Chapter 12…

Chapter 12

=The Whirlpools of the Chambal=, December 3.—Having halted several days at Barolli to admire the works of man, we marched to contemplate the still more stupendous operations of nature—the Chulis, or ‘whirlpools,’ of the Chambal. For three miles we had to hew a path through the forest for our camels and horses; at the end of which, the sound of many waters gradually increased, until we stood on the bleak edge of the river’s rocky bed. Our little camp was pitched upon an elevated spot, commanding a view over one of the most striking objects of nature—a scene bold beyond the power of description. Behind us was a deep wood; in front, the abrupt precipices of the Patar; to the left, the river expanded into a lake of ample dimensions, fringed with trees, and a little onward to the right, the majestic and mighty Charmanvati, one of the sixteen sacred rivers of India, shrunk into such a narrow compass that even man might bestride it. From the tent, nothing seemed to disturb the unruffled surface of the lake, until we approached the point of outlet, and beheld the deep bed the river has excavated in the rock. This is the commencement of the falls. Proceeding along the margin, one rapid succeeds another, the gulf increasing in width, and the noise becoming more terrific, until you arrive at a spot where the stream is split into four distinct channels; and a little farther, an isolated rock appears, high over which the whitened spray ascends, the sunbeams playing on it. Here the separated channels, each terminating in a cascade, fall into an ample basin, and again unite their waters, boiling around the masses of black rock, which ever and anon peeps out and contrasts with the foaming surge rising from the whirlpools (chulis) beneath. From this huge cauldron the waters again divide into two branches, encircling and isolating the rock, on whose northern face they reunite, and form another fine fall [715].

A tree is laid across the chasm, by the aid of which the adventurous may attain the summit of the rock, which is quite flat, and is called ‘the table of the Thakur of Bhainsror,’ who often, in the summer, holds his got or feast there, and a fitter spot for such an entertainment can scarcely be imagined. Here, soothed by the murmur of foaming waters, the eye dwelling on a variety of picturesque objects, seen through the prismatic hues of the spray-clouds, the baron of Bhainsror and his little court may sip their amrit, fancying it, all the while, taken from the churning of the little ocean beneath them.

On issuing from the Chulis, the river continues its course through its rocky bed, which gradually diminishes to about fifteen feet, and with greatly increased velocity, until, meeting a softer soil, under Bhainsror, it would float a man-of-war. The distance from the lake first described to this rock is about a mile, and the difference of elevation, under two hundred feet; the main cascade being about sixty feet fall. It is a curious fact that, after a course of three hundred miles, the bed of a mighty river like this should be no more than about three yards broad. The whirlpools are huge perpendicular caverns, thirty and forty feet in depth, between some of which there is a communication underground; the orbicular stones, termed roris, are often forced up in the agitation of these natural cauldrons; one of them represents the object of worship at Bal-rori. For many miles down the stream, towards Kotah, the rock is everywhere pierced by incipient Chulis, or whirlpools, which, according to their size and force, are always filled with these rounded stones.

From hence the Chambal pursues its course through the plateau (sometimes six hundred feet high) to Kotah. Here nature is in her grandest attire. The scene, though wild and rugged, is sublime; and were I offered an estate in Mewar, I would choose Bhainsror, and should be delighted to hold my got enveloped in the mists which rise from the whirlpools of the Chambal [716].

=Gangabheva=, December 4.—The carpenters have been at work for some days hewing a road for us to pass to Gangabheva, another famed retreat in this wild and now utterly deserted abode. We commenced our march through a forest, the dog-star nearly south; the river dimly seen on our right. On our left were the remains of a ruined circumvallation, which is termed Rana-Kot; probably a ramna, or preserve. At daybreak we arrived at the hamlet of Kherli; and here, our course changing abruptly to the south-east, we left the river, and continued our journey through rocks and thickets, until a deep grove of lofty trees, enclosed by a dilapidated wall, showed that we had reached the object of our search, Gangabheva.

What a scene burst upon us, as we cleared the ruined wall and forced our way over the mouldering fragments of ancient grandeur! Gangabheva, or ‘the circle of Ganga,’[11.12.1] appears to have been selected as a retreat for the votaries of Mahadeva, from its being a little oasis in this rock-bound valley; for its site was a fine turf, kept in perpetual verdure by springs.

=The Saiva Temple.=—The chief object is the temple, dedicated to the creative power; it stands in the centre of a quadrangle of smaller shrines, which have more the appearance of being the cenotaphs of some ancient dynasty than domiciles for the inferior divinities. The contrast between the architecture of the principal temple, and that of the shrines which surround it, is remarkable. The body of the chief temple has been destroyed, and with its wrecks a simple, inelegant mandir has been raised; nor is there aught of the primitive structure, except the portico, remaining. Its columns are fluted, and the entablature (part of which lies prostrate and reversed)[11.12.2] exhibits a profusion of rich sculpture. In front of the temple is a circular basin, always overflowing, and whence the term bhevo or bheo, ‘a circle,’ added to the name of the spring, which is feigned to be an emanation of Ganga. The surface of its waters is covered with the flower sacred to the goddess, that particular lotus termed kamadhan, which may be rendered ‘the riches of love.’

The chief temple evinces the same skill and taste as the structures of Barolli, and the embellishments are similar. We here recognize the groups of Mahadeva and Parbati, with the griffins (grasda), the Naginis, half serpent, half female, etc., though not in so finished a style as at Barolli. Whatever be the age of this temple (and we found on the pavement the name of a votary with the date S. 1011, or A.D. 955), it is many centuries more recent than those which surround it, in whose massive simplicity we [717] have a fine specimen of the primitive architecture of the Hindus. Even of these, we can trace varieties. That of which we present a drawing (vide Plate) shows, in its fluted columns, a more ambitious, though not a better taste, than the plainer supporters of the pyramidal roofs, which cover all the ancient temples of Bal-Siva. Five of these small shrines filled up each face of the quadrangle, but with the exception of those on the east side, all are in ruins. The doors of those which possess an enclosed sanctum face inwards towards the larger shrine: and each has a simple low altar, on which are ranged the attendant divinities of Mahadeva. The sculpture of all these is of a much later date than the specimens at Barolli, and of inferior execution, though far superior to anything that the Hindu sculptor of modern days can fabricate. They may possibly be of the date found inscribed (the tenth century), posterior to which no good Hindu sculpture is to be found. As this spot is now utterly deserted, and the tiger and wild boar are the only inhabitants that visit the groves of Gangabheva, I shall be guilty of no sacrilege in removing a few of these specimens of early art.[11.12.3]

Nature has co-operated with the ruthless Turk in destroying the oldest specimens of the art. Wherever there is a chink or crevice, vegetation fixes itself. Of this we had a fine specimen in a gigantic but now mouldering kur, which had implanted itself in the mandap of the principal temple, and rent it to its foundation. On examining its immense roots, large slabs were actually encased with the wood, the bark of which nearly covers a whole regiment of petty gods. This fact alone attests the longevity of this species of tree, which is said to live a thousand years. The fountain temple has, in a similar way, been levelled by another of these kur-trees, the branches of which had gradually pressed in and overwhelmed it. The Singar-chaori, or nuptial hall, is also nearly unroofed; and although the portico may yet survive for ages, time is rapidly consuming the rest.

I should have said that there are two distinct enclosures, an interior and exterior, and it is the first which is crowded with the noblest trees, everywhere clustered by the Amarvela, ‘the garland of eternity,’ sacred to Mahadeva, which shades the shrine, overhanging it in festoons. This is the giant of the parasitic tribe, its main stem being as thick near the root as my body. I counted sixty joints, each apparently denoting a year’s growth, yet not half-way up the tree on which it climbed. That [718] highly-scented shrub, the ketaki,[11.12.4] grew in great profusion near the kund, and a bevy of monkeys were gambolling about them, the sole inhabitants of the grove. The more remote enclosure contained many altars, sacred to the manes of the faithful wives who became Satis for the salvation of their lords. On some of these altars were three and four putlis, or images, denoting the number of devotees. It would require a month’s halt and a company of pioneers to turn over these ruins, and then we might not be rewarded for our pains. We have therefore set to work to clear a path, that we may emerge from these wilds.

=Nauli=, December 5; twelve miles.—The road runs through one continued forest, which would have been utterly impassable but for the hatchet. Half-way is the boundary between Bhainsror and Bhanpura, also an ancient appanage of Mewar, but now belonging to Holkar. Nauli is a comfortable village, having the remains of a fort to the westward.

In the evening I went to visit Takaji-ka-kund, or ‘fountain of the snake-king.’ It is about two miles east of Nauli; the road, through a jungle, over the flat highland or Patar, presents no indication of the object of research, until you suddenly find yourself on the brink of a precipice nearly two hundred feet in depth, crowded with noble trees, on which the knotted kur was again conspicuous. The descent to this glen was over masses of rock; and about half-way down, on a small platform, are two shrines; one containing the statue of Takshak, the snake-king; the other of Dhanvantari, the physician, who was produced at the “churning of the ocean.” The kund, or fountain, at the southern extremity of the abyss, is about two hundred yards in circumference, and termed athah, or ‘unfathomable,’ according to my guide, and if we may judge from its dark sea-green lustre, it must be of considerable depth. It is filled by a cascade of full one hundred feet perpendicular height, under which is a stone seat, sacred to the genius of the spot. At the west side issues a rivulet, called the Takhaili, or serpentine, which, after pursuing a winding course for many miles, some hundred feet below the surface of the Patar, washes the eastern face of Hinglajgarh, and ultimately joins the Amjar. Ghasi, my native artist, is busy with the effigy of the snake-king, and Dhanvantari, the Vaidya. From the summit of the plateau we had a view of the castle of Hinglaj, celebrated in Lord Lake’s war with the Mahrattas, and which was taken by Captain Hutchinson with a few men of the Bengal artillery.[11.12.5]

=Bhānpura=, December 6, eight miles.—This was a delightful march, presenting [719] pictures at every step. Two miles, through jungle, brought us to the abrupt crest of the Patar. For some distance the route was over a neck or chine, with deep perpendicular dells on each side, which, at its extremity, the point of descent, termed the ghat or pass, became a valley, gradually expanding until we reached Bhanpura. At the ghat are the remains of a very ancient fortress, named Indorgarh, which must have been one of the strongholds of this region long anterior to the Chandrawat feudatories of Mewar. Some fragments of sculpture indicate the presence of the artist of Barolli; but all search for inscriptions was fruitless. From hence we saw the well-defined skirts of the plateau stretching westward by Rampura to the Lasaughat, Tarapur, and Jawad, the point of our ascent last year.

It was pleasing, after a week’s incarceration amidst these ruins and scenes of natural grandeur, where European foot had never trod, to see verdant fields and inhabitants of the plains; such alternations make each delightful in its turn. We had been satiated with the interminable flats and unvarying cornfields of Haraoti, and it was a relief to quit that tame tranquillity for the whirlpools of the Chambal, the kunds of Ganga, and the snake-king in the regions of the inaccessible Durga.

=Mausoleum of Jaswant Rāo Holkar.=—As we approached Bhanpura, we crossed a small rivulet, called the Rewa, coming from the glen of the pass; near which is the mausoleum of Jaswant Rao Holkar, adjoining the scene of his greatest glory, when he drove an English army from his territory.[11.12.6] The architecture is worthy of the barbarian Mahratta; it is a vaulted building, erected upon a terrace, all of hewn stone; its only merit is its solidity. There is a statue of this intrepid chieftain, of the natural size, in the usual ungraceful sitting posture, with his little turban; but it gives but a mean idea of the man who made terms with Lake at the altars of Alexander. It is enclosed by a miniature and regularly built fortress, with bastions, the interior of which are hollow and colonnaded, serving as a Dharmsala, or place of halt for pilgrims or travellers; and on the terrace are a few rahaklas, or swivels. On the right of the temple destined to receive the effigy of Jaswant, is a smaller cenotaph to the memory of his sister, who died shortly after him. The gateway leading into this castellated tomb has apartments at the top, and at the entrance is a handsome piece of brass ordnance, called Kali, or ‘death.’ There is a temporary building on the right of the gateway, where prayers are recited all day long for the soul of Jaswant, before an altar on which were placed twenty-four dewas, or lamps, always burning. A figure dressed in white was on the altar; immediately behind which, painted on the wall, was Jaswant himself, and as in the days [720] of his glory, mounted on his favourite war-horse, Mahua. The chamar was waving over his head, and silver-mace bearers were attending, while the officiating priests, seated on carpets, pronounced their incantations.

I left the master to visit Mahua, whose stall is close to the mausoleum of Holkar, whom he bore in many a desperate strife. The noble animal seemed to possess all his master’s aversion to a Farangi, and when, having requested his body-clothes to be removed, I went up to examine him, he at first backed his ears and showed fight; but at last permitted me to rub his fine forehead. Mahua is a chestnut of the famed Bhimthadi[11.12.7] breed; like his master, a genuine native of Maharashtra, he exhibits the framework of a perfect horse, though under 14-3; his forelegs show what he has gone through. His head is a model, exhibiting the highest quality of blood; ears small and pointed, eye full and protruding, and a mouth that could drink out of a tea-cup. He is in very good condition; but I put in my arzi that they would provide more ample and sweeter bedding, which was readily promised. The favourite elephant is a pensioner as well as Mahua. Even in these simple incidents we see that the mind is influenced by similar associations all over the world.

Bhanpura is a town of five thousand houses, surrounded by a wall in good order; the inhabitants apparently well contented with the mild administration of Tantia Jog,[11.12.8] the present Diwan of Holkar’s court; but they are all alive to the conviction that this tranquillity is due to the supervising power alone. I was greatly gratified by a visit from the respectable community of Bhanpura, merchants, bankers, and artisans, headed by the Hakim in person, nor could the inhabitants of my own country, Mewar, evince more kind and courteous feeling. In fact, they have not forgotten the old tie; that the Rao of Bhanpura, though now holding but a small portion of his inheritance, was one of the chief nobles of Mewar, and even still receives the tilak of accession for Amad from the hands of his ancient lord, though nearly a century has elapsed since Holkar became his sovereign de facto: but associations here are all-powerful.

=Garot=, December 7; distance, thirteen miles; direction, S.S.E.—It was delightful to range over the expansive plains of Malwa, and not to be reminded at every step by the exclamation “thokar!” of the attendant, that there was some stony impediment ready to trip one up, the moment one’s vision was raised above the earth. A singular contrast was presented between the moral aspect of these plains and of Haraoti. Here, though the seat of perpetual war, still visible in sterile fields, we [721] observe comfort displayed in the huts and in the persons of the peasantry; there, amidst all the gifts of Annapurna, the miserable condition of the ryot provokes one to ask, “Whence this difference?” The reason is elsewhere explained.

Garot is a thriving town of twelve hundred houses, the chief of a tappa or subdivision of Rampura, whence a deputy Hakim is sent as resident manager. It is walled in; but the inhabitants seemed to feel they had now a better security than walls. Here there is nothing antique; but Moli, with its old castle, about midway in this morning’s journey, might furnish something for the porte-feuille, especially a fine sculptured toran yet standing, and fragments strewed in every direction. Tradition is almost mute, and all I could learn was, that it was the abode of a king, called Satal-Patal, whom they carried back to the era of the Pandus.

I was much surprised to find the plain strewed with agates and cornelians, of every variety of tint and shape, both veined and plain, semi-transparent and opaque, many stalactitic, in various degrees of hardness, still containing the fibre of grass or root, serving as a nucleus for the concretion. There are no hills to account for these products in the black loam of the plains, unless the Chambal should have burst his bed and inundated them. Nor are there any nalas which could have carried them down, or any appearance of calcareous deposit in the soil, which when penetrated to any depth, was found to rest upon blue slate.

=Caves of Dhamnār=,[11.12.9] December 8; direction, south 10° west; distance, twelve miles.—The country reminded us of Mewar, having the same agreeable undulations of surface and a rich soil, which was strewed throughout, as yesterday, with agates. As we approached the object of our search, the caves of Dhamnar, we crossed a rocky ridge covered with the dhak jungle, through which we travelled until we arrived at the mount. We found our camp pitched at the northern base, near a fine tank of water; but our curiosity was too great to think of breakfast until the mental appetite was satiated.

The hill is between two and three miles in circumference; to the north it is bluff, of gradual ascent, and about one hundred and forty feet in height, the summit presenting a bold perpendicular scarp, about thirty feet high. The top is flat, and covered with bar trees. On the south side it has the form of a horse-shoe, or irregular crescent, the horns of which are turned to the south, having the same bold natural rampart running round its crest, pierced throughout with caves, of which I counted one hundred and seventy;[11.12.10] I should rather say that these were merely the entrances to the [722] temples and extensive habitations of these ancient Troglodytes. The rock is a cellular iron-clay, so indurated and compact as to take a polish. There are traces of a city, external as well as internal, but whether they were cotemporaneous we cannot conjecture. If we judge from the remains of a wall about nine feet thick, of Cyclopean formation, being composed of large oblong masses without cement, we might incline to that opinion, and suppose that the caves were for the monastic inhabitants, did they not afford to the contrary in their extent and appropriation.

