CHAPTER 2
Sawāi Jai Singh, c. A.D. 1693-1743.
It would be tedious to pursue this celebrated Rajput through his desultory military career during the forty-four years he occupied the gaddi of Amber; enough is already known of it from its combination with the Annals of Mewar and Bundi, of which house he was the implacable foe. Although Jai Singh mixed in all the troubles and warfare of this long period of anarchy, when the throne of Timur was rapidly crumbling into dust, his reputation as a soldier would never have handed down his name with honour to posterity; on the contrary, his courage had none of the fire which is requisite to make a Rajput hero; though his talents for civil government and court intrigue, in which he was the Machiavelli of his day, were at that period far more notable auxiliaries.
The Building of Jaipur: Work in Astronomy.—As a statesman, legislator, and man of science, the character of Sawai Jai Singh is worthy of an ample delineation,[[2]] which would correct our opinion of the genius and [357] capacity of the princes of Rajputana, of whom we are apt to form too low an estimate. He was the founder of the new capital, named after him Jaipur or Jainagar, which became the seat of science and art, and eclipsed the more ancient Amber, with which the fortifications of the modern city unite, although the extremity of the one is six miles from the other. Jaipur is the only city in India built upon a regular plan, with streets bisecting each other at right angles.[[3]] The merit of the design and execution is assigned to Vidyadhar, a native of Bengal, one of the most eminent coadjutors of the prince in all his scientific pursuits, both astronomical and historical. Almost all the Rajput princes have a smattering of astronomy, or rather of its spurious relation, astrology; but Jai Singh went deep, not only into the theory, but the practice of the science, and was so esteemed for his knowledge, that he was entrusted by the emperor Muhammad Shah with the reformation of the calendar. He had erected observatories with instruments of his own invention at Delhi, Jaipur, Ujjain, Benares, and Mathura, upon a scale of Asiatic grandeur; and their results were so correct as to astonish the most learned.[[4]] He had previously used such instruments as those of Ulugh Beg (the royal astronomer of Samarkand), which failed to answer his expectations.[[5]] From the observations of seven years at the various observatories, he constructed a set of tables. While thus engaged, he learned through a Portuguese missionary, Padre Manuel, the progress which his favourite pursuit was making in Portugal, and he sent “several skilful persons along with him”[[6]] to the court of Emanuel. The king of Portugal dispatched Xavier de Silva, who communicated to the Rajput prince the tables of De la Hire.[[7]] “On examining and comparing the calculations of these tables (says the Rajput prince) with actual observation, it appeared there was an error in the former, in assigning the moon’s place, of half a degree; although the error in the other planets was not so great, yet the times of solar and lunar eclipses he[[8]] found to come out later or earlier than the truth by the fourth part of a ghari, or fifteen pals (six minutes of time).” In like manner, as he found fault with the instruments of brass used by the Turki astronomer, and which he conjectures must have been such as were used by Hipparchus and Ptolemy, so he attributes the inaccuracies of De la Hire’s tables [358] to instruments of “inferior diameters.” The Rajput prince might justly boast of his instruments. With that at Delhi, he, in A.D. 1729, determined the obliquity of the ecliptic to be 23° 28´; within 28´´ of what it was determined to be, the year following, by Godin. His general accuracy was further put to the test in A.D. 1793 by our scientific countryman, Dr. W. Hunter, who compared a series of observations on the latitude of Ujjain with that established by the Rajput prince. The difference was 24″; and Dr. Hunter does not depend on his own observations within 15″. Jai Singh made the latitude 23° 10´ N.; Dr. Hunter, 23° 10´ 24″ N.
From the results of his varied observations, Jai Singh drew up a set of tables, which he entitled Zij Muhammadshahi, dedicated to that monarch; by these, all astronomical computations are yet made, and almanacks constructed. It would be wrong—while considering these labours of a prince who caused Euclid’s Elements, the treatises on plain and spherical trigonometry, ‘Don Juan,’ Napier on the construction and use of logarithms, to be translated into Sanskrit—to omit noticing the high strain of devotion with which he views the wonders of the “Supreme Artificer”; recalling the line of one of our own best poets:[[9]]
An undevout astronomer is mad.
