CHAPTER 5
Rāja Sūr Singh, A.D. 1595-1620.—Sur Singh succeeded in S. 1651 (A.D. 1595). He was serving with the Imperial forces at Lahore, where he had commanded since S. 1648, when intelligence reached him of his father’s death. His exploits and services were of the most brilliant nature, and had obtained for him, even during his father’s life, the title of “Sawai Raja,”[[1]] and a high grade amongst the dignitaries of the empire. He was commanded by Akbar to reduce the arrogant prince of Sirohi, who, trusting to the natural strength of his mountainous country, still refused to acknowledge a liege lord. This service well accorded with his private views, for he had a feud (wair) with Rao Surthan, which, according to the chronicle, he completely revenged. “He avenged his feud with Surthan and plundered Sirohi. The Rao had not a pallet left to sleep upon, but was obliged to make a bed for his wives upon the earth.” This appears to have humbled the Deora, “who, in his pride, shot his arrows at the sun for daring to shine upon him.”
Campaign in Gujarāt.
Raja Sur, it appears in the sequel, provided liberally for the bards; for no less than “six lords of verse,” whose names are given, had in gift £10,000 each of the spoils of Gujarat, as incentives to song.
On the conquest of Gujarat, Raja Sur was ordered to the Deccan. “He obeyed, and with thirteen thousand horse, ten large guns, and twenty elephants, he fought three grand battles. On the Rewa (Nerbudda) he attacked Amra Balecha,[[4]] who had five thousand horse, whom he slew, and reduced all his country. For this service the king sent him a naubat (kettle-drum), and conferred on him Dhar and its domain.”
On Akbar’s death and the accession of Jahangir, Sur Singh attended at court with his son and heir, Gaj Singh, whom the king with his own hands invested with the sword, for his bravery in the escalade of Jalor, which had been conquered by the monarch of Gujarat and added to his domain. The poet thus relates the event: “Gaj[[5]] was commanded against Bihari Pathan; his war-trump sounded; Arbuda [Abu] heard and trembled. What took Alau-d-din years, Gaj accomplished in three months; he escaladed Jalandhara[[6]] sword in hand; many a Rathor of fame was killed, but he put to the sword seven thousand Pathans, whose spoils were sent to the king.”
Raja Sur, it would appear, after the overthrow of the dynasty of Gujarat, remained at the capital, while his son and heir, Gaj Singh, attended the king’s [40] commands, and, soon after the taking of Jalor, was ordered with the Marwar contingent against Rana Amra of Mewar: it was at the very moment of its expiring liberties,[[7]] for the chronicle merely adds, “Karan agreed to serve the king, and Gaj Singh returned to Taragarh.[[8]] The king increased both his own mansab (dignity) and that of his father, Raja Sur.”
Thus the Rajput chronicler, solicitous only to record the fame of his own princes, does not deem it necessary to concern himself with the agents conjoined with them, so that a stranger to the events of the period would imagine, from the high relief given to their actions, that the Rathor princes commanded in all the great events described; for instance, that just mentioned, involving the submission of the Rana, when Raja Gaj was merely one of the great leaders who accompanied the Mogul heir-apparent, Prince Khurram, on this memorable occasion. In the Diary of Jahangir, the emperor, recording this event, does not even mention the Rathor prince, though he does those of Kotah and Datia, as the instruments by which Prince Khurram carried on the negotiation;[[9]] from which we conclude that Raja Gaj merely acted a military part in the grand army which then invaded Mewar.
Death of Rāja Sūr Singh, A.D. 1620: his Character.
Raja Sur greatly added to the beauty of his capital, and left several works which bear his name; amongst them, not the least useful in that arid region, is the lake called the Sur Sagar, or ‘Warrior’s Sea,’ which irrigates the gardens on its margin. He left six sons and seven daughters, of whose issue we have no account, namely, Gaj Singh, his successor; Sabal Singh, Biramdeo, Bijai Singh, Partap Singh, and Jaswant Singh.
Rāja Gaj Singh, A.D. 1620-38.
Death of Parvez, A.D. 1626.
Offence given to the Rāthors.