On reaching the scarp, we wound round its base until we arrived at an opening cut through it from top to bottom, which proved to be the entrance to a gallery of about one hundred yards in length and nearly four in breadth, terminating in a quadrangular court, measuring about one hundred feet by seventy, and about thirty-five feet in height; in short, an immense square cavity, hollowed out of the rock, in the centre of which, cut in like manner out of one single mass of stone, is the temple of the four-armed divinity, Chaturbhuja. Exclusive of this gallery, there is a staircase cut in the north-west angle of the excavation, by which there is an ascent to the summit of the rock, on a level with which is the pinnacle of the temple. Apparently without any soil, some of the finest trees I ever saw, chiefly the sacred pipal, bar, and tamarind, are to be found here.

The ground-plan of the temple is of the usual form, having a mandir, mandap, and portico, to which the well-known term pagoda is given, and there is simplicity as well as solidity both in the design and execution. The columns, entablatures, with a good show of ornament, are distinct in their details; and there are many statutes, besides flowers, not in bad taste, especially the carved ceilings. It would be regarded as a curiosity if found on a plain, and put together in the ordinary manner; but when it is considered that all is from one block, and that the material is so little calculated to display the artist’s skill, the work is stupendous.

Vishnu, who is here adored as the ‘four-armed,’ was placed upon an altar, clad in robes of his favourite colour (pandu, or yellow ochre), whence one of his titles, Pandurang. The principal shrine is surrounded by the inferior divinities in the following order: First, on entering are the Poliyas or ‘Porters’; Ganesa is upon the right, close to whom is Sarasvati, “whose throne is on the tongue”; and on the left are the twin sons of Kali, the Bhairavas, distinguished as Kala (black), and Gora (fair); a little in advance of these is a shrine containing five of the ten Mahavidyas,[11.12.11] or ministering agents of Kali, each known by her symbol, or vahan, as the bull, man, elephant [723], buffalo, and peacock. The Mahavidyas are all evil genii, invoked in jap, or incantations against an enemy, and phylacteries, containing formulas addressed to them, are bound round the arms of warriors in battle.[11.12.12]

At the back of the chief temple are three shrines; the central one contains a statue of Narayana, upon his hydra-couch, with Lakshmi at his feet. Two Daityas, or evil spirits, appear in conflict close to her; and a second figure represents her in a running posture, looking back, in great alarm, at the combatants. Smaller figures about Narayana represent the heavenly choristers administering to his repose, playing on various instruments, the murali, or flute, the vina, or lyre, the mayura, or tabor, and the mridang and thal, or cymbals, at the sound of which a serpent appears, rearing his crest with delight. The minor temples, like the larger one, are also hewn out of the rock; but the statues they contain are from the quartz rock of the Patar and they, therefore, appear incongruous with the other parts. In fact, from an emblem of Mahadeva, which rises out of the threshold, and upon which the ‘four-armed’ Vishnu looks down, I infer that these temples were originally dedicated to the creative power.

We proceeded by the steps, cut laterally in the rock, to the south side, where we enjoyed, through the opening, an unlimited range of vision over the plains beyond the Chambal, even to Mandasor and Sondwara. Descending some rude steps, and turning to the left, we entered a cavern, the roof of which was supported by one of those singularly shaped columns, named after the sacred mounts of the Jains; and here it is necessary to mention a curious fact, that while everything on one side is Buddhist or Jain, on the other all is Saiva or Vaishnava. At the entrance to the cave adjoining this are various colossal figures, standing or sitting, too characteristic of the Buddhists or Jains to be mistaken; but on this, the south side, everything is ascribed to the Pandus, and a recumbent figure, ten feet in length, with his hand under his head, as if asleep, is termed “the son of Bhim,” and as the local tradition goes, “only one hour old”: a circumstance which called forth my conductor, who gravely swallowed the tale, the exclamation—“What would he have been if nau mahine ka balak, 'a nine months’ child'!”[11.12.13] The chief group is called the Five Pandus, who, according to tradition, took up their abode here during their exile from the Jumna; and the other figures are performing menial offices to the heroes.[11.12.14]

Fortunately, I had my Jain Guru with me, who gave me more correct notions of these groups than the local cicerone. All these figures are representations of the [724] deified pontiffs of the Jains,[11.12.15] and the group of five are the most celebrated of the twenty-four, and distinctively called the Panch-Tirathi, namely, Rishabhadeva, the first; Santinath, the sixteenth; Neminath, the twenty-second; Parsvanath, the twenty-third; and Mahavira, the twenty-fourth. Each has his sacred mount, or place of pilgrimage (tirath), and each is recognized by his symbol, namely, the bull, black antelope, conch-shell, hooded serpent, and tiger; and it is quite sufficient to find one of these symbols upon the plinth to ascertain the particular pontiff to which it belongs. There was also, in a sitting posture, Chandraprabha, known by his sign, the crescent.[11.12.16] All the figures are from ten to eleven feet high. That in a recumbent position, my friend said was one of the pontiffs, about to “shuffle off this mortal coil,” preparatory to apotheosis. “When such an event took place, the throne of Indra shook, and he sent a deputation to convey the deceased through the Kshira Samudra (sea of curds), to the great temple of deification, whither the whole heavenly host advanced to conduct him.”

Next to, and communicating by a passage with, this hall of the Jain pontiffs, is the most extensive excavation of Dhamnar, locally designated as “Bhim’s Bazar.”[11.12.17] The extreme length of this excavation is about a hundred feet, and the breadth eighty. Although the name of this leader of the Pandus designates every subdivision of this cave, yet everything is Buddhist. The main apartment is that called Bhim’s armoury or treasury, the entrance to which is through a vestibule, about twenty feet square, supported by two columns, and having four lateral semicircular niches, now empty, but probably intended for statues: this opens to the armoury, which is a vaulted apartment, about thirty feet by fifteen, having at the further end a dagoba, supporting the roof. These singularly formed columns, if we may so term them, are named after their sacred mounts; and this is called Sumeru, which being sacred to Adinath, the first pontiff, we may conclude he was here adored. An extensive piazza, full twenty feet wide, evidently a Dharamsala for the pilgrims, runs round this apartment, supported by rows of massive square columns, all cut out of the rock; and again, on the exterior, are numerous square cells, called the apartments of the Srawaks, or Jain laity; in one of which there is a supporting dagoba, and in another two statues of the twenty-third pontiff, Parsva. A part of the vaulted roof of Bhim’s treasury, as it is called, has fallen in so that the vault of heaven is seen through the aperture of the mountain. This is also attributed to Kaurava Chor (thief), whose statue appears on the pinnacle of the temple of Barolli, indicating the old enemy of [725] the Pandus, who robbed them of their kingdom. Close to the armoury is an apartment called the Rajloka, or for the ladies; but here tradition is at fault, since with the exception of Kunti, the mother, Draupadi alone shared the exile of the Pandavas.

Still further to the right, or south-west, is another vaulted and roof-ribbed apartment, thirty feet by fourteen, and about sixteen in central height, supported by another image of Sumeru. The sacred bar, or fig-tree (Ficus religiosa), had taken root in the very heart of this cavern, and having expanded until checked by the roof, it found the line of least resistance to be the cave’s mouth, whence it issued horizontally, and is now a goodly tree overshadowing the cave (vide Plate). Around this there are many Pausiddhsalas, or halls for the Yatis, or initiated disciples, who stand in the same upright meditative posture as the pontiffs.

But it is impossible, and the attempt would be tedious, to give, by any written description, an adequate idea of the subterranean town of Dhamnar. It is an object, however, which will assist in illustrating the subject of cave-worship in India; and though in grandeur these caves cannot compare with those of Ellora, Karli, or Salsette, yet in point of antiquity they evidently surpass them. The temple dedicated to the Tirthakaras, or deified Jineswars (lords of the Jains), is a rude specimen of a rude age, when the art of sculpture was in its very infancy; yet is there a boldness of delineation, as well as great originality of design, which distinguishes them from everything else in India. In vain we hunted for inscriptions; but a few isolated letters of that ancient and yet undeciphered kind, which occurs on every monument attributed to the Pandavas, were here and there observed. There were fragments of sculpture about the base of the hill, differing both in design and material from those of the mountain. Altogether, Dhamnar is highly worthy of a visit, being one of the most curious spots in this part, which abounds with curiosities [726].

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Footnote 11.12.1:

[The name may mean ‘Ganges fissure.’ The place is not mentioned by Erskine.]

Footnote 11.12.2:

It will be requisite to view this fragment in a reversed position to see the intended effort of the artist.

Footnote 11.12.3:

Of the style of these specimens the curious are enabled to judge, as several are deposited in the museum of the Royal Asiatic Society. These mark the decline of the arts; as do those of Barolli its perhaps highest point of excellence.

Footnote 11.12.4:

[Pandanus odoratissimus.]

Footnote 11.12.5:

[The fort was captured in July 1804 (Mill, Hist. British India, ed. 1817, iii. 674).]

Footnote 11.12.6:

[He became Chief of Indor about 1802; was defeated by Lord Lake; became insane in 1806, and died October 20, 1811.]

Footnote 11.12.7:

[See Vol. II. p. 1045.]

Footnote 11.12.8:

[Tāntia Jog was a Karhāda Brāhman from Khāndesh, who attached himself to one of Holkar’s European officers, and by managing the districts assigned for the support of the troops, provided funds for their pay. He was with Holkar till the murder of the European officers, before Jaswant Rāo invaded Hindustān. He then returned to Ujjain, and carried on the business of a Sahukār or banker. See Malcolm, Memoir of Central India, 2nd ed. i. 286.]

Footnote 11.12.9:

[In Indor State, Central India. For accounts of them see Fergusson-Burgess, Cave Temples of India, 392 ff.; Cunningham, ASR, ii. 270 ff.; IGI, xi. 283.]

Footnote 11.12.10:

[There are not more than seventy actual caves (ASR, ii. 275; Fergusson-Burgess, op. cit. 392).]

Footnote 11.12.11:

[According to the Tantras, there are ten Mahāvidyas, or female incarnations of Sakti, the principle of productiveness.]

Footnote 11.12.12:

[For a plan of this temple see Fergusson, Hist. Ind. Arch. ed. 1910, ii. 129.]

Footnote 11.12.13:

[The figure is fifteen feet in length, and represents Buddha entering Nirvāna (Fergusson-Burgess, 395).]

Footnote 11.12.14:

[The figures are Buddha and Dwārpālas or door-keepers (ibid. 394 f.).]

Footnote 11.12.15:

[The Guru was mistaken in supposing these figures to be Jain.]

Footnote 11.12.16:

[The Author was misled by his Guru. The figures are Buddhist (Fergusson-Burgess, op. cit. 392, note 2).]

Footnote 11.12.17:

[This is a Buddhist Chaitya cave surrounded by a Vihāra. These caves are probably the last constructed Buddhist caves in India, and can hardly be dated before the eighth century A.D. (ibid. 393; ASR, ii. 272 f.).]

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Chapter 13

=Pachpahār. Monson’s Retreat. Fate of Lieutenant Lucan.= December 10.—We returned to Garot yesterday, whence we marched ten miles north-north-east this morning over memorable ground. It was from Garot that the retreat of Monson commenced, an event as remarkable in the history of British India as the retreat of Xenophon in that of Greece. The former has not been commemorated by the commander, though even the pen of Xenophon himself could not have mitigated the reproach which that disastrous event has left upon our military reputation. Holkar was at Partabgarh,[11.13.1] when, hearing of the advance of the English army, he made direct on Mandasor,[11.13.2] where he halted merely to refresh his horses, and crossing the Chambal at the Aunra ford, he pushed direct on Garot, a distance of nearly fifty miles. Local report states that Monson, in utter ignorance of the rapid advance of Holkar, had that morning recommenced his march for Chandwasa, with what object is unknown; but as soon as he learned the vicinity of the foe, without awaiting him, he ordered a retrograde movement to gain the Mukunddarra pass, leaving Lucan with the irregular horse and the Kotah auxiliaries, chiefly Hara Rajputs, to secure his retreat. Holkar’s army amounted to ten thousand horse, in four gols, or masses, each acting separately. That under —— Khan Bangash[11.13.3] came on Lucan from the south, while that under Harnath Dada, from the direction of Bhanpur, attacked the Kotah contingent. Lucan defended himself like a hero, and having repelled all their charges, had become the assailant, when he received his death-blow from a hand in his own Paegah.[11.13.4] My informant, who was that day opposed to this gallant soldier, described the scene, pointing out the mahua tree close to which he fell.

=Heroism of Amar Singh Hāra.=—The auxiliary band of Kotah was led by the Hara chief of Kolai, his name Amar Singh. On receiving the orders of the English commander, he prepared, in the old Hara style, to obey them. The position he selected was about a quarter of a mile west of Lucan, on the north bank of the Amjar, his left protected by the village of [727] Pipli, which stands on a gentle eminence gradually shelving to the stream, the low abrupt bank of which would secure him from any charge in front. Here, dismounting from his horse, Amar Singh, surrounded by one thousand men, “spread his carpet,” resolved to defend the passage of the Amjar. His force was chiefly infantry, who met the enemy with volleys of matchlocks, and filled the stream with their bodies; but just as he was about to close with them, a ball hit him in the forehead and another in the right breast. He fell, but immediately rose again, and reclining against a sugar mill-stone, encouraged his men to the charge. The calmness of his manner indicated no danger, but it was the dying effort of a Hara: pointing with his sword to the foe, he fell back and expired. Four hundred and fifty of his men were either killed or wounded around their chief, and among the latter, the Palaitha[11.13.5] chief, the next in rank to Koila, and the Bakhshi, or paymaster-general of Kotah, was made prisoner, and forced to sign a bond for ten lakhs of rupees as a ransom, a penalty for siding with the English.

A humble altar of clay marks the spot where the brave Hara fell, having a tablet, or Jujhar, representing as usual a cavalier and his steed, armed at all points. I felt indignation at the indifference of the regent who had not marked the spot with a more durable monument, but he is no Hara; though could he entomb the whole tribe, he would erect a structure rivalling even that of Mausolus. But this receives a homage which might be denied to a more splendid one; for the villagers of Pipli fail not in their duty to the manes of Amar Singh, whose lowly altar is maintained in repair. The devoted Lucan has not even so frail a monument as this; nor could I learn if the case which enclosed his gallant spirit had any rites of sepulture. But his memory will be cherished by the inhabitants of Pipli, who will point to the mahua tree as that of “Lucan Sahib ka Jujhar.”

By the sacrifice of these brave men, the British commander gained the Mukunddarra pass, without seeing even an enemy; had he there left only five companies, with sufficient supplies and ammunition, under such men as Sinclair or Nichol, Mukunddarra might have rivalled Thermopylae in renown; for such is the peculiarity of the position, that it would have taken a week to turn it, and that could be done by infantry alone. But the commander “had no confidence in his men”: why then did he accept the command? Throughout the retreat the sipahis were eager for the fight, and expressed their opinion openly of their leader; and when this ‘doubting’ commander left five companies to defend the passage of the Banas, how did they perform it? by repelling every assault, while a particle of ammunition lasted. I have often passed this [728] ford, once with Sindhia’s army, and only three years after the retreat. The gallant stand was admirably described to me by Zaman Khan Rohilla, a brave soldier and no boaster (and that day among our foes), who coolly pointed to the precise spot where he shot one of our officers, in the last charge, with his pistol. He said that the Mahratta infantry would no longer return to the charge, and that Jaswant Rao was like a madman, threw his turban on the ground and called for volunteers amongst the cavalry, by whom at length Sinclair and his men were cut off. It is a lesson by which we ought to profit, never to place in command of sipahis those who do not understand, confide in, and respect them.

=Pachpahār.=—Pachpahar is a thriving town, the head of one of the four districts of which, by the right of war, we became possessed, and have transferred from Holkar to the regent; so far we have discharged the debt of gratitude. Eighty villages are attached to Pachpahar, which, though never yielding less than half a lakh of rupees, is capable of raising more than twice that sum. There are two thousand houses in the town, which has an extensive bazar filled with rich traders and bankers, all of whom came to visit me. The cornelian continues to strew the ground even to this place.

=Kanwāra=, December 11; thirteen miles; direction, N.E. by E.—Passed over a fine rich soil, with promising young crops of wheat and gram, and plenty of the last crop (juar) in stacks; a sight not often seen in these war-trodden plains, and which makes the name, Kanwara, or ‘the land of corn,’ very appropriate. At the village of Aonla, four miles south, we crossed the high road leading from Ujjain through the darra to Hindustan, the large town of Sonel lying three miles to our right.

=Jhālrapātan=,[11.13.6] December 12; ten miles; direction, N.N.E.—The road over the same fertile soil. Passed the Chandarbhaga rivulet, the source of which is only two coss distant, and was shown, within range, the isolated hill of Raleta, formerly the retreat of a Bhil community, which sent forth four thousand bowmen to ravage the plains of Malwa: these were extirpated by Zalim Singh.