The Rajput prince thus opens his preface: “Praise be to God, such that the minutely discerning genius of the most profound geometers, in uttering the smallest particle of it, may open the mouth in confession of inability; and such adoration, that the study and accuracy of astronomers, who measure the heavens, may acknowledge their astonishment, and utter insufficiency! Let us devote ourselves at the altar of the King of Kings, hallowed be his name! in the book of the register of whose power the lofty orbs of heaven are only a few leaves; and the stars, and that heavenly courser the sun, small pieces of money, in the treasury of the empire of the Most High.
“From inability to comprehend the all-encompassing beneficence of his power, Hipparchus is an ignorant clown, who wrings the hands of vexation; and in the contemplation of his exalted majesty, Ptolemy is a bat, who can never arrive at the sun of truth: the demonstrations of Euclid are an imperfect sketch of the forms of his contrivance.
“But since the well-wisher of the works of creation, and the admiring spectator of the works of infinite wisdom, Sawai Jai Singh, from the first dawning of reason in his mind, and during its progress towards maturity, was entirely devoted to the study [359] of mathematical science, and the bent of his mind was constantly directed to the solution of its most difficult problems; by the aid of the Supreme Artificer, he obtained a thorough knowledge of its principles and rules,” etc.[[10]]
Besides the construction of these objects of science, he erected, at his own expense, caravanserais for the free use of travellers in many of the provinces. How far vanity may have mingled with benevolence in this act (by no means uncommon in India), it were uncharitable to inquire: for the Hindu not only prays for all those “who travel by land or by water,” but aids the traveller by serais or inns, and wells dug at his own expense, and in most capitals and cities, under the ancient princes, there were public charities for necessitous travellers, at which they had their meals, and then passed on.
Assassination of Farrukhsiyar, May 16, 1719.
Enough has been said of his public life, in that portion of the Annals of Mewar with which he was so closely connected, both by political and family ties. The Sayyids, who succeeded to power on the murder of their sovereign Farrukhsiyar, were too wise to raise enemies unnecessarily; and Jai Singh, when he left the unhappy monarch to his fate, retired to his hereditary dominions, devoting himself to his favourite pursuits, astronomy and history. He appears to have enjoyed three years of uninterrupted quiet, taking no part in the struggles, which terminated, in A.D. 1721, with Muhammad Shah’s defeat of his rivals, and the destruction of the Sayyids [360]. At this period Jai Singh was called from his philosophical pursuits, and appointed the king’s lieutenant for the provinces of Agra and Malwa in succession: and it was during this interval of comparative repose, that he erected those monuments which irradiate this dark epoch of the history of India.[[12]] Nor was he blind to the interests of his nation or the honour of Amber, and his important office was made subservient to obtaining the repeal of that disgraceful edict, the jizya, and authority to repress the infant power of the Jats, long a thorn in the side of Amber. But when, in A.D. 1732, the Raja, once more lieutenant for Malwa, saw that it was in vain to attempt to check the Mahratta invasion, or to prevent the partition of the empire, he deemed himself justified in consulting the welfare of his own house. We know not what terms Jai Singh entered into with the Mahratta leader, Bajirao, who by his influence was appointed Subahdar of Malwa; we may, however, imagine it was from some more powerful stimulant than the native historian of this period assigns, namely, “a similarity of religion.” By this conduct, Jai Singh is said emphatically, by his own countrymen, to have given the key of Hindustan to the Southron. The influence his character obtained, however, with the Mahrattas was even useful to his sovereign, for by it he retarded their excesses, which at length reached the capital. In a few years more (A.D. 1739), Nadir Shah’s invasion took place, and the Rajputs, wisely alive to their own interests, remained aloof from a cause which neither valour nor wisdom could longer serve. They respected the emperor, but the system of government had long alienated these gallant supporters of the throne. We may exemplify the trials to which Rajput fidelity was exposed, by one of “the hundred and nine deeds of Jai Singh” which will at the same time serve further to illustrate the position, that half the political and moral evils which have vexed the royal houses of Rajputana, take their rise from polygamy.
Rebellion of Bijai Singh.