Death of Rāja Gaj Singh, A.D. 1638.
Rāja Jaswant Singh, A.D. 1638-78.
Amra, Amar Singh excluded from the Succession.
Amra went not alone; numbers of each clan, who had always regarded him as their future lord, voluntarily partook of his exile. He repaired to the imperial court; and although the emperor approved and sanctioned his banishment, he employed him. His gallantry soon won him the title of Rao and the mansab of a leader of three thousand, with the grant of Nagor as an independent domain, to be held directly from the crown. But the same arrogant and uncontrollable spirit [45] which lost him his birthright, brought his days to a tragical conclusion. He absented himself for a fortnight from court, hunting the boar or the tiger, his only recreation. The emperor (Shah Jahan) reprimanded him for neglecting his duties, and threatened him with a fine. Amra proudly replied that he had only gone to hunt, and as for a fine, he observed, putting his hand upon his sword, that was his sole wealth.
Amra, Amar assassinates Salābat Khān.
[1]. [Sawāi means ‘a quarter better than any one else.’]
[2]. [Dhandhuka about 40 miles W. of Cambay; the account in the text is possibly a confused reference to the insurrection of Muzaffar Husain Mīrza, which began in 1577 and ended in the suicide of the rebel in 1591-92 (BG, i. Part i. 268 ff.).]
[3]. [Coins, perhaps gold mohurs (Skt. dravya, ‘wealth’)].
[4]. Balecha is one of the Chauhan tribes. [It does not appear in recent lists.]
[5]. Gaj, ‘the elephant.’
[6]. Classical appellation of Jalor.
[7]. The chronicle says, “In S. 1669 (A.D. 1613), the king formed an army against the Rana”; which accords exactly with the date in the emperor’s own memoirs.
[8]. Ajmer, of which the citadel is styled Taragarh.
[9]. See Annals of Mewār, Vol. I. p. [418].
[10]. Of these, nine were the subdivisions of his native dominions, styled “The Nine Castles of Maru”; for on becoming one of the great feudatories of the empire, he made a formal surrender of these, receiving them again by grant, renewed on every lapse, with all the ceremonies of investiture and relief. Five were in Gujarat, one in Malwa, and one in the Deccan. We see that thirteen thousand horse was the contingent of Marwar for the lands thus held.
[11]. [Mirza Abdu-r-rahīm, son of Bairām Khān (Āīn, i. 334 ff.).]
[12]. [For this branding system see Āīn, i. 139 f.; Irvine, Army of the Indian Moghuls, 45 ff.]
[14]. [Parvez or Parvīz was son of Sāhib Jamāl, daughter of Khwāja Hasan, uncle of Zain Khān Koka; but this is not quite certain (Āīn, i. 310; Tuzuk-i-Jahāngīri, trans. Rogers-Beveridge, 19; Beale, Oriental Biographical Dict. s.v.).]
[15]. Kachhua and Khurram are synonymous terms for the race which rules Amber—the Tortoises of Rajasthan. [This is an extraordinary misapprehension. Khurram is a Persian word, meaning ‘pleased, glad’; the Author confuses it with Skt. Kūrma, ‘a tortoise.’ The mother of Khurram, Balmati or Jagat Gosāīn, was daughter of Udai Singh of Mārwār; see Tuzuk, 19; Beale, s.v. Shāh Jahān.]
[16]. A Rajput of the Rana’s house, converted to the faith. [Mahābat Khān, Khānkhānān, Sipāhsālār Zamāna Beg, was not a Rājput, but son of Ghiyās Beg, Kābuli (Manucci i. 167; Elliot-Dowson vi. 288).
[17]. This was the founder of Kishangarh; for this iniquitous service he was made an independent Raja in the town which he erected. His descendant is now an ally by treaty with the British Government. [Kishan Singh, born A.D. 1575, founded Kishangarh, a State in the centre of Rājputāna, in 1611, died 1615 (IGI, xv. 311).]
[18]. [Parvez died at Burhānpur in 1626. “He was first attacked with colic, then he became insensible, and after medical treatment fell into a heavy sleep.... His illness was attributed to excessive drinking” (Elliot-Dowson vi. 429).]