Jhalrapatan is the creation of the regent; and, as we approached it, his kindness procured me the distinction of being met, a full mile beyond the town, by the chief magistrate, the council, and the most wealthy inhabitants: an honour duly appreciated, this being the only town in India possessing the germs of civil liberty, in the power of framing their own municipal regulations. This is the more remarkable, as the immunities of their commercial charter were granted by the most despotic ruler of India; though the boon was not a concession to liberty, but an act of policy; it was [729] given for value received, or at least expected, and which has been amply realized. Having exchanged salutations, and promised a more extended courtesy at my tents in the evening, we took advantage of the town being thinned, and passed in under a general discharge of ordnance from the ramparts. The city is nearly a square, surrounded by a substantial wall and bastions, well furnished with cannon. The ground plan is simple, being that of the Indian Chaupan or cross, with two main streets intersecting each other at right angles, and many smaller ones running parallel to them. The main street is from south to north. We proceeded through this Bara Bazar until we reached the point of intersection, where, upon a broad terrace, stands a temple to Chaturbhuja, the ‘four-armed’ god, at least ninety feet in height. The marble dome and colonnaded mandap, and the general proportions of the structure, attracted my attention; but having been recently repaired and coated with white, I passed it by, conceiving it to be modern, and not likely to furnish historical data. From thence to the northern gate is a range, on either side, of houses of a uniform structure, having a great appearance of comfort; and the street, which is nearly a mile long, terminates with a temple erected by the regent to his favourite divinity, Dwarkanath. The image here enshrined was ploughed up from the ruins of the ancient city, and carried to the regent at Kotah, who, leaving to the choice of the god the title under which, and the site where, he would be worshipped, his various names were inscribed and placed under the pedestal; the priest drew forth that of Gopalji, and a magnificent shrine was erected to him upon the bank of one of the finest lakes in India, the waters of which, raised by an artificial dam, could be made to environ it at pleasure.

In a street to the north, and parallel to the first, but as yet incomplete, is a handsome temple, dedicated to the sixteenth Jain prophet. This also, I afterwards discovered, was an antique structure, recently repaired, and one of the hundred and eight temples, the bells of which sounded in the ancient city; whence its name Jhalrapatan, or ‘the city of bells,’ and not, as erroneously stated hitherto, from the tribe of the regent, Jhalara-patan, or ‘city of the Jhala’;[11.13.7] ignorance of which fact made me pass over the temples, under the supposition that they were coeval with its modern foundation. I stopped for a few moments at the mansion of the chief magistrate, Sah Maniram, and having expressed my admiration of all I had seen, and my hope that the prosperity of the city would redouble under his paternal care in these days of peace, I made my salaam and took leave. Opposite his house, engraved on a [730] pillar of stone, is the charter of rights of the city.[11.13.8] Its simplicity will excite a smile; but the philosopher may trace in it the first rudiments of that commercial greatness, which made the free cities of Europe the instruments of general liberty. Few of these had their privileges so thoroughly defined, or so scrupulously observed; and the motive which brought the community together was the surest guarantee against their infringement. A state of general war made them congregate, and was the origin of these immunities, which the existing peace and tranquillity will perpetuate. Any want of good faith would be the destruction of Patan.

When the regent took advantage of the times to invite the wealthy of all the surrounding regions to become settlers in this new mart, he wisely appealed to the evidence of their senses as the best pledge for the fulfilment of his promises. Simultaneously with the charter, the fortifications were commenced, and an adequate garrison was placed here under a commandant well known and respected. He excavated wells, repaired the dam of the old lake, and either built anew or repaired the religious edifices of all sects at the expense of the State; and, to secure uniformity and solidity in the new habitations, he advanced to every man who required it half the money necessary for their construction. But the greatest boon of all was his leaving the administration of justice, as well as of internal police, entirely in the hands of the municipal authorities, who, to their credit, resolved that the fines and forfeitures arising therefrom, instead of becoming a bait for avarice and vexatious interference, should be offerings to the shrine of Dwarkanath.

It is proper to say that the chief magistrate, Sah Maniram, who is of the Vaishnava sect, has a coadjutor in Gumaniram, of the Oswal tribe and Jain faith, and each has his separate tribunal for the classes he represents, while the whole form a joint council for the general weal. They pull well together, and each has founded a pura, or suburb, named after their children. The Chauthias, or members of this council, are selected according to the general sense entertained of their fitness; and were the chief magistrates also the free choice of the inhabitants at large, ‘the city of bells’ would require no addition to her freedom. Thus, in the short space of twenty years, has been raised a city of six thousand comfortable dwellings, with a population of at least twenty-five thousand souls. But the hereditary principle, so powerful throughout these countries, and which, though it perpetuates many evils, has likewise been productive of much good, and has preserved these States from annihilation, will inevitably [731] make the ‘turban’ of magistracy descend from the head of Maniram or Gumani to their children, under whom, if they be not imbued with the same discretion as their parents, the stone tablet, as well as the subsequent privileges of Jhalrapatan, may become a dead letter. The only officers of government residing in the town are the commandant and the collector of the imposts; and so jealous are they of the least interference on his part, that a fine would be inflicted on any individual who, by delaying the payment of the authorized duties, furnished an excuse for his interference.

Such is an outline of an internal administration, on which I have just had a commentary of the most agreeable description: a public visit from all the wealth and worth of Patan. First came the merchants, the brokers, the insurers of the Vaishnava persuasion, each being introduced with the name of the firm; then followed the Oswal merchants, in similar form, and both of them I seated in the order of their introduction and respectability. After them followed the trades, the Chauthia or deacons, each making his nazar in the name of the whole body. Then came the artisans, goldsmiths, braziers, dyers, confectioners, down to the barbers, and town-crier. The agricultural interest was evidently at a discount in Patan, and subordinate to the commercial; the old Mandloi Patels were, “though last, not least” in this interesting assemblage. Even the frail sisterhood paid their devoirs, and, in their modesty of demeanour, recalled the passage of Burke applied in contrast to a neighbouring State, “vice lost half its deformity, by losing all its grossness.”[11.13.9] Sah Maniram himself preserved order outside, while to his colleague he left the formalities of introduction. The goldsmiths’ company presented, as their nazar, a small silver powder-flask, shaped as an alligator, and covered with delicate chain-work, which I shall retain not only as a specimen of the craft, but in remembrance of a day full of unusual interest. They retired in the same order as they came, preceded by the town band, flags, trumpets, and drums.

Such is Jhalrapatan. May the demon of anarchy keep from its walls, and the orthodox and heterodox Duumvirs live in amity for the sake of the general good, nor by their animosities increase the resemblance which this mart bears to the free cities of Europe!

From all I could learn, justice is distributed with as even a hand as in most societies, but wherever existed the community that submitted to restraint, or did not murmur at the fiat of the law? Jhalrapatan is now the grand commercial mart of Upper Malwa, and has swallowed up all the commerce of the central towns between [732] its own latitude and Indore. Though not even on the high road, when established, this difficulty was overcome by the road coming to it. The transit-duties on salt alone must be considerable, as that of the lakes of western Rajwara passes through it in its way to the south-east. It is not famed, however, for any staple article of trade, but merely as an entrepôt.

=Ruins of Chandrāvati.=—We have said enough of the modern city, and must now revert to the ancient, which, besides its metaphorical appellation of ‘the city of bells,’ had the name of Chandravati, and the rivulet which flowed through it, the Chandrabhaga.[11.13.10] There is an abundance of legends, to which we may be enabled to apply the test of inscriptions. In some, Raja Hun is again brought forward as the founder of the city; though others, with more probability, assign its foundation to the daughter of Chandrasen, the Pramar king of Malwa, who was delivered of a son on this spot while on a pilgrimage.[11.13.11] Another ascribes it to a more humble origin than either, i.e. to Jasu, a poor woodcutter of the ancient tribe of Or,[11.13.12] who, returning homewards from his daily occupation, dropped his axe upon the paras-patthar, with the aid of which he transmuted iron to gold, and raised ‘the city of the moon’ (Chandravati); and the lake is still called after him Jasu Or ka talab. The Pandu Bhim likewise comes in for his share of the founder’s fame; who, with his brethren during their covenant with the Kauravas, found concealment in the forest; but his foe, fearing the effect of his devotions, sent his familiar to disturb them. The spirit took the form of a boar, but as he sped past him through the thicket, Bhim discharged an arrow, and on the spot where this fell, the Chandrabhaga sprung up. Whoever was the founder, I have little doubt that tradition has converted Yasodharman,[11.13.13] the grandson of Udayaditya, the monarch of all Malwa, into the woodcutter; for not only does this prince’s name occur in one of the inscriptions found here, but I have discovered it in almost every ancient city of Central India, over which his ancestors had held supreme power from the first to the thirteenth century of Vikrama.[11.13.14]

The sites of temples mark the course of the stream for a considerable distance, the banks being strewed with ruins. Flights of steps, forming ghats, reach to the water’s edge, where multitudes of gods, goddesses, and demons, are piled, and some [733] of the more perfect placed upon altars of clay, around which some lazy, well-fed Gosains loiter, basking in the sun. Understanding that no umbrage could be taken if I exported some of them to Udaipur, I carried off Narayan on his hydra-couch, a Parbati, a Trimurti, and a cartload of the dii minores, which I found huddled together under a bar-tree. There was a fine statue of Ganesa, but our efforts to move Wisdom were ineffectual, and occasioned not a few jokes among my Brahmans; nor must I pass over a colossal Baraha (boar), of which no artist in Europe need be ashamed.

The powers of Destruction and Reproduction were those propitiated among the one hundred and eight shrines of Chandravati; of which only two or three imperfect specimens remain to attest the grandeur of past days. Everywhere, the symbolic lingam was scattered about, and the mandap of one of those still standing I found filled with representations of the Hindu Hecate and a host of lesser infernals, the sculpture of which, though far inferior to that at Barolli, is of a high order compared with aught of modern times. The attitudes are especially well managed, though there is a want of just proportion. Even the anatomical display of the muscles is attended to; but the dust, oil, and sendur (vermilion) of twelve centuries were upon them, and the place was dark and damp, which deterred us from disturbing them.

* * * * *

Ghasi is now at work upon the outline of two of the remaining shrines, and has promised to give up ten days to the details of the ceilings, the columns, and the rich varied ornaments, which the pencil alone can represent. One of these shrines, having a part of the Singar Chaori still standing, is amongst the finest things in Asia, not for magnitude, being to all appearance merely receptacles for the inferior divinities surrounding some grand temple, but for the sculptured ornaments, which no artist in Europe could surpass (vide Plate). Each consists of a simple mandir, or cella, about twenty feet square, having a portico and a long open colonnaded vestibule in front for the priests and votaries. Every one of these numerous columns differs in its details from the others. But the entrance chiefly excites admiration, being a mass of elaborate workmanship of a peculiar kind, and the foliage and flowers may be considered perfect. It is deeply to be lamented that no artists from [734] Europe have made casts from these masterpieces of sculpture and architecture, which would furnish many new ideas, and rescue the land sacred to Bhavani (Minerva) from the charge of having taught nothing but deformity: a charge from which it is my pride to have vindicated her.

* * * * *

While I remained with Ghasi, amidst the ruins, I dispatched my Guru and Brahmans to take diligent search for inscriptions; but many of these, as well as thousands of divinities, the wrecks of ancient Patan, have been built up in the new town or its immense circumvallation; but our efforts were not altogether unrewarded.

* * * * *

The oldest inscription, dated S. 748 (A.D. 692), bore the name of Raja Durgangal, or ‘the bar of the castle.’[11.13.15] It is very long, and in that ornamented character peculiar to the Buddhists and Jains throughout these regions. It contains allusions to the local traditions of the Pandu Arjun, and his encounter with the demon Virodhi[11.13.16] under the form of Baraha, or the boar; and states that from the spot where the Varaha was wounded, and on which his blood fell, a figure sprung, originating from the wound (khat), whose offspring in consequence was called Khatri: “of his line was Krishna Bhat Khatri, whose son was Takshak. What did he resemble, who obtained the fruits of the whole earth, conquering numerous foes? He had a son named Kaiyak, who was equal to the divinity which supports the globe: in wisdom he was renowned as Mahadeo: his name sent to sleep the children of his foe: he appeared as an avatar of Buddha, and like the ocean, which expands when the rays of the full moon fall upon it, even so does the sea of our knowledge increase when he looks upon it: and his verses are filled with ambrosia (amrita). From Chait to Chait, sacrifice never ceased burning: Indra went without offspring.[11.13.17] The contributions from the land were raised with justice, whilst his virtues overshadowed the three worlds. The light which shines from the tusks of his foe’s elephant had departed; and the hand which struck him on the head, to urge him on, emitted no sound. Where was the land that felt not his influence? Such was Sri Kaiyak! when he visited foreign lands, joy departed from the wives of his foe: may all his resolves be accomplished!

“S. 748 (A.D. 692), on the full moon of Jeth, this inscription was placed in the mandir, by Gupta, the grandson of Bhat Ganeswar, lord of the lords of verse of Mundal, and son of Hargupta: this writing was composed, in the presence of Sri [735] Durgangal Raja, to whom, salutation! that forehead alone is fair which bows to the gods, to a tutor, and to woman! Engraved by Ulak the stonecutter.”[11.13.18]

On this curious inscription we may bestow a few remarks. It appears to me that the wild legion of the creation of this Khatri, from the blood of Baraha, represented as a Danava, or demon in disguise, is another fiction to veil the admission of some northern race into the great Hindu family. The name of Baraha, as an ancient Indo-Scythic tribe, is fortunately abundantly preserved in the annals of Jaisalmer, which State, at the early periods of the Yadu-Bhatti history, opposed their entrance into India; while both Takshak (or Tak) and Kaiyak are names of Tatar origin, the former signifying ‘the snake,’ the latter ‘the heavens.’ The whole of this region bears evidence of a race whose religion was ophite, who bore the epithet of Takshak as the name of the tribe, and whose inscriptions in this same nail-headed character are found all over Central and Western India. If we combine this with all that we have already said regarding Raja Hun of Bhadravati, and Angatsi the Hun, who served the Rana of Chitor at this precise period,[11.13.19] when an irruption is recorded from Central Asia, we are forced to the conclusion, that this inscription (besides many others) is a memorial of a Scythic or Tatar prince, who, as well as the Gete prince of Salpura,[11.13.20] was grafted upon Hindu stock.

The inscription next in point of antiquity was from the Jain temple in the modern town. It was dated the 3rd of Jeth, S. 1103 (A.D. 1047), but recorded only the name of a visitor to the shrine.

Near the dam of the Or-sagar, there was a vast number of funeral memorials, termed Nisia,[11.13.21] of the Jain priesthood. One is dated “the 3rd of Magh, S. 1066 (A.D. 1010), on which day Srimant Deo, Chela, or disciple, of Acharya Srimana Dewa, left this world.” The bust of the Acharya, or doctor, is in a studious posture, the book lying open upon the Thuni or cross, which forms a reading-desk, often the only sign of the nisia to mark a Jain place of sepulture.

The adjoining one contained the name of Devindra Acharya; the date S. 1180.

Another was of “Kumar-deo, the Panda or priest of the race of Kumad Chandra Acharya, who finished his career on Thursday (guruwar) the Mul nakshatra[11.13.22] of S. 1289.”

There are many others, but as, like these, they contained no historical data, they were not transcribed [736].

=Nārāyanpur=, December 13, eleven miles.—Marched at daybreak, and about a coss north of the city ascended the natural boundary of Haraoti and Malwa; at the point of ascent was Gundor, formerly in the appanage of the Ghatirao (‘lord of the pass’), one of the legendary heroes of past days; and half a coss further was the point of descent into the Antri, or ‘valley,’ through which our course lay due north. In front, to the north-west, Gagraun, on the opposite range, was just visible through the gloom; while the yet more ancient Mhau,[11.13.23] the first capital of the Khichis, was pointed out five coss to the eastward. I felt most anxious to visit this city, celebrated in the traditions of Central India, and containing in itself and all around much that was worthy of notice. But time pressed; so we continued our route over the path trodden by the army of Alau-d-din when he besieged Achaldas in Gagraun.[11.13.24] The valley was full three miles wide, the soil fertile, and the scenery highly picturesque. The forest on each side echoed with the screams of the peacock, the calls of the partridge, and the note of the jungle-cock, who was crowing his matins as the sun gladdened his retreat. It was this Antri, or valley, that the regent selected for his Chhaoni, or ‘fixed camp,’ where he has resided for the last thirty years. It had at length attained the importance of a town, having spacious streets and well-built houses, and the materials for a circumvallation were rapidly accumulating: but there is little chance of his living to see it finished. The site is admirably chosen, upon the banks of the Amjar, and midway between the castle of Gagraun and Jhalrapatan. A short distance to the west of the regent’s camp is the Pindari-ki-chhaoni, where the sons of Karim Khan, the chief leader of those hordes, resided; for in these days of strife the old regent would have allied himself with Satan, if he had led a horde of plunderers. I was greatly amused to see in this camp, also assuming a permanent shape, the commencement of an Idgah, or ‘place of prayer’; for the villains, while they robbed and murdered even defenceless women, prayed five times a day!

