CHAPTER 1
By some conventional process, Europeans in India have adopted the habit of designating the principalities of Rajputana by the names of their respective capitals, instead of those of the countries. Thus Marwar and Mewar are recognized under the titles of their chief cities, Jodhpur and Udaipur; Kotah and Bundi are denominations indiscriminately applied to Haravati, the general term of the region, which is rarely mentioned; and Dhundhar is hardly known by that denomination to Europeans, who refer to the State only by the names of its capitals, Amber or Jaipur, the last of which is now universally used to designate the region inhabited by the Kachhwahas [346].
Boundaries of Jaipur State.
Etymology of Dhūndhār.
The Kachhwāha Tribe.
A family, which traces its lineage from Rama of Kosala, Nala of Naishadha, and Dhola the lover of Maroni, may be allowed ‘the boast of heraldry’; and in remembrance of this descent, the Kachhwahas of India celebrate with great solemnity ‘the annual feast of the sun,’ on which occasion a stately car, called the chariot of the sun (thal), drawn by eight horses, is brought from the temple, and the descendant of Rama, ascending therein, perambulates his capital.
Origin of Jaipur State. Dhola Rāē.
Dhola subsequently married the daughter of the prince of Ajmer, whose name was Maroni.[[13]] Returning on one occasion with her from visiting the shrine of Jamwahi Mata,[[14]] the whole force of the Minas of that region assembled, to the number of eleven thousand, to oppose his passage through their country. Dhola gave them battle: but after slaying vast numbers of his foes, he was himself killed, and his followers fled. Maroni escaped, and bore a posthumous child, who was named Kankhal, and who conquered the country of Dhundhar. His son, Maidal Rao, made a conquest of Amber from the Susawat Minas, the residence of their chief, named Bhato, who had the title of Rao, and was head of the Mina confederation. He also subdued the Nandla Minas, and added the district of Gatur-Ghati to his territory.
Hūndeo, Kuntal.
Pajūn.
The Mīna Tribe.
Bāwan kot, chhappan darvāja,
Mīna mard, Nāin kā rājā,
Vado rāj Nāin ko bhago,
Jab bhus-hī men vāmto māgo.
That is, 'There were fifty-two strongholds,[[15]] and fifty-six gates belonging to the manly Mina, the Raja of Nain, whose sovereignty of Nain was extinct, when even of chaff (bhus) he took a share.' If this is not an exaggeration, it would appear that, during the distractions of the first Islamite dynasties of Delhi, the Minas had attained their primitive importance. Certainly from Pajun, the vassal chieftain of Prithiraj [350], to Baharmall, the contemporary of Babur, the Kachhwahas had but little increased their territory. When this latter prince destroyed the Mina sovereignty of Nain, he levelled its half hundred gates, and erected the town of Lohwan (now the residence of the Rajawat chief) on its ruins.
A distinction is made in the orthography and pronunciation of the designation of this race: Maina, meaning the asl, or ‘unmixed class,’ of which there is now but one, the Usara; while Mina is that applied to the mixed, of which they reckon barah pal,[[16]] or twelve communities, descended from Rajput blood, as Chauhan, Tuar, Jadon, Parihar, Kachhwaha, Solanki, Sankhla, Guhilot, etc., and these are subdivided into no less than five thousand two hundred distinct clans, of which it is the duty of the Jaga, Dholi, or Dom, their genealogists, to keep account. The unmixed Usara stock is now exceedingly rare, while the mixed races, spread over all the hilly and intricate regions of central and western India, boast of their descent at the expense of ‘legitimacy.’ These facts all tend strongly to prove that the Rajputs were conquerors, and that the mountaineers, whether Kolis, Bhils, Minas, Gonds, Savaras or Sarjas, are the indigenous inhabitants of India. This subject will be fully treated hereafter, in a separate chapter devoted to the Mina tribes, their religion, manners, and customs.
Death of Pajūn.
“Ganga shrunk with affright, the moon quivered, the Dikpals[[21]] howled at their posts: checked was the advance of Kanauj, and in the pause the Kurma performed the last rites to his sire (Pajun), who broke in pieces the shields of Jaichand. Pajun was a buckler to his lord, and numerous his gifts of the steel to the heroes of Kanauj: not even by the bard can his deeds be described. He placed his feet on the head of Sheshnag,[[22]] he made a waste of the forest of men, nor dared the sons of the mighty approach him. As Pajun fell, he exclaimed, ‘One hundred years are the limit of man’s life, of which fifty are lost in night, and half this in childhood; but the Almighty taught me to wield the brand.’ As he spoke, even in the arms of Yama, he beheld the arm of his boy playing on the head of the foeman. His parting soul was satisfied: seven wounds from the sword had Malasi received, whose steed was covered with wounds: mighty were the deeds performed by the son of Pajun.”
