakhta determined to make its release subserve his designs; nor could he have chosen a better expedient. Although the prince of Marwar had led his united vassalage against Bikaner, they were not only lukewarm as to the success of their own arms, but, anomalous as it must appear in the annals even of feudal warfare, they furnished the besieged with the means of defence, who, but for the supplies of opium, salt, and ammunition, would soon have been compelled to surrender. We can account for this: Bikaner was of their own kin, a branch of the great tree of which Siahji was the root, and to which they could cling in emergency; in short, Bikaner balanced the power between themselves and their head.

The scheme being approved, its execution and mode of development to Jai Singh were next canvassed. “Touch his pride,” said Karna; “tell him the insult to Amber, which your ancestor invested, has never been balanced, and that he will never find a time like the present to fling a few shot at Jodhpur.”

=Bakht Singh intrigues to cause War with Jaipur.=—Bakhta addressed a letter to Jai Singh, and at the same time sent instructions to the envoy of Bikaner at his court how to act.

The prince of Amber, towards the close of his career, became partial to ‘the cup’; but, aware of the follies it involved him in, an edict prohibited all official intercourse with him while he was under its influence. The direct overture of Bakhta was canvassed, and all interference between the kindred belligerents was rejected in a full council of the chiefs of Amber. But the envoy had a friend in the famous Vidyadhar,[5.11.2] the chief civil minister of the State, through whose means he obtained permission to make ‘a verbal report, standing.’ “Bikaner,” he said, “was in peril, and without his aid must fall, and that his master did not consider the sovereign of Marwar, but of Amber, as his suzerain.” Vanity and wine did the rest. The prince took up the pen and wrote to Abhai Singh, “That they all formed one great family; to forgive Bikaner and raise his batteries”: and as he took another cup, and [110] curled his moustache, he gave the letter to be folded. “Maharaja,” said the envoy, “put in two more words: ‘or, my name is Jai Singh.’” They were added. The overjoyed envoy retired, and in a few minutes the letter was on transit to its destination by the swiftest camel of the desert. Scarcely had the envoy retired, when the chief of Bansko,[5.11.3] the Mentor of Jai Singh, entered. He was told of the letter, which “would vex his Saga.”[5.11.4] The old chief remonstrated; he said, “Unless you intend to extinguish the Kachhwahas, recall this letter.” Messenger after messenger was sent, but the envoy knew his duty. At the dinner hour all the chiefs had assembled at the (Rasora) banquet-hall, when the spokesman of the vassalage, old Dip Singh, in reply to the communication of his sovereign, told him he had done a cruel and wanton act, and that they must all suffer for his imprudence.

The reply, a laconic defiance, was brought back with like celerity; it was opened and read by Jai Singh to his chiefs: “By what right do you dictate to me, or interfere between me and my servants? If your name is ‘Lion of Victory’ (Jai Singh), mine is ‘the Lion without Fear’ (Abhai Singh).”[5.11.5]

The ancient chief, Dip Singh, said: “I told you how it would be; but there is no retreat, and our business is to collect our friends.” The Kher, or ‘levy en masse,’ was proclaimed: Every Kachhwaha was commanded to repair to the great standard planted outside the capital. The home-clans came pouring in, and aid was obtained from the Haras of Bundi, the Jadons of Karauli, the Sesodias of Shahpura, the Khichis, and the Jats, until one hundred thousand men were formed beneath the castle of Amber. This formidable array proceeded, march after march, until they reached Gangwana, a village on the frontier of Marwar.[5.11.6] Here they encamped, and, with all due courtesy, awaited the arrival of the ‘Fearless Lion.’

=Battle of Gangwāna.=—They were not long in suspense. Mortally offended at such wanton interference, which compelled him to relinquish his object on the very eve of attainment, Abhai Singh raised his batteries from besieging Bikaner and rapidly advanced to the encounter.

Bakhta now took alarm. He had not calculated the length to which his intrigues would involve his country; he had sought but to embroil the border princes, but [111] had kindled a national warfare. Still his fears were less for the discovery of his plot than for the honour of Marwar, about to be assailed by such odds. He repaired to his brother and liege lord, and implored him not to raise the siege; declaring that he alone, with the vassals of Nagor, would receive the Bhagatia’s[5.11.7] battle, and, by God’s blessing, would give a good account of him. Abhai Singh, not averse to see his brother punished for his conduct, though determined to leave him to the brunt of the battle, rejected with scorn the intriguing proposition.

The Nakkara sounded the assembly for the chivalry of Nagor. Bakhta took post on the balcony over the Delhi gate, with two brazen vessels; in the one was an infusion of opium, in the other saffron-water. To each Rajput as he entered he presented opium, and made the impress of his right hand on his heart with the saffron-water. Having in this manner enrolled eight thousand Rajputs, sworn to die with him, he determined to select the most resolute; and marching to the edge of an extensive field of luxuriant Indian corn[5.11.8] (bajra), he halted his band, and thus addressed them: “Let none follow me who is not prepared for victory or death: if there be any amongst you who desire to return, let them do so in God’s name.” As he spoke, he resumed the march through the luxuriant fields, that it might not be seen who retired. More than five thousand remained, and with these he moved on to the combat.

The Amber prince awaited them at Gangwana: soon as the hostile lines approached, Bakhta gave the word, and, in one dense mass, his gallant legion charged with lance and sword the deepened lines of Amber, carrying destruction at every pass. He passed through and through this host; but when he pulled up in the rear, only sixty of his band remained round his person. At this moment the chief of Gajsinghpura, head of all his vassals, hinted there was a jungle in the rear: “And what is there in front,” said the intrepid Rathor, “that we should not try the road we came?” and as he espied the Panchranga, or five-coloured flag, which denoted the headquarters of Amber, the word again was given. The cautious Kumbhani[5.11.9] advised his prince to avoid the charge: with some difficulty he was made to leave the field, and as a salvo to his honour, by a flank movement towards Kandela north, that it might not be said he turned his back on his foe. As he [112] retreated, he exclaimed, “Seventeen battles have I witnessed, but till this day never one decided by the sword.” Thus, after a life of success, the wisest, or at least the most learned and most powerful prince of Rajwara, incurred the disgrace of leaving the field in the face of a handful of men, strengthening the adage “that one Rathor equalled ten Kachhwahas.”

Jai Singh’s own bards could not refrain from awarding the meed of valour to their foes, and composed the following stanzas on the occasion: “Is it the battle cry of Kali, or the war-shout of Hanumanta, or the hissing of Seshnag, or the denunciation of Kapaliswar? Is it the incarnation of Narsingh, or the darting beam of Surya? or the death-glance of the Dakini?[5.11.10] or that from the central orb of Trinetra?[5.11.11] Who could support the flames from this volcano of steel, when Bakhta’s sword became the sickle of Time?”

But for Karna the bard, one of the few remaining about his person, Bakhta would a third time have plunged into the ranks of the foe; nor was it till the host of Amber had left the field that he was aware of the extent of his loss.[5.11.12] Then, strange inconsistency! the man, who but a few minutes before had affronted death in every shape, when he beheld the paucity of survivors, sat down and wept like an infant. Still it was more the weakness of ambition than humanity; for, never imagining that his brother would fail to support him, he thought destruction had overtaken Marwar; nor was it until his brother joined and assured him he had left him all the honour of the day, that he recovered his port. Then “he curled his whiskers and swore an oath, that he would yet drag the ‘Bhagat’ from his castle of Amber.”

Jai Singh, though he paid dear for his message, gained his point, the relief of Bikaner; and the Rana of Udaipur mediated to prevent the quarrel going further, which was the less difficult since both parties had gained their ends, though Jai Singh obtained his by the loss of a battle.

=Marriage of a God.=—It is related that the tutelary deity of Bakhta Singh fell into the hands of the Amber prince, who carried home the sole trophy he could boast, married the Rathor deity to a female divinity of Amber, and returned him with his compliments to Bakhta. Such were the courteous usages of Rajput chivalry. The triple alliance [113] of the chief Rajput princes followed this battle, cemented by the union of the rival houses to daughters of Mewar. There they met, attended by their vassalage, and, in the nuptial festivities and the ‘cup,’ forgot this bitter strife, while enmity and even national jealousy were banished by general courtesy. Such is the Rajput, who can be judged after no known standard: he stands alone in the moral history of man.[5.11.13]

=Death and Character of Abhai Singh.=—This is the last conspicuous act of Abhai Singh’s life on record. He died in S. 1806 (A.D. 1750) at Jodhpur. His courage, which may be termed ferocious, was tempered only by his excessive indolence, regarding which they have preserved many amusing anecdotes; one of these will display the exact character of the man. The chronicle says: “When Ajit went to marry the Chauhani, he found two lions in his path—the one asleep, the other awake. The interpretation of the Saguni (augur) was, that the Chauhani would bear him two sons; that one would be a soti kan (sluggard), the other an active soldier.” Could the augur have revealed that they would imbrue their hands in a father’s blood, he might have averted the ruin of his country, which dates from this black deed.

The Rathors profess a great contempt for the Kachhwahas as soldiers; and Abhai Singh’s was not lessened for their prince, because he happened to be father-in-law to the prince of Amber, whom he used to mortify, even in the ‘Presence,’ with such sarcasm as, “You are called a Kachhua, or properly Kuswa, from the Kusa; and your sword will cut as deep as one of its blades”:[5.11.14] alluding to the grass thus called. Irritated, yet fearing to reply, he formed a plan to humble his arrogance in his only vulnerable point, the depreciation of his personal strength. While it was the boast of Jai Singh to mingle the exact sciences of Europe with the more ancient of India, Abhai’s ambition was to be deemed the first swordsman of Rajwara. The scientific prince of Amber gave his cue to Kirparam, the paymaster-general, a favourite with the king, from his skill at chess, and who had often the honour of playing with him while all the nobles were standing. Kirparam praised the Rathor prince’s dexterity in smiting off a buffalo’s head; on which the king called out, “Rajeswar, I have heard much of your skill with the sword.” “Yes, Hazrat, I can use it on an occasion.” A huge animal [114] was brought into the area, fed in the luxuriant pastures of Hariana. The court crowded out to see the Rathor exhibit; but when he beheld the enormous bulk, he turned to the king and begged permission to retire to his post, the imperial guardroom, to refresh himself. Taking a double dose of opium, he returned, his eyes glaring with rage at the trick played upon him, and as he approached the buffalo they fell upon Jai Singh who had procured this monster with a view to foil him. The Amber chief saw that mischief was brewing, and whispered his majesty not to approach too near his son-in-law. Grasping his sword in both hands, Abhai gave the blow with such force that the buffalo’s head “dropped upon his knees,” and the raja was thrown upon his back. All was well; but, as the chronicle says, “the king never asked the raja to decollate another buffalo.”

=Invasion of Nādir Shāh.=—It was during the reign of Abhai Singh that Nadir Shah[5.11.15] invaded India; but the summons to the Rajput princes, to put forth their strength in support of the tottering throne of Timur, was received with indifference. Not a chief of note led his myrmidons to the plains of Karnal; and Delhi was invested, plundered, and its monarch dethroned, without exciting a sigh. Such was their apathy in the cause, when the imbecility of Muhammad Shah succeeded to the inheritance of Aurangzeb, that with their own hands these puppets of despotism sapped the foundations of the empire.

Unfortunately for Rajputana, the demoralization of her princes prevented their turning to advantage this depression of the empire, in whose follies and crimes they participated.

With the foul and monstrous murder of the Raja Ajit (A.D. 1750) commenced those bloody scenes which disgrace the annals of Marwar; yet even in the history of her crimes there are acts of redeeming virtue, which raise a sentiment of regret that the lustre of the one should be tarnished by the presence of the other. They serve, however, to illustrate that great moral truth, that in every stage of civilization crime will work out its own punishment; and grievously has the parricidal murder of Ajit been visited on his race and country. We shall see it acting as a blight on that magnificent tree, which, transplanted from the native soil of the Ganges, took root and flourished amidst the arid sands of the desert, affording a goodly shade for a daring race, who acquired fresh victories with poverty—we shall see its luxuriance checked, and its numerous and widely spread branches, as if [115] scorched by the lightnings of heaven, wither and decay; and they must utterly perish, unless a scion, from the uncontaminated stem of Idar,[5.11.16] be grafted upon it: then it may revive, and be yet made to yield more vigorous fruit.

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Footnote 5.11.1:

[Sujān Singh (A.D. 1700-35) served in the Deccan from 1707 to 1719.]

Footnote 5.11.2:

Vidyadhar was a Brahman of Bengal, a scholar and man of science. The plan of the modern city of Amber, named Jaipur, was his: a city as regular as Darmstadt. He was also the joint compiler of the celebrated genealogical tables which appear in the first volume of this work.

Footnote 5.11.3:

[One of the twelve kothris or houses of Jaipur, the Kumbhāni.]

Footnote 5.11.4:

Saga is a term denoting a connexion by marriage [more generally a blood relation].

Footnote 5.11.5:

I write the names as pronounced, and as familiar to the readers of Indian history. Jaya, in Sanskrit, is ‘victory,’ Abhai, ‘fearless.’

Footnote 5.11.6:

[Now in Ajmer District, about 8 miles N.N.W. of Ajmer city.]

Footnote 5.11.7:

Bhagatia is ‘a devotee’: the term is here applied reproachfully to Jai Singh, on account of his very religious habits.

Footnote 5.11.8:

[Rather millet, Pennisetum typhoideum.]

Footnote 5.11.9:

The clan of the Bansko chief.

Footnote 5.11.10:

The witch of India is termed Dakini.

Footnote 5.11.11:

A title of Siva, god of destruction, the ‘three-eyed.’

Footnote 5.11.12:

Though the bard does not state, it is to be supposed that the main body came up and caused this movement.

Footnote 5.11.13:

This singular piece of Rajput history, in the Annals of Mārwār, is confirmed by every particular in the “one hundred and nine acts” of the Great Jai Singh of Amber. The foe does ample justice to Rathor valour.

Footnote 5.11.14:

[A pun on Kachhwāha, Kachhua, ‘a tortoise,’ and the sacred Kusa, grass, poa cynosuroides.]

Footnote 5.11.15:

[Nādir Shāh, King of Persia, invaded India and defeated the forces of the Emperor, Muhammad Shāh, at Karnāl, near the historic field of Pānīpat on February 13, 1739; entered Delhi, which was sacked and a terrible massacre perpetrated, and returned home with the Peacock Throne and immense treasures.]

Footnote 5.11.16:

The heir of Idar is heir presumptive to the gaddi of Marwar.

