CHAPTER 12
=Rāja Rām Singh, A.D. 1750-52.=—Ram Singh succeeded at that dangerous age when parental control is most required to restrain the turbulence of passion. Exactly twenty years had elapsed since the nuptials at Sirohi, when Hymen extinguished the torch of discord, and his mother was the bearer of the olive branch to Abhai Singh, to save her house from destruction. The Rajput, who attaches everything to pedigree, has a right to lay an interdict on the union of the race of Agni,[5.12.1] with the already too fiery blood of the Rathor. Ram Singh inherited the arrogance of his father, with all the impetuosity of the Chauhans; and the exhibition of these qualities was simultaneous with his coronation. We are not told why his uncle, Bakhta Singh, absented himself from the ceremony of his prince’s and nephew’s installation, when the whole kin and clans of Maru assembled to ratify their allegiance by their presence. As the first in blood and rank, it was his duty to make the first mark of inauguration on the [116] forehead of his prince. The proxy he chose on the occasion was his Dhai, or ‘nurse,’ a personage of no small importance in those countries. Whether by such a representative the haughty warrior meant to insinuate that his nephew should yet be in leading strings, the chronicle affords us no hint; but it reprehends Ram Singh’s conduct to this venerable personage, whom, instead of treating, according to usage, with the same respect as his mother, he asked, “if his uncle took him for an ape, that he sent an old hag to present him with the _tika_?” and instantly dispatched an express desiring the surrender of Jalor. Ere his passion had time to cool, he commanded his tents to be moved out, that he might chastise the insult to his dignity. Despising the sober wisdom of the counsellors of the state, he had given his confidence to one of the lowest grade of these hereditary officers, by name Amia, the Nakkarchi,[5.12.2] a man headstrong like himself. The old chief of the Champawats, on hearing of this act of madness, repaired to the castle to remonstrate; but scarcely had he taken his seat before the prince assailed him with ridicule, desiring “to see his frightful face as seldom as possible.” “Young man,” exclaimed the indignant chief, as with violence he dashed his shield reversed upon the carpet, “you have given mortal offence to a Rathor, who can turn Marwar upside down as easily as that shield.” With eyes darting defiance, he arose and left the Presence, and collecting his retainers, marched to Mundiavar.[5.12.3] This was the residence of the Pat-Bardai, or ‘chief bard,’ the lineal descendant of the Bardai Roera, who left Kanauj with Siahji. The esteem in which his sacred office was held may be appreciated by his estate, which equalled that of the first noble, being one lakh of rupees (£10,000) of revenue.
The politic Bakhta, hearing of the advance of the chief noble of Maru on the border of his territory, left Nagor, and though it was midnight, advanced to welcome him. The old chief was asleep; Bakhta forbade his being disturbed, and placed himself quietly beside his pallet. As he opened his eyes, he called as usual for his pipe (_hukka_), when the attendant pointing to the prince, the old chief scrambled up. Sleep had cooled his rage, and the full force of his position rushed upon him; but seeing there was now no retreat, that the Rubicon was crossed, “Well, there is my head,” said he; “now it is yours.” The bard, who was present at the interview, was sounded by being requested to bring the chief’s wife and family from [117] Awa to Nagor; and he gave his assent in a manner characteristic of his profession: “farewell to the gate of Jodhpur,” alluding to the station of the bard. The prince immediately replied, “there was no difference between the gate of Jodhpur and Nagor; and that while he had a cake of _bajra_ he would divide it with the bard.”
=Civil War between Rām Singh and Bakht Singh.=—Ram Singh did not allow his uncle much time to collect a force; and the first encounter was at Kherli. Six actions rapidly followed; the last was at Lunawas, on the plains of Merta, with immense loss of life on both sides. This sanguinary battle has been already related,[5.12.4] in which Ram Singh was defeated, and forced to seek safety in flight; when Jodhpur was surrendered, and Bakhta invested with the Rajtilak and sword by the hands of the Jethawat chief of Bagri, whose descendants continue to enjoy this distinction, with the title of Marwar ka bar Kewar, ‘the bar to the portal of Marwar.’
=Accession of Bakht Singh, A.D. 1752-53.=—With the possession of the seat of government, and the support of a great majority of the clans, Bakhta Singh felt secure against all attempts of his nephew to regain his lost power. But although his popularity with his warlike kindred secured their suffrages for his maintenance of the throne which the sword had gained him, there were other opinions which Bakhta Singh was too politic to overlook. The adhesion of the hereditary officers of the State, especially those personal to the sovereign, is requisite to cloak the crime of usurpation, in which light only, whatever the extent of provocation, Bakhta’s conduct could be regarded. The military premier, as well as the higher civil authorities, were won to his cause, and of those whose sacred office might seem to sanctify the crime, the chief bard had already changed his post “for the gate of Nagor.” But there was one faithful servant, who, in the general defection, overlooked the follies of his prince, in his adherence to the abstract rules of fidelity; and who, while his master found refuge at Jaipur, repaired to the Deccan to obtain the aid of the Mahrattas, the mercenaries of Rajputana. Jaga was the name of this person; his office, that of Purohit, the ghostly adviser of his prince and tutor to his children. Bakhta, at once desirous to obtain his suffrage, and to arrest the calamity of foreign invasion, sent a couplet in his own hand to the Purohit:
“The flower, O bee, whose aroma regaled you, has been assailed by the blast; not a leaf of the rose-tree is left; why longer cling to the thorns?” [118]
The reply was in character: “In this hope does the bee cling to the denuded rose-tree; that spring may return, and fresh flowers bud forth.”[5.12.5]
Bakhta, to his honour, approved the fidelity which rejected his overtures.