Mālasi.
We shall pass over the intermediate princes from Malasi to Prithiraj, the eleventh in descent, with a bare enumeration of their names: namely, Malasi, Bijal, Rajdeo, Kilan, Kuntal, Junsi, Udaikaran, Narsingh, Banbir, Udharan, Chandrasen, Prithiraj.
Prithirāj.
Bahār or Bihāri Mall, c. A.D. 1548-75.
Bhagwāndās, c. A.D. 1575-92.
Mān Singh, c. A.D. 1592-1614.
Akbar was on his death-bed when Raja Man commenced an intrigue to alter the succession in favour of his nephew, Prince Khusru, and it was probably in this predicament that the monarch had recourse to the only safe policy, that of seeing the crown fixed on the head of Salim, afterwards Jahangir. The conspiracy for the time was quashed, and Raja Man was sent to the government of Bengal; but it broke out again, and ended in the perpetual imprisonment of Khusru,[[33]] and a dreadful death to his adherents. Raja Man was too wise to identify himself with the rebellion, though he stimulated his nephew, and he was too powerful to be openly punished, being at the head of twenty thousand Rajputs; but the native chronicle mentions that he was amerced by Jahangir in the incredible sum of ten crores, or millions sterling. According to the Muhammadan historian, Raja Man died in Bengal,[[34]] A.H. 1024 (A.D. 1615); while the chronicle says he was slain in an expedition against the Khilji tribe in the north two years later.[[35]]
Bhāo Singh, c. A.D. 1615-21.
Mahā Singh, c. A.D. 1621-25.
Jai Singh, Mīrza Rājā, c. A.D. 1625-67.
Rām Singh, Bishan Singh.
[1]. This account of the Amber or Jaipur State is nearly what I communicated to the Marquess of Hastings in 1814-15. Amidst the multiplicity of objects which subsequently engaged my attention, I had deemed myself absolved from the necessity of enlarging upon it, trusting that a more competent pen would have superseded this essay, there having been several political authorities at that court since it was written. Being, however, unaware that anything has been done to develop its historical resources, which are more abundant than those of any other court of India, I think it right not to suppress this sketch, however imperfect.
[2]. The traditional history of the Chauhans asserts, that this mount was the place of penance (thal) of their famed king Bisaldeo of Ajmer, who, for his oppression of his subjects, was transformed into a Rakshasa, or Demon, in which condition he continued the evil work of his former existence, “devouring his subjects” (as literally expressed), until a grandchild offered himself as a victim to appease his insatiable appetite. The language of innocent affection made its way to the heart of the Rakshasa, who recognized his offspring, and winged his flight to the Jumna. It might be worth while to excavate the dhundh of the transformed Chauhan king, which I have some notion will prove to be his sepulchre. [According to Cunningham (ASR, ii. 251) there is no mound of this kind at Jobner. He derives the name of the territory from the river Dhūndhu—Dhūndhwār, or Dhūndhār, meaning the land by the river Dhūndhu—the river having obtained its name from the demon-king Dhūndhu (see IGI, xiii. 385).]
[3]. Were this celebrated abode searched for inscriptions, they might throw light on the history of the descendants of Rama. [For Rohtāsgarh in Shāhābād District, Bengal, see IGI, xxi. 322 f.]
[4]. Prefixed to a descriptive sketch of the city of Narwar (which I may append), the year S. 351 is given for its foundation by Raja Nal, but whether obtained from an inscription or historical legend, I know not. It, however, corroborates in a remarkable manner the number of descents from Nal to Dhola Rae, namely, thirty-three, which, calculated according to the best data (see Vol. I. p. [64]), at twenty-two years to a reign, will make 726 years, which subtracted from 1023, the era of Dhola Rae’s migration, leaves 297, a difference of only fifty-four years between the computed and settled eras; and if we allowed only twenty-one years to a reign, instead of twenty-two, as proposed in all long lines above twenty-five generations, the difference would be trifling. [The story is legendary. The eighth in descent from Vajradāman, the first historical chief of Gwalior, who captured that fortress from Vijayapāla of Kanauj (c. A.D. 955-90) was Tej Karan, otherwise known as Dulha Rāē, the Dhola Rāē of the text, who left Gwalior about A.D. 1128 (Smith, EHI, 381; IGI, xiii. 384).]