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Chapter 12

=Rāja Rām Singh, A.D. 1750-52.=—Ram Singh succeeded at that dangerous age when parental control is most required to restrain the turbulence of passion. Exactly twenty years had elapsed since the nuptials at Sirohi, when Hymen extinguished the torch of discord, and his mother was the bearer of the olive branch to Abhai Singh, to save her house from destruction. The Rajput, who attaches everything to pedigree, has a right to lay an interdict on the union of the race of Agni,[5.12.1] with the already too fiery blood of the Rathor. Ram Singh inherited the arrogance of his father, with all the impetuosity of the Chauhans; and the exhibition of these qualities was simultaneous with his coronation. We are not told why his uncle, Bakhta Singh, absented himself from the ceremony of his prince’s and nephew’s installation, when the whole kin and clans of Maru assembled to ratify their allegiance by their presence. As the first in blood and rank, it was his duty to make the first mark of inauguration on the [116] forehead of his prince. The proxy he chose on the occasion was his Dhai, or ‘nurse,’ a personage of no small importance in those countries. Whether by such a representative the haughty warrior meant to insinuate that his nephew should yet be in leading strings, the chronicle affords us no hint; but it reprehends Ram Singh’s conduct to this venerable personage, whom, instead of treating, according to usage, with the same respect as his mother, he asked, “if his uncle took him for an ape, that he sent an old hag to present him with the tika?” and instantly dispatched an express desiring the surrender of Jalor. Ere his passion had time to cool, he commanded his tents to be moved out, that he might chastise the insult to his dignity. Despising the sober wisdom of the counsellors of the state, he had given his confidence to one of the lowest grade of these hereditary officers, by name Amia, the Nakkarchi,[5.12.2] a man headstrong like himself. The old chief of the Champawats, on hearing of this act of madness, repaired to the castle to remonstrate; but scarcely had he taken his seat before the prince assailed him with ridicule, desiring “to see his frightful face as seldom as possible.” “Young man,” exclaimed the indignant chief, as with violence he dashed his shield reversed upon the carpet, “you have given mortal offence to a Rathor, who can turn Marwar upside down as easily as that shield.” With eyes darting defiance, he arose and left the Presence, and collecting his retainers, marched to Mundiavar.[5.12.3] This was the residence of the Pat-Bardai, or ‘chief bard,’ the lineal descendant of the Bardai Roera, who left Kanauj with Siahji. The esteem in which his sacred office was held may be appreciated by his estate, which equalled that of the first noble, being one lakh of rupees (£10,000) of revenue.

The politic Bakhta, hearing of the advance of the chief noble of Maru on the border of his territory, left Nagor, and though it was midnight, advanced to welcome him. The old chief was asleep; Bakhta forbade his being disturbed, and placed himself quietly beside his pallet. As he opened his eyes, he called as usual for his pipe (hukka), when the attendant pointing to the prince, the old chief scrambled up. Sleep had cooled his rage, and the full force of his position rushed upon him; but seeing there was now no retreat, that the Rubicon was crossed, “Well, there is my head,” said he; “now it is yours.” The bard, who was present at the interview, was sounded by being requested to bring the chief’s wife and family from [117] Awa to Nagor; and he gave his assent in a manner characteristic of his profession: “farewell to the gate of Jodhpur,” alluding to the station of the bard. The prince immediately replied, “there was no difference between the gate of Jodhpur and Nagor; and that while he had a cake of bajra he would divide it with the bard.”

=Civil War between Rām Singh and Bakht Singh.=—Ram Singh did not allow his uncle much time to collect a force; and the first encounter was at Kherli. Six actions rapidly followed; the last was at Lunawas, on the plains of Merta, with immense loss of life on both sides. This sanguinary battle has been already related,[5.12.4] in which Ram Singh was defeated, and forced to seek safety in flight; when Jodhpur was surrendered, and Bakhta invested with the Rajtilak and sword by the hands of the Jethawat chief of Bagri, whose descendants continue to enjoy this distinction, with the title of Marwar ka bar Kewar, ‘the bar to the portal of Marwar.’

=Accession of Bakht Singh, A.D. 1752-53.=—With the possession of the seat of government, and the support of a great majority of the clans, Bakhta Singh felt secure against all attempts of his nephew to regain his lost power. But although his popularity with his warlike kindred secured their suffrages for his maintenance of the throne which the sword had gained him, there were other opinions which Bakhta Singh was too politic to overlook. The adhesion of the hereditary officers of the State, especially those personal to the sovereign, is requisite to cloak the crime of usurpation, in which light only, whatever the extent of provocation, Bakhta’s conduct could be regarded. The military premier, as well as the higher civil authorities, were won to his cause, and of those whose sacred office might seem to sanctify the crime, the chief bard had already changed his post “for the gate of Nagor.” But there was one faithful servant, who, in the general defection, overlooked the follies of his prince, in his adherence to the abstract rules of fidelity; and who, while his master found refuge at Jaipur, repaired to the Deccan to obtain the aid of the Mahrattas, the mercenaries of Rajputana. Jaga was the name of this person; his office, that of Purohit, the ghostly adviser of his prince and tutor to his children. Bakhta, at once desirous to obtain his suffrage, and to arrest the calamity of foreign invasion, sent a couplet in his own hand to the Purohit:

“The flower, O bee, whose aroma regaled you, has been assailed by the blast; not a leaf of the rose-tree is left; why longer cling to the thorns?” [118]

The reply was in character: “In this hope does the bee cling to the denuded rose-tree; that spring may return, and fresh flowers bud forth.”[5.12.5]

Bakhta, to his honour, approved the fidelity which rejected his overtures.

=Intervention of Mahādaji Sindhia.=—There was a joyousness of soul about Bakhta which, united to an intrepidity and a liberality alike unbounded, made him the very model of a Rajput. To these qualifications were superadded a majestic mien and Herculean frame, with a mind versed in all the literature of his country, besides poetic talent of no mean order; and but for that one damning crime, he would have been handed down to posterity as one of the noblest princes Rajwara ever knew. These qualities not only riveted the attachment of the household clans, but secured the respect of all his exterior relations, so that when the envoy of the expatriated prince obtained Sindhia’s aid for the restoration of Ram Singh, the popularity of Bakhta formed an army which appalled the “Southron,” who found arrayed against him all the choice swords of Rajwara. The whole allodial power of the desert, “the sons of Siahji” of every rank, rose to oppose this first attempt of the Mahrattas to interfere in their national quarrels, and led by Bakhta in person, advanced to meet Mahadaji, the Patel.[5.12.6] But the Mahratta, whose object was plunder rather than glory, satisfied that he had little chance of either, refused to measure his lance (barchhi) with the sang and sirohi[5.12.7] of the Rajput.

=Bakht Singh Poisoned.=—Poison effected what the sword could not accomplish. Bakhta determined to remain encamped in that vulnerable point of access to his dominions, the passes near Ajmer. Hither, the Rathor queen of Madho Singh, prince of Amber, repaired to compliment her relative, and to her was entrusted the task of removing the enemy of her nephew, Ram Singh. The mode in which the deed was effected, as well as the last moments of the heroic but criminal Bakhta, have been already related.[5.12.8] He died in S. 1809 (A.D. 1753), leaving a disputed succession, and all the horrors of impending civil strife, to his son, Bijai Singh.

=Repression of Islām.=—During his three years of sovereignty, Bakhta had found both time and resources to strengthen and embellish the strongholds of Marwar. He completed the fortifications [119] of the capital, and greatly added to the palace of Jodha, from the spoils of Ahmadabad. He retaliated the injuries on the intolerant Islamite, and threw down his shrines and his mosques in his own fief of Nagor, and with the wrecks restored the edifices of ancient days. It was Bakhta also who prohibited, under pain of death, the Islamite’s call to prayer throughout his dominions, and the order remains to this day unrevoked in Marwar. Had he been spared a few years to direct the storm then accumulating, which transferred power from the haughty Tatar of Delhi to the peasant soldier of the Kistna, the probability was eminently in favour of the Rajputs resuming their ancient rights throughout India. Every principality had the same motive for union in one common cause, the destruction of a power inimical to their welfare: but crimes, moral and political, rendered an opportunity, such as never occurred in their history, unavailing for their emancipation from temporal and spiritual oppression.

=Rājput Morals compared with those of Europe in the Middle Ages.=—We will here pause, and anticipating the just horror of the reader, at finding crime follow crime—one murder punished by another—prevent his consigning all the Rajput dynasties to infamy, because such foul stains appear in one part of their annals. Let him cast his eyes over the page of western history; and commencing with the period of Siahji’s emigration in the eleventh century, when the curtain of darkness was withdrawn from Europe, as it was simultaneously closing upon the Rajput, contrast their respective moral characteristics. The Rajput chieftain was imbued with all the kindred virtues of the western cavalier, and far his superior in mental attainments. There is no period on record when these Hindu princes could not have signed their names to a charter; many of them could have drawn it up, and even invested it, if required, in a poetic garb; and although this consideration perhaps enhances, rather than palliates, crime, what are the instances in these States, we may ask, compared to the wholesale atrocities of the ‘Middle Ages’ of Europe?

The reader would also be wrong if he leaped to the conclusion that the bardic chronicler passed no judgment on the princely criminal. His “empoisoned stanzas” (vishwa sloka), transmitted to posterity by the mouth of the peasant and the prince, attest the reverse. One couplet has been recorded, stigmatizing Bakhta for the murder of his father; there is another of the chief bard, improvised while his prince Abhai Singh and Jai Singh of Amber were passing the period devoted [120] to religious rites at the sacred lake of Pushkar. These ceremonies never stood in the way of festivity; and one evening, while these princes and their vassals were in the height of merriment, the bard was desired to contribute to it by some extemporaneous effusion. He rose, and vociferated in the ears of the horror-struck assembly the following quatrain:—

_Jodhāno Āmber ē Donon thāp uthāp; Kuram māryo dīkro, Kāmdhaj māryo bāp._

“[The princes of] Jodhpur and Amber can dethrone the enthroned. But the Kurma[5.12.9] slew his son; the Kamdhaj[5.12.10] murdered his father.”

The words of the poetic seer sank into the minds of his hearers, and passed from mouth to mouth. They were probably the severest vengeance either prince experienced in this world, and will continue to circulate down to the latest posterity. It was the effusion of the same undaunted Karna, who led the charge with his prince against the troops of Amber.

=The Curse of a Sati.=—We have also the anathema of the prophetic Sati, wife of Ajit, who, as she mounted the pyre with her murdered lord, pronounced that terrific sentence to the ears of the patriotic Rajput: “May the bones of the murderer be consumed out of Maru.”[5.12.11] In the value they attach to the fulfilment of the prophecy, we have a commentary on the supernatural power attached to these self-devoted victims. The record of the last moments of Bakhta, in the dialogue with his doctor,[5.12.12] is a scene of the highest dramatic and moral interest; and, if further comment were required, demonstrates the operations of the hell within, as well as the abhorrence the Rajput entertains for such crimes [121].

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Footnote 5.12.1:

The Deora of Sirohi is a branch of the Chauhans, one of the four Agnikulas, a race sprung from fire. See Vol. I. p. 112.

Footnote 5.12.2:

The person who summons the nobles by beat of the state nakkara, or ‘great kettledrum.’

Footnote 5.12.3:

[Mūndwa, about 90 miles N.E. of Jodhpur city.]

Footnote 5.12.4:

See p. 862.

Footnote 5.12.5:

That beautiful simile of Ossian, or of Macpherson, borrowed from the canticles of the Royal Bard of Jerusalem, will be brought to mind in the reply of the Purohit—“I was a lovely tree in thy presence, Oscar, with all my branches around me,” etc.

Footnote 5.12.6:

[Mahādāji Sindhia used the title of Patel or village headman to mark his assumed deference to the Peshwa (Grant Duff 212).]

Footnote 5.12.7:

Sang is a lance about ten feet long, covered with plates of iron about four feet above the spike. The sirohi is the sword made at the city, whence its name, and famous for its temper.

Footnote 5.12.8:

See p. 867.

Footnote 5.12.9:

Kurma or Kachhua (the tribe of the princes of Amber) slew his son, Sheo Singh.

Footnote 5.12.10:

Kamdhaj, it must be remembered, is a titular appellation of the Rathor kings, which they brought from Kanauj.

Footnote 5.12.11:

See p. 867.

Footnote 5.12.12:

Ibid.

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Chapter 13

=Rāja Bijai Singh, A.D. 1753-93.=—Bijai Singh, then in his twentieth year, succeeded his father, Bakhta. His accession was acknowledged not only by the emperor, but by all the princes around him, and he was inaugurated at the frontier town of Marot,[5.13.1] when proceeding to Merta, where he passed the period of matam or mourning. Hither the independent branches of his family, of Bikaner, Kishangarh, and Rupnagarh, came simultaneously with their condolence and congratulations. Thence he advanced to the capital, and concluded the rites on death and accession with gifts and charities which gratified all expectations.

=Rām Singh invites Marātha Aid.=—The death of his uncle afforded the ex-prince, Ram Singh, the chance of redeeming his birthright; and in conjunction with the prince of Amber, he concluded a treaty[5.13.2] with the Mahrattas, the stipulations of which were sworn to by their leaders. The “Southrons” advanced by Kotah and Jaipur, where Ram Singh [122], with his personal adherents and a strong auxiliary band of Amber, united their forces, and they proceeded to the object in view, the dethronement of Bijai Singh.

=The Battle of Merta.=—Bijai Singh was prepared for the storm, and led his native chivalry to the plains of Merta, where, animated with one impulse, a determination to repel foreign interference, they awaited the Mahrattas, to decide the rival claims to the throne of the desert.[5.13.3] The bard delights to enumerate the clans who mustered all their strength; and makes particular allusion to the allodial Pattawats, who were foremost on this occasion. From Pushkar, where the combined army halted, a summons was sent to Bijai Singh “to surrender the gaddi of Maru.” It was read in full convention and answered with shouts of “Battle! Battle!” “Who is this Hapa,[5.13.4] thus to scare us, when, were the firmament to fall, our heads would be pillars of support to preserve you?” Such is the hyperbole of the Rajput when excited, nor does his action fall far short of it. The numerical odds were immense against the Rathors; but they little esteemed the Kachhwahas, and their courage had very different aliment to sustain it, from the mercenary Southron. The encounter was of the most desperate description, and the bard deals out a full measure of justice to all.

Two accidents occurred during the battle, each sufficient to turn victory from the standard of Bijai Singh, on the very point of fruition. One has elsewhere been related,[5.13.5] namely, the destruction of the “Silahposhians,” or cuirassiers, the chosen cohort of the Rathors, when returning from a successful charge, who were mistaken for the foe, and mowed down with discharges of grape-shot. This error, at a moment when the courage of the Mahrattas was wavering, might have been retrieved, notwithstanding the superstitious converted the disaster into an omen of evil. Sindhia had actually prepared to quit the field, when another turn of the wheel decided the event in his favour: the circumstance exhibits forcibly the versatile character of the Rajput.