We crossed the confluent streams of the Au and Amjar, which, flowing through the plains of Malwa, have forced their way through the exterior chain into the Antri of Gagraun, pass under its western face, dividing it from the town, and then join the Kali Sind [737].

=Gāgraun.=—Until you approach close to Gagraun, its town and castle appear united, and present a bold and striking object; and it is only on mounting the ridge that one perceives the strength of this position, the rock being scarped by the action of the waters to an immense height. The ascent to the summit of the ridge was so gradual that our surprise was complete, when, casting our eye north, we saw the Kali Sind sweeping along the northern face of both fort and town, whence it turns due north, ploughing its serpentine passage, at a depth of full two hundred feet below the level of the valley, through three distinct ranges, each chasm or opening appearing in this bold perspective like a huge portal, whence the river gains the yielding plains of Haraoti. As we passed under the town, we were saluted by a discharge from all the ordnance on its ramparts, and the governor, who had advanced to meet us at the express desire of his master, invited us in; but though strongly pressed, and equally desirous to see a place of such celebrity, I would not make myself acquainted with the secrets of this chief stronghold of the regent. On whichever side an enemy might approach it, he would have to take the bull by the horns. It was only by polluting the waters with the blood of the sacred kine, that Ala, ‘the sanguinary’ (Khuni), took it about five centuries ago from the valiant Khichi, Achaldas, an account of whose family would be here out of place. Independent of ancient associations, there is a wild grandeur about Gagraun, which makes it well worthy of a visit, and the views from the north must be still finer than from the point whence we beheld it.

We passed over the ridge at the extremity of the town, and descended into another Antri, up which we journeyed nearly due west until we reached our camp at Narayanpur. The valley was from four to six hundred yards in breadth, and in the highest state of cultivation; to preserve which, and at the same time to secure the game, the regent, at an immense expense, has cut deep trenches at the skirt of the hills on each [738] side, over which neither deer nor hog can pass, while the forests that crown the hills to their summit are almost impervious even to wild beasts. We passed various small cantonments, where the regent could collect the best part of his army, some even on the summit of the ridge. At all of these are wells, and reservoirs termed po.

=Mukunddarra Pass=, December 14, ten miles.—At daybreak, commenced our march up the valley, and midway between Narayanpur and the Darra, reached the ruined castle of Ghati, so called from its being erected on the summit of the ridge commanding an outlet of the valley. Partly from the gradual ascent of the valley, and from the depression of the ridge, we formed rather a mean opinion of the pass (ghati); but this feeling was soon lost when we attained the crest, and found ourselves on a scarped rock of some hundred feet in elevation, commanding a view over all the plains of Malwa, while at our feet was a continuation of the Antri of the Amjar, which we observed gliding through the deep woods the regent has allowed to remain at the entrances of these valleys.

Tradition is eloquent on the deeds of the ‘Lords of the Pass,’ both of the Khichi and Hara, and they point out the impression of Mehraj Khichi’s charger, as he sprang upon the Islamite invaders. There are many cenotaphs to the memory of the slain, and several small shrines to Siva and his consort, in one of which I found an inscription not only recording the name of Mehraj, but the curious fact that four generations were present at the consecration of one to Siva. It ran thus: “In S. 1657 and Saka 1522, in that particular year called Somya, the sun in the south, the season of cold, in the happy month Asoj, the dark half thereof, on Sunday, and the thirty-sixth ghari; in such a happy moment, the Khichi of Chauhan race, Maharaj Sri Rawat Narsinghdeo, and his son Sri Rawat Mehraj, and his son Sri Chandarsen, and his son Kalyandas, erected this sivala (house of Siva); may they be fortunate! Written by Jaya Sarman, and engraved by Kamma, in the presence of the priest Kistna, the son of Mahesh.”

=Heroism of Gumān Hāra.=—We shall pass over the endless tales of the many heroes who fell in its defence, to the last of any note—Guman Singh, a descendant of Sawant Hara. The anecdote I am about to insert relates to the time when Rao Durjansal was prince of Kotah, and the post of Faujdar was held by a Rathor Rajput, Jai Singh of Gagorni. Through the influence of this faujdar, Guman was deprived of the honour of defending the pass, and his estate sequestrated. He was proceeding homeward with a heavy heart from the presence of his sovereign, when he met the faujdar with his train [739]. It was dark, and a torch-bearer preceded him, whom Guman dashed to the earth, and with his iron lance transfixed the Rathor to his palki. Making for the gate, he said it was the Rao’s order that none should pass until his return. As soon as he gained his estate, he proceeded with his family and effects to Udaipur, and found sarna with the Rana, who gave him an estate for the support of himself and his followers. There he remained until Kotah was besieged by Raja Isari Singh of Jaipur, when he obtained the Rana’s leave to fly to its defence. Passing over the Patar, he made for Kotah, but it was invested on every side. Determined to reach it or perish, he ordered his nakkara to beat, and advanced through the heart of the enemy’s camp. The Jaipur prince asked who had the audacity to beat close to his quarters, and being told “The Rawat of the Pass, from Udaipur,” he expressed a wish to see the man, of whom he had heard his father say he had, unarmed, slain a tiger. The Hara obeyed the summons, but would only enter the Presence in the midst of his band. He was courteously received and offered large estates in Jaipur; the Raja remarking that Guman Singh was only going to his doom, since “in the space of eating a pan he (Isari Singh) would be master of Kotah.” Losing all patience, Guman said, “Take my salaam and my defiance, Maharaj; the heads of twenty thousand Haras are with Kotah.” He was permitted to pass the batteries unmolested, and on reaching the river, he called aloud, “The Ghata Rawat wants a boat,” to conduct him to his sovereign, whom he found seated behind the walls encouraging the defence. At that very moment a report was brought that a breach was nearly effected at a particular point; and scarcely had the prince applauded his swamidharma, than, making his bow, Guman marched his followers to the breach, and “there planted his lance.” Such were the Haras of past days; but the descendants of the ‘Rawat of the Pass’ are now in penury, deprived of their lands, and hard pressed to find a livelihood.

We continued our march from this Pass, often moistened with Rajput blood, and reached the Darra, outside of which we found the old regent encamped, and whence we issued on our tour just three weeks ago. It was by mere accident that, some distance up the valley (a continuation of that we had just quitted), we heard of some ruins, termed the Chaori of Bhim, one of the most striking remains of art I had yet met with. It is the fragment only of a quadrangular pile, of which little now remains, the materials having been used by one of the Kotah princes, in erecting a small palace to a Bhilni concubine. The columns possess great originality, and appear to [740] be the connecting link of Hindu and Egyptian architecture. Not far from the Chaori, where, according to local traditions, the Pandu Bhim celebrated his nuptials, are two columns, standing without relation to any other edifice; but in the lapse of ages the fragments appertaining to them have been covered with earth or jungle. At every step we found Jujhars, or funeral stones; and as this ‘Pass of Mukund’ must, as the chief outlet between the Deccan and northern India, have been a celebrated spot, it is not unlikely that in remote ages some city was built within its natural ramparts. Throughout this town, we found many traces of the beneficent but simple legislation of the Hara princes; and when the regent set up his pillar, prohibiting chiefly his own violence, he had abundant formulas to appeal to. We have already alluded to this circumstance in the sketch of his biography, and we may here insert a free translation of the ordinance we found engraved in the Pass, and which is recorded throughout Haraoti.

“Maharaj Maharaoji Kishor Singh, ordaining! To all the merchants (Mahajans), traders, cultivators, and every tribe inhabiting Mukunddarra. At this time, be full of confidence; trade, traffic, exchange, borrow, lend, cultivate, and be prosperous; for all dand (contribution) is abolished by the Darbar. Crimes will be punished according to their magnitude. All officers of trust, Patels, Patwaris, Sasaris (night-guards), and Mutasaddis (scribes), will be rewarded for good services, and for evil. None of them shall be guilty of exactions from merchants or others: this is a law sworn to by all that is sacred to Hindu or Muslim. Ordained from the royal mouth, and by command of Nana (grandsire) Zalim Singh, and uncle Madho Singh. Asoj the 10th, Monday S. 1877 (A.D. 1821).”

=Return to Kotah.=—Having halted a few days, we returned to Kotah by the towns of Pachpahar and Anandpur; both large and thriving, situated upon the banks of fine pieces of water. Madho Singh, at the head of a splendid cavalcade, with six field-pieces, advanced a couple of miles to conduct me to my old residence, the garden-house, east of the town. During the six weeks that we remained here to watch the result of the measures elsewhere described, we endeavoured to find amusement in various ways, to divert us from brooding upon the cholera which was raging around us. This season attracts flocks of wild geese to prey upon the young corn, and we had the double pleasure of shooting and eating them. Occasionally, we had a shot at a deer, or hunted them down with the regent’s chitas (hunting-leopards); or with the dogs ran down jackals [741], foxes, or hares. There was a ramna for wild-hogs about five miles from our abode, and a delightful summer retreat in the midst of a fine sheet of water. The animals were so tame, from the custom of feeding them, that it was almost unsportsmanlike to shoot at them. On one occasion, the Maharao prepared an excursion upon the water, in which I was not well enough to join. Numerous Shikaris, or ‘hunters,’ proceeded up either bank to rouse the bears or tigers that find cover there, when the party from the boats shot at them as they passed. Partly for the purpose of enjoying this sport, and partly to see the fortress of Ekelgarh, six miles south of the city, we afterwards made another excursion, which, though not unattended by danger, afforded a good deal of merriment. The river here is confined by perpendicular rocks, full three hundred feet in height; and amidst the debris, these wild animals find shelter. As the side on which we were did not promise much sport, we determined to cross the stream, and finding a quantity of timber suited to the purpose, we set to work to construct a raft; but had only pushed a few paces from the shore when we began to sink, and were compelled to make a Jonas of the doctor, though we afterwards sent the vessel back for him, and in due time landed all our party and appendages. Being furnished with huntsmen by the regent, who knew the lairs of the animals, we dispatched them up the stream, taking post ourselves behind some masses of rock in the only path by which they could advance. We had been seated about half an hour, when the shouts of the hunters were heard, and soon a huge bear, his muzzle grey from age, came slowly trotting up the pathway. Being unable to repress the mirth of Captain Waugh and the doctor, who were conning over the events of the morning, just before he came in sight, I had quitted them, and was trying to gain a point of security a little remote from them; but before I could attain it, they had both fired and missed, and Bruin came at a full gallop towards me. When within ten paces, I fired and hit him in the flank; he fell, but almost instantly recovered, and charged me open-mouthed, when one of my domestics boldly attacked him with a hog-spear and saved me from a hug. Between the spear and the shot, he went floundering off, and was lost in the crevices of the rock. On our return, we passed the day amidst the ruins of Ekelgarh, an enormous pile of stones without cement; in all probability, a fortress of some of the aboriginal Bhils. Both crests of the mountain are covered with jungle, affording abundant sport to the princes of Kotah. There is a spot of some celebrity a few coss to the south of this, called Gayapur-Mahadeo, where there is a cascade from a stream that falls into the Chambal, whose banks are said to be here upwards of six [742] hundred feet in height. There are few more remarkable spots in India than the course of the river from Kotah to Bhainsror, where both the naturalist and the painter might find ample employment.

I sent scouts in all directions to seek for inscriptions; some of which are in an unknown character. One of the most interesting, brought from Kanswa, of a Jat prince, has been given in the first volume of this work.[11.13.25]

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Footnote 11.13.1:

[Capital of the State of that name (IGI, xx. 14).]

Footnote 11.13.2:

[Twenty miles N.E. of Partābgarh.]

Footnote 11.13.3:

[Probably Muhammad Khān (Grant Duff, Hist. of the Mahrattas, 589).]

Footnote 11.13.4:

[Lucan’s fate was never ascertained; by one account he was poisoned, and by another that he died of a bowel complaint (ibid. 589, note).]

Footnote 11.13.5:

[On the north, close to Kotah city.]

Footnote 11.13.6:

[The commercial capital of the State of Jhālawār, the official capital being Jhālrapatan Chhāoni, or cantonment. The original name was Pātan; it was renamed after the first regent, a Jhāla Rājput (IGI, xiv. 122 ff.; Rājputāna Gazetteer, 1879, ii. 207; ASR, xxiii. (1887) 125 ff.).]

Footnote 11.13.7:

[The latter derivation is correct.]

Footnote 11.13.8:

See Vol. I. p. 239. [The fact, here stated, that the town was placed under municipal government at its foundation in 1796, is not mentioned in Zālim Singh’s stone tablet. These privileges were annulled in 1850, when the Kāmdār or minister of Rāna Prithi Singh had this tablet removed and thrown into a tank, whence it was recovered about 1876 (IGI, xiv. 124).]

Footnote 11.13.9:

[“Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness,” Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, iii. 332.]

Footnote 11.13.10:

[On the ruins of Chandrāvati see Fergusson, Hist. Ind. Arch. ed. 1910, ii. 43 f.: ASR, ii. 263 ff.]

Footnote 11.13.11:

[Abu-l Fazl (Āīn, ii. 211) represents Chandrasen as successor of Vikramāditya. None of the existing versions of the legend appear to be older than the sixth or seventh centuries A.D., and it is possible that the city was refounded by Chandrasen, and named after himself Chandrāvati (ASR, ii. 264).]

Footnote 11.13.12:

[The Or or Orh are a tribe of wandering navvies.]

Footnote 11.13.13:

[Yasodharman was a Rāja of Central India, who joined in the confederacy against the White Hun, Mihiragula, in which the latter was defeated about A.D. 528 (Smith, EHI, 318, 320; JRAS, N.S. v. 280; Forbes, Rāsmāla, 87).]

Footnote 11.13.14:

On a stone tablet, which I discovered at Bundi, of the Takshak race, are the names both of Chandrasen and Yasodharman, and though no date is visible, yet that of the latter is fixed by another set of inscriptions, inserted in the first volume of the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, at S. 1191 or A.D. 1135: the period when the old Hindu monarchies were breaking up, and consequently the arts beginning to decay. [See note 13.]

Footnote 11.13.15:

[Cunningham (ASR, ii. 266) suspects that this inscription, dated A.D. 691, came from the beautiful pillared shrine described by him and by Fergusson. It cannot now be found, “and, unfortunately, Tod’s account of it, which mixes up Mahādeva with an Avatār of Buddha, does not appear to be entitled to much confidence.”]

Footnote 11.13.16:

[Perhaps Virādha, who seized Sīta, and was buried alive by Rāma and Lakshmana (Dowson, Class. Dict. 358 f.).]

Footnote 11.13.17:

The allusion to this affords another instance of the presumption of the priests, who compelled the gods to attend the sacrificial rites, and hence Indra could not visit his consort Indrani.

Footnote 11.13.18:

[The translation in the text is untrustworthy, and the date is probably A.D. 824 (IA, v. 180 f.; Fergusson, Hist. Ind. Arch. ed. 1910, ii. 132 f.).]

Footnote 11.13.19:

See Vol. I. p. 290. [These speculations are now obsolete.]

Footnote 11.13.20:

See Inscription, Vol. II. p. 915.

Footnote 11.13.21:

[Dr. F. W. Thomas has kindly traced this word. It is the old nisīdhyā (nisīhiyā), in its modern form nisīdhi or nisidhi, an ornamental Jain tomb. See Epigraphia Indica, ii. 274, with Bühler’s note; Rice, Inscriptions at Sravana Belgola, Archaeological Survey of Mysore, 1889, 35, 40.]

Footnote 11.13.22:

[A lunar asterism.]

Footnote 11.13.23:

[About 8 miles S.E. of Gāgraun, and 10 miles N.E. of Jhālrapātan. Cunningham (ASR, ii. 293 f.) thinks that this place may have immediately succeeded Chandrāvati as capital of all the country on the lower course of the Kāli Sind, shortly after the beginning of the thirteenth century.]

Footnote 11.13.24:

[The Khīchis, under Rāja Jeth Singh, successfully defended Gāgraun against Alāu-d-dīn in A.D. 1301. But in the time of Rāja Achaldās, about 1428, the place was either taken by, or surrendered to, Hoshang Shāh of Mālwa (IGI, xii. 122).]

Footnote 11.13.25:

[Vol. II. p. 917. The name of the place is properly Kanaswa (IA, xix. 55).]

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Chapter 14

=Menāl.=—In February, I recommenced my march for Udaipur, and having halted a few days at Bundi, and found all there as my heart could wish, I resumed the march across the Patar, determined to put into execution my wish of visiting Menal. About ten miles north, on this side of it, I halted at Bijolia, one of the principal fiefs of Mewar, held by a chief of the Pramar tribe, with the title of Rao.[11.14.1] This family, originally Raos of Jagner, near Bayana, came into Mewar in the time of the great Amar Singh, with all his basai, upwards of two centuries ago; the Rana having married the daughter of Rao Asoka, to whom he assigned an estate worth five lakhs annually. I have elsewhere (Vol. I. p. 206) explained the meaning of a term which embraces bondage amongst its synonyms, though it is the lightest species of slavery. Basai, or properly vasi, means a ‘settler,’ an ‘inhabitant,’ from vas, ‘a habitation,’ and vasna, ‘to inhabit,’ but it does not distinguish between free settlers and compulsory labourers; but wheresoever the phrase is used in Rajwara, it may be assumed to imply the latter. Still, strange to say, the condition includes none of the accessories of slavery: there is no task-duty of any kind, nor is the individual accountable for his labour to any one: he pays the usual taxes, and the only tie upon him appears to be that of a [743] compulsory residence in his vas, and the epithet, which is in itself a fetter upon the mind of the vasi of Bijolia.

