=Rāna Partāp Singh, A.D. 1572-97.=—Partap[4.11.1] succeeded to the
titles and renown of an illustrious house, but without a capital,
without resources, his kindred and clans dispirited by reverses: yet
possessed of the noble spirit of his race, he meditated the recovery of
Chitor, the vindication of the honour of his house, and the restoration
of its power. Elevated with this design, he hurried into conflict with
his powerful antagonist, nor stooped to calculate the means which were
opposed to him. Accustomed to read in his country’s annals the splendid
deeds of his forefathers, and that Chitor had more than once been the
prison of their foes, he trusted that the revolutions of fortune might
co-operate with his own efforts to overturn the unstable throne of
Delhi. The reasoning was as just as it was noble; but whilst he gave
loose to those lofty aspirations which meditated liberty to Mewar, his
crafty opponent was counteracting his views by a scheme of policy which,
when disclosed, filled his heart with anguish. The wily Mogul arrayed
against Partap his kindred in faith as well as blood. The princes of
Marwar, Amber, Bikaner, and even Bundi, late his firm ally, took part
with Akbar and upheld despotism. Nay, even his own brother,
Sagarji,[4.11.2] deserted him, and received, as the price of his
treachery, the ancient capital of his race, and the title which that
possession conferred [332].
=Rāna Partāp Singh resists the Moguls.=—But the magnitude of the peril
confirmed the fortitude of Partap, who vowed, in the words of the bard,
“to make his mother’s milk resplendent”; and he amply redeemed his
pledge. Single-handed, for a quarter of a century did he withstand the
combined efforts of the empire; at one time carrying destruction into
the plains, at another flying from rock to rock, feeding his family from
the fruits of his native hills, and rearing the nursling hero Amra,
amidst savage beasts and scarce less savage men, a fit heir to his
prowess and revenge. The bare idea that “the son of Bappa Rawal should
bow the head to mortal man,” was insupportable; and he spurned every
overture which had submission for its basis, or the degradation of
uniting his family by marriage with the Tatar, though lord of countless
multitudes.
The brilliant acts he achieved during that period live in every valley;
they are enshrined in the heart of every true Rajput, and many are
recorded in the annals of the conquerors. To recount them all, or relate
the hardships he sustained, would be to pen what they would pronounce a
romance who had not traversed the country where tradition is yet
eloquent with his exploits, or conversed with the descendants of his
chiefs, who cherish a recollection of the deeds of their forefathers,
and melt, as they recite them, into manly tears.[4.11.3]
Partap was nobly supported; and though wealth and fortune tempted the
fidelity of his chiefs, not one was found base enough to abandon him.
The sons of Jaimall shed their blood in his cause, along with the
successors of Patta—the house of Salumbar redoubled the claims of Chonda
to fidelity; and these five lustres of adversity are the brightest in
the chequered page of the history of Mewar. Nay, some chiefs, attracted
by the very desperation of his fortunes, pressed to his standard, to
combat and die with Partap. Amongst these was the Delwara chief, whose
devotion gained him the prince’s ‘right hand.’
=The Vow of Rāna Partāp Singh.=—To commemorate the desolation of Chitor,
which the bardic historian represents as a ‘widow’ despoiled of the
ornaments to her loveliness, Partap interdicted to himself and his
successors every article of luxury or pomp, until the insignia of her
glory should be redeemed. The gold and silver dishes were laid aside
[333] for _pattras_[4.11.4] of leaves; their beds henceforth of straw,
and their beards left untouched. But in order more distinctly to mark
their fallen fortune and stimulate to its recovery, he commanded that
the martial _nakkaras_, which always sounded in the van of battle or
processions, should follow in the rear. This last sign of the depression
of Mewar still survives; the beard is yet untouched by the shears; and
even in the subterfuge by which the patriot king’s behest is set aside,
we have a tribute to his memory: for though his descendant eats off gold
and silver, and sleeps upon a bed, he places the leaves beneath the one
and straw under the other.[4.11.5]
Often was Partap heard to exclaim, “Had Udai Singh never been, or none
intervened between him and Sanga Rana, no Turk should ever have given
laws to Rajasthan.” Hindu society had assumed a new form within the
century preceding: the wrecks of dominion from the Jumna and Ganges had
been silently growing into importance; and Amber and Marwar had attained
such power, that the latter single-handed coped with the imperial Sher
Shah; while numerous minor chieftainships were attaining shape and
strength on both sides the Chambal. A prince of commanding genius alone
was wanting, to snatch the sceptre of dominion from the Islamite. Such a
leader they found in Sanga, who possessed every quality which extorts
spontaneous obedience, and the superiority of whose birth, as well as
dignity, were admitted without cavil, from the Himalaya to
Rameswaram.[4.11.6] These States had powerful motives to obey such a
leader, in the absence of whom their ancient patrimony was lost; and
such they would have found renewed in Sanga’s grandson, Partap, had Udai
Singh not existed, or had a less gifted sovereign than Akbar been his
contemporary.
With the aid of some chiefs of judgment and experience, Partap
remodelled his government, adapting it to the exigencies of the times
and to his slender resources. New grants were issued, with regulations
defining the service required. Kumbhalmer, now the seat of government,
was strengthened, as well as Gogunda and other mountain fortresses; and,
being unable to keep the field in the plains [334] of Mewar, he followed
the system of his ancestors, and commanded his subjects, on pain of
death, to retire into the mountains. During the protracted contest, the
fertile tracts watered by the Banas and the Berach, from the Aravalli
chain west to the eastern tableland, were _be chiragh_, ‘without a
lamp.’
Many tales are related of the unrelenting severity with which Partap
enforced obedience to this stern policy. Frequently, with a few horse,
he issued forth to see that his commands were obeyed. The silence of the
desert prevailed in the plains; grass had usurped the place of the
waving corn; the highways were choked with the thorny babul,[4.11.7] and
beasts of prey made their abode in the habitations of his subjects. In
the midst of this desolation, a single goatherd, trusting to elude
observation, disobeyed his prince’s injunction, and pastured his flock
in the luxuriant meadows of Untala, on the banks of the Banas. After a
few questions, he was killed and hung up _in terrorem_. By such
patriotic severity Partap rendered ‘the garden of Rajasthan’ of no value
to the conqueror, and the commerce already established between the Mogul
court and Europe, conveyed through Mewar from Surat and other ports, was
intercepted and plundered.