We may thus, without hesitation, adopt the date 351, or A.D. 295, for the period of Raja Nal, whose history is one of the grand sources of delight to the bards of Rajputana. The poem rehearsing his adventures under the title of Nala and Damayanti (fam. Nal-Daman) was translated into Persian at Akbar’s command, by Faizi, brother of Abu-l Fazl, and has since been made known to the admirers of Sanskrit literature by Professor Bopp of Berlin [Āīn, i. 106; Macdonell, Hist. Sanskrit Literature, 296 ff.].
[5]. [Kachhwāhagār or Kachhwāhagarh, the former meaning the ‘water-soaked land,’ the latter the ‘fort,’ of the Kachhwāhas, is a tract between the Sind and Pahuj Rivers, ceded to the British by the Gwalior State in payment of a British contingent (Elliot, Supplementary Glossary, 237, 283, note).]
[6]. [For the tale of a serpent identifying the heir see Vol. I. p. [342].]
[7]. [The hero in folk-tales often wins recognition by his skill in the kitchen, as in the story of Shams-al-Dīn in the Arabian Nights; see Tawney, Kathāsarit-sāgara, i. 567.]
[8]. The Tuar tribe were then supreme lords of India.
[9]. Dhārhi, Dholi, Dom, Jāga are all terms for the bards or minstrels of the Mina tribes.
[10]. See Map for Dausa (written Daunsa), on the Banganga River, about thirty miles east of Jaipur.
[11]. The Bargujar tribe claims descent from Lava or Lao, the elder son of Rama. As they trace fifty-six descents from Rama to Vikrama, and thirty-three from Raja Nala to Dhola Rae, we have only to calculate the number of generations between Vikrama and Nal, to ascertain whether Dhola’s genealogist went on good grounds. It was in S. 351 that Raja Nal erected Narwar, which, at twenty-two years to a reign, gives sixteen to be added to fifty-six, and this added to thirty-three is equal to one hundred and five generations from Rama to Dhola Rae. [The traditional dates are worthless.]
[12]. [See Rose, Glossary, iii. 103.]
[13]. [The tale of the love of Dulha or Dhola Rāē for Mārwan, the Maroni of the text, daughter of Rāja Pingal of Pingalgarh in Sinhaladwīpa, or Ceylon, as sung by the Panjab bards, is told in Temple, Legends of the Panjāb, ii. 276 ff., iii. 97.]
[14]. [The family deity of the Kachhwāha tribe, whose shrine is in the gorge of the river Bānganga, in Jaipur State (Census Report, Mārwār, 1891, ii. 28; Rajputana Gazetteer, 1880, iii. 212).]
[15]. Kot is ‘a fortress’; but it may be applied simply to the number of bastions of Nain, which in the number of its gates might rival Thebes. Lohwan, built on its ruins, contains three thousand houses, and has eighty-four townships dependent on it. [In the third line of the verse Major Luard’s Pandit reads for vado, dūbo, ‘annihilated’; in the fourth for vāmto, he gives muttha, ‘a handful.’]
[16]. Pal is the term for a community of any of the aboriginal mountain races; its import is a ‘defile,’ or ‘valley,’ fitted for cultivation and defence. It is probable that Poligar may be a corruption of Paligar, or the region (gar) of these Pals. Palita, Bhilita, Philita are terms used by the learned for the Bhil tribes. Maina, Maira, Mairot all designate mountaineers, from Mair, or Mer, a hill. [The ‘Palita’ of the note is possibly from a vague recollection of the Phyllītai or ‘leaf-clad’ applied to some aboriginal tribes by Ptolemy (vii. 1. 66) (McCrindle, Ptolemy, 159 f.).]
[17]. [This is probably a fiction of the bards, based on the defeat of Shihābu-d-dīn by Bhīmdeo of Nahrwāla in A.D. 1178 (Elliot-Dowson ii. 294; Ferishta i. 170).]
[18]. Kurma, or Kachhua, are synonymous terms, and indiscriminately applied to the Rajputs of Ajmer; meaning ‘tortoise.’
[19]. The chaplet of the god of war is of skulls; his drinking-cup a semi-cranium.
[20]. [The hero of the Mahābhārata.]
[21]. [Ganga, the Ganges; Dikpāls, regents of the four quarters of the heavens.]
[22]. [The serpent which supports the world.]
[23]. I give this chiefly for the concluding couplet, to see how the Rajputs applied the word Khotan to the lands beyond Kabul, where the great Raja Man commanded as Akbar’s lieutenant:
“Pālan, Pajūn jītē,
Mahoba, Kanauj larē,
Māndu Mālasi jītē,
Rār Rutrāhi kā;
Rāj Bhagwāndās jītē,
Mavāsī lar.