=Intervention of Mahādaji Sindhia.=—There was a joyousness of soul about Bakhta which, united to an intrepidity and a liberality alike unbounded, made him the very model of a Rajput. To these qualifications were superadded a majestic mien and Herculean frame, with a mind versed in all the literature of his country, besides poetic talent of no mean order; and but for that one damning crime, he would have been handed down to posterity as one of the noblest princes Rajwara ever knew. These qualities not only riveted the attachment of the household clans, but secured the respect of all his exterior relations, so that when the envoy of the expatriated prince obtained Sindhia’s aid for the restoration of Ram Singh, the popularity of Bakhta formed an army which appalled the “Southron,” who found arrayed against him all the choice swords of Rajwara. The whole allodial power of the desert, “the sons of Siahji” of every rank, rose to oppose this first attempt of the Mahrattas to interfere in their national quarrels, and led by Bakhta in person, advanced to meet Mahadaji, the Patel.[5.12.6] But the Mahratta, whose object was plunder rather than glory, satisfied that he had little chance of either, refused to measure his lance (_barchhi_) with the _sang_ and _sirohi_[5.12.7] of the Rajput.
=Bakht Singh Poisoned.=—Poison effected what the sword could not accomplish. Bakhta determined to remain encamped in that vulnerable point of access to his dominions, the passes near Ajmer. Hither, the Rathor queen of Madho Singh, prince of Amber, repaired to compliment her relative, and to her was entrusted the task of removing the enemy of her nephew, Ram Singh. The mode in which the deed was effected, as well as the last moments of the heroic but criminal Bakhta, have been already related.[5.12.8] He died in S. 1809 (A.D. 1753), leaving a disputed succession, and all the horrors of impending civil strife, to his son, Bijai Singh.
=Repression of Islām.=—During his three years of sovereignty, Bakhta had found both time and resources to strengthen and embellish the strongholds of Marwar. He completed the fortifications [119] of the capital, and greatly added to the palace of Jodha, from the spoils of Ahmadabad. He retaliated the injuries on the intolerant Islamite, and threw down his shrines and his mosques in his own fief of Nagor, and with the wrecks restored the edifices of ancient days. It was Bakhta also who prohibited, under pain of death, the Islamite’s call to prayer throughout his dominions, and the order remains to this day unrevoked in Marwar. Had he been spared a few years to direct the storm then accumulating, which transferred power from the haughty Tatar of Delhi to the peasant soldier of the Kistna, the probability was eminently in favour of the Rajputs resuming their ancient rights throughout India. Every principality had the same motive for union in one common cause, the destruction of a power inimical to their welfare: but crimes, moral and political, rendered an opportunity, such as never occurred in their history, unavailing for their emancipation from temporal and spiritual oppression.
=Rājput Morals compared with those of Europe in the Middle Ages.=—We will here pause, and anticipating the just horror of the reader, at finding crime follow crime—one murder punished by another—prevent his consigning all the Rajput dynasties to infamy, because such foul stains appear in one part of their annals. Let him cast his eyes over the page of western history; and commencing with the period of Siahji’s emigration in the eleventh century, when the curtain of darkness was withdrawn from Europe, as it was simultaneously closing upon the Rajput, contrast their respective moral characteristics. The Rajput chieftain was imbued with all the kindred virtues of the western cavalier, and far his superior in mental attainments. There is no period on record when these Hindu princes could not have signed their names to a charter; many of them could have drawn it up, and even invested it, if required, in a poetic garb; and although this consideration perhaps enhances, rather than palliates, crime, what are the instances in these States, we may ask, compared to the wholesale atrocities of the ‘Middle Ages’ of Europe?
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[5.12.9] slew his son; the Kamdhaj[5.12.10] 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.
=The Curse of a Sati.=—We have also the anathema of the prophetic Sati, wife of Ajit, who, as she mounted the pyre with her murdered lord, pronounced that terrific sentence to the ears of the patriotic Rajput: “May the bones of the murderer be consumed out of Maru.”[5.12.11] In the value they attach to the fulfilment of the prophecy, we have a commentary on the supernatural power attached to these self-devoted victims. The record of the last moments of Bakhta, in the dialogue with his doctor,[5.12.12] is a scene of the highest dramatic and moral interest; and, if further comment were required, demonstrates the operations of the hell within, as well as the abhorrence the Rajput entertains for such crimes [121].
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Footnote 5.12.1:
The Deora of Sirohi is a branch of the Chauhans, one of the four Agnikulas, a race sprung from fire. See Vol. I. p. 112.
Footnote 5.12.2:
The person who summons the nobles by beat of the state _nakkara_, or ‘great kettledrum.’
Footnote 5.12.3:
[Mūndwa, about 90 miles N.E. of Jodhpur city.]
Footnote 5.12.4:
See p. 862.
Footnote 5.12.5:
That beautiful simile of Ossian, or of Macpherson, borrowed from the canticles of the Royal Bard of Jerusalem, will be brought to mind in the reply of the Purohit—“I was a lovely tree in thy presence, Oscar, with all my branches around me,” etc.
Footnote 5.12.6:
[Mahādāji Sindhia used the title of Patel or village headman to mark his assumed deference to the Peshwa (Grant Duff 212).]
Footnote 5.12.7:
_Sang_ is a lance about ten feet long, covered with plates of iron about four feet above the spike. The _sirohi_ is the sword made at the city, whence its name, and famous for its temper.
Footnote 5.12.8:
See p. 867.
Footnote 5.12.9:
Kurma or Kachhua (the tribe of the princes of Amber) slew his son, Sheo Singh.
Footnote 5.12.10:
Kamdhaj, it must be remembered, is a titular appellation of the Rathor kings, which they brought from Kanauj.
Footnote 5.12.11:
See p. 867.
Footnote 5.12.12:
_Ibid._
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