=Akbar attacks Rāna Partāp Singh, A.D. 1576.=—Akbar took the field
against the Rajput prince, establishing his headquarters at Ajmer. This
celebrated fortress, destined ultimately to be one of the twenty-two
subahs of his empire and an imperial residence, had admitted for some
time a royal garrison. Maldeo of Marwar, who had so ably opposed the
usurper Sher Shah, was compelled to follow the example of his brother
prince, Bhagwandas of Amber, and to place himself at the footstool of
Akbar: only two years subsequent to Partap’s accession, after a brave
but fruitless resistance in Merta and Jodhpur, he sent his son, Udai
Singh, to pay homage to the king.[4.11.8] Akbar received him at Nagor,
on his route to Ajmer, on which occasion the Raos of Mandor were made
Rajas; and as the heir of Marwar was of uncommon bulk, the title by
which he was afterwards known in Rajasthan was Mota Raja,[4.11.9] and
henceforth the descendants of the kings of Kanauj had the ‘right hand’
of the emperor of the Moguls. But the Rathor was greater in his native
pride than with all the accession of dignity or power which accrued on
his sacrifice of Rajput principles [335]. Udai ‘le gros’ was the first
of his race who gave a daughter in marriage to a Tatar. The bribe for
which he bartered his honour was splendid; for four provinces,[4.11.10]
yielding £200,000 of annual revenue, were given in exchange for Jodh
Bai,[4.11.11] at once doubling the fisc of Marwar. With such examples as
Amber and Marwar, and with less power to resist the temptation, the
minor chiefs of Rajasthan, with a brave and numerous vassalage, were
transformed into satraps of Delhi, and the importance of most of them
was increased by the change. Truly did the Mogul historian designate
them “at once the props and the ornaments of the throne.”
=Rāna Partāp Singh deserted by Rājput Princes.=—But these were fearful
odds against Partap: the arms of his countrymen thus turned upon him,
derived additional weight from their self-degradation, which kindled
into jealousy and hatred against the magnanimous resolution they wanted
the virtue to imitate. When Hindu prejudice was thus violated by every
prince in Rajasthan (that of Bundi alone excepted[4.11.12]), the Rana
renounced all alliance with those who were thus degraded; and in order
to carry on the line, he sought out and incorporated with the first
class of nobles of his own kin the descendants of the ancient princes of
Delhi, of Patan, of Marwar, and of Dhar. To the eternal honour of Partap
and his issue be it told, that to the very close of the monarchy of the
Moguls, they not only refused such alliance with the throne, but even
with their brother princes of Marwar and Amber. It is a proud triumph of
virtue to record, from the autograph letters of the most powerful of
their princes, Bakhta Singh and Jai Singh, that whilst they had risen to
greatness from the surrender of principle, as Mewar had decayed from her
adherence to it, they should, even while basking in court favour,
solicit, and that humbly, to be readmitted to the honour of matrimonial
intercourse—‘to be purified,’ ‘to be regenerated,’ ‘to be made Rajputs’:
and that this was granted only on condition of their abjuring the
contaminating practice which had disunited them for more than a century;
with the additional stipulation, that the issue of marriage with the
house [336] of Mewar should be the heirs to those they entered:
conditions which the decline of the empire prevented from being broken.
=Rāja Mān Singh and Rāna Partāp Singh.=—An anecdote illustrative of the
settled repugnance of this noble family to sully the purity of its blood
may here be related, as its result had a material influence on its
subsequent condition. Raja Man, who had succeeded to the throne of
Amber, was the most celebrated of his race, and from him may be dated
the rise of his country. This prince exemplified the wisdom of that
policy which Babur adopted to strengthen his conquest; that of
connecting his family by ties of marriage with the Hindus. It has been
already related, that Humayun espoused a daughter of Bhagwandas,
consequently Raja Man was brother-in-law to Akbar.[4.11.13] His courage
and talents well seconded this natural advantage, and he became the most
conspicuous of all the generals of the empire. To him Akbar was indebted
for half his triumphs. The Kachhwaha bards find a delightful theme in
recounting his exploits, from the snow-clad Caucasus to the shores of
the ‘golden Chersonese.’[4.11.14] Let the eye embrace these extremes of
his conquests, Kabul and the Paropanisos of Alexander, and Arakan (a
name now well known) on the Indian Ocean; the former reunited, the
latter subjugated, to the empire by a Rajput prince and a Rajput army.
But Akbar knew the master-key to Hindu feeling, and by his skill
overcame prejudices deemed insurmountable, and many are the tales yet
told of their blind devotion to their favourite emperor.
Raja Man was returning from the conquest of Sholapur to Hindustan when
he invited himself to an interview with Partap, then at Kumbhalmer, who
advanced to the Udaisagar to receive him. On the mound which embanks
this lake a feast was prepared for the prince of Amber. The board was
spread, the Raja summoned, and Prince Amra appointed to wait upon him;
but no Rana appeared, for whose absence apologies alleging headache were
urged by his son, with the request [337] that Raja Man would waive all
ceremony, receive his welcome, and commence. The prince, in a tone at
once dignified and respectful, replied: "Tell the Rana I can divine the
cause of his headache; but the error is irremediable, and if he refuses
to put a plate (_kansa_) before me, who will?" Further subterfuge was
useless. The Rana expressed his regret; but added, that “he could not
eat with a Rajput who gave his sister to a Turk, and who probably ate
with him.” Raja Man was unwise to have risked this disgrace: and if the
invitation went from Partap, the insult was ungenerous as well as
impolitic; but of this he is acquitted. Raja Man left the feast
untouched, _save the few grains of rice he offered to Anndeva,_[4.11.15]
_which he placed in his turban_, observing as he withdrew: “It was for
the preservation of your honour that we sacrificed our own, and gave our
sisters and our daughters to the Turk; but abide in peril, if such be
your resolve, for this country shall not hold you”; and mounting his
horse he turned to the Rana, who appeared at this abrupt termination of
his visit, “If I do not humble your pride, my name is not Man”: to which
Partap replied, “he should always be happy to meet him”; while some one,
in less dignified terms, desired he would not forget to bring his
‘_Phupha_’ [father’s sister’s husband], Akbar. The ground was deemed
impure where the feast was spread: it was broken up and lustrated with
the water of the Ganges, and the chiefs who witnessed the humiliation of
one they deemed apostate, bathed and changed their vestments, as if
polluted by his presence. Every act was reported to the emperor, who was
exasperated at the insult thus offered to himself, and who justly
dreaded the revival of those prejudices he had hoped were vanquished;
and it hastened the first of those sanguinary battles which have
immortalised the name of Partap: nor will Haldighat be forgotten while a
Sesodia occupies Mewar, or a bard survives to relate the tale.