[19]. [By another account he died at Agra (Erskine iii. A, 59).]
[20]. Salabat Khan Bakhshi, he is called. The office of Bakhshi is not only one of paymaster (as it implies), but of inspection and audit. We can readily imagine, with such levies as he had to muster and pay, his post was more honourable than secure, especially with such a band as was headed by Amra, ready to take offence if the wind but displaced their moustache. The annals declare that Amra had a feud (vair) with Salabat; doubtless for no better reason than that he fulfilled the trust reposed in him by the emperor. [The title Khān implies that Salābat Khān was a Pathān, not a Sayyid, whose title would be Mīr.]
[21]. The palace within the citadel (kila), built of red (lal) freestone. [This tragedy occurred on August 5, 1644 (Beale, Oriental Biographical Dict. s.v. “Salābat Khān,” gives July 25, 1644). European writers of the period give varying accounts of what seems to have been the same event. Tavernier (ed. Ball, ii. 219) says that the victim was “the Grand Master of the King’s house,” and that it occurred in 1642. Manucci states that the officer who was assassinated was the Wazīr, Wazīr Khān (i. 207 f.). It forms the subject of a popular song, still sung by the bards (Temple, Legends of the Panjāb, ii. 242 ff.). Though the assassination occurred at Agra, a mark is still shown on a pillar in the Dīwān-i-‘Āmm at Delhi, possibly marking the same occurrence, where a prince of Chitor is said to have stabbed one of the ministers (Sleeman, Rambles, 515). The tomb of Bakhshi Salābat Khān stands between Agra and Sikandra (Syad Muhammad Latif, Agra, 77, 195).]
[22]. It may be useful to record such facts, by the way of contrast with the state policy of the west, and for the sake of observing that which would actuate the present paramount power of India should any of its tributary princes defy them as Amra did that of the universal potentate of that country. Even these despots borrowed a lesson of mercy from the Rajput system, which does not deem treason hereditary, nor attaints a whole line for the fault of one unworthy link. Shah Jahan, instead of visiting the sins of the father on the son, installed him in his fief of Nagor. This son was Rae Singh; and it devolved to his children and grandchildren,[[A]] until Indar Singh the fourth in descent, was expelled by the head of the Rathors, who, in the weakness of the empire, reannexed Nagor to Jodhpur. But perhaps we have not hitherto dared to imitate the examples set us by the Mogul and even by the Mahratta; not having sufficient hold of the affections of the subjected to venture to be merciful; and thence our vengeance, like the bolt of heaven, sears the very heart of our enemies. Witness the many chieftains ejected from their possessions; from the unhallowed league against the Rohillas, to that last act of destruction at Bharatpur, where, as arbitrators, we acted the part of the lion in the fable. Our present attitude, however, is so commanding, that we can afford to display the attribute of mercy; and should, unfortunately, its action be required in Rajputana, let it be ample, for there its grateful influence is understood, and it will return, like the dews of heaven, upon ourselves. But if we are only to regulate our political actions by the apprehension of danger, it must one day recoil upon us in awful retribution. Our system is filled with evil to the governed, where a fit of bile in ephemeral political agents, may engender a quarrel leading to the overthrow of a dominion of ages.
[A]. Namely, Hathi Singh, his son Anup Singh, his son Indar Singh, his son Mokham Singh. This lineal descendant of Raja Gaj, and the rightful heir to the “cushion of Jodha,” has dwindled into one of the petty Thakurs, or lords of Marwar. The system is one of eternal vicissitudes, amidst which the germ of reproduction [47] never perishes.
[23]. Since these remarks were written, Captain Steell related to the author a singular anecdote connected with the above circumstance. While the work of demolition was proceeding, Captain Steell was urgently warned by the natives of the danger he incurred in the operation, from a denunciation on the closing of the gate, that it should thenceforward be guarded by a huge serpent—when suddenly, the destruction of the gate being nearly completed, a large cobra-de-capello rushed between his legs, as if in fulfilment of the anathema. Captain Steell fortunately escaped without injury. [The south gate of the Agra Fort is known as that of Amar Singh.]