Rām Singh, Bishan Singh.
[1]. This account of the Amber or Jaipur State is nearly what I communicated to the Marquess of Hastings in 1814-15. Amidst the multiplicity of objects which subsequently engaged my attention, I had deemed myself absolved from the necessity of enlarging upon it, trusting that a more competent pen would have superseded this essay, there having been several political authorities at that court since it was written. Being, however, unaware that anything has been done to develop its historical resources, which are more abundant than those of any other court of India, I think it right not to suppress this sketch, however imperfect.
[2]. The traditional history of the Chauhans asserts, that this mount was the place of penance (thal) of their famed king Bisaldeo of Ajmer, who, for his oppression of his subjects, was transformed into a Rakshasa, or Demon, in which condition he continued the evil work of his former existence, “devouring his subjects” (as literally expressed), until a grandchild offered himself as a victim to appease his insatiable appetite. The language of innocent affection made its way to the heart of the Rakshasa, who recognized his offspring, and winged his flight to the Jumna. It might be worth while to excavate the dhundh of the transformed Chauhan king, which I have some notion will prove to be his sepulchre. [According to Cunningham (ASR, ii. 251) there is no mound of this kind at Jobner. He derives the name of the territory from the river Dhūndhu—Dhūndhwār, or Dhūndhār, meaning the land by the river Dhūndhu—the river having obtained its name from the demon-king Dhūndhu (see IGI, xiii. 385).]
[3]. Were this celebrated abode searched for inscriptions, they might throw light on the history of the descendants of Rama. [For Rohtāsgarh in Shāhābād District, Bengal, see IGI, xxi. 322 f.]
[4]. Prefixed to a descriptive sketch of the city of Narwar (which I may append), the year S. 351 is given for its foundation by Raja Nal, but whether obtained from an inscription or historical legend, I know not. It, however, corroborates in a remarkable manner the number of descents from Nal to Dhola Rae, namely, thirty-three, which, calculated according to the best data (see Vol. I. p. [64]), at twenty-two years to a reign, will make 726 years, which subtracted from 1023, the era of Dhola Rae’s migration, leaves 297, a difference of only fifty-four years between the computed and settled eras; and if we allowed only twenty-one years to a reign, instead of twenty-two, as proposed in all long lines above twenty-five generations, the difference would be trifling. [The story is legendary. The eighth in descent from Vajradāman, the first historical chief of Gwalior, who captured that fortress from Vijayapāla of Kanauj (c. A.D. 955-90) was Tej Karan, otherwise known as Dulha Rāē, the Dhola Rāē of the text, who left Gwalior about A.D. 1128 (Smith, EHI, 381; IGI, xiii. 384).]
We may thus, without hesitation, adopt the date 351, or A.D. 295, for the period of Raja Nal, whose history is one of the grand sources of delight to the bards of Rajputana. The poem rehearsing his adventures under the title of Nala and Damayanti (fam. Nal-Daman) was translated into Persian at Akbar’s command, by Faizi, brother of Abu-l Fazl, and has since been made known to the admirers of Sanskrit literature by Professor Bopp of Berlin [Āīn, i. 106; Macdonell, Hist. Sanskrit Literature, 296 ff.].
[5]. [Kachhwāhagār or Kachhwāhagarh, the former meaning the ‘water-soaked land,’ the latter the ‘fort,’ of the Kachhwāhas, is a tract between the Sind and Pahuj Rivers, ceded to the British by the Gwalior State in payment of a British contingent (Elliot, Supplementary Glossary, 237, 283, note).]
[6]. [For the tale of a serpent identifying the heir see Vol. I. p. [342].]
[7]. [The hero in folk-tales often wins recognition by his skill in the kitchen, as in the story of Shams-al-Dīn in the Arabian Nights; see Tawney, Kathāsarit-sāgara, i. 567.]