He accepted their interposition and the grant, which being explained to his patron, he was by no means satisfied; nevertheless he ordered Khandauran and Kirparam to accompany him, to see him inducted in his new appanage of Baswa. The chiefs, anxious to reconcile the brothers, obtained Bijai Singh’s assent to a meeting, and as he declined going to Amber, Chaumun was proposed and agreed to, but was afterwards changed to the town of Sanganer, six miles south-west of Jaipur, where Bijai Singh pitched his tents. As Jai Singh was quitting the darbar to give his brother the meeting, the Nazir entered with a message from the queen-mother, to know “why her eyes should not be blessed with witnessing the meeting and reconciliation of the two Laljis.”[[20]] The Raja referred the request to the chiefs, who said there could be no objection.
The Nazir prepared the mahadol,[[21]] with three hundred chariots for the females; but instead of the royal litter containing the queen-mother, it was occupied by Ugar Sen, the Bhatti chief, and each covered chariot contained two chosen Silahposhians, or men at arms. Not a soul but the Nazir and his master were aware of the treachery. The procession left the capital; money was scattered with profusion by the attendants of the supposed queen-mother, to the people who thronged the highways, rejoicing at the approaching conclusion of these fraternal feuds.
Bijai Singh entrapped.
Whatever opinion the moralist may attach to this specimen of 'the hundred and nine gun' of the royal astronomer of Amber, which might rather be styled guna[[23]] (vice) than gun (virtue), no one will deny that it was done in a most masterly manner, and where chal or stratagem is a necessary expedient, did honour to the talents of Jai Singh and the Nazir, who alone, says the narrative, were accessory to the plot. In this instance, moreover, it was perfectly justifiable; for with the means and influence of the wazir to support him, Bijai Singh must, sooner or later, have supplanted his brother. The fate of Bijai Singh is not stated.
Services of Jai Singh to Jaipur State.
Limits of Jaipur State.
Rajor.
Attempted Assassination of Jai Singh.
On the third day after the occurrence, Jai Singh, in a full meeting of his chiefs, related the circumstance, and held out the bira[[31]] against Deoti; but Mohan Singh of Chaumun[[32]] warned his prince of the risk of such an attempt, as the Bargujar chief was not only estimated at court, but then served with his contingent. This opinion of the chief noble of Amber alarmed the assembly, and none were eager to seek the dangerous distinction. A month passed, and war against Deoti was again proposed; but none of the Kothribands seeming inclined to oppose the opinion of their ostensible head, Fateh Singh Banbirpota, the chieftain of one hundred and fifty vassals, accepted the bira, when five thousand horse were ordered to assemble under his command. Hearing that the Bargujar had left Rajor to celebrate the festival of Ganggor,[[33]] he moved towards him, sending on some messengers with “the compliments of Fateh Singh Banbirpota, and that he was at hand.” The young Bargujar who, little expecting [366] any hostile visitation, was indulging during this festive season, put the heralds to death, and with his companions, completely taken by surprise, was in turn cut to pieces by the Jaipur troops. The Rani of Rajor was the sister of the Kachhwaha chief of Chaumun: she was about giving a pledge of affection to her absent lord, when Rajor was surprised and taken. Addressing the victor, Fateh Singh, she said, “Brother, give me the gift (dan) of my womb”; but suddenly recollecting that her own unwise speech had occasioned this loss of her child’s inheritance, exclaiming, “Why should I preserve life to engender feuds?” she sheathed a dagger in her bosom and expired. The heads of the vanquished Bargujars were tied up in handkerchiefs, and suspending them from their saddle-horses, the victors returned to their prince, who sent for that of his intended assassin, the young Bargujar chieftain. As soon as Mohan Singh recognized the features of his kinsman, the tears poured down his face. Jai Singh, recollecting the advice of this, the first noble of his court, which delayed his revenge a whole month, called his grief treason, and upbraided him, saying, “When the spear was levelled for my destruction, no tear fell.” He sequestrated Chaumun, and banished him from Dhundhar: the chief found refuge with the Rana at Udaipur. “Thus (says the manuscript), did Jai Singh dispossess the Bargujar of Deoti and Rajor, which were added to his dominions: they embraced all the tract now called Macheri.”[[34]]
Amongst the foibles of Jai Singh’s character was his partiality to ‘strong drink.’ What this beverage was, whether the juice of the madhu (mead), or the essence (arak) of rice, the traditional chronicles of Amber do not declare, though they mention frequent appeals from Jai Singh drunk, to Jai Singh sober; one anecdote has already been related.[[35]]
In spite of his many defects, Jai Singh’s name is destined to descend to posterity as one of the most remarkable men of his age and nation.