=Salīm’s Campaign, A.D. 1576.=—Prince Salim, the heir of Delhi,[4.11.16]
led the war, guided by the counsels of Raja Man and the distinguished
apostate son of Sagarji, Mahabat Khan. Partap trusted to his native
hills and the valour of twenty-two thousand Rajputs to withstand the son
of Akbar. The divisions of the royal army encountered little opposition
at the exterior defiles by which they penetrated the western side of the
[338] Aravalli, concentrating as they approached the chief pass which
conducted to the vulnerable part of this intricate country.
=Battle of Haldīghāt or Gogūnda, June 18, 1576.=—The range to which
Partap was restricted was the mountainous region around, though chiefly
to the west of the new capital. From north to south, Kumbhalmer to
Rakhabhnath,[4.11.17] about eighty miles in length; and in breadth, from
Mirpur west to Satola east, about the same. The whole of this space is
mountain and forest, valley and stream. The approaches to the capital
from every point to the north, west, and south are so narrow as to merit
the term of defile; on each side lofty perpendicular rocks, with
scarcely breadth for two carriages abreast, across which are those
ramparts of nature termed _Col_ in the mountain scenery of Europe, which
occasionally open into spaces sufficiently capacious to encamp a large
force. Such was the plain of Haldighat, at the base of a neck of
mountain which shut up the valley and rendered it almost
inaccessible.[4.11.18] Above and below the Rajputs were posted, and on
the cliffs and pinnacles overlooking the field of battle, the faithful
aborigines, the Bhil, with his natural weapon the bow and arrow, and
huge stones ready to roll upon the combatant enemy.
At this pass Partap was posted with the flower of Mewar, and glorious
was the struggle for its maintenance. Clan after clan followed with
desperate intrepidity, emulating the daring of their prince, who led the
crimson banner into the hottest part of the field. In vain he strained
every nerve to encounter Raja Man; but though denied the luxury of
revenge on his Rajput foe, he made good a passage to where Salim
commanded. His guards fell before Partap, and but for the steel plates
which defended his howda, the lance of the Rajput would have deprived
Akbar of his heir. His steed, the gallant Chetak, nobly seconded his
lord, and is represented in all the historical drawings of this battle
with one foot raised upon the elephant of the Mogul, while his rider has
his lance propelled against his foe. The conductor, destitute of the
means of defence, was slain, when the infuriated animal, now without
control, carried off Salim. On this spot the carnage was immense: the
Moguls eager to defend Salim; the heroes of Mewar to second their
prince, who had already received seven wounds [339].[4.11.19] Marked by
the ‘royal umbrella,’ which he would not lay aside, and which collected
the might of the enemy against him, Partap was thrice rescued from
amidst the foe, and was at length nearly overwhelmed, when the Jhala
chief gave a signal instance of fidelity, and extricated him with the
loss of his own life. Mana seized upon the insignia of Mewar, and
rearing the ‘gold sun’ over his own head, made good his way to an
intricate position, drawing after him the brunt of the battle, while his
prince was forced from the field. With all his brave vassals the noble
Jhala fell; and in remembrance of the deed his descendants have, since
the day of Haldighat, borne the regal ensigns of Mewar, and enjoyed ‘the
right hand of her princes.’[4.11.20] But this desperate valour was
unavailing against such a force, with a numerous field artillery and a
dromedary corps mounting swivels; and of twenty-two thousand Rajputs
assembled on that day for the defence of Haldighat, only eight thousand
quitted the field alive.[4.11.21]
=The Escape of Rāna Partāp Singh.=—Partap, unattended, fled on the
gallant Chetak, who had borne him through the day, and who saved him now
by leaping a mountain stream when closely pursued by two Mogul chiefs,
whom this impediment momentarily checked. But Chetak, like his master,
was wounded; his pursuers gained upon Partap, and the flash from the
flinty rock announced them at his heels, when, in the broad accents of
his native tongue, the salutation _Ho! nila ghora ra aswar_, ‘Ho! rider
of the blue horse,’ made him look back, and he beheld but a single
horseman: that horseman his brother.
Sakta, whose personal enmity to Partap had made him a traitor to Mewar,
beheld from the ranks of Akbar the ‘blue horse’ flying unattended.
Resentment was extinguished, and a feeling of affection, mingling with
sad and humiliating recollections, took possession of his bosom. He
joined in the pursuit, but only to slay the pursuers, who fell beneath
his lance; and now, for the first time in their lives, the brothers
embraced in friendship. Here Chetak fell, and as the Rana unbuckled his
caparison to place it upon Ankara, presented to him by his brother, the
noble steed expired. An altar was raised, and yet marks the spot, where
Chetak[4.11.22] died; and the entire scene may be seen painted on the
walls of half the houses of the capital [340].
The greeting between the brothers was necessarily short; but the merry
Sakta, who was attached to Salim’s personal force, could not let it pass
without a joke; and inquiring “how a man felt when flying for his life?”
he quitted Partap with the assurance of reunion the first safe
opportunity. On rejoining Salim, the truth of Sakta was greatly doubted
when he related that Partap had not only slain his pursuers, but his own
steed, which obliged him to return on that of the Khorasani. Prince
Salim pledged his word to pardon him if he related the truth; when Sakta
replied, “The burthen of a kingdom is on my brother’s shoulders, nor
could I witness his danger without defending him from it.” Salim kept
his word, but dismissed the future head of the Saktawats. Determined to
make a suitable nazar on his introduction, he redeemed Bhainsror by a
_coup de main_, and joined Partap at Udaipur, who made him a grant of
the conquest, which long remained the chief abode of the
Saktawats;[4.11.23] and since the day when this, their founder,
preserved the life of his brother and prince against his Mogul pursuers,
the birad of the bard to all of his race is _Khorasani Multani ka Agal_,
‘the barrier to Khorasan and Multan,’ from which countries were the
chiefs he slew.
On the 7th of Sawan, S. 1632 (July, A.D. 1576), a day ever memorable in
her annals, the best blood of Mewar irrigated the pass of Haldighat. Of
the nearest kin of the prince five hundred were slain: the exiled prince
of Gwalior, Ramsah, his son Khanderao, with three hundred and fifty of
his brave Tuar clan, paid the debt of gratitude with their lives. Since
their expulsion by Babur they had found sanctuary in Mewar, whose
princes diminished their feeble revenues to maintain inviolable the
rites of hospitality.[4.11.24] Mana, the devoted Jhala, lost one hundred
and fifty of his vassals, and every house of Mewar mourned its chief
support.
