=Jealousy of Abhai Singh to Bakht Singh.=—The tranquillity which for a
while followed the campaign in Gujarat was of no long duration. The love
of ease and opium, which increased with the years of Abhai Singh, was
disturbed by a perpetual apprehension of the active courage and military
genius of his brother, whose appanage of Nagor was too restricted a
field for his talents and ambition. Bakhta was also aware that his
daring nature, which obtained him the suffrages, as it would the swords,
of his turbulent and easily excited countrymen, rendered him an object
of distrust, and that without great circumspection, he would be unable
to maintain himself in his _imperium in imperio_, the castle and three
hundred and sixty townships of Nagor. He was too discreet to support
himself by foreign aid, or by fomenting domestic strife; but with the
aid of the bard he adopted a line of policy, the relation of which will
develop new traits in the Rajput character, and exemplify its
peculiarities. Karna, after finishing his historical chronicle,
concluding with the war against Sarbuland, abandoned “the gate of
Jodhpur for that of Nagor.” Like all his tribe, the bard was an adept in
intrigue, and his sacred character forwarded the secret means of
executing it. His advice was to embroil their common sovereign with the
prince of Amber, and an opportunity was not long wanting [109].
=Abhai Singh attacks Bīkaner.=—The prince of Bikaner,[5.11.1] a junior
but independent branch of Marwar, had offended his yet nominal suzerain
Abhai Singh, who, taking advantage of the weakness of their common liege
lord the emperor, determined to resent the affront, and accordingly
invested Bikaner, which had sustained a siege of some weeks, when Bakhta
determined to make its release subserve his designs; nor could he have
chosen a better expedient. Although the prince of Marwar had led his
united vassalage against Bikaner, they were not only lukewarm as to the
success of their own arms, but, anomalous as it must appear in the
annals even of feudal warfare, they furnished the besieged with the
means of defence, who, but for the supplies of opium, salt, and
ammunition, would soon have been compelled to surrender. We can account
for this: Bikaner was of their own kin, a branch of the great tree of
which Siahji was the root, and to which they could cling in emergency;
in short, Bikaner balanced the power between themselves and their head.
The scheme being approved, its execution and mode of development to Jai
Singh were next canvassed. “Touch his pride,” said Karna; “tell him the
insult to Amber, which your ancestor invested, has never been balanced,
and that he will never find a time like the present to fling a few shot
at Jodhpur.”
=Bakht Singh intrigues to cause War with Jaipur.=—Bakhta addressed a
letter to Jai Singh, and at the same time sent instructions to the envoy
of Bikaner at his court how to act.
The prince of Amber, towards the close of his career, became partial to
‘the cup’; but, aware of the follies it involved him in, an edict
prohibited all official intercourse with him while he was under its
influence. The direct overture of Bakhta was canvassed, and all
interference between the kindred belligerents was rejected in a full
council of the chiefs of Amber. But the envoy had a friend in the famous
Vidyadhar,[5.11.2] the chief civil minister of the State, through whose
means he obtained permission to make ‘a verbal report, standing.’
“Bikaner,” he said, “was in peril, and without his aid must fall, and
that his master did not consider the sovereign of Marwar, but of Amber,
as his suzerain.” Vanity and wine did the rest. The prince took up the
pen and wrote to Abhai Singh, “That they all formed one great family; to
forgive Bikaner and raise his batteries”: and as he took another cup,
and [110] curled his moustache, he gave the letter to be folded.
“Maharaja,” said the envoy, “put in two more words: ‘or, my name is Jai
Singh.’” They were added. The overjoyed envoy retired, and in a few
minutes the letter was on transit to its destination by the swiftest
camel of the desert. Scarcely had the envoy retired, when the chief of
Bansko,[5.11.3] the Mentor of Jai Singh, entered. He was told of the
letter, which “would vex his Saga.”[5.11.4] The old chief remonstrated;
he said, “Unless you intend to extinguish the Kachhwahas, recall this
letter.” Messenger after messenger was sent, but the envoy knew his
duty. At the dinner hour all the chiefs had assembled at the (_Rasora_)
banquet-hall, when the spokesman of the vassalage, old Dip Singh, in
reply to the communication of his sovereign, told him he had done a
cruel and wanton act, and that they must all suffer for his imprudence.
