Rāna Mokala, A.D. 1397-1433.
The sacrifice of Chonda to offended delicacy and filial respect was great, for he had all the qualities requisite for command. Brave, frank, and skilful, he conducted all public affairs after his father’s departure and death, to the benefit of the minor and the State. The queen-mother, however, who is admitted as the natural guardian of her infant’s rights on all such occasions, felt umbrage and discontent at her loss of power; forgetting that, but for Chonda, she would never [278] have been mother to the Rana of Mewar. She watched with a jealous eye all his proceedings; but it was only through the medium of suspicion she could accuse the integrity of Chonda, and she artfully asserted that, under colour of directing state affairs, he was exercising absolute sovereignty, and that if he did not assume the title of Rana, he would reduce it to an empty name. Chonda, knowing the purity of his own motives, made liberal allowance for maternal solicitude; but upbraiding the queen with the injustice of her suspicions, and advising a vigilant care to the rights of Sesodias, he retired to the court of Mandu, then rising into notice, where he was received with the highest distinctions, and the district of Halar[[7]] was assigned to him by the king.
Rāthor Influence in Mewār.
Raghudeva, the Mewār Hero.
The Expulsion of the Rāthor Party.
These injunctions were carefully attended to. The day arrived, the feast was held at Gosunda; but the night was closing in, and no Chonda appeared. With heavy hearts the nurse, the Purohit,[[12]] and those in the secret moved homeward, and had reached the eminence called Chitori, when forty horsemen passed them at the gallop, and at their head Chonda in disguise, who by a secret sign paid homage as he passed to his younger brother and sovereign. Chonda and [280] his band had reached the Rampol,[[13]] or upper gate, unchecked. Here, when challenged, they said they were neighbouring chieftains, who, hearing of the feast at Gosunda, had the honour to escort the prince home. The story obtained credit; but the main body, of which this was but the advance, presently coming up, the treachery was apparent. Chonda unsheathed his sword, and at his well-known shout the hunters were speedily in action. The Bhatti chief, taken by surprise, and unable to reach Chonda, launched his dagger at and wounded him, but was himself slain; the guards at the gates were cut to pieces, and the Rathors hunted out and killed without mercy.
Death of Rāo Ranmall.
The Revenge of Chonda.
“Sweet are the uses of adversity.” To Jodha it was the first step in the ladder of his eventual elevation. A century and a half had scarcely elapsed since a colony, the wreck of Kanauj, found an asylum, and at length a kingdom, taking possession of one capital and founding another, abandoning Mandor and erecting Jodhpur. But even Jodha could never have hoped that his issue would have extended their sway from the valley of the Indus to within one hundred miles of the Jumna, and from the desert bordering on the Sutlej to the Aravalli mountains: that one hundred thousand swords should at once be in the hands of Rathors, ‘the sons of one father’ (ek Bap ke Betan).
If we slightly encroach upon the annals of Marwar, it is owing to its history and that of Mewar being here so interwoven, and the incidents these events gave birth so illustrative of the national character of each, that it is, perhaps, more expedient to advert to the period when Jodha was shut out from Mandor, and the means by which he regained that city, previous to relating the events of the reign of Mokal.