=Treachery of Sardār Singh of Kishangarh.=—The Raja of Kishangarh had deprived his relative of Rupnagar of his estates; both were junior branches of Marwar, but held direct from the emperor. Sawant Singh, chieftain of Rupnagar, either from constitutional indifference or [123] old age, retired to the sanctuary of Brindaban on the Jumna, and, before the shrine of the Hindu Apollo, poured forth his gratitude for “his escape from hell,” in the loss of his little kingdom. But it was in vain he attempted to inspire young Sardar with the like contempt of mundane glory; to his exhortations the youth replied, “It is well for you, Sire,[5.13.6] who have enjoyed life, to resign its sweets so tranquilly; but I am yet a stranger to them.” Taking advantage of the times, he determined to seek a stronger auxiliary for the recovery of his rights than the poetic homilies of Jayadeva. Accordingly, he joined the envoy of Ram Singh, and returned with the Mahratta army, on whose successful operations his hope of reconquering his patrimony rested. It was at that moment of doubt that Apa, the Mahratta commander, thus addressed young Sardar: “Your star, young man, is united to Ram Singh’s, which fortune does not favour; what more is to be done before we move off?” Inexperienced as he was, Sardar knew his countrymen, and their vacillation when touched by superstition; and he obtained permission to try a ruse, as a last resort. He dispatched a horseman of his own clan to the division which pressed them most, who, coming up to the Mainot minister, as if of his own party, asked “what they were fighting for, as Bijai Singh lay dead, killed by a cannon-shot in another part of the field?” Like the ephemeral tribe of diplomacy, the Mainot saw his sun was set. He left the field, followed by the panic-struck clans, amongst whom the report circulated like wildfire. Though accustomed to these stratagems, with which their annals teem, the Rajputs are never on their guard against them; not a man inquired into the truth of the report, and Bijai Singh,—who, deeming himself in the very career of victory, was coolly performing his devotions amidst the clash of swords,—was left almost alone, even without attendants or horses. The lord of Marwar, who, on that morning, commanded the lives of one hundred thousand Rajputs, was indebted for his safety to the mean conveyance of a cart and pair of oxen.[5.13.7]

Every clan had to erect tablets for the loss of their best warriors; and as in their civil wars each strove to be foremost in devotion, most of the chieftains of note [124] were amongst the slain.[5.13.8] The bard metes out a fair measure of justice to their auxiliaries, especially the Saktawats of Mewar, whose swords were unsheathed in the cause of the son-in-law of their prince. Nor is the lance of the Southron passed over without eulogy, to praise which, indeed, is to extol themselves.

=Results of Rāthor Defeat.=—With the loss of this battle and the dispersion of the Rathors, the strongholds rapidly fell. The cause of Ram Singh was triumphing, and the Mahrattas were spreading over the land of Maru, when foul assassination checked their progress.[5.13.9] But the death of Jai Apa, which converted his hordes from auxiliaries to principals in the contest, called aloud for vengeance, that was only to be appeased by the cession of Ajmer, and a fixed triennial tribute on all the lands of Maru, both feudal and fiscal. This arrangement being made, the Mahrattas displayed the virtue common to such mercenary allies: they abandoned Ram Singh to his ‘evil star,’ and took possession of this stronghold, which, placed in the very heart of Rajasthan, perpetuated their influence over its princes.

With this gem, thus rudely torn from her diadem, the independence of Marwar from that hour has been insecure. She has struggled on, indeed, through a century of invasions, rebellions, and crimes, all originating, like the blank leaf on her annals, from the murder of Ajit. In the words of the Doric stanza of the hostile bards on this memorable chastisement:

_Yād ghana din āvasi, Āpawāla hel; Bhāga tinon bhupati, Māl khajāna mel._[5.13.10]

“For many a day will they remember the time (hel) of Apa, when the three sovereigns fled, abandoning their goods and treasures”: alluding to the princes of Marwar, Bikaner, and Kishangarh, who partook in the disasters and disgrace of that day [125].

The youthful heir of Rupnagar claimed, as he justly might, the victory to himself; and going up to Apa to congratulate him, said, in the metaphorical language of his country, “You see I sowed mustard-seed in my hand as I stood”: comparing the prompt success of his stratagem to the rapid vegetation of the seed. But Sardar was a young man of no ordinary promise; for when Sindhia, in gratitude, offered immediately to put him in possession of Rupnagar, he answered, “No; that would be a retrograde movement,” and told him to act for his master Ram Singh, “whose success would best insure his own.” But when treachery had done its worst on Jai Apa, suspicion, which fell on every Rajput in the Mahratta camp, spared not Sardar: swords were drawn in every quarter, and even the messengers of peace, the envoys, were everywhere assailed, and amongst those who fell ere the tumult could be appeased, was Rawat Kabir Singh, the premier noble of Mewar, then ambassador from the Rana with the Mahrattas.[5.13.11] With his last breath, Jai Apa protected and exonerated Sardar, and enjoined that his pledge of restoration to his patrimony should be redeemed. The body of this distinguished commander was burned at the Taussar, or ‘Peacock pool,’ where a cenotaph was erected, and in the care which the descendants even of his enemies pay to it, we have a test of the merits of both victor and vanquished.

=Death of Rām Singh.=—This was the last of twenty-two battles, in which Ram Singh was prodigal of his life for the recovery of his honours. The adversity of his later days had softened the asperity of his temper, and made his early faults be forgotten, though too late for his benefit. He died in exile at Jaipur in A.D. 1773. His person was gigantic; his demeanour affable and courteous; and he was generous to a fault. His understanding was excellent and well cultivated, but his capricious temperament, to which he gave vent with an unbridled vehemence, disgusted the high-minded nobles of Maru, and involved him in exile and misery till his death. It is universally admitted that, both in exterior and accomplishments, not even the great Ajit could compare with Ram Singh, and witchcraft, at the instigation of the chieftain of Asop, is assigned to account for his fits of insanity, which might be better attributed to the early and immoderate use of opium. But in spite of his errors, the fearless courage he displayed, against all odds, kept some of the [126] most valiant of the clans constant to his fortunes, especially the brave Mertias, under the heroic Sher Singh of Rian, whose deeds can never be obliterated from the recollections of the Rathor. Not the least ardent of his adherents was the allodial chief Rup Singh, of the almost forgotten clan, Pattawat; who held out in Phalodi against all attempts, and who, when provisions failed, with his noble associates, slew and ate their camels. The theme is a favourite one for the Kamarya[5.13.12] minstrel of Maru, who sings the fidelity of Rupa and his band to the notes of his rabab,[5.13.13] to their ever attentive descendants.

=The Character of Rāja Rām Singh.=—We may sum up the character of Ram Singh in the words of the bard, as he contrasts him with his rival. “Fortune never attended the stirrup of Bijai Singh, who never gained a battle, though at the head of a hundred thousand men; but Ram Singh, by his valour and conduct, gained victories with a handful.”

The death of Ram Singh was no panacea to the griefs of Marwar or of its prince. The Mahrattas, who had now obtained a point-d’appui in Rajwara, continued to foster disputes which tended to their advantage, or when opportunity offered, to scour the country in search of pay or plunder. Bijai Singh, young and inexperienced, was left without resources; ruinous wars and yet more ruinous negotiations had dissipated the hoards of wealth accumulated by his predecessors. The crown-lands were uncultivated, the tenantry dispersed; and commerce had diminished, owing to insecurity and the licentious habits of the nobles, who everywhere established their own imposts, and occasionally despoiled entire caravans. While the competitor for the throne was yet living, the Raja was compelled to shut his eyes on these inroads upon his proper power, which reduced him to insignificance even in his own palace.

=Power of the Aristocracy of Mārwār.=—The aristocracy in Marwar has always possessed more power than in any of the sister principalities around. The cause may be traced to their first settlement in the desert; and it has been kept in action by the peculiarities of their condition, especially in that protracted struggle for the rights of the minor Ajit, against the despotism of the empire. There was another cause, which, at the present juncture, had a very unfortunate influence on the increase of this preponderance, and which arose out of the laws of adoption.

=The Pokaran Fief.=—The fief of Pokaran, the most powerful (although a junior) branch of the Champawat clan, adopted a son of Raja Ajit as their chief; his name was Devi Singh [127]. The right of adoption, as has been already explained, rests with the widow of the deceased and the elders of the clan. Why they exercised it as they did on this occasion does not appear; but not improbably at the suggestion of the dying chief, who wished to see his sovereign’s large family provided for, having no sons of his own: or, the immediate claimants may not have possessed the qualities necessary to lead a clan of Maru. Although the moment such adoption takes place, when “the turban of the late incumbent encircled the new lord of Pokaran,” he ought to forget he had any other father than him he succeeded, yet we can easily imagine that, in the present case, his propinquity to the throne, which under other circumstances he might soon have forgotten, was continually forced upon his recollection by the contentions of his parricidal brothers and their offspring for the ‘cushion’ of Marwar. It exemplifies another feature in Rajput institutions, which cut off this son (guiltless of all participation in the treason) from succession, because he was identified with the feudality; while the issue of another, and junior brother, at the same period adopted into the independent house of Idar,[5.12.14] were heirs presumptive to Marwar; nay, must supply it with a ruler on failure of heirs, though they should have but one son and be compelled to adopt in his room.[5.12.15]

=Mercenaries enrolled.=—The Champawats determined to maintain their influence over the sovereign and the country; and Devi Singh leagued with Awa and the other branches of this clan to the exclusion of all competitors. They formed of their own body a guard of honour for the person of the prince, one half remaining on duty in the castle, the other half being in the town below. While the Raja would lament the distracted state of his country, the inroads of the hill tribes, and the depredations of his own chiefs, Devi Singh of Pokaran would reply, “Why trouble yourself about Marwar? it is in the sheath of my dagger.” The young prince used to unburthen his griefs to his foster-brother Jaga, a man of caution and experience, which qualities he instilled into his sovereign. By dissimulation, and an apparent acquiescence in their plans, he not only eluded suspicion, but, availing himself of their natural indolence of character, at length obtained leave not only to entertain some men of Sind as guards for the town, but to provide supplies for their subsistence: the first approximation towards a standing mercenary force, till then unknown in their annals [128]. We do not mean that the Rajput princes never employed any other than their own feudal clans; they had foreign Rajputs in their pay, but still on the same tenure, holding lands for service; but never till this period had they soldiers entertained on monthly stipend. These hired bands were entirely composed of infantry, having a slight knowledge of European tactics, the superiority of which, even over their high-minded cavaliers, they had so severely experienced in their encounters with the Mahrattas. The same causes had operated on the courts of Udaipur and Jaipur to induce them to adopt the like expedient; to which, more than to the universal demoralization which followed the breaking up of the empire, may be attributed the rapid decay of feudal principles throughout Rajputana. These guards were composed either of Purbia[5.12.16] Rajputs, Sindis, Arabs, or Rohillas. They received their orders direct from the prince, through the civil officers of the State, by whom they were entrusted with the execution of all duties of importance or dispatch. Thus they soon formed a complete barrier between the prince and his vassals, and consequently became objects of jealousy and of strife. In like manner did all the other States make approaches towards a standing army; and though the motive in all cases was the same, to curb, or even to extinguish, the strength of the feudal chiefs, it has failed throughout, except in the solitary instance of Kotah, where twenty well-disciplined battalions, and a hundred pieces of artillery, are maintained chiefly from the feudal sequestrations.

To return: the Dhabhai, having thus secured a band of seven hundred men, and obtained an aid (which we may term scutage) from the chiefs for their maintenance, gradually transferred them from their duties above to the gates of the castle. Somewhat released from the thraldom of faction, the Raja concerted with his foster-brother and the Diwan, Fateh Chand, the means of restoring prosperity and order. So destitute was the prince of resources, that the Dhabhai had recourse to threats of suicide to obtain 50,000 rupees from his mother, acquired as the nurse (dhai) of his sovereign; and so drained was the country of horses, that he was compelled to transport his cavaliers (who were too proud to walk) on cars to Nagor. There, under the pretence of curbing the hill tribes, he formed an army, and dismounting the guns from the walls of the town, marched an ill-equipped force against the border-mountaineers, and being successful he attacked on his return [129] the castle of Silbakri. This was deemed a sufficient indication of his views; the whole feudality of Maru took alarm, and united for mutual safety at Bisalpur, twenty miles east of the capital.

=Gordhan Singh negotiates with the Chiefs.=—There was a foreign Rajput, whose valour, fidelity, and conduct had excited the notice and regard of Bakhta Singh, who, in his dying hour, recommended him to the service of his son. To Gordhan, the Khichi, a name of no small note in the subsequent history of this reign, did the young Raja apply in order to restrain his chiefs from revolt. In the true spirit of Rajput sentiment, he advised his prince to confide in their honour, and, unattended, to seek and remonstrate with them, while he went before to secure him a good reception. At daybreak, Gordhan was in the camp of the confederates; he told them that their prince, confiding in their loyalty, was advancing to join them, and besought them to march out to receive him. Deaf, however, to entreaty and to remonstrance, not a man would stir, and the prince reached the camp uninvited and unwelcomed. Decision and confidence are essential in all transactions with a Rajput. Gordhan remained not a moment in deliberation, but instantly carried his master direct to the tent of the Awa chief, the premier noble of Marwar. Here the whole body congregated, and silence was broken by the prince, who demanded why his chiefs had abandoned him?

“Maharaja,” replied the Champawat, “our bodies have but one pinnacle; were there a second, it should be at your disposal.” A tedious discussion ensued; doubts of the future, recriminations respecting the past; till wearied and exhausted, the prince demanded to know the conditions on which they would return to their allegiance, when the following articles were submitted:

1. To break up the force of the Dhabhai;

2. To surrender to their keeping the records of fiefs (pattabahi);

3. That the court should be transferred from the citadel to the town.

There was no alternative but the renewal of civil strife or compliance; and the first article, which was a sine qua non, the disbanding of the obnoxious guards, that anomalous appendage to a Rajput prince’s person, was carried into immediate execution. Neither in the first nor last stipulation could the prince feel surprise or displeasure; but the second sapped the very foundation of his rule, by depriving the crown of its dearest prerogative, the power of dispensing favour. This shallow reconciliation being effected, the malcontent nobles dispersed, some to their estates [130], and the Chondawat oligarchy to the capital with their prince, in the hope of resuming their former influence over him and the country.

