[22]. [His mother was a Pramār, Subhāgya Devi, daughter of Rāja Jaitmall, Sānkhla.]
CHAPTER 8
Rāna Kūmbha, A.D. 1433-68.
It has rarely occurred in any country to have possessed successively so many energetic princes as ruled Mewar through several centuries. She was now in the middle path of her glory, and enjoying the legitimate triumph of seeing the foes of her religion captives on the rock of her power. A century had elapsed since the bigot Ala had wreaked his vengeance on the different monuments of art. Chitor had recovered the sack, and new defenders had sprung up in the place [287] of those who had fallen in their ‘saffron robes,’ a sacrifice for her preservation. All that was wanting to augment her resources against the storms which were collecting on the brows of Caucasus and the shores of the Oxus, and were destined to burst on the head of his grandson Sanga, was effected by Kumbha; who with Hamir’s energy, Lakha’s taste for the arts, and a genius comprehensive as either and more fortunate, succeeded in all his undertakings, and once more raised the ‘crimson banner’ of Mewar upon the banks of the Ghaggar, the scene of Samarsi’s defeat. Let us contrast the patriarchal Hindu governments of this period with the despotism of the Tatar invader.
From the age of Shihabu-d-din, the conqueror of India, and his contemporary Samarsi, to the time we have now reached, two entire dynasties, numbering twenty-four emperors and one empress, through assassination, rebellion, and dethronement, had followed in rapid succession, yielding a result of only nine years to a reign. Of Mewar, though several fell in defending their altars at home or their religion abroad, eleven princes suffice to fill the same period.
It was towards the close of the Khilji dynasty that the satraps of Delhi shook off its authority and established subordinate kingdoms: Bijapur and Golkonda in the Deccan; Malwa, Gujarat, Jaunpur in the east; and even Kalpi had its king. Malwa and Gujarat had attained considerable power when Kumbha ascended the throne. In the midst of his prosperity these two States formed a league against him, and in S. 1496 (A.D. 1440) both kings, at the head of powerful armies, invaded Mewar. Kumbha met them on the plains of Malwa bordering on his own State, and at the head of one hundred thousand horse and foot and fourteen hundred elephants, gave them an entire defeat, carrying captive to Chitor Mahmud the Khilji sovereign of Malwa.
Abu-l Fazl relates this victory, and dilates on Kumbha’s greatness of soul in setting his enemy at liberty, not only without ransom but with gifts.[[3]] Such is the character of the Hindu: a mixture of arrogance, political blindness, pride, and generosity. To spare a prostrate foe is the creed of the Hindu cavalier, and he carries all such maxims to excess. The annals, however, state that Mahmud was confined six months in Chitor; and that the trophies of conquest were retained we have evidence from Babur, who mentions receiving from the son of his opponent, Sanga, the crown of the Malwa king.
The Tower of Victory.
It would appear that the Malwa king afterwards united his arms with Kumbha, as, in a victory gained over the imperial forces at Jhunjhunu, when ‘he planted his standard in Hissar,’ the Malwa troops were combined with those of Mewar. The imperial power had at this period greatly declined: the Khutba was read in the mosques in the name of Timur, and the Malwa king had defeated, single-handed, the last Ghorian sultan of Delhi.