Bakht Singh Poisoned.
Repression of Islām.
Rājput Morals compared with those of Europe in the Middle Ages.
The reader would also be wrong if he leaped to the conclusion that the bardic chronicler passed no judgment on the princely criminal. His “empoisoned stanzas” (vishwa sloka), transmitted to posterity by the mouth of the peasant and the prince, attest the reverse. One couplet has been recorded, stigmatizing Bakhta for the murder of his father; there is another of the chief bard, improvised while his prince Abhai Singh and Jai Singh of Amber were passing the period devoted [120] to religious rites at the sacred lake of Pushkar. These ceremonies never stood in the way of festivity; and one evening, while these princes and their vassals were in the height of merriment, the bard was desired to contribute to it by some extemporaneous effusion. He rose, and vociferated in the ears of the horror-struck assembly the following quatrain:—
Jodhāno Āmber ē
Donon thāp uthāp;
Kuram māryo dīkro,
Kāmdhaj māryo bāp.
“[The princes of] Jodhpur and Amber can dethrone the enthroned. But the Kurma[[9]] slew his son; the Kamdhaj[[10]] murdered his father.”
The words of the poetic seer sank into the minds of his hearers, and passed from mouth to mouth. They were probably the severest vengeance either prince experienced in this world, and will continue to circulate down to the latest posterity. It was the effusion of the same undaunted Karna, who led the charge with his prince against the troops of Amber.