The brave and loyal founder of the Chondawats, who thus sacrificed his revenge to his sovereign’s commands, had his feelings in some degree propitiated by this arrangement, which secured the entire province of Godwar to his prince: his son Manja fell, as he touched the region of the anwalas, and this cession may have been in ‘mundkati,’ the compromise of the price of blood. By such traditional legends, not less true than strange, and to which the rock sculptures taken from Mandor bear evidence, even to the heroes who aided Jodha in his enterprise, the anwal of the Rajputs has been immortalized, like the humble broom of the French, whose planta-genesta has distinguished the loftiest name in chivalry, the proudest race emblazoned on the page of heraldry.
Notwithstanding the crops had been gathered, this tract contrasted favourably with Mewar, although amidst a comparative prosperity we could observe the traces of rapine; and numerous stories were rehearsed of the miseries inflicted on the people by the rapacious followers of Amir Khan. We crossed numerous small streams flowing from the Aravalli, all proceeding to join the “Salt River,” or Luni. The villages were large and more populous; yet was there a dulness, a want of that hilarity which pervaded the peasantry of Mewar, in spite of their misfortunes. The Rajputs partook of the feeling, the cause of which a little better acquaintance with their headquarters soon revealed. Mewar had passed through the period [696] of reaction, which in Marwar was about to display itself, and was left unfortunately to its own control, or with only the impulse of a long suppressed feeling of revenge in the bosom of its prince, and the wiles of a miscreant minister, who wished to keep him in durance, and the country in degradation.
Nādol.
There is no spot in Rajputana that does not contain some record of the illustrious Chauhan; and though every race has had its career of glory, the sublimity of which, the annals of the Sesodias before the reader sufficiently attest, yet with all my partiality for those with whom I long resided, and with whose history I am best acquainted, my sense of justice compels me to assign the palm of martial intrepidity to the Chauhan over all the “royal races” of India. Even the bards, to whatever family they belong, appear to articulate the very name as if imbued with some peculiar energy, and dwell on its terminating nasal with peculiar complacency. Although they had always ranked high in the list of chivalry, yet the seal of the order was stamped on all who have the name of Chauhan, since the days of Prithiraj, the model of every Rajput, and who had a long line of fame to maintain. Of the many names familiar to the bard is Guga of Bhatinda, who with forty-seven sons “drank of the stream of the sword” on the banks of the Sutlej, in opposing Mahmud.[[36]] This conqueror proceeded through the desert to the attack of Ajmer, the chief abode of this race, where his arms were disgraced, the invader wounded, and forced to relinquish his enterprise [697]. In his route to Nahrwala and Somnath he passed Nadol,[[37]] whose prince hesitated not to measure his sword even with Mahmud. I was fortunate enough to obtain an inscription regarding this prince, the celebrated Lakha, said to be the founder of this branch from Ajmer, of which it was a fief—its date S. 1039 (A.D. 983).[[38]] The fortress attributed to Lakha is on the declivity of a low ridge to the westward of the town, with square towers of ancient form, and built of a very curious conglomerate of granite and gneiss, of which the rock on which it stands is composed. There was a second inscription, dated S. 1024 (A.D. 968), which made him the contemporary of the Rana’s ancestor, Sakti Kumar of Aitpur, a city also destroyed, more probably by the father of Mahmud. The Chauhan bards speak in very lofty terms of Rao Lakha, who “collected transit dues from the further gate of Anhilwara, and levied tribute from the prince of Chitor.”
Remains at Nādol.
Inscriptions and Coins.
Indara.
Āk ra jhonpra,
Phog ra vār,
Bājra ri roti,