=Massacre of the Chiefs.=—Thus things remained, when Atmaram, the Guru or ‘ghostly comforter’ of Bijai Singh, fell sick, and as he sedulously attended him, the dying priest would tell him to be of good cheer, for when he departed, he “would take all his troubles with him.” He soon died, and his words, which were deemed prophetic, were interpreted by the Dhabhai. The Raja feigned immoderate grief for the loss of his spiritual friend, and in order to testify his veneration, an ordinance was issued commanding that the Kiryakarma, or ‘rites for the dead,’ should be performed in the castle, while the queens, on pretence of paying their last duty to his remains, descended, carrying with them the guards and retainers as their escort. It was an occasion on which suspicion, even if awake, could not act, and the chiefs ascended to join in the funeral rites to the saint. As they mounted the steps cut out of the rock which wound round the hill of Jodha, the mind of Devi Singh suddenly misgave him, and he exclaimed that “the day was unlucky”; but it passed off with the flattering remark, “you are the pillar of Maru; who dare even look at you?” They paced slowly through the various barriers, until they reached the Alarum Gate.[5.12.17] It was shut! “Treachery!” exclaimed the chief of Awa, as he drew his sword, and the work of death commenced. Several were slain; the rest were overpowered. Their captivity was a sufficient presage of their fate; but, like true Rajputs, when the Dhabhai told them they were to die, their last request was, “that their souls might be set at liberty by the sword, not by the unsanctified ball of the mercenary.” The chronicle does not say whether this wish was gratified, when the three great leaders of the Champawats, with Jeth Singh of Awa; Devi Singh of Pokaran; the lord of Harsola; Chhattar Singh, chief of the Kumpawats; Kesari Singh of Chandren; the heir of Nimaj; and the chief of Ras,[5.12.18] then the principal fief of the Udawats, met their fate. The last hour of Devi Singh was marked with a distinguished peculiarity. Being of the royal line of Maru, they would not spill his blood, but sent him his death-warrant in a jar of opium. On receiving it, and his prince’s command to make his own departure from life, “What!” said the noble spirit, as they presented the jar, “shall Devi [131] Singh take his amal (opiate) out of an earthen vessel? Let his gold cup be brought, and it shall be welcome.” This last vain distinction being denied, he dashed out his brains against the walls of his prison. Before he thus enfranchised his proud spirit, some ungenerous mind, repeating his own vaunt, demanded, “where was then the sheath of the dagger which held the fortunes of Marwar?” “In Subhala’s girdle at Pokaran,” was the laconic reply of the undaunted Chondawat.

This was a tremendous sacrifice for the maintenance of authority, of men who had often emptied their veins in defence of their country. But even ultra patriotism, when opposed to foreign aggression, can prove no palliative to treason or mitigate its award, when, availing themselves of the diminished power of the prince, an arrogant and imperious oligarchy presumes to enthral their sovereign. It is the mode in which vengeance was executed at which the mind recoils, and which with other instances appears to justify the imputation of perfidy amongst the traits of Rajput character. But if we look deeply into it, we shall find reason to distrust such conclusion. The Rajput abhors, in the abstract, both perfidy and treason; but the elements of the society in which he lives and acts, unfortunately too often prompt the necessity of sacrificing principles to preservation: but this proceeds from their faulty political constitution; it is neither inculcated in their moral code, nor congenial to their moral habits.

=Right of Primogeniture.=—The perpetual struggle between the aristocracy and the sovereign, which is an evil inherent in all feudal associations, was greatly aggravated in Marwar, as well as in Mewar, by the sacrifice of that corner-stone even of constitutional monarchy, the rights of primogeniture. But in each case the deviation from custom was a voluntary sacrifice of the respective heirs-apparent to the caprices of parental dotage. In no other country in the world could that article of the Christian decalogue, “Honour thy father and thy mother,” be better illustrated than in Rajputana, where, if we have had to record two horrid examples of deviation from, we have also exhibited splendid proofs of, filial devotion, in Chonda of Mewar, and Champa of Marwar, who resigned the “rods” they were born to wield; and served, when they should have swayed, to gratify their father’s love for the fruit of their old age. These are instances of self-denial hardly to be credited; from such disinterested acts, their successors claimed an importance which, though natural, was totally unforeseen, and which the extent of compensation contributed [132] to foster. They asserted the right, as hereditary premiers of the State, to be the advisers, or rather the tutors, of their sovereigns, more especially in non-age, and in allusion to this surrender of their birthright, arrogantly applied the well-known adage, Pat ka malik main ho, Raj ka malik uha, ‘He is sovereign of the State, but I am the master of the Throne’; and insisted on the privilege of being consulted on every gift of land, and putting their autograph symbol to the deed or grant.[5.12.19] These pretensions demanded the constant exertions of the sovereign to resist them; for this purpose, he excited the rivalry of the less powerful members of the federated vassalage, and thus formed a kind of balance of power, which the monarch, if skilful, could always turn to account. But not even the jealousies thus introduced would have so depreciated the regal influence in Marwar, nor even the more recent adoption of a son of the crown into the powerful fief of Pokaran, had not the parricidal sons of Ajit degraded the throne in the eyes of their haughty and always overreaching vassals, who, in the civil strife which followed, were alternately in favour or disgrace, as they adhered to or opposed the successful claimant for power. To this foul blot, every evil which has since overtaken this high-minded race may be traced, as well as the extirpation of that principle of devoted obedience which, in the anterior portion of these annals, has been so signally recorded. To this hour it has perpetuated dissensions between the crown and the oligarchy, leading to deposal and violence to the princes, or sequestration, banishment, and death to the nobles. To break the bonds of this tutelage, Ram Singh’s intemperance lost him the crown, which sat uneasy on the head of his successor, who had no other mode of escape but by the severity which has been related. But though it freed him for a time, the words of the dying chief of Pokaran continued to ring in his ears; and “the dagger left in the girdle of his son” disturbed the dreams of his rest throughout a long life of vicissitudes, poisoning the source of enjoyment until death itself was a relief.

The nuncupatory testament of the Champawat was transmitted across the desert to his son at Pokaran, and the rapidity of its transmission was only equalled by the alacrity of Sabhala, who at the head of his vassals issued forth to execute the vengeance thus bequeathed. First, he attempted to burn and pillage the mercantile town of Pali; foiled in which, he proceeded to another wealthy city of the fisc [133], Bhilwara on the Luni; but here terminated both his life and his revenge. As he led the escalade, he received two balls, which hurled him back amongst his kinsmen, and his ashes next morning blanched the sandy bed of the Luni.

=Suppression of Aristocratic Influence.=—For a time the feudal interest was restrained, anarchy was allayed, commerce again flourished, and general prosperity revived: to use the words of the chronicle, “the subject enjoyed tranquillity, and the tiger and the lamb drank from the same fountain.” Bijai Singh took the best means to secure the fidelity of his chiefs, by finding them occupation. He carried his arms against the desultory hordes of the desert, the Khosas and Sahariyas, which involved him in contests with the nominal sovereign of Sind, and ended in the conquest of Umarkot, the key to the valley of the Indus, and which is now the most remote possession of Marwar. He also curtailed the territories of Jaisalmer, on his north-west frontier. But more important than all was the addition of the rich province of Godwar, from the Rana of Mewar. This tract, which nearly equals in value the whole fiscal domain of Maru, was wrested from the ancient princes of Mandor, prior to the Rathors, and had been in the possession of the Sesodias for nearly five centuries, when civil dissension made the Rana place it for security under the protection of Raja Bijai Singh; since which it has been lost to Mewar.

=Rājput Confederation against the Marāthas. Battle of Tonga A.D. 1787. Battles of Pātan and Merta, 20th June, 10th, 12th September 1790.=—Marwar had enjoyed several years of peace, when the rapid strides made by the Mahrattas towards universal rapine, if not conquest, compelled the Rajputs once more to form an union for the defence of their political existence. Partap Singh, a prince of energy and enterprise, was now on the gaddi of Amber. In S. 1843 (A.D. 1787), he sent an ambassador to Bijai Singh, proposing a league against the common foe, and volunteering to lead in person their conjoined forces against them. The battle of Tonga ensued, in which Rathor valour shone forth in all its glory. Despising discipline, they charged through the dense battalions of De Boigne, sabring his artillerymen at their guns, and compelling Sindhia to abandon not only the field, but all his conquests for a time.[5.12.20] Bijai Singh, by this victory, redeemed the castle of Ajmer, and declared his tributary alliance null and void. But the genius of Sindhia, and the talents of De Boigne, soon recovered this loss; and in four years the Mahratta marched with a force such as Indian warfare was stranger to, to redeem that day’s disgrace. In S. 1847 (A.D. 1791), the murderous [134] battles of Patan and Merta took place, in which Rajput courage was heroically but fruitlessly displayed against European tactics and unlimited resources, and where neither intrigue nor treason was wanting. The result was the imposition of a contribution of sixty lakhs of rupees, or £600,000; and as so much could not be drained from the country, goods and chattels were everywhere distrained, and hostages given for the balance.

=Ajmer lost to Mārwār.=—Ajmer, which had revolted on the short-lived triumph of Tonga, was once more surrendered, and lost for ever to Marwar. When invested by De Boigne, the faithful governor, Damraj, placed in the dilemma of a disgraceful surrender, or disobedience to his prince’s summons, swallowed diamond-powder.[5.12.21] “Tell the raja,” said this faithful servant, “thus only could I testify my obedience; and over my dead body alone could a Southron enter Ajmer.”[5.12.22]

=Influence of Court Morals.=—The paramount influence which the morals and manners of a court exert upon a nation, is everywhere admitted. In constitutional governments, there is a barrier even to court influence and corruption, in the vast portion of wealth and worth which cannot be engulphed in their vortex. But in these petty sovereignties no such check is found, and the tone of virtue and action is given from the throne. The laws of semi-barbarous nations, which admit of licentious concubinage, have ever been peculiar to orientals, from the days of the wise king of the Jews to those of Bijai Singh of Marwar; and their political consequence has been the same, the sacrifice of the rights of lawful inheritance to the heirs of illicit affection. The last years of the king of Maru were engrossed by sentimental folly with a young beauty of the Oswal tribe, on whom he lavished all the honours due only to his legitimate queens. Scandal affirms that she frequently returned his passion in a manner little becoming royal dignity, driving him from her presence with the basest of missiles—her shoes. As the effects of this unworthy attachment completed the anarchy of Marwar, and as its consequences on deviating from the established rules of succession have entailed a perpetuity of crime and civil war, under which this unfortunate State yet writhes, we shall be minute, even to dullness, in the elucidation [135] of this portion of their annals, to enable those who have now to arbitrate these differences to bring back a current of uncontaminated blood to sway the destinies of this still noble race.

Raja Ajit had fourteen sons: ┌───────────┬────────────┬──────────────┬──────────────┐ │ │ │ │ │ Abhai Singh. Bakht Singh. Anand Singh, Rasa, Devi Singh, │ │ adopted into the adopted into adopted into │ │ Idar house. Jhabua Pokaran. Ram Singh. Bijai Singh. (in Malwa). │ ┌─────────┬───┴─┬─────────┬─────────┬────────┬──────────┐ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Fateh Singh, │ Sawant Singh. │ Bhum Singh. │ Sardar Singh, died of smallpox │ │ Sher Singh. │ Guman Singh. killed by in infancy. │ Sur Singh. │ Bhim Singh. │ Bhim. │ adopted │ Man Singh. Zalim Singh, Man Singh. │ of Mewar, the │ rightful heir of Dhonkal Singh by a princess (Pretender). of Mewar, the rightful heir of Bijai Singh.

=Influence of his Concubine on Bijai Singh.=—So infatuated was Bijai Singh with the Pasbani[5.12.23] concubine, that on losing the only pledge of their amours, he ‘put into her lap’ (adopted) his own legitimate grandchild, Man Singh. To legalize this adoption, the chieftains were ordained to present their nazars and congratulations to the declared heir of Marwar; but the haughty noblesse refused ‘to acknowledge the son of a slave’ as their lord, and the Raja was compelled to a fresh adoption to ensure such token of sanction. Content at having by this method succeeded in her wishes, the Pasbani sent off young Man to the castle of Jalor; but fearing lest the experience of Sher Singh, his adopted father, might prove a hindrance to her control, he was recalled, and her own creatures left to guide the future sovereign of Marwar. The dotage of Bijai Singh, and the insolence of his concubine, produced fresh discord, and the clans assembled at Malkosni[5.12.24] to concert his deposal.

=Rebellion of the Clansmen against Bijai Sīngh.=—Recollecting the success of his former measures to recall them to their duty, Bijai Singh proceeded to their camp; but while he was negotiating, and as he supposed successfully, the confederates wrote to the chieftain of Ras, whose tour of duty was in the castle, to descend with Bhim Singh. The chief acquainted the Pasbani that her presence was required at the camp by the Raja, and that a guard of honour was ready to attend her. She was thrown off her guard, and at the moment she entered her litter, a blow from an unseen hand ended her existence. Her effects were instantly confiscated, and the chief of Ras descended with Bhim, whose tents were pitched at the Nagor barrier of the city. If, instead of encamping there, they had proceeded to the camp of the confederates, his arrival and the dethronement of Bijai Singh would have been simultaneous: but the Raja received the intelligence as soon as the chiefs. Hastening back, he obtained the person of the young aspirant, to whom, to reconcile him to his disappointment, he gave in appanage the districts of Sojat and Siwana, and sent him off to the latter stronghold; while to restrain the resentment of his eldest son, Zalim Singh, whose birthright he had so unworthily sacrificed, he enfeoffed him with the rich district of Godwar, giving him private orders to attack his brother Bhim, who, though apprised of the design in time to make head against his uncle, was yet defeated and compelled to fly. He found refuge at Pokaran, whence he went to Jaisalmer.

=Death of Rāja Bijai Singh.=—In the midst of this conflict, his dominions curtailed, his chiefs in rebellion, his sons and grandsons mutually opposed to each other, and the only object which attached him to life thus violently torn from him, Bijai Singh died, in the month Asarh S. 1850, after a reign of thirty-one years [136].

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Footnote 5.13.1:

[On the N. frontier of Jodhpur.]

Footnote 5.13.2:

This treaty is termed haldi, or balpatra, ‘a strong deed’ [haldi means ‘turmeric,’ with which the hand-marks on the treaty were made]. The names of the chiefs who signed it were Jankoji Sindhia, Santoji Bolia, Danto Patel, Rana Bhurtiya, Ato Jaswant Rae, Kano, and Jiwa, Jadons; Jiwa Punwar, Piluji and Satwa, Sindhia Malji, Tantia Chitu, Raghu Pagia, Ghusalia Jadon, Mulla Yar Ali, Firoz Khan; all great leaders amongst the ‘Southrons’ of that day.

Footnote 5.13.3:

[The date of the battle is uncertain. According to Erskine (iii. A. 66) it was fought “about 1756”.]

Footnote 5.13.4:

The A, to the Rajput of the north-west, is as great a Shibboleth as to the Cockney—thus Apa becomes Hapa.

Footnote 5.13.5:

See p. 868.

Footnote 5.13.6:

Bapji.

Footnote 5.13.7:

The anecdote is related, p. 870. The Bijai Vilas states that the prince rewarded the peasant with five hundred bighas of land in perpetuity, which his descendants enjoy, saddled with the petite serjanterie of “curds and bajra cakes,” in remembrance of the fare the Jat provided for his prince on that emergency.

Footnote 5.13.8:

Rae Singh, chief of the Kumpawats, the second noble in rank of Marwar; Lal Singh, head of the Sisawats, with the leader of the Kutawats, are especially singled out as sealing their fidelity with their blood; but all the ots and awats of the country come in for a share of glory.