The reply, a laconic defiance, was brought back with like celerity; it
was opened and read by Jai Singh to his chiefs: “By what right do you
dictate to me, or interfere between me and my servants? If your name is
‘Lion of Victory’ (Jai Singh), mine is ‘the Lion without Fear’ (Abhai
Singh).”[5.11.5]
The ancient chief, Dip Singh, said: “I told you how it would be; but
there is no retreat, and our business is to collect our friends.” The
Kher, or ‘levy _en masse_,’ was proclaimed: Every Kachhwaha was
commanded to repair to the great standard planted outside the capital.
The home-clans came pouring in, and aid was obtained from the Haras of
Bundi, the Jadons of Karauli, the Sesodias of Shahpura, the Khichis, and
the Jats, until one hundred thousand men were formed beneath the castle
of Amber. This formidable array proceeded, march after march, until they
reached Gangwana, a village on the frontier of Marwar.[5.11.6] Here they
encamped, and, with all due courtesy, awaited the arrival of the
‘Fearless Lion.’
=Battle of Gangwāna.=—They were not long in suspense. Mortally offended
at such wanton interference, which compelled him to relinquish his
object on the very eve of attainment, Abhai Singh raised his batteries
from besieging Bikaner and rapidly advanced to the encounter.
Bakhta now took alarm. He had not calculated the length to which his
intrigues would involve his country; he had sought but to embroil the
border princes, but [111] had kindled a national warfare. Still his
fears were less for the discovery of his plot than for the honour of
Marwar, about to be assailed by such odds. He repaired to his brother
and liege lord, and implored him not to raise the siege; declaring
that he alone, with the vassals of Nagor, would receive the
Bhagatia’s[5.11.7] battle, and, by God’s blessing, would give a good
account of him. Abhai Singh, not averse to see his brother punished
for his conduct, though determined to leave him to the brunt of the
battle, rejected with scorn the intriguing proposition.
The Nakkara sounded the assembly for the chivalry of Nagor. Bakhta took
post on the balcony over the Delhi gate, with two brazen vessels; in the
one was an infusion of opium, in the other saffron-water. To each Rajput
as he entered he presented opium, and made the impress of his right hand
on his heart with the saffron-water. Having in this manner enrolled
eight thousand Rajputs, sworn to die with him, he determined to select
the most resolute; and marching to the edge of an extensive field of
luxuriant Indian corn[5.11.8] (_bajra_), he halted his band, and thus
addressed them: “Let none follow me who is not prepared for victory or
death: if there be any amongst you who desire to return, let them do so
in God’s name.” As he spoke, he resumed the march through the luxuriant
fields, that it might not be seen who retired. More than five thousand
remained, and with these he moved on to the combat.
The Amber prince awaited them at Gangwana: soon as the hostile lines
approached, Bakhta gave the word, and, in one dense mass, his gallant
legion charged with lance and sword the deepened lines of Amber,
carrying destruction at every pass. He passed through and through this
host; but when he pulled up in the rear, only sixty of his band remained
round his person. At this moment the chief of Gajsinghpura, head of all
his vassals, hinted there was a jungle in the rear: “And what is there
in front,” said the intrepid Rathor, “that we should not try the road we
came?” and as he espied the Panchranga, or five-coloured flag, which
denoted the headquarters of Amber, the word again was given. The
cautious Kumbhani[5.11.9] advised his prince to avoid the charge: with
some difficulty he was made to leave the field, and as a salvo to his
honour, by a flank movement towards Kandela north, that it might not be
said he turned his back on his foe. As he [112] retreated, he exclaimed,
“Seventeen battles have I witnessed, but till this day never one decided
by the sword.” Thus, after a life of success, the wisest, or at least
the most learned and most powerful prince of Rajwara, incurred the
disgrace of leaving the field in the face of a handful of men,
strengthening the adage “that one Rathor equalled ten Kachhwahas.”
Jai Singh’s own bards could not refrain from awarding the meed of valour
to their foes, and composed the following stanzas on the occasion: “Is
it the battle cry of Kali, or the war-shout of Hanumanta, or the hissing
of Seshnag, or the denunciation of Kapaliswar? Is it the incarnation of
Narsingh, or the darting beam of Surya? or the death-glance of the
Dakini?[5.11.10] or that from the central orb of Trinetra?[5.11.11] Who
could support the flames from this volcano of steel, when Bakhta’s sword
became the sickle of Time?”
