Insanity of Rāja Mān Singh.
British Control of Mārwār. Restoration and Policy of Rāja Mān Singh.
In refusing the aid of a mere physical force, the Raja availed himself of another weapon; for by this artifice he threw the chiefs off their guard, who confided in his [719] assumed desire to forget the past. Intrigues for power and patronage seemed to strengthen this confidence; and Salim Singh of Pokaran, the military Maire du palais or Bhanjgarh, and Akhai Chand, retained as civil prime minister, were opposed by Jodhraj Singwi, who headed the aspirants to supplant them. The Raja complained of their interested squabbles, but neither party dreamed that they were fostered by him to cloak his deep-laid schemes. Akhai Chand had been minister throughout the son’s administration; the political and pecuniary transactions of the State were known chiefly to him; to cut him off would have been poor revenge, and Raja Man was determined not only to extract from him all the knowledge of State matters transacted during his seclusion, but to make himself master of his coffers, and neither would have been attained by simple murder. Akhai Chand was not blind to the dangers of his position; he dreaded the appui his sovereign derived from the English, and laboured to inspire the Raja with distrust of their motives. It suited his master’s views to flatter this opinion; and the minister and his adherents were lulled into a fatal security.
Maladministration of Rāja Mān Singh.
All these atrocities occurred within six months after my visit to this court, and about eighteen from the time it was received into protective alliance with the British Government. The anomalous condition of all our connexions with the Rajput States has already been described: and if illustration of those remarks be required, it is here in awful characters. We had tied up our own hands: “internal interference” had been renounced, and the sequestration of every merchant’s property, who was connected with the Mehta faction, and the exile of the nobles, had no limit but the will of a bloodthirsty and vindictive tyrant. The objects of his persecution made known everywhere the unparalleled hardships of their case, and asserted that nothing but respect for the British Government prevented their doing themselves justice. In no part of the past history of this State could such proscription of the majority of the kin and clan of the prince have taken place. The dread of our intervention, as an umpire favourable to their chief, deprived them of hope; they knew that if we were exasperated there was no saran to protect them. They had been more than twelve months in this afflicting condition when I left the country; nor have I heard that anything has been done to relieve them, or to adjust these intestine broils. It is abandoning them to that spirit of revenge which is a powerful ingredient in their nature, and held to be justifiable by any means when no other hope is left them. In all human probability, Raja Man will end his days by the same expedient which secured him from the fury of his predecessor.[[13]]
Interview with Rāja Mān Singh.
Mandor. Rāthor Cenotaphs.
These dumb recorders of a nation’s history attest the epochs of Marwar’s glory, which commenced with Maldeo, and ended with the sons of Ajit. The temple-monument of Maldeo, which yet throws into shade the still more simple shrines of Chonda, and Jodha, contrasted with the magnificent mausoleum of Raja Ajit, reads us a lesson on the advancement of luxurious pomp in this desert State. The progression is uniform, both in magnitude and elegance, from Maldeo’s who opposed on equal terms the Afghan king (whose memorable words, “I had nearly lost the throne of India for a handful of barley,”[[16]] mark at once the gallantry and the poverty of those whom he encountered), to the last great prince Ajit. Even that of Raja Gaj is plain, compared to his successor’s. These monuments are all erected of a very close-grained freestone, of a dark brown or red [723] tint, with sufficient hardness to allow the sculptor to indulge his fancy. The style of architecture, or rather the composition, is mixed, partaking both of the Saivite and the Buddhist; but the details are decidedly Jain, more especially the columns, which are of the same model as those in Kumbhalmer. I speak more especially of those of Rajas Jaswant and Ajit, drawings of which, on a large scale, executed by the Raja’s chief architect, I brought to Europe; but which it would be too expensive to have engraved. They are raised on immense terraces, faced with large blocks of well-polished freestone. That of Jaswant is somewhat ponderous and massive; but Ajit’s rises with great elegance and perfect symmetry of proportion.
On ascending the terrace you enter through a lofty vaulted porch supported by handsome columns to the sanctum, which is a pyramidal temple, four stories in height, in the Saivite style, crowned by the sikhar and kalas, elsewhere described. The sculptural ornaments are worthy of admiration, both for their design and effect; and the numerous columns on the basement, and different stages of ascent, give an air of so much majesty that one might deem these monuments more fitting sepulture for the Egyptian Cheops than a shrine—over what? not even the ashes of the desert king, which were consigned in an urn to the bosom of the Ganges. If the foundations of these necrological monuments have been equally attended to with the superstructure, they bid fair to convey to remote posterity the recollection of as conspicuous a knot of princely characters as ever followed each other in the annals of any age or country. Let us place them in juxtaposition with the worthies of Mewar and the illustrious scions of Timur, and challenge the thrones of Europe to exhibit such a contemporaneous display of warriors, statesmen, or scholars.
| Mewar. | Marwar. | Delhi. | ||
| Rana Sanga | Rao Maldeo | Babur and Sher Shah. | ||
| Rao Sur Singh | Humayun. | |||
| Rana Partap | Raja Udai Singh | Akbar. | ||
| Rana Amra I. Rana Karan | } | Raja Gaj Singh | { | Jahangir and Shah Jahan. |
| Rana Raj | Raja Jaswant Singh | Aurangzeb. | ||
| Rana Jai Singh Rana Amra II. | } | Raja Ajit Singh | { | All the competitors for the throne after Farrukhsiyar [724]. |