... preferring
Hard liberty before the easy yoke
Of servile pomp.
Chief of Salūmbar intervenes.
Defeat of the Imperialists.
Jahāngīr establishes Sagra as Rāna.
For seven years Sagra had a spurious homage paid to him amidst this desolation, the ruined pride of his ancestors. But it is gratifying to record, that not even by this recreant son of Chitor could the impressions formed in contemplating such scenes be resisted; and Sagra, though flinty as the rock to a brother and nephew, could not support the silent admonition of the altars of the heroes who had fallen in her defence. The triumphal column raised for victory over a combination of [355] kings, was a perpetual memento of his infamy; nor could he pass over one finger’s breadth of her ample surface, without treading on some fragment which reminded him of their great deeds and his own unworthiness. We would be desirous of recording, that a nobler remembrancer than ‘coward conscience,’ animated the brother of Partap to an act of redeeming virtue; but when the annals tell us, that “the terrific Bhairon (the god of battle) openly manifested his displeasure,” it is decisive that it was not less the wish for greatness, than the desire to be “without the illness should attend it”; and sending for his nephew, he restored to him Chitor, retiring to the isolated Kandhar.[[14]] Some time after, upon going to court, and being upbraided by Jahangir, he drew his dagger and slew himself in the emperor’s presence: an end worthy of such a traitor.[[15]]
Conquests of Rāna Amar Singh I.
Sakta and the Saktāwats.
Sakta had seventeen sons, all of whom, excepting the heir of Bhainsror,[[18]] attended his obsequies. On return from this rite they found the gates barred against them by Bhanji, now chief of the Saktawats, who told them “there were too many mouths,” and that they must push their fortunes elsewhere while he attended his sovereign with the quota of Bhainsror. They demanded their horses and their arms, if such were his pleasure; and electing Achal as their head (whose wife was then pregnant), they took the route to Idar, which had recently been acquired by a junior branch of the Rathors of Marwar.[[19]] They had reached Palod when the pangs of childbirth seized the wife of Achal; and being rudely repulsed by the Sonigira vassal of Palod, who refused her shelter at such a moment, they sought refuge amidst the ruins of a temple.[[20]] It was the shrine of Mata Janavi, ‘the mother of births,’ the Juno Lucina of the Rajputs. In a corner of the sanctuary they placed the mother of a future race; but the rain, which fell in torrents, visibly affected the ruin. A beam of stone gave way, which but for Bala would have crushed her: he supported the sinking roof on his head till the brothers cut down a babul tree, with which they propped it and relieved him. In this retreat Asa (Hope) was born, who became the parent of an extensive branch known as the Achalis Saktawats.