But for Karna the bard, one of the few remaining about his person,
Bakhta would a third time have plunged into the ranks of the foe; nor
was it till the host of Amber had left the field that he was aware of
the extent of his loss.[5.11.12] Then, strange inconsistency! the man,
who but a few minutes before had affronted death in every shape, when he
beheld the paucity of survivors, sat down and wept like an infant. Still
it was more the weakness of ambition than humanity; for, never imagining
that his brother would fail to support him, he thought destruction had
overtaken Marwar; nor was it until his brother joined and assured him he
had left him all the honour of the day, that he recovered his port. Then
“he curled his whiskers and swore an oath, that he would yet drag the
‘Bhagat’ from his castle of Amber.”
Jai Singh, though he paid dear for his message, gained his point, the
relief of Bikaner; and the Rana of Udaipur mediated to prevent the
quarrel going further, which was the less difficult since both parties
had gained their ends, though Jai Singh obtained his by the loss of a
battle.
=Marriage of a God.=—It is related that the tutelary deity of Bakhta
Singh fell into the hands of the Amber prince, who carried home the sole
trophy he could boast, married the Rathor deity to a female divinity of
Amber, and returned him with his compliments to Bakhta. Such were the
courteous usages of Rajput chivalry. The triple alliance [113] of the
chief Rajput princes followed this battle, cemented by the union of the
rival houses to daughters of Mewar. There they met, attended by their
vassalage, and, in the nuptial festivities and the ‘cup,’ forgot this
bitter strife, while enmity and even national jealousy were banished by
general courtesy. Such is the Rajput, who can be judged after no known
standard: he stands alone in the moral history of man.[5.11.13]
=Death and Character of Abhai Singh.=—This is the last conspicuous act
of Abhai Singh’s life on record. He died in S. 1806 (A.D. 1750) at
Jodhpur. His courage, which may be termed ferocious, was tempered only
by his excessive indolence, regarding which they have preserved many
amusing anecdotes; one of these will display the exact character of the
man. The chronicle says: “When Ajit went to marry the Chauhani, he found
two lions in his path—the one asleep, the other awake. The
interpretation of the Saguni (augur) was, that the Chauhani would bear
him two sons; that one would be a _soti kan_ (sluggard), the other an
active soldier.” Could the augur have revealed that they would imbrue
their hands in a father’s blood, he might have averted the ruin of his
country, which dates from this black deed.
The Rathors profess a great contempt for the Kachhwahas as soldiers; and
Abhai Singh’s was not lessened for their prince, because he happened to
be father-in-law to the prince of Amber, whom he used to mortify, even
in the ‘Presence,’ with such sarcasm as, “You are called a Kachhua, or
properly Kuswa, from the Kusa; and your sword will cut as deep as one of
its blades”:[5.11.14] alluding to the grass thus called. Irritated, yet
fearing to reply, he formed a plan to humble his arrogance in his only
vulnerable point, the depreciation of his personal strength. While it
was the boast of Jai Singh to mingle the exact sciences of Europe with
the more ancient of India, Abhai’s ambition was to be deemed the first
swordsman of Rajwara. The scientific prince of Amber gave his cue to
Kirparam, the paymaster-general, a favourite with the king, from his
skill at chess, and who had often the honour of playing with him while
all the nobles were standing. Kirparam praised the Rathor prince’s
dexterity in smiting off a buffalo’s head; on which the king called out,
“Rajeswar, I have heard much of your skill with the sword.” “Yes,
Hazrat, I can use it on an occasion.” A huge animal [114] was brought
into the area, fed in the luxuriant pastures of Hariana. The court
crowded out to see the Rathor exhibit; but when he beheld the enormous
bulk, he turned to the king and begged permission to retire to his post,
the imperial guardroom, to refresh himself. Taking a double dose of
opium, he returned, his eyes glaring with rage at the trick played upon
him, and as he approached the buffalo they fell upon Jai Singh who had
procured this monster with a view to foil him. The Amber chief saw that
mischief was brewing, and whispered his majesty not to approach too near
his son-in-law. Grasping his sword in both hands, Abhai gave the blow
with such force that the buffalo’s head “dropped upon his knees,” and
the raja was thrown upon his back. All was well; but, as the chronicle
says, “the king never asked the raja to decollate another buffalo.”