Footnote 5.13.9:

This occurrence has been related in the Personal Narrative, p. 873, but it is more amply narrated in the chronicle, the Bijai Vilas, from which I am now compiling. In this it is said that Jai Apa, during the siege, having fallen sick, the Rathor prince sent his own physician, Surajmall, to attend him; that the doctor at first refused the mission, saying, “You may “On the contrary,” ur, and I shall favour you”; but what was far more strange, Apa objected not, took the medicines of the baid, and recovered.

Footnote 5.13.10:

[Hel, halla, ‘onset,’ the Marātha invasion.]

Footnote 5.13.11:

I have many original autograph letters of this distinguished Rajput on the transactions of this period; for it was he who negotiated the treaty between Raja Madho Singh, of Jaipur, the ‘nephew of Mewar,’ and the Mahrattas. At this time, his object was to induce Jai Apa to raise the siege of Nagor.

Footnote 5.13.12:

[A class of minstrels and buffoons (Census Report, Mārwār, 1891, ii. 178).]

Footnote 5.13.13:

[Rabāb, ‘a viol’.]

Footnote 5.12.14:

It will be remembered that Idar was conquered by a brother of Siahji’s.

Footnote 5.12.15:

We shall explain this by a cutting of the genealogical tree: it may be found useful should we be called on to arbitrate in these matters.

Footnote 5.12.16:

Purbias, ‘men of the east,’ as the Maghrabis are ‘of the west.’

Footnote 5.12.17:

The Nakkara Darwaza, where the grand kettledrum is stationed, to give the alarm or summons to the chieftains to repair to the Presence. To this gate Raja Man advanced to meet the Author, then the representative of the Governor-General of India.

Footnote 5.12.18:

[Rās, 70 miles E. of Jodhpur city.]

Footnote 5.12.19:

See Vol. I. p. 235.

Footnote 5.12.20:

See p. 875 for the details of this battle.

Footnote 5.12.21:

[It is commonly believed in India that diamond dust is poisonous (Chevers, Manual of Medical Jurisprudence in India, 289 ff.). Powdered glass is used in the same way, as in a recent case at Agra (The Times, 19th December 1912; Labanés, Les Curiosities de la Medicine, 146 ff.).]

Footnote 5.12.22:

Damraj was not a Rajput, but of the Singhi tribe, one of the civil officers; though it is a curious and little-known fact, that almost all the mercantile tribes of Western India are of Rajput origin, and sank the name and profession of arms when they became proselytes to Jainism, in the reign of Raja Bhim Pramar. The Chitor inscription (see p. 919 and note 7, p. 921) records the name of this prince. He was ancestor of Raja Man, whose date S. 770 (A.D. 714) allows us to place this grand conversion prior to A.D. 650. [The Singhis were originally Brāhmans converted to Jainism (Census Report, Mārwār, 1891, ii. 116).]

Footnote 5.12.23:

[Pāsbāni, meaning ‘guarding, protecting,’ is a synonym for Gola, the hereditary slave class, illegitimate offspring by Rājputs of women attendants in the Zanāna; they are also known as Dārogha, Khawāss, or Chela (Census Report, Mārwār, 1891, ii. 181).]

Footnote 5.12.24:

[In the Bhīlāra Hakūmat, in the centre of Jodhpur State.]

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Chapter 14

=Rāja Bhīm Singh, A.D. 1793-1803.=—The intelligence of Bijai Singh’s death was conveyed by express to his grandson Bhim, at Jaisalmer. In “twenty-two hours” he was at Jodhpur, and ascending directly to the citadel, seated himself upon the gaddi, while his rival, Zalim Singh, the rightful heir, little expecting this celerity, was encamped at the Merta gate, awaiting the “lucky hour” to take possession. That hour never arrived; and the first intelligence of Bhim being on “the cushion of Jodha,” was conveyed to the inhabitants by the nakkaras of his rival on his retreat from the city, who was pursued to Bhilara, attacked, defeated, and forced to seek shelter at Udaipur, where, with an ample domain from the Rana, he passed the rest of his days in literary pursuits. He died in the prime of life: attempting to open a vein with his own hand, he cut an artery and bled to death. He was a man of great personal and mental qualifications; a gallant soldier, and no mean poet.[5.14.1] [137]

=Rāja Bhīm disposes of his Rivals.=—Thus far successful, Raja Bhim determined to dismiss “compunctious visitings,” and be a king de facto if not de jure. Death had carried off three of his uncles, as well as his father, previous to this event; but there were still two others, Sher Singh, his adopted father, and Sardar Singh, who stood in his way: the last was put to death; the former had his eyes put out; and, soon after, the unfortunate prince released himself from life by dashing out his brains. Sur Singh, the favourite of all Bijai Singh’s descendants, remained. His superior claims were fatal to him and his life fell a sacrifice with the others.

A single claimant alone remained of all the blood royal of Maru to disturb the repose of Bhim. This was young Man, the adopted son of the concubine, placed beyond his reach within the walls of Jalor. Could Bhim’s dagger have reached him, he would have stood alone, the last surviving scion of the parricide,

With none to bless him, None whom he could bless:

an instrument, in the hand of divine power, to rid the land of an accursed stock. Then the issue of Abhai Singh would have utterly perished, and their ashes might have been given to the winds, and no memorial of them left. Idar must then have supplied an heir,[5.14.2] and the doubtful pretensions of Dhonkal,[5.14.3] the posthumous and reputed son of the wholesale assassin Bhim, to sit upon the gaddi of Ajit, would never have been brought forward to excite another murderous contest amongst the sons of Jodha.

=Escape of Mān Singh.=—Having sacrificed all those within his reach who stood between him and the [139] throne, Bhim tried to secure the last sole claimant in Jalor. But the siege of such a stronghold with his feudal levies, or loose mercenary bands, was a tedious operation, and soon became an imperfect blockade, through which young Man not unfrequently broke, and by signal formed a junction with his adherents, and plundered the fiscal lands for support. One of these excursions, however, an attempt to plunder Pali, had nearly proved fatal to him; they were attacked on their return, and young Man, whose secluded education had confined him more to mental than to personal accomplishments, was unhorsed, and would have been captured, but for the prowess of the chief of Ahor, who took him up behind him and bore him off in safety. Nothing but the turbulence of the chiefs who supported Raja Bhim saved young Man’s life. A disputed succession has always produced an odious faction; and Bhim, who was not disposed to bend to this oligarchy, appears to have had all the imprudence of the dethroned Ram Singh: he threatened those entrusted with the siege to give them “oxen to ride instead of horses.” The chiefs fired at the insult, and retired to Ghanerao, the principal fief in Godwar; but, disgusted with both parties, instead of obeying the invitation of young Man, they abandoned their country altogether, and sought an asylum in the neighbouring States. Many fiefs were sequestrated, and Nimaj, the chief seat of the Udawats, was attacked, and after a twelve months’ defence, taken; its battlements were ignominiously destroyed, and the victors, chiefly foreign mercenaries, reinforced the blockade of Jalor.

=Siege of Jālor. Death of Rāja Bhīm Singh.=—With the exile of his partisans and daily diminishing resources, when the lower town was taken, there appeared no hope for young Man. A small supply of millet-flour was all the provision left to his half-famished garrison, whose surrender was now calculated upon, when an invitation came from the hostile commander for Man to repair to his camp, and adding “he was now the master; it was his duty to serve.” On that day (the 2nd Kartik S. 1860, Dec. 1804), after eleven years of defence, his means exhausted, his friends banished, and death from starvation or the sword inevitable, intelligence came of Raja Bhim’s demise! This event, as unlooked-for as it was welcome, could scarcely at first be credited; and the tender of the homage of the commander to Man as his sovereign, though accompanied by a letter from the prime minister Induraj, was disregarded till the Guru Deonath returned from the camp with confirmation of the happy news, that “not a moustache [140] was to be seen in the camp.”[5.14.4] Thither the prince repaired, and was hailed as the head of the Rathors.

It is said that the successor of the Guru Atmaram, “who carried all the troubles of Bijai Singh with him to heaven,” had predicted of young Man Singh, when at the very zero of adversity, that “his fortunes would ascend.” What were the means whereby the ghostly comforter of Raja Bhim influenced his political barometer, we know not; but prophetic Gurus, bards, astrologers, physicians, and all the Vaidyas or ‘cunning-men,’[5.14.5] who beset the persons of princes, prove dangerous companions when, in addition to the office of compounders of drugs and expounders of dreams, they are invested with the power of realizing their own prognostications.

=Rāja Mān Singh, A.D. 1803-43.=—On the 5th of Margsir, 1860 (A.D. 1804), Raja Man, released from his perils, succeeded to the honours and the feuds of Bijai Singh. He had occupied the ‘cushion of Maru’ but a very short period, when the Pokaran chief “took offence,” and put himself in hostility to his sovereign. The name of this proud vassal, the first in power though only of secondary rank amongst the Champawats, was Sawai Singh, with whom now remained “the sheath of the dagger which held the fortunes of Maru.” If the fulfilment of vengeance be a virtue, Sawai was the most virtuous son on earth. The dagger of Devi Singh, bequeathed to Sabhala, was no imaginary weapon in the hands of his grandson Sawai, who held it suspended over the head of Raja Man from his enthronement to his death-hour. Soon after Raja Man’s accession, Sawai retired with his partisans to Chopasni, a spot about five miles from the capital, where the conspiracy was prepared. He told the chiefs that the wife of Raja Bhim was pregnant, and prevailed on them to sign a declaration, that if a son was born, he should be installed on the gaddi of Jodha. They returned in a body to the capital, took the pregnant queen from the castle, and placed her in a palace in the city, under their own protection. Moreover, they held a council, at which the Raja was present, who agreed to recognise the infant, if a male, as the heir-apparent of Maru, and to enfeoff him in the appanage of Nagor and Siwana; and that if a female, she should be betrothed to a prince of Dhundhar [141].

=Dangers from Posthumous Births.=—Posthumous births are never-failing germs of discord in these States; and the issue is inevitably branded by one party with the title of ‘supposititious.’ It is likewise a common saying, almost amounting to a proverb, that a male child is the uniform result of such a position. In due course, a male infant was born; but, alarmed for its safety, the mother concealed both its birth and sex, and placing it in a basket, conveyed it by a faithful servant from the city, whence it soon reached Sawai Singh at Pokaran. He bestowed upon it the inauspicious name of Dhonkal, that is, one born to tumult and strife. It is said that during two years he kept the birth a profound secret, and it is even added, that it might have remained so, had Raja Man forgot the history of the past, and dispensed even-handed justice. Wanting, however, the magnanimity of the Fourth Henry of France, who scorned “to revenge the wrongs of the prince of Navarre,” he reserved his favours and confidence for those who supported him in Jalor, whilst he evinced his dislike to others who, in obedience to their sovereign, served against him. Of these adherents, only two chiefs of note were of his kin and clan; the others were Bhatti Rajputs, and a body of those religious militants called Bishanswamis, under their Mahant, or leader, Kaimdas.[5.14.6]

=Sawāi Singh supports Dhonkal Singh.=—At the expiration of two years, Sawai communicated the event to the chiefs of his party, who called upon Raja Man to redeem his promise and issue the grant for Nagor and Siwana. He promised compliance if, upon investigation, the infant proved to be the legitimate offspring of his predecessor. Personal fear overcame maternal affection, and the queen, who remained at Jodhpur, disclaimed the child. Her reply being communicated to the chiefs, it was for a time conclusive, and the subject ceased to interest them, the more especially as her concealed accouchement had never been properly accounted for.

Though Sawai, with his party, apparently acquiesced, his determination was taken; but instead of an immediate appeal to arms, he adopted a deeper scheme of policy, the effects of which he could not have contemplated, and which involved his own destruction, and with it the independence of his country, which was transferred to [142] strangers, their very antipodes in manners, religion, and every moral quality. His first act was to procure a more powerful protection than Pokaran afforded; and under the guarantee of Chhattar Singh Bhatti, he was sent to the saran (sanctuary) of Abhai Singh of Khetri.[5.14.7] Having so far succeeded, he contrived an underplot, in which his genius for intrigue appears not below his reputation as a soldier.

=Krishna Kunwāri.=—The late prince Bhim had made overtures to the Rana of Mewar for the hand of his daughter, but he died before the preliminaries were adjusted. This simple circumstance was deemed sufficient by the Champawat for the groundwork of his plot. He contrived to induce the voluptuous Jagat Singh, the prince of Jaipur, to put himself in the place of Raja Bhim, and to propose for the fair hand of Krishna. This being accomplished, and nuptial presents, under a guard of four thousand men, being dispatched to Udaipur, Sawai intimated to Raja Man that he would be eternally disgraced if he allowed the prince of Amber to carry off “the betrothed”; that “it was to the throne of Maru, not its occupant, she was promised.” The bait was greedily swallowed, and the summons for the Kher (or levy en masse) of the Rathors was immediately proclaimed. Man instantly assembled three thousand horse, and joining to them the mercenary bands of Hira Singh then on the frontier of Mewar, he intercepted the nuptial gifts of Amber. Indignant at this outrage, Jagat Singh took to arms, and the muster-book was declared open to all who would serve in the war which was formally declared against Maru.

