The influence of women on Rajput society is marked in every page of Hindu history, from the most remote periods. What led to the wars of Rama? the rape of Sita. What rendered deadly the feuds of the Yadus? the insult to Draupadi. What made prince Nala an exile from Narwar? his love for Damayanti. What made Raja Bhartari abandon the throne of Avanti? the loss of Pingali. What subjected the Hindu to the dominion of the Islamite? the rape of the princess of Kanauj. In fine, the cause which overturned kingdoms, commuted the sceptre to the pilgrim’s staff, and formed the groundwork of all their grand epics, is woman. In ancient, and even in modern times, she had more than a negative in the choice of a husband, and this choice fell on the gallant and the gay. The fair Draupadi was the prize of the best archer, and the Pandu Bhima established his fame, and bore her from all the suitors of Kampila. The princess of Kanauj, when led through ranks of the princes of Hind, each hoping to be the object of her choice, threw the marriage-garland (barmala) over the neck of the effigy of the Chauhan, which her father in derision had placed as porter at the gate. Here was incense to fame and incentive to gallantry![[65]]
In the same manner, as related in another part of this work, did the princess of Kishangarh invite Rana Raj Singh to bear her from the impending union with the emperor of the Moguls; and abundant other instances could be adduced of the free agency of these invisibles.
It were superfluous to reason on the effects of traditional histories, such as these, on the minds and manners of the females of Rajasthan. They form the amusement of their lives, and the grand topic in all their conversaziones; they read them with the Purohit, and they have them sung by the itinerant bard or Dholi minstrel [633], who disseminates them wherever the Rajput name extends. The Rajput mother claims her full share in the glory of her son, who imbibes at the maternal fount his first rudiments of chivalry; and the importance of this parental instruction cannot be better illustrated than in the ever-recurring simile, “make thy mother’s milk resplendent”; the full force of which we have in the powerful, though overstrained expression of the Bundi queen’s joy on the announcement of the heroic death of her son: “the long-dried fountain at which he fed, jetted forth as she listened to the tale of his death, and the marble pavement, on which it fell, rent asunder.” Equally futile would it be to reason on the intensity of sentiment thus implanted in the infant Rajput, of whom we may say without metaphor, the shield is his cradle, and daggers his playthings; and with whom the first commandment is, “avenge thy father’s feud”; on which they can heap text upon text, from the days of the great Pandu moralist Vyasa to the not less influential bard of their nation, the Trikala Chand.
[1]. [“The custom handed down in regular succession since time immemorial among the four chief castes and the mixed races of that country, is called the conduct of virtuous men” (Manu, Laws, ii. 18).]
[2]. So says Valmiki, the author of the oldest epic in existence, the Ramayana [see p. [693] above].
[3]. Les Femmes, leur condition et leur influence dans l’ordre social, vol. i. p. 10.
[4]. So are some of the Hindu races in the mountainous districts about the Himalaya, and in other parts of India. This curious trait in ancient manners is deserving of investigation: it might throw some light on the early history of the world. [“Each man has but one wife, yet all the women are held in common: for this is a custom of the Massagetae, and not of the Scythians, as the Greeks wrongly say” (Herodotus i. 216). For polyandry in India see Risley, The People of India, 2nd ed. 206 ff.]
[5]. [Polygamy does to some extent prevail (Census Report, Rājputāna, 1911, i. 157 f.)]
[6]. Laws, v. 130.