=Siege of Kumbhalmer.=—Elate with victory, Salim left the hills. The
rainy season had set in, which impeded operations, and obtained for
Partap a few months of repose; but with the spring the foe returned,
when he was again defeated,[4.11.25] and took post in Kumbhalmer, which
was invested by the Koka, Shahbaz Khan. He here made a gallant and [341]
protracted resistance, and did not retire till insects rendered the
water of the Naugun well, their sole resource, impure.[4.11.26] To the
treachery of the Deora chief of Abu, who was now with Akbar, this deed
is imputed. Partap thence withdrew to Chawand,[4.11.27] while Bhan, the
Sonigira chief, defended the place to the last, and was slain in the
assault. On this occasion also fell the chief bard of Mewar, who
inspired by his deeds, as well as by his song, the spirit of resistance
to the ‘ruthless king,’ and whose laudatory couplets on the deeds of his
lord are still in every mouth. But the spirit of poesy died not with
him, for princes and nobles, Hindu and Turk, vied with each other in
exalting the patriot Partap, in strains replete with those sentiments
which elevate the mind of the martial Rajput, who is inflamed into
action by this national excitement.
=Further Imperialist Advance.=—On the fall of Kumbhalmer, the castles of
Dharmeti and Gogunda were invested by Raja Man. Mahabat Khan took
possession of Udaipur; and while a prince of the blood[4.11.28] cut off
the resources furnished by the inhabitants of Oghna Panarwra, Khan Farid
invaded Chappan, and approached Chawand from the south. Thus beset on
every side, dislodged from the most secret retreats, and hunted from
glen to glen, there appeared no hope for Partap: yet, even while his
pursuers deemed him panting in some obscure lurking-place, he would by
mountain signals reassemble his bands, and assail them unawares and
often unguarded. By a skilful manœuvre, Farid, who dreamed of nothing
less than making the Rajput prince his prisoner, was blocked up in a
defile and his force cut off to a man. Unaccustomed to such warfare, the
mercenary Moguls became disgusted in combating a foe seldom tangible;
while the monsoon swelled the mountain streams, filling the reservoirs
with mineral poisons and the air with pestilential exhalations. The
periodical rains accordingly always brought some respite to Partap.
Years thus rolled away, each ending with a diminution of his means and
an increase to his misfortunes. His family was his chief source of
anxiety: he dreaded their captivity, an apprehension often on the point
of being realised. On one occasion they were saved by the faithful Bhils
of Kava, who carried them in wicker baskets and concealed them in the
tin mines of Jawara, where they guarded [342] and fed them. Bolts and
rings are still preserved in the trees about Jawara and Chawand, to
which baskets were suspended, the only cradles of the royal children of
Mewar, in order to preserve them from the tiger and the wolf. Yet amidst
such complicated evils the fortitude of Partap remained unshaken, and a
spy sent by Akbar represented the Rajput and his chiefs seated at a
scanty meal, maintaining all the etiquette observed in prosperity, the
Rana bestowing the _dauna_ to the most deserving, and which, though only
of the wild fruit of the country, was received with all the reverence of
better days. Such inflexible magnanimity touched the soul of
Akbar,[4.11.29] and extorted the homage of every chief in Rajasthan; nor
could those who swelled the gorgeous train of the emperor withhold their
admiration. Nay, these annals have preserved some stanzas addressed by
the Khankhanan,[4.11.30] the first of the satraps of Delhi, to the noble
Rajput, in his native tongue, applauding his valour and stimulating his
perseverance: “All is unstable in this world: land and wealth will
disappear, but the virtue of a great name lives for ever. Patta[4.11.31]
abandoned wealth and land, but never bowed the head: alone, of all the
princes of Hind, he preserved the honour of his race.”
But there were moments when the wants of those dearer than his own life
almost excited him to frenzy. The wife of his bosom was insecure, even
in the rock or the cave; and his infants, heirs to every luxury, were
weeping around him for food: for with such pertinacity did the Mogul
myrmidons pursue them, that “five meals have been prepared and abandoned
for want of opportunity to eat them.” On one occasion his queen and his
son’s wife were preparing a few cakes from the flour of the meadow
grass,[4.11.32] of which one was given to each; half for the present,
the rest for a future meal. Partap was stretched beside them pondering
on his misfortunes, when a piercing cry from his daughter roused him
from reflection: a wild cat had darted on the reserved portion of food,
and the agony of hunger made her shrieks insupportable. Until that
moment his fortitude had been unsubdued. He had beheld his sons and his
kindred fall around him on the field without emotion—“For this the
Rajput was born”; but the lamentation of his children for food “unmanned
him.” He cursed the name of royalty, if only to be enjoyed on such
conditions, and he demanded of Akbar a mitigation of his hardships
[343].
=Submission of Rāna Partāp Singh.=—Overjoyed at this indication of
submission, the emperor commanded public rejoicings, and exultingly
showed the letter to Prithiraj, a Rajput compelled to follow the
victorious car of Akbar. Prithiraj was the younger brother of the prince
of Bikaner,[4.11.33] a State recently grown out of the Rathors of
Marwar, and which, being exposed in the flats of the desert, had no
power to resist the example of its elder, Maldeo. Prithiraj was one of
the most gallant chieftains of the age, and like the Troubadour princes
of the west, could grace a cause with the soul-inspiring effusions of
the muse, as well as aid it with his sword: nay, in an assembly of the
bards of Rajasthan, the palm of merit was unanimously awarded to the
Rathor cavalier. He adored the very name of Partap, and the intelligence
filled him with grief. With all the warmth and frankness of his nature,
he told the king it was a forgery of some foe to the fame of the Rajput
prince. “I know him well,” said he; “for your crown he would not submit
to your terms.” He requested and obtained permission from the king to
transmit by his courier a letter to Partap, ostensibly to ascertain the
fact of his submission, but really with the view to prevent it. On this
occasion he composed those couplets, still admired, and which for the
effect they produced will stand comparison with any of the _sirventes_
of the Troubadours of the west.[4.11.34]
"The hopes of the Hindu rest on the Hindu; yet the Rana forsakes them.