=Bijolia.=—Bijolia (Vindhyavalli) stands amidst the ruins with which this uparmal, or highland, is crowded. From the numerous inscriptions we here found, we have to choose, for its ancient name, between Ahichpur and Morakara; the latter is still applied, though the former appears only on the recording stone. This western frontier teems with traditions of the Chauhans, and seems to have been a dependency of Ajmer, as these inscriptions contain many celebrated names of that dynasty, as Bisaldeo, Someswar, Prithiraj; and chiefly record the martial virtues and piety of Irnaraj of Morakara, and his offspring, Bahirraj and Kuntpal, who appear contemporary with their paramount prince and relative, Prithiraj, king of Delhi and Ajmer.

One inscription records the actions of the dynasty of Chitor, and they are so intermingled as to render it almost impossible to separate the Guhilots from the Chauhans. It begins with an invocation to “Sakambhari Janami Mata, the mother of births, guardian of the races (sakham),[11.14.2] and of mighty castles (durga), hills, and ruins, the Protectress.” Having mentioned the names of nine Chauhans (of Vats-gotra), it flies off to Srimad Bapparaj, Vindhya Nirpati, or, ‘Bappa, sovereign of the Vindhya Hills,’ the founder of the Ranas of Mewar; but the names that follow do not belong to his dynasty, which leads me to imagine that the Chauhans of Uparmal were vassals of Chitor at that early period. Since antiquarian disquisitions, however, would be out of place here, we shall only give the concluding portion. It is of Kuntpal, the grandson of Irnaraj, “who destroyed Jawalapur, and the fame of whose exploit at the capture of Delhi is engraved on the gate of Valabhi. His elder brother’s son was Prithiraj, who amassed a parb of gold, which he gave in charity, and built in Morakara a temple to Parsvanath. Having obtained the regal dignity, through Someswar, he was thence called Someswar, for the sake of whose soul this mandir was erected, and the village of Rewana on the Rewa, bestowed for its support.—S. 1226 (A.D. 1170).” This appears completely to set at rest the question whether the Chauhans wrested by force the throne of Delhi from the Tuars;[11.14.3] and it is singular, that from the most remote part of the dominions of this illustrious line, we should have a confirmation of the fact asserted by their great bard Chand. The inscriptions at Asi (Hansi), and on the column of Delhi, were all written about the same period as this (see p. 1456). But the appeal made to “the gate of Valabhi,” the ancient capital of the Guhilots in Saurashtra, is the most singular part of it, and will only admit of one construction [744], namely, that when Prithiraj revenged the death of his father, Someswar, who was slain in battle by the prince of Saurashtra and Gujarat, Kuntpal must have availed himself of that opportunity to appropriate the share he had in the capture of Delhi. Chand informs us he made a conquest of the whole of Gujarat from Bhola Bhim.[11.14.4]

We have also two other not unimportant pieces of information: first that Morakara was an ancient name of Bijolia; and next, that the Chauhan prince was a disciple of the Jains, which, according to Chand, was not uncommon, as he tells us that he banished his son Sarangdeo from Ajmer, for attaching himself to the doctrines of the Buddhists.

Morakara, about half a mile east of Bijolia, is now in ruins; but there are remains of a Kot, or castle, a palace called the Nauchauki, and no less than five temples to Parsvanath, the twenty-third of the Jain pontiffs, all of considerable magnitude and elaborate architectural details, though not to be compared with Barolia. Indeed, it is everywhere apparent that there is nothing classical in design or execution in the architecture of India posterior to the eleventh century. One of my scribes, who has a talent for design, is delineating with his reed (kalam) these stupendous piles, while my old Jain Guru is hard at work copying what is not the least curious part of the antiquities of Bijolia, two inscriptions cut in the rock; one of the Chauhan race, the other of the Sankhya Purana, appertaining to his own creed, the Jain. It is fifteen feet long by five in breadth, and has fifty-two lines.[11.14.5] The other is eleven feet six inches by three feet six, and contains thirty-one lines; so that the old gentleman has ample occupation. A stream runs amidst the ruins, called the Mundagni (fire-extinguishing); and there is a kund, or fountain, close to the temples of Parsva, with the remains of two noble reservoirs. All these relics indicate that the Jains were of the Digambara sect.[11.14.6] The genealogy is within the Kot, or precincts of the old castle.

There are likewise three temples dedicated to Siva, of still greater magnitude, nearer to the town, but without inscriptions; though one in an adjoining kund, called the Rewati, records the piety of the Gohil chief Rahal, who had bestowed “a patch of land in the Antri,” defining minutely its limits, and inviting others (not ineffectually, as is proved by other bequests), in the preamble to his gift, to follow his example by the declaration that “whoever bathes in the Rewati fountain will be beloved by her lord, and have a numerous progeny” [745].

The modern castle of Bijolia is constructed entirely out of the ruins of the old shrines of Morakara, and gods and demons are huddled promiscuously together. This is very common, as we have repeatedly noticed; nor can anything better evince that the Hindu attaches no abstract virtue to the material object or idol, but regards it merely as a type of some power or quality which he wishes to propitiate. On the desecration of the receptacle, the idol becomes again, in his estimation, a mere stone, and is used as such without scruple. All around, for several miles, are seen the wrecks of past days. At Darauli, about four miles south, is an inscription dated S. 900 (A.D. 844), but it is unimportant; and again, at Telsua, two miles farther south, are four mandirs, a kund, and a toran, or triumphal arch, but no inscription. At Jaraula, about six miles distant, there are no less than seven mandirs and a kund—a mere heap of ruins. At Ambaghati, one of the passes of descent from the table-land into the plain, there are the remains of an ancient castle and a shrine, and I have the names of four or five other places, all within five miles of Bijolia, each having two and three temples in ruins. Tradition does not name the destroyer, but as it evidently was not Time, we may, without hesitation, divide the opprobrium between those great iconoclasts, the Ghori king Ala and the Mogul Aurangzeb, the first of whom is never named without the addition of Khuni, ‘the sanguinary,’ whilst the other is known as Kalayavana, the demon-foe of Krishna.

The Bijolia chief is greatly reduced, though his estates, if cultivated, would yield fifty thousand rupees annually; but he cannot create more vasi, unless he could animate the prostrate forms which lie scattered around him. It was his daughter who was married to prince Amra, and who, though only seventeen, withstood all solicitation to save her from the pyre on his demise.[11.14.7] I made use of the strongest arguments, through her uncle, then at Udaipur, promising to use my influence to increase his estate, and doubtless his poverty reinforced his inclination; but all was in vain—she determined “to expiate the sins of her lord.” Having remained two or three days, we continued our journey in quest of the antique and the picturesque, and found both at Menal.

=Menāl or Mahānāl=, February 21.—It is fortunate that the pencil can here portray what transcends the power of the pen; to it we shall, therefore, leave the architectural wonders of Mahanal, and succinctly describe the site. It is difficult to conceive what [746] could have induced the princely races of Chitor or Ajmer to select such a spot as an appanage for the cadets of their families, which in summer must be a furnace, owing to the reflection of the sun’s rays from the rock: tradition, indeed, asserts that it is to the love of the sublime alone we are indebted for these singular structures. The name is derived from the position Mahanal, ‘the great chasm,’ or cleft in the western face of the Patar, presenting an abyss of about four hundred feet in depth, over which, at a sharp re-entering angle, falls a cascade, and though now but a rill, it must be a magnificent object in the rainy season. Within this dell it would be death to enter: gloomy as Erebus, crowded with majestic foliage entangled by the twisted boughs of the Amarvela, and affording cover to all description of the inhabitants, quadruped and feathered, of the forest. On the very brink of the precipice, overhanging the abyss, is the group of mixed temples and dwellings, which bear the name of Prithiraj (vide Plate); while those on the opposite side are distinguished by that of Samarsi of Chitor, the brother-in-law of the Chauhan emperor of Delhi and Ajmer, whose wife, Pirthabai, has been immortalized by Chand, with her husband and brother.[11.14.8] Here, the grand cleft between them, these two last bulwarks of the Rajput races were accustomed to meet with their families, and pass days of affectionate intercourse, in which no doubt the political condition of India was a prominent topic of discussion. If we may believe, and we have no reason to distrust, the testimony of Chand, had Prithiraj listened to the counsel of the Ulysses of the Hindus (in which light Samarsi was regarded by friend and foe), the Islamite never would have been lord of Hindustan. But the indomitable courage and enthusiastic enterprise of Prithiraj sunk them all; and when neither wisdom nor valour could save him from destruction, the heroic prince of Chitor was foremost to court it. Both fell on the banks of the Ghaggar, amidst heroes of every tribe in Rajputana. It was indeed to them, as the bard justly terms it, pralaya, the day of universal doom; and the last field maintained for their national dependence. To me, who have pored over their poetic legends, and imbibed all those sympathies which none can avoid who study the Rajput character, there was a melancholy charm in the solemn ruins of Menal. It was a season, too, when everything conspired to nourish this feeling; the very trees which were crowded about these relics of departed glory, appearing by their leafless boughs and lugubrious aspect to join in the universal mourning.

=Inscriptions from Menāl.=—We found many inscriptions at Mahanal, and of one I shall here insert a free [747] translation, as it may be applied hereafter to the correction of the chronology of the Haras, of which race it contains a memorial.

“By Asapurna[11.14.9] [the fulfiller of our desires] the kula-devi[11.14.10] [tutelary goddess] of the race, by whose favour hidden treasures are revealed, and through whose power many Chauhan kings have ruled the earth, of which race was Bhanwardhan,[11.14.11] who in the field of strife attained the desires of victory. Of his race was the tribe of Hara, of which was Kulan,[11.14.12] of illustrious and pure descent in both races; whose fame was fair as the rays of the moon. From him was Jaipal,[11.14.13] who obtained the fruits of the good works of his former existence in the present garb of royalty; and whose subjects prayed they might never know another sovereign. From him was Devaraj,[11.14.14] the lord of the land, who gave whatever was desired, and whose wish was to render mankind happy. He delighted in the dance and the song. His son was Harraj,[11.14.15] whose frame was a piece of fire; who, in the field of battle, conquered renown from the princes of the land [Bhumeswar], and dragged the spoils of victory from their pinnacled abodes.

“From him were the lords of Bumbaoda,[11.14.16] whose land yielded to them its fruits. From Devaraj was Ritpal,[11.14.17] who made the rebellious bow the head, or trod them under foot, as did Kapila the sons of Sagara. From him was Kelhan, the chief of his tribe, whose son Kuntal resembled Dharmaraj; he had a younger brother, called Deda. Of his wife, Rajaldevi, a son was born to Kuntal, fair as the offspring of the ocean.[11.14.18] He was named Mahadeva. He was [in wisdom] fathomless as the sea, and in battle immovable as Sumeru; in gifts he was the Kalpa-vriksha[11.14.19] of Indra. He laid the dust raised by the hoofs of hostile steeds, by the blood of his foes. The sword [748] grasped in his extended arm dazzled the eye of his enemy, as when uplifted o’er the head of Ami Shah he rescued the Lord of Medpat, and dragged Kaita from his grasp, as is Chandra from Rahu.[11.14.20] He trod the Sultan’s army under foot, as does the ox the corn; even as did the Danavas (demons) churn the ocean, so did Mahadeva the field of strife, seizing the gem (ratna) of victory from the son of the King, and bestowing it on Kaita, the lord of men. From the centre even to the skirts of space, did the fame of his actions extend, pure as curdled milk. He had a son, Durjan, on whom he bestowed the title of Jivaraj[11.14.21] (Jeojraj), who had two brothers, Subutsal and Kumbhakarna.[11.14.22]

“Here, at Mahanal, the lord of the land, Mahadeva, made a mandir, in whose variously-sculptured wall this treasure [the inscribed tablet] is concealed. This (the temple) is an epitome of the universe, whose pinnacle (sikhara) sparkles like a gem. The mind of Mahadeva is bent on devotion in Mahanal, the emblem of Kailas, where the Brahmans perform varied rites. While the science of arms endures, may the renown of Mahadeva never perish;[11.14.23] and until Ganges ceases to flow, and Sumeru to be immovable, may this memorial of Mahadeva abide fixed at Mahanal. This invocation to Mahadeva was made by Mahadeva, and by the Brahman Dhaneswar, the dweller in Chitrakot (Chitor), was this prashishta composed:

Arka, Gun, Chandra, Indu.

“The month of Baisakh (sudi), the seventh. By Viradhawal, the architect (silpi), learned in the works of architecture (silpasastra) was this temple erected.”

The cryptographic date, contained in the above four words, is not the least curious part of this inscription, to which I did not even look when composing the Bundi annals, and which is another of the many powerful proofs of the general fidelity of their poetic chronicles [749].

Arka is the sun, and denotes the number 12; Gun is the three principal passions of the mind; and Chandra and Indu each stand for one: thus,

Arka, Gun, Chandra, Indu. 12. 3. 1. 1.

and this “concealed (gupta) treasure,” alluded to in the inscription, must be read backwards. But either my expounder, or the Silpi, was out, and had I not found S. 1446 in a corner, we should never have known the value of this treasure. Many inscriptions are useless from their dates being thus enigmatically expressed; and I subjoin, in a note, a few of the magic runes, which may aid others to decipher them.[11.14.24]

I was more successful in another inscription of Irna or Arnadeva (fam. Arandeo), who appears to have held the entire Uparmal as a fief of Ajmer, and who is conspicuous in the Bijolia inscription. Of this, suffice it to say, that it records his having “made the gateway to Menal, otherwise termed the city of Someswar”; and the date is

Anal, Nand, Ind, Ind. 3. 9. 1. 1.

Anal (fire) stands for three, denoting the third eye of Mahadeva, which is eventually to cause pralaya, or ‘destruction.’ Nand stands for nine, or the Nau-nand of their ancient histories. Indu, the moon (twice repeated), is one, and the whole, read backwards, is S. 1193, or A.D. 1137.

In the mandir of Samarsi, we found the fragment of another inscription, dated S. 12-2, and containing the eulogy of Samarsi and Arnaraj, lord of the region; also the name of “Prithiraj, who destroyed the barbarians”; and concluding with Sawant Singh.

=Begūn=,[11.14.25] February.—We commenced our march at break of day, along the very crest [750] of the Patar; but the thick woods through which lay our path did not allow us a peep at the plains of Medpat until we reached the peak, where once stood the castle of Alu Hara. But silent were the walls of Bumbaoda; desolation was in the courts of Alu Hara. We could trace, however, the plan of this famed residence of a hero, which consisted of an exterior and an interior castle, the latter being a hundred and seventy cubits by a hundred and twelve. There are the ruins of three Jain temples, to Siva, Hanuman, and Dharmaraja, the Hindu Minos; also three tanks, one of which was in excellent preservation. There are likewise the remains of one hall, called the Andhyari Kothri, or ‘dark chamber,’ perhaps that in which Alu (according to tradition) locked up his nephew, when he carried his feud into the desert. The site commands an extensive view of the plains of Mewar, and of the Arneo-ghati (pass), down the side of the mountain, to the valley of Begun. Beneath, on a ledge of rock, guarding the ascent, was the gigantic statue of Jogini Mata, placed on the very verge of the precipice, and overlooking one of the noblest prospects in nature. The hill here forms a re-entering angle of considerable depth, the sides scarped, lofty, and wooded to the base; all the plain below is covered with lofty trees, over whose tops the parasitic Amarvela forms an umbrageous canopy, extending from rock to rock, and if its superfluous supports were removed, it would form a sylvan hall, where twenty thousand men might assemble.

Over this magnificent scenery ‘our Queen of the Pass’ looks grimly down; but now there is neither foe to oppose, nor scion of Bumbaoda to guard. I could not learn exactly who had levelled the castle of Alu Hara, although it would appear to have been the act of the lord paramount of Chitor, on whose land it is situated; it is now within the fief of Begun. We have already given one legend of Alu; another from the spot may not be unacceptable.