=Attack by Rāja Jagat Singh of Jaipur on Mārwār. Treachery of Jaswant Rāo Holkar.=—Having thus opened the drama, Sawai threw off the mask, and repaired to Khetri, whence he conveyed the pretender, Dhonkal, to the court of Jagat Singh at Jaipur. Here his legitimacy was established by being admitted ‘to eat from the same platter’ with its prince; and his claims, as the heir of Marwar, were publicly acknowledged and advocated, by his ‘placing him in the lap of his aunt,’[5.14.8] one of the wives of the deceased Raja Bhim. His cause thus espoused, and being declared the nephew of Amber, the nobles of Marwar, who deemed the claims of the pretender superior to those of Raja Man, speedily collected around his standard. Amongst these was the prince of Bikaner, whose example (he being the most powerful of the independents of this house) at once sanctioned the justice of Dhonkal’s cause, and left that of Raja Man almost without support. Nevertheless, with the hereditary [143] valour of his race, he advanced to the frontiers to meet his foes, whose numbers, led by the Jaipur prince and the pretender, exceeded one hundred thousand men! This contest, the ostensible object of which was the princess of Mewar, like the crusades of ancient chivalry, brought allies from the most remote parts of India. Even the cautious Mahratta felt an unusual impulse in this rivalry, beyond the stimulants of pay and plunder which ordinarily rouse him, and corps after corps left their hordes to support either cause. The weightier purse of Jaipur was the best argument for the justice of his cause and that of the pretender; while Raja Man had only the gratitude of Holkar to reckon upon for aid, to whose wife and family he had given sanctuary when pursued by Lord Lake to the Attock. But here Sawai again foiled him; and the Mahratta, then only eighteen miles from Man, and who had promised to join him next day, made a sudden movement to the south. A bribe of £100,000, in bills upon Kotah, to be paid on Holkar’s reaching that city, effected this desertion; which being secured, Jagat Singh and the pretender advanced to overwhelm their antagonist, who was posted at Gingoli. As the armies approached each other, Raja Man’s chiefs rode up to salute him, preparatory, as he thought, to head their clans for the combat; but it was their farewell obeisance. The cannonade opened, they rallied under the standard of the pretender, and on Sawai advancing on the right of the allied line, so entire was the defection, that even the Mertia clan, whose virtue and boast it is “to adhere to the throne, whoever is the occupant,” deserted, with the Champawats, Jethawats, and minor chiefs. Four chieftains alone abided the evil hour of Raja Man, namely, Kuchaman, Ahor, Jalor, and Nimaj; and with their quotas alone, and the auxiliary bands of Bundi, he would have rushed into the battle. Hindered from this, he attempted his own life: but the design was frustrated by Sheonath of Kuchaman, who dismounted him from his elephant, and advised his trusting to the fleetness of his steed, while they covered his flight. The Raja remarked, he was the first of his race who ever disgraced the name of Rathor by showing his back to a Kachhwaha. The position he had taken that morning was favourable to retreat, being a mile in advance of the pass of Parbatsar:[5.14.9] this was speedily gained, and nobly defended by the battalions of Bundi, and those of Hindal Khan, in the pay of Raja Man, which retarded the pursuit, headed by the Rao of Uniara. Raja Man reached Merta in safety; but deeming it incapable of long [144] resistance, he continued his flight by Pipar to the capital, which he reached with a slender retinue, including the four chiefs, who still shared his fortunes. The camp of Raja Man was pillaged. Eighteen guns were taken by Bala Rao Inglia, one of Sindhia’s commanders, and the lighter effects, the tents, elephants, and baggage, were captured by Amir Khan; while Parbatsar, and the villages in the neighbourhood, were plundered.

=Rāja Mān Singh defends Jodhpur.=—Thus far, the scheme of Sawai and the pretender advanced with rapid success. When the allied army reached Merta, the prince of Jaipur, whose object was the princess of Mewar, proposed to Sawai to follow up their good fortune, while he repaired to Udaipur, and solemnized the nuptials. But even in the midst of his revenge, Sawai could distinguish “between the cause of Man Singh and the gaddi of Marwar”; and to promote the success of Jaipur, though he had originated the scheme to serve his own views, was no part of his plan. He was only helped out of this dilemma by another, which he could not anticipate. Not dreaming that Raja Man would hold out in the capital, which had no means of defence, but supposing he would fly to Jalor, and leave Jodhpur to its fate and to the pretender, Sawai, desirous to avoid the further advance of the allies into the country, halted the army for three days at Merta. His foresight was correct: the Raja had reached Bisalpur in full flight to Jalor, when, at the suggestion of Gyanmall Singhi, a civil officer in his train, he changed his intention. “There,” said the Singhi, “lies Jodhpur only nine coss to the right, while Jalor is sixteen further; it is as easy to gain the one as the other, and if you cannot hold out in the capital, what chance have you elsewhere? while you defend your throne your cause is not lost.” Raja Man followed the advice, reached Jodhpur in a few hours, and prepared for his defence. This unexpected change, and the halt of the allied army, which permitted the dispersed bands to gain the capital, defeated the schemes of Sawai.

=The Siege of Jodhpur.=—With a body of three thousand men, selected from Hindal Khan’s brigade, the corps of Bishanswamis, under Kaimdas, and one thousand foreign Rajputs, consisting of Chauhans, Bhattis, and Indhas (the ancient lords of Mandor), Raja Man formed a garrison of five thousand men, on whom he could depend. So ample did he deem this number, that he dispatched strong garrisons from Hindal’s brigade, with some Deora Rajputs, to garrison Jalor, and preserve the distant castle of Umarkot from surprise by the Sindis. Having thus provided against the storm [145] he fearlessly awaited the result. But so alienated was his mind from his kindred, that he would not even admit to the honour of defending his throne the four faithful chieftains who, in the general desertion, had abided by his fortunes. To all their entreaties to be received into the castle, that “they might defend the kunguras (battlements) of Jodha,” he replied, they might defend the city if they pleased; and disgusted with such a return for their fidelity, they increased the train of his opponents, who soon encompassed Jodhpur.

The town, little capable of defence, was taken and given up to unlicensed plunder; and with the exception of Phalodi, which was gallantly defended for three months, and given to Bikaner as the reward of its alliance, the an of the pretender was proclaimed throughout Marwar, and his allies only awaited the fall of the capital, which appeared inevitable, to proclaim him king. But a circumstance occurred, which, awakening the patriotism of the Rathors, thwarted these fair prospects, relieved Raja Man from his peril, and involved his adversaries in the net of destruction which they had woven for him.

The siege had lasted five months without any diminution of the ardour of the defenders; and although the defences of the north-east angle were destroyed, the besiegers, having a perpendicular rock of eighty feet to ascend before they could get to the breach, were not nearer their object, and, in fact, without shells, the castle of Jodha would laugh a siege to scorn. The numerous and motley force under the banners of Jaipur and the pretender, became clamorous for pay; the forage was exhausted, and the partisan horse were obliged to bivouac in the distant districts to the south. Availing himself of their separation from the main body, Amir Khan, an apt pupil of the Mahratta school, began to raise contributions on the fiscal lands, and Pali, Pipar, Bhilara, with many others, were compelled to accede to his demands. The estates of the nobles who espoused the cause of the pretender, fared no better, and they complained to the Xerxes of this host of the conduct of this unprincipled commander.

=Amir Khān supports Mān Singh. Defeat of the Jaipur Army A.D. 1806.=—The protracted defence having emptied the treasury of Amber, the arch-intriguer of Pokaran was called upon to contribute towards satisfying the clamour of the troops. Having exhausted the means of his own party, he applied to the four chieftains who had been induced to join the cause of the pretender by the suspicions of Raja Man, to advance a sum of money. This appeal proved a test of [146] their zeal. They abandoned the pretender, and proceeded direct to the camp of Amir Khan. It required no powerful rhetoric to detach him from the cause and prevail upon him to advocate that of Raja Man; nor could they have given him better counsel towards this end, than the proposal to carry the war into the enemy’s country: to attack and plunder Jaipur, now left unguarded. At this critical moment, the Jaipur prince, in consequence of the representation of the Marwar chiefs, had directed his commander-in-chief, Sheolal, to chastise Amir Khan for his lawless conduct. Sheolal put a stop to their deliberations, attacked and drove them across the Luni, surprised them at Govindgarh, again in a night attack at Harsuri, and pursued the Khan to Phaggi,[5.14.10] at the very frontier of Jaipur. Astonished at his own success, and little aware that the chase was in the direction projected by his enemy, Sheolal deemed he had accomplished his orders in driving him out of Marwar; halted, and leaving his camp, repaired to Jaipur to partake of its festivities. The Khan, who with his allies had reached Pipla near Tonk, no sooner heard of this, than he called to his aid the heavy brigades of Muhammad Shah Khan and Raja Bahadur (then besieging Isarda[5.14.11]), and availed himself of the imprudent absence of his foe to gain over the Haidarabad Rasala, a legion well known in the predatory wars of that period. Having effected this object, he assailed the Jaipur force, which, notwithstanding this defection and the absence of its commander, fought with great valour, the battalions of Hira Singh being nearly cut to pieces. The action ended in the entire defeat of the Jaipurians, and the capture of their camp, guns, and equipage. Prompted by the Rathor chieftains, whose valour led to this result, Amir Khan rapidly followed up his success, and Jaipur was dismayed by the presence of the victor at her gates. The generalship of the Khan was the salvation of Raja Man; it dissolved the confederacy, and fixed the doom of Sawai, its projector.

=The Confederacy against Jodhpur dissolved.=—The tempest had been some time gathering; the Rajas of Bikaner and Shahpura had already withdrawn from the confederacy and marched home, when, like a clap of thunder, the effeminate Kachhwaha, who had in the outset of this crusade looked to a full harvest both of glory and of love, learned that his army was annihilated, and his capital invested by the Khan and a handful of Rathors. Duped by the representations of Sawai, Rae Chand, Diwan or prime minister of Jaipur, concealed for some days these disasters from his sovereign, who received the intelligence by a special messenger sent by the queen-mother. Enraged, perplexed, and alarmed [147] for his personal safety, he broke up the siege, and sending on in advance the spoils of Jodhpur (including forty pieces of cannon), with his own chieftains, he sent for the Mahratta leaders,[5.14.12] and offered them £120,000 to escort him in safety to his capital; nay, he secretly bribed, with a bond of £90,000 more, the author of his disgrace, Amir Khan, not to intercept his retreat, which was signally ignominious, burning his tents and equipage at every stage, and at length with his own hand destroying his favourite elephant, which wanted “speed for the rapidity of his flight.”

=Jodhpur Booty recovered.=—But the indignities he had to suffer were not over. The chieftains whose sagacity and valour had thus diverted the storm from Raja Man, determined that no trophies of Rathor disgrace should enter Jaipur, united their clans about twenty miles east of Merta, on the line of retreat, appointing Induraj Singhi their leader. This person, who had held the office of Diwan under two predecessors of Raja Man, was driven to a temporary defection from the same suspicions which made the chiefs join the pretender. But they resolved to wash away the stain of this brief alienation from Raja Man with the blood of his enemies, and to present as a token of returning fidelity the recaptured trophies. The encounter took place on the joint frontier. It was short, but furious; and the Kachhwahas, who could not withstand the Rathors, were defeated and dispersed, and the spoils of the spoiler, including the forty cannon, were safely lodged in Kuchaman. Flushed with success, the victors addressed the Raja of Kishangarh, who, though a Rathor, had kept aloof, to advance funds to secure the continuance of Amir Khan’s aid. Two lakhs of rupees (£20,000) effected this object; and the Khan, pledging himself to continue his support to Raja Man, repaired to Jodhpur. The four chiefs who had thus signalized themselves, preceded him, and were received with open arms: their offences were forgiven, and their estates restored, while Induraj was appointed Bakhshi or commander of the forces [148].

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Footnote 5.14.1:

My own venerable tutor, Yati Gyanchandra, who was with me for ten years, said he owed all his knowledge, especially his skill in reciting poetry (in which he surpassed all the bards at Udaipur), to Zalim Singh. [He died at Kāchbali in the British District of Merwāra in 1799 (Erskine iii. A. 70).]

Footnote 5.14.2:

[138] Amongst the numerous autograph correspondence of the princes of Rajputana with the princes of Mewar, of which I had the free use, I selected one letter of S. 1784, A.D. 1728, written conjointly by Jai Singh of Amber and Abhai Singh of Jodhpur, regarding Idar, and which is so curious, that I give a verbatim translation in the Appendix (No. I.). [See end of Vol. III.] I little thought at the time how completely it would prove Abhai Singh’s determination to cut off all but his own parricidal issue from the succession. An inspection of the genealogy (p. 1075) will show that Anand Singh, of Idar, who was not to be allowed “to escape alive,” was his younger brother, adopted into that house.

Footnote 5.14.3:

Dhonkal Singh, the posthumous issue of Bhim, the last of the parricidal line, whether real or supposititious, must be set aside, and the pure current of Rathor blood, derived from Siahji, Jodha, Jaswant, and Ajit, be brought from Idar, and installed on “the gaddi of Jodha.” This course of proceeding would meet universal approbation, with the exception of some selfish miscreants about the person of this pretended son of Bhim, or the chieftain of Pokaran, in furtherance of his and his grandfather’s yet unavenged feud. A sketch of the events, drawn from their own chronicles, and accompanied by reflections, exposing the miseries springing from an act of turpitude, would come home to all, and they would shower blessings on the power which, while it fulfilled the duties of protector, destroyed the germ of internal dissension, and gave them a prince of their own pure blood, whom all parties could honour and obey. If a doubt remained of the probable unanimity of such policy, let it be previously submitted to a panchayat, composed of the princes of the land, namely, of Mewar, Amber, Kotah, Bundi, Jaisalmer, etc., leaving out whichever may be influenced by marriage connexions with Dhonkal Singh.

Footnote 5.14.4:

This mark of mourning is common to all India. Where this evidence of manhood is not yet visible, the hair is cut off; often both.

Footnote 5.14.5:

Vaidya, or ‘learned man’; the term veda is also used to denote cunning, magic, or knowledge of whatever kind.

Footnote 5.14.6:

They follow the doctrines of Vishnu (Bishan). They ate termed Gosains, as well as the more numerous class of church militants, devoted to Siva. Both are célibataires, as Gosain imports, from mastery (sain) over the sense (go). They occasionally come in contact, when their sectarian principles end in furious combats. At the celebrated place of pilgrimage, Haridwar (Hardwar), on the Ganges, we are obliged to have soldiers to keep the peace, since a battle occurred, in which they fought almost to extirpation, about twenty years ago. They are the Templars of Rajasthan. [Gosāīn, Skt. gosvāmin, ‘master of cows: one who is master of his organs of sense.’ The Bishan or Vishnuswāmis are a group of Bairāgi ascetics, who are said to have come to Mārwār about A.D. 1779, in the reign of Bijai Singh. Some of them are now employed as State sepoys (Census Report, Mārwār, 1891, ii. 86). In 1760 the rival mobs of Gosāīns and Bairāgis fought a battle, in which 1800 are said to have perished (IGI, xiii. 53).]

Footnote 5.14.7:

One of the principal chiefs of the Shaikhawat confederation. [Khetri is about 80 miles N. of Jaipur city (IGI, xv. 276).]

Footnote 5.14.8:

[Godlenā, ‘to take on the lap,’ the technical form of adoption, or of recognition of legitimacy.]

Footnote 5.14.9:

[About 110 miles N.E. of Jodhpur city, S.W. of the Sāmbhar Lake.]

Footnote 5.14.10:

[About 32 miles S. of Jaipur city.]

Footnote 5.14.11:

[About 60 miles S.S.W. of Jaipur city.]

Footnote 5.14.12:

Bapu Sindkia, Bala Rao Inglia, with the brigade of Jean Baptiste, all Sindhia’s dependents. This was early in 1806. The author was then in Sindhia’s camp and saw these troops marched off; and in 1807, in a geographical tour, he penetrated to Jaipur, and witnessed the wrecks of the Jaipur army. The sands round the capital were white with the bones of horses, and the ashes of their riders, who had died in the vain expectation of getting their arrears of pay.

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Chapter 15

=Amīr Khān received at Jodhpur.=—Amir Khan was received by Raja Man with distinguished honours; a palace in the castle was assigned as his residence; valuable gifts were presented to him and great rewards held in perspective, if, through his agency, the rebellion should be completely subdued. He swore to extirpate Sawai’s faction, and in token of identity of views with Raja Man, he was admitted to the honour of that last proof of devotion to his cause, “an interchange of turbans,” with an advance of three lakhs, or £30,000, for the immediate payment of his bonds.