But for Partap, all would be placed on the same level by Akbar; for our
chiefs have lost their valour and our females their honour. Akbar is the
broker in the market of our race: all has he purchased but the son of
Uda; he is beyond his price. What true Rajput would part with honour for
nine days (_nauroza_); yet how many have bartered it away? Will Chitor
come to this market, when all have disposed of the chief article of the
Khatri? Though Patta has squandered away wealth, yet this treasure has
he preserved. Despair has driven man to this mart, to witness their
dishonour: from such infamy the descendant of Hamir alone has been
preserved. The world asks, whence the concealed aid of Partap? None but
the soul of manliness and his sword: with it, well has he maintained the
Khatri’s pride. This broker in the market [344] of men will one day be
overreached; he cannot live for ever: then will our race come to Partap,
for the seed of the Rajput to sow in our desolate lands. To him all look
for its preservation, that its purity may again become resplendent."
=Rally of Rāna Partāp Singh.=—This effusion of the Rathor was equal to
ten thousand men; it nerved the drooping mind of Partap, and roused him
into action: for it was a noble incentive to find every eye of his race
fixed upon him.
=The Nauroza.=—The allusion of the princely poet in the phrase,
“bartering their honour on the Nauroza,” requires some explanation. The
Nauroza, or ‘New Year’s Day,’ when the sun enters Aries, is one of great
festivity among the Muhammadan princes of the East; but of that alluded
to by Prithiraj we can form an adequate idea from the historian Abu-l
Fazl.[4.11.35]
It is not New Year’s Day, but a festival especially instituted by Akbar,
and to which he gave the epithet Khushroz, ‘day of pleasure,’ held on
the ninth day (_nauroza_), following the chief festival of each month.
The court assembled, and was attended by all ranks. The queen also had
her court, when the wives of the nobles and of the Rajput vassal princes
were congregated. But the Khushroz was chiefly marked by a fair held
within the precincts of the court, attended only by females. The
merchants’ wives exposed the manufactures of every clime, and the ladies
of the court were the purchasers.[4.11.36] “His majesty is also there in
disguise, by which means he learns the value of merchandise, and hears
what is said of the state of the empire and the character of the
officers of government.” The ingenuous Abu-l Fazl thus softens down the
unhallowed purpose of this day; but posterity cannot admit that the
great Akbar was to obtain these results amidst the Pushto jargon of the
dames of Islam, or the mixed Bhakha of the fair of [345] Rajasthan.
These ‘ninth day fairs’ are the markets in which Rajput honour was
bartered, and to which the brave Prithiraj makes allusion.[4.11.37]
=Akbar and Rajput Ladies.=—It is scarcely to be credited that a
statesman like Akbar should have hazarded his popularity or his power,
by the introduction of a custom alike appertaining to the Celtic races
of Europe as to these the Goths of Asia;[4.11.38] and that he should
seek to degrade those whom the chances of war had made his vassals, by
conduct so nefarious and repugnant to the keenly cherished feelings of
the Rajput. Yet there is not a shadow of doubt that many of the noblest
of the race were dishonoured on the Nauroza; and the chivalrous
Prithiraj was only preserved from being of the number by the high
courage and virtue of his wife, a princess of Mewar, and daughter of the
founder of the Saktawats. On one of these celebrations of the Khushroz,
the monarch of the Moguls was struck with the beauty of the daughter of
Mewar, and he singled her out from amidst the united fair of Hind as the
object of his passion. It is not improbable that an ungenerous feeling
united with that already impure, to despoil the Sesodias of their
honour, through a princess of their house under the protection of the
sovereign. On retiring from the fair, she found herself entangled amidst
the labyrinth of apartments by which egress was purposely ordained, when
Akbar stood before her: but instead of acquiescence, she drew a poniard
from her corset, and held it to his breast, dictating, and making him
repeat, the oath of renunciation of the infamy to all her race. The
anecdote is accompanied in the original with many dramatic
circumstances. The guardian goddess of Mewar, the terrific Mata, appears
on her tiger in the subterranean passage of this palace of pollution, to
strengthen her mind by a solemn denunciation [346], and her hand with a
weapon to protect her honour. Rae Singh, the elder brother of the
princely bard, had not been so fortunate; his wife wanted either courage
or virtue to withstand the regal tempter, and she returned to their
dwelling in the desert despoiled of her chastity, but loaded with
jewels; or, as Prithiraj expresses it: “She returned to her abode,
tramping to the tinkling sound of the ornaments of gold and gems on her
person; but where, my brother, is the moustache[4.11.39] on thy lip?”
=Adventures of Rāna Partāp Singh.=—It is time to return to the Aravalli,
and to the patriot prince Partap. Unable to stem the torrent, he had
formed a resolution worthy of his character; he determined to abandon
Mewar and the blood-stained Chitor (no longer the stay of his race), and
to lead his Sesodias to the Indus, plant the ‘crimson banner’ on the
insular capital of the Sogdoi, and leave a desert between him and his
inexorable foe. With his family, and all that was yet noble in Mewar,
his chiefs and vassals, a firm and intrepid band, who preferred exile to
degradation, he descended the Aravalli, and had reached the confines of
the desert, when an incident occurred which made him change his
measures, and still remain a dweller in the land of his forefathers. If
the historic annals of Mewar record acts of unexampled severity, they
are not without instances of unparalleled devotion. The minister of
Partap, whose ancestors had for ages held the office, placed at his
prince’s disposal their accumulated wealth, which, with other resources,
is stated to have been equivalent to the maintenance of twenty-five
thousand men for twelve years. The name of Bhama Sah is preserved as the
saviour of Mewar. With this splendid proof of gratitude, and the
_sirvente_ of Prithiraj as incitements, he again “screwed his courage to
the sticking-place,” collected his bands, and while his foes imagined
that he was endeavouring to effect a retreat through the desert,
surprised Shahbaz in his camp at Dawer, whose troops were cut in pieces.
The fugitives were pursued to Amet, the garrison of which shared the
same fate. Ere they could recover from their consternation, Kumbhalmer
was assaulted and taken; Abdulla and his garrison were put to the sword,
and thirty-two fortified posts in like manner carried by surprise, the
troops being put to death without mercy. To use the words of the annals:
"Partap made a desert of Mewar; he made an [347] offering to the sword
of whatever dwelt in its plains": an appalling but indispensable
sacrifice. In one short campaign (S. 1586, A.D. 1530), he had recovered
all Mewar, except Chitor, Ajmer, and Mandalgarh; and determining to have
a slight ovation in return for the triumph Raja Man had enjoyed (who had
fulfilled to the letter his threat, that Partap should “live in peril”),
he invaded Amber, and sacked its chief mart of commerce, Malpura.