Erection of Buildings.
Sumptuary Laws: Tolerance.
The Asvamedha.
Sawai Jai Singh died in S. 1799 (A.D. 1743), having ruled forty-four years. Three of his wives and several concubines ascended his funeral pyre, on which science expired with him.
[1]. [The dates of the Rājas of Jaipur are uncertain. Those in the margin are given on the authority of Beale, Oriental Biographical Dict. 193[193].]
[2]. For such a sketch, the materials of the Amber court are abundant; to instance only the Kalpadruma, a miscellaneous diary, in which everything of note was written, and a collection entitled Ek sad nau gun Jai Singh ke, or ‘the one hundred and nine actions of Jai Singh’ of which I have heard several narrated and noted. His voluminous correspondence with all the princes and chiefs of his time would alone repay the trouble of translation, and would throw a more perfect light on the manners and feelings of his countrymen than the most laborious lucubrations of any European. I possess an autograph letter of this prince, on one of the most important events of Indian history at this period, the deposal of Farrukhsiyar. It was addressed to the Rana.
[3]. [For a graphic account of Jaipur city see Rudyard Kipling, From Sea to Sea, chap. ii.]
[4]. [For these observatories see A. ff. Garrett and Pandit Chandradha Guleri, The Jaipur Observatory and its Builder, Allahabad, 1902; Fanshawe, Delhi Past and Present, 247 f.; Sherring, The Sacred City of the Hindus, 131 ff. The observatory at Mathura was in the Fort, but it has disappeared; at Ujjain only scanty remains exist (Growse, Mathura, 3rd ed. 140; IGI, xviii. 73, xxiv. 113).]
[5]. [Ulugh Beg, son of Shāh Rukh and grandson of Amīr Timūr, succeeded his father A.D. 1447, and was put to death by his son, Mīrza Abdul Latīf, in 1449. His astronomical tables were published in Latin by John Gregory, Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, and were edited by Thomas Hyde in 1665 (Sykes, Hist. of Persia, ii. 218; EB, 11th ed. xxvii. 573 f.).]
[6]. It would be worth ascertaining whether the archives of Lisbon refer to this circumstance.
[7]. Second edition, published in A.D. 1702. Jai Singh finished his in A.D. 1728.
[8]. Jai Singh always speaks of himself in the third person.
[9]. [Young, Night Thoughts, ix. 771.]
[10]. See “Account of the Astronomical Labours of Jya Sing, Raja of Amber,” by Dr. W. Hunter (Asiatic Researches, vol. v. p. 177), to whom I refer the reader for the description of the instruments used by the Raja. The Author has seen those at Delhi and Mathura. There is also an equinoctial dial constructed on the terrace of the palace of Udaipur, and various instruments at Kotah and Bundi, especially an armillary sphere, at the former, of about five feet diameter, all in brass, got up under the scholars of Jai Singh. Dr. Hunter gives a most interesting account of a young pandit, whom he found at Ujjain, the grandson of one of the coadjutors of Jai Singh, who held the office of Jyotishrae, or Astronomer-Royal, and an estate of five thousand rupees annual rent, both of which (title and estate) descended to this young man; but science fled with Jai Singh, and the barbarian Mahrattas had rendered his estate desolate and unproductive. He possessed, says Dr. H., a thorough acquaintance with the Hindu astronomical science contained in the various Siddhantas, and that not confined to the mechanical practice of rules, but founded on a geometrical knowledge of their demonstration. This inheritor of the mantle of Jai Singh died at Jaipur, soon after Dr. Hunter left Ujjain, in A.D. 1793.