=Invasion of Nādir Shāh.=—It was during the reign of Abhai Singh that
Nadir Shah[5.11.15] invaded India; but the summons to the Rajput
princes, to put forth their strength in support of the tottering throne
of Timur, was received with indifference. Not a chief of note led his
myrmidons to the plains of Karnal; and Delhi was invested, plundered,
and its monarch dethroned, without exciting a sigh. Such was their
apathy in the cause, when the imbecility of Muhammad Shah succeeded to
the inheritance of Aurangzeb, that with their own hands these puppets of
despotism sapped the foundations of the empire.
Unfortunately for Rajputana, the demoralization of her princes prevented
their turning to advantage this depression of the empire, in whose
follies and crimes they participated.
With the foul and monstrous murder of the Raja Ajit (A.D. 1750)
commenced those bloody scenes which disgrace the annals of Marwar; yet
even in the history of her crimes there are acts of redeeming virtue,
which raise a sentiment of regret that the lustre of the one should be
tarnished by the presence of the other. They serve, however, to
illustrate that great moral truth, that in every stage of civilization
crime will work out its own punishment; and grievously has the
parricidal murder of Ajit been visited on his race and country. We shall
see it acting as a blight on that magnificent tree, which, transplanted
from the native soil of the Ganges, took root and flourished amidst the
arid sands of the desert, affording a goodly shade for a daring race,
who acquired fresh victories with poverty—we shall see its luxuriance
checked, and its numerous and widely spread branches, as if [115]
scorched by the lightnings of heaven, wither and decay; and they must
utterly perish, unless a scion, from the uncontaminated stem of
Idar,[5.11.16] be grafted upon it: then it may revive, and be yet made
to yield more vigorous fruit.
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Footnote 5.11.1:
[Sujān Singh (A.D. 1700-35) served in the Deccan from 1707 to 1719.]
Footnote 5.11.2:
Vidyadhar was a Brahman of Bengal, a scholar and man of science. The
plan of the modern city of Amber, named Jaipur, was his: a city as
regular as Darmstadt. He was also the joint compiler of the celebrated
genealogical tables which appear in the first volume of this work.
Footnote 5.11.3:
[One of the twelve kothris or houses of Jaipur, the Kumbhāni.]
Footnote 5.11.4:
_Saga_ is a term denoting a connexion by marriage [more generally a
blood relation].
Footnote 5.11.5:
I write the names as pronounced, and as familiar to the readers of
Indian history. _Jaya_, in Sanskrit, is ‘victory,’ _Abhai_,
‘fearless.’
Footnote 5.11.6:
[Now in Ajmer District, about 8 miles N.N.W. of Ajmer city.]
Footnote 5.11.7:
_Bhagatia_ is ‘a devotee’: the term is here applied reproachfully to
Jai Singh, on account of his very religious habits.
Footnote 5.11.8:
[Rather millet, _Pennisetum typhoideum_.]
Footnote 5.11.9:
The clan of the Bansko chief.
Footnote 5.11.10:
The witch of India is termed _Dakini_.
Footnote 5.11.11:
A title of Siva, god of destruction, the ‘three-eyed.’
Footnote 5.11.12:
Though the bard does not state, it is to be supposed that the main
body came up and caused this movement.
Footnote 5.11.13:
This singular piece of Rajput history, in the Annals of Mārwār, is
confirmed by every particular in the “one hundred and nine acts” of
the Great Jai Singh of Amber. The foe does ample justice to Rathor
valour.
Footnote 5.11.14:
[A pun on Kachhwāha, _Kachhua_, ‘a tortoise,’ and the sacred _Kusa_,
grass, _poa cynosuroides_.]
Footnote 5.11.15:
[Nādir Shāh, King of Persia, invaded India and defeated the forces of
the Emperor, Muhammad Shāh, at Karnāl, near the historic field of
Pānīpat on February 13, 1739; entered Delhi, which was sacked and a
terrible massacre perpetrated, and returned home with the Peacock
Throne and immense treasures.]
Footnote 5.11.16:
The heir of Idar is heir presumptive to the _gaddi_ of Marwar.
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