Udaipur was also regained; though this acquisition was so unimportant as
scarcely to merit remark. In all likelihood it was abandoned from the
difficulty of defending it, when all around had submitted to Partap;
though the annals ascribe it to a generous sentiment of Akbar, prompted
by the great Khankhanan, whose mind appears to have been captivated by
the actions of the Rajput prince.[4.11.40] An anecdote is appended to
account for Akbar’s relaxation of severity, but it is of too romantic a
nature even for this part of their annals.
=Mewār left in Peace by the Imperialists.=—Partap was indebted to a
combination of causes for the repose he enjoyed during the latter years
of his life; and though this may be ascribed principally to the new
fields of ambition which occupied the Mogul arms, we are authorized also
to admit the full weight of the influence that the conduct of the Hindu
prince exerted upon Akbar, together with the general sympathy of his
fellow-princes, who swelled the train of the conqueror, and who were too
powerful to be regarded with indifference.
Repose was, however, no boon to the noblest of his race. A mind like
Partap’s could enjoy no tranquillity while, from the summit of the pass
which guarded Udaipur, his eye embraced the Kunguras of Chitor, to which
he must ever be a stranger. To a soul like his, burning for the
redemption of the glory of his race, the mercy thus shown him, in
placing a limit to his hopes, was more difficult of endurance than the
pangs of fabled Tantalus. Imagine the warrior, yet in manhood’s prime,
broken with fatigues and covered with scars, from amidst the fragments
of basaltic ruin[4.11.41] (fit emblem of his own condition!), casting a
wistful eye to [348] the rock stained with the blood of his fathers;
whilst in the ‘dark chamber’ of his mind the scenes of glory enacted
there appeared with unearthly lustre. First, the youthful Bappa, on
whose head was the ‘mor he had won from the Mori’:[4.11.42] the warlike
Samarsi, arming for the last day of Rajput independence, to die with
Prithiraj on the banks of the Ghaggar: again, descending the steep of
Chitor, the twelve sons of Arsi, the crimson banner floating around
each, while from the embattled rock the guardian goddess looked down on
the carnage which secured a perpetuity of sway. Again, in all the pomp
of sacrifice, the Deolia chiefs, Jaimall and Patta; and like the Pallas
of Rajasthan, the Chondawat dame, leading her daughter into the ranks of
destruction: examples for their sons’ and husbands’ imitation. At length
clouds of darkness dimmed the walls of Chitor: from her battlements
‘Kungura Rani’[4.11.43] had fled; the tints of dishonour began to blend
with the visions of glory; and lo! Udai Singh appeared flying from the
rock to which the honour of his house was united. Aghast at the picture
his fancy had portrayed, imagine him turning to the contemplation of his
own desolate condition, indebted for a cessation of persecution to the
most revolting sentiment that can assail an heroic mind—compassion;
compared with which scorn is endurable, contempt even enviable: these he
could retaliate; but for the high-minded, the generous Rajput, to be the
object of that sickly sentiment, pity, was more oppressive than the arms
of his foe.
=The Last Days of Rāna Partāp.=—A premature decay assailed the pride of
Rajasthan; a mind diseased preyed on an exhausted frame, and prostrated
him in the very summer of his days. The last moments of Partap were an
appropriate commentary on his life, which he terminated, like the
Carthaginian, swearing his successor to eternal conflict against the
foes of his country’s independence. But the Rajput prince had not the
same joyful assurance that inspired the Numidian Hamilcar; for his end
was clouded with the presentiment that his son Amra would abandon his
fame for inglorious repose. A powerful sympathy is excited by the
picture which is drawn of this final scene. The dying hero is
represented in a lowly dwelling; his chiefs, the faithful companions of
many a glorious day, awaiting round his pallet the dissolution of their
prince, when a groan of mental anguish made Salumbar inquire [349],
“What afflicted his soul that it would not depart in peace?” He rallied:
“It lingered,” he said, “for some consolatory pledge that his country
should not be abandoned to the Turk”; and with the death-pang upon him,
he related an incident which had guided his estimate of his son’s
disposition, and now tortured him with the reflection that for personal
ease he would forgo the remembrance of his own and his country’s wrongs.
On the banks of the Pichola, Partap and his chiefs had constructed a few
huts[4.11.44] (the site of the future palace of Udaipur), to protect
them during the inclemency of the rains in the day of their distress.
Prince Amra, forgetting the lowliness of the dwelling, a projecting
bamboo of the roof caught the folds of his turban and dragged it off as
he retired. A hasty emotion, which disclosed a varied feeling, was
observed with pain by Partap, who thence adopted the opinion that his
son would never withstand the hardships necessary to be endured in such
a cause. “These sheds,” said the dying prince, “will give way to
sumptuous dwellings, thus generating the love of ease; and luxury with
its concomitants will ensue, to which the independence of Mewar, which
we have bled to maintain, will be sacrificed: and you, my chiefs, will
follow the pernicious example.” They pledged themselves, and became
guarantees for the prince, “by the throne of Bappa Rawal,” that they
would not permit mansions to be raised till Mewar had recovered her
independence. The soul of Partap was satisfied, and with joy he expired.
Thus closed the life of a Rajput whose memory is even now idolized by
every Sesodia, and will continue to be so, till renewed oppression shall
extinguish the remaining sparks of patriotic feeling. May that day never
arrive! yet if such be her destiny, may it, at least, not be hastened by
the arms of Britain!
It is worthy the attention of those who influence the destinies of
States in more favoured climes, to estimate the intensity of feeling
which could arm this prince to oppose the resources of a small
principality against the then most powerful empire of the world, whose
armies were more numerous and far more efficient than any ever led by
the Persian against the liberties of Greece. Had Mewar possessed her
Thucydides or her Xenophon, neither the wars of the Peloponnesus nor the
retreat of the ‘ten thousand’ would have yielded more diversified
incidents for [350] the historic muse, than the deeds of this brilliant
reign amid the many vicissitudes of Mewar. Undaunted heroism, inflexible
fortitude, that which ‘keeps honour bright,’ perseverance,—with fidelity
such as no nation can boast, were the materials opposed to a soaring
ambition, commanding talents, unlimited means, and the fervour of
religious zeal; all, however, insufficient to contend with one
unconquerable mind. There is not a pass in the alpine Aravalli that is
not sanctified by some deed of Partap,—some brilliant victory or,
oftener, more glorious defeat. Haldighat is the Thermopylae of Mewar;
the field of Dawer her Marathon.