=Tale of a Bard.=—In one of the twenty-four castles dependent on Bumbaoda, resided Lalaji, a kinsman of Alu. He had one daughter, in whose name he sent the coco-nut to his liege lord, the Rana of Chitor; but the honour was declined. The family priest was returning across the antri, when he encountered the heir of Chitor returning from the chase, who, on learning the cause of the holy man’s grief, determined to remove it by taking the nuptial symbol himself. He dismissed the priest, telling him he should soon appear to claim his bride. Accordingly, with an escort befitting the heir of Chitor, and accompanied by a bard then on a visit to the Rana, he set out for Bumbaoda. Bhimsen Bardai was a native of Benares, and happened to pass through Mewar on his way [751] to Cutch-Bhuj, at the very period when all ‘the sons of rhyme’ were under sentence of exile from Mewar: a fate which we frequently find attending the fraternity in this country. The cause of this expatriation was as follows; an image of the deity had been discovered in clearing out the waters of the lake, of a form so exquisitely beautiful as to enchant every eye. But the position of the arms was singular; one pointed upwards, another downwards, a third horizontally towards the observer. The handwriting on the wall could not have more appalled the despot of Babylon than this putli of Chaturbhuja, or ‘image of the four-armed god.’ The prophetic seers were convened from all parts; but neither the Bhats nor the Charans, nor even the cunning Brahman, could interpret the prodigy; until, at length, the bard of the Jarejas arrived and expounded the riddle. He showed that the finger pointing upwards imported that there was one Indra, lord of heaven; and that downwards was directed to the sovereign of Patal (hell); whilst that which pointed to the Rana indicated that he was lord of the central region (Medpat);[11.14.26] which being geographically correct, his interpretation was approved, and met with such reward, that he became the pat-bardai, or chief bard to Hamir, who, at his intercession, recalled his banished brethren, exacting in return for such favours that ‘he would extend the palm to no mortal but himself.’ This was the bard who accompanied the heir of Chitor to espouse the daughter of Bumbaoda. The castle of the Hara was thronged; the sound of mirth and revelry rang through the castle-halls, and the bards, who from all parts assembled to sing the glories of the Haras, were loaded with gifts. Bhimsen could not withstand the offering made by the lord of the Patar, a horse richly caparisoned, splendid clothes, and a huge bag of money: as the bard of the Haras (who told me the tale) remarked, “although he had more than enough, who can forget habit? We are beggars (Mangtas) as well as poets by profession.” So, after many excuses, he allowed the gift to be left; but his soul detested the sin of his eye, and resolving to expiate the crime, he buried his dagger in his heart. Cries rent the air; “the sacred bard of Chitor is slain!” met the ear of its prince at the very moment of hatheli (junction of hands). He dropped the hand of his bride, and demanded vengeance. It was now the Hara’s turn to be offended; to break off the nuptials at such a moment was redoubling the insult already offered by his father, and a course which not even the bard’s death could justify. The heir of Chitor was conducted forthwith outside Bumbaoda; but he soon returned with the troops of Chitor, and hostilities commenced where festivity so lately reigned. Phalgun approached, and the spring-hunt of the Aheria could not be deferred, though foes were [752] around. Lalaji, father of the bride, went with a chosen band to slay a boar to Gauri, in the plains of Tukarai; but Kaitsi heard of it, and attacked them. Alike prepared for the fight or the feast, the Hara accepted the unequal combat; and the father and lover of the bride rushed on each other, spear in hand, and fell by mutual wounds.

The pyres were prepared within the walls of Bumbaoda, whither the vassals bore the bodies of their lords; on one was placed the prince of Chitor, on the other the Hara kinsman; and while the virgin bride ascended with the dead body of the prince, her mother was consumed on that where her father lay. It was on this event that the imprecation was pronounced that “Rana and Rao should never meet at the spring-hunt (Aheria) but death should ensue.” We have recorded, in the annals of the Haras, two subsequent occasions; and to complete their quatrain, they have made the defeat of Rana Mokal (called Kumbha in the Annals, see page 1471) fill up the gap. Thus:

_Hāmu Mokal mariyo, Lālē Kheta jān, Sujē Ratan samghāriyo Ajmal Arasi rān._

In repeating these stanzas, the descendant of Alu Hara may find some consolation for the mental sufferings he endures when he casts a glance upon the ruins of Bumbaoda and its twenty-four subordinate castles, not one of which now contains a Hara:

And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind, Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd; All tenantless, save to the crannying wind, Or holding dark communion with the cloud.[11.14.27]

That these ruins make a powerful appeal to the Hara, I can prove by letters I received in October last year, when, in obedience to a mandate of the ‘Queen of the Pass,’ a band collected at her shrine to obey her behest, whatever that might be.

* * * * *

Extract from Akhbar (newspaper), dated Bundi, October 18, 1820.

“Warrants were sent to all the chiefs for their attendance at the capital to celebrate the festival of the Dasahra. The whole of the chiefs and landholders came, with the exception of the Thakurs of Bar, who returned the following reply:—'We have received a communication (paigham) from Sri Bhavani of Bumbaoda, who commands us no longer to put the plough in the soil, but to sell our horses and our cattle [753], and with the amount to purchase sixty-four[11.14.28] buffaloes and thirty-two goats, for a general sacrifice to Mataji, by obeying which we shall repossess Bumbaoda.' Accordingly, no sooner was this known, than several others joined them, both from Bundi and Kotah. The Thakur of Bar had prepared dinner near the statue of Mata for two hundred, instead of which five hundred assembled; yet not only were they all abundantly satisfied, but some food remained, which convinced the people there that the story (the communication) was true.”

This was from Bundi; but the following was from my old, steady, and faithful Brahman, Balgovind, who was actually on the spot, dated “Menal, 1st Kartik:—A few days ago, there was a grand sacrifice to Jogini Mata, when thirty-one buffaloes and fifty-three goats were slain. Upon two bakras (he-goats), three Haras tried their swords in vain; they could not touch a single hair, at which all were much surprised. These goats were afterwards turned loose to feed where they pleased, and were called amar (immortal).”

Not a comment was made upon this, either by the sensible Balgovind or the Yati Gyanji, who was with him. There was, therefore, no time to be lost in preventing an explosion from five hundred brave Haras, deeming themselves convened at the express command of Bhavani, to whom the sacrifice proved thus acceptable; and I sent to the Raja to break up the party, which was effected. It, however, shows what an easy matter it is to work upon the credulity through the feelings of these brave men.

I left the spot, hallowed by many feelings towards the silent walls of Bumbaoda. We wound our way down the rocky steep, giving a look to the ‘mother of the maids of slaughter’ as we passed, and after a short passage across the entrance of the valley, encamped in a fine grove of trees close to the town of Begun. The Rawat, descendant of ‘the black cloud,’ came out to meet me; but he is yet a stranger to the happiness that awaits him—the restoration of more than half of his estate, which has been in the hands of the Mahratta Sindhia since A.D. 1791 [754].

-----

Footnote 11.14.1:

[Bijolia, close to the Būndi border, about 112 miles N.E. of Udaipur city (Erskine ii. A. 99 f.).]

Footnote 11.14.2:

[Sākambhari has no connexion with sākha: the name means herb-nourishing.']

Footnote 11.14.3:

[The story that Vigraharāja or Vīsaladeva, Chauhān, wrested Delhi from the Tomaras depends on doubtful authority (Smith, EHI, 387).]

Footnote 11.14.4:

[Bhīma II. Chaulukya of Gujarāt, known as Bhola, ‘the simpleton’ (A.D. 1179-1242). The statements in the text lack authority (BG, i. Part i. 195 ff.).]

Footnote 11.14.5:

I have never had time to learn the purport of this inscription, but hold it, together with a host of others, at the service of those who desire to expound them. For myself, without my old Guru, I am like a ship without helm or compass (as Chand would say) “in ploughing the ocean of (Sanskrit) rhyme.” [Both these inscriptions are dated A.D. 1170. That recording the Chauhān genealogy is printed (p. 1456). The other is a Jain poem called Unnāthshikar Purān, still unpublished (Erskine ii. A. 100).]

Footnote 11.14.6:

[‘Those whose robe is the atmosphere,’ the ‘naked’ section of the Jains (Bühler-Burgess, The Indian Sect of the Jainas, 2).]

Footnote 11.14.7:

See Transactions Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 152.

Footnote 11.14.8:

[Menāl possesses a monastery and Saiva temple constructed, according to the inscriptions which they bear, in A.D. 1169 by Bhav Brahm, Sādhu; also a palace and temple built a year earlier by the wife of the famous Prithirāj, Chauhān, whose name was Suhav Devi, known as Rūthi Rāni, ‘the testy queen’ (Erskine ii. A. 95, quoting H. Cousens, Progress Report Archaeological Survey W. India, for the year ending June 30, 1905).]

Footnote 11.14.9:

Āsā, is literally, ‘Hope.’

Footnote 11.14.10:

Goddess of the race.

Footnote 11.14.11:

‘The wealth of the bee’; such are the metaphorical appellations amongst the Rajputs.

Footnote 11.14.12:

This is the prince who crawled to Kedarnath (see p. 1463), and son of Rainsi, the emigrant prince from Asir, who is perhaps here designated as ‘the wealth of the bee.’ This was in S. 1353, or A.D. 1297.

Footnote 11.14.13:

Jaipal (‘fosterer of victory’) must be the prince familiarly called Bango in the Annals (p. 1464), and not the grandson but the son of Kulan—there said to have taken Menal or Mahanal.

Footnote 11.14.14:

Dewa is the son of Banga (p. 1464), and founder of Bundi, in S. 1398, or A.D. 1342.

Footnote 11.14.15:

Harraj, elder son of Dewa, became lord of Bumbaoda by the abdication of his father, who thenceforth resided at his conquest at Bundi. (See p. 1467.)

Footnote 11.14.16:

Harraj had twelve sons, the eldest of whom, the celebrated Alu Hara, succeeded to Bumbaoda. (See p. 1470.)

Footnote 11.14.17:

Here we quit the direct line of descent, going back to Dewa. Ritpal, in all probability, was the offspring of one of the twelve sons of Harraj, having Menal as a fief of Bumbaoda.

Footnote 11.14.18:

In the original, “fair as Chandrama (the moon), the offspring of Samudra (the ocean).” In Hindu mythology, the moon is a male divinity, and son of the ocean, which supplies a favourite metaphor to the Bardai,—the sea expanding with delight at the sight of his child, denoting the ebb and flow of the waters.

Footnote 11.14.19:

[The Kalpatara, Kalpalata, or Kalpavriksha is one of the fabulous trees in Swarga, the paradise of Indra, which grants all desires.]

Footnote 11.14.20:

This Ami Shah can only be the Pathan [Mughal] emperor Humayun, who enjoyed a short and infamous celebrity; and Mahadeo, the Hara prince of Mahanal, who takes the credit of rescuing prince Kaitsi, must have been one of the great feudatories, perhaps generalissimo of the armies of Mewar (Medpat). It will be pleasing to the lovers of legendary lore to learn, from a singular tale, which we shall relate when we get to Bumbaoda, that if on one occasion he owed his rescue to the Hara, the last on another took the life he gave; and as it is said he abdicated in favour of his son Durjan, whom he constituted Jivaraj, or king (raj), while he was yet in life (jiva), it is not unlikely that, in order to atone for the crime of treason to his sovereign lord, he abandoned the gaddi of Menal.

Footnote 11.14.21:

Here it is distinctly avowed that Mahadeva, having constituted his son Jivaraj, passed his days in devotion in the temple he had founded.

Footnote 11.14.22:

Pronounced Kumbhkaran, ‘a ray of the Kumbha,’ the vessel emblematic of Ceres, and elsewhere described. [Kumbhakarna means ‘having ears like waterpots,’ the name of a demon, brother of Rāvana, killed by Rāma, according to the story in the Rāmāyana epic.]

Footnote 11.14.23:

It appears he did not forget he had been a warrior.

Footnote 11.14.24:

Indu (the moon) 1 Paksheo (the two fortnights) 2 Netra (the three eyes of Siva) 3 Veda (the four holy books) 4 Sar (the five arrows of Kamdeo, or Cupid) 5 Shashth (the six seasons, of two months each) 6 Jaladhi (the seven seas, or Samudras) 7 Sidah 8 Nidh (the nine planets) 9 Dik (the ten corners of the globe) 10 Rudra (a name of Siva) 11 Arka (the sun) 12

Footnote 11.14.25:

[Begūn about 20 miles E.N.E. of Udaipur city.]

Footnote 11.14.26:

[Medpāt means ‘land of the Med tribe.’]

Footnote 11.14.27:

[Byron, Childe Harold, ii. 47.]

Footnote 11.14.28:

A number sacred (according to Chand) to this goddess, who is chief of the sixty-four Joginis.

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Chapter 15

=Begūn=, February 26.—The chances were nine hundred and ninety-nine to one that I ever touched a pen again. Two days ago I started, with all the ‘pomp and circumstance’ befitting the occasion, to restore to the chief the land of his sires, of which force and fraud had conspired to deprive them during more than thirty years. The purport of my visit being made known, the ‘sons of Kalamegh’ assembled from all quarters; but honhar has again interfered. The old castle of Begun has a remarkably wide moat, across which there is a wooden bridge communicating with the town. The avant-courtiers of my cavalcade, with an elephant bearing the union, having crossed and passed under the arched gateway, I followed, contrary to the Mahaut’s advice, who said there certainly would not be space to admit the elephant and howda. But I heedlessly told him to drive on, and if he could not pass through, to dismount. The hollow sound of the bridge, and the deep moat on either side, alarmed the animal, and she darted forward with the celerity occasioned by fear, in spite of any effort to stop her. As I approached the gateway, I measured it with my eye, and expecting inevitable and instantaneous destruction, I planted my feet firmly against the howda, and my forearms against the archway, and, by an almost preternatural effort of strength, burst out the back of the howda; the elephant pursued her flight inside, and I dropped senseless on the bridge below.[11.15.1] The affectionate sympathies and attention of those around revived me, though they almost extinguished the latent spark of life in raising me into my palki, and carrying me to my tent. I, however, soon recovered my senses, though sadly bruised; but the escape was, in a twofold degree, miraculous; for, in avoiding decollation, had I fallen half an inch more to the side, I should have been caught on the projecting spikes of the gateway. My tent was soon filled by the Rawatji and his brethren, who deplored the accident, and it was with difficulty I could get them to leave the side of my pallet; but what was my astonishment when, two days after, going to fulfil my mission, I saw the noble [755] gateway, the work of Kalamegh, reduced to a heap of ruins, through which I was conducted to the palace on an ample terrace, in front of which I found the little court of Begun! The Rawat advanced and presented me the keys, which having returned in his sovereign’s name, I deplored his rash destruction of the gateway, blaming honhar and my own want of budh (wisdom) for the accident. But it was in vain; he declared he never could have looked upon it with complacency, since it had nearly deprived of life one who had given life to them. The restored estates had been mortgaged to old Sindhia for the payment of a war-exaction, and the Rawat held regularly-executed deeds, empowering him to recover them when the contribution should be liquidated. When the ‘reign of justice’ commenced in these regions, he produced his bond; he showed that the exactions had been paid twice over, and demanded, through the intervention of the British agent, that Sindhia should be brought to a settlement. The replies and rejoinders were endless; and at length the Rawatji, wearied out, one morning took the law into his own hands; assaulted, carried, and, with the loss of some lives, drove out the Mahrattas, who had built a castellated residence even under his eye. It was necessary for form-sake to punish this act, which we would not prevent; and accordingly Begun was put under sequestration, and the Rana’s flag was planted upon its walls. The chief submitted to all with a good grace, and with a cause so just I made an excellent case against Sindhia, who talked of papers which he never produced. Allowing, therefore, some months more to elapse, we executed the bond, and restored Begun to its rightful owner.[11.15.2] I was the more rejoiced at effecting this, as the Rawat had set the example of signing the deed of renunciation of May 1818, which was the commencement of the prosperity of Mewar.

=Basi=, February 27.—Compelled to travel in my palki, full of aches and ails. I think this will complete the disorganization of my frame; but I must reserve the little strength I have for Chitor, and, coûte que coûte, climb up and take a farewell look.

=Chitor.=[11.15.3]—My heart beat high as I approached the ancient capital of the Sesodias, teeming with reminiscences of glory, which every stone in her giant-like kunguras (battlements) attested. It was from this side that the imperial hosts under Ala and Akbar advanced to force the descendant of Rama to do homage to their power. How the summons was answered, the deeds of Ranas Arsi and Partap have already told. But there was one relic of “the last day” of Chitor, which I visited in this morning’s march, that will immortalize the field where the greatest monarch that India (perhaps Asia) ever had, erected the green banner of the faith, and pitched his [756] tent, around which his legions were marshalled for the reduction of the city. This still perfect monument is a fine pyramidal column, called by some the Chiraghdan, and by others Akbar-ka-dewa, both having the same meaning, ‘Akbar’s lamp.’[11.15.4] It is formed of large blocks of compact lime-stone, admirably put together, about thirty-five feet high, each face being twelve feet at the base, and gradually tapering to the summit, where it is between three and four, and on which was placed a huge lamp (chiragh), that served as a beacon to the foragers, or denoted the imperial headquarters. An interior staircase leads to the top; but although I had the strongest desire to climb the steps, trodden no doubt by Akbar’s feet, the power was not obedient to the will, and I was obliged to continue my journey, passing through the Talaiti, as they term the lower town of Chitor. Here I got out of my palki, and ventured the ascent, not through one, but five gates, upon the same faithless elephant; but with this difference, that I had no howda to encase me and prevent my sliding off, if I found any impediment; nevertheless, in passing under each successive portal, I felt an involuntary tendency to stoop, though there was a superfluity of room over head. I hastened to my bechoba,[11.15.5] pitched upon the margin of the Surya-kund, or ‘fountain of the sun,’ and with the wrecks of ages around me I abandoned myself to contemplation. I gazed until the sun’s last beam fell upon ‘the ringlet of Chitor,’ illuminating its grey and grief-worn aspect, like a lambent gleam lighting up the face of sorrow. Who could look on this lonely, this majestic column, which tells, in language more easy of interpretation than the tablets within, of

deeds which should not pass away, And names that must not wither,

and withhold a sigh for its departed glories? But in vain I dipped my pen to embody my thoughts in language; for, wherever the eye fell, it filled the mind with images of the past, and ideas rushed too tumultuously to be recorded. In this mood I continued for some time, gazing listlessly, until the shades of evening gradually enshrouded the temples, columns, and palaces; and as I folded up my paper till the morrow, the words of the prophetic bard of Israel came forcibly to my recollection: “How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she, that was great among nations, and princess among provinces, how is she become tributary!”