On the raising of the siege of Jodhpur, Sawai conducted the pretender to the appanage of the heirs of Marwar, the city of Nagor. There they were deliberating as to their future plans, when a message was brought from Amir Khan from [149] Mundiawar,[5.15.1] ten miles distant, begging permission to perform his devotions at the shrine of the Muslim saint, Pir Tarkin, the sole relic of the Islamite, which Bakhta Singh had spared. His request being complied with, he with a slight cavalcade left his camp, and having gone through the mummeries of devotion, paid his respects to Sawai. When about to take leave, he threw out hints of Raja Man’s ungrateful return for his services, and that his legions might have been better employed. Sawai greedily caught at the bait; he desired the Khan to name his terms, and offered £200,000 on the day that Dhonkal should possess the gaddi of Jodhpur. The Khan accepted the conditions and ratified the engagement on the Koran, and to add to the solemnity of the pledge, he exchanged turbans with Sawai. This being done, he was introduced to the pretender, received the usual gifts, pledged his life in his cause, took leave, and returned to his camp, whither he invited the prince and his chiefs on the following day to accept of an entertainment.

=Amīr Khān massacres the Chiefs.=—On the morning of the 19th of Chait, S. 1864 (A.D. 1808), Sawai, attended by the chief adherents of the pretender and about five hundred followers, repaired to the camp of the Khan, who had made every preparation for the more effectual perpetration of the bloody and perfidious deed he meditated. A spacious tent was pitched in the centre of his camp for the reception of his guests, and cannon were loaded with grape ready to be turned against them. The visitors were received with the most distinguished courtesy; turbans were again exchanged; the dancing-girls were introduced, and nothing but festivity was apparent. The Khan arose, and making an excuse to his guests for a momentary absence, retired. The dancing continued, when at the word ‘dhaga,’ pronounced by the musicians, down sunk the tent upon the unsuspicious Rajputs, who fell an easy prey to the ferocious Pathans. Forty-two chieftains were thus butchered in the very sanctuary of hospitality, and the heads of the most distinguished were sent to Raja Man. Their adherents, taken by surprise, were slaughtered by the soldiery, or by cannon charged with grape, as they fled. The pretender escaped from Nagor, which was plundered by the Khan, when not only all the property of the party, but the immense stores left by Bakhta Singh, including three hundred pieces of cannon, were taken, and sent to Sambhar and other strongholds held by the Khan. Having thus fulfilled his instructions, he repaired to Jodhpur, and received ten lakhs or £100,000, and [150] two large towns, Mundiawar and Kuchilawas, of thirty thousand rupees annual rent, besides one hundred rupees daily for table-allowance, as the reward of his signal infamy.

Thus, by the murder of Sawai and his powerful partisans, the confederacy against Raja Man was extinguished; but though the Raja had thus, miraculously as it were, defeated the gigantic schemes formed against him, the mode by which it was effected entailed upon him and upon his country unexampled miseries. The destruction of the party of the pretender was followed by retaliation on the various members of the league. The Jaipur territory was laid waste by the troops of Amir Khan, and an expedition was planned against Bikaner. An army consisting of twelve thousand of Raja Man’s feudal levies, under the command of Induraj, with a brigade of Amir Khan, and that of Hindal Khan with thirty-five guns, marched against the chief of the independent Rathors. The Bikaner Raja formed an army little inferior in numbers, and gave his suzerain the meeting at Bapri; but after a partial encounter, in which the former lost two hundred men, he fell back upon his capital, pursued by the victors, who halted at Gajner.[5.15.2] Here terms were offered; two lakhs as the expenses of the war, and the surrender of the bone of contention, the town of Phalodi, which had been assigned to Bikaner as the price of joining the confederacy.

=Amīr Khān rules Mārwār.=—The Khan was now the arbiter of Marwar. He stationed Ghafur Khan with a garrison in Nagor, and partitioned the lands of Merta amongst his followers. He likewise placed his garrison in the castle of Nawa, which gave him the command of the salt-lakes of Nawa and Sambhar. Induraj and the high-priest Deonath were the only counsellors of Raja Man, and all the oppressions which the chieftains suffered through this predominant foreign interference, were attributed to their advice. To cut them off the chiefs in their turn applied to Amir Khan, who for seven lakhs (£70,000), readily consented to rid them of their enemies. A plot was laid, in which some of his Pathans, under pretence of quarrelling with Induraj for their arrears, put this minister and the high-priest to death.

=Insanity of Mān Singh.=—The loss of Deonath appeared to affect the reason of Raja Man. He shut himself up in his apartments, refused to communicate with any one, and soon omitted every duty, whether political or religious, until at length he was recommended to name his only son Chhattar Singh as his successor. To this he acceded [151], and with his own hand made the mark of inauguration on his forehead. But youth and base panders to his pleasure seduced him from his duties, and he died, some say the victim of illicit pursuits, others from a wound given by the hand of one of the chieftains, whose daughter he attempted to seduce.

The premature death of his only son, before he had attained the years of majority, still more alienated the mind of Raja Man from all State affairs, and his suspicions of treacherous attempts on his person extended even to his wife. He refused all food, except that which was brought by one faithful menial. He neglected his ablutions, allowed his face to be covered with hair, and at length either was, or affected to be insane. He spoke to no one, and listened with the apathy of an idiot to the communications of the ministers, who were compelled to carry on the government. By many it is firmly believed that the part he thus acted was feigned, to escape the snares laid for his life; while others think that it was a melancholy mania, arising from remorse at having consented to the murder of Induraj, which incidentally involved that of the Guru.[5.15.3] In short, his alliance with the atrocious Khan exposed him to the suspicion of a participation in his crimes, which the bent of his policy too much favoured. In this condition—the government being managed by an oligarchy headed by Salim Singh (son of Sawai)—did Raja Man remain, until the tide of events carried the arms of Britain even to the desert of Maru.

=British Intervention. Restoration of Mān Singh.=—When, in 1817, we invited the Rajputs to disunite from the predatory powers, and to join us in establishing order throughout India, the young son of Raja Man, or rather his ministers, sent envoys to Delhi. But ere the treaty was ratified, this dissipated youth was no more. On this event, the Pokaran faction, dreading Raja Man’s resumption of the government, made an application to Idar for a son to adopt as their sovereign. But splendid as was the offer, the Raja, who had but one son, rejected it, unless the demand were sustained by the unanimous suffrages of the nobles. Unanimity being unattainable, the faction had no alternative save the restoration of Raja Man; but it was in vain they explained the new position of Marwar, the alliance with the English, which awaited his sanction, and the necessity that he, as the last prop of the royal family, should resume the reins of power. He listened to all with the most apathetic indifference [152]. But although he saw in this new crisis of the political condition of his country, motives for effecting his escape from bondage, his mind was so tutored by bitter experience that he never for an instant betrayed its workings. When at length he allowed himself to comprehend the full nature of the changes which made even the faction desire his egress from solitude, so far from expressing any joy, he even disapproved of part of the treaty, and especially the article relating to the armed contingent of his vassals to be at the disposal of the protecting power, in which he wisely saw the germ of discord, from the certainty of interference it would lead to.

=Treaty with the British.=—It was in December 1817 that the treaty[5.15.4] was negotiated at Delhi by a Brahman named Byas Bishan Ram, on the part of the regent prince, and in December 1818, an officer of the British government[5.15.5] was deputed to report on its actual condition. Notwithstanding the total disorganization of the government, from the combination of causes already described, the court had lost nothing of its splendour or regularity; the honour of all was concerned in preserving the dignity of the gaddi, though its incumbent was an object of distrust and even detestation. The ministry at this period was conducted by Akhai Chand (Diwan), and Salim Singh of Pokaran, as the representative of the aristocracy, with the title of Bhanjghar. All the garrisons and offices of trust throughout the country were held by the creatures of a junto, of which these were the heads. There was, however, already the nucleus of an opposition in the brother of the murdered minister, named Fateh Raj, who was entrusted with the care of the city. The instructions of the agent were to offer the aid of the British government towards the settlement of Raja Man’s affairs; and at a private interview, three days after the agent’s arrival, troops were offered to be placed at his disposal. But the wariness of his character will be seen in the use he made of this offer. He felt that the lever was at hand to crush faction to the dust; and with a Machiavellian caution, he determined that the existence of this engine should suffice; that its power should be felt, but never seen; that he should enjoy all the advantages this influence would give, without risking any of its dangers if called into action. Thus, while he rejected, though with thanks, the essential benefit tendered, qualifying his refusal with a sufficient reason—“reliance on himself to restore his State to order”—he failed not to [153] disseminate the impression amongst his chiefs, which was enough for his purpose, and which besides checked the dictation and interference that uniformly result from such unequal alliances.

Energetic counsels and rapid decision are unknown to Asiatic governments, whose subjects are ever prone to suspicion whenever unusual activity is visible; and Raja Man had been schooled into circumspection from his infancy. He appeared anxious to bury the past in oblivion, by choosing men of both parties for the inferior duties of the ministry; and the blandness of his manners and his conciliatory address lulled the most suspicious into security. After a short residence, the Agent returned to Ajmer, having in vain tried to convince Raja Man that his affairs were irretrievable without the direct aid of the paramount power, which he persisted in repudiating, assigning as his reason that he felt convinced, from “the measures then in train,” he should accomplish the task himself: of these measures conciliation appeared to be the basis.

=The Author appointed Envoy to Jodhpur.=—At this period[5.15.6] an envoy was appointed, with powers direct from the Governor-General to Raja Man, but he was for some months prevented from proceeding to his court, from various causes.[5.15.7]

=Demoralization at Jodhpur.=—The Agent, who reached Jodhpur early in the month of November, found matters [154] in nearly the same state as on his predecessor’s departure in February. The same faction kept the prince and all the officers of government at their disposal. The Raja interfered but little with their measures, except to acquiesce in or confirm them. The mercenary bands of Sindis or Pathans were in miserable plight and clamorous for their pay, not having been accounted with for three years; and they were to be seen begging in the streets of the capital, or hawking bundles of forage on their heads to preserve them from starvation. On the approach of the Agent of the British Government, the forms of accounts were gone through, and they gave in acquittances in full of demands, on condition of receiving 30 per cent of their arrears; but this was only a form, and with his departure (in about three weeks), they despaired even of that.

The name of justice was unknown:—though, in allusion to the religion of the men in power, it was common to hear it said, “You may commit murder and no one will notice it; but woe to him who beats or maims a brute, for dogs are publicly fed while the soldier starves.” In short, the sole object of the faction was to keep at a distance all interposition that might lead the prince to emancipate himself from their control. During the Agent’s stay of nearly three weeks, he had several private interviews with Raja Man. The knowledge he had of the history of his ancestry and his own situation, and of the causes which had produced it, failed not to beget a corresponding confidence; and these interviews were passed in discussions on the ancient history of the country as well as on his own immediate affairs. The Agent took leave with these words: “I know all the perils through which you have passed; I am aware how you surmounted them. By your resolution, your external enemies are now gone: you have the British Government as a friend; rely upon it with the same fortitude, and, in a very short time, all will be as you could desire.”

Raja Man listened eagerly to these observations. His fine features, though trained to bear no testimony to the workings within, relaxed with delight as he rapidly replied, “In one twelve-months, my affairs will be as friendship could wish.” To which the Agent rejoined, “In half the time, Maharaja, if you are determined”: though the points to which he had to direct his mind were neither few nor slight, for they involved every branch of government; as

=Reforms in Mārwār.=—1. Forming an efficient administration [155].

2. Consideration of the finances; the condition of the crown lands; the feudal confiscations, which, often unjust, had caused great discontent.

3. The reorganization and settlement of the foreign troops, on whose service the Raja chiefly depended.

4. An effective police on all the frontiers, to put down the wholesale pillage of the Mers in the south, the Larkhanis in the north, and the desert Sahariyas and Khosas in the west; reformation of the tariff, or scale of duties on commerce, which were so heavy as almost to amount to prohibition; and at the same time to provide for its security.

Scarcely had the Agent left Jodhpur, before the faction, rejoiced at the removal of the only restraint on their narrow-minded views, proceeded in the career of disorder. Whether the object were to raise funds, or to gratify ancient animosities, the course pursued by the Diwan and his junto was the same. Ghanerao, the chief fief of Godwar, was put under sequestration, and only released by a fine of more than a year’s revenue. All the minor chiefs of this rich tract suffered in the same manner, besides the indignity of having their lands placed under the control of a brother of the minister. Chandawal[5.15.8] was put under sequestration, and only released on a very heavy fine. At length the Diwan had the audacity to put his hand on Awa, the chief fief of Marwar; but the descendant of Champa replied, “My estate is not of to-day, nor thus to be relinquished.” Gloom, mistrust, and resentment pervaded the whole feudal body. They saw a contemptible faction sporting with their honour and possessions, from an idea they industriously propagated, that an unseen but mighty power was at hand to support their acts, given out as those of the prince. If the Raja did dictate them, he took especial care it should not be seen; for in the absence of the British Agent, he once more resumed his sequestered habits, and appeared to take no interest in the government further than to promote a coalition between Akhai Chand and Fateh Raj, who was supported by a strong party of the chiefs, and the influence of the favourite queen. But Akhai Chand, who commanded, through his creatures, all the resources of the country, and its strongholds, even to the castle of Jodhpur, rejected these overtures, and feigning that there were plots against his personal safety, left the city; and the better to exclude his adversaries from the prince, resided entirely in the citadel.