-----
Footnote 4.11.1:
[Partāp Singh is usually called by the Muhammadans Rāna Kīka, _Kīka_
(in Mārwār _gīga_, in Mālwa _Kūka_), meaning ‘a small boy’ (_Āīn_, i.
339; Elliot-Dowson v. 397, 410).]
Footnote 4.11.2:
Sagarji held the fortress and lands of Kandhar. His descendants formed
an extensive clan called Sagarawats, who continued to hold Kandhar
till the time of Sawai Jai Singh of Amber, whose situation as one of
the great tatraps of the Mogul court enabled him to wrest it from
Sagarji’s issue, upon their refusal to intermarry with the house of
Amber. The great Mahabat Khan, the most intrepid of Jahangir’s
generals, was an apostate Sagarawat. They established many
chieftainships in Central India, as Umri Bhadaura, Ganeshganj,
Digdoli; places better known to Sindhia’s officers than to the
British. [It is remarkable that the author believed that Mahābat Khān
was a Rājput. This man, the De Montfort of Jahāngīr, had such close
Hindu affinities and associations that he was thought to be a Hindu.
He was a Musulmān, Zamāna Beg of Kābul, best known for his arrest of
Jahāngīr in 1628. He died in 1644. (Jahāngīr, _Memoirs_,
Rogers-Beveridge i. 24; _Āīn_, i. 337 f., 347, 371, 414; Elphinstone,
_Hist. of India_, 567.)]
Footnote 4.11.3:
I have climbed the rocks, crossed the streams, and traversed the
plains which were the theatre of Partap’s glory, and conversed with
the lineal descendants of Jaimall and Patta on the deeds of their
forefathers, and many a time has the tear started in their eye at the
tale they recited.
Footnote 4.11.4:
The first invented drinking cup or eating vessel being made from the
leaf (_pat_) of particular trees, especially the palasa (_Butea
frondosa_) and bar (_Ficus religiosa_). The cups of a beautiful brown
earthenware, made at Kotharia, are chiefly _pateras_, of a perfectly
classical shape. Query, the Roman _patera_>, or the Greek ποτήρ, or
Saxon _pot_>? [_patera_, _pateo_, ‘to lie open’; _pot_. O.E. _pott_>,
Lat. _potus_, ‘drinking.’]
Footnote 4.11.5:
[For some further details see _Rāsmāla_, 307.]
Footnote 4.11.6:
The bridge of Rama, the southern point of the peninsula [_IGI_, xxi.
173 ff.]
Footnote 4.11.7:
_Mimosa_ [_Acacia_] _Arabica_.
Footnote 4.11.8:
A.H. 977, A.D. 1569. [_Āīn_, i. 429 f.]
Footnote 4.11.9:
There is less euphony in the English than in the French designation,
Udai ‘_le Gros_.’ [Erskine (iii. A. 58) with less probability says it
may mean ‘great, potent, good.’]
Footnote 4.11.10:
Godwar, Rs. 900,000; Ujjain, 249,914; Debalpur, 182,500; Badnawar,
250,000.
Footnote 4.11.11:
The magnificent tomb of Jodh Bai, the mother of Shah Jahan, is at
Sikandra, near Agra, and not far from that in which Akbar’s remains
are deposited. [Jodh Bāi is a title, meaning ‘Jodhpur lady.’ There
were some doubts about her identity, but she was certainly daughter of
Udai Singh and wife of Jahāngīr (_Āīn_, i. 619). For her tomb see
Sleeman, _Rambles_, 348.]
Footnote 4.11.12:
The causes of exemption are curious, and are preserved in a regular
treaty with the emperor, a copy of which the author possesses, which
will be given in _The Annals of Bundi_.
Footnote 4.11.13:
[Akbar married a daughter of Rāja Bihāri Mall and sister of Bhagwāndās
(_Āīn_, i. 310, 339). There is no evidence of the marriage of Humāyūn
into this family.]
Footnote 4.11.14:
When Raja Man was commanded to reduce the revolted province of Kabul,
he hesitated to cross the Indus, the Rubicon of the Hindu, and which
they term _Atak_, or ‘the barrier,’ as being the limit between their
faith and the barbarian. On the Hindu prince assigning this as his
reason for not leading his Rajputs to the snowy Caucasus, the
accomplished Akbar sent him a couplet in the dialect of Rajasthan:—
“Sabhi bhūmi Gopāl kī
Jā men Atak kaha,
Jā ke man men atak he,
Soī Atak raha.”
“The whole earth is of God,
In which he has placed the Atak.
The mind that admits _impediments_
Will always find an Atak.”
[Dr. Tessitori, whose version is given, remarks that the popular form
of the third line is: Bhītar tāti pāp ki.] This delicate irony
succeeded when stronger language would have failed.
Footnote 4.11.15:
The Hindus, as did the Greeks and other nations of antiquity, always
made offering of the first portion of each meal to the gods. Anndeva,
‘the god of food.’
Footnote 4.11.16:
[This is impossible, because Salīm, afterwards the Emperor Jahāngīr,
was only in his seventh year. The generals in command were Mān Singh
and Āsaf Khān.]
Footnote 4.11.17:
[Rakhabhdev, with a famous Jain temple, forty miles south of Udaipur
city (Erskine ii. A. 118).]
Footnote 4.11.18:
Whoever has travelled through the Oberhasli of Meyringen, in the
Oberland Bernois, requires no description of the alpine Aravalli. The
Col de Balme, in the vale of Chamouni, is, on a larger scale, the
Haldighat of Mewar.
Footnote 4.11.19:
Three from the spear, one shot, and three by the sword.
Footnote 4.11.20:
The descendants of Mana yet hold Sadri and all the privileges obtained
on this occasion. Their kettle-drums beat to the gate of the palace, a
privilege allowed to none besides, and they are addressed by the title
of _Raj_, or royal.
Footnote 4.11.21:
[The battle fought on June 18, 1576, is known to Musalmān historians
as the battle of Khamnaur or Khamnor, twenty-six miles north of
Udaipur city (Badaoni ii. 237; _Akbarnāma_, iii. 244 ff.;
Elliot-Dowson v. 398; _Āīn_, i. 339; Smith, _Akbar the Great Mogul_,
151 ff.).]
Footnote 4.11.22:
‘Chetak ka Chabutra’ is near to Jharol.
Footnote 4.11.23:
The mother of Sakta was the _Baijiraj_, ‘Royal Mother’ (Queen Dowager)
of Mewar. She loved this son, and left Udaipur to superintend his
household at Bhainsror: since which renunciation of rank to affection,
the mothers of the senior branch of Saktawat are addressed Baijiraj.