But not to fatigue the reader with reflections, I will endeavour to give him some [757] idea of these ruins.[11.15.6] I begin with the description of Chitor from the Khuman Raesa, now beside me: “Chitrakot is the chief amongst eighty-four castles, renowned for strength; the hill on which it stands, rising out of the level plain beneath, the tilak on the forehead of Avani (the earth). It is within the grasp of no foe, nor can the vassals of its chief know the sentiment of fear. Ganga flows from its summit; and so intricate are its paths of ascent, that though you might find entrance, there would be no hope of return. Its towers of defence are planted on the rock, nor can their inmates even in sleep know alarm. Its Kothars (granaries) are well filled, and its reservoirs, fountains, and wells are overflowing. Ramachandra himself here dwelt twelve years. There are eighty-four bazars, many schools for children, and colleges for every kind of learning; many scribes (kayasth) of the Bidar[11.15.7] tribe, and the eighteen varieties of artisans. (Here follows an enumeration of all the trees, shrubs, and flowers within and surrounding the fortress.) Of all, the Guhilot is sovereign (dhani), served by numerous troops, both horse and foot, and by all the ‘thirty-six tribes of Rajputs,’ of which he is the ornament (chhattis kula singar).”

The Khuman Raesa, or story of Rawat Khuman, was composed in the ninth century;[11.15.8] and the poet has not exaggerated; for of all the royal abodes of India, none could compete with Chitor before she became a “widow.” But we must abandon the Raesa for a simple prose description. Chitor is situated on an isolated rock of the same formation as the Patar, whence it is distant about three miles, leaving a fertile valley between, in which are the estates of Bijaipur, Gwalior, and part of Begun, studded with groves, but all waste through long-continued oppression. The general direction of the rock is from S.S.W. to N.N.E.; the internal length on the summit being three miles and two furlongs, and the greatest central breadth twelve hundred yards. The circumference of the hill at its base, which is fringed with deep woods, extending to the summit, and in which lurk tigers, deer, hogs, and even lions, is somewhere above eight miles, and the angle of ascent to its scarped summit about 45°. The Talaiti, or lower town, is on the west side, which in some places presents a double scarp, and this side is crowded with splendid objects; the triumphal column, the palaces of Chitrang Mori, of Rana Raemall, the huge temple of Rana Mokal, the hundred pinnacles of the acropolis of the Guhilots, and last, not least, the mansions of Jaimall and Patta, built on a projecting point, are amongst the most remarkable monuments overlooking the plain. The great length of Chitor, and the uniformity of the level crest, detract from its height, which in no part exceeds [758] four hundred feet, and that only towards the north. In the centre of the eastern face, at ‘the gate of the sun’ (Surajpol), it is less than three hundred, and at the southern extremity, the rock is so narrow as to be embraced by an immense demi-lune commanding the hill called Chitori, not more than one hundred and fifty yards distant; it is connected with Chitor, but lower, and judiciously left out of its circumvallation. Still it is a weak point, of which the invader has availed himself. On this, Mahadaji Sindhia raised his batteries when called on by the Rana to expel his rebellious vassal of Salumbar (Vol. I. p. 517). The Mahratta’s batteries, as well as the zigzag lines of his ascent, indicate that, even in S. 1848 (A.D. 1792), he had the aid of no unskilful engineer. From this point the Tatar Ala stormed; and to him they attribute Chitor altogether, alleging that he raised it by artificial means, “commencing with a copper for every basket of earth, and at length ending with a piece of gold.” It would, indeed, have taken the twelve years, assigned by tradition to Ala’s siege, to have effected this, though there cannot be a doubt that he greatly augmented it, and planted there his Manjanikas,[11.15.9] or balistas, in the same manner as he did to reduce the fortress of Rain, near Ranthambhor.

Having wandered for two or three days amongst the ruins, I commenced a regular plan of the whole, going to work trigonometrically, and laying down every temple or object that still retained a name or had any tradition attached to it. I then descended with the perambulator and made the circuit.

The first lateral cut of ascent is in a line due north, and before another angle you pass through three separate gates; between the last of which, distinctively called the Phuta Dwara, or ‘broken door,’ and the fourth, the Hanuman pol (porte), is a spot for ever sacred in the history of Chitor, where its immortal defenders, Jaimall and Patta, met their death. There is a small cenotaph to the memory of the former, while a sacrificial Jujhar, on which is sculptured the effigy of a warrior on horseback, lance in hand, reminds the Sesodia where fell the stripling chief of Amet. Near these is another cenotaph, a simple dome supported by light elegant columns, and covering an altar to the manes of the martyr Raghudeva, the deified putra of Mewar (see Vol. I. p. 325). After passing three more barriers, we reach the Rampol, which crowns the whole, and leads into a noble Dari-khana, or ‘hall of assembly,’ where the princes of Chitor met on grand occasions; and it was in this hall that the genius of Chitor is said to have revealed to Rana Arsi that his glory was departing. On a compartment of the Rampol we found an interdict inscribed by the rebel Bhim of [759] Salumbar, who appears to have been determined to place upon his own head the mor[11.15.10] of Chitor, so nobly renounced by his ancestor Chonda many centuries before. This was, however, set up when he was yet loyal, and in his sovereign’s name as well as his own, “abolishing forced labour from the townspeople, and likewise dand, or contribution”; concluding with a grant of land to a patriotic carpenter of Gosunda, who had, at his own expense, furnished the Rampol with a new gate; the cow and hog are attesting witnesses to the deed. The next building I came to, as I skirted the western face in a southerly direction, was a small antique temple to Tulja Bhavani,[11.15.11] the divinity of the scribes, adjoining the Top-khana Chaori, a square for the park, where a few old cannon, the relics of the plunder of Chitor, still remain. The habitation of the Purohits, or chief priests of the Ranas, a plain, commodious, and substantial edifice, was the next; and close by was that of the Masani,[11.15.12] or master of the horse, with several others of the chief household officers. But the first imposing edifice is that termed Naulakha Bhandar. This is a small citadel in itself, with massive, lofty walls, and towers built entirely of ancient ruins. Its name would import that it was a receptacle (bhandar) for treasure, though it is said to have been the residence of the usurper Banbir. At the north-eastern corner, it has a little temple, richly sculptured, called the Singar Chaori.[11.15.13] From this we pass on to the palace of the Ranas, which, though attributed to Rana Raemall, is of the same character as those of a much higher antiquity. It is plain, capacious, and in excellent taste, the only ornament being its crenated battlements, and gives a good idea of the domestic architecture of the Rajputs, long anterior to the intrusion of the Islamite amongst them. The vaulted chamber, the projecting gaukh or balcony, and the gentle exterior slope or talus of the walls, lend a character of originality to all the ancient structures of Chitor. The industrious Ghasi made sketches for me of all their domestic dwellings, from the ancient abode of Chitrang Mori, down to the mahalls of Jaimall and Patta. A courtyard surrounds the palace, in which there is a small temple to Deoji, through whose interposition Rana Sanga effected all his conquests. This unknown divinity I find is styled one of the eleven kalas, or Mahavidyas, incarnate in the person of a celebrated warrior, named Bhoj, whose father was a Chauhan, and his mother of the Gujar tribe, which originated a new class, called the Bagrawat.[11.15.14] The story of this Deo will add another to the many tales of superstition which are listened to with reverence, and I imagine generally with belief. The incarnate Bagrawat, while on his way to revenge an ancient feud with the Parihars of Ranbinai [760], approached Chitor, and Rana Sanga, aware of his sanctity, paid him all the dues of hospitality; in return for this, the Deoji bestowed a charm upon Sanga, by means of which, so long as he followed the prescribed injunctions, victory was always to attend his steps. It was placed in a small bag, and to be worn round the neck; but he was warned against allowing it to turn towards the back. The Deo had the power of raising the dead, and in order to show the Rana the value of the gift, he put into his hand a peacock’s feather, with which having touched all who were then lying dead in Chitor, they were restored to life! With this new proof of Deoji’s power, Rana Sanga went forth to pursue his conquests, which had extended to the fortress of Bayana, when one day, while bathing in the Pila Khal,[11.15.15] the charm slipped round, and straight a voice was heard, saying, his “mortal foe was at hand!” So impressed are the Sesodias with the truth of this tale, that Deoji has obtained a distinguished niche in their Pantheon; nor in all their poverty has oil been wanting for the lamp which is constantly burning before the Bagrawat chieftain, whose effigy, on a horse painted blue and lance in hand, still attracts their homage. To buy golden opinions, I placed three pieces of silver on the altar of the saint, in the name of the brave Sanga, the worthy antagonist of Babur, the “immortal foe,” who at the Pila Khal at Bayana destroyed the charm of the Deoji.

=Krishna Temples.=—On leaving the court of Rana Raemall, we reach two immense temples dedicated to the black god of Vraj: one being erected by Rana Kumbha, the other by his celebrated wife, the chief poetess of that age, Mira Bai, to the god of her idolatry, Shamnath.[11.15.16] We have elsewhere mentioned the ecstasies of this fair votary of the Apollo of the Yamuna, who even danced before his shrine, in which her last moments were passed; and, to complete the picture, so entirely were the effusions both of her heart and pen approved, that “the god descended from his pedestal and gave her an embrace, which extricated the spark of life. ‘Welcome, Mira,’ said the lover of Radha; and her soul was absorbed into his!” This rhapsody is worthy of the fair authoress of the Tika, or sequel to the Gita Govinda,[11.15.17] which is said not to be unworthy even of Jayadeva.

Both these temples are entirely constructed from the wrecks of more ancient shrines, said to have been brought from the ruins of a city of remote antiquity, called Nagari, three coss northward of Chitor.[11.15.18] Near these temples of Kumbh-Syam are two reservoirs, built of large blocks, each one hundred and twenty-five feet long by fifty [761] wide, and fifty deep, said to have been excavated on the marriage of the ‘Ruby of Mewar’ to Achal Khichi of Gagraun, and filled with oil and ghi, which were served out to the numerous attendants on that occasion.

=The Pillar of Victory, or Kīrtti-Khambh.= —We are now in the vicinity of the Kirtti-Khambh, the pillar erected by Rana Kumbha on his defeat of the combined armies of Malwa and Gujarat.[11.15.19] The only thing in India to compare with this is the Kutb Minar at Delhi; but, though much higher, it is of a very inferior character. This column is one hundred and twenty-two feet in height, the breadth of each face at the base is thirty-five feet, and at the summit, immediately under the cupola, seventeen feet and a half. It stands on an ample terrace, forty-two feet square. It has nine distinct stories, with openings at every face of each story, and all these doors have colonnaded porticos; but it is impossible to describe it, and therefore a rough outline, which will show Ghasi’s notions of perspective, must suffice. It is built chiefly of compact limestone and the quartz rock on which it stands, which takes the highest polish; indeed there are portions possessing the hardness and exhibiting the fracture of jasper. It is one mass of sculpture; of which a better idea cannot be conveyed than in the remark of those who dwell about it, that it contains every object known to their mythology. The ninth khand, or ‘story,’ which, as I have stated, is seventeen feet and a half square, has numerous columns supporting a vault, in which is sculptured Kanhaiya in the Rasmandala (celestial sphere), surrounded by the Gopis or muses, each holding a musical instrument, and in a dancing attitude.[11.15.20] Beneath this is a richly carved scroll fringed with the saras, the phenicopteros[11.15.21] of ornithology. Around this chamber had been arranged, on black marble tablets, the whole genealogy of the Ranas of Chitor; but the Goths have broken or defaced all, save one slab, containing the two following slokas.

Sloka 172: “Shaking the earth, the lords of Gujarkhand and Malwa, both the sultans, with armies overwhelming as the ocean, invaded Medpat. Kumbhakaran reflected lustre on the land; to what point can we exalt his renown? In the midst of the armies of his foe, Kumbha was as a tiger, or as a flame in a dry forest.”

Sloka 183: “While the sun continues to warm the earth, so long may the fame of Kumbha Rana endure. While the icy mountains (Himagiri) of the north rest upon their base, or so long as Himachal is stationary, while ocean continues to form a garland round the neck of Avani (the earth), so long may Kumbha’s glory be perpetuated! May the varied history of his sway and the splendour of his dominion last [762] for ever! Seven years had elapsed beyond fifteen hundred when Rana Kumbha placed this ringlet on the forehead of Chitor. Sparkling like the rays of the rising sun, is the toran, rising like the bridegroom of the land.

“In S. 1515, the temple of Brahma was founded, and this year, Vrihaspatiwar (Thursday), the 10th tithi and Pushya Nakshatra, in the month of Magh, on the immovable Chitrakot, this Kirtti stambha was finished. What does it resemble, which makes Chitor look down on Meru with derision? Again, what does Chitrakot resemble, from whose summit the fountains are ever flowing, the circular diadem on whose crest is beauteous to the eye; abounding in temples to the Almighty, planted with odoriferous trees, to which myriads of bees resort, and where soft zephyrs love to play? This immovable fortress (Achal-durga) was formed by Maha-Indra’s own hands.”

How many more Slokas there may have been, of which this is the 183rd, we can only conjecture; though this would seem to be the winding-up.

The view from this elevated spot was superb, extending far into the plains of Malwa. The lightning struck and injured the dome some years ago, but generally there is no semblance of decay, though some shoots of the pipal have rooted themselves where the bolt of Indra fell. It is said to have cost ninety lakhs of rupees, or near a million sterling; and this is only one of the many magnificent works of Rana Kumbha within Chitor; the temples to Krishna, the lake called Kurma Sagar, the temple and fountain to Kukkureswar Mahadeo, having been erected by him. He also raised the stupendous fortifications of Kumbhalmer, to which place the seat of government was transferred. It is asserted that the immense wealth in jewels appertaining to the princes of Gujarat, was captured by Mahmud Begada, when he took Kumbhalmer, whence he carried forty thousand captives.[11.15.22]

Near this is the grand temple of Brahma, erected also by Kumbha, in honour of his father Mokal, whose name it bears, and whose bust is the only object of veneration within.[11.15.23] It would seem as if Kumbha had been a deist, worshipping the Creator alone; though his inspired wife, Mira Bai, seems to have drawn a portion of his regard to Muralidhar, ‘he who holds the flute.’ Adjoining the shrine of the great spirit, is the Charbagh, where the ashes of the heroes, from Bappa down to the founder of Udaipur, are entombed. Many possessed great external interest; but I was forced to be content with what I saw, for the chronicler is dead.

=Scene of the Johar.=—Through these abodes of silence, a rugged path leads to a sequestered spot in a deep cleft of the rock, where there is a living fountain, called the Gao-mukh, or 'cow’s [763] mouth,' under the shade of an umbrageous bar tree. On one side of the dell is the subterranean channel called Rani-bhandar, which, it is said, leads to suites of chambers in the rock. This was the scene of the awful Johar, on the occasion of Ala sacking Chitor, when the queens perished in the flames; on which the cavern’s mouth was closed.

Still ascending, I visited the edifices named after Jaimall and Patta, and the shrine of Kalika Devi, esteemed one of the most ancient of Chitor, existing since the time of the Mori, the dynasty prior to the Guhilot.[11.15.24] But the only inscription I discovered was the following:—

“S. 1574 Magh (sudi) 5th, and Revati Nakshatra, the stone-cutters Kalu, Kaimer, and thirty-six others (whose names are added), enlarged the fountain of the sun (Suryakunda), adjacent to the temple of Kalika Devi.” Thence I passed to the vaulted cenotaph of Chonda, the founder of the Chondawats, who surrendered his birthright to please his aged sire. A little further, are the mahalls of Rana Bhim and Padmini. Beyond this, within a stone enclosure, is the place where the victorious Kumbha confined the king of Malwa; and touching it is the mahall of the Raos of Rampura.

Further south is a spot of deep interest: the tank and palace of Chitrang Mori,[11.15.25] the ancient Puar lord of Chitor, whose inscription I have already given. The interior sides of the tank are divided into sculptured compartments, in very good taste, but not to be compared with the works at Barolli, though doubtless executed under the same family. Being now within two hundred yards of the southern bastion, I returned by the mahalls of the once vassals of Chitor, namely, Sirohi, Bundi, Sunth,[11.15.26] Lunawada, to the Chaugan, or ‘field of Mars,’ where the military festival of the Dasahra is yet held by the slender garrison of Chitor. Close to it is a noble reservoir of a hundred and thirty feet in length, sixty-five in width, and forty-seven in depth. It is lined with immense sculptured masses of masonry, and filled with water.

