[30]. The epithet by which these Tatar sovereigns affected to call the indigenous (bhumia) princes.
[31]. There were no such field trains in Europe as those of the Moguls. Seventy pieces of heavy ordnance, sixty of horse artillery, and a dromedary corps three hundred strong, mounting swivels, accompanied the emperor on an excursion to Kashmir. Bernier, who gives this detail, describes what he saw [217 f.].
[32]. [For this campaign see the account in Jadunath Sarkar, Life of Aurangzib, iii. 365 ff.]
[33]. Pāl is the local term for these long defiles, the residence of the mountaineers: their chiefs are called Indras, Pati, in Bhakha, Pat.
[34]. Chief of the Hindus.
[35]. [In the text “Tyber” Khān. His original name was Jān Beg, also known as Bādshāh Kuli Khān, one of Aurangzeb’s great nobles (Manucci ii. 239, note 3, 247, note). His tragical end is told later on.]
[36]. The Saktawat leader, Gharibdas, has the merit of having prompted this plan. His speech on the advance of Aurangzeb is given in the Annals; and his advice, “Let the king have free entrance through the passes, shut him in, and make famine his foe,” was literally followed, with the hard knocks, which being a matter-of-course accompaniment, the gallant Saktawat deemed it unnecessary to specify.
[37]. Orme, who has many valuable historical details of this period, makes Aurangzeb in person to have been in the predicament assigned by the annals to his son, and to have escaped from the operation of those high and gallant sentiments of the Rajput, which make him no match for a wily adversary.
“In the meantime Aurengzebe was carrying on the war against the Rana of Cheetore, and the Raja of Marwar, who on the approach of his army at the end of the preceding year, 1678, had abandoned the accessible country, and drew their herds and inhabitants into the vallies, within the mountains; the army advanced amongst the defiles with incredible labour, and with so little intelligence, that the division which moved with Aurengzebe himself was unexpectedly stopped by insuperable defences and precipices in front; whilst the Rajpoots in one night closed the streights in his rear, by felling the overhanging trees; and from their stations above prevented all endeavours of the troops, either within or without, from removing the obstacle. Udeperri, the favourite and Circassian wife of Aurengzebe, accompanied him in this arduous war, and with her retinue and escort was enclosed in another part of the mountains; her conductors, dreading to expose her person to danger or public view, surrendered. She was carried to the Rana, who received her with homage and every attention. Meanwhile the emperor himself might have perished by famine, of which the Rana let him see the risque, by a confinement of two days; when he ordered his Rajpoots to withdraw from their stations, and suffer the way to be cleared. As soon as Aurengzebe was out of danger, the Rana sent back his wife, accompanied by a chosen escort, who only requested in return that he would refrain from destroying the sacred animals of their religion which might still be left in the plains; but Aurengzebe, who believed in no virtue but self-interest, imputed the generosity and forbearance of the Rana to the fear of future vengeance, and continued the war. Soon after he was again well-nigh enclosed in the mountains. This second experience of difficulties beyond his age and constitution, and the arrival of his sons, Azim and Acbar, determined him not to expose himself any longer in the field, but to leave its operations to their conduct, superintended by his own instructions from Azmir; to which city he retired with the households of his family, the officers of his court, and his bodyguard of four thousand men, dividing the army between his two sons, who each had brought a considerable body of troops from their respective governments. They continued the war each in a different part of the country, and neither at the end of the year had forced the ultimate passes of the mountains” [Historical Fragments, 119 f.].
[38]. [Dilīr Khan, otherwise Jalāl Khān Dā‛ūdzai, died at Aurangābād, 1682-83 (Manucci i. 243). Grant Duff speaks highly of his services in the Deccan (145 f.).]