Rājā Mān Singh jītē,
Khotan phauj dabāī.”
“Palan and Pajun were victorious;
Fought at Mahoba and Kanauj;
Malasi conquered Mandu;
In the battle of Rutrahi,
Raja Bhagwandas vanquished.
In the Mawasi (fastnesses, probably, of Mewat),
Raja Man Singh was victorious;
Subjugating the army of Khotan.”
[24]. ‘The temple’; the Debal of the Muhammadan tribes: the Rajput seat of power of the Rajas of Sind, when attacked by the caliphs of Bagdad [Yule, Hobson-Jobson, 2nd ed. 320.]
[25]. The chronicle says of this Askaran, that on his return, the king (Babur or Humayun) gave him the title of Raja of Narwar. These States have continued occasionally to furnish representatives, on the extinction of the line of either. A very conspicuous instance of this occurred on the death of Raja Jagat Singh, the last prince of Amber, who dying without issue, an intrigue was set on foot, and a son of the ex-prince of Narwar was placed on the gaddi of Amber.
[26]. [This is the first mention of the grading of Mansabdārs (Smith, Akbar, the Great Moghul, 362). For Rāja Bihārimall and his son Bhagwāndās, see Āīn, i. 328, 333; Akbarnāma, trans. Beveridge ii. 244.]
[27]. [Akbar had married the daughter of Bahārmall.]
[28]. It is pleasing to find almost all these outlines of Rajput history confirmed by Muhammadan writers. It was in A.H. 993 (A.D. 1586) that this marriage took place. Three generations of Kachhwahas, namely, Bhagwandas, his adopted son Raja Man, and grandson, were all serving in the imperial army with great distinction at this time. Raja Man, though styled Kunwar, or heir-apparent, is made the most conspicuous. He quelled a rebellion headed by the emperor’s brother, and while Bhagwandas commanded under a prince of the blood against Kashmir, Man Singh overcame an insurrection of the Afghans at Khaibar; and his son was made viceroy of Kabul.—See Briggs’ Ferishta, vol. ii. p. 258 et seq.
[29]. Bhagwandas had three brothers, Surat Singh, Madho Singh, and Jagat Singh; Man Singh was son of the last.
[30]. Ferishta confirms this, saying he sent one hundred and twenty elephants to the king on this occasion.—Briggs’ Ferishta, vol. ii. p. 268.
[31]. Ferishta confirms this likewise. According to this historian, it was while Man was yet only Kunwar, or heir-apparent, that he was invested with the governments of “Behar, Hajipoor, and Patna,” the same year (A.D. 1589) that his uncle Bhagwandas died, and that following the birth of Prince Khusru by the daughter of the Kachhwaha prince, an event celebrated (says Ferishta) with great rejoicings. See Briggs’ Ferishta, vol. ii. p. 261. Col. Briggs has allowed the similarity of the names Khusru and Khurram to betray him into a slight error, in a note on the former prince. It was not Khusru, but Khurram, who succeeded his father Jahangir, and was father to the monster Aurangzeb (note, p. 261). Khusru was put to death by Khurram, afterwards Shah Jahan.
[32]. Annals of Rajasthan, Vol. I. p. [408].
[33]. He was afterwards assassinated by order of Shah Jahan [“under the walls of Azere” (Asīrgarh)]. See Dow’s Ferishta, ed. 1812, vol. iii. p. 56. [Elphinstone (p. 563) calls his death suspicious, but refuses to believe that Shāh Jahān procured his death. He died from colic in the Deccan on January 16, 1622.]
[34]. Dow, ed. 1812, vol. iii. p. 42; the chronicle says in S. 1699, or A.D. 1613. [He died a natural death in July 1614, while he was on service in the Deccan, and sixty of his fifteen hundred women are said to have burned themselves on his pyre (Āīn, i. 341; Memoirs of Jahāngīr, trans. Rogers-Beveridge 266).]
[35]. An account of the life of Raja Man would fill a volume; there are ample materials at Jaipur.
[36]. [Jai Singh died, aged about sixty, at Burhānpur, July 12, 1667 (Manucci ii. 152).]
[37]. [According to Manucci (ii. 153), Rām Singh, as a piece of revenge for the flight of Sivaji, was sent to Assam in the hope that, like Mīr Jumla, he would die there; but on an appeal being made to Aurangzeb, the order was cancelled, and he was banished beyond the river Indus. The real fact is that Rām Singh was appointed to the Command in Assam in December 1667, and arrived there in February 1669. After desultory and unsuccessful fighting he was allowed to leave Bengal, and reached the Imperial Court in June 1676 (Jadunath Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, iii. 212 ff.).]