The Rajputs are the descendants of the ancient Indian warrior race and are a brave, chivalrous, trustworthy people who possess a love of freedom and pride of race quite different in character from the rest of the Hindus. Even to-day every traveler in India thinks he has been set down in another world when he treads the ground of Rajputâna and sees around him in place of the weak effeminate servile inhabitants of other parts of the country powerful upright men, splendid warlike figures with blazing defiant eyes and long waving beards.
While Akbar valued the Rajputs very highly his own personality was entirely fitted to please these proud manly warriors. An incident which took place before the end of the first year of Akbar's reign is characteristic of the relations which existed on the basis of this intrinsic relationship.[16]
VIEW OF FATHPUR
Bihâri Mal was a prince of the small Rajput state Ambir, and possessed sufficient political comprehension to understand after Akbar's first great successes that his own insignificant power and the nearness of Delhi made it advisable to voluntarily recognize the Emperor as his liege lord. Therefore he came with son, grandson and retainers to swear allegiance to Akbar. Upon his arrival at the imperial camp before Delhi, a most surprising sight met his eyes. Men were running in every direction, fleeing wildly before a raging elephant who wrought destruction to everything that came within his reach. Upon the neck of this enraged brute sat a young man in perfect calmness belaboring the animal's head with the iron prong which is used universally in India for guiding elephants. The Rajputs sprang from their horses and came up perfectly unconcerned to observe the interesting spectacle, and broke out in loud applause when the conquered elephant knelt down in exhaustion. The young man sprang from its back and cordially greeted the Rajput princes (who now for the first time recognized Akbar in the elephant-tamer) bidding them welcome to his red imperial tent. From this occurrence dates the friendship of the two men. In later years Bihâri Mai's son and grandson occupied high places in the imperial service, and Akbar married a daughter of the Rajput chief who became the mother of his son and successor Selim, afterwards the Emperor Jehângir. Later on Akbar received a number of other Rajput women in his harem.
Not all of Akbar's relations to the Rajputs however were of such a friendly kind. As his grandfather Baber before him, he had many bitter battles with them, for no other Indian people had opposed him so vigorously as they. Their domain blocked the way to the south, and from their rugged mountains and strongly fortified cities the Rajputs harassed the surrounding country by many invasions and destroyed order, commerce and communication quite after the manner of the German robber barons of the Middle Ages. Their overthrow was accordingly a public necessity.
The most powerful of these Rajput chiefs was the Prince of Mewâr who had particularly attracted the attention of the Emperor by his support of the rebels. The control of Mewâr rested upon the possession of the fortress Chitor which was built on a monstrous cliff one hundred and twenty meters high, rising abruptly from the plain and was equipped with every means of defence that could be contrived by the military skill of that time for an incomparably strong bulwark. On the plain at its summit which measured over twelve kilometers in circumference a city well supplied with water lay within the fortification walls. There an experienced general, Jaymal, "the Lion of Chitor," was in command. I have not time to relate the particulars of the siege, the laying of ditches and mines and the uninterrupted battles which preceded the fall of Chitor in February, 1568. According to Akbar's usual custom he exposed himself to showers of bullets without once being hit (the superstition of his soldiers considered him invulnerable) and finally the critical shot was one in which Akbar with his own hand laid low the brave commander of Chitor. Then the defenders considered their cause lost, and the next night saw a barbarous sight, peculiarly Indian in character: the so-called Jauhar demanded his offering according to an old Rajput custom. Many great fires gleamed weirdly in the fortress. To escape imprisonment and to save their honor from the horrors of captivity, the women mounted the solemnly arranged funeral pyres, while all the men, clad in saffron hued garments, consecrated themselves to death. When the victors entered the city on the next morning a battle began which raged until the third evening, when there was no one left to kill. Eight thousand warriors had fallen, besides thirty thousand inhabitants of Chitor who had participated in the fight.
With the conquest of Chitor which I have treated at considerable length because it ended in a typically Indian manner, the resistance of the Rajputs broke down. After Akbar had attained his purpose he was on the friendliest terms with the vanquished. It testifies to his nobility of character as well as to his political wisdom that after this complete success he not only did not celebrate a triumph, but on the contrary proclaimed the renown of the vanquished throughout all India by erecting before the gate of the imperial palace at Delhi two immense stone elephants with the statues of Jaymal, the "Lion of Chitor," and of the noble youth Pata who had performed the most heroic deeds in the defense of Chitor. By thus honoring his conquered foes in such a magnanimous manner Akbar found the right way to the heart of the Rajputs. By constant bestowal of favors he gradually succeeded in so reconciling the noble Rajputs to the loss of their independence that they were finally glad and proud to devote themselves to his service, and, under the leadership of their own princes, proved themselves to be the best and truest soldiers of the imperial army, even far from their home in the farthest limits of the realm.
The great masses of the Hindu people Akbar won over by lowering the taxes as we have previously related, and by all the other successful expedients for the prosperity of the country, but especially by the concession of perfect liberty of faith and worship and by the benevolent interest with which he regarded the religious practices of the Hindus. A people in whom religion is the ruling motive of life, after enduring all the dreadful sufferings of previous centuries for its religion's sake, must have been brought to a state; of boundless reverence by Akbar's attitude. And since the Hindus were accustomed to look upon the great heroes and benefactors of humanity as incarnations of deity we shall not be surprised to read from an author of that time[17] that every morning before sunrise great numbers of Hindus crowded together in front of the palace to await the appearance of Akbar and to prostrate themselves as soon as he was seen at a window, at the same time singing religious hymns. This fanatical enthusiasm of the Hindus for his person Akbar knew how to retain not only by actual benefits but also by small, well calculated devices.