=Cruelty of Rāja Mān Singh.=—Six months had thus fled. The fiat of Akhai Chand was supreme; he alone was [156] visible; his orders alone were obeyed. Raja Man was only heard of as an automaton, moving as the Diwan pleased. But while the latter was thus basking in the full sunshine of prosperity, enriching himself and his dependents, execrated by the nobles and envied by his fellow-citizens, they heard of his fall! Then, the insanity of his master proved to be but a cloak to the intensity of his resentment. But a blind revenge would not have satisfied Raja Man. The victims of his deep dissimulation, now in manacles, were indulged with hopes of life, which, with the application of torture, made them reveal the plunder of prince and subject. A schedule of forty lakhs, or £400,000, was given in by the Diwan and his dependents, and their accounts being settled in this world, they were summarily dismissed to the other, with every mark of ignominy which could add to the horrors of death. Nagji, the Kiladar,[5.15.9] and misleader of the late regent prince, with Mulji Dandal, one of the old allodial stock, had each a cup of poison, and their bodies were thrown over the ‘Gate of Victory’ (Fateh Pol). Jivaraj, a brother of the Dandal, with Biharidas Khichi, and the tailor, had their heads shaved, and their bodies were flung into the cascade beneath. Even the sacred character of “expounder of the Vedas,” and that of “revealer of the secrets of heaven,” yielded no protection; and Byas Sheodas, with Srikishan, Jotishi, the astrologer, were in the long list of proscriptions. Nagji, commandant of the citadel, and Mulji, had retired on the death of the regent-prince; and with the wealth they had accumulated, while administering to his follies, had erected places of strength. On the restoration of Raja Man, and the general amnesty which prevailed, they returned to their ancient offices in the castle, rose into favour, and forgot they had been traitors. Having obtained their persons, Man secured the ancient jewels of the crown, bestowed on these favourites during the ephemeral sway of his son. Their condemnation was then passed, and they were hurled over the battlements of the rock which it was their duty to guard. With such consummate skill was the plot contrived, that the creatures of the minister, in the most remote districts, were imprisoned simultaneously with himself. Of the many subordinate agents thus confined, many were liberated on the disclosure of their wealth; and by these sequestrations, Raja Man obtained abundant supplies. The enormous sum of a crore, or near one million sterling, was stated; but if they yielded one-half (and this was not unlikely), they gave the means, which he was not slow to use, for the prosecution of what he termed a just punishment, though it [157] better deserves the name of a savage revenge. Had he been satisfied with inflicting the last penalty of the law on the nefarious Akhai Chand, and some of the household officers whose fidelity ought ever to be firm, and with the sequestration of the estates of some two or three of the vassals whose power had become dangerous, or their treason too manifest to be overlooked, he would have commanded the services of the rest, and the admiration of all conversant with these events. But this first success added fuel to his revenge, and he sought out more noble victims to glut it. His circumspection and dissimulation were strengthened, not relaxed, by his success. Several of the chiefs, who were marked out for death, had received, only a few days before, the highest proof of favour in additional lands to their rent-roll, and accident alone prevented a group of the most conspicuous from falling into the snare which had inveigled Akhai Chand. Salim Singh of Pokaran, and his constant associate Surthan of Nimaj, with Anar Singh of Ahor, and the minors of their clans, whose duty daily carried them to the court, as the chief advisers of the prince, formed a part of the administration of the Diwan, and they naturally took alarm upon his confinement. To obviate this, a deputation was sent by the prince to tranquillize them by the assurance that, in the confinement of the minister, whose rapacity and misconduct deserved punishment, the Raja had attained all his ends. Thus, in order to encompass the destruction of the Pokaran chief, he would not have scrupled to involve all the rest. The prince, with his own mouth, desired the confidential servant of Anar Singh, who was his personal friend, to attend with the others. Their distrust saved him. The same night, the mercenary bands, to the number of eight thousand men, with guns, attacked Surthan Singh in his dwelling. With one hundred and eighty of his clan, he defended himself against great guns and small arms, as long as the house was tenable, and then sallied out sword in hand, and, with his brother and eighty of his kin, fell nobly in the midst of his foes. The remainder retreated with their arms to defend Nimaj and their infant chief. This gallant defence, in which many of the townspeople were slain, prevented a repetition of the attempt against the Pokaran chief, who remained on the defensive; until, seeing an opportunity, he fled to his asylum in the desert, or he would that day have renounced “the sheath of the dagger which held the fortunes of Marwar,” and which now contained the accumulated revenge of four generations: of Deo Singh, of Sabhala, of Sawai, and his own. His death would have terminated this branch of Ajit’s issue, adopted into the house of [158] Pokaran, in the history of which we have a tolerable picture of the precariousness of existence in Marwar.[5.15.10]

What better commentary can be made on Raja Man’s character, than the few recorded words addressed to Fateh Raj, whom he sent for to the Presence, on the day succeeding these events? “Now you may perceive the reasons why I did not sooner give you office.” This individual, the brother of the late Induraj, was forthwith installed in the post of Diwan; and with the sinews of war provided by the late sequestrations, the troops were satisfied, while by the impression so sedulously propagated and believed, that he had only to call on the British power for what aid he required, the whole feudal body was appalled: and the men, who would have hurled the tyrant from his throne, now only sought to avoid his insidious snares, more dangerous than open force.

Nimaj was besieged and nobly defended; but at length the son of Surthan capitulated, on receiving the sign-manual of his prince promising pardon and restoration, guaranteed by the commander of the mercenary bands. To the eternal disgrace of the Raja, he broke this pledge, and the boy had scarcely appeared in the besieging camp, when the civil officer produced the Raja’s mandate for his captivity and transmission to the Presence. If it is painful to record this fact, it is pleasing to add, that even the mercenary commander spurned the infamous injunction. “No,” said he; “on the faith of my pledge (bachan) he surrendered; and if the Raja breaks his word, I will maintain mine, and at least place him in security.” He kept his promise, and conveyed him to the Aravalli mountains, whence he passed over to, and received protection in Mewar.

=Estrangement of the Chiefs.=—This and similar acts of treachery and cold-blooded tyranny completely estranged all the chiefs. Isolated as they were, they could make no resistance against the mercenary battalions, amounting to ten thousand men, exclusive of the quotas; and they dared not league for defence, from the dreaded threat held over them, of calling in the British troops; and in a few months the whole feudal association of [159] Marwar abandoned their homes and their country, seeking shelter in the neighbouring States from the Raja’s cruel and capricious tyranny. To his connexion with the British Government alone he was indebted for his being able thus to put forth the resources of his policy, which otherwise he never could have developed either with safety or effect; nor at any former period of the history of Marwar could the most daring of its princes have undertaken, with any prospect of success, what Raja Man accomplished under this alliance.

These brave men found asyla in the neighbouring States of Kotah, Mewar, Bikaner, and Jaipur. Even the faithful Anar Singh, whose fidelity no gratitude could ever repay, was obliged to seek refuge in exile. He had stood Man’s chief shield against the proscription of Raja Bhim, when cooped up in Jalor, and sold his wife’s ornaments, “even to her nose-ring,” to procure him the means of subsistence and defence. It was Anar Singh who saved him when, in the attempt upon Pali, he was unhorsed and nearly made prisoner. He was among the four chiefs who remained by his fortunes when the rest deserted to the standard of the pretender; and he was one of the same body, who rescued the trophies of their disgrace from the hands of their enemies when on the road to Jaipur. Last of all, he was mainly instrumental in the Raja’s emancipation and in his resumption of the reins of government. Well might the fury of his revenge deserve the term of madness! In A.D. 1821, the greater chieftains of Marwar, thus driven into exile, were endeavouring to obtain the mediation of the British authorities; but another year had elapsed without the slightest advance to accommodation. Their conduct has been exemplary, but their degrading position, dependent on the scanty resources of others, must of itself work a cure. Their manly remonstrance addressed to the British functionary is already before the reader.[5.15.11] He did not hesitate to tell them, that if in due time no mediation was held out, they must depend on themselves for redress!

Such was the political condition of Marwar until the year 1823. Had a demoniacal spirit of revenge not blinded Raja Man, he had a fine opportunity to lay the principles of order on a permanent basis, and to introduce those reforms necessary for his individual welfare as well as for that of the State. He had it in his power to modify the institutions, to curb without destroying the feudal chiefs, and [160] to make the whole subservient to the altered condition of affairs. Instead of having the glory of fixing the constitution of his country, he has (reposing on external protection) broken up the entire feudal association, and rendered the paramount power an object of hatred instead of reverence.

=Retrospect of Mārwār History.=—Having thus rapidly sketched the history of this interesting branch of the Rajput race, from the destruction of their ancient seat of empire, Kanauj, and their settlement in the Indian desert more than six centuries ago, to the present day, it is impossible to quit the subject without a reflection on the anomalous condition of their alliance with the British Government, which can sanction the existence of such a state of things as we have just described. It illustrates the assertions made in an early part of this work,[5.15.12] of the ill-defined principles which guide all our treaties with the Rajputs, and which, if not early remedied, will rapidly progress to a state of things full of misery to them, and of inevitable danger to ourselves. These “men of the soil,” as they emphatically designate themselves, cling to it, and their ancient and well-defined privileges, with an unconquerable pertinacity; in their endeavours to preserve them, whole generations have been swept away, yet has their strength increased in the very ratio of oppression. Where are now the oppressors? the dynasties of Ghazni, of Ghor, the Khiljis, the Lodis, the Pathans, the Timurs, and the demoralizing Mahratta? The native Rajput has flourished amidst these revolutions, and survived their fall; and but for the vices of their internal sway, chiefly contracted from such association, would have risen to power upon the ruin of their tyrants. But internal dissension invited the spoiler; and herds of avaricious Mahrattas and ferocious Pathans have reaped the harvest of their folly. Yet all these faults were to be redeemed in their alliances with a people whose peculiar boast was, that wisdom, justice, and clemency were the corner-stones of their power: seeking nothing from them beyond the means for their defence, and an adherence to the virtues of order. How far the protecting power has redeemed its pledge, in allowing years to pass away without some attempt to remedy the anarchy we have described, the reader is in a condition to judge. If it be said that we have tied up our hands by leaving them free agents in their internal administration, then let no offer of support be given to the head, for the oppression of the vassal and his rights, co-equal with those of the sovereign [161]; and if our mediation cannot be exerted, let us withdraw altogether the checks upon the operation of their own system of government, and leave them free agents in reality. A wiser, more humane, and liberal policy would be, to impose upon ourselves the task of understanding their political condition, and to use our just influence for the restoration of their internal prosperity, and with it the peace, present as well as prospective, of an important part of our empire. The policy which such views would suggest, is to support the opinion of the vast majority of the Rathors, and to seize the first opportunity to lend at least our sanction to an adoption, from the Idar branch, of Rathor blood, not only uncontaminated, but heirs-presumptive to Jodha, and exclude the parricidal line which will continue to bring misery on the country. If, however, we apply only our own monarchical, nay, despotic principles to this feudal society, and interfere but to uphold a blind tyranny, which must drive these brave chiefs to despair, it will be well to reflect and consider, from the acts we have related, of what they are capable. Very different, indeed, would be the deeds of proscribed Rajputs from those of vagabond Pindaris, or desultory Mahrattas; and what a field for aggression and retreat! Rumour asserts that they have already done themselves justice; and that, driven to desperation, and with no power to mediate, the dagger has reached the heart of Raja Man! If this be true, it is a retribution which might have been expected; it was the only alternative left to the oppressed chiefs to do themselves justice. It is also said, that the ‘pretended’ son of Raja Bhim is now on the gaddi of Jodha. This is deeply to be lamented. Raja Dhonkal will see only the party who espoused his pretensions, and the Pokaran chief and faction will hold that place in the councils of his sovereign, which of right belongs to the head of his clan, the Champawat chief of Awa, an exile in Mewar.[5.15.13] Jealousy, feuds, and bloodshed will be the consequence, which would at once be averted by an adoption from Idar. Were a grand council of Rajputs to be convened, in order to adjust the question, nine-tenths would decide as proposed; the danger of interference would be neutralized, and peace and tranquillity would be the boon bestowed upon thousands, and, what is of some consequence, future danger to ourselves would be avoided [162].

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Footnote 5.15.1:

[Mūndwa.]

Footnote 5.15.2:

[Nineteen miles S.W. of Bikaner city.]

Footnote 5.15.3:

For the character of this priest, see p. 825.

Footnote 5.15.4:

See treaty, Appendix No. II. [See end of Vol. III.]

Footnote 5.15.5:

Mr. Wilder, superintendent of the district of Ajmer.

Footnote 5.15.6:

In February 1819, the Author had the political duties of Marwar added to those of the States of Udaipur, Kotah, Bundi, and Sirohi.

Footnote 5.15.7:

One of these was an unpleasant altercation, which took place between the townspeople of the Commercial Mart of Pali and an English gentleman, sent unofficially to feel his way as to the extension of commercial enterprise, carrying specimens of the staple commodities of our trade. This interference with the very fountain-head of their trade alarmed the monopolists of Pali, who, dreading such competition, created or took advantage of an incident to rid themselves of the intruder. The commercial men of these regions almost all profess the Jain religion, whose first rule of faith is the preservation of life, in beast as in man. By them, therefore, the piece-goods, the broad-cloths and metals of the Christian trader, were only less abhorred than his flesh-pots, and the blood of the goats sworn to have been shed by his servants within the bounds of Pali, rose in judgment against their master, of whom a formal complaint was laid before Raja Man. It lost none of its acrimony in coming through the channel of his internuncio at Udaipur, the Brahman, Bishan Ram. Mr. Rutherford rebutted the charge, and an investigation took place at the capital on oath, upon which, as the merchants and the governor of Pali (a nephew of the minister) could not substantiate their charge, the latter was severely reprimanded for his incivility. But whether the story was true or false, it was quite enough for their purpose. The interdict between Mr. Rutherford and the inhabitants of Pali was more effectual than the sanitary cordon of any prince in Christendom. The feeling of resentment against him reached the Agent of government, who was obliged to support what appeared the cause of truth, even according to the deposition made before their own judgment-seat, and he was consequently deemed inimical to the prince and the faction which then guided his councils. Mr. Rutherford proceeded afterwards to Kotah, to exhibit the same wares; but he was there equally an object of jealousy, though from letters of recommendation from the Agent, it was less strongly manifested. It furnished evidence that such interference would never succeed. It is well his mission did not appear to be sanctioned by the government. What evil might not be effected by permitting unrestricted and incautious intercourse with such people, who can, and do obtain all they require of our produce without the presence of the producers, who, whether within or without the pale of the Company’s service, will not, I trust, be prematurely forced on Rajputana, or it will assuredly hasten the day of inevitable separation!

Footnote 5.15.8:

[Fifty-five miles S.W. of Jodhpur city.]

Footnote 5.15.9:

[Commander of the fort.]

Footnote 5.15.10:

In a letter addressed to the Government on these events, dated July 7, 1820, I observed, “The danger is, that success may tempt him to go beyond the line of necessity, either for the ends of justice or security. If he stops with the Pokaran chief, and one or two inferior, concerned in the coalition of 1806 and the usurpation of his son, with the condign punishment of a few of the civil officers, it will afford a high opinion of his character; but if he involves Awa, and the other principal chiefs, in these proscriptions, he may provoke a strife which will yet overwhelm him. He has done enough for justice, and even for revenge, which has been carried too far as regards Surthan Singh, whose death (which I sincerely regret) was a prodigal sacrifice.”

Footnote 5.15.11:

Vol. I. p. 228.

Footnote 5.15.12:

Vol. I. p. 146.

Footnote 5.15.13:

He was so when the author left India in 1823. [In 1827 Dhonkal Singh raised forces in Jaipur for the invasion of Mārwār. Mān Singh demanded aid from the British Government, which was refused. “At the same time, the Jaipur State was considered to have acted in breach of its engagements with Government by having allowed an armed confederacy to form against Jodhpur within its territory, and strong remonstrances were addressed to the Darbār; lastly, Dhonkal Singh was required to withdraw from the confederacy, and the nobles settled their differences among themselves” (Erskine iii. A. 72). In 1839 the misgovernment of Mān Singh led to British military intervention. He died on 5th September 1843.]

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