[Bhainsror is now held by a Chondāwat Rāwat.]
Footnote 4.11.24:
Eight hundred rupees, or £100 daily, is the sum recorded for the
support of this prince.
Footnote 4.11.25:
The date of this battle is Magh Sudi 7, S. 1633, A.D. 1577.
Footnote 4.11.26:
[For the career of Shāhbaz Khān, known as Koka or ‘foster-brother,’
who died in 1600, see _Āīn_, i. 399 ff. Kūmbhalmer was captured in
1578-9 (Elliot-Dowson v. 410, vi. 58). “About 1578” (Erskine ii. A.
116).]
Footnote 4.11.27:
A town in the heart of the mountainous tract on the south-west of
Mewar, called Chappan, containing about three hundred and fifty towns
and villages, peopled chiefly by the aboriginal Bhils.
Footnote 4.11.28:
Called Ami Sah in the Annals.
Footnote 4.11.29:
[Akbar was anxious to destroy Partāp, but he could not carry on a
guerilla campaign in Rājputana, and he had work to do elsewhere
(Smith, _Akbar the Great Mogul_, 153).]
Footnote 4.11.30:
[Mirza Abdu-r-rahīm, son of Bairām Khān (_Āīn_, i. 334).]
Footnote 4.11.31:
A colloquial contraction for Partap.
Footnote 4.11.32:
Called _Mol_.
Footnote 4.11.33:
[Rāē Singh (1571-1611).]
Footnote 4.11.34:
It is no affectation to say that the spirit evaporates in the lameness
of the translation. The author could feel the force, though he failed
to imitate the strength, of the original.
Footnote 4.11.35:
[_Āīn_, i. 276 f.; _Memoirs of Jahāngīr_, trans. Rogers-Beveridge, 48
f.]
Footnote 4.11.36:
At these royal fairs were also sold the productions of princely
artisans, male and female, and which, out of compliment to majesty,
made a bounteous return for their industry. It is a fact but little
known, that most Asiatic princes profess a trade: the great Aurangzeb
was a cap-maker, and sold them to such advantage on these ‘ninth day’
fairs, that his funeral expenses were by his own express command
defrayed from the privy purse, the accumulation of his personal
labour. A delightful anecdote is recorded of the Khilji king Mahmud,
whose profession was literary, and who obtained good prices from his
Omrahs for his specimens of calligraphy. While engaged in transcribing
one of the Persian poets, a professed scholar, who with others
attended the conversazione, suggested an emendation, which was
instantly attended to, and the supposed error remedied. When the
Mullah was gone, the monarch erased the emendation and re-inserted the
passage. An Omrah had observed and questioned the action, to which the
king replied: “It was better to make a blot in the manuscript than
wound the vanity of a humble scholar.” [Ferishta tells the story of
Nāsiru-d-dīn Mahmūd, i. 246.]
Footnote 4.11.37:
[Compare the later accounts of these fairs by Bernier 272 f.; and
Manucci i. 195. Aurangzeb transferred the Nauroz rejoicings to the
coronation festival in Ramazān (Jadunath Sarkar, _Life of Aurangzib_,
iii. 93). The ladies of the Mughal court usually spoke, not Pushto,
but Turki.]
Footnote 4.11.38:
This laxity, as regards female delicacy, must have been a remnant of
Scythic barbarism, brought from the banks of the Jaxartes, the land of
the Getae, where now, as in the days of Tomyris, a shoe at the door is
a sufficient barrier to the entrance of many Tatar husbands. It is a
well-known fact, also, that the younger son in these regions inherited
a greater share than the elder, which is attributed to their pastoral
habits, which invited early emigration in the elder sons. This habit
prevailed with the Rajput tribes of very early times, and the annals
of the Yadus, a race allied to the Yuti-Getae, or Jāt, afford many
instances of it. Modified it yet exists amongst the Jarejas (of the
same stock), with whom the sons divide equally; which custom was
transmitted to Europe by these Getic hordes, and brought into England
by the _Jut_ brothers, who founded the kingdom of Kent (_kanthi_, ‘a
coast’ in Gothic and Sanskrit), where it is yet known as _Gavelkind_.
In English law it is termed _borough-English_. In Scotland it existed
in barbarous times, analogous to those when the Nauroza was
sanctioned; and the lord of the manor had privileges which rendered it
more than doubtful whether the first-born was natural heir: hence, the
youngest was the heir. So in France, in ancient times; and though the
‘_droit de Jambage_’ no longer exists, the term sufficiently denotes
the extent of privilege, in comparison with which the other rights of
‘_Noçages_,’ the seigneur’s feeding his greyhounds with the best
dishes and insulting the bride’s blushes with ribald songs, were
innocent. [The ethnological views in this note do not deserve notice.]
Footnote 4.11.39:
The loss of this is the sign of mourning. [There is naturally no
confirmation of these anecdotes in the Musalmān historians, but they
possibly may be true.]
Footnote 4.11.40:
[See p. 398, above.]
Footnote 4.11.41:
These mountains are of granite and close-grained quartz; but on the
summit of the pass there is a mass of columnar rocks, which, though
the author never examined them very closely, he has little hesitation
in calling basaltic. Were it permitted to intrude his own feelings on
his reader, he would say, he never passed the portals of Debari, which
close the pass leading from Chitor to Udaipur, without throwing his
eye on this fantastic pinnacle and imagining the picture he has drawn.
Whoever, in rambling through the ‘eternal city,’ has had his sympathy
awakened in beholding at the Porta Salaria the stone seat where the
conqueror of the Persians and the Goths, the blind Belisarius, begged
his daily dole,—or pondered at the unsculptured tomb of Napoleon upon
the vicissitudes of greatness, will appreciate the feeling of one who,
in sentiment, had identified himself with the Rajputs, of whom Partap
was justly the model.
Footnote 4.11.42:
[A pun on _maur_, ‘a crown,’ and the Maurya tribe.]
Footnote 4.11.43:
‘The queen of battlements,’ the turreted Cybele of Rajasthan.
Footnote 4.11.44:
This magnificent lake is now adorned with marble palaces. Such was the
wealth of Mewar even in her decline. [The lake is said to have been
constructed by a Banjāra at the end of the fourteenth century, and the
embankment was built by Rāna Udai Singh in 1560. The lake is 2¼ miles
long, and 1¼ broad, with an area of over one square mile. In the
middle stand the island palaces, the Jagmandir and the Jagniwās
(Erskine ii. A. 109).]
-----