[11]. J. Scott, in his excellent history of the successors of Aurangzeb [ed. 1794, ii. 156 ff.], gives a full account of this tragical event, on which I have already touched in Vol. I. p. [474] of this work; where I have given a literal translation of the autograph letter of Raja Jai Singh on the occasion.
[12]. The Raja says he finished his tables in A.D. 1728, and that he had occupied himself seven years previously in the necessary observations; in fact, the first quiet years of Muhammad Shah’s reign, or indeed that India had known for centuries.
[13]. [In Mālwa (IGI, xxi. 34).]
[14]. [Kamaru-d-dīn, Mīr Muhammad Fāzil, son of Itmādu-d-daula, Muhammad Amīn Khān Wazīr, was appointed to that office A.D. 1724: killed at Sarhind, March 11, 1728.]
[15]. [Forty-five miles N.N.W. of Jaipur city.]
[16]. [‘Brother by exchange of turbans.’ Khāndaurān Khān, Abdu-l-Samad Khān, governor of Lahore and Multān, died A.D. 1739.]
[17]. The Nazir is here harping on three of the four predicaments which (borrowed originally from Manu [Laws, viii. 159, 165, 168], and repeated by the great Rajput oracle, the bard Chand) govern all human events, sham, dan, bhed, dand, ‘arguments, gifts, stratagem, force.’
[18]. He is the hereditary premier noble of this house (as is Salumbar of Mewar, and the Awa chief of Marwar), and is familiarly called the ‘Patel of Amber.’ His residence is Chaumun, which is the place of rendezvous of the feudality of Amber, whenever they league against the sovereign.
[19]. [An appeal to the deities Rāma and his wife Sīta.]
[20]. Lalji is an epithet of endearment used by all classes of Hindus towards their children, from the Sanskrit lal, lad, ‘to sport.’
[21]. [A state litter, generally used by ladies of the Court.]
[22]. I have made a verbatim translation of this gun.
[23]. This is a singular instance of making the privative an affix instead of prefix; a-gun, ‘without virtue,’ would be the common form. [(?) guna may mean ‘virtue,’ or the reverse (Monier-Williams, Sanskrit Dict. s.v.; Brāhmanism and Hinduism, 4th ed. 30).]
[24]. [Both now in Mācheri of the Alwar State.]
[25]. [Thirty miles E. of Jaipur city.]
[26]. [Now in Mācheri, Alwar State.]
[27]. [‘The twenty-two,’ a term originally applied to the Mughal army, because it was supposed to contain twenty-two lakhs of men. The twenty-two nobles of Jaipur were a later creation.]
[28]. A litter, literally 'seat (asan) of ease (sukh).'
[29]. [Bhābhi, ‘sister-in-law.’]
[30]. The descendants of this chieftain still occupy lands at Anupshahr.
[31]. [The betel leaf eaten before battle.]
[32]. [About 20 miles N. of Jaipur city.]
[33]. [See Vol. II. p. [665].]
[34]. Rajor is esteemed a place of great antiquity, and the chief seat of the Bargujar tribe for ages, a tribe mentioned with high respect in the works of the bard Chand, and celebrated in the wars of Prithiraj. I sent a party to Rajor in 1813.
[35]. Annals of Mārwār, Vol. II. p. [1048].
[36]. The manuscript says, “On the spot where the first Jai Singh erected the three mahalls, and excavated the tank called the Talkatora, he erected other edifices.” As Hindu princes never throw down the works of their predecessors, this means that he added greatly to the old palace.
[37]. [Aide-de-camp.]
[38]. By such researches we should in all probability recover those sketches of ancient history of the various dynasties of Rajputana, which he is said to have collected with great pains and labour, and the genealogies of the old races, under the titles of Rajavali and Rajatarangini; besides, the astronomical works, either original or translations, such as were collected by Jai Singh, would be a real gift to science.
[39]. He ruled from S. 1150 to S. 1201, A.D. 1094-1143. [Hemāchārya, or Hemachandra, was a famous scholar who flourished in the reigns of Siddharāja Jayasingha and Kumārapāla. He is said to have been converted to Islām (BG, i. Part i. 180 f., 182 f., ix. Part ii. 26, note.)[note.)]]
[40]. See Vol. I. p. [91], for a description of the rite of Asvamedha.