=The Jain Pillar.=—Higher up, and nearly about the centre, is a remarkable square pillar, called the Khawasan-sthamba (column).[11.15.27] It is seventy-five feet and a half in height, thirty feet in diameter at the base, and fifteen at the top, and covered with Jain figures. It is very ancient, and I found a fragment of an inscription at its base, which shows that it was dedicated to Adinath, the first of the twenty-four Jain pontiffs: “By Sri Adinath, and the twenty-four Jineswara, Pundarikaksha, Ganesa, Surya, and the nine planets, may you be preserved! S. 952 (A.D. 896) Baisakh (sudi) the 30th, Guruvar (Thursday)” [764].

I found also another old inscription near the very antique temple of Kukkureswar Mahadeo; “S. 811, Mah sudi 5th, Vrihaspativar (Thursday), A.D. 755, Raja Kukkureswar erected this temple and excavated the fountain.”

There are many Jain inscriptions, but amidst the heaps of ruins I was not fortunate enough to make any important discovery. One in the temple of Santnath was as follows; “S. 1505 (A.D. 1449), Sri Maharana Mokal, whose son Kumbhakaran’s treasurer, by name Sah Kola, his son Bhandari Ratna, and wife Bilandevi, erected this shrine to Santnath. The chief of the Khadatara Gachchha, Janraj Sur and apparent successor, Sri Jan Chandra Surji, made this writing.”

Close to the Suraj-pol, or gate in the centre of the eastern face, is an altar sacred to the manes of Sahidas, the chief of the Chondawats, who fell at his post, the gate of the sun, when the city was sacked by Bahadur Shah.

At the north-western face is a castle complete within itself, the walls and towers of which are of a peculiar form, and denote a high antiquity. This is said to be the ancient palace of the Moris and the first Ranas of Chitor. But it is time to close this description, which I do by observing, that one cannot move a step without treading on some fragment of the olden times:

Columns strewn, and statues fallen and cleft, Heaped like a host, in battle overthrown.

=An Old Fakīr.=—Before, however, I quit this spot, hallowed by these remains, I may mention having seen a being who, if there is any truth in Chitrakot, must be a hundred and sixty years old. This wonder is a Fakir, who has constantly inhabited the temples, within the memory of the oldest inhabitants; and there is one carpenter, now upwards of ninety, who recollects “Babaji as an old man and the terror of the children.” To me he did not appear above seventy. I found him deeply engaged at Pachisi with one of the townsfolk. When I was introduced to this extraordinary personage, he looked up at me for an instant, and exclaiming, “What does he want here?” quietly resumed his game. When it was finished, I presented my nazar to the inspired (for madness and inspiration are here synonymous), which he threw amongst the bystanders, and bolted over the ruins, dragging through the brambles a fine shawl some one had presented to him, and which, becoming an impediment, he left there. In these moods none durst molest him, and when inclined for food or pastime his wants were quickly supplied. For one moment I got him to cast his mental eye back [765] upon the past, and he mentioned something of Adina Beg and the Panjab (of which they say he was an inhabitant); but the oracle deigned nothing further.

=Udaipur=, March 8, 1822.—Here I am once more in the capital of Hindupati (chief of the Hindu race), from which no occurrence shall move me until I go to “eat the air” of my native land. I require repose, for the last fifteen years of my life have been one continuous tissue of toil and accident, such as are narrated in these records of a few of my many wanderings. The bow must be unbent, or it will snap, and the time for journalizing must cease with everything else under the sun. I halted a few days at Merta, and found my house nearly finished, the garden looking beautiful, the aru or peach-tree, the seo or apple, the santara,[11.15.28] narangi, and nimbu, or various orange and lime-trees, all in full blossom, and showing the potent influence of Surya, in these regions; the sharifa or sitaphal (fruit of Sita), or custard-apple, the anar, the kela, pomegranate, plantain, and various indigenous fruits, were all equally forward. These plants are mostly from Agra, Lucknow, or Cawnpore; but some of the finest peaches are the produce of those I planted at Gwalior,—I may say their grandchildren. When I left Gwalior in 1817, I brought with me the stones of several peach-trees, and planted them in the garden of Rang-piyari, my residence at Udaipur; and more delicious or more abundant fruit I never saw. The stones of these I again put in the new garden at Merta, and these again exhibit fruit, but it will require another year to prove whether they maintain the character they held in the plains of Raru, or in this city. The vegetables were equally thriving: I never saw finer crops of Prussian-blues,[11.15.29] of kobis, phul-kobis, or cabbages and cauliflowers, celery, and all that belongs to the kitchen-garden, and which my Rajput friends declare far superior to their indigenous race of sag, or greens; the Diwanji (Rana) has monopolized the celery, which he pronounces the prince of vegetables. I had also got my cutter for the Udaisagar, and we promised ourselves many delightful days, sailing amidst its islets and fishing in its stream. “But in all this was there vanity”: poor Carey lies under the sod; Duncan has been struggling on, and is just about to depart for the Cape of Good Hope; Patrick, who was left at Kotah, writes me dismal accounts of his health and his solitude, and I am left almost alone, the ghost of what I was. “I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour I had laboured to do; and behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit!” And such I fear will it prove with more important works than these amusements of the hour; but it were certain death to stay, and the doctor insists on my sending in ‘a sick certificate,’ and putting my house in order for [766] departure. The month of May is fixed, a resolution which has filled the Rana with grief; but he “gives me leave only for three years, and his sister, Chandji Bai, desires me to bring back a wife that she may love.”

I would willingly have dispensed with the honours of a public entrée; but here, even health must bend to forms and the laws of the Rajputs; and the Rana, Prince Jawan Singh, and all the Sesodia chivalry, advanced to welcome our return. “Ap ghar aye! You have come home!” was the simple and heartfelt expression of the Rana, as he received my reverential salaam; but he kindly looked round, and missed my companions, for Waugh Sahib and Doctor Sahib were both great favourites; and, last but not least, when he saw me bestride Javadia, he asked, “where was Bajraj?” but the ‘royal-steed’ (his gift) was no more, and lies entombed at Kotah. “Hae! hae! alas! alas! (exclaimed Prithinath); bara sochpan balamanukh cha, great grief, for he was a good man.”[11.15.30] The virtues of Bajraj were the subject of conversation until we reached the ‘gate of the sun’ (Surajpol); when the Rana “gave me leave to go home,” and he continued his promenade.

=Bajrāj, the Horse.=—Bajraj was worthy of such notice and of his name; he was perfection, and so general a favourite that his death was deemed a public misfortune, for he was as well known throughout all these regions as his master. The general yell of sorrow that burst from all my sepoys and establishment on that event, was astounding, and the whole camp attended his obsequies; many were weeping, and when they began to throw the earth upon the fine beast, wrapped up in his body-clothes, his sais (groom) threw himself into his grave, and was quite frantic with grief. I cut some locks off his mane in remembrance of the noblest beast I ever crossed, and in a few days I observed many huge stones near the spot, which before I left Kotah grew into a noble chabutra, or ‘altar’ of hewn stone about twenty feet square and four feet high, on which was placed the effigy of Bajraj large as life, sculptured out of one block of freestone. I was grateful for the attention, but the old regent had caught the infection, and evinced his sense of the worth of Bajraj by a tomb such as his master cannot expect; but in this case perhaps I divided the interest, though there was no prince of Rajwara more proud of his stud than the blind chief of Kotah. From the days of the Pandus to Dewa-Banga of Bundi, many a war has been waged for a horse; nor can we better declare the relative estimation of the noble animal than in the words of that stalwart Hara to the Lodi king: “There are three things you must not ask of a Rajput, his horse, his mistress, or his sword” [767].

In a few days I shall leave the capital for the villa of the Hara Rani, sister of the Kotah prince, and whose bracelet also I have had, the symbol of adoption as her brother. To all their customs, to all their sympathies, and numerous acts of courtesy and kindness, which have made this not a strange land to me, I am about to bid farewell; whether a final one, is written in that book which for wise purposes is sealed to mortal vision; but wherever I go, whatever days I may number, nor place nor time can ever weaken, far less obliterate, the remembrance of the valley of Udaipur.[11.15.31]

-----

Footnote 11.15.1:

[Sir Henry Durand, then Lieutenant-Governor of the Panjāb, met his death by a similar accident at Tānk in the Dera Ismāīl Khan District, on January 1, 1871.]

Footnote 11.15.2:

[Begūn was, by the Author’s intervention, restored to the Rāwat, Maha Singh II., in 1822. A couple of years later, Maha Singh gave up the estate to his son, Kishor Singh, and became a religious mendicant at the shrines of Nāthdwāra and Kānkroli. But when Kishor Singh was, for some unknown reason, murdered in cold blood by a Brāhman in 1839, he resumed the management, and lived till 1860 (Erskine ii. A. 95).]

Footnote 11.15.3:

[For a curious sketch of Chitor by a gunner in Aurangzeb’s service, see J. Fryer, New Account of India and Persia, vol. iii. ed. 1915, p. 170.]

Footnote 11.15.4:

[See Vol. I. p. 379.]

Footnote 11.15.5:

A small tent without (be) a pole (choba).

Footnote 11.15.6:

[See the account in ASR, xxiii. (1887) p. 101 ff.; Erskine ii. A. 101 ff.]

Footnote 11.15.7:

[The Bīdar subdivision of the Kāyasth, or writer caste, does not appear in recent lists, and this is the only reference to Kāyasths in the “Annals,” their place being usually taken by the Pancholi. A man of the writer caste, Srīpati, is mentioned on the Siwālik pillar at Delhi (IA, xix. 219). The place of Kāyasths in Rājputāna has generally been taken by Banias.]

Footnote 11.15.8:

[This, the most ancient chronicle of Mewār, was written in the ninth century, and was recast in the reign of Partāp Singh I. (A.D. 1572-97), and carries the narrative down to the wars of that prince with Akbar, devoting much space to the siege of Chitor by Alāu-d-dīn Khilji (Grierson, Modern Literary Hist. of Hindustan, 1 f.).]

Footnote 11.15.9:

[See Vol. I. p. 362.]

Footnote 11.15.10:

[Mor, maur, ‘a crown,’ such as that worn by the bridegroom to avert the Evil Eye.]

Footnote 11.15.11:

[Tulja (not Tulsi, as in the original text) Bhavāni, a form of the Māta or mother goddess, has her best-known shrine at Tuljapur in the dominions of the Nīzām of Haidarābād (IGI, xxiv. 52).]

Footnote 11.15.12:

[This title is not traceable in the dictionaries. The more usual designation is Mir-i-ākhwar or ākhor.]

Footnote 11.15.13:

[An inscription on this building shows that it was erected in A.D. 1448 by Bhandāri Bela, son of the treasurer of Rāna Kūmbha, and dedicated to Sāntināth, the 16th Jain Tīrthakara (Erskine ii. A. 102 f.).]

Footnote 11.15.14:

[See p. 1640.]

Footnote 11.15.15:

[‘The yellow rivulet.’]

Footnote 11.15.16:

[This temple, dedicated to Krishna, is known as Kūmbh Syām, Syām being ‘the black’ Krishna. It was built about A.D. 1450 (Erskine ii. A. 103). Also see Fergusson, Hist. Ind. Arch. ed. 1910, ii. 150.]

Footnote 11.15.17:

[The chief work of Mīra Bāi is the Rāg Gobind, and a much-admired commentary on the Gīta Govinda of Jayadeva (Grierson, Modern Literary Hist. of Hindūstān, 12).]

Footnote 11.15.18:

I trust this may be put to the proof; for I think it will prove to be Takshaknagara, of which I have long been in search, and which gave rise to the suggestion of Herbert that Chitor was Taxila of Porus (the Puar?). [The Author’s suggestion is incorrect. Nagari is one of the most ancient places in Rājputāna, and its original name is said to be Madhyamika. A fragmentary inscription earlier than the Christian era has been found here. There are two Buddhist stūpas and the ruins of a Buddhist building, said to have been used by Akbar to house his elephants, and hence called Hāthi ka Bāra, ‘the elephant enclosure’ (Erskine ii. A. 94).]

Footnote 11.15.19:

[For this pillar, known as Kīrtti or Jai Stambha, see Fergusson, Hist. Ind. Arch. ed. 1910, ii. 59 f.; Smith, Hist. Fine Art, 202 f., who calls it “an illustrated dictionary of Hindu mythology.” Garrett found Arabic inscriptions on the third and eighth stories (ASR, xxiii. (1887), 116 f.). For the pillar which the opponent of Rāna Kūmbha erected to commemorate his victory, see BG, i. Part i. 361; for similar pillars erected at Mandasor by Yasodharman in the sixth century A.D., see IA, xv. 253 ff., and compare xvi. 18.]

Footnote 11.15.20:

[For the Rāsmandala, or circular dance of Krishna with the Gopis or shepherd girls, see Growse, Mathura, 3rd ed., 61.]

Footnote 11.15.21:

[Ardea antigone, the noble crane of N. India.]

Footnote 11.15.22:

[Mahmūd Begada, King of Ahmadābād (A.D. 1459-1513). There does not seem to be any corroboration of his capture of Kūmbhalmer (Ferishta iv. 26 ff.). His predecessor, Kutbu-d-dīn, is said to have levied a ransom from the Rāna after an unsuccessful attack by the latter (ibid. iv. 41). For the attack on the fort, about A.D. 1458, by Mahmūd Khilji of Mālwa, see ibid. iv. 208 f.]

Footnote 11.15.23:

[This temple, originally erected in the eleventh century, was reconstructed in the reign of Mokal (A.D. 1428-38), and is dedicated to Mahādeo Samiddheswar. It contains a series of relief sculptures, the interpretation of which is still uncertain (Erskine ii. A. 103; Smith, Hist. Fine Art, 203 f., with references to authorities.)]

Footnote 11.15.24:

[It was originally a sun-temple (Erskine ii. A. 103).]

Footnote 11.15.25:

[This has been so altered, remodelled, and ruined that its original form is unrecognizable (Fergusson, Hist. Ind. Arch. ed. 1910, ii. 170).]

Footnote 11.15.26:

[Sunth and Lūnavāda in Rewa Kāntha, Bombay (IGI, xvi. 209 ff.).]

Footnote 11.15.27:

[The Jain pillar, known as Khawāsan Stambha, said to mean ‘Grandee’s pillar,’ or Kīrtti Stambha, ‘pillar of victory,’ was built by a Bagherwāl Mahājan, or merchant, named Jīja in the twelfth or thirteenth century A.D., and has recently been repaired by the Government of India. Fergusson (Hist. Ind. Arch. ed. 1910, ii. 59) remarks that the date assigned on the slab mentioned in the text, which is now lost, is much too early. It has been ascribed to Kumārapāla of Gujarāt (A.D. 1143-74). It probably belongs to the thirteenth century, and the nude figures show that it was a Digambara monument, whereas Kumārapāla was a Svetāmbara. The tradition assigning it to Jīja Mahājan may be correct (Erskine ii. A. 104).]

Footnote 11.15.28:

[The Cintra orange, Āīn, ii. 124.]

Footnote 11.15.29:

[A kind of peas.]

Footnote 11.15.30:

Mānukh or mānushya is the diminutive of man. [Prithināth, ‘lord of the earth,’ a title of the Rāna.]

Footnote 11.15.31:

By a singular coincidence, the day on which I closed these wanderings is the same on which I have put the last stroke to a work that has afforded me some pleasure and much pain. It was on March 8, 1822, I ended my journey and entered Udaipur: on March 8, 1832, I am transcribing this last page of my journal: in March my book appears before the public: I was born in March; embarked for India in March; and had the last glimpse of its land, the coast of Ceylon, in March. But what changes has not the ever-revolving wheel produced since that time! Captain Waugh returned to England about six months after me; his health much shattered. We met, and lived together, in London, in Belgium, and in France; but amidst all the beauties of novelty, Rajputana was the theme to which we constantly reverted. He returned to India, had just obtained his majority, and was marching in command of his regiment, the 10th Light Cavalry, from Muttra to Mhow, when, in passing through the land where we had seen many happy days together, he was invited by the chief of Duni to renew old recollections by a visit. Though in the highest spirits, my poor cousin went with a presentiment of evil. He was accompanied by some of his officers. In ascending the hill he fell, and sustained an injury which rendered an operation necessary. This succeeded so well, that in two days he proceeded in a litter; when, on arriving at the ground, his friends drew the curtain of his duli, and found him dead! His ashes repose in Mewar, under a monument raised by his brother officers. He did not live to see the completion of these labours, which none but he could fully appreciate. No man was ever more beloved in private life; and the eulogium passed upon him, but two days ago, by his old friend and commander, the gallant General Sir Thomas Brown—“He was one of the best cavalry officers who ever served under me,”—is an honourable testimony to his public career. No apology is required for this record of the talent and worth of one who, in addition to the ties of kindred, was linked to me by the bonds of friendship during twenty years.—March 8, 1832 [768-769].

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